But both these candidates had reckoned their chances without knowing the wishes of the two most important men in Bohemia. George was determined that Silesia should never be separated from the Bohemian crown; and he had equally little wish that any foreigner should again become king of Bohemia. Rokycana, on his part, was not less determined that no one but George should be the King. In addressing the Bohemian Assembly in March, 1459, the Archbishop boldly grounded his appeal for George not only on his Bohemian birth, the purity of his life, and his proved power to defend them against their enemies, but also on his devotion to the Utraquist cause. Openly as this claim was put forward, it does not seem to have alienated the Roman Catholic nobles. George’s conciliatory policy towards the Catholics, and his personal friendship for some of their leaders, readily induced them to acquiesce in an election which would secure a strong national king to Bohemia. Yet from the very first Rokycana succeeded in giving a Utraquist colouring to the decision. While the envoys of Duke William of Saxony were eagerly expecting the election of their master, their meditations were interrupted by a simultaneous burst of ringing from all the churches in Prague; George speedily issued from the Town Council House with the sword of honour borne before him; and he was led across the square to the Teyn Church, where, after a general singing of the Te Deum, Rokycana called on the people to thank God for giving them a king who would stand by their faith. [Illustration: GEORGE OF PODĔBRAD, FIRST HERETIC KING OF BOHEMIA.] Thus the election of George of Podĕbrad to the throne of Bohemia marks the accession of the first heretic king in the history of Europe. Doubtless the name of heretic had been freely thrown at Henry IV. by Hildebrand, at Barbarossa by Alexander III., and at Frederick II. and Louis of Bavaria by every Pope who came in contact with them; but every one knew that that name was a mere term of abuse, of no more special significance than “knave” or “ruffian”; and that the real point at issue in those quarrels was the question of the exercise of some form of secular authority. George of Podĕbrad, on the other hand, was deliberately recommended to the Assembly of Bohemia, on account of his championship of a purely ecclesiastical practice, which had been condemned by one Council of the Church, and by one Pope at least; and, although a later Council might have partially and hesitatingly sanctioned the practice, that Council had itself perished in an odour of heresy and resistance to Papal authority.