John Huss and the Hussite Wars - James Aitken Wylie

that so bigoted a monarch as Sigismund would
agree to these terms; but though the journey had
been ten times longer, and the chance of success
ten times smaller, Procopius would have done what
he did if thereby he might bind up his country's
wounds. It was as might have been anticipated.
Sigismund would not listen to the voice of a
suffering but magnanimous and pious people; and
Procopius returned to Prague, his embassy
unaccomplished, but with the satisfaction that he
had held out the olive-branch, and that if the sword
must again be unsheathed, the blood which would
flow would lie at the door of those who had
spurned the overtures of a just and reasonable
peace.
The Hussites now assumed the offensive, and
those nations which had so often carried war into
Bohemia experienced its miseries on their own
soil. This policy might appear to the Bohemians,
on a large view of their affairs, the wisest that they
could pursue. We know at least that it was adopted
at the recommendation of the enlightened and
patriotic man who guided their councils. Their
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