dealings with the sovereigns of foreign countries, had had an unfavourable influence on the equilibrium of his mind. At the time when he was attacking the Church of Rome in the most virulent manner he, on several occasions, entered into negotiations with the Emperor Sigismund. After having agreed with the moderate Utraquists, who, at the Diet of Prague in the winter of 1433, had declared that the suppression of the turbulent and anarchical bands of the Orphans and Táborites was necessary, Prokop almost immediately afterwards rejoined the Táborite camp before Plzeň.[1]
Though the Táborite and Orphan armies continued to pillage ruthlessly the country districts of Bohemia, it soon became impossible to provision a large army in the now totally devastated land. Prokop therefore determined to send a detachment of his troops across the Bavarian frontier to obtain provisions. A small force, commanded by John Pardus, at that moment one of the most prominent Táborite generals, entered Bavaria by way of Domážlice, and, according to the custom of the period, began to pillage the country mercilessly. The Bavarian Duke of Sulzbach, whose territory the Táborites had invaded, hastily assembled troops, and he received some aid from the neighbouring Burgrave of Nürnberg, Elector Frederick. After successfully concluding their raid the Bohemians were returning to their country when they were attacked by the troops of the two princes at the village of Hilkersreuth, near Waldmünchen, close to the Bohemian frontier. The peasantry, exasperated by the depredations of the Táborites, rose in arms against them, and in large numbers joined the forces of the two princes. The Bohemians, as usual, retired to their wagon-forts to defend themselves, but they
- ↑ Dr. Neubauer, in his interesting studies on Prokop, to which I have already referred, notes a great deterioration in the character of Prokop, and quotes several of his denunciations of the Church of Rome couched in most coarse and crude language. Dr. Neubauer adds the very penetrating remark that a long period of brutalising warfare affects the speech and writings of the people; he alludes to the similar effect which the thirty years’ war had on the German language.
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