Page:The Story of Prague (1920).djvu/96

 Tabor,’ to use the words of the great Bohemian historian Palacky.

The defeat of the democratic party paved the way to the recognition of Sigismund as King. After prolonged negotiations at the Council of Basel and meetings of the Estates at Brno and Jihlava, the Bohemians recognised Sigismund as their King, while he promised to obtain for them certain religious concessions, of which the permission to receive communion in the two kinds was the most important. A document known as the—‘Compacts’ enumerated these concessions.

On August 23, 1436, Sigismund arrived at the gates of Prague, where he was met by the magistrates of the three cities. Amidst great rejoicings of the people, he proceeded to the Tyn Church, where Mass was celebrated by Archbishop Rokycan according to the Utraquist rites.

On the following Sunday, August 26, the magistrates of the three towns, in the market-place of the old town, appeared before Sigismund, who was sitting on a throne in his imperial robes, but wearing the Bohemian crown. They brought to him the keys of the town gates, which Sigismund immediately returned to them in proof of his entire reliance on their fidelity. He also confirmed all the ancient privileges of Prague, and again granted the men of the Nové Mesto independence from the old town.

The short period during which Sigismund was destined to reign over Bohemia was yet sufficiently prolonged to witness the destruction of the short-lived friendship between the King and his Bohemian subjects. Sigismund, who was during his whole life a fervent adherent of the Church of Rome, had accepted the Compacts as reluctantly as they had been granted 70