Bohemia, from the earliest times to the fall of national independence in 1620 / With a short summary of later events

by C. Edmund Maurice

THE CASTLE OF PRAGUE.

Several noblemen had followed C̆enek in his desertion of the national cause; and at last the citizens decided to send a new embassy to Sigismund, under the protection of Wenceslaus of Duba. Sigismund’s hope and indignation had alike been raised by the recent events; and he demanded that the citizens should surrender all their arms to the defenders of the Vys̆ehrad. On receiving this demand, the Town Council of Prague sent defiance to the king, and resolved to fight till the last.

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. The Kutna Hora miners had roused much opposition by their cruelties on behalf of the royalist cause; and the charcoal burners, who had hitherto been dependent upon them, had now revolted against them. After vainly attempting to pacify their new opponents, the Kuttenberger appealed to Sigismund, and he sent them a detachment of the royal troops. The charcoal burners met the soldiers with stones and arrows; and, cheered on by a Taborite priest, they drove back the royalists in confusion to the mountains. The priest, however, was wounded; and the charcoal burners then retreated.

In the meantime Z̆iz̆ka and his forces were on their march. Their importance was now recognised by their opponents; and Wenceslaus of Duba attempted to intercept them. Z̆iz̆ka encountered the royalists near Porc̆ic, signally defeated them, and entered Prague in triumph on the 20th of May, 1420.

The powerful help of the new-comers was doubtless welcomed by the citizens of Prague; but they speedily discovered that differences of habit and feeling were likely to produce as many difficulties in the relations of the two parties to each other, as had already been produced by differences of doctrine. Both sections of the Utraquist Party had desired to introduce a purer life and simpler habits; and in many cases they had taken steps to enforce them. But the Taborite ideal, and still more the Taborite methods of realising it, differed considerably from those of the comfortable and orderly citizens of Prague. The latter, it appeared, indulged in delicately trimmed beards and moustachios; their wives wore trains, which seemed to the Taborites unduly long; and the hair of the younger ladies fell in long and curiously made plaits on their shoulders. The sturdy peasant reformers resolved summarily to correct these evils; so they seized the citizens in the streets, and compulsorily shaved them, cut off the trains of their wives’ dresses, and even shortened the locks of the girls. The citizens naturally objected to such strong methods of reform; and the Taborite captains cut short these proceedings by sending their followers to dig trenches for the defence of the town.

But the value of the new defenders was soon proved; for a force of royalist troops on their way to the castle at Prague, were completely cut to pieces by a sally of the Taborites; and when Sigismund at last advanced against the city, the approach of this fierce peasant army, wielding the spiked flails which were generally their only weapon, struck him with such fear that he at once abandoned the siege of Prague, and devoted himself to more easy enterprises. Nor were the nobles of Bohemia more fortunate in their efforts. Ulric of Rosenberg, who had followed C̆enek in his desertion of the popular cause, was driven back from Tabor by Nicholaus of Hus, and confined himself for a time to imprisoning and starving the Utraquist priests whom he found on his lands.

In the meantime, the appeal of the Pope and the Emperor for a crusade against the Utraquists was producing its effect. Not only from Germany, but from various parts of Hungary, Spain, France, England, and Holland, and in some cases even from Poland, trained warriors came to join Sigismund’s army.

Prominent amongst the German princes was Frederick of Hohenzollern. He had been secured to Sigismund’s cause by a transaction which roused new bitterness in Bohemia against the Emperor. It may be remembered that Charles IV. had added Brandenburg to the Bohemian kingdom. Thomas of S̆títný, and other stern moralists, had objected to this acquisition, considering it as a mere act of personal aggrandisement, and of no real benefit to the kingdom. But, in the history of every country, there have been additions of territory which, however questionable in their origin, have afterwards roused on their behalf a strong national feeling. Nor must it be forgotten that the circumstances, under which Sigismund surrendered this territory, certainly justified considerable indignation on the part of the Bohemians. In 1415, four years before he was actually King of Bohemia, without any consultation with Wenceslaus or the Bohemian Assembly, Sigismund handed over Brandenburg to Frederick of Hohenzollern, whose ancestor had so actively assisted Rudolf in the conquest of Bohemia.

It soon appeared that the national feeling against Germans in general, and the Hohenzollerns in particular, was not limited to the Utraquists, but was shared even by those Bohemian nobles who followed Sigismund in battle. So intense was this hatred that the Bohemians and their allies had to be quartered in different parts of the field; and doubtless this disagreement was one cause of the strange delay in the operations of the army which followed their arrival before Prague. Two weeks were spent by the captains of the host in raids upon the neighbouring towns, whence they brought in Utraquist priests whom they burnt in the camp. One occasion is specially noted by the chronicler, in which three old men and four boys were brought in, in company with their priest. These prisoners, after having been struck and insulted for some time, were ordered to abjure the practice of Communion in both kinds, and when they refused, were burnt. During all this time Z̆iz̆ka was working at the fortifications of a hill which overlooks the town, and from which he hoped to conduct the defence.