the attempt to capture the stronghold failed.[1] The abandonment of the siege may also have been caused by the news that the Archduke Albert of Austria, that inveterate enemy of the Utraquists, had again invaded Moravia. He laid siege to the important Moravian town of Brěclava (in German, Lundenburg), situated close to the Austrian frontier, which had been occupied by the Táborites. Prokop’s victorious army easily defeated the Austrians and forced them to raise the siege.
These incidents of local warfare are of little interest in comparison with the new civic revolution that broke out in Prague about this time. The real plans and intentions of the Lithuanian Prince Korybutovič are one of the many enigmas which we encounter in Bohemian history. Korybutovič has almost always been judged severely, and, indeed, unfairly by Bohemian historians. He has very frequently been accused of treachery to the Bohemians during his second stay in their country. This accusation requires some definition. It is certain that shortly after the victory of Ústi Korybutovič entered into negotiations with Pope Martin V. The pontiff had informed Ladislas King of Poland and the Grand Duke Vitold of Lithuania, both relations of Korybutovič, that “he was willing to grant a hearing to the heretics” if the princes consented to act as mediators.[2] In consequence of this a Polish ambassador started for Rome to open negotiations, and his mission only ended with the subsequent fall of Korybutovič. It is distinctly unfair to describe these negotiations as “an attempt to deliver up Bohemia to the Pope and deprive the people of all the results of their many victories.” It is far more probable that Korybutovič wished to obtain certain concessions from Rome, similar to those afterwards granted
- ↑ Bartošek of Drahonic writes: “presbyter Procopius ... cum sectis castrum Poděbrad ... circumvallaverunt, et ipsum cum magnis pixidibus et machinis hostiliter conabantur expugnare ultra quinque septimanas et nequientes lucrare ob duram defensionem et audacem, abinde recesserunt” (p. 595 of Professor Goll’s edition).
- ↑ Professor Goll, Cechy a Prusy (Bohemia and Prussia), p. 190–193.
