It was not to be expected that Brac̆islav’s proceedings would pass unchallenged; and both Pope and Emperor were appealed to, to redress the wrongs done to the Church and to Poland. Both of them answered the appeal; but the complaints of the Pope were soon silenced by the building of a monastery, and by the judicious distribution of money among the cardinals. Henry III. was not so easily satisfied. He had doubtless adopted the Imperial policy of playing off the rival kingdoms against each other; and the Bohemian victories, won so easily, and without his intervention, were most unwelcome. His avarice, moreover, was roused by the news of the booty which Brac̆islav had brought back from Poland. He therefore peremptorily demanded the surrender of the spoil, under pain of war. Brac̆islav boldly replied that, “while the Bohemians were willing to pay to the Emperor that tribute which they had always paid him, they would resist to the death any attempt to lay on them unlawful burdens.” Henry retorted that the law had a wax nose, which a king could always bend with his iron hand. Such an exchange of courtesies was naturally followed by war; and, while a Saxon army marched into Bohemia on one side, the Emperor himself speedily followed by another entrance. But the Bohemians were ready for the invasion; and, while the imperial army were resting in a wood, they were surprised by Brac̆islav’s soldiers and cut to pieces, Henry only saving himself by the swiftness of his horse. The Duke of Saxony in vain tried to make terms with the Bohemians, and was speedily forced to retreat to his own country. This success, indeed, was not quite so complete as it seemed at first; for, in the following year, Henry once more invaded Bohemia, and gained such successes that Brac̆islav was compelled to pay a higher tribute, and to restore many towns to Poland. Nevertheless, he was able to retain some hold even over those towns, by exacting a perpetual tribute from them; nor was Bohemia ever again so completely at the mercy of Poland as it had been in the previous reigns. The divisions in the Bohemian Ducal family seemed, however, to Brac̆islav to be as great a danger as could arise from any foreign enemy; and he persuaded the nobles to guard against such dangers in the future by making the crown hereditary in his family, and abandoning the unlimited right of election. Such a law could not finally prevent family quarrels, or defeat the designs of ambitious adventurers. But it is worth noting, as indicating the feeling of an able ruler about the dangers to which his country was exposed.