Page:The life & times of Master John Hus by Count Lützow.djvu/284

 but I would keep him for a year, so that he could not be seized. Also are there many and great lords who love him, and who have strongholds in which they could protect him against both kings.” It is needless to point out that these remarks both on the part of Hus and of Lord John were most injudicious. They had said exactly what the astute cardinal had wished them to say. Sigismund, whose vanity was inordinate, wished to appear at Constance as an absolute emperor, and nothing could wound him more severely than this revelation of the weakness of the Luxemburg dynasty in Bohemia. Though D’Ailly was perhaps not aware of this, Sigismund was from the first determined to silence Hus permanently. His bitterness against the Bohemian church-reformer, however, no doubt now became greater. His parting words to Hus on leaving the refectory were therefore most ungracious. He strongly advised Hus to recant, declaring that he would grant no protection to a heretic; rather would he be the one to fire the stake to burn such an offender.

The third day of the trial, ultima audientia dicta, veriusque derisio, as Mladenovic writes, was the eighth of June. An enormous mass of evidence against Hus had been collected by Michael de causis and Stephen Palec, and a huge number of articles had to be read out. Twenty-six articles extracted from Hus’s treatise De Ecclesia were first read to the assembly. They had previously been shown to Hus, and his replies had also been noted down. It was not difficult for the accusers to prove that Hus had spoken and written strongly against the administration and organisation of the Roman Church—such as they were in his day. This evil administration he had declared to be responsible for the terrible prevalence of simony and immorality among the clergy—a fact which even the most ardent opponent of church-reform could not deny. It was less easy to convict Hus of heretical statements with regard to