The death of Hus caused general indignation in Prague. Almost all the parish priests who ventured to praise, or even to excuse the execution of Hus, were driven from their homes. The Bohemian nobles who met at Prague in September (1415), and who were joined by many Moravian nobles, also expressed their indignation strongly. They addressed to the council a letter known as the 'Protestatio Bohemorum,' accusing it of having 'condemned the venerable magister (_i.e._, Hus) without having convicted him of any error, merely on the strength of evil statements of treacherous enemies and traitors, and of having deprived him of his life in the most cruel fashion, to the eternal shame and offence of Bohemia and Moravia.' They further declared 'before the council and the whole world that Magister John Hus was a man of pure life and irreproachable fame, who taught the law of Scripture according to the doctrine of the fathers and of the Church, who loathed all errors and heresies, who, by word, writing and deed, admonished us and all the faithful to desire peace and to love our neighbours, and by his own quiet and edifying life guided us in the path of godliness.' A few days after sending to Constance this declaration that caused great indignation there, the knights and nobles united in a solemn covenant for mutual defence. They pledged themselves to defend the liberty of preaching the word of God, to obey the Pope and the bishops of Bohemia as long as their commands were not contrary to Scripture, and meanwhile to recognise the University of Prague as the supreme authority in all matters of doctrine. The University thus first acquired the important position of arbiter in matters of doctrine which it held during the Hussite wars, and, indeed, only entirely lost after the battle of the White Mountain. The fact that the King and Queen were known to favour the national movement alone prevented an immediate general outbreak. Matters became yet more serious when--following the advice of his treacherous younger brother, Sigismund--Wenceslas endeavoured to stem the current.