It is unfortunate for Sigismund’s memory that his share in the Council of Constance was marred by treachery. As heir to the throne of Bohemia and the incapable Wenzel he was often led to interfere in the affairs of that kingdom, and felt it his duty to take some steps with regard to the spread of Wycliffe’s doctrines amongst his future subjects, especially in the national University of Prague. Here heretical views were daily expounded by a clever priest and teacher, John Huss. Now the orthodox Catholics in the university were mainly Germans, and hated by the ordinary Bohemians, who were Slavs, and these therefore admired and followed Huss for national as well as from religious convictions. Sigismund agreed with Huss in desiring a drastic reform of the Church, suitable means for ensuring which he hoped to see devised at Constance. At the same time he trusted that the representatives of Christendom would come to some kind of a compromise with the Bohemian teacher on his religious views, and persuade him by their arguments to withdraw some of his most unorthodox opinions. With this end in view he therefore invited Huss to appear at the Council, offering him a safe-conduct. Many of the Bohemians suspected treachery and shook their heads when their national hero insisted that he was bound in honour to make profession of his faith when summoned. ‘God be with you!’ exclaimed one, ‘for I fear greatly that you will never return to us.’ This prophecy was fulfilled; for Huss, when he arrived at Constance, found that Sigismund was absent, and the attitude of the Council definitely hostile to anything he might say. After a prolonged examination he was called upon to recant his errors, and, refusing to yield, was condemned to death as a heretic; Sigismund, on his return to Constance shortly after this sentence had been passed, was persuaded that unless he consented to withdraw his safe-conduct the whole gathering would break up in wrath. Herod, he was told, had made a bad oath in agreeing to fulfil the wish of Herodias’s daughter and should have refused her demand for the head of John the Baptist. To pledge faith to a heretic was equally wrong, for as an example and warning to Christendom all heretics should be burned. It was imperative therefore for the good of the Church that such a safe-conduct should be withdrawn. Sigismund at last sullenly yielded, conscious of the stain on his honour, yet still more fearful lest the council he had called together with so great an effort should melt away, its tasks unfulfilled, as his many enemies hoped.