1.6.1421 The lords rejected Sigismund as king

At a meeting in Čáslav at the beginning of June 1421, the Bohemian and Moravian lords rejected Sigismund as king. At that time, preparations for the Second Crusade to Bohemia were already in full swing.

The famous victories over the armies of the First Crusade in 1420 and over their domestic enemies confirmed the Hussites in the correctness of their position. In addition, daily small wars and major offensive actions expanded the radius of action of both moderate and radical supporters of the chalice. "The year 1420 showed conclusively that the adherents of the chalice could hold their own against both foreign and domestic enemies. This is evidenced by Žižek's victory on 14 July at Vitkov and the Hussite triumph on 1 November at Vyšehrad. With these successes they created further space for offensive," writes Jan Kvirenc in his book Czech History - 100 Memorable Places.

In the spring of 1421, by far the strongest group in the country was the Prague City Union, which included twenty cities. It was at this moment, when the Hussites were controlling an increasing part of Bohemia, that the municipal assembly of the Kingdom of Bohemia was convened at the beginning of June on the initiative of the inhabitants of Prague. The place of several days of negotiations between Czech and Moravian Hussites and representatives of the Catholic nobility was the recently conquered town of Čáslav.

"There, on the first of June, they convened a municipal assembly of all lords and knights and municipalities, both Czech and Moravian, so that both friends and enemiesand to discuss peace, justice, the good of the kingdom, and especially those things that support the law of God," Kvirenc adds.

The political weight of the Union of Prague was fully demonstrated at the Diet, which declared the four Prague Articles constitutional and deprived Sigismund of Luxembourg of his claim to the Bohemian throne. "Although the twenty-member provincial government soon disintegrated, its composition indicated the depth of the revolutionary intervention in the composition of the Estates' representation. The lords had to be content with five members, while the remaining seats were shared by eight members of the lowerJaroslav Pánek and Oldřich Tůma write in their book History of the Czech Lands.

At that time, preparations for the Second Crusade to Bohemia were already in full swing. In the autumn of 1421, an army of 30,000 men was concentrated in Moravia, which invaded Bohemia in December and took Kutná Hora by treachery. Žižek's army escaped the encirclement at the last moment. In the first days of the following year, however, it appeared unexpectedly and the terrified crusaders fled from it. Sigismund and his entire court had to flee the country again.

Jan Kvirenc: Czech History - 100 Memorable Places, Jaroslav Pánek and Oldřich Tůma: The History of the Czech Lands Jan Bauer: How the Dying King, www.wikipedia.org