The councillors hesitated,--a fatal hesitation. A stone was flung from
one of the windows. Instantly the mob stormed the building, rushed into
the council-room, and seized the councillors, thirteen of whom, Germans
by birth, were flung out of the windows. They were received on the pikes
of the furious mob below, and the whole of them murdered.
This act of violence was quickly followed by others. The dwelling of a
priest, supposed to have been that of the seducer of Ziska's sister, was
destroyed and its owner hanged; the Carthusian monks were dragged
through the streets, crowned with thorns, and other outrages perpetrated
against the opponents of the party of reform.
A few days afterwards the career of Wenceslas, once Emperor of Germany,
now King of Bohemia, came to an abrupt end. On August 16 he suddenly
died,--by apoplexy, say some historians, while others say that he was
suffocated in his palace by his own attendants. The latter would seem a
fitting end for a man whose life had been marked by so many acts of
tyrannous violence, some of them little short of insanity.
Pages:
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234