Otto soon showed that it was not for the sake of the wife and son of his old friend that he had come to Bohemia. Under pretence of investigating some old charter of Ottakar’s, Otto sent German soldiers to Prague to find out the places where Ottakar’s bailiff had kept the royal treasure. These soldiers entered one of the chief monasteries, and there discovered a large chest which had been used by many people during the war as a storehouse for food, clothes, and other property. This chest the Germans at once broke open and plundered of its contents; and then, as if determined to offend the national feeling to the utmost, they rushed into the chapel of St. Wenceslaus and rifled the tomb of the saint.
These outrages were followed by a yet more daring act of violence. Otto suddenly entered Prague by night, seized the queen and prince in their rooms, while still half dressed, and carried them off to a fortress, where he set German soldiers to guard them, and would permit no Bohemian to see them. Some Bohemian nobles demanded the release of these captives, and Otto promised to set them free; but he broke his promise. Kunigunda, indeed, by a series of ruses, succeeded in escaping from her imprisonment and taking refuge in her own special dominions at Opava; but her boy remained a prisoner in Otto’s hands.
In the meantime the soldiers, who had been brought in by Otto to carry out his tyrannical purposes, began a series of plundering expeditions on their own account. The unfortunate peasants fled from their fields and took refuge in the woods, leaving the lands wholly uncultivated. Even worse calamities fell on the towns. The large-minded policy of the two Ottakars and of Wenceslaus I. now proved a source of evil and division. They had tried to induce Germans and Bohemians to live together in towns, established under German municipal laws, and often peopled in the first instance by German immigrants. But these enlightened kings had not been able thereby to stifle race-hatred and jealousy; and the German settlers now looked upon the wild soldiers of Otto as their allies against the native Bohemian citizens. They invited the leaders of the plundering parties into the towns, and with their help expelled the Bohemians. Prague was the only city strong enough to resist this Germanising process; and Tobias, the Bishop of Prague, tried to rally the faithful nobles of the kingdom round Kunigunda. This effort was a desperate one; and, even when Otto left Bohemia for a time, his viceroy, the Bishop of Brandenburg, carried his ruthless policy still further, plundering the clergy and treating the remonstrances of Bishop Tobias with scorn and insolence.
At last the Bohemians were forced to call in their former conqueror to deliver them from this cruel tyranny; and Otto soon succumbed to the Imperial forces. He consented to summon an Assembly at Prague, at which he appointed Bishop Tobias as chief ruler of the kingdom; and he further issued a decree that those Germans who had entered Bohemia for the purposes of plunder should leave the country within three days. He again promised to release young Wenceslaus, and again broke his promise. The German robbers, awed doubtless by the power of Rudolf, hastened to obey the orders of their master. But the evil seed which they had sown did not cease to produce its natural fruits.
It must be remembered that for three years the lands had been left uncultivated; and trade, except where carried on by Germans, had been totally paralysed. The consequence of these misfortunes was a terrible famine. Unemployed workmen and starving peasants crowded into Prague and enforced by violence their demands for food and clothing. Driven out by the authorities of the city, they perished of cold in the woods; large holes were filled with the dead bodies; family affection ceased in the bitter struggle for life; and, when all kinds of strange food had been tried and exhausted, mothers killed and ate their own children.
At last, in 1283, a better harvest began to restore some hope for a return to human conditions of life. Then wild rumours and speculations fed the rising expectation. A beautiful rainbow was the source of bright prophecies; and a half belief began to arise in some minds that King Ottakar was not really dead, and would return in triumph. Suddenly a definite announcement took the place of dreams and fancies. Not Ottakar, but his son Wenceslaus, was to return to reign in Bohemia. Base and sordid to the last, Otto had demanded from the half-starved Bohemians a ransom of 35,000 marks, as compensation for what he called his care and expense in guarding the young Bohemian king, in reality as a bribe not to break any more promises. But the sum was paid, and no doubt willingly.
There is something inexpressibly touching in the enthusiasm which greeted the return of the twelve-year-old king. Men, hardly recovered from years of starvation and plague, seemed at once convinced that at last a better time was coming; and on June 9, 1283, barons, knights, clergy, citizens, and peasants flocked out to meet the young king, Bishop Tobias leading the motley throng, and all singing the hymn of St. Adalbert, the opening words of which had served Ottakar as a war-cry at the fatal battle of the Marchfeld.
But the troubles of Bohemia were not yet at an end. The boy followed his most natural instinct in appealing to his mother to join him in Prague. Unfortunately, Kunigunda had in the meantime formed a connection which proved most dangerous to the peace and order of the country. Zavis̆ of Falkenstein belonged to a noble family of Moravia, and he had succeeded in securing the queen’s affection during her residence in Opava. Whether the marriage, which was recognised at a later time, had already taken place, or whether, as some said, their connection was one of illicit love, certain it is that it was the affection between them, rather than the form of its expression, which excited the indignation and jealousy of the Bohemian nobles; and Zavis̆ soon justified that indignation.
No sooner did he appear at the Court of Prague than he set himself to oppose and drive away such patriots as Bishop Tobias, and to put his own favourites in their place. An insurrection quickly followed; and though Rudolf exerted himself to pacify the insurgents, he soon showed in an unmistakable manner his own distrust of the new ruler of Bohemia.
In January, 1285, Wenceslaus, now arrived at his fourteenth year, was married to Guta, the daughter of Rudolf. Zavis̆ was so conscious of Rudolf’s distrust, that he did not venture to enter the town where the marriage was solemnised. This absence, however, did not satisfy the Emperor; and he took the extreme step of carrying back Guta with him, after her marriage, to preserve her from the influences which prevailed at Prague. Either encouraged by these signs of Rudolf’s feelings, or irritated by some new insolence on the part of Zavis̆, the Bohemian nobles raised a second insurrection; but they were again unsuccessful, and it was not till the death of Kunigunda, in 1287, that Wenceslaus succeeded in shaking off the power of his stepfather.