Page:The Acts and Monuments of John Foxe Volume 3.djvu/586

 slings threw continually great stones over the walls, and about two thousand vessels, tubs, or baskets, filled with dead carcases and other excrements, were cast in amongst those who were besieged; which thing did so infect them with stench, that their teeth did either fall ouc, or were all loose. Notwithstanding they bare it out with stout courage, and continued their fight until the winter, having privily received medicine out of Prague, to fasten their teeth again.

In the mean time Frederic the elder, prince of Brandenburg, entering into Bohemia with a great power, caused them of Prague to raise the siege; and Vitold, at the request of Uladislaus, king of Poland, who had talked with the emperor on the borders of Hungary, called Coributus, his uncle, with his whole army, out of Bohemia. Whereupon the emperor supposed that the protestants, being destitute of foreign aid, would the sooner do his commandment; but he was far deceived therein, for they, leading their armies out of Bohemia, subdued the borders thereupon adjoining. It is also reported that Zisca went into Austria, and when the husbandmen of the country had carried away a great number of their cattle by water unto an isle of the river Danube, and by chance had left certain calves and swine in their villages behind them; Zisca drave them unto the river side, and kept them there so long, beating them, and causing them to roar out and cry, till the cattle feeding in the island, hearing the lowing and grunting of the cattle on the other side of the water, for the desire of their like, did swim over the river; by means whereof he got and drave away a great booty.

About the same time the Emperor Sigismund gave to his son-in-law Albert, duke of Austria, the country of Moravia, because it should not want a ruler. At the same time, also, Eric, king of Denmark, and Peter Infant, brother to the king of Portugal and father of James, cardinal of St. Eustace, came to the emperor (being both very expert men in the affairs of war), who did augment the emperor's host with their aid and power: whereupon they straightway pitched their camp before Lutemperge, a town of Moravia, and continued the siege for the space of three months. There was at that time a certain knight at Prague surnamed Aqua, who was very rich and of great authority. This man, forasmuch as he had no child of his own, adopted unto him his sister's son, named Procopius; whom, when he was of mean stature and age, he carried with him into France, Spain, and Italy, and unto Jerusalem; and, at his return, caused him to be made priest. This man, when the gospel began to flourish in Bohemia, took part with Zisca, and, forasmuch as he was strong and valiant, and also painful, he was greatly esteemed.

This Procopius for his valiant acts was afterwards called Procopius Magnus, and had committed unto him the whole charge of the province of Moravia, and the defence of the Lutemperges, who, receiving a great power by force (maugre all the whole power which lay in the siege) carried victuals into the town which was besieged, and so did frustrate the emperor's siege. The emperor, before this, had delivered to the marquises of Misnia the bridge and town of Ausca, upon the river Albis, that they should fortify them with their garrisons. Whereupon Zisca besieged Ausca; and Frederic, the