Sigismund

“ These troubles and adventures lasted many years; in the course of which, Sigismund, trying all manner of friends and expedients, found in the Burggraves of Nuremberg, Johann and Friedrich, with their talents, possessions, and resources, the main or almost only sure support he got.
No end of troubles to Sigismund, and to Brandenburg through him, from this sublime Hungarian legacy. Like a remote fabulous golden fleece, which you have to go and conquer first, and which is worth little when conquered. ”

“ Here, in the olden time, dwelt the noble Baron Sigismund; and here, nothing daunted by the gloomy grandeur of the fortress, his little son Rudolph romped and frolicked the live-long day. A charming fellow he was, with eyes of heavenly blue, and a complexion of pure milk and roses; a true boy, full of activity and vivacity, and with not a slight touch of mischief in his composition. ”

“ Be he the son of Balthazar, or be he the son of a prince, he has received my troth with the consent of my honored father, and our fortunes will shortly be one. There might be forwardness in a maiden thus openly avowing her preference for a youth; but here, with none to own him, oppressed with his long-endured wrongs, and assailed in his most sacred affections, Sigismund has a right to my voice. ”

“ Come back, King Sigismund, come, they shall love thee and fear thee,
The people cry out O come back to us, reign evermore.
The new king is dead, and we will not his son, no nor brother,
Come with thy queen, is she busy yet, kneading of cakes?
Sigismund, show us the boy, is he safe, and his mother,
Sigismund?'—dreaming he falls into laughter and wakes.
L. And men say this dream came true,
For he walking in the dew
Turned aside while yet was red
On the highest mountain head,
Looking how the wheat he set
Flourished. ”

“ This is the Kaiser Sigismund who held the Council of Constance; and "blushed visibly," when Huss, about to die, alluded to the letter of safe-conduct granted him, which was issuing in such fashion. Sigismund blushed; but could not conveniently mend the matter—so many matters pressing on him just now. As they perpetually did, and had done. An always-hoping, never-resting, unsuccessful, vain and empty Kaiser. Specious, speculative; given to eloquence, diplomacy, and the windy instead of the solid arts; always short of money for one thing. ”

“ Sigismund turned, and with the eye he made a silent appeal to the two old nobles, as if to ask for advice or orders.
"It might indeed be better to return," observed the Signore Grimaldi, in the way one utters a half-formed resolution. "This wind is getting to be piercingly cutting, and the night is hard upon us. What thinkest thou, Melchior; for, with Monsieur Sigismund, I am of opinion that there is little time to lose."
"Signore, your pardon," hastily interrupted the guide. "I would not undertake to cross the plain of the Vélan an hour later, for all the treasures of Einsideln and Loretto! ”

“ Sigismund was now thoroughly inflamed against Hus. He had belittled the protection which Sigismund had offered him, and had declared that his friends could protect him against the Emperor; he had quoted a Scriptural instance of the deposition of kings; and, above all, he had disputed Sigismund’s authority over the Latin language. Such a man could not be suffered to live; and the Emperor now declared that he delivered him over to the Council to be burnt, if they so pleased; adding further, that no recantation was to be trusted. He also implied that the death of Jerom must follow that of Hus. ”

“ When a man makes a success of his life the bar sinister lends him the added distinction of picturesqueness, and not only did the Knight of the Black Raven have the blood of real kings in his veins, but Sigismund united on his head the crowns of Imperial Germany, Hungary, and Bohemia. ”

“ Sigismund, Emperor of Germany, had sworn to put an end to the Hussite rebellion in Bohemia, and to punish the rebels in a way that would make all future rebels tremble. But Sigismund was pursuing the old policy of cooking the hare before it was caught. He forgot that the indomitable John Ziska and the iron-flailed peasantry stood between him and his vow. He had first to conquer the reformers before he could punish them, and this was to prove no easy task. ”

“ Towards the end of October, Sigismund of Bohemia, king of Hungary, Croatia and [Pg 74] Dalmatia, a valiant man at arms, and a catholic, came with his queen, the daughter of count Cilley, a Sclavonian, and a grand retinue, to Aix la Chapelle [12] . Sigismund was first raised by the electors to be king of the Romans, and then emperor of Germany. On the eighth day of November, he was consecrated and crowned emperor, by the archbishop of Cologne, in the church of our Lady at Aix la Chapelle, as is customary; after which ceremony, he was to be confirmed in his dignity by the pope of Rome. ”

“ While Sigismund lost one place after another in Livonia, Courland, and Prussia, he saw his ally in Germany advancing from conquest after conquest to unlimited power. No wonder then if his aversion to peace kept pace with his losses. The vehemence with which he nourished his chimerical hopes blinded him to the artful policy of his confederates, who at his expense were keeping the Swedish hero employed, in order to overturn, without opposition, the liberties of Germany, and then to seize on the exhausted North as an easy conquest. ”

“ No sooner did the emperor's ship cast anchor, than Sigismund saw the Duke of Gloucester and several noblemen ride into the water with drawn swords, and demand to know whether in coming thus, he designed to exercise or claim any authority in England. On Sigismund replying in the negative, this hostile reception immediately gave way to one of courtesy and honour. Besides his main object, the settlement of the papal schism, Sigismund was also anxious to effect a peace between the kings of England and France ”

“ The great mass of the Bohemian people, with that instinctive intuition that sometimes characterises the masses, always distrusted Sigismund, to whom they rightly attributed the responsibility for the death of the revered master Hus. The eloquent priest John of Zelivo, who had at that time great influence over the people of Prague, denounced Sigismund in apocalyptic language, calling him the fiery seven-headed dragon of the revelation. ”

“ All looked at the minister, and every one had something to say against him.
"Who would ever think," cried a noble, whose gray mustaches and old-fashioned costume recalled the era of King Sigismund, "that he could be a minister of state? Formerly, when a Palatin traversed the capital, a troop of horsemen both preceded and followed him. Soldiers dispersed the crowds that pressed to look at him. But what respect can be felt for an old miser, who has not the heart to afford himself a coach, and who eats a piece of bread in the streets, just as a beggar would do?" ”

“ Both parties now prepared for action; and, while Sigismund was issuing an appeal to all citizens and princes to come to help him against his rebellious subjects, Z̆iz̆ka and Nicholaus of Hus were preparing to march to Prague at the head of their Taborite forces. Many of the workmen and peasants were now beginning to stir themselves for the national cause; and, before Sigismund could secure the help of the Electors of the Empire, he was to have a slight taste of the dangers which he was about to encounter. ”

“ Notwithstanding all these advantages, the strength of his impulses, and the numberless occasions on which he had breasted the surges of the Mediterranean, Sigismund, on recovering from his plunge, felt the fearful chances of the risk he ran, as the stern soldier meets the hazards of battle, in which he knows if there is victory there is also death. ”

“ SIGISMUND I. (1467-1548) , king of Poland, the fifth son of Casimir IV. and Elizabeth of Austria, was elected grand-duke of Lithuania on the 21st of October 1505 and king of Poland on the 8th of January 1506. Sigismund was the only one of the six sons of Casimir IV. gifted with extraordinary ability. He had served his apprenticeship in the art of government first as prince of Glogau and subsequently as governor of Silesia and margrave of Lusatia under his elder brother Wladislaus of Bohemia and Hungary. ”

“ Had Sigismund lived, he might have overcome all resistance, and reduced the land to obedience to Rome. His power was constantly growing. In March the surrender of the Taborite stronghold of Konigingrätz filled the Hussites with consternation. Not long after siege was laid to Zion, the fastness of John Rohacz, a powerful baron who had refused submission. He was finally captured in it, brought to Prague, and hanged in the presence of the emperor with sixty of his followers and a priest. ”

“ I beg you for God’s sake to get all the nobles to petition Sigismund in a body for a final hearing, because he was the only one in the Council to say that at the next hearing I should be allowed to reply briefly in writing. His confusion will be great if that promise is unfulfilled. [3] But methinks his word is as little to be trusted as in the matter of the safe-conduct. They told me in Bohemia to beware of that safe-conduct. Others said, “He will hand you over to your enemies.” ”

“ But he was not in my thoughts at the instant; there is still another who nobly risked more than the mariner in our behalf, since he risked life."
"This is beyond question, and I have already reflected much on the means of doing him good. He is a soldier of fortune, I learn, and if he will take service in Genoa, I will charge myself with the care of his preferment. Trouble not thyself, therefore, concerning the fortunes of young Sigismund; thou knowest my means, and canst not doubt my will." ”

“ Sigismund is Kaiser, then, in spite of Wenzel. King of Hungary, after unheard-of troubles and adventures, ending some years ago in a kind of peace and conquest, he has long been King of Bohemia, too, he at last became; having survived Wenzel, who was childless. Kaiser of the Holy Roman Empire, and so much else: is not Sigismund now a great man? Truly the loom he weaves upon, in this world, is very large. ”

“ But though much of the success of the Utraquist wars was due to the energy of Z̆iz̆ka and his followers, the leading citizens of Prague had also a very important influence on the struggle; and Sigismund’s actions soon roused in them that desperate courage which had seemed for a moment to forsake them. The nickname of Sigismund, “Super Grammaticam,” has been fixed on this Emperor by Carlyle; but an even more distinctive name would have been Sigismund “Super Veritatem.” Many other rulers have told lies in their time of emergency ”

“ Though he was a man of honour, and his conscience long remained ill at ease on the subject, Sigismund was a devout Churchman; and if ever superstition can be pleaded in palliation of a breach of the moral law, surely it can be pleaded on behalf of one who yields to the express commands of an authority which he believes to be infallible. That faith must not be kept with heretics to the prejudice of the Catholic faith, was and is as much a doctrine of the Roman Church [1] as the doctrine of Transubstantiation or of the Immaculate Conception. ”

“ Toward the end of the year 1847, and about a year after the birth of his second son, Sigismund returned to Rome, and was consequently an eye-witness of the political scenes occurring during 1848 in the capital of the world. His religious feelings were always deep, and it was most natural that during his sojourn in Rome, a man of his character and antecedents should become through conviction an ardent champion of the Catholic Church. ”

“ Sigismund had finally taken his position, and he redeemed his hesitation with great show of zeal. When, on June 7, Huss had his second hearing before the council, Sigismund thanked the prelates for their consideration for him as shown in their leniency to Huss, whom he sternly advised to submit, for he could look for no human help; “We will never protect you in your errors and pertinacity. Rather, indeed, than do so we will prepare the fire for you with our own hands.” ”

“ Philip had every reason in the world to aid the project of Sigismund. Apart from the fact that his immediate hold over the insane king, Charles VI, would be strengthened by the absence from France of the energetic scions of noble{210} families, who, if successful in the struggle against Bayezid, might push on to the Holy Land and find permanent interests—or a grave—there, Sigismund was well worth cultivating. The elder brother of the king of Hungary, Wenceslaus, was Roman emperor, but insecure in his position. ”

“ It was during this last effort of Sigismund to regain his position that the Earl of Meldritch, accompanied by Smith, went to Transylvania, with the intention of assisting Georgio Busca, who was the commander of the Emperor's party. But finding Prince Sigismund in possession of the most territory and of the hearts of the people, the earl thought it best to assist the prince against the Turk, rather than Busca against the prince. Especially was he inclined to that side by the offer of free liberty of booty for his worn and unpaid troops, of what they could get possession of from the Turks. ”