and the books of the public library they either carried away or spoilt them and tore them up. They then attacked the houses of the priests and destroyed them, and those masters who had not fled they arrested and brought to the town-hall. Then Master Rokycan also fled from Prague. On this day Prague suffered more damage then when King Sigismund encamped around the city with more than 100,000 men.” Some of the town magistrates who were suspected of having approved of the execution of Zělivo were immediately decapitated. On numerous other prisoners the people decided to pass judgment later. “Thus,” as Professor Tomek writes,[1] “the prominent companions and followers of Hus in his endeavour to reform the Church, the most zealous and most learned leaders of the whole Utraquist Church, were to be judged by an uneducated rabble.” The reign of terror in Prague, however, lasted only a few days, and we find no explanation of this fact in the scanty contemporary records. It does not seem improbable that Žižka, whom his campaign of Kutna Hora had naturally rendered very popular, interfered. A man of sure judgment such as he was could not fail to see that the continuation of anarchy in the capital would soon be followed by the complete downfall of the Hussite movement. New town-councillors, mostly belonging to Zělivo’s party, were, however, elected; and, probably by a compromise, it was decided that the priests and masters of the university should be sent to Králové Hradec “to do penance there.”
It has already been noted that the protracted negotiations with Poland at last led to a favourable result, when the news of the victories near Kutna Hora reached Poland. The political situation in that country was also at that moment favourable to the plan of founding a Polish dynasty in Bohemia. Though already of the age of seventy-four, King Ladislas had recently, mainly through the influence of the Grand Duke Vitold, married again. His youthful bride Sonka, grand-daughter of Ivan
- ↑ History of the Town of Prague, Vol. IV. p. 242.
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