The division of the Papacy between Rome and Avignon had begun to cause such a scandal in the Church that a new Council was held necessary for the restoration of order and unity. Wenceslaus saw in the meeting of this Council an opportunity for recovering the position of which he had been deprived. He had never admitted the legality of his deposition from the Imperial throne; and, since only a part of the Electors had sanctioned that step, he had plausible grounds for disputing its validity. When, then, the Council of Pisa proposed to deal with the Papal Schism, Wenceslaus consented to send ambassadors to that Council, on condition that they should be recognised as the representatives of the Holy Roman Emperor. To secure the consent of the Council to this proposal, Wenceslaus readily accepted the decision of that body, that, as a preparatory step to the Unity of the Church, the two rival Popes should be required to resign; and he forbade his subjects to recognise the authority of either Gregory XII. or his rival till the Council should have decided on their claims. This demand at once produced a new line of division between the contending parties in the Bohemian Church. Hus and his friends had welcomed the Council of Pisa, as a possible means of accomplishing the reforms which they desired; and they made no difficulty about approving the deposition of the two Popes. The Archbishop, however, and the great body of the Bohemian clergy, maintained that they were bound by their allegiance to Gregory XII.; and in this view the three foreign “Nations” in the University eagerly supported them. This division of opinion at once brought to a head that desire for reasserting their national independence which the Bohemians had so long cherished. The dislike of being swamped in their own capital by foreigners had been steadily growing in the minds of the Bohemians. This feeling had been at first expressed in complaints about the rise of prices and the overcrowding of the city; but it had gained a much greater intensity when the native population realised that the supremacy of their language in their own country was at stake. The resistance of the Germans to the demands of Wenceslaus enabled the Reformers to join their movement for national independence with the assertion of the royal authority; and, as a means of accomplishing both these ends, they proposed that the Bohemian Nation should in future have three votes in the election of University officials, while each of the three foreign “Nations” should be still limited to one vote. Wenceslaus had already made some concessions to the national party in the University; and they naturally thought that he would at once approve of a concession which would tend to strengthen his hands in his struggle against Gregory XII.