bours with unholy joy and
brought the distracted country more and more under Teuton domination, so
much so that Frederick Barbarossa thought fit to summon one or other
pretender and a bunch of obstreperous Bohemian nobles to appear before
him at the Imperial Court at Ratisbon, in order that he might exercise
the right he had assumed of settling the affairs of the P[vr]emysl
dynasty. By way of a picturesque touch to the proceedings, Barbarossa is
said to have arranged for a suitable display of executioners' axes at
the meeting. Nevertheless this pretty imperial conceit settled no
affairs one way or another, and it was not until P[vr]emysl Ottokar
became undisputed ruler of Bohemia, and eventually of Moravia as well,
that order of a sort was restored. Death had also been busy among
members of the P[vr]emysl family and had brought considerable relief to
the distracted country.

By the time Ottokar I had settled himself firmly on the throne he found
that the confused, almost anarchic, state which Germany had drifted into
could mean many advantages to Bohemia, if the situation were properly
handled. The House of Hohenstaufen began to go downhill after the death
of Henry VI, and we find a lusty Welf, Otto, clamouring for the imperial
diadem, assisted by a number of German Electors. This gave the ruler of
Bohemia his opportunity, and Ottokar took it. His son Wenceslaus I and
grandson Ottokar II followed the same line of policy, a purely dynastic
one. They took sides with one or other of the rivals for the crown of
the Holy Roman Empire, changing as considerations of domestic interests
required, and making skilful use of the perennial quarrel between Empire
and Papacy over the Investitures. While the Hohenstaufens were trickling
out until the luckless Conradin lost his head at Naples, while fierce
Welfs like Otto of Brunswick wrecked themselves on the rock of papal
insistence, Bohemia's rulers were profiting. Ottokar I seems to have
been particularly astute in this line of business. He supported two
rival Emperors in turn and got something useful out of both, he upheld
the cause of Pope Innocent III against one or other imperial rival and
induced that pontiff to recognize the P[vr]emysl's title to royalty.
Ottokar even found himself sufficiently strong to try a throw with the
Pope himself on the vexed subject of Investiture, simply by way of a
little private sport on his own account and not as part of the general
European brawl