The excommunication of King George, which had long become inevitable, now took place (December 23, 1466), with the usual formalities. Poděbrad was deposed from his rank as King of Bohemia; all Catholics were forbidden to obey him. The Pope declared that one of the leaders of the League of Zelená Hora was to act as provisional governor of Bohemia, till a new king could be chosen.
Hostilities between the king and the lords of the league had meanwhile already commenced. The king had also to defend himself against the attacks of the fanatical Catholics of Breslau, as well as against the German population of Lusatia. The German Emperor Frederick and King Matthew of Hungary, George's former ally, also now joined the king's enemies. The King of Hungary was, however, forced by the ever-increasing danger of a Turkish invasion to defer his projected attack on Bohemia. The desultory fighting so usual at that period continued for some time in Bohemian territory. Success on the whole favoured the arms of King George, who (1467) even obliged the lords of the league to conclude a truce, which, however, was of short duration.
The king availed himself of the temporary respite from domestic troubles for the purpose of carrying war into the lands of his assailants. He (December 1467) attacked the Emperor Frederick III in his hereditary territory, Lower Austria; but he thus caused, or rather precipitated, a more direct intervention of the King of Hungary into Bohemian affairs. Recklessly abandoning his eastern frontiers to the irreconcilable enemies of Christianity,[1] King Matthew decided that a campaign against the heretical Bohemians was as meritorious as warfare against the Turks,[2] He
- ↑ Palacký says that if King Matthew had directed on the Turks the whole efforts he fruitlessly made to extirpate the Bohemian utraquists, he would very probably have crushed the Turkish power in Europe, then still very feeble. The Turkish servitude which Hungary endured for two centuries was to a great extent a consequence of the mistaken policy of Matthew.
- ↑ In a letter addressed to the magistrates of Cheb—preserved in the archives of that town and printed by Bachmann, Urkunden, etc.—the King of Hungary declares "negotium arduum illud quidem" (the invasion of Bohemia) "sed summi plane etiam in celo meriti et gloriae super terram existimantes non minus pium hoc fore helium quamquod
es tu bestia audax in praesentia nostra nominare eum regem, quem scis damnatum haereticum ab ecclesia Romana. Vadas ad furcas cum haeretico ribaldo tuo."
