general horror and deep indignation among the Utraquist nobles who had followed King Sigismund’s court. Some of them, such as Čeněk of Wartenberg, now became his bitter enemies.
On March 1 Pope Martin V published a bull decreeing a crusade “against the Hussites, Wycliffites and their friends.”[1] This was done with the full approval of Sigismund, who believed that the enthusiastic Bohemians could only be subdued if their country were invaded by vastly superior hostile forces. Experience had shown that whenever a crusade was proclaimed vast numbers of men from all parts of Europe, some inspired by religious enthusiasm, others by the hope of plunder, flocked to the papal standards. On the Tuesday following Easter—April 9—Sigismund and his army left Breslau and marched to Schweidnitz, and then, crossing the Bohemian frontier at Nachod, arrived before the important city of Králové Hradec (Königgrätz).[2]
It was a bad omen for the campaign that Sigismund now undertook that one of his former great friends at this moment became estranged from him and took no part in the crusade. The Elector Frederick of Brandenburg left Breslau even before the end of the deliberations of the imperial diet. He strongly disapproved of the intransigent policy of Sigismund, which had imperilled his rule in his newly acquired dominions. In the then only partially Germanised lands of Pomerania and Mecklenburg the Slavic reaction was very strong at that moment, and the Pomeranian Prince of Stolpe treated the papal bull of excommunication with contempt. There was also the danger that the Poles, irritated by the hostile attitude
- ↑ “Wycliffistarum Hussitarum ceterorumque hæreticorum, fautorum receptatorum et defensorum.” (The bull is printed by Palacký, Urkundlicke Beiträge, Vol. I. pp. 17–20).
- ↑ Grünhagen, Die Hussitenkämpfe der Schlesier, p. 31.
quote in its entirety—throws a terrible light on the unspeakable cruelty of Sigismund. It is well to insist on this, as most writers lay great stress on the cruelties committed by the Hussites, while almost ignoring the far greater cruelty of their antagonists.
