Page:The Hussite wars, by the Count Lützow.djvu/188

 The official document containing the results of the deliberations at Prague avoided to mention King Sigismund, yet immediately after the meeting John of Opočno and Puta of Častolovice again proceeded to Buda, where King Sigismund had now returned. The ostensible purpose of their journey was to obtain letters of safe conduct for the Utraquist envoys who were to proceed to Brno, which was then in the hands of the Archduke Albert, Sigismund’s son-in-law. Enough has been written of Žižka to make it unnecessary to state that these renewed negotiations with Sigismund, as well as the insulting references to the Táborites—whose military leader he was, though he disapproved of many of their tenets—infuriated him to the highest degree.

The year 1424 which now begins is known in Bohemian history as Žižka’s last and bloodiest year. A personal motive, which may to a certain extent have influenced even an absolutely fearless man such as was Žižka, perhaps contributed to his not unjustifiable indignation. While Lord John of Opočno was in Hungary, the town council of Králové Hradec and Ambrose, parish priest of that city, wrote to Žižka informing him that their soldiers had made prisoner “one of the party of Opočno,” a man of rank, who stated that some one had received a large sum for the purpose of entering Žižka’s camp and assassinating him. It is impossible to ascertain the truth of this report, but it is certain that on his return from Hungary and Moravia Žižka immediately entered the district of Králové Hradec and attacked the estates of Puta of Častolovice and John of Opočno, who hurriedly returned from Hungary. A battle took place at Skalice on January 6, 1424, in which Sigismund’s partisans were signally defeated. Žižka, indefatigable in this, the last year of his life,