Page:The Hussite wars, by the Count Lützow.djvu/147

 who were to be appointed by the town council. After this agreement had been concluded the allies of Prague almost immediately left the city. Žižka gladly returned to his task of repulsing the foreign enemies of his country, hoping that the new regulations, which were probably partly his own work, would ensure a certain amount of tranquillity to the Bohemian capital.

One of the first steps taken by the new authorities in Prague was the destitution of the captain of the town, Hvězda of Vicemilic. They then appointed as his successor Lord Hašek of Valdstýn; and in view of the base, incessant attacks upon the Utraquist nobles which proceeded from Zělivo’s partisans, they could hardly have made a better choice. Valdštýn, a very fervent Utraquist, had, during Sigismund’s invasion of Moravia, sacrificed his large estates in that country for the sake of his cause, and had afterwards taken a considerable part in Žižka’s brilliant campaign of Kutna Hora. There is no doubt that the inconstancy and ambiguous attitude of Čeněk of Wartenberg and some other Bohemian nobles caused them to be often suspected by the Bohemian people, but of the countless writers on the Hussite wars Palacký alone has pointed out the great difficulties which then confronted the Bohemian nobles. The choice of Valdštýn was an intentional and justified rebuke of the anarchical tendencies of Zělivo and his associates. The theological controversies in Prague meanwhile continued uninterruptedly. Very violent discussions took place among the priests who were still entrusted with the direction of ecclesiastical affairs. John of Zělivo invariably opposed all the views of his colleagues. At last Jacobellus in the presence of Zělivo openly declared that priest John was the cause of all the riots and bloodshed in Prague, and that he had wilfully led astray the Bohemian and Moravian nation. The new conservative town-councillors of Prague then came to the conclusion that it was necessary to end the influence of Zělivo over the turbulent