Page:Bohemia An Historical Sketch.djvu/155

 utraquist lords, exasperated by Sigismund's decision to employ German and Hungarian soldiers against his Bohemian subjects, now joined the national cause, and one of them, Hynek Krušina, Lord of Lichtenburg, became the commander of the Bohemian forces.

A very sanguinary encounter took place in the valley which is situated at the foot of the Vyšehrad on All Saints' Day (November 1, 1420). Several lords, seeing that the men of Prague were well entrenched, advised the king not to disturb them, as his troops might suffer severe losses, but the king said: "I must fight with these peasants to-day." The Praguers at first wavered, when Lord Hynek called out with a loud voice: "Dear brethren, do not turn back, but be to-day brave knights in Christ's battle; for it is God's, not our fight, we are fighting to-day. Be certain that the Almighty God will deliver all His and your enemies into your hands to-day." Before he had finished his speech the cry arose: "The enemy is flying."

King Sigismund's troops were decisively defeated, and the losses, particularly among the Bohemian and Moravian warriors, who still sided with him were very great. The king was said to have exposed them more than his other troops. The patriots deeply mourned the fate of their countrymen. Though they had adhered to the feudal system which had obliged them to war for their liege-lord King Sigismund, the dead men had belonged to the national utraquist Church, and those who had not immediately succumbed to their wounds had, before dying, received communion in the two kinds. The contemporary chronicler Laurence of Březova thus describes the mournful aspect of the battle-field: "What man, who was not more cruel than a pagan, could pass through these fields and vineyards and view the brave bodies of the dead without compassion? What Bohemian, unless he were a madman, could see these dainty and robust warriors, these men so curly-haired and so comely without deeply bewailing their fate? "The castle of the Vyšehrad surrendered to the Praguers immediately after the battle.

The intense animosity caused by the policy of King Sigismund had led a considerable party in Bohemia to plan his deposition, and to meditate on the choice of another sovereign. Those among the utraquist nobility who had