There is another point which tends to make Bohemia known even to those who have no taste for European geography, and to whom the middle of Europe is for the most part only a confused welter of nationalities, usually German-speaking, and at any rate quite uninteresting. This is the fact that the motto of the English Prince of Wales, “Ich dien,” with its proud humility, and the crest of three feathers were taken from those of the blind king of Bohemia, who was killed at the battle of Crécy in 1346 while fighting for his ally, King Philip of Valois. The Black Prince, his conqueror, adopted as his own the crest and motto, which have been held by successive Princes of Wales ever since. This compact little land of Bohemia, lying surrounded on three sides by mountains, now forms the north-western corner of the Austrian Empire. It contains much beautiful scenery and is more varied than many other parts of the Empire, being hilly and level, wooded and cultivated in different places, so that every kind of landscape is met with. Bohemia has always had a struggle to preserve its national unity, for it was surrounded on the one side by the German-speaking peoples of Bavaria and Saxony and on the other by the Magyars of Hungary, and it had to sway into alliance with one or the other accordingly as the opposite one attacked it. Moravia has always been closely associated with it, and Poland and Hungary have frequently in the course of history been ruled by the same king. Many times before the ruler of Bohemia adopted the title of king had it been offered to him by the Emperor of “The Holy Roman Empire.” Once this was in the reign of Ottakar II. one of the best remembered and most loved of the rulers of Bohemia. He was of the Premsyl dynasty and succeeded to the throne in 1253. The ancient tradition of the origin of this dynasty, which gave a long line of rulers to Bohemia, beginning before authentic history and continuing to 1306, is too picturesque to pass over. One of the semi-mythical rulers of Bohemia, Krok, is said to have left no sons but only three daughters, the youngest of whom, Libussa, a woman of intrepid spirit and masculine force, succeeded him. However, in spite of her fine qualities, her subjects disliked being ruled by a woman and some of them questioned her judgments. At length, to satisfy them, she agreed to select a husband, and standing in the midst of her nobles she pointed to the hills and told them to go to such and such a place where they would find a man ploughing with two oxen; him they must bring and him only would she marry. His name was Premsyl. The peasant was found as described, and readily took up the rôle allotted to him, becoming the husband of Libussa, ruler of Bohemia, and founder of the greatest dynasty in his country’s annals.