Sigismund Watched from Letná

When Sigismund brought a huge army to subdue Prague in 1420, the Austrian dukes camped here on Letná opposite the Old Town with their lords and the imperial towns and with soldiers from Holland and Switzerland. His second army lay nearer the castle beyond the Brusnice brook and the third by Bubeneč and the Royal Game Park — it was, they say, like three great cities of tents. Sigismund had about a hundred thousand men here; and from here he watched in sorrow the great defeat of his army on Sunday 14 July 1420 on the hill of Žižkov. The angry foreigners then began to fire on Prague from here, but Sigismund forbade it.