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

by C. Edmund Maurice

On July 1, 1421, a great Assembly was held of nobles, knights, and citizens, at which the question was discussed whether they should once more recognise Sigismund as their king. The Moravian nobles were opposed to his deposition, while the stricter Utraquists were equally strong against recalling him; and the Estates at last came to a curious compromise, which was expressed in the following words: “That they will not have Sigismund for their king unless it is the will of God, and unless the famous Masters of Prague, the Bohemian lords, the communities of the Taborites, the knights, soldiers, towns, and other Bohemian communities, give their consent thereto.”

Then a Council of Representatives from all classes of the community was chosen to manage the affairs of State while the throne was vacant. And, if there had been anything of hesitation and compromise in the form of their decree, there was no sign of such feeling in their answer to the envoys whom Sigismund had sent to assert his claim to the throne. They drew up a long list of their reasons for rejecting him as king. The first grounds of complaint were the deaths of Hus, Jerom, and Krasa, and the encouragement which Sigismund had given to the Crusaders against Bohemia. They then dwelt on his surrender of Brandenburg without the consent of the Assembly; and they wound up their indictment by denouncing his rejection of the Four Articles. Sigismund answered this attack by again repudiating any sanction on his part to the deaths of Hus and Jerom; by declaring himself perfectly ready to hear discussions on the Four Articles; and, finally, by taunting the Utraquists with their burning of priests and churches.

But, although a want of confidence in Sigismund might bind together for a time the various sections of the Utraquist party; yet, on the other hand, the intense distrust which the treachery of C̆enĕk and the other nobles had caused, could not be removed by this superficial appearance of reconciliation. John of Z̆elív, though he had admitted the nobles to a kind of absolution, was foremost in mistrusting the repentance which had been accompanied with so much humiliation. A sudden invasion of Bohemia by the Silesians produced a new cause of distrust; for the nobles were suspected of having been very remiss in their resistance of the invaders. This brought to a head the suspicions which had originally been grounded on points of doctrinal difference; and the sterner members of the Utraquist clergy declared that they had no adequate security for the genuineness of the conversion of the nobles. John of Z̆elív followed up this attack by demanding the removal of all the clergy who adhered to the old ritual, and who would not sing in Bohemian. The Town Councils consented to the change, and John succeeded in thrusting into the vacant preacherships some supporters even of those doctrines which had been condemned by both sections of the Utraquist party.

But the fear of foreign invasion was once more to drive into the background for a time the internal divisions of the Utraquist party. The fiery energy of Martin V. had roused the electors of the Empire from the panic into which they had been thrown by the failure of the first crusade; and the Margrave of Meissen, the fiercest of the enemies of Bohemia, had begun a new invasion on his own responsibility. Z̆iz̆ka had been recently wounded in his only sound eye; but, at the rumour of the new attack, he at once hurried out to battle, and the men of Meissen fled before him. The rumours of the divisions between the nobles and the citizens had, however, encouraged the Meissener to renew their attack; and a few successes on their part induced Frederick of Hohenzollern to organise a second crusade among the princes of the Empire. The Bohemian peasants fled before the advance of the new army and took refuge in the town of Z̆atec. So in September, 1421, an army of two thousand Imperialists marched against Z̆atec, and the terrified citizens began to despair of resistance.

But their anxieties and dangers came to an unexpected end. As the watchers were gazing one day from the city walls on the camp of the enemy, their attention was caught by a sudden glow of fire. The flame rapidly spread through the camp, and all the tents of the enemy were consumed. To the astonished eyes of the watchers it seemed as if a miracle had been worked on their behalf; but the real explanation, though wonderful enough, was not connected with those interferences with the order of nature to which conventional phraseology has confined the name of miracle. The fact was that the Electors of the German Empire had heard that the terrible Z̆iz̆ka was approaching; and so the great army of the second crusade had burnt their tents and retreated without striking a blow.

Z̆IZ̆KA ON HORSEBACK AT THE HEAD OF THE FLAIL-BEARING TABORITES.

(From an old picture copied in Dr. Toman’s pamphlet.)

Sigismund had been absent in Hungary during this struggle, but he now advanced at the head of a Hungarian army to Brünn (Brno), committing every kind of barbarity on the way. It will be remembered that he had recently announced that he had never objected to a discussion of the Four Articles. He now summoned all the Moravian nobles before him, and threatened to put them to death unless they would abjure all those Articles. Apparently the nobles were not made of the same stuff as the sturdy preachers of Tabor and Prague; for, with two exceptions, all the Utraquist nobles of Moravia consented to abandon their creed and accept that of Sigismund.