Prague, as well as the fame of Bohemia as a country exempt from all heresies. He thus referred to a matter which deeply touched the king, as indeed all Bohemians. It is difficult at the present day to realise what a sense of opprobrium the word “heretic” conveyed even to men who openly by deed and word opposed the Church of Rome. Bohemia had always boasted that it was untainted by heresy. Hus in the moment of death declared that he had never expressed heretical views. As late as at the council of Basel the Hussite envoys protested more energetically against the statement that they were heretics than against any other accusation. The anger of Venceslas, who was undoubtedly misled by the cunning German, is therefore natural. The king also may have feared that the popular excitement might cause riots in Prague. Venceslas graciously dismissed Henning of Baltenhagen and then addressed Hus and Jerome in very violent language. He accused them of fomenting disorders in the land and threatened them with death at the stake.
Other councils, however, soon prevailed with King Venceslas. His courtiers were almost all favourable to the party of church-reform, and they frequently assisted at Hus’s sermons in the Bethlehem chapel. They were far too true courtiers to interfere at a moment when the king was carried away by fury, but they gradually guided his thoughts back to the bias they had formerly had. They obtained powerful aid from the members of the French embassy, which arrived at Kutna Hora in January, 1409. The embassy was very numerous, and as was then customary, particularly when ecclesiastical matters were to be discussed, it included theologians—members of the famed University of Paris. These men employed all their eloquence in endeavouring to persuade Venceslas to renounce the allegiance of Pope Gregory, and it is very probable that, when the opposition of the German members of the University of Prague was mentioned, the French envoys may have pointed out that the Paris University
