King Sigismund did not, as had been expected, immediately repair to Prague, where he should have been crowned as king, according to the institutions of the country, but travelled to Silesia (about January 1420). There is little doubt that he did not wish to enter Bohemia before he had collected sufficient forces to become absolute master of the land, and thus be able to rule it according to the Pope's desire, suppressing all opinions and practices contrary to the doctrines of Rome.
Quiet returned to Prague for the moment. The fortifications and barricades were removed, and many Germans and other adherents of Rome returned to the city. That party, relying on the support of Sigismund, now assumed a more aggressive attitude, and began to persecute its opponents. In several towns the utraquists were attacked, but the miners of Kutna Hora, mostly Germans and fanatical adherents of Rome, surpassed all others in cruelty. They seized all utraquists in and near the town, and threw them alive into one of the deepest shafts of the silver mines, which in mockery they called Tabor. We are told that their leaders had at first caused the utraquists to be decapitated, but that the executioners refused to continue their work, so numerous were those who were condemned to death. In the course of a few months about 1600 prisoners were thrown into the pit of Kutna Hora.
Meanwhile Žižka, who had disapproved of the truce which the Praguers had concluded with King Sigismund, had marched to Plzeň,[1] which town he seems at first to have intended to make the stronghold of his party. In the southern parts of Bohemia some of Žižka's adherents, led by a bell-founder named Hromadka, had surprised and stormed the small town of Austi (February 21, 1420). Not
finding the situation of the town sufficiently strong, they removed to a position about an hour from Austi, where a castle named Hradiště was situated in a very commanding position. They immediately began to fortify the land round this castle, and a town quickly sprung up to which they gave the biblical name of Tabor. Hromadka informed Žižka of this, asking him to send aid to Tabor, as he expected shortly to be attacked. Žižka willingly consented, perhaps already intending to make the new town the stronghold of his party. His position at Pilsen had become critical; he
- ↑ In German "Pilsen."
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