June – 11 October 1424
Libeň and Přibyslav, 1424
After Malešov Žižka moves into north-eastern Bohemia, burning villages and small towns and the monks in the monastery at Turnov, and gathers his followers. Sigismund Korybut comes back to Prague in the summer of 1424 with about 1,500 men, against the will of Władysław Jagiełło and Vytautas. In the first half of September Žižka arrives before Prague with the Hussites of Žatec, Louny, Klatovy and other towns, and camps at Libeň.
The envoys of Prague in Žižka’s camp in 1424, with the priest Jan Rokycana, by Josef Mathauser, about 1930Wikimedia Commons, Josef Mathauser, Public domain (Historie českého národa v obrazech (1930), obr. 051 (sign. 54 A 4829).jpg)
By Aeneas Silvius the priest Jan Rokycana rides out of the city and wins Žižka over to peace. On 14 September Korybut and the Praguers make peace with Žižka, backed by a pledge of 14,000 threescore of small groschen, and the two sides pile up a heap of stones on the Spital Field in its memory. The reunited Hussites then agree on a campaign into Moravia against Duke Albert of Austria, Sigismund’s son-in-law.
The army sets out on 23 September, and Žižka turns aside to lay siege to the castle of Přibyslav. There he dies on 11 October 1424 of an illness the chronicles describe as a swelling. It was long taken for plague, but no plague is recorded in Bohemia that year. His followers of the eastern union then call themselves the Orphans, as men who have lost their father.
The death of Žižka before Přibyslav, 11 October 1424, by Josef Mathauser, about 1930Wikimedia Commons, Josef Mathauser, Public domain (Historie českého národa v obrazech (1930), obr. 052 (sign. 54 A 4829).jpg)
Sources
- František Šmahel, Husitská revoluce 3: Kronika válečných let (1996), pp. 150 to 152.
- Frederick G. Heymann, John Žižka and the Hussite Revolution (1955).
- Petr Čornej, Velké dějiny zemí Koruny české V: 1402–1437 (2000).
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