But there was no temper of submission in Bohemia--least of all when the University of Prague gave its voice in favor of this demand. Wenceslaus, the well-intentioned but poor-spirited King, was quite unable to keep peace between the rival factions, and could only slip out of his difficulties by dying, August 16, 1419. Sigismund, his brother, was also his successor; but of one thing the Bohemians were at this time resolved; namely, that the royal betrayer of his word should not reign over them. And thus a condition of miserable anarchy followed, and, in the end, of open war; which, lasting for eleven years, could be matched by few wars in the cruelties and atrocities by which on both sides it was disgraced. In Ziska, their blind chief, the Hussites had a leader with a born genius for war. It was he who invented the movable wagon-fortress whereof we hear so much, against which the German chivalry would break as idle waves upon a rock. Three times crusading armies--for this name they bore, thinking with no serious opposition to enforce the decrees of the council--invaded Bohemia, to be thrice driven back with utter defeat, disgrace, and loss; the Hussites, who for a long while were content with merely repelling the invaders, after a while, and as the only way of conquering a peace, turning the tables, and wasting with fire and sword all neighboring German lands. A conflict so hideous could not long be waged without a rapid deterioration of all who were engaged in it. The spirit of Huss more and more departed from those who called themselves by his name. Intestine strifes devoured their strength. There were first the Moderates--Calixtines, Utraquists, or "Those of Prague," they were called--who, weary of the long struggle, were willing to return to the bosom of the Church if only the cup (_calix_), and thus communion under both kinds (_sub utraque_), were guaranteed to them, with two or three secondary matters. Not so the Taborites, who drew their name from a mountain fastness which they fortified and called Mount Tabor. These, the Ultras, the democratic radical party, separating themselves off as early as 1419, had left Huss and his teaching very far behind. Ignoring the whole historical development of Christianity, they demanded that a clean sweep should be made of everything in the Church's practice for which an express and literal warrant in Scripture could not be found. When at the Council of Basel an agreement was patched up with the Calixtines on the footing which I have just named, 1433, a few further promises being thrown in which might mean anything and, as the issue proved, did mean nothing, the Taborites would not listen to the compromise. Again they appealed to arms: but now their old comrades and allies had passed to the other side; and, defeated in battle, 1434, their stronghold taken and destroyed, 1453, their political power forever broken, they, too, as so many before and since, were doomed to