The agitation which these events had produced was not allayed when the Council of Constance assembled. The emperor Sigismund, who had convened the council, requested his brother the king, Wenceslaus, to send Huss to Constance, and promised him a safe-conduct. The terms of this passport were very explicit; it required all the emperor's subjects to allow the doctor to pass and repass in full security. Huss readily obeyed the emperor's summons, as he had always desired the opportunity of appealing to a general council. He arrived in Constance earlier than the emperor, and was immediately brought before the pope, John XXIII., for examination. His doctrines were well known; a long list of charges was brought against him; and as he refused to retract them, he was thrown into prison on a charge of heresy, notwithstanding the safe-conduct of the emperor. And in order to justify their flagrant breach of honor and pacify Sigismund, they passed a decree that no faith ought to be kept with a heretic.
Loud complaints were sent to the emperor from Bohemia. He received the first intimation of the imprisonment of Huss with indignation, and threatened to break open the prison. But on reaching Constance he was plied with arguments from the canon law, urging that the civil power did not extend to the protection of a heretic; and the treacherous priests absolved him from all responsibility. He now allowed the enemies of Huss to take their course. In the gloom of a loathsome dungeon, without a breath of fresh air, and harassed by priests and monks, the reformer became very ill. But the deluded emperor cared for none of these things. Historians, however, have not been wanting who utterly condemn the faithless conduct of the emperor, and charge him with having violated truth, honor, and humanity, in surrendering Huss to the will of the priests. "Breach of faith," says Milman, "admits of no excuse; and perfidy is twice perfidious in an emperor." Others affirm that in thus sacrificing Huss, he heaped up for himself many troubles which came upon him during the remainder of his reign. But what shall we say of the future—of the dark future under the fearful shadow of that heartless abandonment of a true servant of Christ to the merciless priests of Rome? The Master will not forget to own in that day His identification with His servant, and that in the most touching way -"Verily, I say unto you, inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me." But if such be the guilt of the emperor, what must be the guilt of the pope and the prelates? We must leave the answer to the great white throne.
Already the most gloomy forebodings were gathering around the pope. In the first session of the council, it was proposed that the three popes should resign, prior to the election of a new pontiff. John, the only one of the three present, promised to resign for the peace of the church, and to read his own abdication the following day. But promises, or oaths, or honor, were nothing to John. By the.assistance of some friends he escaped from Constance in the disguise of a postillion. The emperor was betrayed and indignant. There was a hot pursuit after John; he was caught in Switzerland and brought back a prisoner; but unlike his victim, Huss, he was conscience-stricken, without honor, without dignity, without courage. He was now compelled to give up the insignia of universal spiritual power, the papal seal, and the fisherman's ring. Robert Hallam, bishop of Salisbury, at the head of the English, in a burst of righteous indignation, declared that a pope so covered with crime deserved to be burned at the stake. He was taken to the castle of Gotleben, where the good John Huss had been pining in irons for some months. There pope John languished till the close of the session, which was nearly four years; but, after humbling himself at the feet of the reigning pontiff, he was raised to the rank of a cardinal, and permitted to close his days in peace. But no such leniency was exercised towards the righteous and blameless Reformer, whose examination and execution we will now briefly trace.