Page:Lectures on The Historians of Bohemia by Count Lutzow (1905).djvu/52

 gonians, Spaniards, Poles, Germans from the Rhineland, and many others. These men stood on the tops of the hills on the side of the river which is opposite the monastery of the Holy Cross [and the church of St. Valentine], and, howling like dogs, threatened the city daily, saying: “Ha, Ha, Hus, Hus, Heretics, Heretics!” and if any Bohemian fell into their hands unless he was promptly rescued by the Bohemians who were on their side they immediately burnt him mercilessly, even if he had never received communion in the two kinds.’

Březov then tells us how Žižka and his Taborites, who, sinking all minor differences, had hastened to the aid of Prague, fortified the hill then known as the Vitkov, but which henceforth was always known as the Žižkov or Zižka’s Hill. They thus secured for the party of Church reform communication with the open country, where the peasants were everywhere rising in arms against the German and other invaders, while many Bohemian knights who sympathized with the Hussite doctrine were also hastening to take part in the defence of the venerated capital of Bohemia.

The Germans, Hungarians, and other allies of Sigismund finally decided that a general attack on the city should be made on July 14. Březov writes: ‘On the Sunday nearest to the feast of St. Marguerite the whole royal army was ready. It was decided that one part of it, a few thousand men, should first seize the wooden fortifications that Žižka had erected on the hill. When this had been done three attacks were, according to the instructions of the captains, to be made on the city. From the castle the Bohemian troops of