ally--became, indeed, very
prosperous--the increase of wealth being largely due to the fact that
workings on the silver mines at Kutna Hora had been resumed. Towards the
end of the reign of this Wenceslaus, whose rule was mild, matters
improved somewhat. Bohemia became a sort of city of refuge, and
neighbouring States, Hungary and Poland, being in a worse state of
anarchy than any others, invited King Wenceslaus to reign over them.
Bohemia and Poland thus became united for a while under one ruler,
Wenceslaus, who had himself crowned King of the latter country at
Gnesen. Hungary was given in charge of the King's son Wenceslaus, who
was crowned as King of that country and resided some time at Ofen.
Wenceslaus had taken a Polish Princess to wife after the death of Gutta,
and had thus reinforced his connection with a Slavonic neighbour, but
Germanism was in the ascendant in Bohemia and the hand of Habsburg was
stretched out over it. It was yet some centuries before the power of the
Habsburg should become absolute in the lands of the P[vr]emysl dynasty,
but that family's light was nearing extinction. Whether good or bad, the
rulers who sprang from the soil, from the peasant stock of Libu[vs]a's
choosing, had been of the people and had on the whole served their
people's interests. With Wenceslaus III murdered by an unknown assassin
while on his way to Poland, the male line of the P[vr]emysl dynasty died
out. It continued in the indirect line by the marriage of Elizabeth,
daughter of Wenceslaus II, with Rudolph, a grandson of the Habsburg who
dealt the death-blow to Bohemia's native rulers.

Whether for good or evil, alien influence was working strongly in
Bohemia, and notably in Prague. Ottokar II had encouraged it as part of
his policy towards keeping in check his turbulent nobles and towards
raising up a reliable middle class. His nobles aided towards his
downfall by their treachery, and the middle class of Prague, though
loyal to the Crown, was alive chiefly to its own interests. Perhaps that
foreign influence was weaving its spell over the burghers of Prague, a
spell to which the Slav is somewhat susceptible.

During the reign of the last P[vr]emysl sovereigns Prague offered the
spectacle of a rich and prosperous city, but its brightness was rather
that of lights round the bier of some illustrious dead. Many foreigners
found themselves attracted to the capital of Bohemia during this
period, among them some ardent souls w