Indeed, whatever terms the nobles of Bohemia might have thought right to make with Sigismund, as the heir to the Bohemian throne, they could not, with any credit to themselves, come to terms at this time with the Council of Constance. In the same letter in which the nobles had condemned the burning of Hus, they had also complained of the imprisonment of Jerom; and with Jerom it was clear that the Council were determined to proceed to extremities. Worn with starvation and chains, the unfortunate prisoner at last yielded to his persecutors; and, while his countrymen were protesting against his imprisonment, he had consented to recant his errors, and to acknowledge the justice of the death of Hus. The Italian cardinals now desired to set him free; but the German and Bohemian members of the Council, backed by the Chancellor of the University of Paris, insisted that this recantation was not to be trusted, and that Jerom should be further examined as to his doctrines. Michael de Causis and Stephen Pálec̆ fastened with relentless eagerness on their second victim, and, by so doing, they saved his honour and reputation, and gave him an opportunity of showing his better side. In May, 1416, he was granted a new hearing before the Council; and, after having been for some time pestered with questions, he was at last allowed to speak for himself. His long oration, filled with classical allusions, greatly impressed the Italian scholar, Poggio Bracciolini, who was present on this occasion. But it will scarcely strike modern readers as so edifying as the simpler utterances of Hus. The conclusion, however, was more worthy of the occasion. It contained a manly and straightforward eulogy on Hus, an expression of his deep regret at the weakness which had led him to recant, and a declaration of his adherence to the teaching both of Hus and of Wyclif. Then, on May 14, 1416, he was led out to be burnt, and went singing to the stake. If this execution had not been sufficient to prevent a reconciliation between the Bohemians and the Council of Constance, another event of the same period would certainly have deepened the division between them. The Bishop of Olmütz died about this time, and Wenceslaus nominated a new bishop in his stead. The Council, however, intervened; and they not only rejected Wenceslaus’s nominee, but they demanded that he should accept instead that Bishop of Litomys̆l whom he had just driven out of the country as a disturber of the peace, and who was so deeply hated for his prominent share in the condemnation of Hus. Wenceslaus of course refused, and thereby widened the gulf between himself and the orthodox Catholics.