March – 24 May 1434
The lords’ league, May 1434
Over the winter of 1433 a diet in Prague elects Aleš Vřešťovský of Riesenburg administrator of the land, with a council of twelve, and debates a first draft of the Compacts with the council’s envoys. Masters of the university, Menhart of Hradec and, in March 1434, the councillors of the Old Town of Prague accept it. Around 20 March envoys of Sigismund and of the council meet Bohemian lords at Cham to plan action against the field armies. In April the administrator proclaims a peace in Bohemia and Moravia from 23 April and calls out the levy of the land against those who break it.
Catholic and Utraquist lords join in a league and gather their army on the fields of Kačina near Kutná Hora. On 5 May the Old Town of Prague opens its gates to them, and on 6 May they storm the New Town, the ally of the field armies. Prokop the Great escapes from the New Town and writes to Prokop the Lesser that the army before Plzeň should leave everything and join him.
Prokop the Great’s letter to the field armies before Plzeň on the fall of the New Town of Prague, May 1434, signed Procopius RasusWikimedia Commons, Prokop the Great, Public domain (List Prokopa Holého Prokůpkovi.jpg)
The field armies lift the siege of Plzeň on 9 May after ten months and reach Prague on 17 May. The Taborites under Prokop the Great camp at Krč and the Orphans by the Vidrholec wood near Jirny, where Jan Čapek of Sány joins them with 600 horse. The league stays behind the walls and waits for the men of Oldřich of Rožmberk, the Plzeň landfrýd and the burgrave of Karlštejn. Short of food and outnumbered, the field armies withdraw east into the country round Kolín between 22 and 24 May.
The New Town Hall in PragueWikimedia Commons, Matěj Baťha, CC BY-SA 3.0 (Praha, Nove Mesto - Novomestska radnice III.jpg)
Sources
- Petr Čornej, Lipanská křižovatka (1992).
- František Šmahel, Die Hussitische Revolution (2002), vol. 3.
- Frederick G. Heymann, John Žižka and the Hussite Revolution (1955).
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