of Prague, then known as the Vitkov, but which since those times, and up to the present day, bears the name of Žižka's Hill. The invaders did not immediately begin their attack, and it was only on July 14 that Sigismund made a determined attempt on Prague. The attack was made in three directions: from the castles on the Hradčany and on the Vyšehrad, the districts of the town nearest to those castles—the Malá Strana and the Nové Město—were attacked, while a third attack was made on the Vitkov hill, the key of the position of the defenders, who depended on its possession for maintaining their communications with the country. This hill was defended by Žižka and his Taborites, who resisted the attack of the Germans[1] with desperate courage. Even the Taborite women assisted in the defence of the very primitive fortifications Žižka had hastily erected. When the Taborites were for a time driven back, one of these women refused to retreat, saying that a true Christian should never give way to Antichrist, whereupon she was immediately killed by the Germans. The bravery of Žižka, who himself fought in the front rank, at last drove the Germans down the hill. Great numbers of them were killed or driven into the river Vltava by the Bohemians who pursued them.
Žižka did not himself think that his victory would prove decisive, for he immediately began to strengthen the fortifications which had hurriedly been erected on the spot formerly known as the Vitkov, but which since that great victory has been called Žižka's Hill.
Fortunately for the Bohemians, dissensions had broken out among their enemies. The Germans strongly distrusted the Bohemian troops of Sigismund. The utraquist lords in the king's army, on the other hand, felt some sympathy for the defenders of Prague, and were indignant against the Germans, who, thwarted in their attempt on Prague, scoured all the neighbouring country, burning as heretics all Bohemians, without distinction, whom they could seize.
The utraquist lords, therefore, attempted to mediate between the king and the citizens of Prague, with whom they thought an agreement more feasible than with the fanatical Taborites. The Praguers, however, refused to enter into separate negotiations. It was therefore decided
- ↑ They were horsemen from Meissen and Thuringia, about 9000 in number.
