er at his
bidding to pursue the Hussites in Bohemia. One year was thus idly spent;
albeit the Bohemian rebels meanwhile could every day use their weapons,
and instead of waiting to be attacked marched forward to attack. Certain
troops of the heretics had already crossed the borders, and our good town
had to strengthen its walls and dig its moat deeper to make ready for
storm and siege. Or ever the Diet had met, many hands had already been at
work on these buildings; and in these days every man soul in Nuremberg,
from the boys even to the grey-haired men, wielded the spade or the
trowel. Every serving-man in every household, whether artisan or
patrician--and ours with the rest--was bound to toil at digging, and our
fine young masters found themselves compelled to work in sun or rain, or
to order the others; and it hurt them no more than it did the Magister,
whose feebleness and clumsiness did the works less benefit than the labor
did to his frail body.

Wheresoever three men might be seen in talk, for sure it was of
state-matters, and mostly of the Hussites. At first it would be of the
King's message of peace; of the resistance made by the Elector Palatine,
Ludwig, in the matter of receiving the ecclesiastical Elector of Mainz as
Vicar-general of the Empire; of the same reverend Elector's loss of
dignity at Boppard, and of the delay and mischief that must follow. Then
it was noised abroad that the Margrave Frederick of Meissen, who now held
the lands of the late departed Elector Albrecht of Saxony in fief from
the King, and whose country was a strong bulwark against the Bohemians,
was about to put an end to the abomination of heresy. Howbeit, neither he
nor Duke Albrecht of Austria did aught to any good end against the foe;
and matters went ill enough in all the Empire.

The Electors assembled at Bingen made great complaints of the King
tarrying so far away, and with reason; and when he presently bid them to
a Diet at Vienna they would not obey. The message of peace was laughed to
scorn; and how much blood was shed to feed the soil of the realm in many
and many a fight!

And what fate befell the army whereon so great hopes had been set? The
courage and skill of the leader were all in vain; the vast multitude of
which he was captain was made up of over many parts, all unlike, and each
with its own chief; and the fury of the heretics scattered them abroad.
Likewise among our peaceful citizens there was no small complaini