incurred much uncalled-for, or at least greatly exaggerated, obloquy. The great modern historian of Prague, Professor Tomek, himself a fervent Roman Catholic, wrote of Conrad that he was neither better nor worse than the majority of the great dignitaries of the Church in Bohemia at that time. Sigismund, who appears to have had a personal dislike to the archbishop, in a letter sent in 1416 to the Council of Constance in answer to its complaints with regard to the progress of heresy in Bohemia, and to the attitude of King Venceslas, wrote that his brother was guided by the archbishop, who in consideration of the authority of the Council declined all responsibility, desiring to be “not a martyr, but a confessor.”[1]
It is certain that Vechta sympathised with King Venceslas, as long as that prince was favourable to the cause of Hus and of Church reform. In the absence of all unfavourable evidence, very remarkable at a time when theological controversy consisted largely in the grossest personal invective, we have no reason to doubt the sincerity of the archbishop. It is probable, though as on so many matters connected with the Hussite wars our information is here scanty, that the archbishop had incurred the enmity of both Sigismund and the papal legate Ferdinand, Bishop of Lucca. Though Archbishop Conrad was a Westphalian by birth, he had become friendly to the Bohemian people, and he may have expressed disapproval of the indiscriminate slaughter of the peasantry in the country around Prague. It was, however, an act of hostility on the part of one of Sigismund’s partisans that was the immediate cause of the secession of Vechta. Lord Hanuš of Kolowrat, one of the King of Hungary’s most enthusiastic followers, stormed and plundered the small town of Přibram, situated on the archbishop’s estates. On April 21 Conrad addressed a letter to the citizens of Prague, stating that he
- ↑ “Archiepiscopus se excusat propter præsentiam hujus sacri concilii ad cujus examen et judicium hujusmodi negotium pertinere dicit, cupiens esse non martyr sed confessor” (Palacký, Documenta Mag. Joannis Hus, p. 652).
