Elbe, which have just been mentioned, Žižka hurried once more to the district of Plzeň and then proceeded to Žatec. He here received important news. The negotiations of the Bohemians with Poland, to which I have frequently referred, had lately been broken off. There is little doubt that King Ladislas used the Bohemians only as a pawn in the difficult political game which he was playing with King Sigismund, the Teutonic order and the Elector of Brandenburg.[1] The King of Poland, at this moment on good terms with Sigismund, endeavoured to ingratiate himself with him by inducing the Bohemians—by means of promises which would not be kept—to at last recognise Sigismund as their king. The negotiations, as was inevitable, failed. In direct contrast with the attitude of Ladislas was that of his nephew, Prince Korybutovič. He again declared himself openly a friend of Bohemia, and travelling rapidly through Silesia suddenly arrived at Prague on June 29 accompanied by 1,500 Polish horsemen. The citizens, greatly weakened by their defeat at Malešov, gladly welcomed him, and conferred on him wider powers than he had possessed during his first stay in Bohemia. They did not, however, grant him the title of king, though he claimed that rank.[2]
Meanwhile Žižka was at Žatec equipping a large army, determined to march on Prague and entirely to suppress the freedom of the city. Besides his own Táborites the men of Loun, Žatec, and Klatovy marched with him. They started at the end of August and arrived on September 1 at Libochovice, where Žižka; with his usual rigid puritanism, caused four monks who had committed outrages on women and maidens to be burnt. From there Žižka’s army—according to Professor Tomek’s conjecture, for the contemporary
- ↑ It is of course beyond my purpose to enter into these matters here; but these negotiations alone explain the fluctuating attitude of Poland towards the Bohemians.
- ↑ The contemporary chronicler Bartošek of Drahonic writes: “Eodem anno circa festum sancti Procopii revenit dux Sigismundus [Korybutovič] Pragam et Pragenses ipsum pro domino susceperunt de facto sed non jure” (p. 593 of Professor Goll’s edition).
