told me so, so long as I have the use of my reason, I could not say so without resisting my conscience.’ It is right to add that the doctor subsequently withdrew his remark, agreeing that he had not used a very good illustration.[185] Where Hus gave his enemies their best opportunity was in his teaching with regard to the predestined. He had declared that no man living in a state of mortal sin had any right to exercise authority. By this ruling Sigismund himself would have been excluded. Apart from that, as has been said already, the doctrine was undeniably of perilous implication. The King of the Romans could appreciate the seriousness of the political application at all events. He pertinently reminded Hus of the truth that no man lives without sin.[186] But the decisive factor in the trial of Hus proved eventually to be his absolute sincerity. He refused to be false to himself, to commit perjury in order to save his life. ‘Serene Prince,’ said he to Sigismund, ‘I do not want to cling to any error, and I am perfectly willing to submit to the determination of the Council. But I may not offend God and my conscience by saying that I hold heresies that I have never held.’[187] As he put it again in a letter written shortly before his death, ‘Assuredly it is fitting for me rather to die than to flee a momentary penalty to fall into the Lord’s hand and afterwards, perchance, into everlasting fire and shame. And because I have appealed to Christ Jesus, the most potent and just of all judges, committing my cause to Him, therefore I stand by His judgment and sentence, knowing that He will judge every man not on false and erroneous evidence but on the true facts and merits of his case.’[188] Hus died a martyr for no specific theological dogma, heretical or otherwise, but for the noblest cause for which a man can ever die—sincerity to the truth that is in him. After the condemnation and burning of Hus, the Council proceeded to the trial of Jerome of Prague, who after a recantation repented of it and elected to die like his greater comrade. The proceedings against him were marked by great heat and acrimony, for he had made many personal enemies. Moreover, controversialist passions, which had indeed been apparent in the trial of Hus—for Hus was condemned as much because he was a realist as anything—flared up with still greater violence. Among the interested spectators of the death at the stake of Jerome of Prague was the great Italian humanist, Poggio. Much struck by the martyr’s eloquence and genius, he thought it was a great pity that he should have turned his attention to heretical ideas, and half pityingly, half uncomprehendingly, wondered that a man should be willing to die merely for the sake of an opinion.