Page:The Hussite wars, by the Count Lützow.djvu/125

The easy submission of Moravia determined Sigismund to march immediately to Bohemia. He first proceeded to Jihlava (in German, Iglau), close to the Bohemian frontier, and here received several Bohemian nobles who had abandoned the national cause. The vanguard of Sigismund’s army immediately occupied the small towns of Humpolec and Ledeč, and the whole army then proceeded in the direction of Kutna Hora. Never was Bohemia in greater peril. Žižka and his Táborites were engaged in warfare with the royalist nobles in the distant southern districts of Bohemia. The troops of Prague had recently been quartered in the country near Časlav, but on receiving the news of Sigismund’s approach they retired on Prague, though not without leaving garrisons at Kutna Hora, Králové Hradec, and other important cities. On hearing of this new invasion the citizens of Prague immediately sent messengers to Žižka begging him to march to their aid. Žižka immediately consented to do so. Though the preparations for a new campaign necessarily caused some delay, the Táborite troops, marching with that rapidity which contributed so largely to the Hussite victories, arrived at Prague on December 1. Žižka’s entry into the city was a triumphal one. When the Táborite forces, preceded as usual by priests carrying the Holy Sacrament, and accompanied by numerous Táborite “sisters,” arrived at the city gates, the whole population hastened to welcome and greet them. Subsequent events render it probable that the Táborite army was a very considerable one. Besides a large force of infantry, the Táborites on this occasion had also a considerable number of horsemen and numerous battle-wagons, so important a feature in the Bohemian warfare of that period. When the blind general entered the city gates, the great bells of the town-hall and of all the numerous church steeples were rung, and he was received with all the honours that were usually only rendered to the sovereign of the land. Žižka spent a week at Prague, conferring with the municipal authorities and also attempting to raise