A general panic now seized the Bohemians; they recalled to their minds the tyranny of Otto of Brandenburg; and the rumour quickly spread that John was about to use German soldiers to crush out Bohemian independence. What had been the intrigue of a mere selfish faction, now swelled into a national opposition; and the war raged fiercely. Henry of Lipa, indeed, remained the ostensible leader of the insurgents; but he had so little sympathy with real national feeling, that he called in Frederick of Austria as his ally; and, when John offered terms to the rebels, Henry refused them, on the ground that any treaty of peace must also include the Austrians. At last the Emperor Louis intervened in the struggle. John was persuaded to send away his Rhenish troops, to renew his promise to appoint only Bohemian advisers, and once more to give high office in the State to Henry of Lipa. To these terms the king consented; but Queen Elizabeth, with keener insight, refused altogether to trust this new Councillor; and Henry thereupon devoted his whole energies to making mischief between the king and queen. The intriguers had now discovered what manner of man they had to deal with. Vain, profligate, and pleasure-seeking, John was easily persuaded by the young nobles that his wife had gained too much power over him; and, when they had once sown in his mind this suspicion, they were able to develop an elaborate romance of imaginary plots, by which the queen was supposed to be undermining the throne of John, and securing the power to herself and her son. John’s selfish vanity soon drove him into violent action. He hastened to the fortress where the queen was then staying, and used such violent language that she fled in terror from the place. Then he removed from her her favourite attendants, carried off her children, and shut up his eldest son for two months in a dark room.