Page:The Hussite wars, by the Count Lützow.djvu/344

 were this time unsuccessful. The wagons were stormed, and, according to the most trustworthy account, of the 1800 Bohemian warriors only 130 men with their commanders, Pardus and John Ritka, Captain of Domážlice, escaped and reached the camp before Plzeň.

This defeat at a moment when discipline was continuously becoming slacker in the Táborite camp, and when by no means groundless rumours of treachery were rife there, would in any case have had serious consequences, but the riot which broke out when Pardus returned to the camp made the situation even more dangerous. A mutiny broke out among the soldiers, who accused Pardus of treachery. The defeated general was attacked, fettered, and imprisoned, and when Prokop attempted to protect his comrade, who appears to have been perfectly innocent, he was himself insulted by the soldiers, wounded by a stool that was thrown at him, and confined in a prison. Prokop was released almost immediately, and it appears that he then proceeded to Prague, where his presence in the autumn is, at any rate, certain. We have, however, very scant information concerning his movements at that moment, and this is generally perhaps the most obscure period of the Hussite wars. We have also only varying and, indeed, contradictory statements concerning the doings in the camp of Plzeň after Prokop’s departure.

The proceedings at the Diet of Prague after the arrival of the second embassy of the Council have already been noted. Prokop the Great, who took part in these deliberations, spoke strongly in favour of re-establishing order in the country. As it could not be denied that the principal disturbers of peace were then the Táborites, Prokop thus broke openly with his party. It is likely that the opprobrious manner in which he