^ D'DTMr'Tr'rrkTa tj t 
 
 PRINCETON, N. J. 
 
 Purchased by the Hammill Missionary Fund. 
 
 BX 4921 .P39 
 
 B34 
 
 1894 
 
 
 Baker, James 
 
 . 
 
 
 
 A forgotten ' 
 
 great 
 
 
 
 Englishman; 
 
 or. 
 
 The 1 
 
 ife 
 
ST. JACOBl CHURCH AT KUTTENBERG, IN WHICH PETER PAYNE PRESIDED 
 OVER HIS LAST GREAT DISCUSSION. 
 
A FORGOTTEN 
 
 GREAT ENGLISHMAN 
 
 OR 
 
 THE LIFE AND WORK OF 
 PETER TAYNE, THE WYCLIFFITE 
 
 BY / 
 
 JAMES "BAKER 
 
 AUTHOR OF * PICTURES FROM BOHEMIA,' ' MARK TILLOTSON,' ETC. 
 
 WITH ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 BY 
 
 HENRY WHATLEY 
 
 LONDON 
 THE RELIGIOUS TRACT SOCIETY 
 
 56, Paternoster Row, and 65, St. Paul's Churchyard 
 1894 
 
PREFACE 
 
 In sending forth this volume upon a most 
 interesting and momentous period of the world's 
 history, I plead for it fair and generous criticism. 
 I have tried to deal with the subject in no narrow 
 sectarian spirit. Tracing the material for it has 
 been a most interesting and even exciting occupa- 
 tion ; and as the wild yet earnest life of the time 
 has passed under review, with all its fierce 
 cruelties, jealous hatreds, and hot passion, the 
 sense of how much we in these later days owe 
 to Wycliffe and Payne and their followers in 
 Bohemia has deepened. They were among the 
 first in mediaeval Europe to make a firm stand 
 against the corrupt dominance of the Roman 
 Catholic system over the souls of men. 
 
 If this book proves that England, through 
 
6 PREFACE 
 
 Wycliffe and Payne, was the nation that gave the 
 world the Reformation, let us in England, of the 
 nineteenth century, cling to the freedom our 
 countrymen won through that Reformation ; and 
 resist firmly, without bitterness, and with none of 
 the cruelties practised so freely on both sides in 
 the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, all attempts 
 to undo the work of those centuries. The study 
 of that period will prove that every so-called new 
 fancy or fad of this century was essayed five 
 hundred years ago ; that dress and manners have 
 changed, but that the human soul and human 
 nature are the same, leavened by a little more 
 prevalence of the greatest of all Christian virtues, 
 charity. With the spread of that virtue, we need 
 never dread the need of another Reformation. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PART I. 
 
 PACK 
 
 Proof that he was Forgotten' ... ... ... 9 
 
 PART II. 
 Peter Payne's Life-work ... ... ... 35 
 
 PART III. 
 How Early English Writers maligned Payne ... 126 
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 St. Jacobi Church at Kuttenberg, in which Peter 
 Payne presided over his Last Great Discussion 
 
 Frontispiece 
 
 Peter Payne's Prison at Gutstein ... 8 
 
 Tabor, from an Old Engraving obtained by the 
 
 Author from the Town Clerk of Tabor ... 43 
 
 Old House at Tabor with Stone Table in front, 
 
 at which the Open-air COxMmunion was taken 74 
 
i-ll.K I'AV.M-;.-, PKI.SON AT GUTSTKIN. 
 
 {From a drawittg by H. Whatley.) 
 
A FORGOTTEN GREAT 
 ENGLISHMAN 
 
 PART I 
 
 PROOF THAT HE WAS FORGOTTEN 
 
 The first thing to prove in this volume is that 
 Peter Payne was a wholly forgotten Englishman ; 
 the last will be to prove his right to a place amongst 
 the great men who have illumined England's 
 history. 
 
 Whilst writing some articles in the Leisure Hotir 
 upon his work, I visited most of the scenes in 
 which he lived and worked in England and Bohemia, 
 and since that date (1890) I have revisited them 
 and received many letters about Peter Payne. Some 
 of those letters I can introduce here to prove that 
 he was a wholly forgotten hero. For truly he was 
 a hero in the highest sense, working for the truth 
 
lo A FORGOTTEN GREAT ENGLISHMAN 
 
 blamelessly, fearlessly, self-sacrificingly, undaunted 
 by threats or imprisonment, speaking the truth 
 before pope, or kaiser, or infuriated populace boldly 
 and with honesty ; and with naught of self-seeking 
 intent. 
 
 When travelling in Bohemia and diving into 
 her fascinating and exciting history, I first noticed 
 the continually recurring name of Peter Payne. I 
 thought my own dips into English history had been 
 too slight, and that I should at once, upon looking 
 into the works of our great historians, find references 
 to a man who had so influenced and led thought 
 in Europe at a momentous period of the world's 
 history. But all my seeking was at first in vain. 
 No ordinary history mentioned him. All the 
 accepted and generally read histories of Hume, 
 Green, Lingard, Knight, etc., were searched, but no 
 trace of even the name of Peter Payne could be 
 found. Further visits to Bohemia, and the fact that 
 I found ordinary students, even innkeepers in that 
 country, acquainted with Peter Payne, drove me to 
 make inquiries of living English historians as to 
 where I could find the best account of him by some 
 English writer. 
 
PROOF THAT HE WAS FORGOTTEN ii 
 
 Having the privilege of knowing Professor Rowley, 
 w4lo occupies the chair of history at Bristol University 
 College,! first applied to him, knowing how carefully 
 he had studied our history, and how much the late 
 J. R. Green had altered his Short History of the 
 English People, to fall in with views expressed by 
 Professor Rowley in his articles upon it in Eraser. 
 But Professor Rowley knew naught of Peter Payne, 
 though he put me on the right scent, by suggesting 
 I should seek for him in church, and not in general 
 histories ; and when later on I sent to him the first 
 proofs of the articles upon Peter Payne, Professor 
 Rowley, under date March 4, 1885, wrote as 
 follows : ' Thank you very much for the favour of 
 reading the proofs of your paper, which I have at 
 last been able to do. It is exceedingly interesting, 
 and will prove, I have no doubt, a very taking 
 article. But the historical part is outside my range 
 of knowledge ; Bohemian history is still an un- 
 explored land for me. I have no doubt, however, 
 that your history, coming as it does from Palacky, 
 is perfectly correct.' 
 
 The fact that such a careful student and thinker 
 knew nothing of Payne led me to take up other 
 
12 A FORGOTTEN GREAT ENGLISHMAN 
 
 correspondence, to see if it could be true that this 
 English link between Wycliffe and Luther had 
 wholly passed from our English life. I wrote to 
 Mr. Leslie Stephen, the then editor of the Dictionary 
 of National Biography^ and received a reply from 
 Mr. Sidney Lee, which threw no light whatever 
 upon the matter in hand. I also ventured to broach 
 the subject to Mr. J. A. Froude, who replied to my 
 note accompanying the first of the articles with the 
 following interesting letter, written before he had 
 received the proofs, and dated March ii, 1890: 
 * Your letter addressed to the Molt has reached me, 
 but not what ought to have accompanied it. I 
 return home in three or four weeks, when I suppose 
 I shall find the articles waiting for me. Meanwhile, 
 the Payne you speak of is an unknown personage 
 to me. You will have enough to do if you rake up 
 all the forgotten Englishmen who have made their 
 mark about the globe. But I shall be glad to hear 
 about this one.' But on June 18, a famous day on 
 which to receive a letter from a great English 
 historian on a historical subject, I received the fol- 
 lowing still more agreeable letter from the Molt, 
 Salcombe : * I write in haste, on the point of going 
 
PROOF THAT HE WAS FORGOTTEM 13 
 
 abroad for a few weeks, to thank you for your ac- 
 count of Peter Payne. As I am absent from London, 
 my letters and parcels have reached me irregularly, 
 so that I have been barely able to glance through 
 what you have written. Every one, however, who 
 preserves the memory of the great men of the 
 past, the men who have given our country all the 
 real grandeur which it possesses, have done good 
 service. When I return I will try to learn more 
 about your friend, and what he did. Bohemia is 
 far off, and, except at such a crisis, came little in 
 contact with us. Pardon this brief letter.' 
 
 I next wrote to Dr. Percival, then President of 
 Trinity, who wrote to the Principal of St. Edmund's 
 Hall, of which Foxe states Peter Payne was Vice- 
 Principal. Dr. Percival forwarded me the answer of 
 Mr. E. Moore, with a note from himself in red ink 
 upon it, running thus : ' This from the Principal 
 of St. Edmund's Hall. I should recommend your 
 applying for any information to the Bodleian 
 Librarian.' The note from Mr. E. Moore ran as 
 follows : ' We have no archives or documents of 
 the Hall going back anything like far enough. I 
 find, on reference to Foster's recently published 
 
14 A FORGOTTEN GREAT ENGLISHMAN 
 
 Ahmiiiii Oxoiiienses, the name does not occur, which 
 presumably implies that there is no evidence of his 
 matriculation in the University archives. I am 
 sorry I cannot help your friend.' 
 
 In June I also wrote to the Bodleian Library, as 
 suggested by Dr. Percival, but here again the very 
 name of Peter Payne was unknown, as the follow- 
 ing letter from Mr. F. Madan proves, and as the 
 circumstances of a later visit to the Library also 
 most fully confirmed : ' I am sorry to say that 
 neither the librarian nor I know anything of the 
 Oxford life of Peter Payne, nor where to look for 
 such information. I did not even know that he 
 was ever at St. Edmund's Hall, but perhaps you 
 do not imply this. The recollections of con- 
 temporaries are generally the best sources of in- 
 formation, but I fear I know of none such in this 
 case.' 
 
 Knowing Mr. W. E. Gladstone's fondness for 
 strange passages in English history, when the 
 three articles on Peter Payne had appeared, I sent 
 them to him ; and his reply is most characteristic, 
 but proves that he too was ignorant of the work 
 of this forgotten Englishman. He writes on 
 
PROOF THAT HE WAS FORGOTTEN 15 
 
 August 25, 1890, 'I thank you for your interest- 
 ing articles. The transplantation of the Wycliffe 
 movement and its relative force in the two 
 countries of origin and import is, I think, one of 
 the most curious things in ecclesiastical history. 
 And you have told us enough about Payne to 
 make us wish to know more ; nor least about the 
 conclusion at which he finally arrived.' 
 
 I felt my evidence that Peter Payne was entirely 
 forgotten by his own country was now fairly com- 
 plete, but there was still one historian from whom 
 I longed to have a word on the subject ; and 
 fortune favoured me, for on July 24, 1890, I was 
 present in the ruins of Glastonbury when Mr. 
 E. A. Freeman gave a paper on the history of the 
 abbey. Afterwards, standing opposite the old 
 Pilgrim's Rest in the town, I had a pleasant con- 
 versation with him, and told him of my wish to 
 learn all I could from English historians of this 
 Peter Payne. He was much interested in the 
 matter, and told me he knew nothing of him, but 
 if I would send him the articles he would afford 
 me all the help he could ; and if he knew nothing 
 about it, he had a friend in Oxford who was more 
 
i6 A FORGOTTEN GREAT ENGLISHMAN 
 
 deeply read in that special period of history than 
 he was, and he would know all about him. Who 
 that friend was he did not tell me, and I never 
 heard his friend's name from himself ; but that he 
 kept his word I learnt afterwards in Oxford in 
 an indirect way, and, averse as Mr. Freeman was 
 to general correspondence, the interest he took in 
 the matter is evidenced by the letter which he 
 sent some six weeks afterwards, dated September 
 6, 1890. It is a very difficult letter to decipher, 
 and, in spite of help from several who knew Mr. 
 Freeman's handwriting well, it is still slightly 
 doubtful if the latter part of the letter is correctly 
 given : * I ought to have thanked you long ago for 
 your papers on the "Forgotten Great Englishman." 
 I am sending them to one who knows much more 
 about Wycliffe and such matters than I do. 
 Your man was clearly a power among them, 
 and I have a certain yearning to the men of 
 Bene {sic), that I sometimes go so far as to call 
 them Boemish (sic) boys, because I take a good 
 deal of interest in them now, and in their claim 
 as a separate kingdom.' 
 
 Having already visited, with one exception, 
 
PROOF THAT HE WAS FORGOTTEN 17 
 
 every spot in Bohemia to which Peter Payne has 
 been traced, and where his name is remembered, 
 I wished to tread in his steps in England, and 
 learn if in his English home or haunts aught of 
 his life or work was still known ; and, forgetting 
 the letter I had received through Dr. Percival 
 from Mr. Moore, I wrote to the Rev. R. G. 
 Plumptre, the Vice-Principal of St. Edmund's 
 Hall, but his reply was hardly encouraging. 
 He wrote from St. Edmund's Hall, Oxford, May 
 25, 1 89 1, 'I thank you for your note received 
 this morning, and in reply I can only say 
 that I have no recollection whatever of having- 
 
 o 
 
 heard from Dr. Percival at all on the point in 
 question. If I had done so, I am pretty sure that 
 I should have remembered something about it, 
 or have had some note of it. So, to the best of my 
 knowledge and belief, your letter is the first I have 
 heard about the inquiries into the history of Peter 
 Payne. If we can find out anything here about 
 him, so much the better ; but I dare not hold out 
 any expectations, as I am afraid they would not 
 be justified. I will, however, ask the Principal if 
 he knows anything about the matter. I shall be 
 "^ B 
 
1 8 A FORGOTTEN GREAT ENGLISHMAN 
 
 happy to show you anything I can on Saturday, 
 and, if possible, to aid your search.' 
 
 I went to Oxford, but found that the St. 
 Edmund's Hall of the days of Peter Payne had 
 been almost wholly swept away ; only one pointed 
 arch, half hid by later masonry, dated from his 
 time. And in the library the records only went 
 back to 1477. But it was interesting to be in the 
 same hall, in the same foundation in which Peter 
 Payne had lived and worked, and learned from 
 his master, Wyclifife, how to judge the priestly 
 dominance and corruption around him. The old 
 church of St. Peter's hard by, around and beneath 
 the roof of which he had often walked, is not much 
 changed since his day. New College, but just 
 round the corner, also carried one back to 
 WycHffe's time. But of Peter Payne himself I 
 could learn nothing ; and Mr. Plumptre assured 
 me no trace of him was to be found in the library 
 or archives of the Hall. 
 
 Another friend who had interested himself in 
 the matter was Mr. Herbert Warren, the President 
 of Magdalen, and after some talk with him in his 
 library on Payne's work, and the strange fact he 
 
PROOF THAT HE WAS FORGOTTEN 19 
 
 had been so wholly lost sight of in his own 
 university, we started out for the Bodleian ; and 
 here Mr. Nicholson, the librarian, took much pains 
 to discover something substantial about this 
 Wycliffite, or Hussite, as Mr. Nicholson termed 
 him. For a time he laboured to no purpose, until 
 at last Mr. Warren said it was very strange ; 
 surely something was to be found about him in the 
 Bodleian. Then Mr. Nicholson suggested perhaps 
 his name would be found under Paganus ; and 
 mounting a high ladder and opening a folio, in 
 triumph he called out, ' Here we have him ; ' but 
 on looking into the reference, we found it was but 
 a repetition of the slighting notes on his life to be 
 found in most of the Latin writers who ever 
 mentioned him. As there was no time for a 
 longer search, Mr. Warren accompanied me to the 
 rooms of Mr. R. Lane Poole, who he felt sure 
 would be able to tell me all that could be possibly 
 known about him. 
 
 I found Mr. Poole somewhat prepared for my 
 visit, for to him Mr. Freeman had sent my articles, 
 although at the commencement of our conversation 
 he did not know I was the writer of them ; but 
 
20 A FORGOTTEN GREAT ENGLISHMAN 
 
 he kindly went into the matter, and gave me the 
 names of the writers in whose works I should 
 probably meet with Payne's name, such as Jocher, 
 Tanner, the Wycliffe publications. Maxwell Lyte's 
 Ancient History of Oxford, Wood's History of 
 Oxford; and, turning to the list of principals in 
 Oxford, he found Payne's name entered as Prin- 
 cipal, and not, as Foxe states, Vice-Principal of 
 St. Edmund's Hall. Probably he thought this 
 was an error of Foxe, as the list of vice-principals 
 was not kept. But he had not gone into the 
 matter minutely, as he had sent on my articles 
 to Mr. Morfill, the Professor of Slavonic Literature, 
 to whom he referred me. 
 
 At length here were some crumbs of information 
 on Payne's life, but they were indeed but crumbs ; 
 and, with the exception of Anthony Wood's gentle 
 leaning towards the heretic, they were all of a 
 slighting and defamatory character, as the extracts 
 from the works mentioned will show. So my 
 interview with Mr. Poole only proved more fully 
 that Payne was forgotten in Oxford; for it was 
 the sending of my articles to Mr. Poole by Mr. 
 Freeman, and his forwarding them on to Mr. 
 
PROOF THAT HE WAS FORGOTTEN 21 
 
 Morfill, that aroused in Oxford some interest in 
 his life. 
 
 I had yet one spot in England to visit where, 
 perchance, some memory still clung around the 
 name of this stedfast reformer. Foxe and Wood 
 state that he was born at Hough, near Grantham. 
 So I wrote twice to the present Vicar of Hough ; 
 but receiving no answer, I set out for Grantham, 
 arriving there doubting whether it was at all 
 likely I should find any trace remaining of a 
 certain Payne who had lived some five hundred 
 years ago, the more so as I was entirely ignorant 
 whether he was born of poor or of wealthy parents. 
 But on alighting at the old Angel Inn, where 
 King John lodged, and where Richard 11. signed 
 the death-warrant of Buckingham, I was delighted 
 to read in a local guide, that at Hough (pronounced 
 Hoff) there was a good church of the Decorated 
 order, carrying one at once back to Payne's time, 
 and that in the chancel were some fine monuments 
 to the Payne family, who were the lords of the 
 manor. 
 
 At last the hope revived of getting some insight 
 into the reformer's early life, and, overjoyed at what 
 
22 A FORGOTTEN GREAT ENGLISHMAN 
 
 promised to be the success of my little pilgrimage, 
 I started off to Hougham, the nearest point of 
 railway to Hough. 
 
 Leaving the quiet little railway station for my 
 three-mile walk, I fell in with an intelligent country 
 traveller, who was calling on all the village shops, 
 and knew the district well; and as we walked 
 on I told him the object of my journey, and he 
 became interested in Peter Payne's life ; but asked 
 pertinently how it was nobody had ever heard of 
 him, especially where he had lived. In pleasant 
 chat we passed on through Gelston, and as we 
 entered Hough, on the right-hand side there was 
 a cottage with a little trefoil-head window, sug- 
 gestive of church spoliation — a hint of how much 
 might have been swept away of a fourteenth- 
 century building. 
 
 On entering the churchyard a little lad pointed 
 out a door that was unlocked, and, anxious as 
 to what I should find, I entered the church and 
 passed up to the chancel ; but all had been 
 cleared, swept, and garnished. No old historic 
 tombs, chapters in history, stood within the small 
 chancel ; two brass candlesticks, and a poor, 
 
PROOF THAT HE WAS FORGOTTEN 23 
 
 gaudily painted, but faded reredos was all that 
 the eye rested upon. The tombs to the Payne 
 family were gone. Disheartened and saddened 
 at this wiping out of history, I made a careful 
 examination of the church, and at last I was 
 rearoused to intense interest on seeing behind 
 the organ, and wholly out of sight, two fine 
 sarcophagus-like marble tombs with the following 
 inscriptions : — 
 
 * In memory of Edward Payne, Esq., who early 
 engaged in the cause of Liberty and Religion. In 
 a meeting of the Gentlemen and Clergy of the 
 County, he (being then High Sherriff) publickly 
 declared he would stand or fall by the Prince 
 of Orange, which resolution was received with 
 universal satisfaction and applause. He was a 
 gentleman of sound sense, great integrity, affa- 
 bility, and moderation, which made him highly 
 valued as an excellent magistrate. He loved 
 the Religion of his country, and constantly at- 
 tended its offices with exemplary seriousness 
 and devotion. 
 
 ' He married Elizabeth, daughter of Thomas 
 Hatcher, Esq., of Carby, whom, after several 
 
24 A FORGOTTEN GREAT ENGLISHMAN 
 
 years of mutual happiness, he burled Nov. 
 1688. 
 
 ' By her he had Elizabeth-Anna, John Edward, 
 who died abroad, Judith Elizabeth Jane, and 
 Thomas. Elizabeth -Anna died 1686; John, a 
 gentleman of great hopes and universally esteemed, 
 died 1710; Judith, a lady of excellent under- 
 standing, worn out by a tedious and painful 
 illness, with great patience and submission 
 resigned her breath 17 17. He himself departed 
 in the fear of God Dec. 30, 1728, aged 71. 
 
 ' Elizabeth, the wife of Francis Fane of Fulbeck. 
 
 'Jane, the wife of Richard Nelthorpe, Esq., of 
 Scawby. 
 
 • Thomas, his youngest son, all survived him.' 
 The second inscription ran thus : 
 
 * To the memory of Thomas Payne, Esq., who 
 departed this life Dec. ist, 1742, aged 57. A 
 gentleman from his youth firmly attached to the 
 Protestant succession, the security of our laws 
 and Religion, a worthy magistrate, a tender 
 husband, a kind father, a good neighbour, of a 
 graceful person, of a cheerful disposition, of great 
 steadiness and sobriety. He married Elizabeth, 
 
PROOF THAT HE WAS FORGOTTEN 25 
 
 daughter of Martin Folkes, Esq., of Hillington, 
 in the county of Norfolk, a lady adorned with every 
 good and amiable quality, and universally lamented 
 at her death, which happened in March, 1727.' 
 
 He had by her — 
 
 ' Dorothy, who dy'd Sept. 1723, age 7. 
 
 * Edmund, who dy'd April, 1740, age 14. 
 
 who, as a testimony of their filial 
 
 Elizabeth . 
 
 piety and natural affection, have 
 'Ethelred 
 
 I erected this monument. 
 
 Here was the most interesting evidence that 
 in this family of the Paynes the earnest con- 
 victions of the first reformer had taken deep root, 
 and was still fruit-bearing two and three hundred 
 years after his death. 
 
 But after reading these inscriptions, which proved 
 that the Paynes had been a considerable and 
 powerful family for many centuries, the question 
 forced itself still more persistently upon the mind, 
 how was it that their great ancestor was so wholly 
 forgotten here in the home of his childhood, in 
 Oxford, and throughout England, though revered 
 and remembered in the country of his adoption, 
 Bohemia? And with this question yet only half 
 
26 A FORGOTTEN GREAT ENGLISHMAN 
 
 answered, I went on round the church, noting all 
 its interesting details. 
 
 Just beneath the two great Payne tombs was 
 a fine, rich, foliated cross cut in stone on the floor. 
 This cross had been moved from somewhere, and 
 was now being destroyed by the organ-blower's 
 feet. At the east end of the church was a stained 
 Perpendicular window, a plain sedilia and ambrey 
 or credence niche, and some quaint heads to the 
 corbels of the mouldings round the chancel 
 windows. There were marks where the rood 
 screen had been, and a little door leading up to 
 it on the north pillar ; and on the south pillar of 
 the chancel, behind the pulpit, a trefoil-headed 
 niche ; and on the south wall a half-walled up 
 niche as a piscina. On the north wall at the east 
 end is another piscina with a stone shelf, and here 
 the Commandments are put up. 
 
 The nave is separated from the aisles by four 
 wide, octagonal-pillared arches, two on each side, 
 and above these are four Decorated clerestory 
 windows. At the west end of the church is a 
 good square tower ; with, on the exterior, four 
 Decorated windows at the fourth tier, and above 
 
PROOF THAT HE WAS FORGOTTEN 27 
 
 these a moulded parapet with crotcheted pinnacles 
 and wide projecting gargoyles. The curious and 
 unique thing about the church is, that to the west 
 of the square tower, and joined on to it, is a 
 round tower ; and on entering are seen the stone 
 stairs that wind up it, and the small deep splayed 
 Norman windows that light it, whilst squared and 
 pointed headed doorways are cut through from 
 it into the later square tower. Thus the builders 
 of this later tower utilized the old stairway in 
 the earlier so-called Saxon tower. 
 
 Having thus well studied the old church, where 
 one may well imagine that Peter Payne worshipped 
 as a boy, and until he started for Oxford, I 
 ventured to call upon the vicar, who had not 
 answered my letters. 
 
 I was fortunate enough to find him at home, but 
 he knew nothing of Peter Payne, and hardly 
 appeared to like my intrusion into the quiet of 
 his village. Whether the removal of the Payne 
 monuments from the chancel to behind the organ 
 had aught to do with this cool reception, I cannot 
 judge ; but after some talk I asked to see the 
 registers, and this he could hardly refuse. We 
 
28 A FORGOTTEN GREAT ENGLISHMAN 
 
 went across to the church to search for the oldest, 
 but, on looking into the iron chest, the vicar 
 remembered that he had the oldest of the registers 
 in his house ; so, after another look round the 
 church, we returned to his rooms, and there found 
 the earliest registers. But they only went back 
 to 1 65 1 ; yet several entries of the Payne family 
 were traced, and the Ethelred whose name occurs 
 on the monument to Thomas Payne was found 
 to be the last of the race, and she married into 
 the Cust family, thus merging this honourable 
 historic family into that of the present Earl of 
 Brownlow. 
 
 As will be seen from the inscription, Dorothy 
 and Edmund, the two eldest children of Thomas 
 Payne, died young ; and Elizabeth, the only other 
 child, remained single, thus leaving only Ethelred 
 to bear fruit to this famous stock of an ancient 
 English family, who for three hundred years had 
 powerfully influenced the thought around them 
 in their Lincolnshire home. 
 
 I found the vicar not too willing to devote any 
 time to the matter, going on with his writing 
 whilst I searched the old registers. He was coolly 
 
PROOF THAT HE WAS FORGOTTEN 29 
 
 courteous, and pleaded his excess of work as a 
 reason for not answering my letters ; but he gave 
 me the name of the Nottingham merchant who 
 now owned the Hall, thinking that there I might 
 glean some information, and see some domestic 
 architecture of an early date. But the Hall I 
 found to be a very new building, with naught 
 ancient left save the great kitchen chimney ; but 
 a few grand old chestnuts, the remnant of a great 
 avenue four miles in extent, spoke of the former 
 greatness of the house. 
 
 I was recommended here to find out the oldest 
 inhabitant, a Mr. Ripley, who remembered some 
 skeletons being dug up on Castle Hill ; and as it 
 was likely he might recall some traditions of the 
 Paynes, I discovered his cottage, and was fortunate 
 enough to find the old man at home, with his poor 
 afflicted one-armed wife. I did not tell my errand, 
 but simply said that I was interested in the village, 
 and soon he rambled on in his reminiscences. He 
 told me ' how once, when he was cutting a drain 
 just by the school-house, his tool drove into some- 
 thing, and he pulled out a skull ; and as he went 
 on he found a dozen all in one hole. A number 
 
30 A FORGOTTEN GREAT ENGLISHMAN 
 
 of people came and looked at these skeletons, and 
 one brought a lot of books, and said, " There has 
 been no battle here." But not far off he had found 
 six stone coffins, but had broke 'em all up save 
 one, and he was there now.' And so I found it 
 on the north side of the church tower. He found 
 'some coffins with ladies in 'em, and little children 
 at their feet.' Then he asked me if I knew there 
 used to be another Hall, where Squire Payne 
 lived. 'But,' I said, 'you cannot remember Squire 
 Payne.' 'No, but my father could mind him. 
 Why, you can see their tombs in the chancel now.' 
 Hearing the name of the descendant of him whose 
 history I was trying to link together spoken of 
 thus glibly by this old man in his native place, 
 struck strangely, for I had not expected to find 
 any trace left of Peter Payne ; but although he 
 himself was forgotten, I had found the tombs of 
 his family, and had traced his descendants into 
 a noble English family of to-day, and had heard 
 from a man's lips the old name as one of our own 
 day, in this village that Payne the Wycliffite had 
 left probably about the year 1395, some five 
 hundred years ago. 
 
PROOF THAT HE WAS FORGOTTEN 31 
 
 I left Mr. Ripley with a hearty handshake from 
 the old man, and went out again round the village. 
 The so-called Castle Hill is at the east end of 
 the church, a circular hill, and below it are traces 
 of embankments and a stream bearing great 
 resemblance to a castle moat ; near it is a great 
 farmhouse, and on the other southern side of the 
 road which cuts through the hill are further 
 traces of embankments, a high square mound, and 
 trenches. 
 
 Having now traced Payne into the Brownlow 
 family, I wrote to the Earl of Brownlow, and received 
 the following interesting reply, dated October 24, 
 1892: 'I fear I cannot give you any information about 
 Peter Payne. The Paynes were well-to-do squires 
 owning property at Hough-on-the-Hill, which was 
 once a place of some importance, with a castle 
 and a priory in which King John spent a miserable 
 night, after having been poisoned at Swinshead 
 Abbey. The family lived in the house at the 
 corner of the cross-roads, half of which was pulled 
 down about a hundred years ago, since which 
 time it has been a farmhouse, and the iron gates 
 at the end of the avenue, and the fittings of the 
 
32 A FORGOTTEN GREAT ENGLISHMAN 
 
 rooms, have since been removed. The castle 
 dates from the time of Elizabeth or James I. 
 I regret that I have no papers or portraits of the 
 Payne family. Ethelred, the last of the family, 
 married Sir John Cust, Speaker of the House of 
 Commons. If I can come across any further 
 information, I shall be happy to forward it 
 to you.' 
 
 Thus the Earl of Brownlow's note verified that 
 the farmhouse, with the moat-like stream and 
 embankments near it, is the old home of Peter 
 Payne's descendants, and perchance his own home. 
 The strange thing is that the records and 
 portraits of a family who lived in one place for 
 four hundred years at least should be thus wholly 
 lost. Probably there are still records extant, even 
 of Peter Payne and his English life, but they 
 are buried in the archives of castle or hall, 
 to be discovered by some patient worker in 
 history. 
 
 As I walked back over the hills towards 
 Grantham, and again rested in the old Angel Inn, 
 that can trace its history back to before Payne's 
 day, as one of the hospitia belonging to the 
 
PROOF THAT HE WAS FORGOTTEN 33 
 
 Knights Templars in 1291, I felt satisfied with 
 my little pilgrimage. I had found no positive 
 proof that Peter Payne, the reformer, was born 
 at Hough, but I no longer doubted Foxe's state- 
 ment, and I was to get the links from Anthony 
 Wood's Annals. I pictured to myself the young 
 man leaving Hough, riding probably into this 
 town of Grantham, and halting at this hospice 
 ere starting forth, with some collection of students 
 for the university, on the high-road for Oxford, 
 with probably other travellers. Riding on down 
 through the Fenland to the famous city, dreaming 
 not of the strange career that lay before him in 
 unknown and distant Bohemia. He was to be 
 forgotten in his ancestral home, by his descendants, 
 in the university where he had first learnt and then 
 taught, in the Hall that he had governed. He 
 was to be unknown to our historians and states- 
 men, and to our librarians ; and his name was to 
 be unrecorded in general history or biographical 
 works ; and yet in Bohemia to be remembered 
 and known, even by the common folk. And now 
 my task is to prove that he was worthy of remem- 
 brance by his own countrymen and by his 
 
 C 
 
^ 
 
 34 A FORGOTTEN GREAT ENGLISHMAN 
 
 descendants ; that his work is a powerful link in 
 the history of man's bursting the bonds of soul 
 subjugation to earthly powers ; 'that he is the 
 English link that connects Wycliffe with Luther) 
 
 V. 
 
35 
 
 PART II 
 
 PETER PAYNES LIFE-WORK 
 
 To be great, and yet to be forgotten by one's own 
 countrymen ; to have swayed the minds of men 
 at one of the greatest periods in the world's 
 history ; to have led the rulers of that period, and 
 made popes and emperors await the words that 
 decide a nation's fate; to have been first and 
 foremost in debates that still re-echo through the 
 world, though nearly five hundred years have 
 elapsed since the actors in these scenes have 
 passed away from earth— and yet to be forgotten ! 
 And yet Peter Payne is remembered lovingly 
 by the country that adopted him, and for whose 
 cause he so boldly fought in their mighty struggle 
 against Europe. If in England this great man 
 is forgotten, in Bohemia his name is cherished ; 
 and her historians give him ample space, and her 
 
36 A FORGOTTEN GREAT ENGLISHMAN 
 
 people of to-day know his name. If in the 
 fifteenth century the Bohemians ransomed him 
 at a high rate of ransom when taken prisoner, so 
 now in this nineteenth century her historians have 
 fully and ably rescued his name from the oblivion 
 to which English historians would have condemned 
 it, if we can say men condemn that which they 
 ignore. The plain name of Peter Payne will ever 
 shine forth as a bright star in Bohemian history ; 
 and my aim is to prove that the writers of 
 English history cannot ignore him, if they would 
 set before the world the work of the English 
 people, and their onward course. For Peter Payne 
 strenuously and persistently cherished the seed 
 which burst forth into much flower and fruit ere 
 his own century had set.^ 
 
 Peter Payne was one of the greatest of the 
 
 * The whole of the matter in the succeeding pages has been 
 gleaned from foreign writers, largely from Palacky's famous History 
 of Bohemia^ and from personal visits to most of the places where 
 Peter Payne lived and worked — towns and castles rich in historical 
 and archoeological interest, yet where we were repeatedly assured 
 by resident professors and editors, no modern Englishman had ever 
 set foot. A research for years past through the visitors' books in 
 famous churches and castles has confirmed their words ; for in the 
 years 1889 to 1894 no English names could be seen, so curiously 
 do our countrymen travel in well-worn grooves in Europe. 
 
PETER PAYNE'S LIFE-WORK 37 
 
 leaders of the Wycliffites (known to us English as 
 Hussites) of Bohemia through all the fierce years 
 from 1417 until 1455. In 1410 he was Principal 
 of St. Edmund's Hall in Oxford, and at the same 
 time Principal of Whitehall, whose front, though 
 it looked to the High Street, yet the back part 
 thereof joined to that of St. Edmund's Hall ; but 
 he was driven thence, against the will of the 
 king, Harry of Monmouth, because of his intense 
 earnestness and persistency in spreading the teach- 
 ing of his master, John WycHfife. On February 
 13, 141 7, he was received amongst the professors 
 of the Prague University. 
 
 We may perhaps glean the reason of his 
 flight from England to Bohemia from Capgrave's 
 Chronicles of England. In speaking of the increase 
 in the number of Wycliffe's followers in the year 
 1389, this quaint old writer says, 'The Bischoppis 
 of this lond saide right nout to this mater, but 
 kepte hem in here houses, and opened no mouth 
 to berk ageyn these erroneous doggis.' At a 
 later date, 1401, he speaks of the edict against 
 the Lollards in the following interesting words: 
 'In the third yere of this Herry was a Parlement 
 
38 A FORGOTTEN GREAT ENGLISHMAN 
 
 at London, wher was mad a statute ageyn Lol- 
 lardis, that where evyr thei were founde preching 
 her evel doctrine thei shuld be take, and pre- 
 sented to the bischop ; and if thei meynten here 
 opiniones, thei shuld be committed to seculere 
 hand, and thei shuld brenne him and her bokes. 
 This statute was practized in a prest, that sone 
 aftir was brent at Smythfield.' 
 
 In the political poems of the period there are 
 constant references to the strife over the Sacra- 
 ment and the refusal of the friars to do aught 
 for the people unless *thei willin paien,' and in 
 the reply of Friar Dan Topias with Jacke Upland's 
 rejoinder, of the year 1401, are the following 
 lines : — 
 
 'But sith that wickide worme, 
 Wyclif be his name, 
 Began to sowe the seed 
 Of cism in the erthe.' 
 
 These references to the chronicles of the times 
 show how the whole matter had eaten into the 
 hearts of even the common folk, and how bitter 
 was the persecution of these earliest reformers, 
 and they fully account for Payne's journey into 
 Bohemia. The first important mention we have 
 
PETER PAYNE'S LIFE-WORK 39 
 
 of his name is where it occurs in a list of the 
 men who, in the year 1420, were held in high 
 esteem in Prague ; and here he is spoken of as 
 the Englishman Peter Payne, 'who is generally 
 spoken of as Meister Englisch.' Five years had 
 elapsed since Huss had died for his adherence 
 to Wycliffe's teaching, and already his followers 
 were beginning to break up into those sects that 
 so weakened the unity of Bohemia. A year 
 before, the strange town of Tabor had been 
 founded by the troops of people who streamed 
 out to this tent-bedecked, water-surrounded height 
 to worship God in their own fashion under the 
 free heavens ; and it was in the controversies 
 between the Praguers and the Taborites that 
 Payne's name first came prominently forth as a 
 peacemaker between the controversialists. The 
 Taborites had drawn up certain propositions upon 
 the fourth of the famous Prague Articles, upon 
 the frequenting taverns, extravagance in dress, 
 deceptions in work and trade ; and these the New 
 Town of Prague had agreed with, but the Old 
 Town wavered in their decision, not being willing 
 to adopt the reading of the Taborites. But their 
 
40 A FORGOTTEN GREAT ENGLISHMAN 
 
 leaders went to Peter Payne, and after they had 
 been instructed by him they fell in with their 
 fellow-townsmen, and, with some qualifications, 
 and under certain conditions, were one with the 
 Taborites. 
 
 This first action of Payne's gives us the key 
 to his work in Bohemia. It was generally that 
 of a peacemaker and arbitrator, and though we 
 shall find him standing up boldly before council 
 and pope and emperor, holding forth and ex- 
 pounding with fiery words the teaching of his 
 master, Wycliffe, yet generally he is the mediator 
 between the passionate fighting sects of the 
 Bohemians. 
 
 The teaching of the Taborites was similar to 
 the dream of honest revolutionists in all ages — 
 those of 1789 and 1848, and of some few socialists 
 of the present day. There was to be no king or 
 over-lord ; all were to be brothers and sisters. 
 'In Tabor,' ran their first article, 'there is no 
 mine and thine, all is in common ; and so it 
 ever shall be — all in common, and no personal 
 property. Whoever holds such shall commit a 
 deadly sin.' But in Tabor, as in both earlier and 
 
PETER PAYNE'S LIFE-WORK 41 
 
 later years, this impossible dream of a universal 
 brotherhood soon vanished, and the laws of mine 
 and thine were re-established. 
 
 This first public action of Payne's was in the 
 year 1420, and between this and the next time 
 we hear of him, on November 14, 142 1, ensued 
 a time of terror and tumult, and of the fiercest 
 bloodshed in Bohemia: King Sigmund fleeing, 
 and then promising all that is demanded of him, 
 earning his title of the ' word-breaker,' and leaving 
 his land to be torn by furious sects, who com- 
 mitted fearful horrors in religion's name. In 
 Prague the quarrel was developing into a class-war 
 of democracy against aristocracy, the former being 
 led by Priester Johann, formerly a monk of Selaw. 
 It was as a mediator between this Priester Johann 
 and the magistrates of Prague, upon certain points 
 laid down for the more peaceable ordering of the 
 town, that we find Peter Payne again chosen. 
 
 Between this mention of his name and any 
 further record of his life five fiery bloody years 
 pass over Bohemia. Ziska, with his waggon-forts, 
 marched and countermarched against Sigmund 
 with a rapidity that astonished his contemporaries, 
 
42 A FORGOTTEN GREAT ENGLISHMAN 
 
 but with such attendant horrors that after his 
 victory at Deutsch-Brod his remorse for the deeds 
 of cruelty was so great that it clung to him until 
 his death. But Ziska was dead, and the great 
 victory of the Hussites at Aussig over the 
 Germans had been won ere we hear of Payne 
 in the presence of Prince Koryhut upholding 
 Wycliffe's doctrines. A reaction had set in in 
 Prague against the teaching of Wycliffe and his 
 follower Huss, and the priests and doctors of that 
 town now taught that the communion should truly 
 be taken both in bread and wine by the laity, but 
 that many other of the doctrines of Wycliffe were 
 heretical, or at least mischievous and errorful. 
 And M. Pribram, who is described as 'the most 
 miserable of sinners, but a warm denouncer of 
 heresy, and especially of Wycliffism and Picardism,' 
 commenced in such hot terms to inveigh against 
 these errors that the followers of Wycliffe began 
 to fear that if Wycliffe be declared heretical, Huss, 
 his follower, must also be arraigned under the 
 same category. And to oppose the fiery denuncia- 
 tions of M. Pribram a discussion was arranged 
 in the university, and Peter Payne was chosen to 
 
44 A FORGOTTEN GREAT ENGLISHMAN 
 
 oppose M. Pribram, 'for he had ever defended 
 and taught most ardently and thoroughly the 
 views of his famous countryman.' The fiercest 
 struggle was, as usual, upon the point of tran- 
 substantiation ; and the importance of the task 
 thus set Payne is made clear by the Bohemian 
 historian's words: 'If,' he writes, 'matters had 
 gone according to M. Pribram, the Chalicers, out 
 of pure opposition to Wycliffism and the bolder 
 Hussites, would have been drawn even nearer to 
 Rome, and would soon have found themselves 
 again in the bosom of the Catholic Church, and 
 all their former sufferings and struggles would 
 have been but strayings from the right way and 
 as but an injurious dream.' And so the moment 
 came when a decision must be made whether 
 Hussitism (ignoring the sects of Taborites and 
 Orphans) should have a self-existence, and become 
 an organic development in the inner life of the 
 future. 
 
 As this discussion led up to an important step 
 in Payne's life, we must briefly follow the events 
 of the next year, although his name is not 
 mentioned in them ; but the fact of his sustaining 
 
PETER PAYNE'S LIFE-WORK 45 
 
 the weight of the defence, and his after action, 
 proves that he must have been in the whole heat 
 and turmoil of the events. 
 
 Prince Koryhut, thinking that M. Pribram's 
 party outnumbered Payne's, as we may term it, 
 quickened the decision, but not to his own 
 advantage. He sent a private messenger to Pope 
 Martin, writing that the Bohemians were ready to 
 fall into the Church's arms if but the pope would 
 himself hear them. The pope was only willing to 
 listen to them if they unreservedly bowed to the 
 Church's teaching and did not come to wrangle 
 and argue upon various points ; and he appointed 
 King Wladislaw and Prince Witold as their inter- 
 cessors. But the Hussites, as the victors, did not 
 care to become pleaders to the defeated power, 
 and even the moderate Chalicers objected to such 
 an action. These now had as their leader M. 
 Johann Rokycana, a man of poor parentage, but 
 of great power, and preacher in the Marien-Tein 
 church. Many others amidst the moderate party, 
 with priests, doctors, and burghers, and even close 
 adherents of the prince, objected with Rokycana 
 to this approaching of Rome ; and when at length 
 
46 A FORGOTTEN GREAT ENGLISHMAN 
 
 this preacher, on April 17, 1427, made publicly 
 known the truth of the letter of the prince, one 
 of those scenes occurred with which Prague in 
 those days was so familiar. The bearers of the 
 prince's letter had been captured during the night. 
 The words of an old song, which may be translated 
 as follows, quaintly recite the scene : — 
 
 'They rode out of Prague as night began, 
 Well knowing what Koryhut secretly span ; 
 But when they rode back from their ride of night, 
 They brought all the rogues in the full daylight. 
 They bid ring the bells from the towers on high, 
 And the folk all flocked to the Tein hard by. 
 Not long did the priests in the church there stay, 
 But streamed to the Ring in the light of day ; 
 And they cried aloud, with fearful cries, 
 "Beloved, we're threatened! To arms, arise." 
 And the streaming folk then quickly knew 
 With treacherous letters they had to do.' 
 
 The bells did ring forth, and the people, armed, 
 swarmed in street and square, crying out, ' Treason !' 
 Two men of the court, at the head of an armed 
 troop, possessed themselves of the prince, and 
 at night carried him to the castle. Many of the 
 doctors, Pribram amongst them, were imprisoned 
 in the Rathhouse, and so, without at least blood- 
 shed, Rokycana's party gained the upper hand ; 
 and after Easter the prince was taken to one of 
 
PETER PAYNE'S LIFE-WORK 47 
 
 the wildest castles in all Bohemia, a castle the 
 only entrance to which was, and is, between two 
 narrow walls of rock pierced for shooters, and 
 at this castle, Waldstein, so secretly was he kept, 
 that his faithful followers, amongst whom was 
 the owner of the castle, did not know where 
 he was. 
 
 When quiet was restored articles were drawn 
 up to preserve peace and unity, declaring how 
 and what should be believed, and what rules and 
 ordinances in the Christian's observances should 
 be obeyed ; and these articles give the difference 
 between the true Chalicers and Rome, and also in 
 what they differ from the Taborites and Orphans. 
 The articles upon transubstantiation, upon which 
 Payne felt and spoke so strongly, ran thus : ^ The 
 visible altar sacrament, that Christ Himself, His 
 apostles, and other saints in truth call "bread," 
 is in a miraculous and secret manner before the 
 eyes of our mind and understanding the true 
 body of our Lord Jesus Christ as He received it 
 from the Virgin Mary, died upon the cross, rose 
 again from the dead, and sitteth on the right hand 
 of God.' This was to be simply believed ; and 
 
48 A FORGOTTEN GREAT ENGLISHMAN 
 
 no new interpretation was to be sought for or 
 accepted. This article was directed not only 
 against the Taborites, but most especially against 
 Peter Payne, so writes the Bohemian chronicler ; 
 and thus it happened that this ' talented foreigner ' 
 separated from the Praguers, joined himself first 
 of all to the followers of Ziska, called the 
 ' Orphans,' and afterwards to the Taborites, be- 
 coming one of their most noteworthy teachers. 
 
 Split up as Bohemia now was, yet against 
 outward foes and Rome she so unitedly held 
 her ground that even Rome bent to arguments 
 with her, until the question was asked what was 
 there left of truth, holiness, or safety, when the 
 Church itself was in doubt and wandering? The 
 Taborites and Orphans sent forth their armies 
 into the wild Lausitz territory, now Silesia. They 
 had learnt Rome's teaching of vexatio dat intel- 
 lectum, and assumed the offensive under Priest 
 Prokop the Great, who almost equalled Ziska as 
 a general ; and in Austria also their troops had 
 been successful. The prosperous town of Zittau, 
 though aided in its defence by the Teutonic Order 
 of Knights, was besieged, and the towns of 
 
PETER PAYNES LIFE-WORK 49 
 
 Hirschfeld, Oschitz, Bernstadt, and Lauban were 
 taken, and the inhabitants brutally murdered. 
 The priests flying to their churches, only to be 
 hewn down or burnt. 
 
 To stay the dreaded power that now seemed 
 to threaten all Europe, Pope Martin V. strove to 
 induce a new crusade against the Bohemians, and 
 to aid this, appointed Henry of Beaufort, Bishop 
 of Winchester (whom he had specially raised to 
 the cardinalate as a strength against Hussitism), 
 as legate of the apostolic chair for Bohemia, 
 Hungary, and Germany. 'His name,' ran the 
 mandate, ' the name of a kingly and victorious 
 race, would so much the more set the enemies of 
 the Church in fear, as his fame was remarkable 
 for the highest virtues, wisdom, experience, and 
 knowledge.' Thus we have the strange fact that 
 an Englishman, cardinal and bishop, with all 
 Europe and the power of Rome at his back, is 
 appointed by the pope to arouse a crusade to 
 destroy that which in every critical moment was 
 being vigorously sustained and advanced by that 
 other Englishman, plain Peter Payne, the defender 
 of the teaching of Wycliffe. 
 
50 A FORGOTTEN GREAT ENGLISHMAN 
 
 Mighty indeed now were the efforts made to 
 crush finally this tiny land, whose sturdy, vigorous, 
 and heroic enthusiasts defied all Europe. A new 
 order of knighthood, that of St. George, was 
 instituted, the members binding themselves 
 especially to combat the godless heretics of 
 Bohemia. In Germany all feud was to be laid 
 aside, and all countries — Holland and Alsace, 
 Suabia and Switzerland, France, Saxony, Pome- 
 rania, and Austria, joined in raising armies to 
 defeat finally this heretical force. Cardinal Henry 
 of England came at the head of a thousand 
 Englishmen to aid in that defeat, to crush and 
 slaughter the Wycliffites of Bohemia, as the Lollards 
 had been crushed in England. Their own weapons 
 were to be used against them, for waggon-forts 
 were to be with each army. 
 
 But the supreme danger had united Bohemia, 
 as danger ever did. Praguers, Taborites, and 
 Orphans combined ; but their whole force against 
 this mighty host was not fourteen thousand foot- 
 men and fifteen hundred horse, with waggons and 
 guns ; but, with Priester Prokop at their head. 
 Cardinal Henry joined the crusading host only 
 
PETER PAYNE'S LIFE-WORK 51 
 
 to meet the first fugitives, and his rage at their 
 cowardice was intense. He placed himself, with 
 the papal banner unfurled, at the head of the few 
 who heeded him, and, crucifix in hand, stayed 
 the flight, but only for two days. The whole 
 host of crusaders formed once more in battle 
 array at Sachaw, and the princes and leaders 
 swore an oath that they would stand by each 
 other ; but the approach of the Bohemian army 
 scattered their firm resolves, and even at the 
 commencement of the fight fleeing bodies of men 
 threw the whole army into disorder. All prayers 
 and threats of the Cardinal Bishop of Winchester 
 were useless. Useless his mighty rage, and his 
 seizing the imperial banner and tearing it, and with 
 fearful curses trampling it beneath his feet. Terror 
 of the dreaded waggon-forts and the mighty heretics 
 who manned them possessed the whole hosts ; and 
 Henry of Winchester must needs fly himself or fall 
 into their hands. 
 
 And thus ended for the time this other great 
 Englishman's attempt to enter Bohemia by force of 
 arms. He wrote of the defeat that it was caused 
 by the absence of good tactics and organization on 
 
52 A FORGOTTEN GREAT ENGLISHMAN 
 
 the part of the crusaders. It was not the number 
 of troops that were required, but war-hardened and 
 war-practised warriors, as were the Bohemians 
 themselves ; and he suggested that levies in future 
 should be directed to the sustaining of armies of 
 such men, to combat this terrible foe. And so an 
 income-tax was imposed upon all over fifteen years 
 of age, and with this tax a mighty host of trained 
 inured soldiers was to be raised, to be upon the 
 borders of Bohemia on St. John's Day, 1428. The 
 appointed leaders of the new crusade were Cardinal 
 Legate Henry of Winchester, and the Margrave 
 Frederick of Brandenburg. Pope Martin wrote to 
 his newly appointed English legate, 'Thou art 
 truly the man we took thee for, since thou hast 
 shown so much courage and foresight,' a lengthy 
 and flattering letter, and he also issued a bull 
 commanding that the yearly tithes should be 
 devoted to the raising of this army. But in another 
 matter he and his legate went counter to one 
 another ; for whilst the pope in his bull described 
 all Hussites as Adamites (a istrange sect whose 
 religion ofttimes developed into orgies of lust, and 
 who took the sacrament naked in the open air ; a 
 
PETER PAYNES LIFE-WORK 53 
 
 sect living and hiding themselves in forests and 
 valleys), and commanded that no disputations 
 should be held with them, for the Church required 
 no further testimony of its truth, yet Cardinal 
 Henry had instituted a disputation to try and 
 convince the Bohemians of their errors. 
 
 The discussion took place in the castle of Zebrak ; 
 and we find our forgotten Englishman's influence 
 has been silently working, for, with Master Johann 
 of Rokycana, he is chosen to defend the tenets and 
 faith of the Bohemians. This conflict of two 
 Englishmen, the one with the whole power of 
 Europe behind him, both church and sword, the 
 other with only his power of mind and ardent soul, 
 is remarkable. Of Payne's action of body we have 
 but little; it is whenever mind and soulful sustaining 
 is required that the Chalicers immediately fly to him. 
 That he was ofttimes in extreme danger we can 
 glean, but in fighting he does not seem to have 
 joined, as did so many of the priests and doctors of 
 the time. This disputation led to no conviction 
 of the Bohemians of their error by the Romish 
 delegates, neither does it seem to have welded 
 more closely together Praguers, Taborites, and 
 
54 A FORGOTTEN GREAT ENGLISHMAN 
 
 Orphans. M. Pribram, Payne's old opponent, treats 
 of this disputation in a tractate, but only in a 
 cursory manner. 
 
 Whilst the theologians were discussing, the 
 Bohemian armies of each sect were marching 
 triumphantly to Pressburg, in Hungary, on the 
 south, through Silesia on the north, and on to 
 Breslau, and then away to Austria and the Danube 
 borders and through Bavaria, taking towns, villages, 
 and castles, and immense booty ; but, according to 
 a letter addressed to the Grand Master of the 
 ' Deutschen Orden,' sparing the common people, 
 * burning only the churches, priests' houses, noble 
 estates, and inns ; ' and thus by their leniency 
 drawing into them the poor of the countries through 
 which they marched. In spite of this victorious 
 march of the Bohemians, the Germans refused to 
 pay the taxes the pope had ordered to be levied ; 
 and Cardinal Henry of England's energetic help 
 was not at hand, for home affairs and troubles had 
 called him back to England. 
 
 Until the spring of 1429 this work of fighting and 
 bloody retaliation went on intermittently, until Hcrr 
 Meinhard, of Neuhaus, a leader of the nobles, but 
 
FETER PAYNBS LIFE-WORK 55 
 
 the son of an ardent Wycliffite, took the opportunity 
 of King Sigmund being at Pressburg to arrange a 
 meeting between the king and the rehgious leaders 
 of the Hussites. Priester Prokop, as leader both 
 in religion and war, stands first of those chosen to 
 meet the king, but next comes the name of Peter 
 Payne ; and these two, with other delegates and 
 some two hundred horsemen, make their way from 
 Bohemia over the mountains, and down the Danube 
 flood to royal Pressburg. Prokop, knowing well he 
 had to do with Sigmund, the ' word-breaker,' taking 
 care to have a safe-conduct from him, made sure by 
 the persons of two princely hostages and other 
 nobles. 
 
 At Pressburg were assembled the chief represen- 
 tatives of all the opposing parties, one of the chief 
 of the king's party being Ulrich of Rosenberg, who 
 played so important a role in Bohemia's history in 
 the coming years. He held the castles and 
 enormous territory now owned by Prince Schwar- 
 zenberg. Germany also sent bishops and doctors 
 to uphold her views of the questions in discussion, 
 and from Paris also came four learned doctors. 
 
 The disputation lasted until April 9 ; and 
 
56 A FORGOTTEN GREAT ENGLISHMAN' 
 
 Sigmund, ever bending to the ascendant of the 
 moment, was gracious and friendly to the Hussites. 
 He spoke of his kingly right, and of his inborn love 
 to Bohemia, and begged them to quit their new 
 ideas and tumult, and to return to the faith of their 
 fathers. If, however, they would not do this, then 
 let there be a truce, until two years hence a general 
 council of the whole Christian Church would be 
 assembled at Basle, and before this council they 
 could lay their articles and submit themselves to 
 this supreme judge in matters of faith ; until then 
 let there be a truce between them and all Christian 
 countries. 
 
 The answer to this mild speech of Sigmund's 
 was such as Payne ever gave to the soft conciliatory 
 words which would lead the Hussites from the faith 
 of Wycliffe. Palacky does not say the words are 
 Payne's, but the thought is certainly his. * It was 
 not they (the Bohemians) who had departed from 
 the old true Christian faith, but their opponents ; 
 and there could be no peace until the Church 
 returned from all its false ways again to the teaching 
 of Christ and His apostles. As to the coming 
 council, if it resembled Constance, to that they 
 
PETER PAYNE'S LIFE-WORK $7 
 
 could not submit themselves, as there their bitterest 
 enemies enounced the law ; and it would be 
 madness to appear before their enemies' judgment- 
 seat. Therefore there must be a higher and non- 
 partisan judge between the council and themselves ; 
 that judge should be the Holy Scriptures and the 
 law of God, and the writings of those learned men 
 who stedfastly had built their work upon that law.* 
 This sharp difference even the flattering words 
 of Sigmund could not smooth away, and at length 
 the Bohemians drove him from his diplomatic 
 gentleness. They had addressed him as king, but 
 not of Bohemia — as King of Hungary and Rome. 
 This he bore silently, but they informed him that 
 should he change his faith they would receive him 
 more gladly than any other in the world, and aid 
 him against all his enemies. This was too much 
 for even Sigmund's pliability, and he burst forth, 
 and swore by God and all present, he would rather 
 die than change his faith. The congress ended 
 in the deputies stating they had not the full power 
 to act in the name of the nation, and a Landtag 
 was called in Prague for May 23, at which 
 Sigmund's ambassadors were to be present. 
 
58 A FORGOTTEiV GREAT EyCLISUMAN 
 
 And thus we can picture Rokycana and Payne 
 and the other deputies again wending their way 
 back from the heights of Pressburg overlooking 
 the wide Danube, on over the hills and passes of 
 Bohemia, back into the plain-lands around Prague, 
 and being received with anxious hearts and ques- 
 tionings as they came in sight of the high fortress- 
 walled rock of the Wyscherad, that had witnessed so 
 much bloodshed and such fearful horrors for the 
 right of free conscience and the tenets of their 
 English leader Wycliffe. 
 
 The Landtag was held, and certain conditions 
 laid down by the Bohemians for the time, and also 
 for the conduct of the council ; amongst others 
 that, to be a ' general council,' it was necessary 
 that the Greeks and Armenians, and all who 
 received both bread and wine in the sacrament, 
 should be present. The Taborites also laid before 
 the king their own six points for a reconciliation, 
 but without issue. 
 
 Sigmund had not waited for these conditions, 
 but had supported the pope in bidding a new 
 crusade against Bohemia to be proceeded with ; 
 and again we have that other Englishman, Henry 
 
PETER FAYAE'S LIFE-WORK 59 
 
 of Winchester, hastening with energy to suppress 
 once for all Wycliffe's growing power in Europe. 
 Not a thousand, but five thousand, fighting English- 
 men he had now with him wherewith to stay the 
 timid Germans from fleeing from the waggon-forts 
 of the Chalicers ; and what effect these five thousand 
 English crusaders might have had upon the history 
 of Europe and the foundations of the Reformation 
 cannot be told, for at this moment had uprisen in 
 France a religious enthusiast whose presence had 
 aroused her countrymen to feel that even the 
 English were not indomitable ; and Henry of 
 Winchester and his five thousand fighting men, 
 though they were marching through Belgium, were 
 hastily called upon to give up their crusade against 
 the Wycliffites and to march to France to aid their 
 countrymen, who were fleeing before the Maid of 
 Orleans. Unwillingly by the cardinal, readily by 
 his men, was this call obeyed, and the Germans 
 quickly seized upon his absence to give up the 
 crusade ; and thus was it that the defeat of the 
 English in France by Joan of Arc aided the onward 
 progress of Peter Payne in Bohemia in his fervent, 
 assiduous teaching and upholding of Wycliffe's faith. 
 
^o A FORGOTTEN GREAT ENGLISHMAN 
 
 And thus 'the Maid' was aiding that mightier 
 movement that was to sweep away for ever the 
 universal power of that Church of which she was 
 so devoted a follower. Joan of Arc thus helped 
 forward the Reformation. How powerfully her 
 work in other respects then tended in favour of the 
 Romish Church may be gathered from the fact that 
 a letter was circulated amongst the Bohemians 
 threatening them with the wrath of God * and the 
 Maid ' unless they quickly and fully returned to 
 their obedience to the Church. 
 
 Whilst these events were agitating Europe, the 
 town of Prague was by no means at peace. As 
 usual, when at truce with their foreign foes the 
 Bohemians strove amidst themselves ; the old and 
 the new town were ever rivals ; and heal their quar- 
 rels as they would, there was no real unity so long 
 as the different religious divisions were at variance. 
 M. Johann Pribram, the great opponent of Wycliffe, 
 was again at liberty, and was renewing his ardent 
 opposition to his teachings. ' And as Mr. Peter 
 Payne, the countryman and chief pupil of Wycliffe, 
 never ceased to defend his master with courage 
 and keenness and penetration,' it was determined 
 
PETER PAYNES LIFE-WORK 6 1 
 
 to hold a disputation between the two, each being 
 supported by four of their most important men. 
 
 The ordering of this debate is a great proof of 
 the high esteem in which Payne was held (though 
 of that we shall have greater proof), and if further 
 at the moment is wanted, the names of the men 
 who supported him give it. The four were the 
 chief leader, M. Johann, of Rokycana ; Priest 
 Wenzel, of Drachow ; Priest Peter Nemec, of Saaz ; 
 and Niklas, of Pilgram, Bishop of the Taborites, 
 the latter name being a sign that Payne was now 
 in fellowship with the Taborites. 
 
 For three weeks this debate lasted. Pribram 
 strove before all to deny any unity between Huss 
 and Wycliffe, and chose two hundred passages from 
 Wycliffe's writings that were heretical, erroneous, or 
 at least vexatious. Payne won great praise by the 
 acuteness with which he handled these passages, 
 and proved them to be true and Christian teachings ; 
 but when the discussion turned upon the question of 
 transubstantiation, two of his followers left him to 
 agree with Pribram, Rokycana, and Dracow ; but 
 Payne was successful in proving error in many of 
 Pribram's statements ; and the outcome of the 
 
62 A FORGOTTEN GREAT ENGLISHMAN 
 
 debate was rather a truce than a reconciliation. 
 None of those concerned in the debates were to be 
 denounced as heretics, whether the dead or living, 
 Wycliffe or Huss, Jacobellus, or Payne, or Pribram, 
 and the words of either were not to be made public 
 save in Latin. 
 
 But Pribram could not adhere to this, and 
 quickly denounced Wycliffe and Payne, and all the 
 Taborite party, as heretics, and this in Bohemian. 
 The Taborites responded, at a conference held in 
 Tabor from the 6th to the 13th of January, 1430, 
 by a strong command to all their followers that no 
 priest of Pribram's party should be suffered 
 amongst them. 
 
 From this date until the next mention of Payne's 
 name two years elapse, the Bohemians meanwhile 
 marching triumphantly far away eastward to 
 Leipzig and Altenburg, making their name feared, 
 until a truce was again established, Nurnbergers 
 and Bambergers and Bavarians paying heavy 
 tribute to the Bohemians; and a peaceful deputa- 
 tion at Nurnberg was arranged for April 23, 
 1430. The return of the army to Prague was 
 delayed through the weight of their waggons, that 
 
PETER PAYNE'S LIFE-WORK 63 
 
 were overladen with treasure and booty, so that six, 
 'yea, frequently even fourteen horses could scarcely 
 move one of them ! ' 
 
 The effect of the teaching of Wyclifie was, through 
 the adherence of Huss and his followers, and the 
 firm and stedfast upholding of it by his ardent 
 pupil Peter Payne, spreading and taking root in 
 Europe, especially in Germany and France, and 
 even in Spain many began to waver and be un- 
 settled in their faith. The Hussites were most 
 earnest against the misuse of worldly power by 
 the 'priesthood, and against the heavy rule of the 
 nobles over the common folk ; and their ever- 
 continuous and unbroken victories made many ask 
 whether God was not with them, and their cause 
 just. Thus silently the way was being prepared 
 for the later reformers, Luther and his followers. 
 
 To read of the struggles of class and race in 
 Bohemia of to-day, in this nineteenth century, 
 of Old and Young Cechs, of Catholics and 
 neo-Hussites, is but to read the story of the 
 continuation of the struggles which were so bitterly 
 fought in the fifteenth century. The same families 
 even take sides for and against Catholics and 
 
64 A FORGOTTEN GREAT ENGLISHMAN 
 
 Hussites as in the days of Peter Payne ; and to 
 visit tlie old castles of the Rosenbergs (now 
 occupied by the Schwarzenbergs), the Waldsteins, 
 or, as we term them, Wallensteins, is to be amidst 
 the struggles of class and race of to-day in the 
 scenes where these same struggles were most 
 fiercely and bloodily enacted just four hundred 
 years ago. But to-day Austria is ruled by an 
 emperor who is loved and trusted by all races 
 and all classes, and the personal love for whom is 
 the cement that binds the various sects and races ; 
 but in Payne's time the emperor was one whom 
 no one trusted and no one loved, and noble and 
 baron, and burgher and peasant, looked for no 
 loving help from Sigmund the * word-breaker.' 
 
 Knowing that this triumphant people must be 
 brought into subjection if the power of Rome 
 was to be maintained, and doubting Sigmund's 
 power to crush them, the pope now turned first to 
 the Teutonic knights, and then to the King of 
 Poland and the princes of Lithuania, for help. 
 And yet onward went the armies of the Taborites 
 and Orphans, ever victorious, and with three Slavic 
 princes in their ranks, until again a congress was 
 
PETER PAYNE'S LIFE-WORK 65 
 
 called at Krakau by Prince Koryhut, to allow the 
 different sects a further opportunity of debating 
 their varicus points of belief 
 
 Again we have Peter Payne, with Priest Prokop 
 and a numerous following, leaving Bohemia to 
 support their faith at this congress, in the presence 
 of King Wladislaw. As at Pressburg, the dis- 
 cussion ended in naught, though the old king 
 begged that the Bohemians would take him as 
 an example, for from a heathen he had become a 
 Christian. Let them, therefore, return into the 
 true way of salvation. We can imagine Payne's 
 answer as to what was the true path. But the 
 whole assemblage was dismissed without real issue, 
 as the king communicated to the pope and King 
 Sigmund. 
 
 In the following year, the year marked by the 
 assembling of the Council of Basle, and the death 
 of Pope Martin V., a yet further crusade against 
 the little mountain-encircled land of Bohemia was 
 to be launched — a mighty host that had the fiery 
 assistance of Cardinal Julian, who replaced the 
 passionate energy of Cardinal Beaufort ; but with 
 a like result. Ninety thousand footmen and forty 
 
 E 
 
66 A FORGOTTEN GREAT ENGLISHMAN 
 
 thousand horsemen crossed the frontier. At Taus 
 the two armies met, the noise of the waggon-forts 
 of the Hussites, with their clanging connecting 
 chains, and the shout of their victorious chant, 
 *Ye who are God's warriors,' that had so often 
 struck terror in the armies of pope and king, being 
 heard long ere they came in sight. Cardinal 
 Julian mounted a hill to watch the defeat of the 
 heretics, but, like Cardinal Beaufort, he had to flee 
 for his life, leaving the papal bull that ordered the 
 crusade, his golden crucifix, his mantle, and coat 
 in the hands of those same heretics. The end of 
 the victory was that ere long all Bohemia and 
 Moravia was free from its enemies ; and * the 
 Holy Chalice,' the victorious sign of the national 
 unity and spirit, ruled without opposition in the 
 Fatherland, to the joy of its children and the 
 dread of its enemies. And thus again the warriors 
 of Bohemia secured at the Council of Basle a 
 hearing for her doctors and priests, at whose head 
 ever ruled with his influence our own great 
 countryman. 
 
 The power of this victory was shown by the 
 great care with which the letter to the Bohemians 
 
PETER PAYNE'S LIFE-WORK 
 
 67 
 
 begging their presence at the Council of Basle was 
 drawn up. The name of the Cardinal Julian was 
 omitted from it, though his seal was attached to it ; 
 and every point which could offend was avoided. 
 
 To consider the important matter of sending 
 delegates to Basle a preparatory meeting was 
 arranged at Eger, and here on May 8, 1432, 
 assembled some ninety representatives of the 
 different parties in Bohemia ; Peter Payne's name 
 coming just before Priest Prokop the Great. They 
 had already received the terms upon which the 
 council were ready to give them what was called 
 a free hearing, and they in their turn drew up 
 eleven articles as the conditions upon which they 
 would appear before the council. Many were 
 the difficulties to be overcome, and many the 
 dangers of surprise and treachery to be guarded 
 against ; but at length, at Eger, all was arranged, 
 and Priest Prokop the Great wrote to Kino- 
 Sigmund, begging his personal presence at the 
 council, and his safe -conduct — a letter which 
 Sigmund most diplomatically and graciously 
 answered. 
 
 But whilst these letters were passing, the now 
 
68 A FORGOTTEN GREAT ENGLISHMAN 
 
 reunited Taborites and Orphans sent forth an 
 army, under their fighting priest and leader Prokop, 
 that marched through Silesia and the Lausitz, and 
 even taking Bernau, near Berlin, but leaving Berlin 
 alone. Other troops possessed themselves of 
 Tyrnan in Hungary, and their ambassadors were 
 well received by King Wladislaw of Poland. 
 
 A yet further Landtag was held at the rich and 
 important town of Kuttenberg, to again consider 
 who should be the ambassadors at Basle, and as to 
 their bearing when there. At this Landtag Peter 
 Payne was again present, and two forerunners 
 were appointed to proceed to Basle to make all 
 arrangements, or to lay certain points before the 
 Council, and also to arrange for the housing and 
 living of the ambassadors themselves. 
 
 At length, on December 6, 1432, the Bohemians 
 set out from Taus on their eventful journey to 
 Basle. In the list of the names *M. Peter Payne, 
 from England,' occurs after Johann Rokycana, 
 and before that of their mighty fighting priest, 
 M. Prokop, a position full of significance, which 
 his earnestness and the ability displayed before 
 the Council fully justified. 
 
PETER PAYNES LIFE-WORK 69 
 
 The progress of the ambassadors through 
 Germany was a veritable triumphal march. 
 Nobles and people strove to do these hated 
 heretics honour. Thirty-two nobles came from 
 Germany to accompany them on their way as far 
 as Cham, and there awaited them Konrad, Bishop 
 of Regensberg, with other nobles, who led them 
 on their journey as far as Nurnberg. Not with 
 bent heads and silent steps, as messengers from 
 a despised race, did they proceed through an 
 enemy's country, but with banners flying over 
 their carriages, and the hated sign of their beloved 
 chalice floating over them ; for Mathias Lauda had 
 raised a standard above his carriage, whereon 
 waved a banner upon which was painted upon one 
 side Christ upon the cross, whilst upon the other 
 was the Chalice and Host, with the inscription, 
 Veritas omnia vincet. And the other Hussite 
 carriages had similar inscriptions and painting 
 upon their coverings. 
 
 At Nurnberg, Lauda allowed himself to be 
 persuaded by the accompanying nobles to put 
 away his banner, as it aroused dissensions amongst 
 the people through which they passed ; but the 
 
70 A FORGOTTEN GREAT ENGLISHMAN 
 
 people of Nurnberg received them nobly, and 
 made them many presents. 
 
 Surely Payne must have thought, whilst thus 
 traversing in triumph half Central Europe, that his 
 master Wycliffe's work had borne great fruit ; that 
 his own unceasing efforts to uphold it in the midst 
 of this determined and indomitable people had 
 spread the light of pure truth over a mighty 
 expanse of territory, and in the hearts of many 
 nations. England had extinguished that light in 
 her own borders, but had, in driving him from her 
 shores, made it flame forth in a blaze of fire that 
 neither pope, nor king, nor council could put out. 
 How strange would have been his emotion could 
 he have foreseen that but fifty-seven years hence 
 a man should be born of the hated German race 
 that had so persistently striven to deluge the light 
 his whole life was given to feed ; a man who 
 should re-illumine the light of Reformation ever 
 smouldering, largely from Payne's own teaching, 
 and should carry it back to England, until she 
 became the successor of Bohemia in Reformation 
 work, the giver of freedom of conscience to all men, 
 and a true follower of his own master, Wycliffe ! 
 
PETER PAYNE'S LIFE-WORK 71 
 
 Well might Payne's thoughts be those of 
 triumph, intermingled with careful study of the 
 task before him, of convincing a Romish council 
 that Rome was in error. From Nurnberg, Albert, 
 the son of the Margrave of Brandenburg, conducted 
 the embassy to Gungenhaufen, and from here to 
 Schafifhausen the nobles of the district gave them 
 escort, the people of various towns striving to do 
 them honour, and presenting them with rich and 
 varied gifts. 
 
 From Schaffhausen they took ship and sailed 
 up the Rhine, entering Basle on January 4, 1433. 
 Thus they had been just a month in traversing 
 Europe from Bohemia to Basle. 
 
 Their unexpected arrival prevented their being 
 received with the honour which the Council had 
 prepared for them ; but the chief citizens hastened 
 to their ships ere they had left them, and the 
 people streamed in crowds to look upon the am- 
 bassadors of the much-dreaded heretics, especially 
 upon Prokop, their leader, *an unconquerable, 
 bold, restlessly active, no-danger-dreading com- 
 mander ; ' and before even this man's name the 
 Bohemians had placed that of Peter Payne. 
 
72 A FORGOTTEN GREAT ENGLISHMAN 
 
 At first they were lodged at the inns, but after a 
 few days they hired four houses for the leaders ; 
 and the order of these houses is noteworthy, as 
 they indicate the various parties of Bohemia. The 
 two leaders of the whole embassy occupied one 
 house. The second was occupied by the Prague 
 party, the third by the Taborites, and the fourth 
 by the Orphans. The last included Peter Payne 
 amongst them, thus showing that he had not yet 
 joined the Taborite party, although the two often 
 worked amicably together, especially when any 
 general danger threatened. 
 
 Cardinal Julian's manner had changed towards 
 the Bohemians since the day when he ascended 
 the hill-top at Taus to watch their leader Prokop 
 crushed beneath the overwhelming force that the 
 cardinal had around him. Now he sends two 
 messengers to greet that same Prokop and his 
 companions, and to express his joy at their safe 
 arrival at Basle ; and regrets that their coming by 
 water had prevented him from receiving them with 
 all honours he had prepared for them had they 
 come by land. 
 
 Priests and prelates, archbishops and holy 
 
PETER PAYNE'S LIFE-WORK 73 
 
 fathers, all hastened to greet the Bohemian leaders, 
 to flatter and feast them, and not without effect, 
 for this overwhelming homage and hospitality- 
 commenced to have its influence upon many, but 
 not upon our countryman Payne. He ever held 
 before him the one stedfast aim — the adhering to 
 and spreading of the teaching of Wycliffe. 
 
 Upon the feast of the Epiphany the Bohemians 
 celebrated in their houses the Holy Communion, 
 each sect according to its own rites ; and many 
 people of Basle pressed in to see the ceremony. 
 In that of the Prague Chalicers, was nothing 
 remarkable, except that the laity drank of the 
 cup ; but so much the more was the astonishment 
 at the plain ceremony of the Taborites, who had 
 neither altar nor vestments, nor any especial 
 ceremony, the whole service being only some short 
 prayers, a sermon, and the receiving of the 
 Communion in both kinds. In their own town 
 of Tabor they took the Communion at roughly 
 hewn stone tables, which stood in front of their 
 houses ; and one of these tables may still be seen 
 in position as in the Hussite days. 
 
 With the Orphans the sermon was preached in 
 
74 
 
 A FORGOTTEN GREAT ENGLISHMAN 
 
 German. It must be remembered that Payne 
 was the leader of this party, and the suggestion 
 that their sermon should be preached in a tongue 
 
 OLD HOUSE AT TABOR WITH STONE TABLE IN FRONT, AT WHICH THE 
 OPEN-AIR COMMUNION WAS TAKEN. 
 
 that would be understood by those around him 
 was very probably his. This he knew was the 
 only way to advance their cause amongst the 
 
FETER PAYNE'S LIFE-WORK • 75 
 
 common folk. All their speeches in the council 
 for this would be of no avail. At least, Payne's 
 influence was more than sufficient to have for- 
 bidden such an action ; and the excitement caused 
 by this sermon in German proved how dangerous 
 a step the council considered it, and how great 
 was their dread of the people hearing the teaching 
 of Payne and his followers. 
 
 A great commotion arose in the town, and 
 the cardinal's house was besieged by those who 
 begged him to stay this disorder. He called the 
 Bohemians to him, and begged them not to 
 preach in German— in Bohemian they might. 
 'But/ argued the Bohemians, 'we have German 
 servants amongst us who do not understand 
 Bohemian, and therefore we cannot give up 
 preaching in German ; and, in fact, by the Eger 
 condition we have a right to do so. We did 
 not invite the people of Basle to come to us, but 
 if they come we shall not shut them out. We 
 cannot stop preaching in German ; you must take 
 care yourselves that your people do not come 
 to us.' 
 
 That there was much of Payne's influence in 
 
76 A FORGOTTEN GREAT ENGLISHMAN 
 
 this action and bold answer we gather from the 
 incidents of the following day, January 7. 
 
 Priester Prokop invited the principal of his 
 followers, and also some of the Basle leaders, 
 to his table ; and ere long a hot dispute arose 
 between these latter and Peter Payne. Johann 
 Stoigkowic, of Ragusa, spoke of him as 'the 
 English Hussite, who was like a slippery snake : 
 the more you pressed him, so much the more 
 ably he extricated himself — a great compliment 
 to Payne's ability and knowledge in debate. Yet, 
 continues the chronicler who describes the hot 
 dispute, 'the bounds of propriety and politeness 
 were not overstepped.' 
 
 The general actions and discussions -of the 
 council we are not concerned with here, except 
 in so far as they affect our history of Payne, 
 though Palacky's account of them is so interesting 
 that it tempts one to reproduce it. 
 
 Upon January 16 the Bohemians were con- 
 ducted with all ceremony to the general assembly 
 of the council, and after their treasurer, Mathias 
 Lauda (he who had borne the banner over 
 his carriage), had spoken, introducing, as it were, 
 
PETER PAYNE'S LIFE-WORK 77 
 
 the embassy and its cause, and had been shortly 
 answered by Cardinal Julian, Peter Payne made 
 his first speech before the council upon the 
 text from the Psalm of David, 'When the sun 
 ariseth, they gather themselves together.' 
 
 In a poetical and allegorical manner he spoke 
 in praise of the Hussite teaching, comparing it 
 to the sun, and expressing the hope that as soon 
 as the people thoroughly understood it they would 
 all with joy hasten to accept it. 
 
 How readily his teaching was already being 
 seized upon by the common folk was well illus- 
 trated by an interlude in the proceedings of the 
 council, upon the complaint that some of the 
 serving-men of the Bohemians were spreading 
 amidst the villages around the faith of their 
 masters. It was true, answered Rokycana, that 
 their horse-boys went into the villages to get hay 
 for their horses, but surely they were incapable of 
 speaking upon religion ; but if the German folk, 
 out of curiosity, asked them as to their worship, 
 and they told them the truth, that could not be 
 called preaching, or spreading Hussite doctrines. 
 
 As at their entry into the council Peter Payne 
 
78 A FORGOTTEN GREAT ENGLISHMAN 
 
 had been nearly the first to speak, now, upon 
 January 26, he was the last to *take up his 
 parable' upon an important article — that of the 
 worldly rule of the priesthood. For three days he 
 earnestly spoke upon this weighty but dangerous 
 subject, for did he not thus arraign against himself 
 every self-seeking priest in Europe ? 
 
 His speech aroused the anger of the members 
 of the council, and the courage and indomitable 
 bravery of this Englishman is most worthy of 
 admiration ; standing up for days together amidst 
 an assembly of powerful and dangerous enemies, 
 feeling ofttimes that even those with whom he 
 was associated, and whose country he had made 
 his own, were wavering in the faith he had so 
 strenuously and unintermittingly taught ; yet, ever 
 persistently, and without fear, boldly in the face 
 of all revilings, or threats, or personal danger, 
 being constant in season and out of season in 
 upholding and teaching that faith. 
 
 Not only was the subject of his speech un- 
 pleasant to cardinal and council, but also his 
 manner of delivering it. Not only did he pour 
 forth words in praise of John Huss, but also of his 
 
PETER PAYNE'S LIFE-WORK 79 
 
 master, Wycliffe, and reproved in powerful words 
 their condemnation by the Council of Constance. 
 
 He described the discussions and struggles 
 which he had maintained in Oxford in favour of 
 Wycliffe's teaching, struggles which had compelled 
 him to leave his own country and take refuge in 
 Bohemia. This earnest reference of his to the 
 divisions in Oxford was too much for the other 
 Englishman present at the council, and a long 
 wordy debate ensued between them. At last he 
 handed in a ticket, upon which was written in few 
 words the pith and substance of his speech. It 
 ran somewhat thus : — 
 
 That the possession of worldly goods, so long 
 as they were not in excess and superfluous, might 
 be enjoyed by the priesthood. The administra- 
 tion, however, of estates and possessions, inasmuch 
 as they prejudiced the priestly office, should be 
 denied them, and in that direction, where the 
 sins of the priesthood habitually tended, duty and 
 right demanded that the cause and the charm of 
 that sin should be removed. In conclusion, he 
 asked that this ticket might be entered upon the 
 acts of the council. A most mild and moderate 
 
8o A FORGOTTEN GREAT ENGLISHMAN 
 
 statement, but one which had an intense sting to 
 many of those sitting around him. 
 
 M. Rokycana followed Payne ; and then Car- 
 dinal Julian replied in mild, conciliatory words, 
 breathing 'eternal unity and peace,' forgetful of 
 the scene on the hill-top, where raging hosts 
 were at his bidding fighting against these same 
 Bohemians. His peaceful words soon were 
 levelled at the various parties in the Bohemian 
 camp to cause strife amidst them ; and he 
 reminded them how one of their ambassadors 
 had spoken of Wycliffe as an evangelical doctor, 
 and read out twenty-eight articles in which Wy- 
 clifife's and the Taborites' and Orphans' teaching 
 was laid bare ; and he asked the Bohemians if 
 they recognized these articles. This first attempt 
 to divide the Bohemian forces failed. 
 
 The wordiness of these debates tending to 
 nothing, and promising to lead rather to division 
 than unity, Duke William of Bavaria proposed 
 that fifteen of either side should discuss in private 
 how an arrangement should be arrived at. But 
 the number of thirty was also too great, and still 
 discussion rather than agreement raged ; and Duke 
 
PETER PAYNES LIFE-WORK 
 
 William again intervened, and arranged that eight 
 only from either side should meet in Cardinal 
 Julian's dwelling, and in close conference discuss 
 the matter. But the only agreement arrived at 
 was — that in Basle all agreement was impossible. 
 This small committee was appointed upon 
 March 19. 
 
 The Bohemians had hoped that at last a part 
 of their teaching would be embodied in the 
 teaching of the Church ; but when they saw this 
 was not to be, their eagerness to discuss matters 
 in the council cooled, and they asked that an 
 embassy should be sent from the council to the 
 Landtag at Prague, to debate there, directly with 
 the people. They, the ambassadors, had no 
 power to sacrifice so many important points. 
 The council, seeing it was useless to continue in 
 Basle the negotiations, decided to appoint a 
 deputation to accompany the Bohemians to 
 Prague ; and whilst this was being arranged the 
 theologians were to continue their discussions. 
 
 At the end of March, Payne again spoke for 
 two days against Kalteisen, but with continuous 
 interruptions from his opponents. In this wordy 
 
 F 
 
82 A FORGOTTEN GREAT ENGLISHMAN 
 
 war Palacky remarks that Rokycana was re- 
 markable for his ready, forcible wit, and gave the 
 ' Ragusaner ' plenty to do ; and that Peter Payne 
 distinguished himself by his incisiveness. 
 
 The deputation appointed from the council to 
 Bohemia consisted of ten persons — the Bishops of 
 Coutance and of Augsburg, and eight others, 
 amongst whom was Alexander Sparur (? Sarum), 
 an archdeacon of England, so that Payne was 
 again to be intimately opposed by one of his own 
 countrymen. 
 
 Both Bohemians and the newly - appointed 
 legates from the council left Basle on April 14, 
 1433, 3.nd proceeded to Schaffhausen, where they 
 had left their carriages. And here a discussion 
 arose in which we can trace Payne's influence. 
 The legates suggested that the Taborite insignia 
 upon Lauda's carriage, or waggon, should be taken 
 down, and they begged Priest Prokop to speak 
 for them in this matter, and he did so. But after 
 a long discussion the Bohemians decided that to 
 hide and deny their insignia upon the waggons 
 would be a dishonour, but they agreed to roll up 
 their banners ; and these were no more displayed. 
 
PETER PAYNE'S LIFE-WORK 83 
 
 The Landtag was opened in Prague on June 
 12, and on the 13th the Basle legates were 
 introduced to the sitting, and were not a little 
 surprised to find that the Bohemians commenced 
 the business of each sitting by singing Veni 
 Saiicte Spiritiis, and with prayer. The prelimi- 
 nary discussion on this day was opened by three 
 priests, who sat near each other upon three 
 professorial chairs : for the Chalice party, M. 
 Johann Rokycana ; for the Orphans, M. Peter 
 Payne ; and for the Taborites, Niklas Viskupec, 
 of Pilgram ; Rokycana greeting the legates with a 
 speech upon a text of St. Paul to the Philippians. 
 Payne's position again proving his leadership and 
 authority amongst the Bohemians. 
 
 The debates continued much as in Basle, with- 
 out any conclusion being arrived at ; and though 
 the legates on one occasion agreed with a word- 
 of-mouth declaration of Rokycana's upon the four 
 Prague articles, yet, when this declaration was 
 brought forward in writing, they affirmed it had 
 been changed, and eight delegates were chosen 
 to discuss this matter, Peter Payne's name being 
 the second of this eis^ht. The four Prague 
 
84 A FORGOTTEN GREAT ENGLISHMAN 
 
 articles upon which the Wycliffites took their 
 stand were as follows : — 
 
 First : That the Word of God in the kingdom 
 of Bohemia shall be freely and without hindrance 
 preached and spread abroad by Christian preachers. 
 
 Second : That the holy sacrament of the Body 
 and Blood of Christ in both kinds shall be freely 
 given to all true Christians against whom no 
 deadly sins are charged. 
 
 Third : That since many priests and monks 
 rule in a worldly manner over much earthly goods, 
 against the law of Christ and to the injury and 
 prejudice of their spiritual office, as well as to the 
 great disadvantage of the temporal powers ; that 
 the possession of such unlawful property shall 
 be given up and discontinued by such priests, and 
 they shall live as examples according to Holy 
 Scripture, and be led into the way of Christ and 
 of His holy apostles. 
 
 Fourth : That all deadly sins, especially those 
 openly committed, as well as those disorderly acts 
 that are contrary to God's laws, shall be, by 
 those whose office it is, reasonably and in order, 
 stopped and punished ; that the evil and false 
 
PETER PAYNE'S LIFE-WORK 8$ 
 
 report of this land shall be removed, and the 
 general good of the kingdom and of the Bohemian 
 nation be advanced. 
 
 The sting of these articles lay in the third, and 
 in the list of sins to be punished, which ran :— 
 
 The sins particularized by the fourth article 
 were ' for the laity ; unchastity, gluttony, theft, 
 murder, lying, deceit, false swearing, magic, de- 
 ceptive and injurious handwork or business, greed 
 or usury or similar crimes. For the clergy; 
 simony, and heresy, obtaining of money for 
 baptism, confirmation, confessions, altar sacra- 
 ment, and the holy oil, marriage, for masses and 
 vigils, for burials, church singing, or bell ringing, 
 consecration of priests, churches, chapels, church- 
 yards, for absolution; for the bishops, arch 
 priests, abbots, deans, vicars, and altar rank; 
 panting for exchange of benefices, for bulls, and 
 such-like matters ; for any kind of stipend or 
 rank, or for any spiritual thing, off-ence or heresy 
 that issues herefrom and stains holy Church : and 
 also for other trespasses and sins, such as pride, 
 avarice, fornication, and other filthiness ; anger, 
 envy, strife, contentious citations or legal strivings ; 
 
86 A FORGOTTEN GREAT ENGLISHMAN 
 
 hypocritical begging of payments ; offerings, 
 money or other goods, for churches or buildings, 
 or other procuring from the common folk by 
 means of false excitement or cunning speeches.' 
 
 It was in favour of articles such as these that 
 Peter Payne spoke manfully for days before 
 the council. Small wonder, perchance, that the 
 priestly ^human nature withstood this wholesale 
 abolishment of nearly all the rich sources of 
 emolument and amusement it had hitherto en- 
 joyed. And the increased hatred against Payne 
 can be understood when we read further that upon 
 July I Payne took occasion to renew in warm 
 terms his denunciation of the temporal power of 
 the priesthood, narrowing his propositions more 
 closely down, and in this Priest Prokop sup- 
 ported him ; upon which one of the nobles 
 arose and requested them both to give up their 
 possessions to other priests who were not so shy 
 of having worldly goods. As for himself, he was 
 ready at any time to give up the Church property 
 of which he found himself the possessor. But on 
 July 3 the Basle ambassadors quitted Prague, 
 without having gained their end, a general truce. 
 
PETER PAYNES LIFE-WORK 87 
 
 The embassy returned to Prague again on 
 October 22, the victorious army of Bohemia 
 in the meanwhile having conquered even to 
 Dantzic and the shores of the Baltic, though they 
 had sustained a defeat in Bavaria. By the Baltic 
 waters they held great festivities, to signalize the 
 fact that naught but the sea stayed their victorious 
 march. The Bohemians thus possessing that ' desert 
 country near the sea ' that Shakespeare refers to. 
 
 The return of the embassy from Basle was also 
 made in Prague the occasion for festivities, 'in spite 
 of the fact that the pest was raging, of which twenty 
 thousand died. The conference recommenced 
 with the determination of both sides to give as 
 little and obtain as much as possible. But in this 
 the Basle deputies had the advantage, as they 
 knew exactly what they were to grant. But the 
 Bohemians were divided, and not of one voice ; 
 some would grant more to their opponents, some 
 less. At length the Basle delegates asked if the 
 Bohemians gained their desired aim in the matter 
 of the four articles, would they then agree in peace 
 and unity with the Church ? M. Rokycana replied 
 in the name of the whole Landtag they would, 
 
88 A FORGOTTEN GREAT ENGLISHMAN 
 
 and from the mouths of the whole assembly came 
 the loud cry of 'Yes, yes.' Only Peter Payne 
 arose, and said, ' We can only gain the desired 
 aim when we are all of one mind.' But a tumult 
 arose against this, and for the first time we read 
 that the Bohemians forced Payne to hold his peace. 
 They all longed for unity. Payne, more far-seeing, 
 looking into futurity, saw what that unity, yielding 
 to their opponents, must ultimately bring upon 
 their land — submission to Rome, and abrogation 
 of free conscience. And as one walks now 
 round about Sion, a high forest-hid fortified hill, 
 and climbs over the high embankments, and looks 
 out over the plain where lie Malesov and Kacin 
 and the high blood-stained terrible hill of the 
 Kahlenberg, now called the Kankberg ; and re- 
 members that once more the Church of Rome 
 holds sway over the whole district, one feels how 
 far-seeing was Payne in his eager earnestness for 
 no compromise with soul-enslaving Rome. The 
 towers of Tabor still look out over the Jordan, 
 and Ziska, their builder, looks down upon a market 
 crowd who all bow to the mass. Behind him still 
 stands one of the thick wedge-shaped stone tables 
 
PETER PAYNES LIFE-WORK 89 
 
 at which in the open air the Taborites took the 
 Communion in both kinds. Now it is used as a 
 stand for the market-women to place their jugs 
 and pots upon. ' The work of Payne and his 
 fellows is stamped out,' as a Taborite said lately 
 whilst standing under Ziska's monument, ' with 
 fierce force in Bohemia ; ' and yet not wholly, for 
 in some towns, as Kuttenberg and Znaim, there 
 are communities of Protestants or Evangelists who 
 have their own service and churches. But the}^ 
 hold their services in peace, for if WycUffe and 
 Payne's work seems lost in Bohemia, yet their 
 influence and work had sown the seed which, 
 under the impetus given it by Luther, born but 
 thirty years after Payne's death, gave to Europe 
 the right of a free conscience and tolerance in 
 religious thought. 
 
 But if in this instance the Bohemians went 
 against Payne, in whom they had trusted, and who 
 had been their leader for so many years, he had 
 by no means lost his influence over them ; and 
 thirteen days after we find him, with Rokycana 
 and Prokop, debating with Palomar upon certain 
 doubts which these three leaders had with regard 
 
90 A FORGOTTEN GREAT ENGLISHMAN 
 
 to the first compact of the Bohemians with the 
 legates of Basle. The debates continued, the 
 nobles striving by various means to regain their 
 power over the democracy of Bohemia ; and 
 Ulrich of Rosenberg, who shifted freely with the 
 times, and Meinhard of Neuhaus, secured the 
 election of Ales of Riesenberg as a president of 
 the Bohemian Republic. The legates of the 
 council yielded to many of the demands of the 
 Chalicers, and ere they left Basle had secretly 
 received many of the Prague doctors, and 
 Meinhard of Neuhaus, the powerful noble, into 
 the bosom of the Church, thus at once proving 
 Payne's single-handed opposition to have been the 
 wisest course against Rome's intrigue. But their 
 lengthy debates had yielded no fruit of peace, and 
 early in 1434 the council were again appealing for 
 funds for a crusade against the heretics. 
 
 In the struggle which followed the six parties in 
 Bohemia became but two — the nobles, against the 
 towns, or democratic party ; and in the terrible 
 battle of Lipau, where the latter party were 
 seduced from their waggon-forts, and thus suffered 
 a crushing defeat, Prokop, their mighty leader 
 
PETER PAYNES LIFE-WORK 91 
 
 both in debate and in battle, was slain. ' The 
 man who through so many stormy years had been 
 the chief shield of his fatherland, and the wonder 
 of the world, passed away silently in the flood of 
 human blood, and no one even searched for his 
 bones to show unto him the last honours of the dead/ 
 
 By a singular coincidence, at this same fight at 
 Lipau there comes one to the fore who, in a 
 different manner, was to carry on Prokop's and 
 Payne's work, and carry it to a successful 
 issue, and give to Bohemia years of peace. George 
 of Podiebrad's name is first mentioned in the 
 chronicle of the names of those who were on the 
 nobles' side. With them now, but ere long to be 
 their ruler and king, and the friend of those 
 against whom he now fought. 
 
 The power of the nobles' party now went largely 
 into the hands of Ulrich von Rosenberg, who is 
 described as the * bitterest enemy of the Taborites ; * 
 and in the debates and discussions that ensued 
 upon November 8, 1434, at a conference at Prague, 
 the greater number of the priests of the Orphans 
 went over to M. Rokycana, who belonged to the 
 more moderate Utraquists : and thus from this 
 
92 A FORGOTTEN GREAT ENGLISHMAN 
 
 time the Orphans as a party ceased to exist. But 
 Peter Payne and some of the more ardent Orphans, 
 not agreeing with this step, joined themselves 
 wholly to the Taborites. 
 
 The strife between the two parties, the one 
 led by M. Rokycana, and the Taborite party, 
 promising no agreement or decision, it was agreed 
 on both sides to entrust the very weighty and 
 important matter to the mind of Payne. 
 
 The subjects entrusted to his decision were the 
 matter of the seven sacraments, the invocation of 
 the saints, the fire of purgatory, and the ceremony 
 of the mass. Upon these he was to deliver a 
 decision according to the teachings of Huss and 
 Wycliffe and his own mind, but taking into con- 
 sideration the standard adopted upon these matters 
 at Eger. Only one subject was not entrusted to 
 his decision, and that was the question of transub- 
 stantiation. 
 
 Payne saw how matters were drifting in 
 Bohemia, and how the concessions of the Church 
 had weakened the unity and strength of its 
 redoubtable adversaries. Rokycana was fast 
 drawing to himself the greater power of the nation, 
 
PETER PAYNE'S LIFE-WORK 
 
 and he was ready to yield and negotiate upon 
 points rather than firmly to fix upon a standpoint, 
 and hold to it, let come what might, as had done 
 the Chalice leaders of the past. Payne saw that 
 the only means whereby the Taborite party (and 
 that to him now meant the Wyclifife party) could 
 still continue their worship in their own manner, 
 and retain their power, was by his delaying his 
 decision. And so for the space of two years, from 
 1434 to 1436, he avoided pronouncing it. 
 
 Bohemia was still longing, as it ever had been, 
 for a ruler and head, and ponrpai'lers were ever 
 proceeding with Sigmund. His most stedfast 
 supporter, Ulrich von Rosenberg, who possessed 
 great territory and strong castles in the neigh- 
 bourhood of Tabor, was especially earnest that the 
 nobles should be supported with subsidies to 
 prevent the power of the Taborites again becoming 
 dangerous. They still held at least twelve of the 
 principal towns, and many strongholds. Fighting 
 and besieging of the Taborites' stronghold was 
 ever continuing with varied success : sometimes 
 Ulrich gaining the ascendency, and other times the 
 Taborites dealing him severe defeats. 
 
94 A FORGOTTEN GREAT ENGLISHMAN 
 
 But at length, at Brunn, a congress was opened, 
 at which all differences were to be settled, and the 
 Prague delegates were to meet Sigmund face to 
 face. They arrived at Brunn on June i8, but 
 Kaiser Sigmund kept them waiting until July i. 
 Peter Payne was one of the four deputies from the 
 Taborite party, still holding back his decision upon 
 the important questions entrusted to him. What 
 especial work the four Taborite deputies effected 
 at Brunn is not known, but this congress only led 
 to a further debate in the Landtag, at Prague, in 
 October of the same year, the emperor's promises 
 paving the way to a yet nearer rapprocJiement. 
 The chancellor of the emperor, Kaspar Schlick, was 
 present at this Landtag in the name of Sigmund, 
 and to him was largely due the success of the party 
 for union. The principal thing done at this 
 Landtag was the choosing of Rokycana as 
 archbishop ; but a significant sign of how events 
 were tending was the assembling of Bohemian 
 deputies at the court of Sigmund at Stuhlvveis- 
 senburg, to meet the Basle legates ; and amongst 
 these Bohemian deputies was neither priest nor 
 doctor — none but nobles, knights, and burghers. 
 
PETER PAYNE'S LIFE- WORK 95 
 
 At length, after further meetings at Iglau, a 
 compact was drawn up, to which all agreed, and 
 the way was made clear for Sigmund to enter 
 Prague as king. Thus, as Palacky writes, at Iglau 
 the storm was silenced that had shaken not only 
 Bohemia, but Europe — the first great struggle in 
 histor}^, not for material good, but for freedom of 
 thought and liberty of soul. And in this struggle 
 how great and determined a part Peter Payne 
 had taken we have seen ; how his counsel had 
 been heeded, and how his incisive, thoughtful 
 words had ofttimes held the Bohemians to 
 Wycliffe's creed when they were wavering or 
 inclined to yield to Rome, or rather Basle's argu- 
 ments. PI is sadness at the present yielding of 
 his friends to the ' word-breaking ' emperor must 
 have been great, though nominally they had 
 gained their own ends and secured their own 
 manner of worshipping God. But the very fact 
 that Payne's name does not occur in the festivities 
 connected with Sigmund's entry into Prague and 
 the councils and meetings that ensued, seems 
 proof that he held aloof from all. That with the 
 entry of Sigmund came also the entry of evil life 
 
96 A FORGOTTEN GREAT ENGLISHMAN 
 
 into Prague is proved by the fact of Rokycana 
 being constrained to speak of the town being, 
 since the emperor's return, as a Sodom, full of 
 gambling and drunkenness, where evil deeds and 
 revellings in vice were openly enacted. And the 
 Praguers agreed with him, and complained that 
 the compact was broken and they were deceived 
 by legates and kaiser, and this within a month of 
 its being sealed. 
 
 If dissatisfaction quickly grew at Prague, it had 
 never been absent from the towns of Tabor and 
 Koniggratz ; and here the opposition to the 
 emperor was organized. They neither yielded 
 nor openly rebelled, probably acting upon Payne's 
 advice, and as he had acted with regard to the 
 decision entrusted to him. 
 
 But the emperor's apparent repentance and 
 readiness to yield caused a division even in the 
 Taborite party. He had conferred with a member 
 of their community before Iglau at Trebitsch, and 
 with such an effusion of friendliness that suspicion 
 was aroused. He was warm against the Romish 
 hierarchy, and against the avarice and pride of its 
 priesthood. That, he affirmed, he had learnt to 
 
PETER PAYNES LIFE-WORK 97 
 
 know at Constance, and at his coronation at Rome, 
 and at Basle. He had always desired a reforma- 
 tion of the Church, and longed to treat for peace 
 directly with the Taborites, and not through those 
 who desired no peace ; and he desired, after the 
 compact with the entire kingdom was settled, to 
 meet the Taborites and to consult directly with 
 them. 
 
 That Peter Payne was the great cause of the 
 Taborites holding aloof whilst all the nation was 
 trusting the word of one who had so often broken 
 it, is proved by the sequence of events, for in 
 October of the same year we read that he at 
 length gave his decision and judgment that for 
 two years he had delayed ; and now it was given 
 because he was nearly forced to it by barons and 
 kaiser. These facts prove how great was Payne's 
 power, that he, a foreigner, and a chief of heretics, 
 should so hold at bay the whole force of the 
 emperor's party, and prevent a union which he 
 too well knew meant an attempt to destroy the 
 faith he had so loved and worked for. 
 
 The pressure now placed upon him must have 
 been great, for his judgment was delivered as his 
 
 G 
 
98 A FORGOTTEN GREAT ENGLISHMAN 
 
 opponents wished, declaring Rokycana's party to 
 be in the right and the Taborites in the wrong. 
 Yet even in delivering this decision he openly 
 avowed that he held another opinion in his own 
 soul. (This is Payne's one lapse from unswerving 
 adherence to Wycliffe.) The reason for the 
 pressure brought to bear upon Payne by the 
 emperor and his party, and the eagerness to obtain 
 this spoken but not felt judgment, is seen in the 
 fact that shortly afterwards, on October 22, 1436, 
 Niklas of Pilgram, the bishop of the Taborites, 
 arrived in Prague, and at once denied the authority 
 of Payne's judgment. It had been pronounced in 
 the absence and without the authority of his own 
 party, and did not agree with the written standard 
 ordained at the Eger Convention. But having 
 obtained Payne's decision, the emperor had handed 
 over the whole matter to the decision of Ulrich 
 of Rosenberg and Pribrik of Klenau, and this 
 decision of his own men he pronounced upon on 
 the same day that the Taborite bishop made his 
 complaint against Payne's judgment. 
 
 Ulrich of Rosenberg's judgment did not go as 
 far against the Taborites as did Payne's decision. 
 
PETER PAYNE'S LIFE-WORK 99 
 
 his first article upon their rehgious faith running 
 thus : * That the Taborites should not be driven 
 with force, but if it could be proved from Holy- 
 Writ that they had gone against its teachings or 
 God's laws, then they should amend their ways.' 
 To this clause Sigmund wrote that it went rather 
 far, and was against the contract which the legates 
 and the kingdom had decided upon, and still 
 more against the decision of their own priest, 
 * Englisch ' — a decision given especially at their 
 own request. And so he (the emperor) decided 
 to hand this matter over to the doctors and 
 priests, so that it should not be said he acted 
 upon his own judgment, or reopened matters to 
 cause strife that were already settled. 
 
 The acute cunning of the management of this 
 matter is apparent in every act ; the more so 
 when we hear Sigmund saying but six days later, 
 in the presence of these same priests and doctors, 
 that if he is come into the land to make peace, 
 he would ' rather make it with the sword against 
 the heretical Taborites than with words.' 
 
 After numerous questionings and debates it was 
 agreed between Rokycana and Bedrich and the 
 
lOO A FORGOTTEN GREAT ENGLISHMAN 
 
 Taborites that four priests and doctors should give, 
 according to the standard fixed at Eger, their 
 final decision upon all debatable points between 
 them, and that both parties in word, heart, and 
 deed should submit to this judgment. How fully 
 they still trusted Peter Payne, in spite of his forced 
 and wavering judgment given before Sigmund, is 
 seen by the fact that of the four chosen to give 
 this final decision his name comes first ; and upon 
 the words of these four doctors the emperor's 
 party, including Ulrich of Rosenberg, gave their 
 decision, and the emperor set his gold seal to a 
 letter to the Taborites, and they were allowed to 
 worship God in their own fashion. This letter 
 with the gold seal is preserved to the present 
 day in the town hall at Tabor. 
 
 That this apparent yielding of the emperor's 
 party was but a dividing and weakening of the 
 national and Wycliffe party is seen from the 
 swiftly following statement that on December 
 23 the service in all the Prague churches was 
 held according to the wishes and written direc- 
 tions of the Basle legates, Rokycana gradually 
 yielding upon all points save two — the giving of 
 
PETER PAYNES LIFE-WORK loi 
 
 the sacraments to children, and the reading of the 
 Gospel and Epistle in Bohemian. Thus Payne's 
 opposition to Rokycana is fully justified, and his 
 power is yet more distinctly exemplified from the 
 curious reading of a bull dated at the Basle 
 Council, January 15, I437. The same date was 
 upon the bull ratifying the Iglau compact that 
 was handed to the emperor upon the day 
 Queen Barbara was crowned amidst great joy 
 and festivity, and in the presence of many nobles 
 and magistrates and burghers, and also of Roky- 
 cana. The second bull, instead of breathing 
 conciliation as the first appeared to do to 
 Rokycana, reminded the emperor to discontinue 
 the giving of the sacrament to children, and 
 without delay he was to send Dr. Peter Payne, 
 who held erroneous views upon transubstantiation, 
 to the council. This peremptory order from the 
 council to the emperor, and Payne alone being 
 named as one to be sent, of course perforce, to the 
 council, is yet further proof of their dread of his 
 power and influence. Point after point was being 
 gained from Rokycana and his followers, and 
 it was Payne's influence that they feared, and 
 
102 A FORGOTTEN GREAT ENGLISHMAN 
 
 therefore they wished him sent without delay, that 
 at least in Bohemia his incisive speeches should 
 have no further weight. 
 
 As the Hussites yielded inch by inch, truly but 
 yet ever slowly retreating from the stedfast stand 
 made by Huss and Ziska, Payne and Prokop, so 
 the council advanced from entreaties to demands ; 
 and this same year that saw their command to 
 the emperor to send Payne to Basle, saw also the 
 return of various monkish orders to Prague. 
 Rokycana was slowly being set aside, and Bishop 
 Philibert given all rule. Rokycana, the chosen of 
 the people of Bohemia, in spite of his yielding 
 spirit, was to be wholly effaced by Rome, and his 
 power annulled ; each office was taken from him, 
 and the firm friends of Rome installed therein, 
 amongst others M. Pribram, the great opponent of 
 Payne and Rokycana, receiving his reward. 
 
 Indirectly we learn that Payne held a cure or 
 preachership at Saaz, for Palacky remarks that 
 *the old priest returned also to Saaz, and Peter 
 Payne and Wenzel Koranda were driven away.' 
 
 Saaz had early and earnestly espoused the cause 
 of Wycliffe and his follower Huss, and in 142 1 had 
 
PETER PAYNE'S LIFE-WORK 103 
 
 energetically withstood six times the storming of 
 its walls by the crusaders, who, however, only fled 
 at the approach of Ziska, and it was in the 
 Dechanal church that was built in the year 1206 
 that Peter Payne preached. 
 
 The town itself stands upon an abrupt rocky 
 height in the centre of a great plain. There is 
 still left much of its great walls and defence towers, 
 and as one passes from its central square, and 
 walks around its walls and beneath the shadows 
 of the towers with their high sloping roofs, one 
 can recall somewhat the picture of its mediaeval, 
 earnest life, and bitter struggles for freedom. 
 
 Down in the flat land beneath, where lay 
 encamped the crusaders against these outspoken 
 Bohemian heretics, there winds between fruit trees 
 and hop-fields the wide river, and just below the 
 towers, some hundred and fifty feet beneath, is a 
 little brook that probably formed part of the 
 defences of the citadel. To the north-east rises up 
 a group of mountain peaks, and a solitary one in 
 the plain, of the type generally chosen on which 
 to perch a castle stronghold. In the town hall is 
 a plan of the town as it was in 1464, enabling one 
 
I04 A FORGOTTEN GREAT ENGLISHMAN 
 
 to picture well the place as it was when our 
 countryman held spiritual sway over its indwellers. 
 Then numerous towers and gateways, with their 
 red sloping pent-roofs, were standing that are now 
 swept away, but the Dechanal church and the 
 Rathhaus are now much as they were then. 
 
 But how curiously are its inhabitants changed ! 
 Then they were Bohemians and passionate Huss- 
 ites against Rome as an over-lord spiritual and 
 temporal. Now, most strange reversion, they are 
 German and Roman Catholic in religion, though 
 the Church of Rome is careful to preserve much of 
 the simplicity of the former Wycliffite appearance. 
 The present inhabitants care not to hear of its 
 past history, and most strangely no good historical 
 handbook is obtainable in the town, and the name 
 of Palacky was received with the exclamation, 
 ' Oh, that is the Bohemian ' ; thus the race-hatred 
 continues. One little gate that is still left is 
 called the Branka or Outfall Gate, and the great 
 gateway is the Priest's Gate, and the great tower 
 the Water Tower. 
 
 The Dechanal church has high lancet windows 
 and a square nave, v/ith three high round pillars 
 
PETER PAYNES LIFE-WORK 105 
 
 on either side, a plain moulding at the capitals, 
 from which springs the roof groining, with slight 
 aisles at the side — literally a square church, but 
 with deep chancel and apse with three windows. 
 The pulpit stands now at the first north pillar in 
 the nave, and probably here it stood when amidst 
 these pillars Peter Payne's voice echoed with 
 urging words to the Bohemians, to hold fast in 
 unity to Wycliffe's teachings. 
 
 Children were then alive who would hear of 
 Luther and of the blaze of fresh revolt against 
 Rome's supremacy, and it requires no straining of 
 the imagination to picture some aged man telling 
 some fiery young Lutheran of how in this church 
 in Saaz, as a child, he had sat with his father and 
 heard a great Englishman speak words of truth 
 against Rome's corruption, even as the master 
 Luther now taught. 
 
 From beneath Saaz, in the fruitful plains, now 
 richly and most carefully cultivated, one can look 
 up to the towers and domes and spires of the town, 
 almost Eastern in character, and picture easily the 
 old town as it stood in Payne's day. And over 
 this flat land Payne had to wander when driven 
 
io6 A FORGOTTEN GREAT ENGLISHMAN- 
 
 from the town by now triumphant Rome back 
 once more into torn and distracted Prague. And 
 to accomplish this journey in safety he was 
 compelled to obtain a safe-conduct. 
 
 This very mention of a safe-conduct shows the 
 altered state of affairs in Bohemia in four years. 
 The man who passed through Europe in triumph^ 
 now required letters of safe-conduct to travel in 
 Bohemia itself The spirit of yielding, against 
 which Payne had so strenuously striven, had done 
 its work, and Rome was once more triumphant in 
 the land of Huss ; and as he journeyed on to 
 Prague he must have felt all his work to be 
 defeated ; but he was yet to live to see it once 
 more in the ascendency. 
 
 Arrived in Prague, he fell into strife with the 
 emperor and Bishop Philibert. He probably 
 maintaining his standpoint upon the teaching of 
 Wycliffe, as he had ever done, and denouncing 
 the renewed licentiousness and priestcraft which 
 had so quickly reinvaded Bohemia. For the 
 moment his power was gone, and he was driven 
 from Bohemia as soon as his safe-conduct expired. 
 The marvel is that he was not sent to Basle a 
 
PETER PAYNE'S LIFE-WORK io7 
 
 prisoner. But that the people of Bohemia still 
 loved him is shortly afterwards proved ; and per- 
 chance the emperor dreaded his imprisonment 
 might lead to an uprising once more of the 
 heretics. Koranda, his colleague, was forbidden 
 to preach, and was commanded to live only in 
 Tabor, being forbidden to leave that town under 
 punishment of death by drowning. John Penning, 
 a pupil of Payne, one who had come with him to 
 Prague, and who had shared his triumphs, was 
 imprisoned and subjected to long questionings, a 
 statement which most probably implies that he 
 was also tortured. 
 
 Rokycana was not wholly yielding. He was 
 already reaping the fruits of his concession, but 
 he appears to have refused to go again to Basle as 
 a delegate, although Kaiser Sigmund promised him 
 a safe-conduct. He probably remembered that 
 this same Sigmund had given Huss a safe-conduct. 
 He was yet a power among the people, and, as a 
 quaint chronicler puts it, 'Der Rockzan, hat noch 
 grosse Nachfolge und sicht man mee lude zu 
 siner kirchen dan in enicher andern kirchen' 
 ('Rokycana has still a great following, and more 
 
Io8 A FORGOTTEN GREAT ENGLISHMAN 
 
 people are seen in his church than in any other 
 church '). For this reason Sigmund and Philibert 
 would gladly have had him absent from Bohemia ; 
 but in this same year, 1437, whilst troubles were 
 again arising, Sigmund quits Prague and dies at 
 Znaim. 
 
 In the gradual rising that ensued after the 
 crowning of King Albert, we hear nothing of 
 Payne ; but we are made aware of his return to 
 Bohemia — if he had ever quitted it — by a note 
 upon the wild state of the country in the year 1439. 
 The nobles * stormed out of fortresses and castles 
 and fell upon each other, and then joined them- 
 selves to those with whom they were at enmity ; 
 so that at last no one knew who was true to each 
 other.' The mountain fortresses and isolated hill 
 castles lent themselves to this raiding ; and it was in 
 some such raid that Peter Payne was taken prisoner 
 by Burian of Gutenstein, in February of that year. 
 
 This Gutenstein lies in the mountains, not far from 
 the interesting little town of Mies. The drive out 
 to it is through an interesting country of scattered 
 villages, and over well-cultivated plains alternated 
 with pine forests. The old castle consists now 
 
PETER PAYNE'S LIFE-WORK 109 
 
 simply of ruins of great halls and rooms, one 
 high tower far above all, still intact in its stolid 
 strength. Working round to the tower, we found 
 it defended where the land sloped by a thick outer 
 wall, and beyond by a craggy fall of rock some 
 fifty feet down on one side. Eastward were three 
 holes, where there had been attempts to enter or 
 storm it ; one had pierced it, and by lying down 
 and wriggling through about fifteen feet of wall 
 we got inside this tower : narrow at the bottom 
 and widening at the top. Here only three storeys 
 could be seen ; the upper one a fairly wide room, 
 but where we stood it was only about eight feet 
 by five in measurement. Again wriggling out, 
 we passed round to the south side of the tower ; 
 here, in a good hall, started up a fine pine 
 shadowing the walls of these apartments, which 
 rose up in three low storeys, having formed rooms 
 about twenty-one feet by fifteen. From this point 
 the height and strength of the tower could be 
 seen. It was square, but with wide rounded 
 corners — an unusual type of building ; it rose to 
 about eighty feet in height, and on its summit 
 from the walls grew a fair-sized tree. 
 
no A FORGOTTEN GREAT ENGLISHMAN 
 
 As we walked by the river we could see this 
 old robber nest isolated on its craggy peak, and 
 we wondered if Peter Payne had been allowed by 
 the Robber Knight Burian to wander by the little 
 river's brink ; or if he awaited the replies of those 
 letters from Pope and King of England, within 
 that dark tower's dungeon, dreaming of Oxford 
 and Lincolnshire, of his home at Hough-on-the- 
 Hill, and all his young life that he had left behind 
 him for truth's and freedom's sake, to fight in 
 here on distant Bohemia Wyclifife's cause. 
 
 Gutenstein being a not uncommon name, there 
 was a doubt when we first visited this ruin as to 
 whether this was the actual castle where Peter 
 Payne was imprisoned ; but in the famous illus- 
 trated work on Bohemia called Cechy we met with 
 this passage, which positively sets all doubt at rest — 
 
 ' During the Hussite war, the castle was in the 
 hands of Burian of Gutstein, one of the leading 
 lords of the Catholic party, who took an active 
 part in all battles and discussions. In the year 
 1448, however, Burian went over, as did so many 
 Bohemian nobles, to George of Podiebrad, and 
 remained faithful to King George until his death.' 
 
PETER PAYNE'S LIFE-WORK 
 
 To glean further facts concerning Payne's im- 
 prisonment we have to go to an English fifteenth- 
 century work — The Correspondence of Bishop 
 Bekynton, the Secretary of Henry VI. From two 
 letters that are printed in this correspondence it 
 would appear that Henry VI. was not wholly 
 unfavourable to Payne, even as his forerunner, 
 Henry V. Johann Burian of Gutenstein seems to 
 have felt he had secured an important prisoner, 
 and one for whom either pope or king would pay 
 a goodly ransom, and if not pope or king, at least 
 his own people ; so he entered into a correspond- 
 ence with King Henry of England upon the subject. 
 The king's answer is characteristic. Dated May 4, 
 1440, he speaks of Payne as 'Nomine Magistrum 
 Petrum cognominatum apud vos ut sciebitis Peyne, 
 sed apud nos Clerc qui insana et pestifera doctrina 
 sua multas nationes et populos infecit subvertitgae,' 
 etc. But though he thanks Johann of Gutenstein 
 for offering to send him to England, he offers no 
 money for that purpose. But that Gutenstein had 
 also informed the pope that he held Payne in his 
 power seems apparent from the fact that King 
 Henry writes also to the pope, May 18, in 
 
112 A FORGOTTEN' GREAT ENGLISHMAN 
 
 which letter he again speaks of Payne as ' called 
 by you Peyne, by us Clerc ; ' and gives the said 
 Payne some remarkably hard names, continuing, 
 * Populos intoxicant et inumera foena, monasteria, 
 ecclesias altaria, loca religiosa, absque pietate 
 quacumque incendit, subvertit destruxit provana- 
 vit ; ' thus apparently laying on his shoulders the 
 work of those with whom he was associated ; for 
 from the Bohemian historians we can glean no 
 trace of his taking an active part in the destructive 
 work of burning and murdering that was so wildly 
 adopted on both sides in all the wars of the 
 struggle. But if Henry calls him hard names, 
 thus proving his power, he prefers not to have him 
 in his own country, as the pope, like Gutenstein, 
 seems to have suggested ; for it was too hazardous 
 an undertaking, because of the dangers of the 
 way, and especially of the Idoli Basiliensis. 
 
 Johann of Gutenstein appears to have soon grown 
 tired of this correspondence with pope and king, 
 which promised no money outcome. Henry in 
 his second letter suggested to the pope he should 
 be sent to Florence ; but Payne's friends thought 
 too highly of him to allow one who had been 
 
PETER PAYNE'S LIFE-WORK 113 
 
 their teacher for twenty years thus to be torn from 
 them ; and their negotiations with Burian were 
 more to the point, for they paid down two 
 hundred schock of groschen, and once more 
 welcomed him a free man amongst them. For 
 says the old chronicle that Palacky quotes, ' Und 
 die Taboritenstadte zahlten lieber diese Summe, 
 als dass sie ihn gestelt hatten.' (The Taborite 
 towns more willingly paid this sum than that 
 he should be tortured.) A schock of groschen 
 meant sixty of that coin (the word is still used in 
 Bohemia), and when it is remembered that the 
 ransom for an ordinary man was only five schock, 
 it will be seen that they set a high value on 
 Payne's limbs. But probably Burian expected 
 better value than this from either pope or king, 
 and seeing those sources fail, accepted the best 
 offer he could get ; for money and booty were to 
 many of these petty overlords and robber knights 
 their chief aim. A proof of the high value set 
 upon Payne is the indifference often shown at this 
 period for prisoners. In Ronnd about Haida is 
 quoted an example of eleven schock of groschen 
 being paid for a batch of prisoners, but when 
 
 H 
 
114 A FORGOTTEN GREAT ENGLISHMAN 
 
 seventy schock is demanded for another batch, the 
 answer is given ' that they might rot before they 
 would ransom them at such a high price.' ^ But 
 for Payne two hundred schock were paid. 
 
 Whilst Payne was prisoner, perchance in one of 
 the most terrible rock dungeons, or even Hunger 
 towers, that now when opened yield such fearful 
 and pathetic proofs of their inmates' sufferings, 
 Bohemia was ravaged by a pest. The Turks 
 were advancing in the south, Panslavism was 
 threatening the east of Europe, and anarchy 
 reigned in the land he had adopted. Whoever 
 could overpower the other did so, and ' fistright ' 
 reigned after Albert's death, the great barons, 
 such as the Rosenbergs, siding with whichever 
 party was uppermost, king or commoners. But 
 a man was slowly coming to the fore whose 
 personal influence was to oversway all this 
 anarchy, and after years of strenuous labour 
 make Bohemia a united and powerful kingdom. 
 
 George of Podiebrad's name now more fre- 
 quently occurs in the councils of nobles and 
 
 ^ See Round about Haida^ by J. B., Cornhill Magazine^ June, 
 1885. 
 
PETER PAYNE'S LIFE-WORK 115 
 
 burghers. The Taborite party was much reduced, 
 but later, In the year 1440, its principal priests are 
 named as Nicklas of Pilgram, called also Biskapuc, 
 or the little bishop ; Koranda, and Payne, who 
 had now again taken refuge (after his imprison- 
 ment) at Saaz. From here he watched the comedy 
 of two popes and two councils. 
 
 But his friends the Taborites were being at- 
 tacked from all sides by Ulrich of Rosenberg 
 and a strong union that besieged their towns, and 
 by Rokycana and their old enemy Pribram, whom 
 Payne had so often out-argued. Ulrich was now 
 become friendly with Rokycana, and they joined 
 their forces to overthrow the arguments of the 
 Taborites, who still adhered to Wycliffe's teaching. 
 Especially upon the question of the transubstan- 
 tiation were they stedfast. But at length they 
 agreed to send deputies to the meeting of priests 
 at Kuttenberg to again discuss and agree upon 
 the disputed points ; and upon July 6, 1444, 
 at the town of Kuttenberg, was held the last 
 public discussion of the Taborites. Not only were 
 the clergy of all parties here in great numbers, but 
 also the lay leaders, including Herr Ptacek, who 
 
ii6 A FORGOTTEN GREAT ENGLISHMAN 
 
 may almost be termed the then President of 
 Bohemia. 
 
 After some discussion as to the Taborites agree- 
 ing to abide by certain decisions, to which they 
 only yielded town by town, the Saaz town, through 
 Koranda, refusing to pledge itself, two presidents 
 and directors of the assembly were chosen ; and it is 
 highly significant of Payne's lasting power and sway 
 over the Bohemians that at this meeting he and 
 Wenzel of Drachow were the presidents appointed. 
 
 Kuttenberg of to-day is one of the most interest- 
 ing towns in Austria, and especially rich in 
 ecclesiastical buildings, its St. Barbara's church 
 being a rich gem of fifteenth-century architecture ; 
 but it was in the Pfarrkirche, amidst the tall 
 graceful pillars of this beautiful building, that 
 Peter Payne and Wenzel presided over the (to 
 the Taborite party, and indeed all Bohemia) 
 momentous assembly of doctors and nobles, 
 burghers and priests. This building is now known 
 as the St. Jacobi Erzdechenal church, an interest- 
 ing and good example of fourteenth-century work, 
 and where the Utraquists worshipped from 1423 
 until 1622. 
 
PETER PAYNE'S LIFE-WORK "7 
 
 Rokycana opened the discussion with a long 
 speech, ending with a formula of his belief upon 
 the Holy Sacrament : ' It is to be believed that 
 {a) in the Holy Sacrament the holy body and 
 blood is Christ, the true God and true Man ; {b) 
 in His natural body born in the flesh, and which 
 body He received from Mary, and with which 
 body He sits in heaven on the right hand of God 
 the Father.' And he demanded that the Taborites 
 should also believe this. Payne and his followers, 
 however, answered they could accept the first 
 part {a\ but not {h), because Christ, according to 
 His nature, was in one place upon His heavenly 
 throne, though according to His sacramental, 
 spiritual, effectual, and real nature He was here 
 below, amongst us, and present in the sacrament 
 of the altar. 
 
 And upon this they formulated their creed in 
 contradistinction to Rokycana's, and the debates 
 ensued thereon. So well and powerfully did the 
 Taborites argue, that Rokycana, and Pribram, 
 Payne's old antagonist and enemy, feared they 
 would convince many, as their words were neither 
 godless nor unreasonable. And so they adopted 
 
ii8 A FORGOTTEN GREAT ENGLISHMAN 
 
 the plan, too ofttimes successful, of abusing their 
 opponents, and of bringing before the synod all 
 the offences and wild statements of the Taborite 
 priests for the past twenty-four years. That a 
 good, virtuous man was more to be honoured 
 than the sacrament and such-like statements were 
 denounced ; and Pribram, who had said he would 
 prove Koranda, Payne's colleague at Saaz, to be 
 two hundred times a heretic, was replied to by 
 Koranda * that ere he could do this, he (Koranda) 
 would prove him two hundred times to be a liar ! ' 
 And he challenged Pribram to covenant that the 
 one who should be proved to be in the wrong 
 should suffer as a heretic. Such stakes, however, 
 of body and soul the assembly would not permit ; 
 but the statement proves how heated became the 
 controversy. The Taborites complained also that 
 Pribram attacked Payne only in the Bohemian 
 tongue, though he knew that this doctor was not 
 sufficient master of that tongue to answer him with 
 it. The advantage of this was great to Pribram, 
 for the assembly could listen to his fluent, heated 
 speech, whilst Payne must stammeringly reply 
 to him. 
 
PETER PAYNES LIFE-WORK 119 
 
 The synod was dissolved by Ptacek and 
 Rokycana ordering that both parties should 
 submit their points in writing to the Kuttenberg 
 authorities, so that they might be considered at 
 the next general Landtag, and until then each 
 was to remain at peace, nor debate upon the strife. 
 
 At the Prague Landtag the Taborites sent few 
 delegates but much writing, and Payne's name 
 is not mentioned. But the result was that 
 Rokycana and Pribram were declared to be in the 
 right, and the people were forbidden to follow the 
 teaching of the Taborites. Their towns gave in 
 to the Chalice party one by one, and even in 
 1440 only one town was left to them — that from 
 whence they derived their name. Tabor. 
 
 But this decision had no effect upon the unity 
 of the country. The rock fortress and mountain 
 stronghold lords attacked and seized all that they 
 could conquer ; and the towns in their distress 
 combined against these marauders. The whole 
 country was given up to anarchy, and men, even 
 such powerful barons as Ulrich von Rosenberg, 
 sided first with one party and then with another. 
 This, the most powerful of the Bohemian nobles, 
 
I20 A FORGOTTEN GREAT ENGLISHMAN 
 
 is said to have sided and assisted every party at 
 one time or the other. But one was steadily 
 advancing in power who was to conquer and 
 overrule all parties, and at length unite them under 
 his kingship. 
 
 George of Podiebrad and his party or Bund 
 were fast assuming power ; but of his struggles 
 and continuous combats with the Rosenberg party 
 and with emperor and pope we have no space 
 to speak, as Payne's name does not appear in 
 them until George, as regent, and with the support 
 of the Rokycana party with sixteen thousand men, 
 marched against Tabor and the towns that still 
 held out against Rokycana. 
 
 Tabor is situated upon a rocky height, with 
 water surrounding it, the river Lusinetz winding 
 round two or almost three sides of its scarped 
 precipitous hill, and the Jordan brook or river 
 nearly, and with the aid of a moat entirely, com- 
 pleting the circle. So situated, and well defended 
 with walls and towers, bastions and redoubts (many 
 of which are still extant, with the very pulley- 
 wheels in place that raised or lowered the 
 drawbridges), it was a difficult place to assault, 
 
PETER PAYNE'S LIFE-WORK 121 
 
 as Ulrich of Rosenberg had found to his cost 
 and defeat in 1420. The priests of the sect had 
 all taken refuge in the town, and the burghers 
 swore to defend them to their last drop of blood ; 
 and as one to-day stands in the central place 
 of the town, with the church and town hall, 
 quaint gabled houses, and narrow irregular streets 
 around one, from whence in but a few yards 
 the walls and towers can be gained that look 
 out upon the rocky height, wdth the water beneath 
 and hills around where George of Podiebrad's 
 sixteen thousand men were encamped, one can 
 easily recall the scene. 
 
 But George was of different stuff to Ulrich, and 
 only half an enemy, as he also was a ketzer 
 (heretic). And the burghers of Tabor yielded, 
 accepting George as regent, he confirming them 
 in all their rights and liberties, and promising 
 also to leave their friends and allies, the men 
 of Saaz and Pisek and Laun, in peace, the 
 Taborites still further stipulating that in the 
 matter of differences of conscience a discussion 
 should take place in Prague of six persons to 
 settle these matters. 
 
122 A FORGOTTEN GREAT ENGLISHMAN- 
 
 Again most significantly run the names of 
 the chosen six. First came the now adopted 
 archbishop, Rokycana, and next their great leader 
 and defender (who ever through the fierce period 
 of thirty-seven years had unswervingly clung to the 
 pure teaching of Wycliffe), their Meister Engliscky 
 Peter Payne. He in this their last stand against 
 piecemeal yielding to Rome was the first named to 
 still defend their tenets. It was further arranged, 
 should there be any difference between these six, 
 that the minority should obey the majority ; and 
 if the priests would not so obey, the burghers and 
 councillors and citizens bound themselves to obey 
 the general will of the Landtag. 
 
 That the priests Niklas, Viskupec, and Koranda 
 did not agree is probable, for we learn they were 
 imprisoned for a long time in the town hall of 
 the Old Town at Prague, until probably forced 
 to agree with Rokycana. But their yielding did 
 not release them, for they were then sent one 
 to George's castle in Podiebrad, the other to that 
 of Litic, where they were retained till death. 
 
 As Payne's name is not mentioned as being 
 imprisoned, it is probable that he either at length 
 
FETER PAYNE'S LIFE-WORK 123 
 
 joined the ranks of Rokycana, or more probably 
 fled and was shielded by those who trusted to his 
 teaching. 
 
 This was Payne's last recorded public defence 
 of his master's creed and teaching. He lived on, 
 it is thought, in Prague until 1455, when he saw 
 Bohemia united and at peace with itself, under 
 the powerful regency of George of Podiebrad, a 
 heretic. 
 
 Of the importance of Peter Payne's work it 
 is difficult indeed to speak, but the foregoing 
 facts must have proved how great was this 
 -stranger's influence in Bohemia, and how her 
 present historians honour his work ; for, with the 
 one exception of the reference to Bishop Bekynton's 
 letters, naught historical has been written but 
 from the Bohemian writer's work. In dealing 
 with Pribram's discussions, Palacky states how 
 especially this ardent disputer levelled his diatribes 
 against Payne, as the chief proclaimer of Wycliffe's 
 doctrines in Bohemia. 
 
 The party self-styled the Orphans after Ziska's 
 death adhered most closely to Wycliffe's creed, and 
 it was to this party, as we have seen, that Payne 
 
124 A FORGOTTEN GREAT ENGLISHMAN 
 
 at first clung. At first he appears to have resided 
 in Prague when not travelling with the various 
 embassies to Basle or Pressburg or elsewhere 
 upon his important missions. Other Englishmen 
 were with him who had also been driven from 
 Oxford, but the sole name of any of these pupils 
 and disciples come down to us is that of John 
 Penning. 
 
 After Payne was banished from Prague he took 
 refuge at Saaz, and he also resided for some time 
 in the house of Peter Chelcicky, whose Character 
 Studies of the period give us such an insight 
 into the life, the fierce turmoil and strife, and 
 the habits and contentions of the period. The 
 very fact of Payne going to him is given as a 
 proof of the importance of Chelcicky at that 
 period, for it proves, says Palacky, ' that the eyes 
 of the most eminent and prominent men of this 
 period were directed towards him.' 
 
 Peter Payne, says the Bohemian historian, 
 remained always true in principle to his master 
 (Wycliffe), never joining wholly any of the Hussite 
 sections, as they all more or less differed from 
 Wycliffe's teaching, though he never failed con- 
 
PETER PAYNE'S LIFE-WORK 125 
 
 tinuously to draw their attention towards him. 
 By his learning and acute thought as a theologian 
 he enjoyed the greatest respect and esteem. The 
 two of his tractates that M. Pribram mostly 
 inveighed against, have not up to the present 
 been found, but a fairly large number of his 
 writings are scattered about in various libraries, 
 and all occupy themselves with his work of 
 spreading and defending the teaching of Wycliffe. 
 He strove, said his opponent Pribram, to make 
 clear what was involved, and to abbreviate and 
 emphasize that which was lengthy or verbose in 
 Wycliffe's writing. The first words of the two 
 lost documents are given by Palacky, as well 
 as the commencements of some of the less- 
 known works, and the places where they are to be 
 found. 
 
 And yet this man, one of the most 'prominent 
 and eminent ' in a country that at the time when 
 he was a leader of its thought was shaking to its 
 foundations the most mighty power then known, 
 is wholly ignored— forgotten by the historians and 
 biographers of his own country. 
 
26 A FORGOTTEN GREAT ENGLISHMAN 
 
 PART III 
 
 HOW EARLY ENGLISH WRITERS 
 MALIGNED PAYNE 
 
 In the work of early chroniclers there are items 
 of information which throw light on Payne's 
 EngHsh life. 
 
 As will be seen, Gascoigne, living the nearest to 
 Payne's time — in fact, writing during his lifetime — ■ 
 promulgated the first defamatory and apparently 
 lying notices upon his life from evidence received 
 from his bitterest enemies, the papal party. Sub- 
 sequent writers, such as Bale, Twyne, Hearne, 
 Tanner, down to Robertson and Creighton of our 
 own day, have re-echoed these falsehoods. The 
 echo comes to us very fully in Anthony Wood's 
 interesting work, and Wood seems to have had 
 some faint inkling of Payne's greatness, for he 
 qualifies quaintly here and there doubtful state- 
 
EARLY ENGLISH WRITERS AGAINST PAYNE 127 
 
 ments. His first reference is upon the testimonial 
 said to be given to Wycliffe by the university of 
 Oxford. 
 
 ' The prime-breacher of this testimonial (of 
 which we have nothing in our registers, records, 
 or books of epistles) was John Husse, in the first 
 tome of his works, and from him John Fox ; 
 against the former of which it was objected in the 
 Council of Constance, celebrated a little after this 
 time, that he had openly divulged the said com- 
 mendatory epistle in the behalf of John Wycleve, 
 falsely conveyed to Prague under the title of the 
 University of Oxford by two students, one a 
 Bohemian, the other an Englishman. 
 
 ' As for the Englishman before mentioned, that 
 was the chief agent in the business, was one Peter 
 Clerke, alias Payne, an Oxford scholar, who being 
 extraordinary active in prosecuting the doctrine 
 of Wycleve, took privately (the note quotes Gas- 
 coigne) an occasion to make use of the common 
 seal of the university, and to apply it to a 
 testimony that he and his companion had before 
 drawn up, such companions I mean that were 
 inclining to Wyclevism, who divers times in these 
 
128 A FORGOTTEN GREAT ENGLISHMAN 
 
 days took advantages to serve their turns, the 
 common seal being not so choicely kept as since 
 it hath been.' 
 
 Wood modifies the stealing of the seal of Gascoigne 
 into using a seal that was carelessly left about. 
 
 His next reference is to the reception at Basle 
 of the Bishop of Worcester and Prior of Norwich. 
 ' They were received by the prelates with five 
 hundred horsemen, with whom was an Englishman 
 named Peter Payne,' implying that Payne was one 
 of the horsemen of the prelates. Probably he was 
 in their company as a chief personage. 
 
 ' There also flourished in this king's reign, one 
 Peter Clerk, alias Payne, of whom more anon, and 
 others,' is Wood's note on events in the reign of 
 Henry V., proving Payne's importance. 
 
 * The council of Basil being yet in continuance, 
 and certain of our Oxford scholars being there 
 on behalf of the university, it was ordered this 
 year that those graduate doctors who had laboured 
 in the said council for the union of the Church 
 should be preferred before others, notwithstanding 
 the statute of Pope Eugenius IV. Peter Payne, 
 alias Clerk, lately an Oxford scholar, was there 
 
EARLY ENGLISH WRITERS AGAINST PAYNE 129 
 
 (though a great Wiclevist), with one Nicholas and 
 others as orators for Bohemia. He, the said Peter, 
 disputed at that council some days concerning 
 matters of faith, and three thereof were wholly 
 taken up with, the fourth article of the Hussites, 
 which was concerning the temporal or civil 
 dominion of the Church. But his arguments were 
 answered, or endeavoured so to be, by John Pola- 
 more, Doctor of Decrees, auditor of the apostolical 
 palace and archdeacon of the church of Barcelona, 
 which, being reduced into a treatise with this 
 beginning, "Deus in adjutorium meum intende," 
 etc., seems for the most to be the same with 
 another of that subject which precedes the first 
 article of the Hussites in the acts of the Council 
 of Basil' 
 
 'The said Peter assisted much one Ulricus, a 
 Bohemian, in the defence of the second and third 
 articles of the Hussites, which is "De punitione 
 pecatorum publicorum et de officio praedicandi : " 
 both answered by Henry Caldifren, a preaching 
 frier. So active and busy was he in disputing 
 in this council on the Bohemian side (in the 
 management of which he uttered dangerous 
 
 I 
 
130 A FORGOTTEN GREAT ENGLISHMAN' 
 
 propositions), that the pope demanded a subsidy 
 of the clergy of England to prosecute him. He, 
 the said Peter, was born at a village called Haugh, 
 or Hoogh, three miles from Grantham, in Lincoln- 
 shire, from which place he, according to the ancient 
 manner, was sometimes called and written. At 
 other times he was known by the name of Peter 
 Freying, i.e. de Francigenis, because his father was 
 a Frenchman ; then Peter Inglys, i.e. Anglicus, 
 because he was an Englishman ; and when he 
 was Master of Arts, Peter Clerk (which causeth 
 Baleus to make him different from Peter Payne).' 
 Thus explaining his foolishly supposed assumption 
 of aliases. * After he had spent some years in 
 his native country — his father for the most part 
 living at Hogh — he was sent to the University of 
 Oxford, where, after he had spent his studies in 
 grammar, logic, and philosophy, he became Master 
 of Arts, and Principal of Edmund and Whyte 
 Hall in St. Peter's parish in the east. 
 
 ' While he abode in Oxford he was esteemed a 
 person of good natural parts, and one also in his 
 disputations and lectures an enemy to the friers. 
 But Thomas Walden, a Carmelite, taking his 
 
EARLY ENGLISH WRITERS AGAINST PAYNE 131 
 
 brethren's part, not only disputed with him con- 
 cerning the mendicity and beggary of Christ, but 
 of pilgrimages, the eucharist, images, reliques, 
 and such like ; and as the said Thomas doth 
 himself report, that when he and Brother William 
 were, at the instance of a noble person, selected 
 to dispute against him concerning some of the 
 said points, as also of votive beggary, he, the said 
 Peter, when he appeared and was scarce ready 
 to urge about it, was overtaken by madness and 
 trouble of mind. This Walden is pleased to 
 report, but how true it is I leave to others to 
 judge.' Wood's doubt of the word of Payne's 
 enemies is always to be taken as well worth 
 noting. ' Certain it is that he, showing himself 
 very forward and active in disputing against the 
 said Walden and others in our public schools, . . . 
 did for fear of being betrayed by the friers fly 
 into Bohemia, and associated himself with Pro- 
 copius of Prague, the chief of the heretics, dis- 
 persing copies of John Wiclyve's books, which 
 he brought with him out of England, as the 
 Bohemian scholars had done before, about Wi- 
 cleve's time and after, particularly the chief captain 
 
132 A FORGOTTEN GREAT ENGLISHMAN 
 
 of them, John Husse, who made it his whole 
 employment while he studied at Oxford to collect 
 and transcribe his doctrines/ 
 
 * Baleus speaks something of the said Peter, 
 but Pitseus not, because he was a Wiclevist, 
 omitting all that are of his profession.' Again 
 a hint from Wood of how carefully the side taken 
 by a writer must be considered. * The books he 
 wrote were divers, some whereof are against the 
 friers, others about the eucharist and ceremonies. 
 He wrote also certain allegations while the Council 
 of Basil was now held ; among the rest, one was 
 " that the pope hath not plenitude of power, etc. 
 That a king for a just war can exact subsidies 
 from ecclesiastical persons without the authority 
 of the pope," the beginning of which is, " Est opinio 
 aliquorum quod Papa," etc. Doubtless other things 
 not unworthy a scholar's perusal he wrote in these 
 times, but having for the most part been performed 
 in Bohemia, few or none of them came into these 
 parts, having been, after his death (which was at 
 Prague, 1455, according to the English account), 
 either burnt or quite lost' 
 
 Wood's quotations in this interesting sketch of 
 
EARLY ENGLISH WRITERS AGAINST PAYNE 133 
 
 Payne's life are from the acts of the Basle Council, 
 from Gascoigne, and from Foxe's Acts and Monu- 
 ments, and his leaning towards Payne is very 
 evident, though he himself was a papist. His last 
 words explain also how it comes about that Payne 
 has been forgotten. His great work was done in 
 Bohemia, and our historians have been content 
 to copy that which his enemies have written upon 
 him, instead of searching the annals and archives 
 of the country of his adoption, the country that 
 defied all Europe under the teaching of Wycliffe 
 through the mouth of Payne. The few references 
 to Payne, derogatory and defamatory, have led 
 them to look upon him as a minor item in the 
 great events of the fifteenth century, instead of a 
 moving power and of mighty influence ; and even 
 to our own day this yearning to still cling to and 
 quote only from the Latin papal and untruthful 
 writers is sometimes evident. 
 
 Wood's last references are the following : ' As 
 Naboth was slain by Jesabel because he would 
 not consent that his vineyard should be turned 
 into a garden for the delights of King Ahab, so 
 God granted that the fathers of the Church should 
 
134 A FORGOTTEN GREAT ENGLISHMAN 
 
 rather be slain, than that they should consent that 
 the cure of souls should perish by the appropria- 
 tions of churches to religious and collegiate 
 persons, who by such additions grew rich, lived 
 high, entertained useless servants, and purchased 
 unnecessary ornaments, omitting those things 
 most necessary, as the worship of God and cure 
 of souls ; for at this time it was very much 
 complained that the cure of souls in England 
 perished by such appropriations and by the non- 
 residence of curates and prelates, by the pro- 
 portion of unworthy persons, pluralities of benefices, 
 bestowing ecclesiastical degrees on unworthy and 
 vicious persons, and by the pride and ignorance 
 of the graduates of the university. Those few 
 that were learned and modest, and could not out 
 of conscience embrace vile ways for promotion 
 in the Church, abode long in the university, and 
 received much harm thereby.' These were the 
 very evils Payne had earnestly denounced before 
 council and Kaiser, and how curious it is to read 
 on, and hear that Payne was the destroyer of the 
 Church ! ' By the same means, and especially by 
 the appropriations of parish churches, the kingdom 
 
EARLY ENGLISH WRITERS AGAINST PAYNE 135 
 
 of Bohemia was destroyed, the danger of which 
 being seen, the University of Prague wrote to 
 Pope Martin V. for remedy, but being not prose- 
 cuted, the said kingdom was destroyed, and the 
 Church there came to nothing for want of remedies, 
 and by the doctrine of John Husse, Procopius, 
 and Peter Paine.' 
 
 All the further quotations are also adapted from 
 Gascoigne's work, and we now give Gascoigne's 
 own words from the Lincoln MS., and extracts 
 from his copyists and imitators. 
 
 ' These two causes, to wit, the impropriation of 
 churches and unworthy promotion in the churches, 
 were the causes why churches and faith have now 
 been destroyed by very wicked heresies and errors, 
 in Prague and in the kingdom of Bohemia, by the 
 instance and labour of Procopius the heretic, and 
 of Peter, called Peter the Englishman, a principal 
 heretic, who was the son of a man of Gaul, but was 
 born in England about three miles from the town 
 of Grawntham, in a town whose name is Hogh ; 
 and that name in the English dialect is signified 
 by this Latin word cms (shin, hough, or hock). 
 And this Peter, the heretic, was Master of Arts of 
 
136 A FORGOTTEN GREAT ENGLISHMAN 
 
 Oxford, and exceedingly crafty ; and he stole the 
 common seal of the University, under which he 
 wrote to the heretics of Prague, that Oxford and 
 the whole of England was of the faith of the 
 men of Prague except the false Mendicant Friars. 
 These things were written by that false heretic, 
 who was called at Oxford Peter Clerk.' (Lincoln 
 Coll. MS., 117; Gascoigne's Dictionarium Theo- 
 logicum, p. i. p. 326, under the word Episcoptis.) 
 
 * For the unworthy promotion of unfitting 
 persons and the impropriation of parish churches 
 were the causes of the destruction of the kingdom 
 of the Bohemians, and of the heretics who 
 destroyed that country and kingdom ; and when it 
 seemed probable that such evils threatened the 
 kingdom of Bohemia through unworthy prelates 
 by the impropriation of churches and by the non- 
 residence of curates in their cures, the University 
 of Prague wrote to Pope Martin the Fifth for the 
 remedy of these evils, but the remedy was not 
 forthcoming, so that the kingdom of Bohemia was 
 destroyed, and its churches were destroyed and 
 burnt by Hus, the prince of the heretics, and by 
 Peter Clerk, the Englishman, a good-for-nothing 
 
EARLY ENGLISH WRITERS AGAINST PAYNE 137 
 
 Master of Arts of Oxford, who was born in 
 England, in a town next Grawntham, called in 
 English, Hoch ; and there dwelt his father, who 
 was a Gaul or Frenchman by nationality, having 
 been born in Gaul ; which Peter was associated 
 with the evil heretic Procopius, the principal 
 heretic in Prague.' {Ibid. p. 60, under the words 
 Appropriatio ecclesiartcm.) 
 
 There is also another reference in the Lincoln 
 MS. to Payne, in part ii. p. 455, but this is trans- 
 lated by Rogers, whose words we give on p. 147. 
 
 * Peter Payne, the Englishman, a disciple of 
 John Wicleve in the sincere doctrine of Christian 
 truth, and sometime master of the profane arts at 
 Oxford, on account of the persecutions which were 
 then made by the Antichrists in England, fled 
 forth to Prague of the Bohemians. Among them 
 he was received as a pure propounder of the 
 Gospel, as is stated by ^neas Sylvius in the 
 Description of Europe ; and they deputed him 
 among their chief delegates to the Council of 
 Basle, in the year of the Lord, 1436 ; where it was 
 disputed with them concerning the articles of faith 
 for fifty days, he himself reasoning with the 
 
138 A FORGOTTEN GREAT ENGLISHMAN 
 
 sophists by proofs when they rejected the 
 Scriptures. And at the aforesaid council he 
 published — 
 
 Concerning the civil authority of the clergy, 
 book i. 
 
 Against the superstitions of ceremonies, book i. 
 
 Upon both kinds of the Sacrament, book i. 
 And many more besides. He praised both John 
 Wicleve and Huss, in respect of doctrine, not 
 fearing to call them, in public synod, evangelical 
 doctors. Then he returned to Prague with his 
 associates, in the year 1438 from the birth of 
 Christ. Against him Juan de Torre Ouemada, a 
 Spanish cardinal, wrote a book, concerning the 
 efficacy of lustral (baptismal) water.' {Illttstrmm 
 Maioris BritannicB Scriptoriim, autore Jo. Balaeo. 
 4«. B. 38. Th. Seld, f. 193 b.) 
 
 To have aroused this fierce and implacable 
 Inquisitor to publish a work against him, is alone 
 almost a claim to immortality for our countryman. 
 
 * Whereupon it came to pass, that after the death 
 of the same Wiclef, one of his disciples, named 
 Peter Payne the Englishman, fled forth to Prague 
 with his books, in the reign of Wenceslaus, being 
 
EARLY ENGLISH WRITERS AGAINST PAYNE 139 
 
 probably influenced by this reason, that before 
 him a certain Bohemian, of noble birth, of the 
 house which they call the Rotten or Putrid 
 Fish,^ having been grounded in the study of letters 
 at Oxford, brought back with him from thence to 
 his own country the books of Wiclef, which bear 
 the title De Universalibiis 7'ealibtiSy as a precious 
 treasure. Which books by divers transcriptions he 
 communicated to many men at Prague, and in 
 accordance with his name, he infused the deadly 
 poison of rotten heresy into his fellow-citizens. 
 And he lent those books chiefly to those who bore 
 hatred to the Germans (as ^Eneas remarks), so 
 that they (the Germans), being aggrieved by the 
 new doctrines, might depart from the Academy of 
 Prague, in which they had the upper hand, and 
 leave it to be ruled by the Bohemians. Before, 
 however, that pestilence had commonly increased 
 among the multitude, the Doctors and Masters of 
 the famous University of Prague, who had already 
 understood that many of the articles of John 
 Wiclef had been publicly condemned, not only in 
 
 * Meaning Jerome Faulfisch. How the curious name is cun- 
 ningly used to defame Wycliffe's work ! 
 
I40 A FORGOTTEN GREAT ENGLISHMAN 
 
 England by the provincial council and by the 
 University of Oxford, but also at Rome in the 
 council general, and at Paris by the most 
 celebrated Faculty of Theology, themselves 
 propounded the forty-five articles of Wiclef for 
 public examination.' {Histories HiLSsitarum libri 
 duodecim, per Joannem Cochlaeum, 1549, p. 8.) 
 
 'For although the common people regarded 
 John Wicklef as a heretic to be held in execration 
 — whom [the Bishop of] London thought fit on 
 all occasions to object against the Oxonians as 
 a reproach — and also all the Oxonians for his 
 sake as guilty of heretical pravity, especially 
 because the proctors refused the papal bull for 
 the taking of Wycklef, as appears from Thomas 
 Walsyngham ; nevertheless, by the testimony of 
 the whole University, in the Commentaries of 
 Fox, it appears that the Oxonians never had an 
 ill opinion of Wycklef, but always regarded him 
 as orthodox ; nor did they burn his bones, as the 
 common mass of writers allege. Which testimony 
 of the Oxonians, in the year of the Lord 1 406, 
 while assuredly I regard as worthy of no small 
 meed of respect, so I cannot forget what was 
 
EARLY ENGLISH WRITERS AGAINST PAYNE 141 
 
 asserted by Thomas Gascoigne in the Book of 
 Verities, brought together in the form of a table 
 or theological dictionary, namely, that Peter Payne 
 once upon a time gave to his friends of Prague 
 letters concerning these very matters, forged, and 
 sealed with the seal of the University, which he 
 had secretly procured.' {Antiqttitatis Academics 
 0x011. Apologia, Authore Briano Twyno, Oxon. 
 1608, p. 308.) 
 
 '1730, June 15, Mond. 17 Kal. Jul— Thomas 
 Gascoigne in his Book de veritatibiis collectis in 
 modum tabulae, sive in dictionario Theologico, hath 
 a remarkable story. . . . This is taken notice of 
 by Bryan Twyne in p. 308 of his Apologia, where 
 he likewise from Gascoigne observes, that one 
 Peter Payne wrote a fictitious Letter in the Name 
 of our University, he having privily stole the 
 University Seal, to the university of Prague about 
 Wickliff. This Matter ought to be considered, 
 especially since Twyne from Fox says, that the 
 University of Oxford had a great honour for 
 Wickliff, and it seems this Letter was against 
 Wickliff, as if the University of Oxford did not 
 look upon Wickliff as an Heretick, and were not 
 
142 A FORGOTTEN GREAT ENGLISHMAN 
 
 for burning his bones.' (Hearne's Diaries, vol. 
 126, p. ^2>-) 
 
 * Payne [Peter]. Payne Freing, surnamed Inglys 
 or AnglictcSy Clerk or Clericus, born at Hogh, a 
 town distant three miles from Grantham, his father 
 being a Gaul or French, was brought up and 
 studied in the Academy of Oxford, where he 
 bestowed such sedulous labour on grammar, philo- 
 sophy, and theology, that he was honoured with 
 the degree of Master, and the government of the 
 Halls of Saint Edmund and White[hall] next 
 the east gate. He had a disputation with Thomas 
 of Walden and other Carmelites concerning the 
 voluntary mendicity of Christ. At length, for 
 fear of the friars, he fled from the country, and 
 betook himself to Bohemia, where he published 
 the books and doctrines of Wicleve. In MS. 
 Ashmol. Oxon. 789, fol. 98, there are two letters 
 of King Henry the Sixth, i. to the Lord John 
 Burian of Gussensheim, a noble Bohemian, who 
 captured Peter Payne in Bohemia, and imprisoned 
 him in his castle ; 2. to the pope, concerning this 
 Peter, A.D. 1440. The same Peter stole the 
 common seal of the University of Oxford, under 
 
EARLY ENGLISH WRITERS AGAINST PAYNE 143 
 
 which he wrote to the heretics of Prague, that 
 Oxford and the whole of England, except the 
 false Mendicant Friars, was devoted to the faith 
 of the men of Prague. Thomas Gascoign, under 
 the words Appropriatio and Episcopiis. In the year 
 1435 (or rather 1433), with the delegates of the 
 Bohemians, he took part in the Council of Basle, 
 where he maintained the Articles of the Hussites 
 with all his power. He lived with the brethren 
 of the monastery of the Slavs in Prague. He died 
 at Prague in the year 1455. Hist, et Ant. Oxon., 
 i. 216. He wrote, according to Bale, who wrongly 
 distinguishes between Clerk and Payn : Con- 
 cerning the temporal authority of the clergy, 
 book i. [beginning], " These are the words which 
 yesterday.'* Concerning predestination and free 
 will, book i. Concerning the abuses of ceremonies, 
 book i. In favour of both kinds of the Sacra- 
 ment, book i. That a council is above the pope, 
 book i. To the synagogue of Antichrist, book i. 
 Against the little Mendicant Friars, book i. Bale, 
 vii. Z6, 97. He further appears to have written, 
 during the Council of Basle : Against the plenary 
 power of the pontiff. Concerning, the levying of 
 
144 A FORGOTTEN GREAT ENGLISHMAN 
 
 tribute from ecclesiastical persons by the king 
 alone, without obtaining authority from the pope, 
 as often as the necessity of a just war should 
 require. This little book he began thus — " It is 
 the opinion of some that the pope," etc' — Hist, et 
 Ant. Oxon., i. 216. 
 
 Two of these tractates are supposed to be in 
 the Museum at Prague, but up to the present 
 year (1894) Mr. Borovsky, who is searching for 
 them, has been unable to trace them. 
 
 * John de Palmer published an answer and reply 
 against Master Peter the Englishman upon this 
 matter. This Peter also wrote certain arguments 
 " Concerning the punishment of mortal sinners 
 as well among the clergy as the laity ; " to which 
 Master Giles . . . made answer.' (Tanner's Biblio- 
 theca Britannico-Hibernica, 1748, p. 582.) 
 
 The following extract is given, as it is the work 
 usually quoted from, rather than the original MS. 
 already quoted. 
 
 p. cxi. He calls himself ' Thomas Gascoigne, 
 of the diocese of York, Doctor of Theology of 
 Oxford.' 
 
 Ibid. 'John de Capistrane made many preachings 
 
EARLY ENGLISH WRITERS AGAINST PAYNE 145 
 
 in Bohemia against Master John Husse and 
 another Master of Arts [named] Jerome of Prague, 
 who were nourished in their evil errors and 
 heresies by the books of that wicked Doctor John 
 Wickliff of England, which books the Bohemian 
 scholars in Oxford carried to Bohemia, as appears 
 in the Book of the Proceedings of the Council 
 of Constance and Basle. And the very wicked 
 Queen of Bohemia, wife of Wenceslaus King of 
 Bohemia, defended the aforesaid two Bohemian 
 heretics and their adherents, and also that wicked 
 Master of Arts of Oxford [named] Peter the 
 Englishman, who brought many books of the 
 aforesaid Wycliffe the heretic from England to 
 Prague [and] to the kingdom of Bohemia ; which 
 Peter was the son of a Trentish man,^ that is 
 to say, he was born in the town of England which 
 is called Hogh, next the town called Grantham, 
 
 ^ I conjectured ' of a Frenchman, but born,' etc. [This is a 
 bad guess. Trantigena rather means a native of the Trent district ; 
 and it is therefore not necessary to suppose that it is a mistake 
 for Francigena, or that sc. is a mistake for sed, which would make 
 nonsense of a perfectly clear passage.] So suggests the transcriber, 
 who made many of these extracts from the Bodleian Library ; but 
 most of the transcribers as we have seen have turned plain Peter 
 Payne into a Gaul. 
 
 K 
 
146 A FORGOTTEN GREAT' ENGLISHMAN 
 
 and he called himself Peter Clericus^ in English 
 Clark. And the aforesaid John Husse and Jerome 
 of Prague were burnt as heretics in Constance.' 
 (Collectanea Historica, from the Theological 
 Dictionary of Thomas Gascoigne, p. 510.) 
 
 (p. 456.) * Peter Payn, otherwise Clerk, an 
 Englishman, died in Prague, 1455. This Peter 
 the heretic had divers names. He was called 
 Master Peter Payn, also Peter Hogh, because he 
 was born in the town of Hogh next Grantam. 
 Also he was called Peter Freyng, that is, of the 
 Frenchmen, because a Frenchman was his father ; 
 and he was called Master Peter Inglys, i.e, 
 Anglicus, because he was born in England ; and 
 because he was Master of Arts of Oxford he 
 called himself Peter Clerk.' (See Ant. Wood, 
 Hist. Univ. Oxon., 1. i. pp. 203, 215. Ibid., p. 536.) 
 
 There is no word in the Bohemian historian's 
 work of Payne's being of French extraction. The 
 slavish copying of Gascoigne by later writers is 
 proved by this curious little point. 
 
 The following are passages from Gascoigne's 
 Theological Dictionary, as quoted by Rogers : — 
 
 (P- 455') ' Why should no one preach in public 
 
EARLY ENGLISH WRITERS AGAINST PAYNE 147 
 
 save prelates and curates, and persons licensed by 
 one of these ? Note well in the great book Con- 
 cerning the Acts in the Council of Pisa and 
 Const5.nce, and Concerning the Acts of the 
 Council of Basle ; and note these things there in 
 that book in Durham College at Oxford, in the 
 excellent act done by Master Henry Caldifren, 
 of the Order of Preachers against Wulric the 
 Bohemian in the Council of Basle ; and note 
 there in that book many things by Master John 
 Polymare concerning the civil authority against 
 Peter Payne, otherwise Clerk, Master of Arts of 
 Oxford, and son of a Frenchman (Francigena), 
 born in the town of Hoogh next Graantam, in 
 England, who said and did many evil things in 
 Bohemia, and in Prague in the kingdom of 
 Bohemia. And the aforesaid book, Concerning 
 the acts or proceedings in the Council of Pisa, 
 and in the Council of Constance, and in the 
 Council of Basle, which was transferred to 
 Ferrara, and afterwards to Florence, is written 
 in three volumes on paper, in Oxford, in Durham 
 College ; and in one of them are good acts 
 concerning the civil authority and concerning the 
 
148 A FORGOTTEN GREAT ENGLISHMAN 
 
 punishment of sinners, and what persons should 
 preach the word of God, and what kind of 
 persons, and who are bound to preach publicly, 
 and who are not bound, by Master Henry 
 Caldifren, of the Order of Preachers. 
 
 *In the year of Christ 1430 there was a 
 Council General at Basle, in the time of Pope 
 Eugenius the Fourth, and on account of the 
 plague that council was transferred from Basle 
 to Ferrara, and afterwards from Ferrara to the 
 city of Florence ; and the acts of that Council of 
 Basle appear in three large volumes ; and I wish 
 that some good man would by the grace of God 
 labour to have the acts in that council written in 
 a true hand ; because that great book, containing 
 three volumes, comprises very many good acts 
 and determinations of notable doctors in theology, 
 concerning the union of the Greeks in one faith 
 to the church of the Latins ; to which [union] 
 the Greeks afterwards raised objections ; and then 
 they were demolished by the excellent disputa- 
 tions and determinations against the heretics of 
 Bohemia, especially against John Husse of 
 Bohemia, and against Procopius Rasus of Bohemia, 
 
EARLY ENGLISH WRITERS AGAINST PAYNE 149 
 
 a gr^eat heretic, and against Peter Payn, other- 
 wise Clerk, of the Bohemians, then being in 
 Endand with the heretics; which [Peter] died 
 in Prague in the year of Christ 1455, according 
 to the reckoning of England, but [i4]56, according 
 to the reckoning of Bohemia. This Peter the 
 heretic had divers names : he was called Master ^ 
 Peter Payn; also Peter Hogh, because he was 
 born in the town of Hogh, next Grantam. Also 
 he was called Peter Freyng, i.e. of the Frenchmen, 
 because a Frenchman was his father ; and he was 
 called Master Peter Inglys, i.e. the Englishman, 
 because he was born in England ; and because he 
 was Master of Arts of Oxford he called himself 
 Peter Clerk. And against the aforesaid heretics 
 there were many excellent preachings and deter- 
 minations of doctors; therefore let there be 
 obtained, in the Lord's name, a true copy of the 
 aforesaid book Concerning the acts and proceed- 
 ino-s in the sacred Council of Basle.' {Loci e Libro 
 Veritat2m,]2.mes E.T.Rogers, Oxf., 1881, p. 186.) 
 (p. xxiv.) 'But what shall we think of his 
 (Neander's) proceeding, when Krummel, without 
 so much as attempting to subject the writings 
 
ISO A FORGOTTEN GREAT ENGLISHMAN 
 
 of Hus and Wiclif to a comparison, soars to the 
 height of the utterly false assertion, that his life 
 long Hus never gave in his adhesion to many- 
 important dogmas of Wiclif? Only afterwards, 
 he maintains, the whole of Wiclifs doctrines 
 obtained through the influence of the Englishman 
 Peter Payne, acceptance with a part of the 
 Hussites.' 
 
 The greatness of Wycliffe's influence upon Hus 
 was moreover accentuated quite sharply by Boh- 
 ringer, eight years before the work of Krummel. 
 
 (P. 72.) 'The prebendary Nicholas Tempelfeld 
 of Brieg, one of the most passionate opponents of 
 King George of Podiebrad, speaks of the doctrines 
 of Wiclif as brought to Bohemia by certain English- 
 men, whose names he does not mention. He 
 has manifestly in view the magister Peter Payne,' 
 who from 1410 to 141 5 occupied the dignity of 
 Vice-Principal of St. Edmund's Hall in Oxford, 
 and afterwards went to Bohemia, where he took 
 the liveliest interest in religious questions. He 
 was to the end of his life a zealous Wiclifite, and 
 died only in the year 1455 — three years before 
 Tempelfeld composed his tractate. 
 
EARLY ENGLISH WRITERS AGAINST PAYNE 151 
 
 ' Just as little credence is due to the report of 
 Stanislas of Welwar, who appears in the year 
 1455 as dean of the faculty of artists in Prague, 
 and was afterwards made canon of Prague. A 
 discourse of his is still extant,^ in which he 
 relates that a bachelor of the University of 
 Prague was sent to Oxford to ascertain whether 
 it was a fact that Wiclif had been condemned 
 by the Archbishop of Canterbury and many 
 bishops. The bachelor obtained possession of a 
 certificate of the University of Oxford, erased 
 the writing down as far as the seal, and then 
 wrote upon the parchment a commendation of 
 Wiclifs writings. Coming to his death-bed he 
 repented of the act, and spoke of it in the 
 presence of Sigismund Gistebnitz, saying that he 
 had never in his life committed a worse offence 
 than this. . . . 
 
 * Some, says Prokop, carried into Bohemia the 
 books of John Wiclif, who had been condemned 
 by the Church, and falsified a document by 
 
 * Oracio reverendi viagistri Stanislai de Welwar canonici Pragensis 
 ecdesie^ in Cod. univ. Prag., xi. 1. 8, 280, 28 1 ; printed in the 
 Geschichtschreiber der husit. Beweg.y iii. 279 ; comp. Palacky, Die 
 Geschichte des Hiisitenthurns. 116. 
 
152 A FORGOTTEN GREAT ENGLISHMAN 
 
 inserting the name of John Wiclif in place of 
 the name of a master who was declared in this 
 document to be Catholic. Here, likewise, the 
 deceiver experiences remorse upon his death-bed, 
 and pronounces this fraud the worst crime of 
 his life. 
 
 * Cochlaeus combined the version of Enea Silvio 
 with that of Nicholas Tempelfeld, and speaks 
 also of Peter Payne as the person who trans- 
 planted Wiclifs books into Bohemia.^ With later 
 historians, particularly from the time of Hajek, 
 fresh details are found ; and so even in our own 
 day the narration has been given of a certain 
 Jerome Faulfisch to whom the propaganda on 
 behalf of Wiclif is traced back.' (Johann Loserth's 
 
 Wiclif and Hus, quoted from the English edition 
 of 1884.) 
 
 * There has been some controversy as to the 
 origin of a remarkable testimonial which purports 
 to have been issued by the Chancellor and Masters 
 of Oxford in their House of Congregation on the 
 5th of October, 1406. After mentioning the spotless 
 character of John Wyclif, his exemplary manner 
 
 * Historia Htisitaruni, 8. 
 
EARLY ENGLISH WRITERS AGAINST PAYNE I53 
 
 ''in responding, in lecturing, and in determining," 
 and his truly Catholic zeal against "all who 
 blaspheme Christ's religion by voluntary begging," 
 the document in question states that he was 
 neither convicted of heretical pravity during his 
 life, nor exhumed and burned after death, and 
 that he had no equal in the university as a writer 
 on logic, philosophy, theology, or ethics. An 
 original copy written in the English style, and 
 duly attested by the seal of the university, was 
 quoted by John Huss, the Bohemian reformer, 
 and there is an early transcript of it among the 
 Cottonian manuscripts. Its authenticity has, 
 nevertheless, often been called in question. 
 Formal complaint was made in the Convocation 
 that met at St. Paul's in 141 1, that, without the 
 consent of the doctors and masters, the common 
 seal of the University of Oxford had been secretly 
 affixed to some lying letters, which gave a 
 testimonial for the encouragement of heresy and 
 error, and that letters thus improperly sealed had 
 been despatched to different foreign countries. 
 Then again, Thomas Gascoigne, who was Chan- 
 cellor of Oxford in 1434, states positively that 
 
154 A FORGOTTEN GREAT ENGLISHMAN 
 
 a certain Peter Payne ^ stole the seal of the 
 University, and affixed it to a letter assuring the 
 heretics at Prague of the sympathy of the 
 Oxonians. One circumstance, hitherto unnoticed, 
 may perhaps clear up the difficulties of the case. 
 The 5th of October, the date of the disputed 
 document, fell during the Long Vacation. At 
 such a time a handful of masters might easily 
 snatch a sudden division in Congregation, and 
 arrogate to themselves the authority of the whole 
 university. Thus the testimonial in favour of 
 John Wyclif may have been technically valid, 
 though it had not received the assent of a 
 majority of the doctors and masters.' (Maxwell 
 Lyte's History of the University of Oxford. 1886.) 
 We have thus traced down through the centuries 
 these defamatory and disparaging statements 
 promulgated by Payne's fierce and unscrupulous 
 enemies. Gascoigne writing in 1461, Bale in 
 1548, Cochlaeus 1549, Twyne 1608, Wood 1684, 
 Hearne 1730, Tanner 1748, Rogers 1881, Loserth 
 1884, Lyte 1886. 
 
 * Loci e Lihro Veritatuvi^ Thorold Rogers, pp. 20, 186, 187 ; 
 Loserth's Wiclif and Hus. 
 
EARLY ENGLISH WRITERS AGAINST PAYNE I55 
 
 It is true that other modern writers upon Church 
 matters have mentioned his name. Robertson 
 has seven references, and Creighton four; but 
 these references are sHght and biassed. For 
 example, only half of John of Ragusa's ' slippery 
 snake' speech is given, and not the parts which, 
 from an opponent, proves Payne's power. Foxe 
 in his Acts and Monuments has several notes 
 upon Payne's name and work. From this we 
 glean that Pope Martin sent to the clergy of 
 England for a subsidy to persecute one Peter 
 Clerk, Master of Arts of Oxford, who, flying 
 out of England, was, at the Council of Basle, 
 disputing on the Bohemians' side. And from a 
 note in the appendix to vol. iii. of the same 
 work it is seen that Peter Paine was Vice- 
 Principal of St. Edmund's Hall from 1410 to 
 141 5, and was born at Haugh or Hough, three 
 miles from Grantham. And thus we have, as 
 more clearly in Wood, the aliases to which 
 Creighton in his History of the Papacy refers, 
 that were simply his being called after his 
 profession or his birthland, instead of by his 
 name of Peyne, or Paine, or Payne. 
 
IS6 A FORGOTTEN GREAT ENGLISHMAN 
 
 His actions through all these forty years of fierce 
 desperate life are manly and noble. Hardship 
 and continuous danger he must have endured ; 
 and yet only once did he waver before council 
 or pope, emperor or people, in boldly teaching 
 his master Wyclifife's doctrines. 
 
 Do not the foreign historians prove that Peter 
 Payne was a great man } That he is forgotten 
 by his own countrymen is proved, as we have 
 already said, by the fact that no work read by the 
 common folk of to-day in our schools or colleges 
 chronicles his name, and that no biography or 
 encyclopaedia or ordinary history of England 
 mentions his work. And yet was he not truly 
 a Great Englishman ? 
 
INDEX 
 
 Adamites, the, 52 
 
 Albert, King, coronation of, 
 
 108 ; death of, 114 
 Ales of Riesenberg, election of, 
 
 90 
 Angel Inn, Grantham, 21, 32 
 Articles of Prague, the, 83 
 Aussig, victory at, 42 
 
 Baleus, references of, to Payne, 
 
 137 
 Barbara, Queen, coronation of, 
 
 lOI 
 
 Basle, council at, 65 ; interlude 
 
 at, 77 
 Beaufort, Cardinal, appointed 
 legate, 49 ; at Sachaw, 5 1 ; 
 march of, diverted, 59 
 Bekynton, Bishop, quoted. III 
 Bernstadt, capture of, 49 
 Bodleian Library, visit to, 19 
 Bohemians, the, strife of, 48 ; 
 union of, 50 ; victories of, 54 ; 
 struggles of, 63 ; their modes 
 of celebrating Holy Com- 
 munion, 73 
 Booty, great, taken, 62 
 Brownlow, Earl of, letter of, 31 
 Brunn, conference at, 94 
 
 Bulls, issue of, loi 
 Burian takes Payne prisoner, 
 108 ; letters of, ill 
 
 Capgrave quoted, 37 
 Castle Hill, the. Hough, 31 
 Chalicers, the, 44 ; rites of, 
 
 73 
 Chelcicky, Peter, 124 
 Cochlaeus, references to Payne, 
 
 138 
 Creighton, Bishop, references to 
 
 Payne, 154 
 Crusade, a, undertaken, 49 ; a 
 
 new, 58 
 
 Dechanal church, the, 103 
 Deutch-Brod, victory at, 42 
 Deutschen Orden, letter to, 54 
 
 Eger, meeting at, 67 
 
 Faulfisch, Jerome, 139 
 Fistright, 1 14 
 
 Foxe, references to Payne, 155 
 Freeman, Mr. E. A., letter of, 
 
 15 
 Froude, Mr. J. A., letter of, 
 
 12 
 
58 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Gascoigne, references to Payne, 
 
 135, 144 
 George of Podiebrad, a leader, 
 
 91 ; rise of, 120 
 German, sermons in, 73 
 Gladstone, Mr. \V. E., letter of, 
 
 14 
 
 Gold seal of the emperor used, 
 
 100 
 Gutenstein, loS, 109 
 
 Hearne, references to Payne, 140 
 Henry VI., letter of, ill 
 Hirschfeld, fall of, 49 
 Hough, visit to, 21 
 Hussites, the, influence of, 6^^ 
 
 Iglau, meetings at, 95 
 Income-tax imposed, 52 
 
 Joan of Arc, influence of, 57 
 Julian, Cardinal, at Taus, 66; 
 at Basle, 72 ; reply of, 80 
 
 Kahlenburg, 88 
 
 Kalteisen, dispute with, 81 
 
 Kankberg, 88 
 
 Koranda, forbidden to preach, 
 
 107 ; imprisonment of, 122 
 Koryhut, Prince, letter of, 45 ; 
 
 imprisonment of, 47 
 Krakau, congress at, 64 
 Kuttenberg, Landtag at, 68 ; 
 
 last discussion of Taborites at, 
 
 115 
 
 Landtags at Prague, 58, Z^^ 119 ; 
 
 at Kuttenberg, 68 
 Lauban, fall of, 49 
 Lauda, Mathias, conduct of, 
 
 69, 82 
 
 Lipau, battle of, 90 
 Lollards, the, edict against, 137 
 Lyte, Maxwell, references to 
 Payne, 152 
 
 Madan, Mr. F., letter of, 14 
 Marien-Tein church, 45 
 Martin V., mandate of, 49 ; 
 
 letter of, 52 ; death of, 65 
 Meinhard, Herr, a leader, 54 ; 
 
 perversion of, 90 
 Moore, Mr. E., letter of, 13 
 
 Nemec, Priest, 61 
 
 New College, Oxford, 18 
 
 Nicholson, Mr., interview with, 
 
 19 
 Niklas at Prague, 61 ; called 
 little bishop, 115; imprison- 
 ment of, 122 
 
 Ochitz, fall of, 49 
 Orphans, the, break up of, 91 ; 
 creed of, 123 
 
 Palacky quoted, 56, 102, 113 
 Palamar, debate with, 89 
 Payne family, relics of, at Hough, 
 
 23 
 
 Payne, Edward, his tomb, 23 
 Payne, Peter, unknown, 10; 
 efforts to trace him at Oxford, 
 18 ; at Hough, 21 ; his journey 
 to Oxford, 33 ; his name still 
 cherished in Bohemia, 35 ; at 
 Oxford, 37 ; arrival atiPrague, 
 37 ; first mention of, in Bo- 
 hemia, 39 ; his discussions 
 with Pribram, 42 ; on tran- 
 substantiation, 47 ; at Press- 
 burg, 55 ; at Prague, 61 ; at 
 
INDEX 
 
 159 
 
 Krakau, 65 ; at Kuttenberg, 
 68 ; journey of, to Basle, 68 ; 
 arrival at Basle, 71 ; abused 
 by Stoigkowic, 76 ; at Prague, 
 83 ; foresight of, §8 \ his in- 
 fluence still felt, 89 ; decision 
 referred to, 92 ; judgment of, 
 97 ; his cure at Saaz, 102 ; 
 his safe-conduct, 106 ; at 
 Prague, 106 ; made a prisoner, 
 108 ; shut up at Gutenstein, 
 109 ; heavy ransom given for 
 him, 117 ; at Prague, 122; 
 his influence, 123 ; his writings, 
 125 ; references to, by Wood, 
 126 ; Gascoigne, 135, 144 ; 
 Baleus, 137; Cochlaeus, 138; 
 Twyne, 138 ; Hearne, 140 ; 
 Tanner, 140; Lyte, 152; 
 Robinson, 154 ; Creighton, 
 154; Foxe, 155 
 Payne, Thomas, his tomb, 24 
 Penning, John, 107 
 Percival, Dr., note of, 13 
 Pest, the, in Prague, 87 ; in 
 
 Bohemia, 114 
 Philibert, Bishop, 106 
 Plumptre, Rev. R. G., letter of, 
 
 17 
 
 Poole, Mr. R. L., interview 
 with, 19 
 
 Prague, the Articles of, 39, 83 
 Landtag at, 58, 83, 1 19 
 state of, 60 ; debate at, 61 
 pest at, 87 ; conference at, 
 87 ; festivities at, 95 ; called 
 a Sodom, 96 
 
 Pressburg, meeting at, 55 
 
 Pribram, his discussions with 
 Payne, 42 ; again at Prague, 
 60; at Kuttenburg, 117 
 
 Priester Johann, 41 
 Progress, a triumphal, 118 
 Prokop the Great, wars of, 48 ; 
 at Sachaw, 50 ; at Pressburg, 
 55 ; at Krakau, 65 ; his journey 
 to Basle, 68 ; at Basle, 71 ; 
 death of, 90 
 Ptacek, Herr, 115 
 
 Ripley, Mr., interview with, 29 
 Robertson, references to Payne, 
 
 154 
 
 Rokycana, Johann, protest of, 
 45 ; at Zebrak, 53 ; at Prague, 
 61, 83 ; journey to Basle, 68 ; 
 at Basle, 71 ; wit of, 82 ; 
 chosen archbishop, 94 ; fall 
 of, 102 ; followers of, 107 ; at 
 Kuttenburg, 117; again at 
 Prague, 122 
 
 Rowley, Professor, letter of, 1 1 
 
 Saaz, Payne's cure at, 102 ; 
 
 description of, 103 
 Sachaw, battle of, 51 
 St. Edmund's Hall, visit to, 
 
 18 
 St. George, knighthood of, 50 
 St. Peter's, Oxford, 18 
 Schlick, Kaspar, at Landtag, 94 
 Sermons, German, 73 
 Sigmund, King, the word- 
 breaker, 41 ; at Pressburg, 
 55 ; at Brunn, 94 ; at Prague, 
 95 ; at Trebitsch, 96 ; gold 
 seal of, 100 ; death of, 108 
 Sion, 88 
 
 Song, an old, quoted, 46 
 Sparur, Alexander, 82 
 Stoigkowic, Johann, his abuse 
 of Payne, 76 
 
i6o 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Table used in open air for cele- 
 brating Holy Communion, 89 
 
 Tabor, foundation of, 39 ; con- 
 ference at, 62 ; description 
 of, 120 
 
 Taborites, the, teaching of, 39 ; 
 rites of, 73 ; last discussion of, 
 
 115 
 
 Tanner, references to Payne, 
 
 140 
 Taus, battle at, 66 
 Ticket given by Payne to Council 
 
 of Basle, 79 
 Topias, Friar Dan, reply of, 38 
 Trebitsch, conference at, 96 
 Transubstantiation, Payne on, 
 
 47 
 Twyne, references to Payne, 
 
 138 
 
 Ulrich of Rosenburg, 55 ; policy 
 
 of, 90 ; power of, 91 ; wars 
 of, 93, 115 ; judgment of, 98 
 
 Viskupec, imprisonment of, 122 
 
 Waldstein Castle, 47 
 
 Warren, Mr. H., interview with, 
 
 18 
 Wenzel, Priest, 61 
 William, Duke, proposal of, 80 
 Wladislaw, King, at Krakau, 
 
 65 
 Wood, references to Payne, 126 
 Wycliffe, the number of his 
 
 followers, 37 
 Wyscherad, rock of, 58 
 
 Zebrak, discussion at, 55 
 Ziska, wars of, 41 ; death of, 
 
 42 
 Zittau, siege of, 48 
 
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