Page:The Hussite wars, by the Count Lützow.djvu/187

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THE HUSSITE WARS
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day of St. Gallus”—October 16. At this meeting members of all Bohemian parties except the Táborites were present. Among those who took part in this assembly were Archbishop Conrad, who occupied the first place, the Romanist nobles Aleš of Šternberg and Frederick of Kolowrat, as well as John of Opočno and Puta of Častolovice, who had just returned from visiting King Sigismund in Hungary. Among the Utraquist nobles present were Lord Hašek of Valdštýn and Lord Krušina of Lichtenburg. The rank next to them was assigned to the representatives of the cities of Prague. After them came the knights among whom was Bořek of Miletinek, and the representatives of the other Bohemian towns.[1] The conference sat till November 1. The only information which we have concerning its deliberations is contained in a document that was drawn up before the members separated. It began by stating that all those present agreed to the continuation of the negotiations with the Roman party which the meeting at Kolin had first suggested, and that all desired that a new conference should shortly take place at Brno in Moravia. The document then declared that the members of the conference had decided to elect a provisional government. They thus followed the precedent of the assembly at Časlav in 1421. Twelve “captains of the people” were chosen, and the list included most of the prominent Roman and Utraquist noblemen, whose names have frequently occurred in this work, as well as Bořek of Miletinek, who now commanded the troops of the Praguers. One of the duties of these captains of the land was “to help and defend the country against all who wished to ruin it and to cause troubles and riots.” If we consider the strongly conservative, not to say reactionary, tendency of the assembly at Prague we can hardly doubt that the persons alluded to were the Táborites. The latter were naturally indignant at being described as robbers and rioters.

  1. The members of the assembly were seated at the meetings in the order of precedence, quoted above from the contemporary records.