October 1423 – 6 January 1424
Skalice, January 1424
In October 1423 Prague calls the moderate Utraquist lords and the Catholic lords to a diet in the city, the St Gall diet. Its resolutions name no one, but they are aimed at Žižka, and it sets up a council of twelve lords to govern the land, six Catholic and six Utraquist. In eastern Bohemia the Catholic lords Půta of Častolovice and Jan Městecký of Opočno lead the war against the towns of Žižka’s union.
A Hussite wagon fort, a 15th-century sketchWikimedia Commons, unknown author, Public domain (Wagenburg.jpg)
Early in January 1424 Žižka and the men of Hradec Králové march by Jaroměř up the valley of the Úpa, and the lords, with Hynek Červenohorský of Dubá and Arnošt Černčický of Kácov, come down the valley from the north to attack him on the march. Žižka falls back onto a height by the fortress of Velká Skalice, which belongs to the Utraquist Viktorin Boček of Kunštát, the father of the later king George of Poděbrady. On 6 January the lords’ attack fails, and Žižka’s counterattack puts them to flight. No numbers survive, the exact site is not known, and the Old Czech Annals say only that some of the lords’ men are taken prisoner.
The Úpa in its valley above Česká SkaliceWikimedia Commons, Vojtech.dostal, CC BY-SA 3.0 (NPP Babiččino údolí (09) - Úpa.JPG)
Sources
- František Šmahel, Husitská revoluce 3: Kronika válečných let (1996), pp. 144 to 145.
- Petr Čornej, Velké dějiny zemí Koruny české V: 1402–1437 (2000).
- Frederick G. Heymann, John Žižka and the Hussite Revolution (1955).
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