Section III

The Hussite Wars

This section comprises chapters 13 through 18 of Volume II. They are listed below. To go directly to any particular chapter click on the link to that chapter. Otherwise you can scroll down as you read chapter by chapter. 

Chapter 13    Sigismund's Army Before Prague    
Chapter 14    The Defeat and Retreat of the Emperor  
Chapter 15    Taborites and Calixtines  
Chapter 16    The Campaigns of Zisca  
Chapter 17    The Last Crusade, Defeat of the Imperialists  
Chapter 18    The Council of Basle, Calixtine Ascendancy   

The dissolution of the council of Constance, and the effort necessary on the part of Sigismund to restore the peace of his empire, gave a short respite to the Bohemians, if respite that condition could he called, in which the exterminating and persecuting bull of Martin V was continually suspended over them. This fulmination was to them the parting word of the council, its farewell of bitter malediction. It showed plainly enough on what terms alone peace could be made. Unable to secure the persons of the Bohemian countrymen of Huss, whom they might subject to a similar treatment, the council translated the act of his execution into words, and, in the bull itself, dispatched into Germany a written auto de fé, a legible funeral pile, every line aglow with the spirit of the inquisitor.

But the logic of this document was a two-edged sword. It cut both ways. Jacobel’s treatises on the cup did not contain arguments half so effectual to strengthen the faith of his party, as were contained in the decrees of the council and the bull of the pope. No conclusion is more firmly held than that which is reached by a reductio ad absurdum. The papal fulmination might have been headed by the creed of the Hussites, and followed by a Q. E. D., to signalize the fact that the truth of the theorem was demonstrated. At least this must have been so to many minds.

But the Bohemians did not choose to pass over in silence so extraordinary a document as this bull of a pope, elected for the purpose of evangelical reform. They answered it, and circulated the reply far and wide through the land. Although it does not appear to have been issued until some months after the publication of the bull, it may as well be given here, as showing the spirit in which the bull was received. It is entitled "A faithful and Christian exhortation of the Bohemians to kings and princes, to stir them up to the zeal of the gospel." It speaks of the industrious efforts that had been made in certain quarters to excite hostility and persecution against the Bohemians. "As well on your part as on ours, many men, both noble and untitled, have foolishly lost their lives. Yet never hitherto have ye in any part understood our faith by our own confession; neither whether we be able to prove the same out of the scriptures or not, and yet in the meantime kings, princes, lords, and cities have sustained great damage. And hereof we do greatly marvel, that you do so much trust and believe the pope and his priests, which give you drink full of poison, and such comfort as no man can understand, in that they say they will give you forgiveness of sins, and grant grace and pardon to this end, that you should war upon us and destroy us, whereas their graces and pardons are none other than great lies, and a great seducing of the body and soul of all them that believe them, and put their trust in them. This we would prove to them, and convince them by the Holy Scripture; and we would suffer that whoever is desirous to hear, the same should hear it. For the pope and all his priests herein deal with you as the devil would have dealt with our Lord Jesus Christ. ...

"So the devil deceiveth the pope and all his priests with the riches of the world, and with worldly power; and they think they can give grace and pardon when they will; and they themselves shall never find favor before Almighty God, except they repent, and make amends for their great deceiving of Christendom. And how can they give to others that which they themselves have not? So did the devil, who was rich in promising and poor in giving. And like as the devil is not ashamed to tell a lie, so all they are not ashamed to speak that which shall never be found true, nor be proved by the Holy Scriptures; because, for no cause they stir up kings, princes, lords, and citizens to make war against us, not to the end that the Christian faith should thereby be defended, but because they fear their secret vices and heresies shall be disclosed and made manifest. For if they had a true cause, and a godly love to the Christian faith, they would then take the books of the Holy Scripture, and would come to us, and confute us with the weapons of God’s word; and that is our chief desire. For so did the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ, who came to the pagans and the Jews, and brought them from their infidelity to the true faith of our Lord Jesus Christ; and this they did in the spirit of meekness. ... So ought they also to do, if they perceived that they were just and we unjust. ... The truth ought not to be afraid of falsehood. ... Zerobabel declareth that the truth is of all things the most mighty, and overcometh all things. For Christ is the truth. John 14. ... Therefore, if the pope and his priests have the truth, let them overcome us by the word of God. But if they have lies, then they cannot long abide in their presumption.

"Wherefore we beseech and exhort all the imperial cities, all kings, princes, noblemen, rich and poor, for God’s sake, and for his righteousness, that one of them write hereof to another, and that there may be some means devised by which we may commune with you, safely and friendly, at some such place as shall be fit for both you and us; and do you bring with you your bishops and teachers, and let them and our teachers fight together with the word of God, and let us hear them; and let not the one overcome the other by violence or false subtlety, but only by the word of God. And if your bishops and teachers have better proofs of their faith out of the Holy Scripture than we, and our faith he found untrue, we will receive penance and satisfaction according to the gospel. But if your bishops and teachers be overcome of ours by the Holy Scripture, then do ye repent and hearken to us, and hold with us. And if your bishops and teachers will cease from their spiritual pride, and repent and make satisfaction, then will we help you according to our power. ...

"And if ye will not determine to do any other thing than to fight against us, then will we take the Lord to our help, and his truth; and we will defend it to the death, and we will not be afraid for the excommunication or curse of the pope, or his cardinals, or of the bishops, because we know that the pope is not God, as he maketh himself, so that he may curse and excommunicate when he will, or bless when he will; who has now these many years cursed and excommunicated us, and yet, notwithstanding, God and his gracious blessing hath been our help." To the objection supposed to be made, that they could not do without priests and bishops to baptize, hear confessions, and minister the holy mysteries, and that even though they should be evil and wicked, it was impossible to do without them, the Bohemians reply, that "when wicked bishops and priests shall be banished, then place shall be made for good priests and bishops."

As to the charge that they did not believe in purgatory, the Virgin Mary, or the saints, they claim that they will prove by Holy Scripture how they ought to believe in regard to these things, better than the bishops or priests could tell them. As to obedience to the pope, they declare that they will render him obedience when he should be holy and just. In regard to their overthrow of public worship, "destroying monasteries, and banishing thence the wicked monks and nuns," as was charged upon them by their enemies, they reply, "Truly we did it, thinking once that they were holy, that they did the reverend service of God; but after that we well observed and considered their life and works, then we perceived that they were hypocrites, falsely aping humility, and wicked builders on high, and sellers of pardons and masses for the dead, and such as devoured in themselves the sins of the people ... Forasmuch as their selling of their prayers anal masses for the dead for gifts is no better than hypocrisy and heresy, therefore if we do speak against them, and destroy their monasteries, we do not therein destroy the service of God, but rather the service of the devil, and the school of heretics. And if ye knew them as we know them, ye would as diligently destroy them as we do. For Christ our Lord did not ordain any such order. ... and he said, ‘Every plant which my Heavenly Father bath not planted, shall be rooted up.’"

In the close of their apology, the Bohemians bring forward several subjects to be considered. They are disposed in sixteen articles, intended mainly to expose the corruptions of the church, the avarice, extortion, lewdness, and hypocrisy of the clergy. Their articles are then stated, which they declare they will strive for and maintain unto the death. These are the prohibition of gross public sins, whether in laity or clergy; the inconsistency of large revenues and pomp with the simplicity of ministers of Jesus Christ; the freedom of the word of God to be read and preached in all places, "without any inhibition of either spiritual or earthly power"; and the communion of the body and blood of Christ as he ordained.

This apology of the Bohemians is signed by four of their leading captains, Procopius, Conrad, Samssmolich, and Smahors. It is honorable at once to their courage, their prudence, their Christian intelligence, and their regard for the supreme authority of the word of God. It undoubtedly expressed the general feeling and conviction of the nation.

To attempt to confute them by the logic of an armed invasion was but madness. Persecution would only exasperate. Nor were they wanting in men who dared, and who were competent, to place themselves at their head. Years before, Zisca had won high renown as a bold and able general. His promptitude and energy in dispelling the storm that threatened the Hussites when they had been summoned to appear unarmed before Wenzel, had secured the confidence and respect of the Bohemians. He was finally acknowledged their leader by an indisputable preeminence, and he was worthy of the post. His abilities, attested by subsequent campaigns, rank him as the greatest general of the age.

Never did any man unite in himself qualities more eminently fitting him to be at once the head of a party, and the leader of an army. His genius for planning a campaign or assault, was only equaled by his prompt energy in putting his plan in execution. He understood perfectly the art of rendering himself the master of the minds of the multitude. Bohemia was in arms for the communion of the cup. He holds up a sacramental cup before the army, and tells them to behold their standard. He has no troops but infantry. By an unexpected assault he surprises the army of the emperor, and carries off a thousand horses, thus at once providing himself with cavalry. He is without a fortified town to afford security for his troops. He ascends a high mountain with his soldiers, and there addresses them: "Do you want houses? Set up your tents here, and make your camp your city." The thing is done, and Tabor is at once a fortress. From its impregnable heights Zisca can defy his foe. Thither, moreover, he may always securely retreat. Cromwell’s Ironsides could not surpass Zisca’s soldiers. The latter also felt the inspiration of their leader’s words—words derived from scripture, and glowing with the enthusiasm which it inspired. To the inhabitants of Tausch he writes: "May God grant, dear brethren, that performing good works, like the true children of your heavenly Father, you may remain steadfast in his fear; if he has visited you, let not affliction abate your courage; think of those who labor for the faith, and who suffer on account of the name of Jesus Christ. Imitate the old Bohemians, your ancestors, always ready to defend the cause of God and their own. Let us constantly have before our eyes the divine law, and the good of the common weal; let us be vigilant; and let whoever knows how to handle a knife, or to throw a stone, or to brandish a club, be ready to march. ... Let your preachers encourage your people to war against Antichrist; let everyone, young and old, prepare for it. When I shall arrive among you, let there be no want of bread, or beer, or forage; lay up a store also of good works. Behold, the time is now come to arm yourselves, not only against your outward enemies, but also against those that you have within yourselves. Remember your first combat when you were few in number against many, and without arms against those that were well-provided. The hand of God is not shortened: courage, therefore, and be ready. Zisca of the Cup."

This letter shown at once the spirit of Zisca, his skill in touching the chords of popular feeling, and his watchfulness over the cause which he had taken in hand. Cromwell, before the battle of Dunbar, charging his soldiers to "trust in God and keep their powder dry," was manifesting the same exquisite combination of religious enthusiasm and good sense that Zisca did, when he urged the people in the came breath, to "let there be no want of bread, beer, and forage," and to "lay up also a store of good works." The soldiers of Zisca were trained by him as the great Englishman trained his Ironsides. The laity as well as clergy preached for both. The camp was a church, the army a religious assembly. Tabor was, in a new sense, the Mount of Transfiguration. From all parts of Bohemia throngs came flocking thither, and there—as a kind of national covenant—the communion of the cup as well as of bread was freely administered.

The intelligence of what was taking place at Tabor spread over Bohemia. The friends of Huss and of the cup were encouraged. The popular tide, directed by such a man as Zisca, was certain to bear down all before it. His army was not composed of mere soldiers of fortune. They were men of deep religious convictions—some of them, indeed, driven well-nigh mad by persecution—reckless of life in their indignant defiance of Martin’s bull, which seemed to combine in it the cruelty of the inquisition, the brutality of the dragoon, and the malice of the fiend. Many, undoubtedly, like Zisca himself, could speak of their own private wrongs. The image of an outraged sister, or of a friend bound in chains to the stake about which the flames raged, rose up before them at the sight of a monk or priest, and led them to those acts of resentment and vengeance with which they were so heavily charged. "If ye knew them as we know them," said they in their apology for destroying the monasteries, "ye would as diligently destroy them as we do."

These institutions were undoubtedly excessively corrupt, and so far as their friends at the council and the approvers of the violence of the bull were concerned, there could be no ground for reproof. Even for us, who regret the violence, it is difficult to say how far circumstances justified it, or how far, as John Knox urged, it was necessary to destroy the rookeries in order to drive out the foul birds, the harpies, from their roosts. As favorers of the bull, they were public persecutors, and their urgent application for foreign intervention and invasion, justly led to their being regarded as traitors.

It was on the twenty-second of July (1419) that the grand communion of the multitude was held at Tabor. Undesignedly, the priests in many places had contributed to favor the plans of Zisca. They had refused the communion of the cup to the laity in their own neighborhoods, and had thus forced them, in order to enjoy a privilege which they most highly prized, to swell the ranks of the Hussite leader. They would, of course, in the state in which things then were, go armed, and thus, beyond his expectations, the multitude of his followers was swelled by thousands. It is not surprising, when we consider the feelings with which they were inflamed, and the confidence which their visible strength and numbers must have inspired, that a plan should have been adopted for seizing or assaulting the city of Prague. The multitude could not all remain long together. Many of them doubtless belonged in Prague itself, or its neighborhood, and a march upon the city might be made as they returned to their own homes. The elements of disaffection were abundant within the walls, and on the thirtieth of July they broke out into open violence.

The king himself had withdrawn from Prague to one of his castles, some miles distant; but already the fear of his brother, the terrors of a crusade, or the leveling principles of some of the reformers, who imagined that monarchy might be superseded by a republic, had driven him over toward the side of the papal party. His officers and soldiers who were left behind, showed themselves similarly disposed with their mater. Violent assaults were made, and individuals were seized and imprisoned. The citizens of Prague could not therefore feel themselves safe while the soldiers of the king possessed within the walls a fortified position like that of the castle or royal palace, from which they might at any moment be assaulted. The host of Zisca, by his training had now assumed the aspect of a regular army. He led them on to the attack of the new city—the part of Prague occupied by the party which was opposed to the reformers, and supported by the court. The inhabitants of the city joined in the assault. Zisca seems however to have been content for the present merely to intimidate the papal party.

Some of his army—more intent on observing their religious rite, and improving the occasion for regaining the places of public worship, from which, in the absence of their advocate, Nicholas de Hussinitz, they had probably been again excluded by Wenzel’s orders—sought to enter St. Stephen’s church. They found it locked. Indignant at this exclusion, they assaulted it, and burst open the doors. The priest, who had ventured to resist them, became the object of their vengeance. They broke open his parsonage, and hung him from one of the windows.

After having enjoyed the freedom of the church and performed their favorite ceremonies, the party withdrew, and proceeded to the Carmelite monastery. Here they resolved to array themselves in proper order, and, forming themselves into a procession, march to the council-house of the new city, demanding that those of their friends who had been imprisoned should be released. The demand was presented. The council hesitated to grant it. Some were for holding out to the last. The people stood without, quietly awaiting an answer to their demand. At this moment, someone from one of the upper windows threw a stone, which struck the Hussite priest who bore the host. The people were enraged. Their patience was exhausted by delay, and they regarded the act as a signal for an assault. Resistance was vain. The indignant vengeance of the people, led on by Zisca, swept all before it. The council-house was taken by storm. Eleven of the Councilors escaped, but the seven others, all Germans, and, as such, hateful to the Bohemians, were thrown from the upper windows as they were seized, and impaled on the spears and lances of the multitude below. The prisoners were of course released.

It is a singular but instructive fact, that at this moment, when violence seemed to rule, when the attack of the royal garrison had been foiled, and when some of the council had been put to death, and others had fled, no thought of lawless license or ravage was allowed a place in the minds of the triumphing party. Their first care was to restore the forms of civil government. Proclamation was made, and, under pain of death or exile, all citizens were summoned to meet together at the council-house, to elect four magistrates, to whom the authority and seal of the city should be committed till the time for the next regular election of councilmen should substitute others in their place.

Meanwhile the assault upon the new city was continued. For five days, scenes of violence were constantly occurring. The court, it was now known, had taken an open stand against the Hussites. It was resolved that the leaders of the reform party should all be put to death. The attacks which had been made upon tile Hussite processions by the officers and soldiers of the king, and which had aggravated difficulties, had evidently been by the king’s order, of at least his connivance. The people saw nothing before them but victory on the one hand, and, on the other; persecution with a suppression of their worship. They therefore pursued the siege with ardor. But the queen with the royal party had retired to the castle in the upper city, and while they resisted the assault, dispatched, for the second time, messages to Sigismund for aid.

Zisca at this moment withdrew front the city. His biographer informs us that the excesses of the citizens, which he could not approve, was the reason of his departure. It is more probable that he foresaw the storm about to burst upon the city in response to the summons of Wenzel, and wished to be prepared for it. He withdrew to Pilsen, gathering his troops around him. The place was at the safe distance of fifty or sixty miles from Prague, and secured its defense from the direction of Nuremberg. Here Zisca quietly watched the progress of affairs, ready to suppress any attempt that might be made to carry into execution the designs of the enemy. He was sufficiently strong and secure to defy any probable assault.

Meanwhile the citizens of Prague bore with the greatest impatience the presence of the royal garrison within the walls. There it was, perched upon the lofty heights of the hill upon which the castle stood, ready at once to swoop down upon its victims. Though they had been forced to give over their assault upon it, the garrison was exposed to continued molestations. Efforts were made to secure a truce or a compromise, but the citizens would consent to none which did not allow them free liberty of worship. Thus negotiations were protracted. The castle was in fact in a state of siege, with little prospect of relief. But at this juncture, and while Sigismund, who had been appealed to for aid, was busily engaged in Hungary in protecting the rights of his hereditary states, a summons, more effectual than any that had been sent him hitherto, roused him to prompt and energetic action. This was the announcement of the death of his brother, the king of Bohemia. He died in a manner worthy of his life. Upon being informed of the commotion that had taken place at Prague on the thirtieth of July, he broke out in a torrent of passionate invective against its authors. Several of the courtiers who were present expressed their detestation of the enormities that had been perpetrated. One of his attendants, however, ventured to say that he had foreseen what was about to take place, probably intending to attribute it to Wenzel’s withdrawal from Prague. Such freedom of language aroused the tiger in the heart of the irascible and passionate king. He sprang upon the bold attendant who had dared to speak words so uncourteous to royal ears, and dashing him to the ground, was about to consummate his violence by plunging his dagger into the bosom of his prostrate victim. From this he was withheld by his attendants, and could scarcely be persuaded not to order the bold speaker at once to be executed. The excitement and frenzy which had thus been produced were too much for a frame already worn out by dissipation. He was struck with paralysis, and after lingering eighteen days, expired. He had marked the names of several Hussites whom he had doomed to death, but the blow that smote him rescued and delivered them.

The death of Wenzel (August 16, 1419) left the kingdom of Bohemia, in default of other heirs, to his brother Sigismund. The queen, Sophia, sought, on her husband’s death, not only to secure the aid of Sigismund, but to engage the citizens of Prague to conditions of peace, by which the emperor should be at once adopted as their king. But they refused to acknowledge him. His whole course had been such as to commend him only to the abhorrence of all who cherished the memory of Huss.

Meanwhile Sigismund himself was making preparations for taking possession of the kingdom, which he claimed to inherit from his brother. The citizens of Prague became alarmed. Their enemies still held the royal castle, as well as the Vissehrad, and anxiously awaited the emperor’s approach, to retaliate upon the citizens for the assaults they had endured. The only security of the latter was in a speedy reduction of the castle. They at once applied for aid to their allies. Zisca saw the importance of the enterprise. Accompanied by Coranda and Nicholas de Hussinitz, he hastened to the rescue. The new city, with the Vissehrad, was taken by the combined forces on November 4, 1419. The castle hardly escaped.

In order to understand fully the apprehension, on the part of the citizens of Prague, which led them to invite Zisca to their aid, we must recur to what had taken place since his first assault of the new city. The writer of the "Diary of the Hussite War" gives us a version of what transpired, which, though it differs in some respects from the statements of other historians, commends itself to our confidence by its superior credibility. The rage of the king on the announcement of what took place on the thirtieth of July was due, not so much to the scenes of violence which then transpired, as to the presumption of the citizens in electing their own magistrates, without waiting for his sanction. The fear that haunted him was that of being deposed from the throne. He watched with intense jealousy every movement which seemed to indicate the least disposition to put any other in his place. His threat, addressed to Nicholas de Hussinitz, grew out of this extreme sensitiveness to a dreaded danger. These fears were fully understood by the members of his court, some of whom favored the Hussite party. By their means a temporary peace was negotiated, the conditions of which were that the citizens should humbly submit themselves to the king, while he, on his part, and in maintenance of his authority, should acknowledge the four magistrates elected by the people, and give them his sanction. The Hussites, moreover, were to be allowed liberty of worship. On these conditions, peace was restored, and the commotion subsided. But it was only till the intelligence of Wenzel’s death excited new interest. On the next day scenes of violence again occurred.

The fury of the populace was directed chiefly against those churches in which the communion of the cup was not allowed. The organs and images were broken and destroyed. The clergy, apprehensive of danger, fled. As night drew on, the violence increased. The Carthusian monastery was attacked, and the wine found there was freely drunk, until many were intoxicated. The monastery itself was plundered, and the monks within were borne off to the council-house, to be restrained of their liberty, and perhaps otherwise punished for having consented to the death of Huss, and opposed the communion of the cup. On the next day the Carthusian monastery was taken anew by assault, and burned, leaving only its walls standing. The tomb of Archbishop Albic, in the Church of the Holy Virgin, was broken open, and the images dashed in pieces. The commotion spread to the neighboring cities and villages. The monastery of the preaching friars at Piska was completely sacked. A great multitude, drawn from various parts of the kingdom, assembled on a mountain near Ladwy, and after listening to various exhortations to love God, and abide by the truth, and enjoying the communion of the cup, marched in procession to Prague, and were hospitably welcomed by the citizens. Torches were carried and drums beaten as they entered the gates, and the multitude took possession of the Ambrosian monastery, where they were supplied with food for several days by the inhabitants of the city. The presence of the multitude had doubtless been sought, and it contributed effectually to expedite a second truce between the two parties. Upon this, the strangers, who had also tried their skill at image breaking, withdrew from Prague.

For several weeks the city continued quiet. The queen, however, and certain barons of the kingdom, the principal of whom were Czenko de Wartenberg, the governor of the castle, William of Hazmburgk, and John Chudoba, availing themselves of the treasures which Wenzel left behind him, called in the aid of the German forces, and began to act upon the aggressive. The citizens of Prague, asking for freedom of worship only, were too well aware of the vengeance which had been provoked by the violence of some among them, nor did they fail to arm themselves against the enemy. The city was thus in a state of insurrection. Its inhabitants felt that, with Sigismund advancing against them, there could be no security while the castle held out.

In these circumstances Zisca was appealed to. The cause in many respects was a common one, and he hastened to comply with the summons. Probably but a small part of his forces accompanied him. The report was spread in Prague that his enemies were disputing with him access to the city. The great drums were beaten. Multitudes obeyed the signal. The forces were joined, and the assault commenced. At first the royal party had the advantage. They disputed the passage of the bridge, and were able to do it by the strong positions which they held in the royal castle, the archiepiscopal palace, and the house of the Duke of Saxony. They were armed, moreover, with mortars—though these did but little execution, whether from want of skill in their management, or from their imperfect structure. The passage to the Kleine-Seite (parvam partam), though hotly disputed, was at length secured by breaking open a gate adjoining the house of the Duke of Saxony, although numbers were slain on both sides. The royal party at once commenced their retreat to the castle. Horses, arms, and various spoils left behind them, were eagerly seized and appropriated.

The whole night long the uproar continued. The bells were rung as if in defiance, and in order to continue the alarm. At midnight the queen fled, accompanied by but a small number, among whom was the Baron Ulric de Rosenberg. There was great danger that the castle itself would be forced to yield. During the night, however, the invading party had largely withdrawn to their homes. The royalists improved the occasion, and sallying forth from the castle, seized upon the council-house of the Kleine-Seite, and bearing off the treasures and records, set the building itself on fire. The flames spread to the adjoining houses, which were rapidly consumed.

These events took place at an early hour in the morning (November 5, 1419). The attack of the citizens was not resumed till a late hour of the day. The strength of each party—one favored by position, and the other by numbers—was nearly equal. The royal party burned several houses and dwellings, some of them of great value, among them the School of St. Nicholas. They bore off moreover to the castle a number of prisoners. The citizens on their part plundered and sacked the archiepiscopal palace and other buildings. Thus each party seemed to aspire to exceed the other in vandalism. Those of the castle could command, from their high position, an extensive view, and, among other means of offense, sought to prevent the entrance of provisions within the walls of the city.

Thus the contest lingered on undecisive. For several days there were frequent skirmishes. The citizens were reinforced by four thousand Taborites, who cut their way through the enemy and succeeded in making good their entrance into Prague, where they were received with acclamation. The royalist party saw themselves again forced to offer terms of peace. This was effected by the promise that the Bohemians should he allowed the communion of the cup, and that the law of God and the truth of the gospel should be maintained throughout the kingdom. On the other hand, the citizens bound themselves to refrain from any further violence toward the churches, and any further breaking of images. The Vissehrad also was to be no further molested. This truce was doubtless unacceptable to Zisca, who, with the Taborites, withdrew at once from the city. Subsequent events made its impolicy manifest. It left their enemies a stronghold, from which they could at their pleasure commence to act upon the aggressive.

Meanwhile the enemies of the Taborites, who had opposed them on their march to Prague, had not been idle. They were encouraged and directed by the emperor. Led on by Peter von Sternberg, they had begun to act upon the offensive. They had assaulted those cities which had contributed men to aid the citizens of Prague. At Ausch they had taken a number of prisoners; but when, encouraged by success, they had ventured an attack upon the heights of Knin, they were completely routed. As Zisca, dissatisfied with the results at Prague, had now rejoined his army, the enemy were constrained to limit their operations to mere skirmishes of little importance.

The truce agreed upon was to continue from November 12, 1419 to April 21, 1420. It was destined, however, soon to be broken. The Hussites zealously improved it, while it lasted, in preachings, communions, and lamentations over the death of Huss. They were, however, subject to continual molestations. Wherever their enemies prevailed, they were forced to undergo the greatest vexations and sufferings. Such of them as had been taken captive, were treated with great harshness. Some were cruelly imprisoned, and left in their dungeons to endure hunger and thirst. Some were sold for money, or subjected to every species of abuse. A favorite mode of disposing of them was to throw them, sometimes alive, and sometimes after being beheaded, into deep wells or pits, a barbarity which was generally practiced in the night-time. It was estimated that those who were thus destroyed amounted to the number of sixteen hundred persons. But such inhuman cruelty was as impolitic as it was inhuman. It only tended to inflame the Hussites to indignation and vengeance. In some cases it forced them to desperation.

It vas but a few days after the commencement of the truce, that a Hussite priest, John Naakuasa, engaged in visiting the sick, was taken on the highway near Glatow. He was sold for a large sum to the Germans of Bavaria, who had come to join Raczko in his assault upon that place. He was required by them to abjure the doctrine of the communion of the cup. This he refused to do. After insults and reproaches had been exhausted upon him in vain, he was bound to a tree for a stake. Cords were drawn through his hands first perforated by swords, and thus secured, he was burned, a martyr to his faith.

At about the same time, an assault was made upon a neighboring city, Gurim. The magistrates and several of the prominent citizens, among whom was John Chodk (or Chodek), a former officer of the king and several priests, all adherents of the communion of the cup, were seized and borne off as captives. They were subjected to the most bitter wrongs and insults. Blazing torches were thrown at them, and they were cast into prison, where the severity and harshness of their treatment were aggravated by their being bound with iron chains and fetters.

In the midst of these transactions, a question arose demanding a practical answer, and as to which the minds of the Bohemians were much divided. This was in regard to the succession of Sigismund to the vacant throne. His complicity in the death of Huss had alienated from him the good-will of a large part of the Bohemian nation. Some of the Hussites were altogether in favor of having no king. They preferred a republic. Among these Zisca must probably be reckoned, although his preferences appear to have been far less decided than those of many of his compatriots.

When the emperor’s proclamation was published, summoning the states to meet him at Beraun (December 25, 1419), and to acknowledge him as rightful sovereign, some were for compliance, while others were for treating the proclamation and summons with contempt. The only promise which Sigismund had hitherto made, served only to excite distrust. It was an evident cover for duplicity. He declared that he would govern the kingdom as it had been governed under his father Charles IV. What did this mean? The Hussites had then no existence as a religious body. They could not well confide in a promise which simply ignored their existence. In spite, however, of all distrust, the citizens of Prague, were present by deputation at Beraun. The barons of the kingdom of Bohemia and the march of Moravia, as well as the magistrates of the royal cities and the officials of the kingdom generally, were present. The Queen Sophia, the legate of the pope, with many princes and magistrates, accompanied the emperor. The embassy from Prague reached Beraun on the twenty-seventh of December (1419). They entered the city with sound of trumpets, and in somewhat imposing array. The emperor, with the magnates of his court, and many of the clergy as well as laity, witnessed the entrance of the procession, and gazed with surprise at its numbers and array. It was hospitably received, in quarters set apart specially for its entertainment. Priests from Prague accompanied it, and performed their favorite rites of worship free from all molestation. The priests of the other party refused, however, to perform any of the sacred offices pertaining to their function, while the citizens of Prague remained within the walls. Beraun should suffer for permitting the entrance of the heretics. Such was the spirit in which the Hussites were still regarded.

On the third day the embassy presented itself before the emperor. On bended knees they saluted him in the name of their city, and accepted him as their hereditary king and master. Sigismund upbraided them with great severity, and imposed the conditions on which he was willing to receive them into favor. His feelings toward them were exceedingly embittered. The conduct of the clergy and legates of the papal party had increased his exasperation. The events that had taken place at Prague had aggravated his purpose of vengeance, and the disappointments which he had elsewhere experienced had only soured his spirit, till he was ready to sanction any measures, however atrocious, that might be necessary, in order to subdue his rebellious subjects. Several weeks before the meeting of this convention at Beraun, he had written to the magistrates at Prague a letter, in which, forgetful of the imperial dignity, he had indulged in a tone of sarcasm which was only calculated to irritate rather than conciliate revolt.

Addressing the magistrates, he says, in bitter irony, "Especially are we anxious that you should not give up your Wickliffite sanctity. Oh! what pleasure must it give a prince to have so large a number of such rulers and such subjects! He will establish his throne, and his glory will spread from the East to the West. Therefore, most dear and loyal, our heart is cheered to learn what is your prudence, wisdom, union! Indeed, you are a mirror for other lands, the light of the ignorant and such as wander in darkness, and the council of Constance is nothing but obscurity compared with your wisdom. Have you not illuminated by the fame of your learning? You may pass for pope, or even king, since you are so wise." The emperor then reproaches them for the manner in which they had dealt with monasteries, convents, and parishes from which they had expelled the curates, because, as they said, they would not receive the law of God. Their treatment of the senators and judges; their iconoclastic propensities, which they indulged by breaking to pieces the images of the saints as useless idols; their disrespect for the relics of the saints, while they exalted Huss and Jerome to the rank of martyrs; their refusal to bow before the host; their neglect of the festivals of the saints; their readiness to hear preachers of both sexes, are the crimes which the emperor charges upon them. In view of these, he asks, "Who can suffice to chant your praises, if you are every day to make new progress in these holy innovations? Certainly the kings and princes of Christendom have admired, now do, and ever will admire, the extraordinary wisdom that has been infused into you, and of which the ancient fathers knew nothing. Thus, most beloved, if in time past we have written to you not to renounce the obedience of the Roman church, we have done it through ignorance, unaware of your exquisite discernment." He then ironically praises their conduct on the occasion of the death of Wenzel, when, armed with various weapons, they ran through tile city, in cloisters, churches, and chapels, singing their fine funeral songs. "It only remains," he adds, "for us urgently to beseech you to associate us with your college, and employ all your means to fit us for the government of Bohemia. But do not go about to say, as in the gospel, ‘We will not have this man to reign over us,’ or, ‘This is the heir—let us kill him,’ for we wish to profit by your counsels, and to be governed by your lights."

Such a letter gave little assurance of favorable conditions for the citizens of Prague. Nothing but the emperor’s weakness forced him to temporize. Yet even under the pressure to which he was subjected by the state of his affairs, and notwithstanding the evident strength of the Hussite party, the conditions he imposed were sufficiently onerous. They were such as might most effectually promote any measures for completely subduing and suppressing the Hussite party. The citizens, as a pledge of their submission to his power and authority, were to remove all the chains from the streets of the city, as well as the statues which they had set up. They were to level and destroy all the entrenchments and fortifications which lead been constructed since the death of Wenzel, for the siege or the storming of the castle. The monks and priests should no longer be molested in any respect, and the citizens should make all ready for the coming of the emperor himself.

Not content with this, Sigismund deposed from office all those magistrates who adhered to the communion of the cup, substituting in their place such as were distinguished for having opposed this innovation. Several forts and strong places were at the same time to be given into the hands of the emperor, who stationed in them faithful partisans. Some of these contained large treasures, which were afterward employed to sustain the imperial arms.

After little more than a week’s absence, the embassy of the citizens returned to Prague (January 4, 1420). Hard as the conditions imposed were, and although accompanied by the act that substituted enemies in place of magistrates of their own choice, there seemed to prevail a sincere disposition to submit to Sigismund’s authority. The chains and statues were taken down from the streets and deposited in the council-house. The fortifications erected against the castle were leveled, even amid the derision of the Germans of the garrison and the royal party. "Now," cried they, as they saw the work demolished by the hands of the builders, "Now these Wickliffite and Hussite heretics will be destroyed, and we shall have an end of them." At the same time many of the royal party, who had fled the city, returned. Priests, monks, canons, and common people, who had withdrawn upon the violence that took place on occasion of the death of Wenzel, boldly appeared. Proclamation was made throughout the city in the name of the king and magistrates, that all persons who had left the city might now freely and safely reoccupy their dwellings. It was forbidden, moreover, to offer insult to priests or monks, as had been the practice of men as well as boys, when any passed them along the street.

The enemies of the Hussites, however, showed no disposition to relax their persecuting spirit and zeal. On the ninth of January (1420) John Chodk, of Gurim, who had been taken prisoner some weeks before by the enemy, and who had hitherto been kept a close prisoner, was put to death. He admonished his murderers of the guilt which they were committing in the cruelties which they practiced upon Christian believers, warning them to repent of these and their other sins. He, with three others, who were priests of the Hussite party, was thrown into a deep well (ad foveam profundam seu Sachtam). On the same night many laymen were put to death in a similar manner.

But the emperor himself more than approved—he encouraged, by word and example, this persecuting and barbarous treatment of the Hussites. From the conference in Beraun, he lead withdrawn to Breslau. Here he had manifested such a disposition to proceed against the followers of Huss, as to destroy the last vestige of confidence in his character or promise. He could not have pursued a course more directly calculated to defeat his own projects. The Hussites were already divided in sentiment upon many points. Some of them up to this time had been in favor of Sigismund for king, while others were bitterly opposed to him, and preferred a republic, or at least another person for their monarch. Persecution, too, had had its usual effect. Many had become wild enthusiasts. Driven to desperation, they had compared themselves to the ancient Israelites, and, as God’s chosen people, dealt out threatenings and denunciations against their foes as impious Canaanites and heathen. Political and religious interests, variously combined, had served to widen the divisions that already existed in the views and sentiments of such as bore the common name of Huss. The three principal parties were the Catholics, the Utraquists or Calixtines, so called from their devotion to the communion of the chalice or cup, and the Taborites. The first had lost much of their influence, or had become merged in the party of the Calixtines. These last were called the limping Hussites, by those who were more radical than themselves in their views of reform. And yet they were the most consistent and intelligent in their demands. They held to the communion of the cup, the free preaching of the word of God, the severe repression of public sins, as well of clergy as of laity, and the wrong of allowing to the priests landed property, or a share in the civil administration. The Calixtines were, in fact, the moderate or conservative party. They numbered among them the most influential men of Bohemia, and it was not long before they were joined by Archbishop Conrad himself.

The Taborites were so called, as composing mainly the army which founded the city of Tabor, of which they continued to retain possession. They were the soldiers of reform, and shared a deeper enthusiasm in the cause for which they bled, than their more peaceful brethren. They had lost, far more than their compatriots, all regard for the authority of popes, councils, or the church of Rome. They rejected altogether a hierarchy of priests, nor would they allow any mere outward symbol or external ceremonial as a spot upon the purity of scriptural worship. Many of them went beyond the views of Huss, Jerome, and Jacobel, whom they still reverenced, and rejected entirely the doctrine of transubstantiation. A great majority of the Taborites belonged to the lower classes, and some of them were excessively ignorant. Some doubtless, in rejecting priestly rule, gave themselves over to wholesale license. Contempt for the horrid vices and cupidity of the sacerdotal order would naturally smooth the way to violence and outrage, especially when that order became the aggressors. In this terrible reaction, the lower and more ignorant class would act a prominent part. Their leaders would almost insensibly be forced to conform to their tastes and yield to their prejudices. These were the men, some wild and raving in their vengeance, some more scriptural and even evangelical in their sentiments, who composed that terrible force that supplied Zisca with his armies, and made the name of Hussite terrible over all Europe.

Among the Taborites, and enjoying the liberty which they allowed, were mingled persons of other sects from which they must be carefully distinguished. The freedom which was vindicated in Bohemia, drew to it the free-thinkers and heretics of other lands. Some of these were possessed of a spirit, and adopted sentiments, utterly discordant with those of the Hussites. Among them were the Adamites, whose views of clothing much resembled those of the more fanatical of the early Quakers, who exposed themselves half naked to the public gaze. On other points they rendered themselves still more obnoxious. They carried the doctrine of modern free-love to a most licentious extreme. They do not seem at any time to have actually united themselves with the Taborites, nor do their views appear to have been adopted by the latter. Zisca considered them so criminal and dangerous, that he slew and exterminated them almost to a man.

The Taborites themselves were fanatical mainly in their forced interpretation of the prophecies. They made abundant use of the obscurities of the book of Revelation, yet, like some of the preachers of the council of Constance, applied them mainly to the harlotry of the Roman church. They held and preached the speedy coming of our Lord, to judge and to punish the world. The destruction of Sodom was a favorite figure, with them, of the approaching judgment of the nations. They went so far as to specify the cities of refuge—the Zoar of the purified church. These were five in number—Pilsen, Saatz, Launa, Slany, and Laatowia. The first of these they called the city of the Sun, and to it was conceded a preeminence above the others. The preachers of the Taborites scattered through Bohemia, propagated their peculiar views with great effect. Multitudes sold their possessions, no longer valuable to them, for a small sum, and hastened to take up their residence in the five cities of refuge. Letters were written and dispersed abroad, in which the doctrine of the coming of Christ was supported by the prophecies ill understood and falsely applied. Whole families would come, bringing the proceeds of their property with them, to swell the numbers of the Taborite hosts. Their money was freely devoted to promote the cause which they had espoused. Nothing could have been more favorable to the plans and measures of Zisca. The ranks of his army were kept full, and he was careful to train it to the most exact discipline. The enthusiasm of his soldiers, and their religious ardor, fitted them to follow the command of one whose genius as a General was combined with a devotion that made him, as a leader of armies, the Cromwell of his age.

There was obvious danger of a serious division among the Hussites, some favoring the Calixtines, some joining themselves to the Taborites. In fact, so strongly had the prejudices of men already taken root, that strong jealousies and rivalries had even now sprung up at Prague. The Calixtines prevailed in the old town, and the Taborites in the new, where their battles had been fought and their victories won. For twenty years there was a state of rivalry, sometimes approaching to open war, between the two parts of the city. It was owing to this fact undoubtedly in part, and the consequent jealousy produced by the presence of Zisca, that he was prevented from making a longer stay when he marched at different times to the relief of the city. The folly of Sigismund was manifest in adopting measures of severity which united, even temporarily, the discordant elements of opposition.

On the side of the Calixtines was ranged the larger portion of the Bohemian nobility. Among the Taborites, the common people almost exclusively were to be found. The former inclined to accept Sigismund as their king. The latter preferred, if not a republic, at least some other monarch than the emperor. Had the two parties been left to themselves, the issue might have been somewhat doubtful. Bohemia might have shared the fate of England in the seventeenth century, for Zisca manifested a signal ability, and a tact for managing popular enthusiasm and religious impulses equal to that of the Lord Protector of England. But the folly of Sigismund only tended to band together the repugnant elements into one common rebellion. The proceedings of the royal party had already alarmed the citizens of Prague. They were so far excited by their fears, as once more to lay aside their party aversions in presence of a common foe. Zisca was, by conceded ability, if not by general consent, acknowledged as the champion of the nation, although there were some, not enough perhaps to be called a party, who were in favor of placing Nicholas de Hussinitz upon the throne.

Mutual animosities, however, were for the time suppressed by the cruel policy pursued by the imperialists. The pretext for this was found in the excesses of the Taborites. The latter were fierce and relentless in the vengeance which they meted out to priests and monks. Their violence at Prague was copied throughout Bohemia. In some places their devastations were terrible. In the course of a few months, several hundred monasteries were sacked and burned. In Prague alone, during the year 1419, forty are said to have been destroyed by the Hussites.

But the imperialists needed no example from which to copy. They reduced cruelty to an art, and practiced their barbarities on system. If anyone was found, priest or layman, young or old, male or female, who refused to abjure the doctrine of the cup, the fate of such a one was sealed. No pity was shown, and no entreaty could rescue them from the flames, drowning, or the pits. The mines of Cuttemberg were pestilent with the stench of victims. The convention at Beraun did not stay the rage of the imperialists, who seemed to regard it as merely binding their enemies, and giving them over to their hands in unresisting submission. Some of Sigismund’s letters fell into the hands of the Hussites, and betrayed his bitter purpose of vengeance. To Czenko of Wartemberg, governor of the royal castle, he wrote, "Exterminate the Horebites." At Breslau, the Hussites in a tumult had killed a magistrate. Sigismund took ample vengeance by putting twelve of them to death.

The passions of the Taborites were inflamed almost to madness by the studied cruelties and insults to which all those who adhered to the communion of the cup—whenever occasion offered—were subjected. In the early part of March, John Krasa, a merchant, or, according to others, a Calixtine priest of Prague, had visited Breslau whither Sigismund had withdrawn from the conference of Beraun on matters of business. In conversation, he happened to speak with disapproval of the burning of Huss, and in favor of the practice of the communion of the cup. For this crime he was seized and thrown into prison. On the following day, Nicolas of Bethlehem, who had been deputed from Prague to the emperor to inform him that he would be recognized as king of Bohemia only when he had declared himself in favor of the Calixtine dogma, was also seized and cast into the same prison with Krasa. The indignation of Sigismund against Nicolas was extreme. He was condemned to be burned. Krasa cheered him in the prison, reminding him of the sufferings of the old martyrs, and of the everlasting joy that would follow their momentary pains. On the fourteenth of March, 1420, Nicolas was led out to die; but when the ropes were fastened to his feet by which a horse was to drag him to the place of execution, he was seized with a panic fear, and, yielding to the fair promises of the legate, who was then present, he renounced the doctrines of Huss. But Krasa, notwithstanding the fate of his companion, and the promises and terrors by which it was attempted to shake his own constancy, continued immovable. He refused all the terms of pardon offered him. He was then slowly dragged through the streets. The legate, who would have preferred his recantation to his execution, followed him, several times ordering the procession to halt, and exhorting Krasa to recant and save his life. But his steadfast reply was, "I am ready to die for the gospel of Jesus." He was already half dead when he reached the place of execution, where he was devoted to the flames. It was on the next day that the papal bull of excommunication and crusade against the Bohemians was published from the pulpits, and placarded on the walls of the churches.

Everywhere the most barbarous cruelties were practiced against the followers of Huss. A price was set upon the heads of the Taborites. For a priest, the sum paid was five guilders, for a layman, one. The most horrid butcheries were the result of this barbarous measure.

In May the burgomaster of Leitmeritz, Pichel by name, a cruel and deceitful wretch, seized in one night twenty-four respectable citizens, among whom was his own son-in-law, and threw them into a deep dungeon near St. Michael’s gate. When they were almost inanimate with cold and hunger, he took them out, with the assistance of some of the imperial officers, and, attended by a guard, pronounced upon them the sentence of death. They were then chained, borne in wagons to the banks of the Elbe, and thrown into the river. A great crowd, embracing the wives, children, and friends of the prisoners, witnessed the murderous spectacle, and could not restrain the utterance of their grief. The Burgomaster’s daughter—his only child—cast herself with clasped hands at his feet, interceding for the life of her husband. "Spare your tears," was the stern and merciless reply, "you know not what you desire. Can you not have a letter husband than he?" The father was inexorable, and the daughter, driven to desperation, exclaimed, "Father, you shall not give me in marriage again." Smiting her breast, and tearing her hair, she followed her husband with the rest. The victims, as they were cast into the river, protested their innocence, and, bidding their friends farewell, exhorted them to constancy and obedience to the word of God, rather than the commandments of men. They then prayed for their enemies, and commended their spirits to Heaven. With their hands and feet bound together, they were conveyed in boats to the middle of the river and then cast into the stream. Lest any should escape, the banks were lined with executioners armed with pikes, who stood ready to stab and force back any that floated toward the shore. All perished. The burgomaster’s daughter, after a vain struggle to save her husband, perished with him. The next day both were found, clasped in one another’s arms, and buried in the same grave.

Such violence produced a powerful reaction. At Prague it was like a spark falling on tinder. The passions of the Calixtines as well as the Taborites were inflamed anew. A violent leader, John, a Premonstrant priest of the Monastery of St. Mary, formerly a monk of Zelew, put himself at the head of the popular movement. He harangued the citizens, taking for his text the barbarous cruelty of the imperialists. He pronounced Sigismund the red horse of Apocalyptic vision—the sworn enemy of the cup—the author of the terrible excommunication which had overtaken the great body of the nation. "Will he treat you better," he asked, "than he has those of Breslau?"

The excitement produced was intense. The populace swore never to receive Sigismund as their king. Circular letters were sent out to the several cities which the convention had agreed to give up to Sigismund, exhorting them never to admit him or his forces. He was pronounced an enemy of the Slavonian language, and responsible for the execution of Huss. He was charged with alienating portions of Bohemia for his own selfish interests, and with laboring for the excommunication and death of all the Hussite teachers.

In such circumstances, any further attempt to fulfil the terms of the convention was scarcely to be expected. Many of the Taborites of Prague, apprehensive of the result of the measure agreed upon at Beraun, had already left the city, and indignantly withdrawn to Tabor, or joined the forces under the command of John of Hussinitz. Wherever they went, they imparted to others their own indignation, and encouraged an open violation of the terms of the convention.

Zisca saw no prospect of peace for the kingdom if Sigismund was allowed the undisputed succession to the crown. With several Hussite knights, he foreswore obedience to a man who had allowed his safe-conduct to be violated with impunity in the case of Huss, and who already was appearing at the head of armies to subdue the kingdom, and trample upon its freedom of worship. This league, thus commenced, grew rapidly. Barons, knights, and cities joined it. They swore never to receive Sigismund as their king. With the increasing danger from abroad, the prospects of a fierce resistance from the union of the Hussites against the emperor brightened. His own cruelties, and the perfidy and violence of the royal party, were taking effect.

The Taborite preachers had been instrumental in filling the five "cities of refuge," but especially Pilsen, full to overflowing. It became therefore an object for the enemy to gain possession of it. Indeed, it had been pledged to the emperor by the terms agreed upon by the convention, but to defeat them in this purpose, Zisca threw himself with his forces into the place, and held it for a time, refusing all conditions of surrender. He declined all negotiation with an enemy whom he dared not trust. He had with him in the city several eminent barons of the kingdom, among them Brzenko de Sswihow and Walkun de Adlar. Of the party opposed to the communion of the cup, many were driven without the walls. Several monasteries and palaces adjoining the city were destroyed, at the instance of Wenzel de Coranda, one of the Hussite priests.

But Zisca was not suffered to remain unmolested. The royal party, led by Bohwslaus de Swamberg, made an assault with a view to recover the city. He was defeated in his attempt, and put to flight, though the loss was considerable upon both sides. But the anxiety of the queen and the royal party to regain the place, led them promptly to reinforce the army of the siege. Skirmishes between the hostile armies were frequent, and the captives on both sides were treated with great cruelty.

Unable to make much progress, the royal party proposed to negotiate for the evacuation of the city by the Hussites. The latter declined all terms with a party in whose pledges they could place no confidence. At length, urged by a deputation sent to them from Prague, who still wished to conciliate the emperor by surrendering this as one of the cities claimed, they consented to treat for an evacuation of the place. The conditions were that the city should enjoy the freedom of the communion of the cup, and that such as wished to leave the city might withdraw unmolested to Hradisch, with their wives and children. To these conditions the royal party obligated themselves, under severe penalties. But, like the members of the council of Constance in the case of Huss, they seem to have fully imbibed the doctrine that no faith is to be kept with heretics. Several of their generals with a large force of cavalry lay at Pisek, to whom information of the capitulation of the city was dispatched, with directions to attack the Hussites on their march to Hradisch or Tabor. The necessary march of twenty miles in order to reach the latter place, would naturally afford the enemy many opportunities for assaulting them by a sudden and unexpected attack.

The advice was not neglected. The royal party overtook the Hussites near Sudomertz, and a battle was there fought. The Taborites, destitute of cavalry, were in danger of being surrounded. They protected their flanks by drawing their baggagewagons in a circle around them, and thus were enabled for several hours to repel assault. The enemy, foiled in their purpose, at length withdrew from the field, bearing off thirty of the Taborites prisoners. The army of Zisca, leaving its wounded to the care of the villagers, resumed its march unmolested to Tabor, where they received a hearty welcome, with rejoicings over their escape. The battle of Sudomertz was fought on March 25, 1420.

While these events were occurring at Pilsen, affairs were assuming at Prague a more threatening aspect. The Hussites became alarmed at the denunciations and threats of the royal party. Pilsen had been surrendered at their suggestion, partly, doubtless, in order to fulfil their promise to the emperor, as well as that Zisca might be left free to march, when necessity should require it, to their rescue. The zeal of the Hussite preachers was enkindled as their fears were excited. John, the Premonstrant priest, distinguished himself by his fervid declamations. Though possessed of no great learning, his eloquence was most effective. He was at this time expounding the revelation of St. John, and took occasion to apply its predictions to the events of the day. He was especially severe upon the emperor—the great red dragon of the Apocalyptic vision. The fact that he had allowed his courtiers to wear as a badge upon their breasts a dragon of gold, made the application more striking. The ardor of the was aroused to a higher pitch than ever. In the cause which they had espoused, many of them were ready to risk at once property and life.

Other causes, however, beside the fervid eloquence of their preachers, contributed to animate the spirit of the Hussites, and rouse them from their desponding submission to Sigismund to an attitude of bold defiance. The emperor’s violence at Breslau in Silesia, whither he had withdrawn from Beraun, was a great political blunder as well as crime. The cruel treatment of Krasa furnished an inexhaustible theme for fervid declamation. The emperor had consented to his execution. The grounds of his condemnation were, "that he would not hold, believe, affirm, and approve the following articles: that the council of Constance was legitimately congregated in the Holy Spirit; that whatsoever the aforesaid council enacted, decreed, and defined, was just, holy, and to be held by all Christian believers, under pain of mortal sin; that in whatever it reprobated and condemned, it acted justly, holily, and well; that the aforesaid council, in condemning John Huss to a most cruel death, proceeded in accordance with justice and holiness; and that its condemnation of the communing of the people under both kinds was just." These articles Krasa refused to approve, and his cruel death renewed and aggravated among the Hussites the bitter memories of Constance, and stimulated the thirst for vengeance.

This execution took place on the fifteenth of March, 1420. On the seventeenth, a crusade against the Bohemians who favored the communion of the cup was published by the papal legate. On his ill success in attempting to bring back Bohemia to the obedience of the pope, he had withdrawn to Hungary. Soured with disappointment and disgust, he declared that nothing but force would subdue the spirit of the rebel. His representations, undoubtedly enforced by Sigismund, had so much weight with Martin V, that the latter was induced to proclaim throughout Christendom (March 1, 1420) a crusade against the heretics of Bohemia. They were to be proceeded against as "rebels against the Roman church, and as heretics." The crusade was announced in the cathedral of Breslau, at the preaching of the sermon, while the emperor was present; and he exerted himself for the publication of the bull throughout the whole of his dominions.

This Bull of the crusade is a most remarkable document for the age in which it was published. It shows the same blind zeal and persecuting bigotry which characterized similar measures of preceding centuries. A Christian instead of a Mohammedan people were now, however, the objects of its vengeance—a people whose great heresy was that they made the word God their supreme authority, and contended for the institutions of the gospel in their primitive simplicity and integrity.

The pope addresses the bull "To the venerable brethren, patriarchs, archbishops, bishops; to his beloved children the administrators, abbots, priors, and other officers of churches and of monasteries, as well as to all professing the Christian religion, in what place soever, to whom these presents shall come." After speaking of his duty and anxiety to recover the wandering sheep of the fold of that Lord of all, whose vicar he is on earth, he declares his purpose, "by the cooperating grace of God," to restrain, by due severity, the minds of those who had cast off the divine fear. By the counsel of his venerable brethren, the cardinals of the holy Roman church, he had resolved, "by the treasures of the mystic dispensation," to excite the soldiers and athletes of Christ more fervently to pursue this object. He praises the celebrated faith of his most dearly beloved son in Christ, the Emperor Sigismund, who, as it were by a divine inspiration, strove with great effort, and at great cost, to restore the church to its integrity. The zeal of his faith, the ardor of his devotion, the gentleness of his compassion, had led him to seek the wider diffusion of the Christian religion, in opposition to those reprobate men of profane malignity and iniquity, the followers of Wickliffe and Huss, as well as others, the eyes of whose understanding had been blinded; children of darkness, who by their superstitious doctrines and crude dogmas would put the Catholic church under restraint, overthrow the orthodox faith, and give over the flock, led astray by error, to the bondage of hell. These men, their favorers, abettors, and defenders, unless they give up their errors, and submit themselves to the traditions of the holy fathers, were to be exterminated from among the faithful, and the deadly virus of soul was to be eradicated even by the destruction of tile body. So happy a consummation is earnestly besought by the emperor, of the pope and of the Catholic church. Extolling the purpose of the emperor with the most emphatic eulogy, with eyes directed to heaven in prayer for his success, he exhorts "all kings, dukes, margraves, princes, barons, counts, lords, captains, magistrates, and all officials; states, free cities, universities, and villages, by the sprinkling of the blood of their most glorious Redeemer, and in hope of the remission of their sins, to the extermination of the followers of Wickliffe, Huss, and other heretics, with their favorers and abettors; and to this end they should mightily exert themselves in whatever should be necessary to the prosecution of this work." He therefore charges and commands all ecclesiastical officers to whom the bull is directed, "to contribute all their power and influence to promote the purpose of the emperor, even to the raising and equipping of armies, if they are called upon to do it, in order to proceed against heretics and all who favor them." They were to act as valiant heralds, lifting their voices loud in all states, dioceses, and regions where it should be found fit. They were to select such persons as they should deem proper, to extend the proclamation to all Christian believers as they might chance to be met, and who could be led to volunteer in the crusade. These were to be allowed, by the apostolic authority, relaxation for a hundred days of imposed penance, in consideration of their enlistment. By the preaching of the word of the cross, and by setting forth the symbol publicly, by exhortations and fitting admonitions, they were to be urged to put forth all their efforts for the overthrow of the heretics. The ecclesiastics were themselves to bestow the cross freely upon those who volunteered, and were to fasten it to their shoulders with their own hands. To animate them to greater fervor, the pope himself, "by the mercy of Almighty God, and the authority of the holy apostles St. Peter and St. Paul, as well as by the power of binding and loosing bestowed by God upon himself, grants to those who shall enter upon the crusade, or to such even as should die upon the road, plenary pardon of their sins, if repented of and confessed, and, in the retribution of the just, eternal salvation. Such as could not go in person, but contributed to the cause by sending others, and equipping them according to their ability, should have full remission of their sins. Even such as had laid violent hands upon the clergy, or had been guilty of arson or sacrilege, might hope to fight their way to heaven by warring against the followers of Wickliffe and Huss." The ecclesiastics were to take special care to have this bull circulated as widely as possible.

The long dreaded blow was thus struck at last. All Christendom, with its generals and armies, was summoned to crush out the heresies of men whom the council chose to burn rather than refute. The affairs of the Bohemians presented indeed an ominous aspect. The imperial and papal powers leagued together, and summoned all bearing the Christian name to aid them in suppressing and exterminating a people, numbering at the most not more than three or four millions, who were at the same time beset by domestic foes, and who were far from unanimous among themselves in religious and political views. But the result disappointed all human expectations. The forces of the empire dashed and shattered themselves against the invincible resolution and desperate courage of a band of men sustained by religious enthusiasm, and conducted by able generals.

In fact, previous to the publication of the crusade, the tide had begun to set strongly in Bohemia against the pretensions of Sigismund. He had himself anticipated its fuller announcement, by an edict characterized by cruelty and injustice. He sent written orders through the land to all barons, and to all the magistrates, to the chief governor of the nation (Czenko), to the governors of royal towns, the officers and judges, to drive out, persecute, and as far as possible utterly exterminate the followers of Wickliffe and Huss, as well as the adherents to the communion of the cup.

This was enough to satisfy any that had hitherto been hesitating and doubtful in their allegiance, that Sigismund was the last man that should be allowed to ascend the vacant throne. Zisca’s league against him grew rapidly. Zatec, Slany, Launy, and other cities formed mutual alliance to resist him. Multitudes, driven to desperation, banded themselves together for security, or aggression in their own neighborhood.

It was in this way that the city of Ausch was taken. The governors had driven out of it all the Hussite citizens. A band of men composed of these, with Taborites and rustics from the villages, and led on by Zisca, lay hid in ambush in the woods for several days and nights, till, aided by friends within the walls, they seized upon an occasion when the city was given up to feasting and drunkenness, and were enabled successfully to assault it (February 2, 1420). Driving out their enemies, they took possession of the city, and were at once rendered secure in retaining it by the crowd of their friends who rushed thither as to a place of safety. It was shortly after this that the fortified town of Hradisch, in the immediate vicinity of Tabor, fell into their hands, and was delivered over into the charge of Procopius of Kamenitz, one of the ablest of the Hussite generals. On the destruction of Ausch by fire shortly afterward, its inhabitants transferred themselves with their wives and children to Hradisch of Tabor, whither Zisca and his forces directed their steps on withdrawing from Pilsen.

But at Prague the announcement of the crusade produced a most marked effect. Men could not but tremble at the thought of what that terrible word meant—with its signification written out in the havoc and carnage of past centuries, when the innocent and guilty, Catholic and heretic, were swept indiscriminately to one common doom. Indecision was allowable no longer. Even the moderate and noncommittal must take their side, and choose the party by which they would abide. The enemies of the Hussites were full of exultation. "These heretical wretches," said they, " will now be burned at last, or they, with their wives and children, will perish by the sword of the emperor. Let us fly from among them, to the most secure places, lest we miserably perish along with them."

This was a wise precaution. There was certainly danger of indiscriminate massacre, when all alike were exposed to the blind fanaticism of a crusading army at least judging by the precedent of the last crusade against the Albigenses; and however consolatory to the blind actor in the tragedy it might be to know that in slaying all "God would know his own," it did not present to the one in danger of becoming a victim, any very soothing reflections. The enemies of the Hussites in Prague were able fully to appreciate such considerations as these, and fearful of losing life and property together, they took refuge with their families and effects in the castle and Vissehrad. Seven hundred of the wealthiest citizens of Old Prague, and as many more of the New city—a large number of them Germans, and cherishing a national hostility against the Bohemians—were received within the fortified district, on condition of obligating themselves, under oath, on the expiration of the truce (April 23), to render their assistance in subduing the city, and, on the destruction or extirpation of the adherents of the cup, to return to their dwellings.

The citizens, alarmed at the intelligence of the crusade, and the measures and vaunts of their enemies, were not idle. Incited by their preachers, and especially by John, the Premonstrant monk, of whom mention has been already made, they assembled at the council-house of the Old city in order to deliberate on what it was most expedient for them to do. The assembly was large, and their priests and magistrates were present. They bound themselves together, in a covenant or league of mutual defense, against all persons whomsoever should presume to impugn the communion of the cup. They swore to be faithful in defense of the truth, and the oath was administered to them by the magistrates who still remained in office.

Four captains were elected for the Old, and four for the New city, to whose charge the keys of the council-house and gates were entrusted, and to whom an authority was committed, limited only by their discretion, for promoting or devising measures of defense. Beside these, forty persons were appointed from the Old, and forty from the New city, who were to act as officers or leaders, upon any emergency that might arise. After drawing up in a public act the doings of their assembly, and depositing the written document in safe hands, the people withdrew peaceably to their dwellings. Calixtine and Taborite were ready to join hands in a league of mutual defense. The Old city and the New forgot temporarily their aversions, and united to resist a common foe.

The prospects of the Hussites were dark indeed. Sigismund had already gathered a large army, constantly recruited from all parts of the empire. It was said to amount from 140,000 to 150,000 men. He moved on somewhat slowly, allowing the different reinforcements to overtake him, and endeavoring to make sure of the fortified places which he passed. Ziaca was not unmindful of the threatening danger. He saw the necessity of having some secure place upon which he might fall back in case of reverse. None appeared more favorable for his project than Tabor itself. Its natural position was such as to render it almost impregnable to the foe. It was almost a peninsula in shape, bounded on one side by the river Luznice, and on the other by a tributary stream of deep and rapid current. The place itself was lofty and precipitous. It was girt about by steep and almost inaccessible rocks. The only passage to it was by a narrow neck of land, which a few valiant men could make a posse of Thermopylae. Even this was defended by a deep fosse which Zisca caused to be dug, and by a triple wall, of such strength as to defy the assault of the most powerful engines. The walls were protected by numerous towers fitly located, and means of defense were devised by men who had rendered themselves already masters in the art of taking cities. Here Zisca directed his followers to build houses on the place where their tents stood, and at once the camp of the Taborites became a fortified city.

These precautions taken, Zisca listened to the urgent request of the citizens of Prague to aid them in the siege of the royal castle. Leaving Tabor itself to the hazard of an attack, he hastened to their aid. The Vissehrad was closely besieged, and subjected to great extremity. The garrison were reduced to the necessity of subsisting on the most loathsome food. Dogs, cats, and rats were ravenously devoured. At last the garrison agreed to surrender unless they were relieved by the emperor within fifteen days.

Meanwhile, the emperor was making his way to Prague. Czenko had sent him word of the danger to which the Vissehrad was exposed. He dispatched at once a force of cavalry, in order to raise the siege. Nor did he neglect other means for the relief of his friends at Prague. In order to draw off a portion of the besieging army, an attack upon Tabor was resolved upon. The Lord of Rosenberg, who had embraced the party of the Hussites, but who was now inspired by terror at the report of the invading army, was willing to make his peace with the emperor by turning his arms against his late allies. In proof of his sincerity, he prohibited, in his own district, the communion of the cup, and declared his readiness to assist the emperor in the prosecution of the war. To him, therefore, the attack upon Tabor was entrusted. The occasion was the most favorable, while so many of its inhabitants were absent at Prague. Accompanied by a powerful force, he advanced to the assault.

But intelligence of his movements was communicated to Zisca, who at once dispatched a force of three hundred and fifty cavalry, under Nicholas de Hussinitz, to the relief of Tabor. This force left Prague on the night of June 25 (1420). On the thirtieth of the month a severe and decisive battle was fought. The Taborites came down from the mountain, and made an attack upon the enemy on one side, while Nicholas de Hussinitz, of whose coming the Taborites had been made aware, assaulted them upon the other. The terror of the enemy was such that, after standing their ground for a short time, they turned and fled. Never was there a more signal rout. The imperial forces outnumbered those of the Taborites, it is said, twenty to one. They were pursued in their flight, and large numbers were slain or taken captive. An immense booty was left behind. Gold and silver goblets, ornaments and vestures of the most costly kind, warlike weapons and engines, provisions for the sustenance of the army, in great abundance and variety, rewarded the valor of the Taborites. Songs of thanksgiving to the God who had given them the victory, succeeded to the clash of resounding arms, and the conquering host, laden with spoil, exulted, as they retraced their steps, over the enemies of their faith.

The result of this attack was sadly ominous of the fate of the whole campaign. The Lord of Rosenberg was stung with shame at his ignominious defeat. In his resentment he sought to wreak a weak and unmanly vengeance upon the adherents of the cup. He hunted them out wherever they could be found, took them captive, and, shutting them up in prison, vainly endeavored to force them to abjure the doctrine which he himself had once avowed. Several of his castles were filled with these unfortunate men. Most of them were subjected to the severest and harshest treatment for many months. Some of them were put to death. But the Hussites did not forget the traitor. They exacted a severe penalty for his treason and his cruelty, in the ravage of his estates.

Other victories were won by the Hussites. At Voticz, between Tabor and Prague, a battle was fought, in which an imperial army of four thousand cavalry was routed. The walled town of Hradisch had been taken by surprise. A band of rustics and colliers, led by three zealous Hussites, and accompanied by a priest who encouraged them, secured possession of it on the night of June 25. The enemies of the communion of the cup were driven out of the city, of which the Hussites maintained possession, forming themselves at the same time into a military organization, and choosing themselves leaders.

The fall of Hradisch was a sore blow to the imperial cause. Sigismund sent at once an army of ten thousand men to retake the place. These were composed of the élite of his army. But they did not choose to make any assault. They contented themselves with seeking to regain the city under false pretences of negotiations, but the Hussites were not to be duped by them, and they were forced to return without accomplishing their object.

But all eyes were now directed anxiously toward Prague. As the capital of the kingdom, its possession was of the greatest importance to each party. On the twelfth of June the news arrived that the emperor was on his march, accompanied with an overwhelming force of more than 100,000 men. The citizens of Prague pressed the siege of the Vissehrad, and endeavored to increase the number of their allies. Among these came Hinko Krussina, with his Horebites. These were the most fierce and cruel of all the Hussite forces. They breathed vengeance against all priests and monks, and seemed to find no satisfaction equal to that of torturing, mangling, insulting, and murdering them. Merciless as they were desperate, Prague needed them, with all their fanatic thirst of blood, to defend her against the hosts of the crusading army. They were received with congratulations and shouts of welcome. Krussina was made one of the chief commanders of the city.

The emperor had sent forward a body of eleven thousand men to the relief of his party in Prague. He stopped himself for a short time at Koniggratz, where he had met a friendly reception, and sent an embassy to Prague, reminding the city of its promise of fealty, and requiring it to keep its word. He demanded that the citizens should give up their arms, and deposit them in the Vissehrad.

This message was delivered on the twenty-fourth of June, the emperor meanwhile resuming his march, and advancing toward Prague. His conduct was marked by a vindictive cruelty. Under pretence of retaliation, he drowned twenty-four Hussites in the Elbe. The monasteries fared little better in his hands than in those of Zisca. He plundered them to pay his troops. Some of them were immensely wealthy, and invited spoliation. The Hussites might rob them as enemies, but it was hard that they should experience the same fate from the hands of one who came as their avenger. Yet the pillage of churches and convents was the resource of both parties, and the immense wealth of the church furnished fuel for the fire that consumed it.

The number of monasteries destroyed by Zisca has been reckoned by historians at more than five hundred. None had manifested a more bigoted hostility to reform and to the communion of the cup, no class had become more corrupt, and none could be more properly regarded as implicated in compassing the death of Huss, by invective and false accusation, than the monks; and Zisca’s memory treasured the affront that had been offered to his own sister—an affront to be expiated by blood alone. His vengeance was terrible. By flying marches he swept the country, and spread on every side the terror of his name. Convents and monasteries were sacked and burned, sometimes with all who resided within the walls. Krussina, with his Horebites, did not yield to Zisca in the promptitude and energy of a cruel vengeance. The Cistercian monastery of Graditz fell into their hands, and was utterly destroyed. The monastery of Cromau was possessed of such wealth and splendor as to be an object of attractive curiosity to travelers. They turned aside to behold it. The Taborites paid it a visit—curious also in their way to see what it contained—and only its ruins were left to invite the curiosity of the pilgrim. At Prague, the Cistercian monastery of the royal court was doomed to a similar fate. One of its inmates, James, a scholastic of wonderful eloquence, and former rector of the university, was spared by Zisca only at the earnest intercession of the senate. Truly it might be still said, as it had been months before, that "the cart drew the horse." Laws were silent in the midst of arms. Zisca was the dictator of Prague.

The emperor’s army in all recklessness and cruelty was fully equal to that of Zisca. It was only inferior in strong religious conviction, fanatic feeling, and desperate courage. It was a conglomerate of all the refuse of Christendom, though led by kings, margraves, dukes, barons, princes, and knights, and accompanied by archbishops, bishops, doctors, prelates, and a host of ecclesiastics. Some twenty years before, Cardinal D’Ailly had expressed his wish that the pope would proclaim a crusade as a means of drawing off the festering masses of corruption, and relieving the church by the Sangrado prescription of letting of blood. His wish was now realized. With all the splendor of the empire, the scum of the nations accompanied and mainly composed the imperial armies. Almost every tribe and nation of Europe was represented in the motley host. Bohemians and Moravians in arms against their countrymen, Hungarians and Croatians, Dalmatians and Bulgarians, Wallachians and Servians, Slavonians and Thuringians, Bavarians and Austrians, met in the same host with inhabitants of England, France, Brabant, Westphalia, Holland, Switzerland, Aragon, Spain, Portugal, Poland, and Italy. The East and Vilest joined hands for the plunder and the vengeance of a crusade. There was a Babel of nations and of tongues. If the council of Constance could claim to be Œcumenical, much more might Sigismund’s army. Such was the host which had been marshaled to maintain the cause of the papacy, and put down a cause that vainly had challenged the council to confute it from scripture. How well it performed its task the sequel will show.

Bohemia presented, certainly, between the two contending parties, a strange picture of anarchy, rapine, cruelty, and sacrilege. Here we shall find the tombs of kings profaned, their dust no longer protected by coffins, the golden plates of which could pay the wages of a ruffian soldiery. There the fragments of marble altars, and pavements on which the knees of devout pilgrims had rested, are used to charge the catapults of the invading host. The carcasses of the slain putrefy and poison the air, or are flung piecemeal into besieged towns, till pestilence helps famine to do its work. Indiscriminate massacre involves the innocent and guilty, friend and foe, in one common doom. Retaliation and vengeance, sometimes, though rarely, conducted under legal fortes, supply each party with its hosts of martyrs. "Dreadful traditions have perpetuated the memory of so many frightful scenes: near Toplitz, it was said, might be seen a pear-tree, which blossomed every year, and never yielded fruit—a tree accursed from the streams of blood that had saturated its roots. At Commotau, near a church where thousands of victims perished, slaughtered by Zisca, it was asserted that the soil was formed of the remains of bones, and that at whatever depth search was made, nothing could be found but human teeth."

Sigismund himself acted as if he considered Bohemia a land doomed and accursed. The progress of his march was signalized by new atrocities, and deeds of reckless cruelty. He, as well as Zisca, would inspire terror. But in his case the project failed. There was alarm, but there was resentment and desperation also. The soldiers of Zisca were ready to be martyrs. The soldiers of Sigismund showed but a feeble faith, and a weak desire for that eternal glory awarded to those that fell, by the bull of the pope. The heterogeneous mass of plunderers and robbers lacked the spirit that animated the terrible soldiers who took the cup for a banner.

It was on the thirtieth of June that the emperor with the body of his army approached the neighborhood of Prague. He was fortunate in finding any part of the city still retaining its allegiance. Czenko, by a double treason—or perhaps, and more probably, by stratagem—had preserved for him the castle of Wenzel. He had pretended to surrender it to the demands of the citizens who closely besieged it, and who offered him his choice to proclaim the freedom of the communion of the cup, or withdraw from the castle. He assumed to yield to the last demand, and, it was said, withdrew with a large treasure to his own chateau. He had however secretly informed the emperor of the step which he had taken, urging his speedy advance, and by his connivance or treachery the castle was still held; or, if it had been surrendered, was regained for the emperor. The first step therefore of the latter was, if possible, to raise the siege of the Vissehrad. A single day only remained for the term of its surrender to expire. The approach of the imperial army to its relief was announced by drums and trumpets and bells, while strains of martial music mingled with the hymns and songs of the clergy, as they accompanied the emperor in grand procession to the royal castle. The army itself encamped on the wide plain about Bruska and Owenecz, ready to commence the siege of the city. Its numbers, if not its strength, received continually new accessions, till the pride of superiority, and the taunts of bigotry, found vent in insults that would more wisely have been reserved for a vanquished foe.

From day to day the soldiers of the imperial army, front a height on the bank of the river overlooking the city, and over against the Monastery of the Holy Cross and the Church of St. Valentine, uttered their howls and barking., like dogs, accompanied by sneers, and taunting words, and cries of "Huss, Huss! Heretic, Heretic!" If a Bohemian fell into their hands, unless speedily rescued by parties of his friends who still maintained themselves in roving about the precincts of the imperial army, he was mercilessly burned, without regard to the fact of his favoring the doctrine of the communion of the cup. His nationality was accounted a sufficient crime. Skirmishes were of frequent occurrence. Small bands of Taborites, issuing from the city, would sometimes rout great numbers of the foe. With their favorite weapon, an iron flail, they threshed down the invaders, armed in all the pride and pomp of war. The enemy attempted to take or burn the machines by which the citizens hurled masses of stone upon those who approached the walls, but all their attempts were vain. They were repulsed with loss upon all occasions.

Sigismund soon perceived that in order to reduce the city, the only method which promised success was to starve it to surrender. For this purpose it was necessary for him to occupy some position which would command the Moldau, by which provisions were still brought into the city. He determined therefore to take possession with a strong force of the high steep hill Witkow, or Galgenberg (Gibbet-hill), as it is called. Zisca had either had some intimation of his purpose, or discerned the danger to which the city was evidently exposed. Sigismund in possession of Witkow would moreover be able to invest Prague upon three sides at once.

Anticipating his movements, the Hussite general promptly seized upon the height, and fortified it, by wooden entrenchments, a fosse, and walls of stone and earth. The extreme promptitude with which Zisca acted, prevented any measures of opposition from the imperial forces being taken till his entrenchments were nearly complete. An assault was made upon the city (July 13) in which the citizens, although they repulsed the enemy, suffered some loss. But on the next day (July 14) preparations were made for an attack upon the Galgenberg, which it was determined to carry by storm. The city, moreover, was to be assaulted at the same time from three different directions, mainly with the purpose of rendering any measure of sending aid from the city to Zisca impracticable. From the castle it was ordered that there should be a sortie against the palace of the Duke of Saxony, which the citizens had strongly fortified, and 16,000 men were detailed for this purpose. From the Vissehrad a like sortie was to be made against the New city, while from the plain on which the army lay encamped, a force was to march to the assault of the Old city.

While these arrangements were taking effect, eight thousand cavalry of Misnia, led by their margrave, and strengthened by a large force from the imperial army, marched to storm the Galgenberg. They ascended the hill at quick step and with sound of trumpets, and took possession of some of the advanced works. A defensive roofed tower was taken, which was abandoned by all but twenty-six men and three women, who emulated one another in the courage and energy with which for a time they repelled the assailants. They defended themselves with stones and pikes. One of the women, though herself destitute of defensive armor, encouraged her associates by refusing to fly, and exhorting them not to yield. "A Christian believer," she said, "ought not to give ground to Antichrist." She fell fighting at her post. Zisca himself was at one time in great danger. He had lost his footing and had fallen to the ground, when his friends with their flails rushed to his rescue, and saved him from being captured by the enemy.

The city itself was meanwhile full of alarm. All human help seemed vain, and the greatest apprehension was felt lest the combined assault should prove successful. At this moment a strange sight presented itself. The citizens gathered with the women and children in sad groups, and with tears and groans supplicated aid from Heaven. While fathers and brothers stood by the walls or marched to the terrible encounter, those who were left behind commended them to the God of armies. The voice of prayer mingled with the clash of arms, and at the critical moment a priest, filled with enthusiastic courage, and bearing with him the holy sacrament, rushed forth from the gates, followed by only fifty bowmen and a crowd of peasants armed with flails. The bells rang, and the shouts of the people echoed far beyond the walls, as the little band issued from the gate of the city to face thousands of the invading host. A sudden panic seized the imperialists, who probably imagined that the whole force of the city was marching out against them. Zisca and his soldiers were inspirited by this opportune aid. The enemy were driven back from the entrenchments, and hurled headlong down the steep rocks. Horse and rider perished alike by the fall, and in a single hour several hundred were slain, beside many fatally wounded, or carried off as captives. The rout was complete. The emperor, from a high point on the banks of the Moldau, witnessed the defeat of his most cherished hopes. Overwhelmed with grief, indignation, and shame, he withdrew from the field, and led the array back to the camp.

The citizens regarded their success as a deliverance wrought out for them by the hand of God. They knelt down upon the field of battle, and sang their Te Deum with grateful joy. In long processions they marched through the streets of the city, ascribing their success to the interposition of Heaven. It was not by their own strength, but by the wonderful power of God (miraculose), that a small band had won such a victory over a numerous host. Hymns and songs filled the air with the music of triumph. Grief was turned into joy, and the whole city echoed with exultant praise. The little children sang hymns which were composed on the occasion, and which breathed the spirit of the song of Moses over the defeat of the Egyptian host. The scene of the battle was made memorable by the name of the great general whose skill and courage had foiled the power and designs of the emperor. The hill, formerly known as Galgenberg, or Witkow, was now known as Ziscaberg.

The results of the battle were made more manifest in the imperial camp than in the rout of the army. National animosities were awakened among the soldiers, composed in large part of Bohemians and Germans. Many things conspired to aggravate these dissensions. The very name of Bohemia became a term of reproach. If a Bohemian fell into the hands of the Germans, it made little difference whether he was Hussite, Calixtine, or Catholic, so far as the treatment which he received was concerned. The cruelties which were perpetrated upon their countrymen aroused the indignation of those Bohemians in whose bosoms a spark of nationality yet glowed. Deeds of atrocity were committed, the recital of which could awaken only horror or a spirit of vengeance—such vengeance as Zisca took, in ample measure.

On the sixth of July, a few days previous to the assault upon the city, while the Duke of Austria with a large reinforcement for the imperial army was on his march from Militcz to Prague, a band of sixty cavalry turned aside to the neighboring village of Arnosstowitsch, and at the treacherous suggestion of certain priests, seized upon the Calixtine preacher of the place, and his vicar, and placing both upon one horse, brought them to the Duke at Bystizitsch, presenting them as heretics to he punished for their stubborn pertinacity. The preacher, whose name was Wenzel, was a man greatly respected and beloved. He and his vicar had become known as decided Calixtines. The duke sent them to the bishop of the place, that he might determine how they should be dealt with. The bishop sent them back again to the duke—thus from Caiaphas to Pilate, says the old historian. They were insulted and abused, and threatened with the flames unless they would recant. Calmly but firmly they resisted all the efforts made to induce them to yield. "It is the gospel," said Wenzel, "and the practice of the primitive church, and thus it is in your missal: blot out the scripture, and destroy this gospel." At this, one of the knights who stood by struck Wenzel with his iron glove. The blood flowed in streams from his face. At last, as night wore on, the soldiers, wearied in their insults, left them. The next morning they were led out to be burned. But the number of the victims was now increased by three old men, peasants of the neighborhood, and four children—one of seven, one of eight, and another of eleven years—who had been found guilty of the same crime of holding the doctrine of the cup. When all had been brought near to the funeral pile, they were urged, if they had any wish to live, to abjure. "Far be it from us," replied Wenzel, "far be it from us to yield to your persuasions; sooner would we undergo not one, but a hundred deaths, rather than deny so plain a doctrine of the gospel." Upon this the executioners lighted the fagots. The children, leaning upon Wenzel’s bosom, sang aloud as the flames rose around them. One after another yielded up his life, and at last Wenzel himself expired.

At Budweis a similar scene was witnessed. Two Hussite preachers, after a harsh and tedious imprisonment, were burned, on their refusal to abjure the communion of the cup. Similar occurrences, which took place in various parts of the kingdom, could only aggravate the existing divisions, and excite anew the thirst for vengeance. Their frequency, and the odium which at the same time rested upon all that bore the Bohemian name, or whose national spirit resented the barbarous cruelties and unjust prejudice of the Germans, aroused the most excited passions in the camp of the imperial army. There was great danger that the mighty host would dissolve and melt away. It was evident that further assault upon the city would be for the present utterly futile.

It was at this moment, in itself critical, that another event came to fill to overflowing the cup of the emperor’s disappointment and humiliation. On the nineteenth of July the tents of the imperial army caught fire and were utterly consumed. The loss in other respects was great. The high wind which prevailed prevented the success of all the efforts made to quench the conflagration. The fire was attributed, although there seems no valid ground for the charge, to the malice of a Hussite.

The Taborites, envenomed against the Germans, who slew all the Bohemians indiscriminately that fell into their hands, insisted that such of them as had been taken captive should be dealt with as they had dealt with others. National animosity strengthened, or at least combined with fanatic passions, to demand these victims. A rush was made upon the council-house where the prisoners were confined, and the demand was made that they should be given up to be burned. The authorities unwillingly yielded, for they had no power to resist. Sixteen prisoners were led forth without the walls, and all, with one exception, were burned in sight of the Germans of the imperial army. The one who was spared was a monk, who promised that he would administer the communion to the people under both kinds.

The citizens of Prague, exulting in their present deliverance, were not unmindful of future danger, when the imperial army might be reinforced or equipped anew. They were ready to treat with the emperor on the basis of the four famous articles, which may be said to have composed their creed. They were the more ready to do it from the aversion which was generally felt toward the Taborites, and their peculiar opinions and practices. The followers of Zisca had little taste for hierarchical pomp. The simple letter of the gospel was their supreme authority. Traditions and ceremonies were with them like images and statues—only the rags of superstition, the flaunting robes of Rome’s harlotry. The splendor and magnificence of churches and monasteries they deemed to be libels upon the simplicity of the gospel. Scarcely had the imperial army fallen back from the walls of the city, when the priest Coranda, accompanied by a multitude of Taborites, many of them women, among whom were "the sisters of Pilsen," rushed into the Church of St. Michael, and tore up the seats of the priests as well as the laity, asserting that their best use and true value was to strengthen the entrenchments and fortifications of Zisca on the Galgenberg. The issue showed, however, that his aim was more to rebuke the vanity of superstitious worship, as he would undoubtedly have phrased it, than use the plundered materials for the purpose which he avowed. Most of them were carried off and burned. Few at least ever reached the Galgenberg, although Zisca did not neglect to provide for the defense of a fortress that now bore his name—though by some it was called "the mountain of the cup."

The well-known disposition of the Taborites, which threatened ruin to some of the most splendid structures of the city, combined with the daily ravages of the enemy to urge the barons of the kingdom, most of whom were Calixtines, to propose negotiations for peace. The emperor showed himself not altogether disinclined to see what could be done by treaty, now that force had failed. He saw the sad divisions and dissensions of his army, which had now risen to such a pitch that there were continual broils between the Bohemian and the German soldiers, the latter charging the former with treason, and declaring that if they had been left alone to fight the battle, they would have won the victory. The German soldiers had, moreover, learned of their superiors at Constance the art of burning human beings, and their taste for it had become so strong that it was difficult to restrain its indulgence. The whole region about Prague was ravaged with a merciless ferocity. Villages and castles were sacked and burned. Women and children, with indiscriminate cruelty, were thrown into the flames.

In such a work of desolation and atrocious crime, the pride and ferocity found vent which had at first insulted the citizens, but now, leaving them unmolested, turned to wreak its vengeance upon the helpless and unoffending. The barons sighed for peace. The citizens of Prague were equally anxious to be relieved of the presence of the imperialists and Taborites—the first, terrible enemies, the last, unwelcome guests. But these could not be dismissed till those had withdrawn.

The Bohemian barons, Calixtines and Catholics, held a conference to consider what measures could be taken in order to secure a cessation of hostilities. Those who represented Prague declined to enter into any compact, without the knowledge and consent of other cities with which they were in league. Anxious, however, for peace, they besought, for their own sake and for that of the kingdom, that with their teachers and priests they might obtain an audience of the king, at which they might in the four languages—Bohemian, Hungarian, German, and Latin—publicly declare the truth of their four articles, which were the ground of dispute, and might be allowed to sustain them clearly by scripture before the whole army, and thus vindicate the nation from the slanders which had covered it with infamy. If it was thought necessary, the doctors on the emperor’s side might answer, as they saw fit, whatever was presented. These terms seem at first to have proved acceptable, as a basis for initiating negotiation, to the Bohemian barons of the imperial party. A question was raised at this point in regard to an exchange of hostages pending the negotiation, in which the imperial party were allowed their own terms. But when the whole matter was submitted to Sigismund, he refused to approve the proposed measures. His disinclination to do so was doubtless strengthened by the bigoted refusal of the papal legate, Ferdinand of Lucca, to sanction any such step as the one which the citizens of Prague desired to have taken.

Foiled in their purpose therefore, the latter resolved to publish, in their defense, the four articles on which they mainly insisted, and with this end in view drew them up, and addressed them "to all Christian believers," prefacing them with the expression of their purpose to abide by them, living or dying, and to maintain them to the utmost of their power. The four articles as thus drawn up were (1) the full and unrestricted freedom of the preaching of the gospel throughout Bohemia, (2) the freedom of the communion of the cup, (3) the exclusion of the clergy from large temporal possessions or civil authority, and (4) the strict repression and punishment of gross public sins, whether in clergy or laity.

Embodied in the articles are the complaints which the Calixtine party, represented by the citizens, have to make of the more reprehensible abuses of the church, and of the more grievous corruptions of the clergy—their pride, sensuality, tyranny, the sale of indulgences, simony in the disposal of ecclesiastical benefices, etc. Each article is fortified with a mass of scriptural quotations, and under the one on the subject of the communion of the cup, figure the names of popes, councils, and fathers. We shall soon have occasion to notice these articles—the formal manifesto of the Calixtine party—more at length, and pause here only to remark, that any compromise which did not concede them freely, on the part of the emperor, was out of the question.

His whole course, from the outset, was one continuous blunder. The very measures adopted by him to regain his authority in Bohemia led to results the direct reverse of what he had intended and expected. He had forced those who had hitherto wavered, to a decision. The invading army must be welcomed, or resisted; and many, who would have preferred to have remained in the old communion, were under the necessity of doing so, if at all, at the expense of their patriotism, and in face of the manifest injustice and horrors of the crusade.

In these circumstances, it is not surprising that the more moderate portion of the nation, averse alike to the excesses of the Taborites and the atrocities of the imperialists, should incline to take sides with the Calixtines. We shall soon see Czenko, governor of the castle, as well as Archbishop Conrad himself, open and avowed advocates of the communion of the cup.

Sigismund’s present campaign, notwithstanding the mighty host which the publication of the crusade had ranged under his banner, had proved a total failure. The only object for which he still lingered at Prague, after all hope of conciliation had vanished, was his coronation. This took place at mid-day, July 28, in the castle of Wenzel. Few of the barons of the kingdom were present; and the knights whom he created upon the occasion only disgraced the ceremonial by which it was attempted to honor them. Most of them were unacquainted with war. Some had never shared in a battle. The coronation scene was a mockery. Those who should have been present were regarded as rebels, and Sigismund only assumed the crown to fly before the terror of their triumphant arms.

The retreat of the imperial army from Prague withdrew that external pressure which had constrained the Calixtines and the Taborites, notwithstanding their mutual repugnance, and diversity of taste and opinion, to unite in league against a common foe. With the proposal for a truce, by the barons of the kingdom, one of the conditions of which, of course, was, that Sigismund should be acknowledged as king, Zisca had nothing to do. The Taborites almost unanimously preferred a republic, at least an elected king; the citizens of Prague, with the barons of the kingdom, were willing, and even anxious to receive Sigismund as their monarch, on the sole condition that their demands in regard to the four articles should be granted.

These diverse views of public policy, although held by some on the bare ground of their fitness and expediency, were yet, as a general thing, rooted in a diversity of religious sentiment. The citizens of Old Prague, and the Bohemian barons, were mostly Calixtines, and they were confirmed in their conservatism by what they regarded as the insane fancies, the barbarous taste, and radical views of the Taborites. Although there was unquestionably great diversity, even among them, some leaning to the most radical reformers, and others scarcely differing, except on the single point of the cup, from the Roman Catholic church, yet as a body they stood, from the first, committed to the four articles already referred to, in which the peculiarities of their creed were substantially embodied. For a full century at least, these articles were uniformly and consistently maintained.

They were drawn up with great care and deliberation, and after full conference of the Calixtine nobles and citizens of Prague. They were introduced by the declaration, "Be it known to all Christian believers, that the faithful in the kingdom of Bohemia insist, and by the help of God, propose to insist, in life or death, as far as may be, in behalf of the following articles:

"1. That the word of God be preached orderly, without let or hindrance, throughout the kingdom of Bohemia, by the priests of the Lord, according the charge of Christ in the last of Mark, ‘Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature,’ for, according to the apostle, ‘The word of the Lord is not bound,’ but is to be declared, so that ‘the word of the Lord shall run and be glorified.’ 2 Thessalonians 3. ‘And no one shall be prohibited from speaking with tongues in the church of God.’ 1 Corinthians 14.

"2. That the sacrament of the divine eucharist under each kind, viz., of bread and wine, be freely administered to all the faithful of Christ, not disqualified to receive it by reason of mortal sin, according to the sentence and institution of the Savior, who said, ‘Take, eat; this is my body,’ and ‘Drink ye all, from this; for this is my blood of the New Testament, which is shed for many.’"

This article is sustained at length by large citations from the scriptures and the Christian fathers. The council of Carthage, the twenty-sixth canon, and the authorities of Gregory, Augustine, Jerome, Dionysius, Cyprian, Ambrose, Origen, Beda, Fulgentius, Remigius, Innocent, Paschasius, Lyra, and Albertus Magnus, are adduced in support of this article.

"3. That the secular dominion which the clergy exercise, against the precept of Christ, over worldly goods and possession, to the prejudice of their office and the damage of civil rule, be taken away and withdrawn from them, and the clergy itself be brought back to the evangelical rule and the apostolic practice, as Christ lived with his disciples, according to the charge of the Savior, Matthew 10, saying, ‘Possess neither gold nor silver nor money in your purse.’ And Matthew 20, ‘The princes of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them, and they who have authority over them are called benefactors; but it shall not be so among you; but whoever is greatest among you, let him be your servant; and whoever is preeminent, let him be your minister.’ So also Mark 10."

Numerous other passages from scripture are cited to the same purport, beside the authority of Jerome, Augustine, Ambrose, and Boniface, in his letter to Pope Eugenius.

"4. That all mortal sins, especially such as are public, and other disorders contrary to the law of God, in each estate soever, be prohibited and prevented, by those to whom it pertains. For not only those who do these things, but those who consent to them, are worthy of death, occasioning among the people fornications, revels, thefts, homicides, falsehoods, perjuries; vain, knavish, or superstitious arts; avaricious gains, usury, and the like. Among the clergy, moreover, are simoniacal heresies, exactions of money for baptism, confirmation, confession, the sacrament of the eucharist, holy oil, marriage, wafers, prayers for the dead, festivals, preachings, burials, consecrations of churches, altars, and chapels, prebends, benefices, prelatic dignities, episcopal acts, sale of indulgences, beside many other heresies which arise from these and pollute the church of Christ.

"Moreover, there are impious and unjust practices, as unchastity of concubinage, and other fornications; anger, strife, contentions; frivolous citations, and vexati