Page:The Hussite wars, by the Count Lützow.djvu/126

 more troops; for he was far too good a soldier to under-rate the difficulty of the task that now confronted him. It is also probable that some agreement was made at this moment between Žižka and the citizens of Prague, according to which he obtained supreme command of all the national forces. At this time Žižka began to sign his commands as “leader of the communities of the Bohemian land who are devoted to God’s law and obey it.” On December 8 Žižka and his Táborites left Prague, and on the following day the Praguers also marched out to encounter the enemies of the Utraquist Creed.

The centre of the new campaign was Kutna Hora. The King of Hungary naturally attached great importance to the occupation of that city. It has been previously mentioned that when that town had accepted the supremacy of Prague, those inhabitants who refused to conform to the teachings of the Utraquist Church had been allowed freely to leave Kutna Hora. The Utraquists, whose leniency always contrasts favourably with the ferocity of Sigismund’s partisans, had not insisted on this stipulation being carried out very strictly. Many adherents of Rome, and particularly many miners whose work caused them to wish to continue near the silver-mines, had thus remained at Kutna Hora. The partisans of Sigismund rightly, as the subsequent events proved, believed that these men would by no means feel grateful to a conqueror who had treated them with a leniency quite exceptional at that period, but that they would prove their vindictiveness as soon as it was possible to do so with comparative safety. The campaign of Kutna Hora is one of the most interesting episodes of the Hussite wars. We have unfortunately even less information concerning this campaign than we have with regard to other far less important events. Kutna Hora, the