The overthrow of German supremacy in the Bohemian University has been considered by both sides to mark a great crisis in the history of Bohemia. The national character, which had been stamped at so early a time on the reforming movement, now became more visible to the world at large, and at the same time more exclusive and defiant. Nor was its effect on the life and death of Hus less notable. When he became recognised as the most complete embodiment of the principles of the Bohemian Reformation, his German enemies naturally fixed upon him as the chief actor in this important stage of the movement; and wild charges of violence and intimidation towards the Germans helped to increase the hostility which had been roused by the suspicion of heresy. Nevertheless, it seems clear enough that, though Hus ultimately rejoiced in the change produced by the German secession, he had yet taken but a secondary and hesitating part in producing the change itself. On returning from Kuttenberg (Kutna Hora), after Wenceslaus’s first rejection of this proposal, Hus, disappointed and anxious, was seized with illness; and, while worn with suffering, he asked a friend whether, after all, the change was a just one. This appeal has been quoted by a modern writer as a proof of the duplicity of Hus; and the same antagonist has scornfully contrasted this anxious hesitation with the exulting approval of the change which Hus proclaimed at a later time. To those who try to weigh both sides of a question, it may not seem so difficult to understand that Hus may have heartily desired, and exulted in, the victory of the reforming party and the freedom of the Bohemians from German domination, and yet may have hesitated in his own mind, especially in sickness, about the justice of the particular step which brought things to a crisis. The point which rather seems to distinguish him from other men in the matter was the candour with which he confessed those previous doubts at a place and in a time when such a confession was certain to be used against him.