Page:The Hussite wars, by the Count Lützow.djvu/124

 fortune, Pipa of Ozora. Pipa, with the ruthlessness of an Italian condottiere, resolved to intimidate his adversaries by wholesale massacres. His instructions were but too energetically carried out. It is certain that Pipa’s policy obtained a certain amount of success. Many nobles of Moravia renounced the articles of Prague and again recognised Sigismund as their legitimate sovereign. Their example was afterwards followed by a considerable number of Bohemian nobles, whom the murder of Sadlo and other internal troubles at Prague, which will be mentioned at the beginning of the next chapter, had for a time alienated from the national cause. Sigismund marched to Brno, the capital of Moravia, almost without meeting with any opposition. He summoned the estates of the country to a diet, which was to have begun its deliberations on November 1, but which, in consequence of delays, only met on the roth of that month. Sigismund had taken the precaution of filling the council-chamber, where the estates met, with his Hungarian soldiery. It was no more attempted to keep up the appearance that the assembly deliberated freely than when, in the present year, the Hungarian Parliament voted in a house that was crowded with police. Sigismund expressed his wishes very clearly. He told the estates that it was their duty to renounce the four articles which were erroneous and heretical; then, having done penance, they would receive absolution from the papal legate. The Moravians hesitated, but seeing the anger of the King, whose fits of fury sometimes verged on madness, and knowing that the Hungarian soldiers were prepared to attack them, they obeyed the King’s command.