Thus I’ll say in short: in the autumn of 1420, Jogaila, the King of Poland, refused to accept the Bohemian crown that the Hussites had offered him. It had been decided in Kraków that the Lithuanian dux Witold, who had always wanted to reign, would take it. However, so as not to vex the Holy Roman Emperor Sigismund or the Pope, Witold’s nephew, Sigismund, son of Korybut was sent to Bohemia. Sigismund, commanding a force of five thousand Polish knights, arrived in Golden Prague in 1422, on Saint Stanisław’s day. But around Epiphany of the following year, the prince had to return to Lithuania—Sigismund of Luxembourg and Otto Colonna, at that time Holy Father Martin V, being so enraged by that Bohemian succession. What do you say to that? Then in 1424, on the eve of the Visitation, Korybut’s son was back in Prague. This time, though, against the will of Jogaila and Witold, against the wishes of the Pope and of the Holy Roman Emperor. Meaning as an outlaw and an exile. At the head of outlaws and exiles like himself. And not numbering thousands, as previously, but only hundreds.

In Prague, the uprising devoured its own children like Saturn, as faction battled faction. Jan of Želiv, executed on the Monday after Reminiscere Sunday in 1422, by May of that year was being mourned in every church as a martyr. Golden Prague also proudly stood up to the Tábor, but finally met its match in the shape of that great warrior, Jan Žižka. Žižka gave the Praguians a good hiding in the Year of Our Lord 1424, on the second day after the June Nones, at Malešov by the River Bohynka. There were many, many new widows and orphans in Prague after that defeat.

Who knows, perhaps it was the orphans’ tears that caused Jan Žižka of Trocnov—and later of the Chalice—to die soon afterwards in Přibyslav, near the Moravian border, the Wednesday before Saint Gall’s Day. As before, some wept because of him and others wept at his passing, as at the loss of a father. Which is why they called themselves the Orphans…

But surely you remember these details, for it was not so long ago. And yet it all feels like… history.

And do you know, noble lords, how you can tell that a time is historical? Because much happens, and happens quickly.