these, to the crown; no Bohemian lord was ever to be ordered to go on any military expedition out of the country; the king was to impose no taxes except for his coronation and to raise the dowry for daughters of the house royal; and all such taxes were to be according to a fixed rate.
After this agreement, the coronation was held, and King John established in the government.
Although one of the articles of the royal document provided for the exclusion of all foreigners from the government, nevertheless, because of the extreme youthfulness of the king, the emperor gave him several German lords to be his counselors. The Bohemian lords did not object to this, since the chief of these was Peter, the Archbishop of Mayence, who had been greatly loved and honored by Václav II. Later, when the German lords began to grow too domineering, King John was held to the agreement, and ordered to dismiss them.
When the nobles had established King John and Queen Elizabeth upon the throne of Bohemia, they imagined that they had done their country a good service, and that his reign would be an era of peace and prosperity to all the people. These hopes, however were doomed to the bitterest disappointment. In the whole history of the country, the government of King John of Luxemburg was unquestionably one of the worst; and in regard to private life, a more unfortunate marriage could scarcely have been contracted; and, doubtless, the domestic troubles in the royal family were, to some extent, the cause of the public disturbances.
Although Queen Elizabeth was a very beautiful
