of the situation; and a quarrel which had recently broken out between
the Bohemians and Duke William of Saxony gave him an excuse for raising
a large force of soldiers. His work was soon simplified by the action
of his opponents. Cardinal Carvajal, coming to Prague to negotiate
about the demands of the Bohemians, expressed a desire to see a copy
of the actual Compacts of Basel; and, on getting it into his hands,
he tried to carry it away from the city. Several of the Utraquist
leaders followed him, and forced him to surrender the document; but
this attempt finally destroyed any hope which the Utraquists might have
cherished of a compromise with the Catholics. The sincere Utraquists at
once drew together; while Meinhard of Neuhaus openly took the Catholic
side. The excitement in Prague became intense, and George of Podĕbrad
seized the moment to march to the city. After a short pretence of
negotiation, he suddenly attacked the town on the 3rd of September,
1448, and captured it by assault. Rokycana was welcomed back in
triumph, and Meinhard of Neuhaus was thrown into prison, where he soon
after died.
Although George had acted as the champion of the Utraquists in their
struggle against Albert and Neuhaus, his first object in seizing
the power into his hands was to restore order in the country. For
that purpose, he wished to conciliate the Catholics, as much as the
Utraquists; and he brought into office Zdenek of Sternberg, one of the
fiercest of the Catholic party. He even succeeded in gradually drawing
the Rosenbergs to his side; though, at the same time, he always treated
Rokycana as his chief adviser, and was urgent for his recognition as
archbishop. This policy was extremely resented by the Taborites, and
they were ready to combine, even with the discontented Catholics,
against him.
When, then, in 1452, George was at last chosen Administrator of the
kingdom, he found opposition to his authority, not only in the extreme
Roman Catholic centres of Budweis (Budejóvice) and Pilsen (Plz̆en),
but also in Tabor, and other Taborite towns. George, however, had now
risen to the position of a national leader, accepted by all those
who preferred the order and unity of Bohemia to the triumph of any
particular party. Rokycana, on his side, had gained an influence among
the Utraquists, as a whole, which made the resistance of any section
of them far less formidable than it had been in former days. Moreover,
the chief interest of the country was, for the moment, centred rather
in the recovery of their king than in the decision of any theological
doctrine; and, in their desire to rescue Ladislaus from Frederick, the
Bohemians received the sympathy of the Hungarians, and even of the
Austrians.
This discontent with Frederick led to actual preparations for war on
the part of the three nations aggrieved by his action; and George, in
his capacity of Governor of Bohemia, had an excuse for raising forces
without at once declaring the purpose for which they were to be used.
When, however, his preparations were complete, in August, 1452, he
suddenly marched against Tabor. At first the Taborite priests were
disposed to rouse the citizens to their usual attitude of determined
resistance; but, as soon as George appeared before the town, the old
unconquerable spirit vanished; the citizens were seized with a panic,
and consented to recognise George as Governor. Still, it might have
seemed as if this recognition was to be merely a part of a compromise,
according to which the rights and liberties of the Taborites were
still to be recognised; but when, in pursuance of this belief, they
sent their Bishop Nicholaus and their favourite priest, Koranda, to
Prague, to discuss their points of difference with the Calixtines,
Nicholaus and Koranda were suddenly seized and imprisoned, until they
would consent to yield to Rokycana’s authority. Even this did not
kindle the old spirit of the Taborites; and, in December, 1452, the
Calixtine priests entered Tabor, and celebrated Mass with those rites
and ornaments which the Taborites had fought so hard to suppress.
The fall of Tabor marks a great crisis in the Utraquist movement; and
though there is another phase of that movement which has yet to be
recorded, the distinctive character, that had given it such life and
force, must evidently have been doomed to destruction before such an
event could have occurred. Important as was the element contributed
to the Utraquist cause by the learned scholars of the University of
Prague, they could never have produced so vivid an effect on Europe had
they not been backed by the fiery enthusiasm, the high ideals, and the
ferociously combative spirit of the flail-bearing peasants of Tabor.
It was the flails of the Taborites which made the Moravian nobles
flinch from the battle of Vys̆ehrad; it was they who had scared every
army which came against them, from the time of the first battle of the
Z̆iz̆ka Hill to the day when Cardinal Cesarini fled in panic from the
country which he had been so certain of conquering. The zeal of the
Taborites for purity and simplicity of life had supplied an impulse
which no theological doctrine could of itself contribute; while their
intolerance of priestly forms, and their belief in the superiority of
the Congregation of the Faithful to the decrees of any learned society,
had given that democratic colouring to the movement which has made
their traditions such a lasting force in Bohemia, even to the present
day. At the same time their turbulent savagery and fierce intolerance
made it necessary that, at some time or other, they should be absorbed
in a broader and more orderly organisation. The Independents had now
found their Cromwell; and to him they were obliged to sacrifice much of
the liberties for which they had originally fought.
XII.
FROM THE FALL OF TABOR TO THE DEATH OF GEORGE OF PODĔBRAD.
(1452-1470.)
The parallel suggested at the end of the last chapter between Cromwell
and George of Podĕbrad must, like all such parallels, be taken with
very considerable modifications; and it was perhaps not one of the
least points of difference between these two rulers that George’s first
object, after the establishment of his power, was to bring back the
King, who was still detained by the Emperor of Germany. As a concession
to one of the complaining nations, and very likely with the hope
of exciting jealousy between them, Frederick had brought the young
Ladislaus to Vienna; but, if this step conciliated the Austrians, it
does not appear to have excited any opposition on their part to the
return of Ladislaus to Bohemia. Nor were the Catholic nobles able to
make use of his restoration for weakening the power of George; they
could not even prevent the Utraquists of the Assembly from resolving
that Ladislaus should be asked, before his coronation, to accept the
Compacts of Basel.
The feelings of the boy king were evidently somewhat painfully divided.
The education which Frederick had given him had produced in him a
great zeal for the Catholic cause; but the zeal was modified, and
somewhat counteracted, by his deeply rooted conviction that it was
to George of Podĕbrad alone that he owed the possibility of becoming
King of Bohemia. Both these feelings were made manifest on his arrival
in Prague. When Rokycana came out at the head of the clergy to
welcome the young king, Ladislaus turned away and would hardly notice
the Archbishop, until George induced him to thank Rokycana for his
address. But, when the procession reached the Catholic College, the
king sprang from his horse and did special reverence to those clergy
who had been restored to their livings on the occasion of Sigismund’s
coronation. The struggle between Ladislaus and his strong-willed
viceroy was of short duration. George was resolved not to yield on
the question of Rokycana’s position; and the young king left Prague
in great indignation. He did not, indeed, at once abandon his efforts
for effecting a reconciliation between the Pope and the Bohemians, at
the expense of the popular Archbishop; but, on his second visit to
Prague in 1457, he found both George and Rokycana still obstinate in
their resistance; and the poor boy’s efforts at the settlement of the
difficulties of the Church were cut short by illness and death. On his
deathbed he again renewed to George his admission that he owed the
crown to his influence; and he entreated him to govern the dependent
provinces justly, and to secure that those, who had followed the young
King from Austria to Bohemia, should be allowed to return peaceably to
their own country.
The death of Ladislaus extinguished the last claim to direct descent
from the old Bohemian kings; and the consequence was that a larger
number of candidates than usual came forward to claim the Bohemian
crown. Charles VII., King of France, based his pretensions to the
throne on the ground that, had Ladislaus lived, he would have been
married to Charles’s daughter. The Duke of Saxony pleaded that he had
actually married the sister of Ladislaus. The Dukes of Austria tried
to revive the recollection of the promise of Charles IV.; while the
King of Poland appealed to the fact of his former election, which had
fallen into abeyance after the birth of Ladislaus. Of these candidates,
the King of France and the Duke of Saxony seem to have been by far the
most pressing and sanguine in their candidature; and both of them paid
court to George; while both of them hoped, by securing a dependency of
Bohemia, to get a footing in the kingdom before their actual election.
The King of France declared his intention of taking Luxemburg under his
special protection, while William of Saxony appealed to the desire of
some of the Silesians to choose him as their ruler.
But both these candidates had reckoned their chances without knowing
the wishes of the two most important men in Bohemia. George was
determined that Silesia should never be separated from the Bohemian
crown; and he had equally little wish that any foreigner should again
become king of Bohemia. Rokycana, on his part, was not less determined
that no one but George should be the King. In addressing the Bohemian
Assembly in March, 1459, the Archbishop boldly grounded his appeal for
George not only on his Bohemian birth, the purity of his life, and his
proved power to defend them against their enemies, but also on his
devotion to the Utraquist cause. Openly as this claim was put forward,
it does not seem to have alienated the Roman Catholic nobles. George’s
conciliatory policy towards the Catholics, and his personal friendship
for some of their leaders, readily induced them to acquiesce in an
election which would secure a strong national king to Bohemia. Yet
from the very first Rokycana succeeded in giving a Utraquist colouring
to the decision. While the envoys of Duke William of Saxony were
eagerly expecting the election of their master, their meditations were
interrupted by a simultaneous burst of ringing from all the churches
in Prague; George speedily issued from the Town Council House with the
sword of honour borne before him; and he was led across the square
to the Teyn Church, where, after a general singing of the Te Deum,
Rokycana called on the people to thank God for giving them a king who
would stand by their faith.
[Illustration: GEORGE OF PODĔBRAD, FIRST HERETIC KING OF BOHEMIA.]
Thus the election of George of Podĕbrad to the throne of Bohemia marks
the accession of the first heretic king in the history of Europe.
Doubtless the name of heretic had been freely thrown at Henry IV. by
Hildebrand, at Barbarossa by Alexander III., and at Frederick II. and
Louis of Bavaria by every Pope who came in contact with them; but
every one knew that that name was a mere term of abuse, of no more
special significance than “knave” or “ruffian”; and that the real
point at issue in those quarrels was the question of the exercise of
some form of secular authority. George of Podĕbrad, on the other hand,
was deliberately recommended to the Assembly of Bohemia, on account
of his championship of a purely ecclesiastical practice, which had
been condemned by one Council of the Church, and by one Pope at least;
and, although a later Council might have partially and hesitatingly
sanctioned the practice, that Council had itself perished in an odour
of heresy and resistance to Papal authority.
Yet, strange to say, it was not till about four years after George’s
election that the Pope and the leaders of the Church recognised the
full significance of the event which had taken place. This delay was
due to various causes. In the first place, George, who was evidently
conscious of the difficulties of his position, and anxious to maintain
his character of national king, had begun his reign by making
concessions to the Catholics. Remembering that Rokycana had never been
formally recognised as Archbishop by any ecclesiastical authority, he
looked about for some more legally appointed bishop, to consecrate him
as king. In this matter he was assisted by one whom he had good reason
to look to as his friend.
Immediately on the death of Ladislaus, the Hungarians had decided
to choose, as their king, Matthias, the son of their great general
Huniades. He had been opposed to the rule of Ladislaus, and had even
raised insurrection against him. In one of the battles which followed,
Matthias had been taken prisoner by George, and brought to Prague. On
the announcement, however, of the Hungarian election, George at once
set his prisoner free, and sent him back to Hungary as King. George
now in turn appealed to Matthias to send him over two bishops to crown
him King of Bohemia. Matthias readily consented; and George promised
at his coronation to suppress heresy. A more satisfactory concession
to Roman Catholic feeling was the new arrangement for the government
of the diocese of Prague. The Dean of Prague had claimed to administer
the diocese, on account of the heresies of Rokycana. The Archbishop,
naturally enough, protested; and George settled the matter by granting
the Dean authority over the Catholic priests, while Rokycana was to
retain his authority over the Utraquists.
But apart from these concessions to Catholic feeling, the position and
policy of the Pope tended more than anything else to delay, for a time,
the collision between him and the heretic king. In the very same year
in which George was chosen King of Bohemia, Æneas Silvius Piccolomini
was elected Pope of Rome under the title of Pius II. He had been a
zealous champion of the Council of Basel, and had vainly tried to make
peace between it and Eugenius IV. He was therefore not prepared at
once to condemn a practice which the Council of Basel had, at least
conditionally, sanctioned. Moreover, there was another reason, which
operated still more strongly to induce him to make friends with the
King of Bohemia. For several years past, the most zealous Catholics
of Europe had been turning their attention away from the divisions
in their own Church, to watch with terror the advance of the Turks in
Europe; and, since the fall of Constantinople in 1453, the sense of the
relative insignificance of every other question, in comparison with
the expulsion of the Mahometan invaders, had been growing in the minds
of all true champions of Christendom. If, then, Pius II. could succeed
in winning to this cause the strong championship of the new King, he
might well wink, for a time, at a few little heresies in doctrine and
practice.
But, unfortunately, there were other grounds of opposition to George
which were not so easily put aside as mere suspicions of heresy might
be. William of Saxony was determined to make good his claim on Silesia;
and he was able to appeal to that sentiment of provincial independence
which had been growing during the previous century. Neither Z̆iz̆ka
nor Procop had ever been able thoroughly to establish the power of
the Bohemians over Moravia and Silesia; but the accession of a ruler,
who seemed to be acceptable to all parties in Bohemia, was likely to
strengthen the central power at the expense of local aspirations. The
Silesians and Moravians complained that neither of their Assemblies had
been consulted in the election of George; and the towns of Moravia,
always jealous of the power of Prague, and containing a strong
admixture of German and Catholic elements, were eager to resist the
centralising power of the heretic king. Albert of Austria was able to
give them little assistance; and one after another the great cities
of Moravia were reduced to obedience. Znaym (Znojem) was the first
to open its gates to George. Brünn (Brno), more strongly fortified,
was at first disposed to resist; but it soon yielded to the threat of
a siege; and Olmütz speedily followed its example. In Iglau (Jíhlava)
the Catholic reaction had risen to a greater height than in any of the
other towns of Moravia; and the leaders of the party had deposed the
Town Council and appointed one of their own; but, on being convinced
that George intended no persecution of the Catholics, Jíhlava also
surrendered to the king.
The resistance in Silesia was of a more determined kind. Broken up
as it was into little Dukedoms, containing a strong German element,
and often influenced by its near neighbourhood to Saxony, Silesia had
probably at no time felt that strong sympathy with the Bohemians which
still existed in Moravia, in spite of the apparent triumph of the
Catholic reaction. But the strongest opposition in Silesia came, not
from the provincial dukes, but from the town of Breslau. The Bishop
of Breslau seems to have been a more zealous Catholic than most of
his neighbours; while the citizens had continual causes of rivalry
with Prague, both on account of trade differences and of exceptional
municipal privileges. Breslau, therefore, held out against George, long
after the rest of Silesia had practically submitted to him. The Pope,
still hoping to secure the help of George against the Turks, tried to
persuade the Breslauer to submit to the King, and answered to their
complaints of George’s heresy that it was for the Pope, and not for
the town of Breslau, to decide that question. At last, in 1460 George
succeeded in bringing the Breslauer to terms; but not till he had
promised them considerable ecclesiastical and municipal privileges, and
had allowed them to defer their homage to him for three years.
Bohemia, however, was not the sole obstacle to the union of Christendom
against the Turks. The Emperors of Germany had been growing steadily
weaker during the last century; and many princes had wearied of
Frederick III.’s government, and were looking about for a strong ruler
who might put down the divisions of the Empire, before leading them
against the Turks. Under these circumstances many considered that
George of Bohemia would be the right man for the place. In Hungary,
too, Matthias had found great difficulty in holding his own against
the nobles; and there again, though much against his will, George was
looked upon as a possible substitute for the unpopular king. In his own
country he seemed to be gaining steadily in power. He had restored,
to a great extent, the influence of the towns which had been decaying
during the Hussite wars, and he gathered round him, not only the most
eminent men in Bohemia, but also the most distinguished foreigners from
Germany and Italy.
But, in the meantime, Pius II. was becoming alarmed at the power of
this king. He had hoped that George would have come to Rome to declare
himself a true son of the Church. He found that no progress was being
made in the anti-Turkish crusade; and he heard, with alarm, that the
Archbishop of Mainz and other German ecclesiastics were preparing to
demand the fulfilment of that decree of the Council of Constance,
according to which a new Council was to be summoned every ten years.
These suspicions of the Pope were much encouraged by one of his
advisers, Fantinus de Valle, who tried to convince him that heresy
had recently gained new life, and that there was a special revival of
the teaching of Wyclif. At last in January, 1462, George consented to
send an embassy to Rome, stating the terms on which he would make the
necessary submission to the Pope. This submission was to be given,
practically, on the recognition by Pius of the Compacts of Basel.
The Pope was, in the first place, indignant that George should send
representatives instead of coming himself to Rome; and he was perhaps
not more favourably disposed to the deputation, that Koranda, the
Taborite preacher, was one of the members of it; for Koranda dwelt
with considerable enthusiasm on the victories of the Taborites in the
Utraquist wars, and maintained that they had acted by the grace of God,
and by the enlightenment of the Holy Spirit.
At last on March 31st the Pope, in a large assembly, declared that
the Communion in both kinds, having been condemned by the Council of
Constance, and at one time by the Council of Basel, must be considered
as a disorderly and heretical arrangement; that the Compacts had been
only a temporary provision; and he now declared them at an end. The
Bohemian ambassadors, accompanied by Fantinus de Valle, returned to
Prague to report the news to the Assembly. When they had delivered
their report, George declared that the Pope had no right to take
away what the Council of Basel had conceded, and what Eugenius
had indirectly sanctioned. If any Pope, he said, may undo what his
predecessors have done, what security is there for justice? Then,
referring to the charge that he had violated his coronation oath in
not suppressing heresy, he ordered the oath to be read publicly. Then
he proceeded to say that, in declaring he would suppress heretical
wickedness, he had never meant that he would suppress Utraquism, since,
said he, “it is founded in the Gospel of Christ, according to the
institution of the primitive Church, and has been conceded to us as a
privilege of our virtue and devotion, by the Council of Basel. And as
to swearing to oppose the practice, no indeed! But know for certain
that, since we were born in that Communion, since we were nurtured in
it, and since, by God’s help, we have been raised to the royal dignity
in it, so we promise to guard and defend it, and to live and die for
it; and our wife and children, and all who do any thing for the love
of us, ought to live and die in the defence of the Compacts; nor do we
believe that there is any other way of salvation for our souls than the
Communion in both kinds, according to the institution of our Saviour.”
Then he turned to the nobles who stood about him, and asked them for
their decision on the question.
But it was no longer possible to maintain the former unity in the face
of this declaration; and while the Utraquist nobles promised readily
to stand by the King, Sternberg declared, on behalf of the Catholics,
that, while they were willing to support the King in all that concerned
the honour of his kingdom, they had not been consulted about the
acceptance of the Compacts, and that George must not look to them to
defend them. The next day Fantinus de Valle was admitted to speak on
behalf of the Pope. He at once announced the revocation of the Compacts
by Pius, and the deposition from the clerical office of all who gave
the cup to the laity. Finally he wound up his speech by fiercely
threatening George with deposition from his throne, if he did not obey
the Pope. George thereupon turned to the lords, who stood round him,
and said, “Noble lords, you chose me as your king and protector; and
since you have the power of choosing a lord to protect you, you ought
to work with him.” He then burst out into a fierce denunciation of
the Roman see, declaring that it was a seat of pestilence; and on the
following day Fantinus was seized and imprisoned.