HUSSAR 



2881 



HUTCHINSON 



On his arrival in Constance, however, Huss 

 was arrested and cast into prison. On June 5, 

 1415, his case came to trial, and in the hear- 

 ings before the Council his doctrines were 

 condemned and he was ordered to recant. He 

 was not permitted to defend his views in open 

 debate, and his plea that his advocacy of Wyc- 

 liffe's teachings was not a renunciation of Ro- 

 man Catholic doctrines did not satisfy his 

 judges. The Council therefore found him guilty 

 of heresy, and he was delivered over to the 

 civil authorities to be burned at the stake. The 

 sentence was carried out on July 6, and on the 

 day of his execution his ashes were thrown into 

 the waters of the Rhine. The martyrdom of 

 Huss caused sorrow and indignation through- 

 out Bohemia, leading finally to the Hussite 

 War. See HUSSITES. B.M.W. 



Consult Llitzow's Life and Times of Master 

 John Hus. 



HUSSAR, huz zahr , a light-horse cavalryman 

 or trooper, armed with carbine and saber. This 

 class of cavalry originated in Hungary in 1458, 

 when they were organized to fight against the 

 Turks, and the name was derived from the 

 Magyar word husz, meaning twenty, the troops 

 being levied by the taking of each twentieth 

 man when the soldiers were counted. The 

 Hungarian hussars were famed for their cour- 

 age, and wore a semi-Oriental dress which set 

 the style of uniforms for the hussars of other 

 nations, who now form a part of nearly all 

 European armies. Nearly two-thirds of the 

 cavalry in th^ British army consists of hussars 

 and lancers. A hussar's original uniform con- 

 sisted of a high cylindrical cloth cap, jacket 

 with heavy braiding and a dolman or loose 

 coat hanging from the left shoulder. 



HUSSITES, hus'ites, the disciples of John 

 Huss, a Bohemian religious reformer, whom 

 they honored as a martyr. Following his death 

 in 1415, about 450 Bohemian nobles organized 

 themselves into a semireligious body to avenge 

 the death of their leader and to show their 

 defiance of the decrees of the Church. From 

 1419 to 1434, under the generalship of Ziska 

 and Procopius, they waged a vigorous civil 

 war, were repeatedly victorious over the forces 

 sent against them by the Pope and Emperor 

 Sigismund, and harassed and terrorized the 

 German countries bordering on Bohemia. Con- 

 vents and churches were destroyed, and priests 

 and monks were slain. 



From the beginning of their organization the 

 Hussites were divided in doctrine into two 

 factions; these were the Calixtines, or con- 

 181 



servative party, who were more in sympathy 

 with the Church; and the Taborites, who were 

 radical in their rejection of religious doctrines 

 and practices. A third party, called the Or- 

 phans, also developed. In 1431, the Council 

 of Basel succeeded in coming to an agreement 

 with the Calixtines, who then returned to the 

 Church and acknowledged Sigismund as king. 

 The Taborites and Orphans were completely 

 routed in 1434, disappeared as a political power 

 and finally became identified with the Bohe- 

 mian Brethren. See Huss, JOHN. 



HUTCHINSON, ANNE (about 1590-1643), a 

 religious reformer in colonial America, born in 

 Lincolnshire, England. She married William 

 Hutchinson, and emigrated to Boston in 1634, 

 where she soon denounced the Massachusetts 

 clergy, whose views she did not share. Mrs. 

 Hutchinson held meetings and lectured, and 

 for her peculiar theological beliefs was ban- 

 ished from the colony for heresy. With a 

 number of friends she went to Rhode Island 

 and started a settlement at Portsmouth, one 

 of the principles of the new colony being that 

 no one was "to be accounted a delinquent for 

 doctrine." After the death of her husband, 

 who shared her opinions, she removed to a 

 new settlement in the colony of New York, 

 where in 1643 she and her whole family were 

 taken prisoners, and all, excepting one daugh- 

 ter, were killed by the Indians. 



HUTCHINSON, THOMAS (1711-1780), the last 

 royal governor of Massachusetts Bay colony, 

 was the son of a merchant of Boston and was 

 educated at Harvard. His political career be- 

 gan in 1737, when he was elected to the Massa- 

 chusetts General Court. He took part in the 

 Albany Convention in 1754 and was made chief 

 justice of the colony in 1760. While occupying 

 this office he issued the famous Writ of Assist- 

 ance (which see). He opposed the Stamp 

 Act, but considered it legal, and incurred the 

 enmity of the colonists while he endeavored 

 to enforce it. During this period his house 

 was attacked by a mob and manuscripts and 

 books were destroyed. In 1769 he became act- 

 ing governor, when Governor Barnard was 

 sent to Virginia, and in 1771 received his com- 

 mission as governor. Throughout his adminis- 

 tration he had friction with the colonists, and 

 in 1774, when General Gage was appointed 

 military governor, he went to England to re- 

 side. His Diary and Letters was published in 

 1884, and in 1886 his History of Massachusetts 

 Bay, one of the best original sources bearing on 

 the history of the colonial period. 



