Читать книгу Bohemia, from the earliest times to the fall of national independence in 1620 - C. Edmund Maurice - Страница 10

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In the present century the development of national constitutions has had a special interest for historians. This interest has arisen partly from the spectacle of the unusual number of new experiments in government which have been made in our own time; partly from the growing sense that the history of wars and Courts has become less important, and that the growth of law and of popular life ought to take the place of those exploded subjects of interest. But the exact legal position of the different component parts of a nation is not generally easy to ascertain at an early period of its history; nor, when it is ascertained, has the knowledge always brought us nearer to the discovery of the really living and progressive force in the nation at that period.

Thus, in the case of Bohemia, though we get continual hints of national feeling and popular aspiration, these do not always centre in legally constituted bodies, nor do they keep pace with any orderly line of constitutional development. Assemblies seem constantly to have met, but these were, in the main, assemblies of nobles; and the general national feeling more often took the form of an enthusiasm for the Bohemian language, or the reverence for a native saint, than of a demand for the extension of the rights of any class, or for a limitation of the royal power.

Perhaps it was a natural consequence of this popular indifference to political progress, as compared with the zeal for the preservation of the national language, and the religious ritual, that, by the close of the twelfth century, we find few traces remaining of those free institutions which seemed to connect themselves with the story of Libus̆a. Even those securities for popular freedom, which undoubtedly prevailed in historical times, had been, in the course of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, corrupted into new sources of tyranny. Of these the most important had been the Z̆upa, or local assembly. This had been formed partly for purposes of self-defence, partly for ecclesiastical organisation; and, though it had centred at one time in a castle, at another in a church, yet it had originally been governed by a judge, elected by the district.

But from the time of Boleslav the Cruel, the Dukes began to make it their practice to grant these local judgeships to nobles who had done them special service; and those nobles were generally allowed either to sell their offices or to bequeath them to their heirs. The temptation to use this position as an instrument of oppression was yet further increased by the profit which the judges were allowed to make out of the fines that they had inflicted. The money thus accumulated was often used for the purchase of neighbouring lands; and thus lands formerly held by freemen, or on the communal system, passed into the power of the official nobles. In the meantime those nobles, who did not become Z̆upani, were able to profit by the growing unpopularity of the local tribunals to strengthen the power of their own feudal courts over their dependants; while the continual wars, and the practice of selling captives into slavery, encouraged the growth of an even more helpless and degraded class. The coolness with which many of the grants of land transfer workmen of various kinds as mere appendages of fields and fishponds, is in itself a proof of the degraded position to which the peasant class in Bohemia had been reduced; and the fact that military service seemed one of the few means of escaping from serfdom led the peasants to favour those wars which in the end increased their misery.

When the peculiarly disturbed state of Bohemia, which followed King Vladislav’s retirement from power, had been for a time brought to an end, or at least modified by the accession of Pr̆emysl Ottakar to the throne of the kingdom, it became necessary to provide some remedy for the miserable state of things which was destroying the country; and above all to find a new opportunity for the development of peaceful trade, and some power which could counteract the lawless intrigues of the nobles. The calling into life of communities which should be out of reach of the power both of feudalism and officialism was the natural method of meeting these difficulties; and, in the ruin of the rest of the country, there seemed to be two places where there still lingered traditions that could be made available for this purpose.

Curiously enough, amid the decay of national freedom, the privileges granted to foreigners still remained undiminished; and, stranger still, it was from these communities that a new material for national life was to be drawn. In the district of Poric̆, which Vratislav had raised into a suburb of Prague, a settlement of German workmen had been planted by that king; and to encourage them in the continuance of their occupations, he had granted them rights of self-government, which had survived the freedom of the Z̆upani, and the other elements of independence which had been enjoyed by the poorer classes of Bohemia. They had been allowed to choose their own judge without interference from any one; and, except in the cases of the most extreme crimes, which were dealt with by the Duke himself, they were allowed to carry on their own affairs according to their own laws. They were never to be compelled to go on military service, except when the actual defence of the country required it. A Bohemian wishing to bring an action against a German was obliged to prove his case through two German witnesses and one Bohemian before a German judge. They were to be safe from that compulsory intrusion into their houses by nobles who came from a distance, which was one of the great burdens of the Bohemian citizens; and in many other matters they were allowed to follow the customs of their own country. The respect felt for these privileges is sufficiently shown by the fact that, even in the time of turbulence and disorder between the abdication of Vladislav, and the accession of Pr̆emysl, we find a formal confirmation by Duke Sobeslav of Vratislav’s grant to the settlers in Poric̆.

Here then Pr̆emysl could find a tradition which might justify him in developing, without violent change, liberties of the greatest importance to his country; and accordingly in 1213 he grants to the citizens of Freudenthal the settlement of their town “in accordance with that Teutonic law which has hitherto been unwonted and unused in the lands of Bohemia and Moravia; but which, having been granted to you first by our illustrious brother Vladislav, Margrave of Moravia, we confirm with our royal authority.” And then, as an important hint of coming developments, and an indication of the thoroughly national purpose of this movement, he grants them, during the life of himself and his brother, the tithes on the metals found within four miles from the city, to be used for the improvement of the aforesaid city.

But, if the new development of town life took root at this time in the western parts of Bohemia, it seems to have had a still earlier growth in the more eastern province of Moravia. That province had always had peculiar traditions of its own. It was a fragment of the old kingdom of Moravia, and had been incorporated in the Bohemian dukedom, at the time of the Hungarian invasion. It always retained a sense of its important position; and Barbarossa himself had increased that feeling when, in granting the royal crown to Vladislav, he spoke of the new dignity as a revival of the old Moravian kingdom. Moreover, by some means or other, a German element seems to have penetrated into this province; and it is now generally believed that in Moravia, as in Bohemia, the first traditions of municipal self-government were drawn from German sources. Nevertheless, when in 1229 King Pr̆emysl recognised the municipal liberties of Brünn (Brno), he evidently refers to them as connected with local rights which had been traditional for a considerable time in that town; and in the book of decisions of the Moravian municipal tribunals, the Law of Brno is sometimes pitted against that Law of Magdeburg which was generally accepted as the model of town rights. Brünn, too, became in a peculiar manner the centre of the towns of Moravia, and its laws became a new source of life to a great portion of the Bohemian kingdom; and its Book of Rights, with its splendid binding and beautiful illuminations, may still be seen in the town council house at Brünn. So, when in 1229 Pr̆emysl Ottakar confirmed the ancient laws of the province of Brünn, he gave a new, and probably more attractive, impulse to the movement for civic self-government.

RADNICE BRNE: OLD DOOR OF TOWN COUNCIL HOUSE OF BRÜNN.

These rights, however, were of gradual growth, and at the time of Pr̆emysl’s decree they were not developed to that point which the subsequent records of their interpretation would lead one to expect. Thus, although we find securities against arbitrary arrest, we do not find that definite arrangement for the production of legal witnesses which was afterwards established; and, though the judge is no longer allowed to decide questions alone, the check upon him seems to be rather that of officials and nobles than of his fellow-citizens. But, whatever defects and limitations we may find in these early provisions for municipal liberty, the movement in its favour was soon to be hastened by one of the most tremendous shocks which had convulsed Europe since the fall of the Roman Empire. This was nothing less than the invasion of Genghis Khan and his Tartar hordes, which has already been slightly alluded to in the previous chapter.

It appears that the Cumani, a still barbarous tribe, had come into collision with the Tartars in Asia; and, either flying from Tartar vengeance, or following a new career of conquest, the Cumani entered Hungary. There they joined with some of their kinsmen who had formerly settled there, and began to harass the Hungarians. The Tartars quickly followed on their heels; and, having overrun Russia, they made their way into Hungary, defeated King Bela, and laid waste his territory, killing men, women, and children. From thence they swept over Poland, and advanced into Moravia, while others attacked Bulgaria and Greece. The terror-struck descriptions of the writers of the period seem to combine the memories of Gothic and Hunnish invasions with the imagery of the Apocalypse. Like so many conquerors, Genghis Khan seems to have had a conception of a special mission to destroy imposed on him by some invisible Power; and he and his followers were looked on, for a time, as irresistible. He had twelve thousand men wearing breastplates of skin, and always on horseback, and twenty or thirty horses without any one to guide them following every rider; for the Mongol Tartars could do nothing on foot because of their short legs and long bodies. They were killing all except those children whom Genghis Khan was branding on the face with his mark. Their women were said to fight on horseback; and those who slaughtered the most were the most admired.

While Europe was panic-struck, and every man was calling on his neighbour for help, Pope Gregory IX. and the Emperor Frederick II. were fighting with each other for the possession of Sicily; and, while Frederick pleaded that he could not put himself at the head of the Imperial forces till Gregory would let him alone, the friends and admirers of Gregory were accusing Frederick of having himself invited in the Tartars; and some even declared that they had seen his messengers in the Tartar army. Alone almost among the princes of Europe, Wenceslaus of Bohemia, who had now succeeded to the throne, seems to have preserved some nerve and sense. He called upon the Duke of Austria, the Patriarch of Aquileia, the Duke of Carinthia, and the Margrave of Baden to help him to gather together his forces near Olmütz (Olomouci); and he made so determined a stand that the invasion was rolled back upon Hungary.

Even after this defeat of the Tartars the terror of them hung for years over Europe; but, though Bohemia itself was not yet free from danger, Wenceslaus, as King of Bohemia, and his son Pr̆emysl Ottakar, as Margrave of Moravia, now set themselves to redress the injuries done by the Tartar invasion. In 1243 they began to enlarge and restore the towns which had been destroyed by the Tartars; and in order to induce the frightened citizens to devote themselves to this work, they found it necessary to encourage them by the grant of further liberties.

The conception of municipal government evidently makes great strides at this time. Accused persons are now more carefully guarded from arbitrary sentences; and we also find the jury rising to an equality with the judge in the decision of certain matters. More clearly, too, do we detect the determination to put a check on the tyranny of the nobles by the development of civic liberties. “We will,” says Wenceslaus, in his extension of the privileges of Brünn, “and we irrefragably decree that no baron or noble of the land shall have power in the city of Brünn, or shall do any violence in it, or shall detain any one, without the license and proclamation of the judge of the city; and we will that, whoever of the citizens has servants or possessions outside the city, shall not be summoned by the provincial judge, or the officials of the province, but shall be judged by the judge of the city.”

JÍHLAVA (IGLAU), THE GREAT MINING CENTRE IN MORAVIA.

The power of demising property without interference from others, freedom of marriage or non-marriage to widows and maidens, various forms of protection against violence, facilities for holding markets, and the removal of customs duties—such are the chief subjects dealt with in these civic constitutions. The discovery and working of minerals, which largely date from this time, led to new opportunities of self-government. In the town of Iglau (Jíhlava), where miners had been prominent in the defence of their country against the Tartars, the powers granted to them and the neighbouring citizens were particularly large. “We wish and command,” say Wenceslaus and Pr̆emysl Ottakar his son, “that, whatever the jury of our city and the jury of the miners have ordained, for the commercial good, should be inviolably observed by all.” Even tax-collectors of the king are to consult the miners in certain matters; while special securities are given against possible defalcations by debtors of noble birth.

Great as was the advance which is implied in these decrees, the use made of them by the citizens shows that they understood how to extend their liberties still further. The benefit derived from the powers granted to civic judges might have been neutralised by the way in which the judgeships were still conferred by the kings on their personal favourites; but the jurymen of Brünn claimed for themselves the power of checking, and even overruling the judge, which must have been a far better guarantee for the self-government of the city than any that was directly contained in the royal decree.

“The judge,” say these administrators, “must reverence the jury as legislators, never dictate sentences on his own authority, never arrest any one without their knowledge, never appropriate to himself the fines of the city, never bring back those that are driven from the city, without the consent of the jurors; always listen to them, and arrange all the business of his office according to their advice.”

How much the sense of equality before the law grew under this administration may be illustrated by the following instance. A servant has brought an action against a fellow-servant for wounding him; while at the same time a master brings an action against the same defendant for debt. The question arises which of these shall be heard first. The jury decide that “since the body of a man is more precious than money,” the defendant should answer for his violence to the man whom he has wounded, before he answers to the master for his debt. More bold still was the assertion of the rights of the citizens to hold the nobles responsible to the city tribunals for lands held within the city. And while they held their own against the nobles outside, the popular magistrates increased their authority within the city. The power of regulating trade, which in England was seized by the Guilds, was, in the Moravian towns, at once taken into the hands of the civic authorities; and thus those conflicts, which Mrs. Green has described as prevailing in so many English towns, between the magistrates and the leaders of the trades, never assume such prominence in the history of Brünn and Olmütz.

Nor was it only in their immediate security for liberty and good government that these civic rights were of advantage to Bohemia and Moravia. Questions were forced upon the practical consideration of the jurors, the very discussion of which formed an important element in political education. Thus the treatment by the jurors of the questions of the value of torture, and ordeal by battle, as methods of discovering truth, show how experience was already preparing the way for the overthrow of abuses, which were yet too strongly supported by popular prejudice to be removed at once. The steady growth of these liberties, which had received so powerful an impulse from the needs produced by the Tartar invasion, was still further promoted by Pr̆emysl Ottakar II., and became in his hands part of a complete scheme for humbling the power of the nobility.

Wenceslaus, in spite of some fine qualities, had been a self-indulgent and pleasure-seeking man; and he had, like some of his predecessors, mortgaged many of the royal lands and castles to the nobles. This had naturally increased their power, and had enabled them to organise those insurrections against the king in which they had at first succeeded in involving his son. But even while he was still Margrave of Moravia, young Pr̆emysl Ottakar had broken loose from these influences; and by various economies and convenient pecuniary transactions he had succeeded in raising money enough to purchase back the lands from the nobles, compelling them, sometimes against their will, to surrender their mortgages. He also forced them to break down those castles which had been great causes of disorder and weakness in the country. Nor did he fail to strengthen his cause by alliance with the clergy.

Ever since the quarrel between Frederick II. and Wenceslaus, that King had been a devoted champion of the Pope; and in the growing weakness of the Empire, the Pope became more and more the one great Power to which a rising and ambitious king could appeal. Ottakar II. became distinguished as a friend of the Church, not only by his strong support of the Papal power, but by his endowment and development of the monasteries. In this, indeed, he was carrying on that revival of Bohemian life which Wenceslaus had begun after the repulse of the Tartars. But it was evident that these ecclesiastical exemptions must sometimes come into collision with those civic liberties of which we have spoken.

This contradiction was evidently felt by Ottakar; and it showed itself in three different ways. The freedom of trade, which, under certain limitations, was so welcome to the towns, was by no means in accordance with the claims of the abbots. They wished that certain occupations should be carried on under their control; and not that there should be any exchange of the articles connected with those occupations. Thus we find in some of the grants to the monasteries that, while the monks and their dependants are relieved from certain forms of taxation, the exemption is specially limited to those who are not engaged in trade. Secondly, there was an obvious risk of a conflict of authority between the monastic tribunals and those of the city. Thirdly, the records of Brünn, and of its imitators, show that the growing ideas of equality before the law did not always seem to the citizens quite consistent with the privileges claimed by the clergy. Nor must it be supposed that charters to monasteries and charters to towns represented, in the same degree, the ordinary idea of human liberty. The dependants of the abbot were as much at his mercy as those of any feudal lord; and though it might be an advantage for them to escape from the oppressions of the Z̆upani, it was not always certain that the abbot would be a gentler master.

That Ottakar felt the difficulty of this conflict, and desired to compromise between the interests of these rivals for his favour, is strikingly illustrated by the two cases of Hradiste and Litomys̆l. In the former case, Ottakar was particularly anxious to secure the good will of the citizens, because he looked upon their town as a possible bulwark against Hungarian invasion; but the neighbouring convent of Vilegrad feared that the grant of liberties to Hradiste would interfere with the privileges of their convent. The compromise to which Ottakar was forced seems a considerable surrender to ecclesiastical pretensions. The townsmen were to settle in one particular island, for which they were to pay rent to the monastery. The monastery was to retain all its former rights over waters, fisheries, mills, meadows, woods, and corn-fields; and, though the town was to hold a market two days a week, the profit of that market was to go on one day to the king, and on another to the monastery; and, above all, the judge of the town was to be appointed by the monastery. But in this decree there is a provision which seems to suggest how even such a compromise might work for freedom. The common rights in pasture held previously by the townsmen are to be shared with the dependants of the monastery; but the dependants of the monastery in their turn are to share their common rights with the citizens of the town. Thus there would naturally grow up a combination among the dependants of the monasteries, like those unions which, in England, gave such trouble to the abbots of St. Albans and Dunstable.

In the case of Litomys̆l the grants to the monastery and those given to the town are so entangled that it is sometimes difficult to distinguish between the benefits received by the respective recipients of the royal favour; and, in this case, Ottakar seems to have cut the knot by raising Litomys̆l to the ordinary position of a royal town, and thereby emancipating it from the control of the monastery. Ottakar indeed had one sure protection against any possible offence which the Church might fear from the growth of civic liberty. Bruno, Bishop of Olmütz, was his right-hand man in this as in other parts of his work. Himself a German by birth, he warmly encouraged the introduction of German town rights into the cities of Moravia; while, on the other hand, he always succeeded, until the final catastrophe of Ottakar’s life, in strengthening the good understanding between the Pope and the King of Bohemia.

Thus there were now growing up in Bohemia the elements of internal liberty, under the patronage of a king strong and wise enough to hold his own against the nobles. Had Ottakar been content to remain King of Bohemia alone, the effect of his reign on his country might have been permanently beneficial. But it is now necessary to speak of that career of conquest and aggression which raised up against him so many enemies, and which at last put into the hands of his most dangerous rival the weapon by which king and country were alike overthrown.

However evil were the final results of his aggressions, it must be owned that there was a certain plausibility in the justification offered by Ottakar for each of his conquests. To begin with the first and most important of them, the conquest of Austria. The Babenbergers had been undoubtedly troublesome neighbours to the Dukes of Bohemia; and Frederick the Quarrelsome, the last of the line, had been also so oppressive to his subjects that they had appealed to the Emperor to choose them a new duke. On this occasion the King of Bohemia had been one of those to whom the enforcement of the ban of the Empire had been entrusted. When, then, on the death of Frederick the Quarrelsome, the land seemed likely to fall into the hands of the Emperor, or to be torn in pieces by rival claimants, Wenceslaus and Ottakar may have naturally considered it a matter of self-defence to establish their rule, and with it some kind of order, in the lands of so near a neighbour; and they were further encouraged in their attempt by the approval of Pope Innocent IV.

But the latter phases of the conquest are perhaps less excusable, and even somewhat discreditable to Wenceslaus and his son. The Austrian nobles, on the death of the Emperor Frederick had resolved to choose the Margrave of Meissen as their duke, and to send representatives to invite him to accept the ducal crown. On their way through Bohemia, Wenceslaus invited them to a banquet, and tried to cajole them into choosing his son as their duke. The messengers, alarmed and taken by surprise, declared that they had no authority to accept this proposal. Wenceslaus, thereupon, uttered such threats, that the Austrians considered it dangerous to continue their journey; and they returned to their country to reconsider the question.

Apart from the claim given to the Margrave of Meissen by the choice of the nobles, there were two rival claimants to the dukedom of Austria; Margaret the widow of the Emperor Henry VI., and daughter of Leopold the Glorious, the most popular of all the Babenberg House; and Gertrude a niece of Frederick the Quarrelsome, and wife of the Margrave of Baden. Margaret was, of course, tolerably advanced in life, and had taken a vow of virginity after the death of her husband; but Wenceslaus and Bruno of Olmütz persuaded young Ottakar to make good his claim to the duchy by wooing the widow. In an evil hour for herself, Margaret consented to Ottakar’s proposal; the approval of the Pope, and possibly some slight display of military force, completed Ottakar’s claim; and he was accepted by some at least of the Austrian nobles as their Duke.

In Austria, as in Bohemia, Ottakar looked chiefly for his support to the great cities. Vienna flourished under his rule; and he granted special privileges to the neighbouring town of Neustadt. But the hostility of the nobles still continued; and they were resolved that, at all events, the German province of Styria should not fall into Bohemian hands. The difficulty of Ottakar’s position on this question lay in the fact that the most important rival claimant was Bela, King of Hungary, who, like Ottakar, was a special favourite of the Pope; and in the beginning of the struggle the King of Hungary succeeded in establishing his authority in Styria. But, by the admission even of Ottakar’s enemies, the tyranny of the Hungarians in Styria was so great that, when Ottakar again made an attempt on the province, he was welcomed as a deliverer; and for the time he made good his footing.

It was now necessary to get a formal sanction for these conquests; and Ottakar chose Richard of Cornwall, from the rival claimants to the German Empire, as the puppet most useful for this purpose. Richard was willing enough to secure so influential a supporter; but the King of Hungary was not so easily satisfied. In 1260, he once more poured his forces into Styria and Austria; and he was now followed, not only by the Hungarian troops, but by the savage Cumanians, and even, according to one account, by the Tartars. The struggle was a fierce one; but it ended in the complete victory of the Bohemians.

Ottakar, however, thought it necessary to secure himself against future invasions, by a singularly questionable step. The unfortunate Margaret, to whom, it was evident, he must very soon have become unfaithful, was to be repudiated on the ground of her former vow of virginity, in order that Ottakar might marry Kunigunda, the daughter of Bela, King of Hungary. Urban IV., like many of his predecessors, was extremely desirous to procure a good understanding between Hungary and Bohemia, as in the union of these kingdoms he saw the best hope of security against a future Tartar invasion; so Kunigunda was crowned Queen of Bohemia by the Archbishop of Mainz.

But Ottakar’s conquests were not yet at an end. Ulrich, the Duke of Carinthia and Carniola, had a very troublesome brother called Philip, who was generally at feud with some prince or other. Amongst his other enemies was the Patriarch of Aquileia, to whose office he desired to succeed. Ulrich, knowing Ottakar’s influence with the Pope and the ecclesiastics generally, tried to secure that influence in favour of the election of Philip to the patriarchate. Ottakar agreed, on condition that Ulrich would make him his heir in Carinthia and Carniola. Ulrich consented to this proposal; and, by Ottakar’s influence, the Chapter of Aquileia elected Philip Patriarch. Philip was apparently unaware of the bargain; and he was therefore extremely indignant, when, on Ulrich’s death, the King of Bohemia entered Carinthia and Carniola as the lawful heir of Ulrich. This bitterness was further increased when the Pope refused to confirm the election of the Chapter, and Philip found himself without either patriarchate or dukedom.

Ottakar was now the lord of all the territories which form the western part of the present Austrian Empire, with the exception of the Tyrol. But his hold on these conquered territories was by no means so certain as it at first appeared. Though none of his rivals were able, at the moment, to make good their claims against him, yet any one of them might reckon on a formidable amount of discontent in all the conquered provinces. For the same policy which he had pursued in Bohemia of breaking down the power of the nobles, by destroying their castles, was carried on in his new dominions; and, while in all of them it caused considerable opposition, in Styria the discontent soon ripened into rebellion.

The attitude of the Styrian nobles had, from the first, been one of more determined hostility than Ottakar had encountered in his other dominions; and it soon provoked him into measures which increased the evil. One can scarcely accept as undoubted history all the charges of cruelty made against him by the Styrian noble Ottakar von Horneck, who was evidently in full sympathy from the first with those who resisted the Bohemian claims. Still less can we accept as authentic the reckless attacks of the chronicler Victor, who was a chaplain of the House of Hapsburg. But those facts, which seem to be indisputable, are sufficient of themselves to account for Ottakar’s failure to reduce the province to submission. As usual in such cases, intriguers were found to intensify the king’s suspicions by false accusations; some nobles were thrown into prison on insufficient evidence; and when the case broke down against them, their accuser was in turn imprisoned. Finally, Milota, the governor appointed by Ottakar, tried to bring in Bohemian soldiers and Bohemian settlers to maintain the authority of the king.

But, though all these elements of discontent were gradually ripening to violent conclusions, to outward appearance Ottakar was still at the height of his power. Old King Bela of Hungary, in dying, placed his wife, daughter, and barons under the special protection of Ottakar; and, when Bela’s son and successor Stephen tried to shake off the power which his father had given to Bohemia, he found himself opposed by the bishops and archbishops of Hungary, and by some even of the barons. Ottakar was able to dictate peace in Hungary itself, and Stephen was forced to renounce all claims to Styria and Carinthia.

A change, however, was shortly to occur in Europe which was to diminish one of the chief causes of Ottakar’s success. In his, as in former reigns, Germany’s difficulty had been Bohemia’s opportunity; and it was Ottakar’s too ready recognition of this fact which now brought him into collision with the wisest and most patriotic rulers in Europe, as well as with some of the most daring intriguers. Ever since the death of Henry VI., the son of Barbarossa, the claim to the throne of the Holy Roman Empire had been perpetually disputed. The striking and romantic figure of Frederick II. had indeed arrested the attention of Europe in a marked manner; but the intense hatred felt for him by all the Popes, his own preference of Sicily to Germany, and the complete disorganisation produced by the Tartar invasion, had combined to prevent him from establishing any firm rule in the Empire. Since his death the phantom figures of William of Holland, Conrad the Fourth, Alfonso of Castille, and Richard of Cornwall had flitted across the stage of German politics, each contributing a certain amount of increase to the general anarchy. In the absence of any settled central government, the great towns of Germany had endeavoured to form leagues for their own protection, and in the general interest of order; but even these had a difficulty in maintaining their existence against the pretensions of the archbishops and the robberies of the knights and nobles.

In such a state of things the first instinct of those who desired to restore order was to choose the strongest ruler who could be found; and therefore it was not altogether surprising that the Imperial crown was offered, by some at least of the German princes, to Ottakar himself. The grounds of Ottakar’s refusal have been variously given; and it is highly probable that both of the explanations offered were parts of the truth. On the one hand his nobles, already jealous of his power, were extremely unwilling that he should have a new and independent force at his back, which would enable him still further to overawe them; while, on the other hand, Ottakar himself saw clearly that the position of King of Bohemia and King-maker of the Empire was a far safer and more powerful one than the position of a Holy Roman Emperor, checked, and often controlled, by the Electors of the Empire.

The Elector who took the most prominent part in this offer to Ottakar had been the Archbishop of Köln; but Werner of Mainz now succeeded in inducing the Archbishops of Köln and Trier to join him in an alliance which was to secure the election of an Emperor who would be amenable to their advice. Werner had been specially alarmed at the growth of Ottakar’s power; for any development of Bohemian independence would weaken the power of the Empire over the diocese of Prague, and would thereby weaken also the ecclesiastical authority of Mainz. He was, therefore, specially anxious to secure a counterbalancing power to Ottakar’s, but a power which would at the same time be dependent on the Electors of the Empire. The Archbishops first considered, and then rejected, the proposal to raise to the Imperial throne the Count Palatine of the Rhine; for they soon saw that he might be useful as an ally, but extremely dangerous as a master. As the great hindrance to the unity of the Empire seemed, at that time, to come from the South, it was particularly necessary for the Archbishops to win to their side Duke Louis of Bavaria, who was the principal rival and enemy of Ottakar. Bavaria had recently been divided into two parts, between the two brothers Louis and Henry; and the warm friendship of Henry for Ottakar had strengthened the opposition of Louis. Louis, indeed, may have himself dreamt of the Imperial crown; but neither the Archbishops, nor the more northern Electors, were disposed to concede this dignity to him. They had, however, a bait which was sufficiently attractive to the Duke.

It appeared that in the year 1257, the Duke of Bavaria had taken part in one of those confused elections to the Empire which had given an opportunity for every kind of irregular interference. The Archbishops now proposed to recognise this precedent as conferring on the Duke of Bavaria the position of Elector of the Empire, and thus completing the mystic number of seven, without the help of the King of Bohemia. A candidate for the throne had, however, still to be found; and, as the idea of choosing one of the more powerful princes was now definitely abandoned, the Margrave of Brandenburg and the Duke of Saxony put forward a kinsman of their own, named Siegfried of Anhalt.

The majority, however, of the Electors, and the most active spirits among them, desired to strengthen their position in the South rather than the North of Germany; and it was now that Frederick of Hohenzollern, the Burggraf of Nürnberg, brought forward the candidate for whom he had been secretly preparing the way. This was Count Rudolf of Hapsburg, the owner of a castle near the Lake of Constance, who had become known in his own neighbourhood as the protector and champion of Bern and other growing towns. He had gained considerable reputation for military ability; and he had evidently some of that personal power of fascination so important to a great ruler. Fortunately for his chances of success he had already attracted the attention of Werner of Mainz, at the time when the Archbishop was on his journey to Rome to be confirmed in his diocese. But, besides this important support, Rudolf had another source of influence, the peculiar use of which was to be a marked characteristic of his descendants. He had a large number of marriageable daughters. One of these was promised to the Count Palatine of the Rhine; and by marriage with another the Duke of Saxony was persuaded to abandon the cause of Siegfried of Anhalt. By what means the Elector of Brandenburg was won over is not quite clear; and, in all probability, he was the least willing of the Imperial Electors to grant his support to Rudolf. His opposition, however, cannot at this time have been very decided; for, when the Electors held their formal meeting, the resolution to support Rudolf was unanimous.

Thus far the intrigues appear by some mysterious means to have been kept from the knowledge of Ottakar. But such an arrangement could not long be hid. Henry of Bavaria must necessarily have been admitted to the knowledge of some of these proceedings; and, although the Electors were anxious to conciliate him, he was not yet prepared to abandon his friendship for Ottakar. Probably, therefore, it was through his means that Ottakar had received notice of the meeting of the final Assembly for deciding the election; and he was able, therefore, to send a representative to it. Apparently, however, the King of Bohemia had not even yet realised the full extent of his enemies’ intrigues; and it was with the greatest surprise and indignation that his representative discovered that the meeting to which he had been summoned was merely called to confirm an election already previously agreed upon. That Ottakar should be indignant at this ignoring of his electoral rights was natural enough; but the amazement and horror which the election of Rudolf excited in his mind can only be described in his own words.

In November, 1273, he addressed to Pope Gregory X., who had then been recently elected, his protest against the decision of the Electoral College. Beginning with a most glowing and somewhat fulsome description of the Papacy, he then proceeds as follows:—

“Wherefore, if the commonwealth is ever oppressed, neither reason nor our wishes allow us to have recourse to any but you. Whence, since the Princes of Germany who have the power of choosing the Cæsars have agreed (we would not speak with spiteful poison, nor has detraction a place in a royal speech) to direct their votes to a less suitable Count, in spite of the protest of our customary messengers whom we sent to Wrauenwrt, where the election ought to have been held; and since, to the injury of the Empire and to our prejudice, after our appeal to the Apostolic Chair, they have decorated him with the majesty of the sacred diadem, we return to you as the inexhaustible fountain of justice and piety, entreating your Holiness not to permit us to be trampled on in our rights, which the aforesaid princes try to crush down with manifest injuries; and that you will deign to turn your sacred mind to the weeping state of the Empire; and that the blessed benignity of Mother Church will take compassion on it; since that Empire, before which the whole world has trembled, which was entrusted with all the most excellent dignities of monarchy, has now fallen to those persons whom obscurity hides from fame, who are deprived of power and strength, and weighed down by the burden of poverty. Pity us! holiest Father! lest that which is so pressed down may be seen to be most unworthy; since, if the Apostolic Chair permits it, if the world tolerates it, that so high an exaltation should be granted to those that are low, it would be reduced to nothing; and that which the Arab has served, the Indian has obeyed, the Italian has submitted to, the Spaniard has looked up to, which the whole world has reverenced, should become despicable in the eyes of all. Him whom the Senate and Roman people, whom law and virtue, whom God Himself has established on the throne, every one will despise as scorning the bridle of a poor man. And thus justice will be stifled, concord will be banished, peace will perish in a reign of crimes, injuries will flourish unpunished, neighbour will rise against neighbour, and such calamity and misery will hang over us that all who live will hate their life.”

Surely a more pathetic appeal was rarely addressed by a great ruler to the head of the Christian Church. But Gregory X., though willing like his predecessors to be on good terms with the King of Bohemia, was probably not so ill-informed of the affairs of Europe as not to know that many of the evils which Ottakar depicted as likely to follow on Rudolf’s election, had already disturbed the Empire for many years past; and he was soon to be convinced that the election of Rudolf might be the best way of removing them. Rudolf, on his part, lost no time and spared no pains in destroying in the Pope’s mind the only objection which might possibly have interfered with his acceptance. While eager to secure his recognition and coronation as Holy Roman Emperor by the Pope, Rudolf, more than any Emperor since Henry the Fowler, desired to be, in all essentials, merely a German King. He eagerly assured the Pope that he had not the slightest wish to assert those claims in Italy and Sicily which had brought Frederick II. and other emperors into collision with the Papacy; nay, he would even defend the nominees of the Pope in their claims on Sicily, and would in all things be the faithful servant of the Church. But, though Gregory very soon showed an inclination to accept the choice of the German Electors, he still paused on the brink of so important a decision; and this pause was ingeniously used by the ablest of Ottakar’s advisers, Bruno, Bishop of Olmütz. Gregory, who seems to have been one of the most high-minded Popes of the period, was sincerely desirous of restoring a better state of things in Europe, partly as a preparation for a new expedition to Palestine. In order to ascertain the real feeling and purposes of the Christians of Europe, he requested various bishops to report to him on the condition of the countries with which they were acquainted. Whatever other results this appeal may have produced, Bruno saw in it an admirable opportunity for furthering his master’s interests. The growth of heresy, the maintenance of the Cumani by the King of Hungary, the extreme poverty and misery of the clergy, the indifference of the bulk of the people to religious services, the intrusion of the mendicant friars into the offices of the parochial clergy and bishops, the unwillingness of the laity to hear their sins denounced, and the continual encroachment of lay judges on the privileges of the clergy—all these evils are aggravated by the elevation to high places of those who ought rather to be subjects. The only trustworthy champion of the Christian faith is the King of Bohemia; even in the very diocese of Prague he is the only patron who grants the presentation of the clergy to the bishops; and on him mainly will fall the burden of resisting a new Tartar invasion. Bruno undoubtedly stood high in the opinion of Gregory; and, even apart from his advice, there were obvious grounds for inquiry in the circumstances of Rudolf’s election. A Council was therefore held at Lyons for the full investigation of this question; an unusually large number of bishops attended it; and it doubtless received dignity in the eyes of many by the presence of Thomas Aquinas and Bonaventura. Bruno’s protest was heard at full; while, on the other hand, Rudolf’s readiness to meet the demands of the Pope, and to acknowledge the rights of the clergy was pressed upon Gregory’s attention. Anxious to treat Ottakar mildly, but conscious that the Church and the Empire would both gain by the election of Rudolf, Gregory decided that, though Ottakar’s claim to share in the election was undoubtedly just, yet, as the six other Electors took the opposite side to that which he advocated, he was in the minority, and ought therefore to yield; and the Pope persuaded Bruno to use his influence with his master in favour of Rudolf.

But the question, in the meantime, was assuming a new aspect. Rudolf’s alarm at the opposition of Ottakar, and his desire to secure all the Imperial rights, were combining with other circumstances to induce him to put forward a claim for the restoration to the Empire of the Duchies of Austria, Styria, Carniola, and Carinthia. Ottakar had been unwilling to resist the pressure of the Pope and the advice of Bruno; but he now demanded that, before doing homage to Rudolf, he should have a clear guarantee for the possession of the lands that he had conquered.

In his determination to resist the demands of Rudolf, Ottakar seems to have been strangely unaware of the dangers that were surrounding him. Rudolf was, in the meantime, making allies with great sagacity. Count Meinhard of the Tyrol had been the Count of Hapsburg’s most intimate friend; and he was one of the many who looked with jealous eyes on Ottakar’s possession of Carinthia. The Archbishop of Salzburg had claimed some rights in Styria, and was besides continually harassed by encroachments on the part of Ottakar; Henry of Bavaria had been one of those to whom the nobles of Styria had offered their dukedom; and though his friendship for Ottakar shows that he must have abandoned this claim for a time, the offer of one of Rudolf’s useful daughters finally detached him from his alliance with Bohemia.

In the meantime, the indefatigable Burggraf of Nürnberg had discovered and fomented the discontents of the nobles of Austria and Styria; and he announced to Ottakar that the Ban of the Empire had been proclaimed against him. But even now Ottakar was unaware of Rudolf’s plans; he probably despised his military ability; and he thought it sufficient to send a small force to the defence of the Bohemian frontier, while he gave himself up to hunting and other amusements. He was, therefore, terribly startled when, in September, 1276, Rudolf suddenly entered Austria. Almost at the same time Count Meinhard invaded Carinthia, and the Styrian nobles, rising in insurrection, drove out Milota from their country. Still Ottakar hoped to save himself by the devotion of the towns; for six months, Vienna justified his expectations by holding out against Rudolf’s army; and Paltram, the Burgomaster, roused the citizens to a vigorous defence on behalf of the King, who had showed them such favour. Ottakar, now stirred to action, marched into Austria and occupied one side of the Danube; from whence he hoped to make an attack on the rear of Rudolf’s army. But the Count Palatine of the Rhine hastened to seize the fortresses which lay between him and the German army; and it was now that Ottakar became thoroughly aware of the defection of his nobles. Fortress after fortress surrendered to Rudolf without a struggle; and at last the poorer men in Vienna, seeing the continual destruction of their vineyards outside the city, called upon Paltram to surrender. He, finding that Ottakar did not arrive, despaired of holding out longer; though, before surrendering, he exacted from Rudolf a promise that he would maintain the liberties of Vienna.

As soon as Bruno of Olmütz heard of this loss, he advised Ottakar to yield. Ottakar was most reluctant that the struggle should end without a pitched battle; but another enemy now threatened to appear on the scene. Ladislaus, the new king of Hungary, was smarting under the recollection of the defeats which his predecessor had sustained; and he prepared to invade Bohemia. This new danger seems to have decided Ottakar to yield. He therefore publicly surrendered to Rudolf all his claims on Austria, Styria, Carinthia, and Carniola, and did homage to him as Emperor for his kingdom of Bohemia and Moravia. Such a settlement could not possibly be lasting. Ottakar had not yet been defeated in any pitched battle; his wife Kunigunda is said to have reproached him for his weakness in yielding so soon; and, in the carrying out of the treaty which followed, numerous questions, of doubtful interpretation, quickly came to the front. In this case, one of Rudolf’s otherwise successful daughters proved a source of contention rather than of unity. Guta, the daughter whom Rudolf had offered as a bride to Ottakar’s son, had been promised large lands as her dowry; and Ottakar maintained that, as these lands must necessarily lie in Austria, he was not bound to evacuate those territories, but should rather claim them as his due. Rudolf, on the other hand, insisted that the terms of the treaty involved the evacuation of the whole of Austria.

A question which must have touched Ottakar far more nearly was the interpretation of the clause about the extension to the supporters of each King of all the securities gained by the peace. The discontent of the nobles with Ottakar’s rule had extended even to Bohemia and Moravia; and many of the king’s native subjects had entered into intrigues with Rudolf. Rudolf maintained that, as these men must be considered his supporters, they were entitled to the same concessions as the other champions of his cause. It was obvious that such grounds of division as these, by whatever compromise they might be settled at the moment, must leave a lasting sting behind them; and there is no sign in the letters of either King of even such a pretence of friendship, as the ordinary exigencies of diplomacy might seem to require. Both Rudolf and Ottakar were, in fact, preparing for a new struggle, and looking about for allies.

At this stage the chances seemed to be in favour of Ottakar. In the first struggle he could rely on nothing but the military forces of his own kingdom, and the sympathies of those citizens whom he had favoured; while Rudolf was backed by the approval and encouragement of the great princes of the Empire, by the sanction of the Pope, by the assistance of the King of Hungary, and by the eager sympathy and co-operation of the discontented subjects of Ottakar.

Now, these supporters seemed to be gradually dropping off from the Emperor. Rudolf had by no means abandoned that championship of the towns for which he had been so distinguished before his election to the Imperial throne; and of all the enemies of the town life of Germany the prince-bishops were looked upon as the most determined and dangerous. Rudolf had therefore to choose between adherence to his old policy and the favour of his archiepiscopal supporters. With a courage which was doubtless united to far-sighted wisdom, he boldly defended the municipal rights of Köln against the encroachments of its Archbishop. That powerful Elector was thus completely alienated from Rudolf’s cause; and he speedily succeeded in persuading his brother Archbishops of Trier and Mainz to desert their nominee. The defection of Werner of Mainz so alarmed Rudolf that he seemed disposed to make some sacrifice of principle in order to conciliate him. But the concessions which the Emperor offered were not sufficient to appease the jealousies and suspicions of the Archbishop; and Werner now began to listen only too readily to the advances of Ottakar.

The Margrave of Brandenburg can never have been a warm supporter of Rudolf. He had married Ottakar’s sister; and he was united to him also by the still closer link of military comradeship; for Ottakar and he had fought side by side in one of those invasions of Prussia, which were supposed to be so advantageous to the souls of the heathen population, and which undoubtedly tended to increase the power and territory of the Margrave of Brandenburg. Nor does the Duke of Saxony seem to have been finally secured to the interest of Rudolf by the marriage with his daughter. Even the Dukes of Bavaria did not feel that they had profited as much as they had hoped to do by their support of the Emperor; and they were not a little alarmed at his evident intention to turn the provinces, which he had won for the Empire, into a private possession of the House of Hapsburg. Nor was Rudolf more fortunate when he tried to find allies abroad whose support might compensate him for the loss of his friends at home. In vain he made advances to our Edward I.; and an attempt to strengthen his hands by alliances with the princes of Italy, had the sole result of exciting the suspicions and enmity of Pope Nicholas III.

Ottakar was, of course, greatly encouraged by these secessions from his rival; and he hoped still further to strengthen his own position by detaching the King of Hungary from his alliance with Rudolf, and by stirring up an insurrection in Austria. In both these efforts, however, he was unsuccessful. The conspiracy formed by some of the Austrian nobles, in concert with the still discontented Burgomaster of Vienna, was detected by Rudolf before it had come to a head; and while Paltram was forced to save himself by flight, one of the leading nobles was seized and condemned to death.

The discovery of this conspiracy seems to have been the signal for the new outbreak of war; and it was now apparent that Rudolf had not been wholly weakened by the desertion of his powerful supporters. The forces on which he could still rely were more ready to act under his command than the great princes of the Empire would have been; and his one independent ally probably gave him more efficient help than he could have derived from any distant general. This was Ladislaus of Hungary, who had been firmly secured to Rudolf’s side, partly by the gift of one of his inexhaustible tribe of daughters, and partly by a vague promise of extension of territory. Ottakar was apparently unaware of the firmness of this alliance; and he entered Austria with a somewhat small force, expecting an easy victory. One or two fortresses fell quickly into his hands; but the sudden appearance of the King of Hungary at the head of a large army took him completely by surprise; and, after suffering a slight defeat, he found it convenient to retreat to some distance.

Rudolf in the meantime had rallied round him his most determined supporters. Chief among these was Frederick of Hohenzollern; and the Emperor also received ready help from Count Meinhard of the Tyrol, the Archbishop of Salzburg, and the Bishop of Basel. Besides these supporters, he had under his command a strong force of South Germans; while fiercest and keenest of all the soldiers in his ranks were those who fought under the banners of the discontented Styrian nobles.

The rival armies met on the banks of the river Morava on the plain called the Marchfeld. The battle was a fierce one. The Bishop of Basel and Frederick of Hohenzollern broke the left wing of the Bohemian army; while, on the other side, Ottakar, at the head of a chosen band of knights, drove back the right wing of the Imperialists, and even struck down the Emperor himself. But the Styrian nobles so fiercely resisted the advance of the Bohemians, that they gave time to Rudolf to reform his troops; while Frederick of Hohenzollern followed up his success by attacking the reserve guard, which ought to have advanced to Ottakar’s rescue. These reserves were headed by Milota, Ottakar’s Governor of Styria. It is said that Milota himself had a bitter grievance against the king, on account of an injury inflicted on his brother. Whether this is true or not, it seems certain that, just when these troops ought to have hastened to the support of the main army, they were suddenly seized with a panic, and fled in confusion. The panic quickly spread to the troops posted next to them; and the battle was hopelessly lost. Ottakar fought with desperate courage to the last; and, whether he died sword in hand, or whether, as others say, he was killed by the Styrian nobles after he had surrendered, it is certain that his body was found on the battlefield.

With him, for a time, fell the liberty and independence of Bohemia; and, though his son bore the name of king, and even recovered for a short period an appearance of independence, yet, politically considered, the male line of those Bohemian native rulers, who traced their descent to Libus̆a and Pr̆emysl, came to an end on the plain of Marchfeld in August, 1278. Bohemian independence was, indeed, to revive under a different form; and, nearly two centuries later, a native Bohemian king was once more to rule at Prague; but never again was a purely Bohemian dynasty to be established on the throne.

With all its faults, the line of the Pr̆emyslovci had produced as many able and patriotic rulers as most royal houses can boast of. They had steered their country through its difficult progress from Paganism to Christianity. They had reduced the rival kingdom of Poland from the position of a dangerous aggressor into that of a tributary State. They had helped to roll back the tide of Hungarian conquest; they had made themselves a powerful factor in the policy of the German Empire. Amid the despair of Europe, they had stood almost alone against the crushing invasion of the Tartars. And last, and most important of all, they had begun to develop the municipal liberties of their country, in a way which gave good promise of future prosperity. That in this last matter they had borrowed largely from German models, only showed their power of rising superior to a most natural national prejudice; while, in the case of Ottakar II., his enlightened policy towards the Jews must have often brought upon him the rebukes of those clergy on whom he so much relied for help. He failed, because he was not content to be king of Bohemia, but wished to be the head of a powerful State which could dictate the policy of the Empire. Had he been satisfied to develop the liberties of his own country in peace, he might have laid the foundations of a State, which could even now have been playing an independent part in the affairs of Europe.