9 March – December 1422
Želivský and Korybut, 1422
On 9 March 1422 the town council of Prague has the priest Jan Želivský arrested and beheaded. Grand Duke Vytautas of Lithuania accepts the Bohemian crown that the Hussites offer him and sends Sigismund Korybut, a nephew of King Władysław Jagiełło of Poland, with an army. Korybut takes Uničov in Moravia in April and reaches Prague in mid May, and a diet at Čáslav makes him administrator of the land. On 11 June Žižka and Tábor confirm in writing that they accept him.
Gaudentius and Master Jakoubek take up the head of the beheaded Jan Želivský, drawing by Antonín König, 1868Wikimedia Commons, Antonín König, Public domain (Gaudentius and Master Jakoubek took John's head... (A. König).png)
At the end of May the army of Prague and Korybut’s Polish troops lay siege to Karlštejn, a royal castle held for Sigismund since 1420. They bring five large guns and five catapults, and by November they have fired 9,032 large stones, about 1,813 casks of excrement carted from Prague and 22 kegs of fire into the castle. In July they poison the stream that gives the garrison its water.
The Hussites besiege Karlštejn, after a painting by Věnceslav Černý, from Velikáni našich dějin, 1924Wikimedia Commons, Věnceslav Černý, Public domain (Věnceslav Černý - Husité obléhají Karlštejn (Velikáni našich dějin, 1924) retouched.jpg)
On 30 September Taborites under Jan Hvězda and Bohuslav of Švamberk try to seize Prague, and Korybut, who has joined the siege only in September, goes back to the city in October. A crusade called at Nuremberg by Cardinal Branda Castiglione to relieve the castle, mostly men of the margraves of Brandenburg and Meissen, breaks up soon after it crosses the border. After a last failed assault on 22 October the two sides agree a truce of one year on 8 November. Korybut leaves Prague at the end of the year, and by March 1423 he has left the country.
Karlštejn Castle from the south-west, the oldest known picture of it, about 1720, National Archives in PragueWikimedia Commons, unknown author, Public domain (Burg Karlstein.jpg)
Sources
- Frederick G. Heymann, John Žižka and the Hussite Revolution (1955).
- František Šmahel, Husitská revoluce 3: Kronika válečných let (1996).
- Petr Čornej, Velké dějiny zemí Koruny české V: 1402–1437 (2000).
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