Rudolph did not act vindictively; he arranged that the dead king’s son should succeed to the Bohemian throne, ruling in subordination to himself as overlord, and that when he was old enough he should still marry the promised bride. But Queen Kunegunda, his mother, restless under this submission, called in help from outside in the person of Otto of Brandenburg, who promptly repaid her by grinding Bohemia into misery and carrying away her and her son as prisoners. The Queen, however, managed to escape, and the young King Wenceslaus was at length ransomed, and returned to Bohemia in 1285 as a boy of twelve to begin his reign. Two years later he married Rudolph’s daughter. King Wenceslaus became King also of Poland and eventually, when the male line of the Hungarian kings died out, he was offered the crown of Hungary as well. He accepted it for his son, who succeeded him, but who turned out to be a weak and dissolute man, and with his death ended the male line of the house of Premsyl. [Illustration: PRAGUE: THE HRADSCHIN, FROM WALLENSTEINSTRASSE] Various experiments in rulers followed, more or less unsatisfactory, including John of Luxembourg, who became blind, and was killed at Crécy, as mentioned above. His son Charles held the dignity of Emperor (as Charles IV.), as well as that of King of Bohemia. Charles founded the first German university, that of Prague, and was the originator of the Golden Bull, a charter which settled--so far as it could be settled--the difficult question of the right of election to the position of emperor. He was succeeded in turn by his two sons. In the reign of the second, named Sigismund, arose the celebrated reformer John Huss, or Hus, a Bohemian, whose fame is second only to that of Wyclif in England. He was born in 1369 at the village of Huss, from which, as was common in those days, he derived the surname which distinguished him from other Johns. The people of Bohemia are the Czechs, the most important branch of the Slav race, and they have a burning sense of their national dignity, which seems to be centred more in the preservation of their language than in anything else. Up to the Middle Ages Latin had everywhere been the language of communication in Bohemia for all official and religious purposes, as it had in Austria and Hungary, but when John Huss came into prominence it was chiefly because he fanned the flame of nationalism, and was the first to bring out in Czech books and pamphlets stirring up patriotism and appealing everywhere to the strong sense of nationality in the people. Consequently he was adored by them. He was a disciple and follower of Wyclif, who was a little senior to him. Mr. Geoffrey Drage, in his interesting book _Austria-Hungary_, thus sums him up: