`Your departed, brother Leopold was once married to Katherine of Burgundy and she likes you,' was what the pontiff said to him, smiling so, sweetly, so charmingly, that the duke was confused as to why he had become so alarmed.
'I don't understand,' the duke said with irritation. `Why. do you say that?'
`Why? She certainly dealt with you: warmly from your brother's estate. She likes you. You can prepare our welcome in Burgundy.'
`Burgundy? Your welcome?'
'I am going to Burgundy. I shall rule the Church from France.'
'But what do you want from me?'
'Frederick,' the pope explained gently, 'you are my defender, are you not? You will get me to Burgundy safely at the head of your troops.'
`Are you crazy? Sigismund and the nations would take my head’
`Not a bit of it, lad., The Council of Konstanz is finished. It has no
legal head and no legal existence. Sigismund will have many other things to do.'
'I have hardly seen you since the night at Meran five months ago!
We have only exchanged two messages, in the six weeks I've been in Konstanz! You cannot involve men in this terrible thing"
'Have you forgotten? You took my money in exchange for your own vows to defend me.'
'Damn your money!'
`Frederick!' Cossa admonished gently,
`The only reason I agreed to that arrangement was because I was Sigismund's enemy.'
'And you needed my help to cope with the enmity of the Bishops of Brixen, Chur and Trient.'
'I thought you wanted moral support.'
'Frederick, you say that you accepted our condition because Sigismund was your enemy. Well? He is more than ever your enemy now. The three bishops have been handled. You have my money You, have one more lofty title and an extraordinary post – Defender of the Papacy – which your descendants will dine off for the next three hundred years. All we ask in return is that you and your troops escort me safely to Burgundian soil. There is no reason to panic,’
`Your Holiness – once you are on Burgundian soil I shall have no position from which to bargain with Sigismund. He will outlaw me for this! He will have everything I own!'
Cossa dropped the silken amiability. His face hardened murderously, making Frederick doubly fearful. `If you even imagine you have a bargaining position, that you can use me as a trading piece with Sigismund, I will have you garrotted here, in this room, now – do you understand me?' he said. `We will stop this nonsense about the value of your word. It is worthless. You will take me to Burgundy.'
'Holiness – listen to me. It was a mistake for you to escape from Konstanz. You may have had to resign your papacy – yes. I mean, that is the sheer reality of it, isn't it? But the French cardinals and the other moderates in the council who hold the balance between the fanatic English and the Germans on one hand, and the Italians on the other, would make sure that you could resign with all dignity and all due grace. D'Ailly understands these things. He would make sure that your future would be richly endowed. But Sigismund! Sigismund is a barbarian and I shudder to think what it is – right now – that he is getting underway against you.'
`You are not competent to advise me,' Cossa said. `I hired you to defend me. Are you going to get me to Burgundy?'
'No, Your Holiness. I can get no one out. How can I get myself out?'
The following afternoon, the thundering news of the pope's flight brought consternation to Konstanz. As if with a single mind, 100,000 people decided that the council was finished. The pope's palace was immediately sacked. Italians and Austrians left the town at night, on foot, on horses, in boats and in terror for their lives. Sigismund's guards occupied every street and square.
At dawn, Sigismund and the Duke Ludwig of Bavaria-Heidelberg, preceded by trumpeters, rode through the town proclaiming that all was well, that no one was to leave or think of leaving, that all persons and possessions were safe, guaranteed by the king's protection. The shops and banks were opened again as before.
Sigismund assembled every conciliar delegate and assured them that, at the peril of their lives, they would maintain the council Slowly his resolution convinced everyone that they were safe. The town quieted; but Sigismund was in a shaking, tilting, unbalancing fury. He saw his ultimate throne slipping away from him He assembled the princes of the empire at Petershausen and impeached Frederick before them, while the cardinals met and elected a deputation to be sent to Pope John to affirm that nothing should be undertaken to his detriment in the meanwhile.
The pope, from Schaffhausen, ordered the curia and the cardinals to join him under the pain of excommunication – within six days. Some of the curia left Konstanz. On Palm Sunday, four of the Italian cardinals, led by Oddo Colonna, fled to Schaffhausen. On the following day, three more arrived, including myself, bringing with me 98,000 gold florins which was Cossa's (and the marchesa's) share of what had been earned by the women, gambling and the other enterprises in the past few months which Bernaba had been overseeing for the marchesa.
Outraged by the mass desertions, Sigismund personally nailed a manifesto to the door of the papal, palace in Konstanz, against the pope and. the cardinals, charging John with tyranny, homicide, simony, fornication and jobbery.
Regnault de Chartres, Archbishop of Rheims, was the pope's first ambassador to the council. He brought a letter from the pope to the cardinals which appointed the body of the sacred college as his proctors to effect his resignation in case both of his rivals died or abdicated. The letter also stated Cossa’s wish to make the journey to Nice with Sigismund in order that simultaneous resignations might be effected there, knowing that if he arrived in Nice Benedict would refuse to resign. Two days later, a committee of three cardinals returned from Schaffhausen and reported to a congregation of the council. They advised the council that it was virtually dissolved through the absence of the pope, who possessed and retained the right to dismiss it when he chose. However, they reported, the pope would promise not to dissolve the council, and he himself would remain in the neighbourhood of Konstanz, if the sacred college and the curia went to him.
Sigismund then addressed the council and told it how it would vote. `My soldiers surround this place,' he told them. `If you vote to leave Konstanz, you will be dragged out to a prison.'
It was circulated everywhere throughout the city that the pope's proposals had been scornfully rejected by the council and by the cardinals – so that everyone was able to believe that Sigismund did not at all want to alienate the cardinals because that-.would have effectively broken up the council,
At the fourth general session of the council, held on Saturday, 30 March 1415, the following: resolutions were passed:
(I) The Synod of Konstanz, legitimately assembled in the Holy Spirit, constituting an ecumenical council and representing the Church Militant, derives its power directly from Christ, to whom everyone, of whatever state or dignity, even the pope, is bound to render obedience in all that relates to the faith or to the extirpation of the schism.
(II) The pope shall not summon from Konstanz – without consent of the synod – the curia or its officers, whose absence would entail a dissolution of the council.
(III) All penalties pronounced by the pope since leaving Konstanz against any dependants or members of the council are invalid.
Sigismund resolved to strangle the mockery of his religion, his ambition and his dignity caused by Cossa's flight with a vengeful and relentless show of statesmanship, and logic. But he hoped to do so mainly by a force of arms which would drag Cossa back to Konstanz by his heels through the mud. The Italian libertine, as Sigismund saw the pope, had almost succeeded in manoeuvring him into looking like some foolish outlander who had no more authority than a scullery maid. Even the thought of Cossa's returning to Konstanz bearing all the, dignity of a reigning pope filled him with dismayed rage and a blind-sense of prevention at any cost. He could see, as the council most obviously could not see, that Cossa's design was to draw out the negotiations, to vacillate and procrastinate until he could scatter the council and leave Sigismund standing there – like some bewildered bumpkin. Therefore, in protection of his amour-propre, that haughty, sky-high edifice from which most history has been hung, the king stationed, guards on the city, walls and posted armed men along all roads.