Page:The Hussite wars, by the Count Lützow.djvu/42

 for the military community of which he had become the head. It is one of history’s ironies that Plzeň, first chosen as the centre of the Hussite party, should, in the later period of the war, have become the stronghold of the Roman party, and that the unsuccessful siege of Plzeň should have been the immediate cause of the downfall of the Táborites.

Žižka and his followers arrived safely at Plzeň, and he, by a successful sortie, dispersed the royal troops, who were preparing to besiege the city. Yet Žižka’s stay at Plzeň did not last long. Some of the most enthusiastic Táborites had—as will be mentioned presently—founded a new city, or rather military camp on a hill, to which they gave the name of Tábor, situated close to Ústi, where the early meetings of the Hussites had been held. Žižka, who had found that the inhabitants of Plzeň were not as largely favourable to his cause as he had been led to believe, sent part of his troops to the help of the new settlers at Tábor, which his military genius had, perhaps, already selected as his future stronghold. After the departure of part of his army Žižka’s position at Tábor became a difficult one. The partisans of Sigismund and the Roman Church were numerous in the city, and streetfights between them and Žižka’s soldiers constantly occurred. About this time Lord Venceslas of Duba, chamberlain of King Sigismund, issued a proclamation in which he, in the name of his sovereign, called on all nobles, knights and citizens to pay a special tax for the purpose of equipping an army which was to extirpate all heretics. It was well understood that this army was to attack,at Plzeň, Žižka, whom the royalists rightly considered their most dangerous enemy. Under the circumstances Žižka decided to conclude a truce with his enemies. Through the medium of envoys of the city of Prague, who visited Žižka at Plzeň, an agreement was made, according to which Žižka was to evacuate Plzeň, on condition