12 - Hus in Prison
Chapter XII - Hus in Prison
Despite the royal safe-conduct and the promised papal protection, Hus was flung into prison in a prelate’s palace on No.
John of Chlum forced his way into the papal apartments and charged the holy ex-pirate Pope John XXIII to his infallible face with having broken his sacred papal promise, and then fixed on the doors of the Cathedral a solemn protest against the papal perfidy and the shameless violation of the royal safe-conduct. On De, Hus was dragged to the Dominican convent on an island in Lake Constance, and stuck into a dark hole at the opening of a sewer, where he was struck down by a violent fever, so that his life was despaired of, and the Pope sent his own physician.
Crowned in Aachen on No, as Emperor of Germany, Sigismund arrived in Constance on Christmas and seated himself in his imperial robes on his throne in the cathedral during the imposing religious service. The Emperor read the Gospel for the day from Luke 2:1 “There went out a decree from Cæsar Augustus.” The Pope trembled as he saw before him the successor to the throne and power of Cæsar.
Near the Emperor sat the Empress; beside him stood the Markgraf of Brandenburg with the scepter; the Duke of Saxony, as marshal of the realm, held aloft a drawn sword; between the Pope and the Emperor stood his father-in-law, Count Cilley, holding the golden globe; the Pope handed the Emperor a sword with the charge to use it in defence of the Church, which Sigismund promised to do. When the Emperor heard his safe-conduct had been disgracefully broken, he blustered. The Pope insisted the Emperor had no right to interfere in the treatment of a pestilent heretic. The Emperor broke his sacred word and sacrificed Hus to his enemies. This treachery cost him the kingdom of Bohemia. The Holy Synod defended Sigismund, declaring “no faith whatever, either by natural, human or divine right, ought to be observed toward a heretic.” On the same day, New Year, 1415, the Emperor also sacrificed the Holy Father, John XXIII.
About the first of March Hus was taken to the Franciscan convent near the Pope’s dwelling and fed from the Pope’s kitchen, that is, he was almost starved; on March 20, the Pope fled, and Hus had to go without food for three days. Did the Emperor release Hus, now that the Pope was fled? On March 25, the Emperor turned Hus over to the Bishop of Constance, who imprisoned him in his Castle of Gottlieben in a chamber so low Hus could not stand upright. He was handcuffed by day and chained to the wall by night, poorly fed, and separated from his friends; and this went on for seventy-three days!
“The holy and infallible Council,” as the Pope called it, brought against the infallible Pope seventy-two charges the murder of Pope Alexander V, rape, adultery, sodomy, incest, simony, corruption, poisoning, denying the resurrection and eternal life, etc., etc.
Though hostile to the Pope personally, the Patriarch of Antioch quoted Gratian that if a Pope, by his misconduct and negligence, should lead crowds of men into hell, no one but God would be entitled to find fault with him. The Pope promised to resign, and the Emperor joyfully kissed the toe of John XXIII and thanked him in the name of the Council. The Council considered the charges proved and on May 25, 1415, deposed him as “the supporter of iniquity, the defender of simonists, the enemy of all virtue, the slave of lasciviousness, a devil incarnate.” The Bishop of Salisbury thought he ought to be burnt at the stake. And yet this precious prelate was made a cardinal and after his death at Florence on No, 1419, an exquisite monument by Donatello was erected in 1427 to his saintly memory. When the Council deposed John XXIII, Hus wrote: “Courage, friends! You can now give answer to those who declare that the Pope is God on earth; that he is the head and heart of the Church; that he is the fountain from which all virtue and excellence issue; that he is the sun, the sure asylum where all Christians ought to find refuge. Behold this earthly god bound in chains!” On June 3, Pope John XXIII was a prisoner in the same prison with Hus! On May 4, Wiclif’s writings were ordered to be burnt as heretical; his memory was condemned, and it was decreed to dig out his bones and cast them out of consecrated ground. It does not need a prophet to foretell the end of Hus. It needed only to show Hus was a follower of Wiclif, and he would be burned also.