The first won because the general trend of the world was in their favor, and because their opponents were blind, contumacious, and divided among themselves.
His earliest ally was Ahmed "Jezzar," who established himself in Acre in contumacious independence late in the 18th century.
The first muttering of the storm which was soon to break was heard in a breve issued in 1741 by Benedict XIV., wherein he denounced the Jesuit offenders as "disobedient, contumacious, captious and reprobate persons," and enacted many stringent regulations for their better government.
On the 25th of November he was pronounced contumacious by the pope and excommunicated, and a commission was sent to England to degrade him from his office of archbishop. This was done with the usual humiliating ceremonies in Christ Church, Oxford, on the 14th of February 1556, and he was then handed over to the secular power.
Negotiations were carried on for some months, but in vain; in March 1411 the ban was anew pronounced upon Huss as a disobedient son of the church, while the magistrates and councillors of Prague who had favoured him were threatened with a similar penalty in case of their giving him a contumacious support.