Council by some unknown person, supposed to be an Italian, accusing him of a tissue of the most horrible crimes, so shocking, that the English, German, and Polish Bishops had all insisted that it should not be published, on account of the scandal it would bring, not merely on Pope John, but on the Holy See. This so much terrified Pope John, that he sent secretly to desire Frederick of Austria to help him away safely; and in the meantime, tried to prevent inquiry by presenting himself to the Council with a voluntary confession, trusting to the maxim that a Pope can only be deposed for heresy, and promising to resign, provided the other two would do the same.

So, on the 2nd of March, he rose up and made a solemn oath to resign the papacy on these conditions; whereupon the Emperor rose from his chair, took off his crown, knelt down and kissed the Pope's feet, thanking him in his own and the Council's name; but though this promise had been given by word of mouth, it was very hard to get the same pledge from the Pope in writing; and just after it had been given, the Duke of Austria came to Constance, it was said, to do homage to the Emperor for his fiefs. But he owed a grudge to the Emperor for approving of the armed independence of the Swiss; and it was soon whispered in the Council that he was come to assist the Pope in escaping without resigning.

Hearing this, Sigismund set forth one evening to call upon the Pontiff, whom he found lying on his bed.

'Holy Father, how fares it with you?' said the Emperor.

'I am not well,' said John: this air disagrees with me, and I cannot endure it.'

'There are very pleasant and strong houses near this city of Constance,' said the Emperor, to which you may safely retire for your health. I am ready to accompany you wherever you may desire to go.'

John protested that he had no idea of leaving Constance till the Council broke up; but the next day, March 21st, the Duke of Austria gave a great tournament, and kept the lists himself till unusually late in the day; and the next morning the Pope was missing! There was a great tumult, the merchants and pedlars expected to be pillaged, and began to strike their tents and roll up their wares; but the Emperor, on horseback, with trumpets before him, went up and down the streets proclaiming, 'Fear not! Be at rest. Whoever wants to follow the Pope, may follow!'

It began to be understood that all was to go on as before; and by-andby came a small letter to the Emperor, dated from Schaffhausen, and saying, 'We are here, thanks to Heaven, free and in good air; and we are come unknown to our son, the Duke of Austria, not with the intention of failing in our promise touching our resignation, but in order to accomplish it in freedom and good health.' At the same time, John ordered all his servants and all the bishops to come to Schaffhausen ; but only seven cardinals complied with his request. It became known,

that while the tournament was going on he had escaped in a grey suit, as a groom, and had ridden down to the Rhine, whence he had been conveyed in a boat to Schaffhausen. Upon this, the Emperor and the Council decided that he had, in fact, abdicated; and they laid the Duke, his friend, under the ban both of Church and empire, absolving all his vassals from the oath of allegiance. Four hundred defiances were sent to Schaffhausen ; and both Duke and Pope thought it high time to retreat, which they did on the wet night between Good Friday and Easter Eve. They rode to Lauffenberg, but thence were forced to retreat to Brisach, and there the loyal Tyrolese were ready to rally round their persecuted Duke; the Pope supplied him with large sums of money, and he might have made considerable resistance, but his spirit broke down, and he consented to deliver up the Pope, and submit to the mercy of Sigismund,

That theatrical Emperor made a grand scene of his submission. He convoked an assembly of the representatives of the four nations, German, French, English, and Italian, and made them a speech on the misdeeds of the Duke of Austria, and his present willingness to submit; but added, that having taken an oath never to make peace or truce with him, he (Sigismund) desired their opinion whether an accommodation could be made without perjury. They agreed, that having conquered the Duke, the Emperor might rightly receive the submission; and accordingly, four bishops were sent to bring in the Duke, who was led by his nephew, the Burg-graf of Nuremburg, and his brother-in-law, the Duke of Bavaria. The Duke thrice prostrated himself; and there was a silence till the Emperor demanded, 'What is your desire?'

'Most mighty King,' said the Burg-graf, 'this is Duke Frederic of Austria, my uncle; at his desire I implore your royal pardon, and that of the Council, for his offences against you and the Church. He surrenders himself and all his possessions to your mercy and pleasure, and offers to bring back the Pope to the Council, on condition that his person and property shall be inviolate.'

'Duke Frederic, do you engage to fulfil these promises?' asked Sigismund.

'I do; and humbly implore your royal mercy,' said Frederic with an unsteady voice.

Oaths were exchanged; and then the Emperor, in the utmost selfcomplacency, took his victim by the hand, and said to the Italian prelates, 'You well know, reverend Fathers, the power and consequence of the Dukes of Austria. Learn by this example what a King of the Germans can effect.'

Poor Frederic was very severely treated, and his dominions were so parcelled out, that he never recovered the blow all his life.

John XXIII. was at Ratolfred, a town in Swabia, where, on the 5th of May, a deputation from the Council brought him the acts of accusation against him, which he would not even read. Deserted by the Duke,

VOL. 1.

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he had no farther hope, and said he only wished he was dead; he signed whatever was given him—and on the 29th of May was formally deposed, and shut up in the strong castle of Gottleben, near Constance. Soon after arrived the resignation of Gregory XII.; but the third Anti-pope, Benedict XIII., still held out, and the indefatigable Sigismund undertook to go and meet him and the King of Aragon at Perpignan.

First, however, Sigismund took part in the affair which most deeply stains both his memory and that of the Council of Constance. Early in Lent, John Huss had begun to perceive, that much as Frederic of Austria respected his safe-conduct to the ex-Pope, that of Sigismund to the preacher was not likely to be regarded; and he had tried to escape in a wagon of hay, but was overtaken and brought back to Constance, where he was put into close confinement in a noisome dungeon, and told he should not come out till he had paid the uttermost farthing. On the 4th of May, a session was held for the condemnation of the works of Wycliffe, from which forty-five articles were selected as heretical; and sentence was passed, that if his bones could be distinguished from those of the faithful, they should be disinterred, and cast to a distance from the Church burial-ground. This sentence was carried out, though not till 1428; and no one can forget the eloquent words of Fuller, after describing the 'ungraving' of the Vicar of Lutterworth, the burning of the bones, and throwing the ashes into the Swift, the little stream hard by. This brook hath conveyed his ashes to Avon, Avon into Severn, Severn into the narrow seas, they into the main ocean-thus the ashes of Wicliffe are the emblem of his doctrine, which now is dispersed all the world over."

Living bones were nearer at hand than the dead ones of Wycliffe ; and the Council found it far easier to pursue with fury those whom their own lives had made to doubt of their doctrine, than to reform their own evil ways. John Huss was brought before the Council on the 7th of June. He attempted to speak, but such a clamour was made, that he desisted, saying that he saw the only purpose was to drown his voice. The articles of accusation were read, and were some of them so far twisted from their meaning, that he could not help smiling at them. The Emperor, however, sent for him in private, and told him that if he would submit to the authority of the Council, that out of regard to King Wenzel and Bohemia he should be safely dismissed. Otherwise Sigismund declared he would be the first to light the fire that should burn the heretic. John reminded him of his own safe-conduct, and declared he had come, not to persist in his errors, but to retract them if he were taught anything better. Argument was, however, not in the line of the Council, and there was no opportunity given to him of explaining what he had said, or of being convinced. Only, on the 6th of July he was again brought in, placed on a high seat before the Council, and silence was enjoined on pain of excommunication and two months

imprisonment; after which the sentence was read, condemning him to be burnt if he would not recant, or if he would, to be banished from Bohemia, and forbidden to preach.

The Emperor's safe-conduct was appealed to; but Sigismund answered that it had no reference to a heretic, with whom no faith was to be kept. Huss appealed more solemnly to our Lord in judgment, but his enemies called this appeal scandalous and illusive; and the next day, the 7th of July, the Bishop of Riga conducted him to the cathedral, where Sigismund sat in full state, and after a long sermon the sentence was read. Huss knelt down and prayed for his murderers. Seven bishops then degraded him from the priesthood, by taking from him each emblem of Holy Orders, and then, according to the fiction that the Church never punished with death, handed him over to the secular authorities, with the frightful words that they commended his soul to the devil!

'And I commend it to my Lord Jesus Christ,' he said.

A paper cap, half an ell high, with three devils painted on it, was set on his head, and he was marched out of the city, singing a hymn as he went. After he was bound to the stake, Louis of Bavaria offered him pardon if he would recant; but he replied, that he had neither taught nor written the things ascribed to him. The truth that he had taught he was ready to seal with his blood. The flame enveloped him, and words of constancy and faith were heard from within it to the last. The Duke of Bavaria stayed to see his ashes thrown into the lake, and his clothes burnt, that nothing might be kept by his disciples to serve as a relic. His disciple, Jerome of Prague, was brought up for examination; and some of the doctors called out, ‘To the fire with him!'

'If my death is what you seek, God's will be done,' said Jerome. 'No, Jerome,' said good Bishop Hallam, it is not God's will that any sinner should die, but that he should be converted and live.'

At this time, gained perhaps by Hallam's influence, Jerome showed willingness to recant, and was therefore left alone for a time.

One good decree was, however, passed in this month of July, namely, the condemnation of Jean Petit's horrible doctrine of the lawfulness of slaying tyrants, which had been brought forward in defence of the Duke of Burgundy. This done, Sigismund, with four thousand horse, set off for his meeting with the only remaining Pope at Perpignan. With much difficulty the King of Aragon brought Benedict thither, and he inflicted on the Emperor and King a speech that lasted seven hours, in which he modestly requested that the Council of Constance should be annulled, and that he should only resign on condition of himself choosing his successor. Finding these terms not accepted, he pretended to think himself in danger, and fled to the Castle of Peniscola, which he called Noah's Ark, containing the only true Church.

However, even Spain deserted him, and agreed to acknowledge the Council; and Sigismund, greatly satisfied with this achievement, caused the adhesion of the three Kings of Castile, Aragon, and Navarre, to be

published at Perpignan on the Epiphany of 1416, in honour of the three kings, or wise men.

He then set off for Paris, with magnificent ideas of a general reconciliation, which he was to effect between Armagnacs and Burgundians, English and French, but he did not make much by this move; the Count d'Armagnac would make no concession, and Sigismund gave great offence by one of his theatrical acts of display. He was listening to a cause in the French parliament, which one party seemed likely to lose from not being a knight like his opponent-and by a sudden impulse, he seized his sword, and dubbed the man a knight. This was an interference with the rights of sovereignty of Charles VI., which ought to have been resented, had miserable France had anyone to resent it; and it was the more unbecoming in the Emperor, as the imperial rights were not clearly defined; and it was an old tradition that the Cæsar had power in other kingdoms. So when it was intimated that Sigismund meant to carry his busy efforts at peace-making to England, Henry V. was resolved courteously to make him know his place, and sent the Duke of Gloucester to meet him at Dover.

Before he could set foot on land, Humphrey and the Constable of Dover waded into the water, and told him that if he came as a mediator of peace they would receive him with honour due; but if as Emperor he challenged any supreme power, they must tell him the English nation was a free people, and their king depended on no monarch on earth, and they were resolved, in defence of the liberty of the people, and the rights of their king, to oppose his landing on their shores.

He answered politely, disclaiming all views of encroaching on English prerogatives, and was accordingly received with great distinction, conducted to Windsor, and on St. George's Day was made a Knight of the Garter. He attempted again to make peace; but in the midst of all the talk of treaties came the tidings that a French fleet was scouring the Channel, and threatening the Isle of Wight, and then blockading Harfleur by sea, while the Count d'Armagnac besieged it by land. An opposing force was at once fitted out to relieve the Earl of Dorset, who was holding out with a small and unhealthy garrison; and Henry would have gone in person, but the Emperor declared such an expedition was not of consequence enough to be led by a sovereign-a remonstrance that Henry would not have seemed likely to attend to, but courtesy to his guest, or perhaps unwillingness to leave this overweening busy-body to his own devices in England, induced the King to give up his purpose, and put his brother, John Duke of Bedford, in command.

Bedford, without the same spirit of enterprise, had much of the talent of his elder brother. He sailed on the 14th of August, and found a considerable French and Genoese fleet. The Genoese ships were a whole spear's length higher than the English, but all were taken by boarding except a few that ran up the Seine; the troops were landed, and the besieging army fled. Henry was at Smallbythe in Kent, super