Page:A history of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, volume 2.djvu/529

Rh Opinions were too strongly held, and mutual toleration was too little understood for peaceful discussion, and excitement daily grew higher, leading to tumults and bloodshed. In the spirit of unrest which was abroad, men and women of the more advanced views from all parts of the kingdom began assembling on a mountain near Bechin, to which they gave the name of Tabor, where they received the sacrament in both kinds. These assemblages were larger on feast days, and on the day of Mary Magdalen, July 22, 1419, the multitude was computed at forty thousand. Numbers gave courage, and there was even talk of deposing King Wenceslas and replacing him with Nicholas Lord of Hussinetz, whose popularity had been increased by his banishment for advocating their cause with the monarch. From this they were dissuaded by their chief spiritual leader, the priest Wenceslas Coranda, who pointed out that as the king was an indolent drunkard, permitting them to do what they liked, they would scarce benefit themselves by a change. The abandonment of this project, however, did not assure peace. On July 30 there was a tumult in the Neustadt of Prague; at command of the king, the authorities endeavored to prevent the progress of a procession bearing the sacrament; the people rose, and under the lead of John Ziska, whose fiery zeal and cool audacity were rapidly bringing him to the front, they rushed into the town-hall and cast out of the windows such of the magistrates as they found there, who were promptly slain by the mob below. The agitation and alarm caused by this affair brought on King Wenceslas an attack of paralysis, of which he died August 15.

Feeble as had been the royal authority, it yet had served as a restraint upon the hostile sects eager to tear each other to pieces. With the death of the king the untamable passions burst forth. Two days afterwards the churches and convents were mobbed, the images and organs were broken, and those in which the cup had been refused to the laity were the objects of special vengeance. Priests and monks were taken prisoners, and within a few days the Dominican and Carthusian convents were burned. Queen Sophia endeavored, in vain, to maintain order with such of the

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