Page:The life & times of Master John Hus by Count Lützow.djvu/377

 Archbishop of Prague, and John, Bishop of Litomysl, who were their most prominent representatives. He praised their devotion to the Roman Church and entreated them to continue faithful to it. About this time, Sigismund also addressed a letter to his sister-in-law, Queen Sophia of Bohemia. He informed her that he had heard to his great regret that many in the Bohemian realm had been infected by execrable crime and the perversity of error, and casting from them the seamless coat of Christ, which the regeneration of holy baptism had conferred on them, had succumbed like men walking in darkness and in the shadow of death to the seductions of vileness and malice. A great outcry, not without sorrow, had therefore arisen at the holy council of Constance, because of the rumour which ever became stronger and more frequent, that in these lands (Bohemia and Moravia) the clearness of piety had been overclouded and the worship of the divine name had been mercilessly mocked. Sigismund then expressed hopes that the queen would pluck this deadly herb (of heresy), which weakened the harvest of blessings, from her fields. He ended by referring to the proceedings against the queen and Venceslas which were being discussed at Constance. He again begged her to use her influence to extirpate heresies. Should she act otherwise he feared that punishment on the part of the council and the apostolical see, which he had hitherto prevented by interceding against the continuation of the legal proceedings, would now soon become imminent. This letter, written in the turgid style which Sigismund affected, is yet another proof of the insincerity which had become a second nature to him. Sigismund always acted entirely in union with the council, over which he indeed exercised complete control. Whether Queen Sophia, who as her letters to Pope John XXIII. and the College of Cardinals prove, was by no means deficient in penmanship, answered this letter is not