Page:The Hussite wars, by the Count Lützow.djvu/43

 that the citizens who wished to communicate in the two kinds should be allowed to do so—a promise that was not kept—and that Žižka and his forces should be allowed to march unhindered to Tábor. He then surrendered the city to Venceslas of Duba and started on his march. He had only four hundred warriors, twelve equipped wagons and nine horsemen, but was accompanied by several priests, among them Koranda, who no longer considered himself safe at Plzeň, and many women and children. The Hussite women were, however, by no means to be considered as mere encumbrances. The women who accompanied the Hussite armies were very fervent Utraquists, who sometimes fought in the battles “for the law of God,” to use the then general designation. On the occasion of Žižka’s march to Tábor they appear to have acted only as nurses. Žižka was not fated to march unopposed to Tábor. Several lords of the Roman party, of whom the most important were Lord Peter Konopišt of Sternberg, and Lord Nicholas Divucek, mintmaster of Kutna Hora—that great centre of the royalist party—had, by order of King Sigismund, marched to Plzeň to reinforce the besiegers of the city. On hearing of the truce they rightly or wrongly declared that they were not bound by it. They determined to intercept Žižka’s army on the march. The danger was indeed great. The royalist nobles were at the last moment joined by Lord Hanuš of Kolowrat and by the grandmaster of the order of the Knights of Strakonic. The accounts as to the number of their soldiers vary from 2,000 to 8,000; they were all mounted, and, wearing full armour, were known as the “iron knights,” and greatly feared by the Bohemians. They had just obtained possession of the Utraquist town of Pisek, where Žižka had intended to halt to obtain supplies and perhaps reinforcements. He certainly did not—at least at