son of Ottokar, should marry the daughter of Rudolph, and Hartman, the son of the latter, the daughter of the Bohemian ruler. By this double marriage, Rudolph hoped that he might secure Bohemia to his own house, in case the line of the Premysls should die out. It must be added that the betrothed parties were mere children, consequently the marriage was not to take place till many years after. As hard as were the above terms for the Bohemian king, there was one clause in the treaty that was even more grievous. The emperor, desiring to take the rebellious lords of Bohemia under his protection, declared them his own vassals, who were answerable for their actions only to him, and not to the King of Bohemia. This was virtually destroying the independence of the country, making it a mere province of the emperor’s other possessions. After much negotiation, which, however, led to no results, the emperor refusing to give up his claims to the loyalty of the lords of Bohemia, Ottokar was driven to desperation, and so began to prepare for another war.
In this war the princes of the realm did not respond so heartily to the call of their emperor to furnish troops; nevertheless, he was able to raise a much larger army than Ottokar, who had only the princes of Silesia to aid him. A decisive battle was fought upon the very grounds where Premysl Ottokar had won such a brilliant victory over the Hungarians in the earlier part of his reign. But in those days the army of the king fought as one man; while now, there was division—treachery in the camp. During the action, while the tide seemed to be turning in favor of the Bohemians, one of the chief lords cried that all was lost, and that who could, should save his life. This caused a
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