Page:Lectures on The Historians of Bohemia by Count Lutzow (1905).djvu/54

 seized by sudden fear, turned their backs and fled hastily, each man striving to outpace the other. In this sudden rush many were not able to control their horses, and falling from the high rocks broke their necks, while many were killed by the pursuers; thus in less than an hour’s time more than four hundred men were either killed, or mortally wounded, or led forth as prisoners. After this the king with his army silently returned to his encampments overwhelmed with fury, disgust, lament and sorrow. But the men of Prague, kneeling down in the Spital field, rendered thanks to God, intoning the Te Deum laudamus with loud voices; for they knew that not through their own valour but miraculously God had granted their small number victory over their enemies. Then with hymns and songs they joyfully returned to the city, and then the music turned to delight, the sorrow of the women, virgins, and children to rejoicing and gladness, all of whom the enemies of the truth had intended mercilessly and cruelly to murder as heretics and children of heretics; and all praised the mercy of God, who had powerfully delivered them from the hands of their cruel enemies.’

The pages of Březov’s book that deal with the events at Prague and the battles that were fought around the city are so stirring, that it is with real reluctance that I refrain from quoting from them more copiously than time will now permit me. The victory of the Žižkov induced Sigismund the Hungarian king to abandon the siege of Prague. After some futile negotiations he for a time left the neighbourhood of the capital, while the vast forces of the crusaders dispersed to their various countries. The troops of Sigismund continued, however, to hold the royal castles