Under these circumstances the peasantry gradually fell back into the condition from which they had been escaping in the fourteenth century. The right of leaving their masters at their pleasure, of settling in towns, and of becoming priests without the sanction of their landlords, were gradually taken from them; and at last they were deprived even of that right of appeal to the King’s Court by which Charles had protected them against the absolute power of their lords. But, though the peasantry were thus crushed back into a state of serfdom, the organisation of the towns was too strong to yield at once to the attacks of the nobles. Unfortunately, however, the lords gained about this time a new and important ally in their struggle for supremacy. The knights, or independent country gentlemen, who had been such zealous rivals of the higher Order in the fifteenth century, had lately consented to a reconciliation with their opponents; and these two classes were thus able to combine their forces against the towns. The new king was little able to give the weaker party any assistance in the struggle. Ladislaus had succeeded in securing to his son Louis the succession to the crown, and he had even had him crowned during his lifetime. But Louis was a boy of ten; he was in the main under Hungarian influences; and he was of course utterly unfitted to control the fierce factions which were struggling in Bohemia. The three chief points at issue between the Towns and the other Orders were, firstly, the right of the Town Tribunals to summon before them the nobles and knights in cases specially affecting the towns; secondly, the monopoly claimed by the towns in the brewing trade; thirdly, the right of the towns to send representatives to the Bohemian Assembly. In 1517, indeed, a nominal settlement was effected on all these points by the treaty of St. Wenceslaus. By that treaty the towns surrendered their monopoly of brewing, but were secured the peaceable possession of their other privileges. Such treaties had little effect in a time of discord, and it was not long before a new violation of town rights led to the outbreak of a civil war, in which the citizens gained some victories. Both parties, however, soon began to desire peace, and the king was called in to arbitrate between them.