Page:Bohemia An Historical Sketch.djvu/158

 About this time the castle of Prague on the Hradčany Hill surrendered. Sigismund's influence disappeared in Prague; but Bohemia was still menaced both by internal disturbances and by foreign foes. New religious troubles broke out in Prague, caused by the fanatical monk John of Želivo, and at Tabor public order was disturbed by the violence of fanatics. Žižka soon quelled these disturbances in the barbarous fashion common to all religious parties at that period. He caused about fifty enthusiasts, men and women, to be burnt for denying the real presence of Christ in the sacrament of the altar. They met their fate bravely. "Gaily laughing, they walked into the flames, boasting that they would that very day take their meal with Christ in heaven."

Žižka's commanding influence at Tabor restored order in the town, and he was soon free to continue the war against the adherents of the papal cause who still held isolated castles in many parts of Bohemia. In besieging one of these castles, Rábi, which belonged to the Romanist Lord of Riesenburg, Žižka was severely wounded in the eye by an arrow. His life was for some time in danger, and though the doctors of Prague, to which town he was immediately carried, succeeded in saving his life, he now became totally blind.

Local warfare between the Germans and Bohemians had, meanwhile, continued uninterruptedly both on the Saxon and on the Silesian frontiers, but a more serious danger now menaced Bohemia. As early as the month of April (1421) the German princes decided to undertake a new crusade against Bohemia, and Sigismund, though detained in Hungary by the hostile attitude of Turkey and Venice,