The court being cleared of the prisoner, the emperor rose and said, "You have heard the charges against Huss, some confessed by himself, some proved by trustworthy witnesses. In my judgment each of these crimes is deserving of death. If he does not forswear all his errors, he must be burned.... the evil must be extirpated root and branch; if any of his partizans are in Constance, they must be proceeded against with the utmost severity, especially his disciple Jerome of Prague." When Huss was informed of the emperor's judgment, he merely replied, "I was warned not to trust to his safe-conduct. I have been under a sad delusion; he has condemned me even before mine enemies."
After this mockery of a trial and final audience, he was left in prison for nearly a month. During this time, persons of the highest rank visited him and entreated him to abjure the errors which were imputed to him. It was hoped that, through increasing bodily infirmity and private importunity he might be overcome. But not so. He who enabled him to stand firm before public threatenings and insults was with him still. "If I abjure errors," he said, "that were falsely laid to my charge, that would be nothing less than perjury." He regarded his fate as sealed, although all through his trial and imprisonment he professed himself willing to renounce any opinion that could be proved untrue from scripture. The real object of these private solicitations on the part of the prelates was to shake his constancy, and induce him to retract. With the view so beautifully expressed by Waddington we entirely agree: "Many individuals of various characters, but alike anxious to save him from the last infliction, visited his prison, and pressed him with a variety of motives and arguments; but they were all blunted by the rectitude of his conscience and the singleness of his purpose. One of his bitterest enemies, named Paletz, was among the number; but though his counsels had been successful in degrading the person of the reformer, they failed when they would have seduced him to infamy."
On the eve of the day destined for his execution, he was visited by his true and faithful friend, John of Chlum—a name which is worthy to be everywhere recorded with all honor—a name that stands almost alone for christian feeling and virtue in that vast assembly of professedly christian teachers, and that redeems our common humanity from treachery and cruelty. "My dear master," said the noble disciple, "I am unlettered, and consequently unfit to counsel one so enlightened as you. Nevertheless, if you are secretly conscious of any one of those errors which have been publicly imputed to you, I do entreat you not to feel any shame in retracting it; but if, on the contrary, you are convinced of your innocence, I am so far from advising you to say anything against your conscience, that I exhort you rather to endure every form of torture than to renounce anything which you hold to be true." Huss was greatly overcome by the wise and affectionate counsel of his faithful friend, and replied with tears, "That God was his witness how ready he had ever been, and still was, to retract an oath, and with his whole heart, from the moment he should be convinced of any error by evidence from holy scripture."
It is perfectly evident from all history, that in the sufferings and the fortitude of Huss there is no trace of pride or stubbornness. He was firm, but he was humble; he expected death, he prepared to meet it, but never planned or schemed to escape it. "I have appealed," he said, "to Jesus Christ, the One all-powerful and all-just Judge; to Him I commit my cause, who will judge every man, not according to false witnesses and erring councils, but according to truth and man's desert." This was the crowning act of his wickedness; the fatal hour was now come.