Page:The Hussite wars, by the Count Lützow.djvu/67

 of the town. The works were further strengthened after the Táborites, as will be mentioned presently, had arrived in Prague. About Whitsuntide, Březova writes, the Táborite women, joined by the women of Žatec and Loun and a large number of women of Prague, dug a deep fosse from the Slavic—now called Emaus—monastery to the Karlov and the church of St. Apollinaris, thus guarding that part of the town that was most menaced by the neighbouring fortress of the Vyšehrad. We have, as is so often the case in the annals of the Hussite wars, very insufficient information concerning the fortifications of Prague at that period, but subsequent events prove that they had been erected with some skill. While strengthening the defences of their town as much as the shortness of time permitted, the citizens also attempted to summon to their aid all Bohemian nobles and townships who had not submitted to Sigismund. The most important step was to appeal to the rising community of Tábor; this resolution was not made without some reluctance. The puritan severity and rigour of the Táborites was displeasing to many citizens, as indeed became obvious when the men of Tábor arrived at Prague. The teaching of the university of Prague, to which the Praguers conformed, was opposed to the rules and rites of Tábor, as the university rejected all innovations which could not be traced back to Hus himself. The common danger for a time silenced these differences. Immediately after the return of the envoys from Kutna Hora the citizens of Prague sent messengers to Tábor begging the Táborites, “if they wished verily to obey God’s law, to march to their aid without delay, and with as many men as they could muster.”

Žižka’s military genius had enabled him during his short stay at Tábor to organise his troops so thoroughly that they were ready to confront immediately the troops of Sigismund, a conflict with whom he had long considered inevitable. On