Meanwhile, John Augusta, the great leader of the Brethren, was passing
through the furnace of affliction.
Of all the tools employed by Ferdinand, the most crafty, active and
ambitious was a certain officer named Sebastian Schöneich, who, in the
words of the great historian, Gindely, was one of those men fitted by
nature for the post of hangman.
For some months this man had distinguished himself by his zeal in the
cause of the King. He had seized sixteen heads of families for singing
hymns at a baker's funeral, had thrown them into the drain-vaults of the
White Tower at Prague, and had left them there to mend their ways in
the midst of filth and horrible stenches. And now he occupied the proud
position of town-captain of Leitomischl. Never yet had he known such a
golden chance of covering himself with glory. For some time Augusta, who
was now First Senior of the Church, had been hiding in the neighbouring
woods, and only two or three Brethren knew his exact abode. But already
persecution had done her work, and treachery now did hers.
Among the inhabitants of Leitomischl were certain renegade Brethren,
and these now said to the Royal Commissioners: "If the King could only
capture and torture Augusta, he could unearth the whole conspiracy."
"Where is Augusta?" asked the Commissioners.
"He is not at home," replied the traitors, "but if you will ask his
friend, Jacob Bilek, he will tell you all you want to know."
The wily Schöneich laid his plot. If only he could capture Augusta, he
would win the favour of the King and fill his own pockets with money. As
he strolled one day through the streets of Leitomischl he met a certain
innocent Brother Henry, and there and then began his deadly work.
"If you know," he said, "where Augusta is, tell him I desire an
interview with him. I will meet him wherever he likes. I have something
special to say to him, something good, not only for him, but for the
whole Brethren's Church. But breathe not a word of this to anyone else.
Not a soul--not even yourself--must know about the matter."
The message to Augusta was sent. He replied that he would grant the
interview on condition that Schöneich would guarantee his personal
safety.
"That," replied Schöneich, "is quite impossible. I cannot give any
security whatever. The whole business must be perfectly secret. Not a
soul must be present but Augusta and myself. I wouldn't have the King
know about this for a thousand groschen. Tell Augusta not to be afraid
of me. I have no instructions concerning him. He can come with an easy
mind to Leitomischl. If he will not trust me as far as that, let him
name the place himself, and I will go though it be a dozen miles away."
But Augusta still returned the same answer, and Schöneich had to
strengthen his plea. Again he met the guileless Brother Henry, and again
he stormed him with his eloquent tongue.
"Have you no better answer from Augusta?" he asked.
"No," replied Brother Henry.
"My dear, my only Henry," pleaded Schöneich, "I do so long for a little
chat with Augusta. My heart bleeds with sympathy for you. I am expecting
the King's Commissioners. They may be here any moment. It will go hard
with you poor folk when they come. If only I could have a talk with
Augusta, it would be so much better for you all. But do tell him not to
be afraid of me. I have no instructions concerning him. I will wager my
neck for that," he said, putting his finger to his throat. "I am willing
to give my life for you poor Brethren."
The shot went home. As Augusta lay in his safe retreat he had written
stirring letters to the Brethren urging them to be true to their
colours; and now, he heard from his friends in Leitomischl that
Schöneich was an evangelical saint, and that if he would only confer
with the saint he might render his Brethren signal service, and deliver
them from their distresses. He responded nobly to the appeal. For the
sake of the Church he had led so long, he would risk his liberty and his
life. In vain the voice of prudence said "Stay!"; the voice of love said
"Go!"; and Augusta agreed to meet the Captain in a wood three miles
from the town. The Captain chuckled. The time was fixed, and, the night
before, the artful plotter sent three of his trusty friends to lie
in wait. As the morning broke of the fateful day {April 25th, 1548.},
Augusta, still suspecting a trap, sent his secretary, Jacob Bilek, in
advance to spy the land; and the three brave men sprang out upon him and
carried him off to Schöneich. And then, at the appointed hour, came John
Augusta himself. He had dressed himself as a country peasant, carried a
hoe in is hand, and strolled in the woodland whistling a merry tune. For
the moment the hirelings were baffled. They seized him and let him go;
they seized him again and let him go again; they seized him, for the
third time, searched him, and found a fine handkerchief in his bosom.
"Ah," said one of them, "a country peasant does not use a handkerchief
like this."
The game was up. Augusta stood revealed, and Schöneich, hearing the
glorious news, came prancing up on his horse.
"My lord," said Augusta, "is this what you call faith?"
"Did you never hear," said Schöneich, "that promises made in the night
are never binding? Did you never hear of a certain Jew with his red
beard and yellow bag? Did you never hear of the mighty power of money?
And where have you come from this morning? I hear you have plenty of
money in your possession. Where is that money now?"
As they rode next day in a covered waggon on their way to the city of
Prague, the Captain pestered Augusta with many questions.
"My dear Johannes," said the jovial wag, "where have you been? With
whom? Where are your letters and your clothes? Whose is this cap? Where
did you get it? Who lent it to you? What do they call him? Where does
he live? Where is your horse? Where is your money? Where are your
companions?"
"Why do you ask so many questions?" asked Augusta.
"Because," replied Schöneich, letting out the murder, "I want to be able
to give information about you. I don't want to be called a donkey or a
calf."
And now began for John Augusta a time of terrible testing. As the
Captain rapped his questions out he was playing his part in a deadly
game that involved the fate, not only of the Brethren's Church, but of
all evangelicals in the land.
For months King Ferdinand had longed to capture Augusta. He regarded him
as the author of the Smalkald League; he regarded him as the deadliest
foe of the Catholic faith in Europe; he regarded the peaceful Brethren
as rebels of the vilest kind; and now that he had Augusta in his power
he determined to make him confess the plot, and then, with the proof he
desired in his hands, he would stamp out the Brethren's Church for once
and all.
For this purpose Augusta was now imprisoned in the White Tower at
Prague. He was placed in the wine vaults below the castle, had heavy
fetters on his hands and feet, and sat for days in a crunched position.
The historic contest began. For two hours at a stretch the King's
examiners riddled Augusta with questions. "Who sent the letter to the
King?"[41] they asked. "Where do the Brethren keep their papers and money?
To whom did the Brethren turn for help when the King called on his
subjects to support him? Who went with you to Wittenberg? For what and
for whom did the Brethren pray."
"They prayed," said Augusta, "that God would incline the heart of the
King to be gracious to us."
"By what means did the Brethren defend themselves?"
"By patience," replied Augusta.
"To whom did they apply for help?"
Augusta pointed to heaven.
As Augusta's answers to all these questions were not considered
satisfactory, they next endeavoured to sharpen his wits by torturing a
German coiner in his presence; and when this mode of persuasion failed,
they tortured Augusta himself. They stripped him naked. They stretched
him face downwards on a ladder. They smeared his hips with boiling
pitch. They set the spluttering mess on fire, and drew it off, skin and
all, with a pair of tongs. They screwed him tightly in the stocks. They
hung him up to the ceiling by a hook, with the point run through his
flesh. They laid him flat upon his back and pressed great stones on his
stomach. It was all in vain. Again they urged him to confess the part
that he and the Brethren had played in the great revolt, and again
Augusta bravely replied that the Brethren had taken no such part at all.
At this the King himself intervened. For some months he had been busy
enough at Augsburg, assisting the Emperor in his work; but now he sent
a letter to Prague, with full instructions how to deal with Augusta. If
gentle measures did not succeed, then sterner measures, said he, must
be employed. He had three new tortures to suggest. First, he said, let
Augusta be watched and deprived of sleep for five or six days. Next, he
must be strapped to a shutter, with his head hanging over one end;
he must have vinegar rubbed into his nostrils; he must have a beetle
fastened on to his stomach; and in this position, with his neck aching,
his nostrils smarting, and the beetle working its way to his vitals, he
must be kept for two days and two nights. And, third, if these measures
did not act, he must be fed with highly seasoned food and allowed
nothing to drink.
But these suggestions were never carried out. As the messenger hastened
with the King's billet-doux, and the Brethren on the northern frontier
were setting out for Poland, Augusta and Bilek were on their way to the
famous old castle of Pürglitz. For ages that castle, built on a rock,
and hidden away in darkling woods, had been renowned in Bohemian lore.
There the mother of Charles IV. had heard the nightingales sing; there
the faithful, ran the story, had held John Ziska at bay; there had many
a rebel suffered in the terrible "torture-tower"; and there Augusta and
his faithful friend were to lie for many a long and weary day.
They were taken to Pürglitz in two separate waggons. They travelled by
night and arrived about mid-day; they were placed in two separate
cells, and for sixteen years the fortunes of the Brethren centred round
Pürglitz Castle.
If the Bishop had been the vilest criminal, he could not have been more
grossly insulted. For two years he had to share his cell with a vulgar
German coiner; and the coiner, in facetious pastime, often smote him on
the head.
His cell was almost pitch-dark. The window was shuttered within and
without, and the merest glimmer from the cell next door struggled in
through a chink four inches broad. At meals alone he was permitted half
a candle. For bedding he had a leather bolster, a coverlet and what
Germans call a "bed-sack." For food he was allowed two rations of meat,
two hunches of bread, and two jugs of barley-beer a day. His shirt was
washed about once a fortnight, his face and hands twice a week, his head
twice a year, and the rest of his body never. He was not allowed the
use of a knife and fork. He was not allowed to speak to the prison
attendants. He had no books, no papers, no ink, no news of the world
without; and there for three years he sat in the dark, as lonely as
the famous prisoner of Chillon. Again, by the King's command, he was
tortured, with a gag in his mouth to stifle his screams and a threat
that if he would not confess he should have an interview with the
hangman; and again he refused to deny his Brethren, and was flung back
into his corner.
The delivering angel came in humble guise. Among the warders who guarded
his cell was a daring youth who had lived at Leitomischl. He had been
brought up among the Brethren. He regarded the Bishop as a martyr. His
wife lived in a cottage near the castle; and now, drunken rascal though
he was, he risked his life for Augusta's sake, used his cottage as
a secret post office, and handed in to the suffering Bishop letters,
books, ink, paper, pens, money and candles.
The Brethren stationed a priest in Pürglitz village. The great Bishop
was soon as bright and active as ever. By day he buried his tools in the
ground; by night he plugged every chink and cranny, and applied himself
to his labours. Not yet was his spirit broken; not yet was his mind
unhinged. As his candle burned in that gloomy dungeon in the silent
watches of the night, so the fire of his genius shone anew in those
darksome days of trial and persecution; and still he urged his afflicted
Brethren to be true to the faith of their fathers, to hold fast the
Apostles' Creed, and to look onward to the brighter day when once again
their pathway would shine as the wings of a dove that are covered with
silver and her feathers with yellow gold. He comforted Bilek in his
affliction; he published a volume of sermons for the elders to read in
secret; he composed a number of stirring and triumphant hymns; and there
he penned the noble words still sung in the Brethren's Church:--
Praise God for ever.
Boundless is his favour,
To his Church and chosen flock,
Founded on Christ the Rock.
As he lay in his cell he pondered much on the sad fate of his Brethren.
At one time he heard a rumour that the Church was almost extinct. Some,
he knew, had fled to Poland. Some had settled in Moravia. Some, robbed
of lands and houses, were roaming the country as pedlars or earning a
scanty living as farm labourers. And some, alas! had lowered the flag
and joined the Church of Rome.
And yet Augusta had never abandoned hope. For ten years, despite a few
interruptions, he kept in almost constant touch, not only with his own
Brethren, but also with the Protestant world at large. He was still,
he thought, the loved and honoured leader; he was still the mightiest
religious force in the land; and now, in his dungeon, he sketched a plan
to heal his country's woes and form the true disciples of Christ into
one grand national Protestant army against which both Pope and Emperor
would for ever contend in vain.