The relations between Methodius and Svatopluk, always hostile, would now have probably culminated in the death or exile of the archbishop, but that a quarrel broke out between Svatopluk and Arnulf; and the desire of Svatopluk to overthrow Arnulf’s influence in Pannonia naturally hindered his action against Methodius. For the few remaining years of the archbishop’s life, he was able to carry on his work, both moral and religious, with much less opposition; but when, after his death, his friends attempted to get his pupil Gorazd appointed as successor in the archbishopric, Wiching succeeded in stirring up Svatopluk against him, in renewing the alliance with Arnulf, and finally in securing the expulsion from Moravia of the leading followers of Methodius. But in spite of the opposition of dukes and Germans, the Slavonic ritual held its own in Moravia, and Svatopluk’s son Mojmir became its champion against the bishops of Salzburg. Important, however, as the defence of the Slavonic language and ritual was in the history of Bohemia and Moravia, the enemy against whom it had specially served as a watchword had ceased to become the object of uncompromising hostility. A new power had made its way into Europe, more dangerous, for the moment, to Slavonic unity and Bohemian independence than Frank, Saxon, or Bavarian; and the Bohemians and Moravians were for a time compelled to forget their fears and hatred of the Germans, in order to combine with them against a new enemy. II. BOHEMIAN SAINTS AND WARRIORS IN THE TENTH CENTURY. (885-997.) The ideal of life and character hinted at in the Libus̆in Saud affects, in an often contradictory way, the popular judgments of the prominent characters of Bohemian history. So strangely does this tendency manifest itself at more than one stage of the story, that it would almost seem as if the ordinary conceptions of national greatness, and sometimes even of independence, were entirely obscured by the Christian aspiration after a peaceable national life. Kings and warriors, who had done much to extend the prestige and power of Bohemia, are remembered mainly for their cruelty and oppression; while saints, who may in some degree have weakened the sense of Bohemian independence, are not merely honoured, but are even put forward as the symbols of distinctive national life. Thus, for instance, Svatopluk, the cruel and unscrupulous persecutor of Methodius and his followers, might, from the ordinary nationalist point of view, have been looked upon as the establisher of Slavonic greatness, the champion of Moravian independence, and even the protector of Bohemia and Moravia against a cruel and barbarous invader.