their father, and could
never find another. But other generals arose to carry on the same kind
of war, while their wild followers were wrought up to a sort of fury
which nothing could withstand.

On the side of the Church a holy war was proclaimed, and vast armies,
made up from all nations of Europe, were gathered for the invasion of
Bohemia. One of these crusades was led by Cardinal Beaufort, bishop of
Winchester, and great-uncle of King Henry VI. of England; another, by a
famous Italian cardinal, Julian Cesarini. But the courage and fury of
the Bohemians, with their savage appearance and their strange manner of
fighting, drove back all assaults, with immense loss, in one campaign
after another; until Cesarini, the leader in the last crusade, was
convinced that there was no hope of putting the Bohemians down by force,
and that some other means must be tried.

CHAPTER XXVI.

COUNCILS OF BASEL AND FLORENCE.

A.D. 1431-9.

It had been settled at the council of Constance that regularly from time
to time there should be held a general council, by which name was then
meant a council gathered from the whole of the Western Church, but
without any representatives of the Eastern Churches; and according to
this decree a council was to meet at Basel, on the Rhine, in the year
1431. It was just before the time of its opening that Cardinal Cesarini
was defeated by the Hussites of Bohemia, as we have seen. Being
convinced that some gentler means ought to be tried with them, he begged
the pope to allow them a hearing; and he invited them to send deputies
to the council of Basel, of which he was president.

The Bohemians did as they were asked to do, and thirty of them appeared
before the council,--rough, wild-looking men for the most part, headed
by Procopius, who was at once a priest and a warrior, and was called the
great, in order to distinguish him from another of the same name. A
dispute, which lasted many weeks, was carried on between the leaders of
these Bohemians and some members of the council; and, at length, four
points were agreed on. The chief of these was, that the chalice at the
Holy Communion should not be confined to the priest alone, but might be
given to such grown-up persons as should desire it. This was one of the
things which had been most desired by the Bohemian reformers. We need
not go further into the history of the Hussites and of the parties into
which they were divided; but it is worth while