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Updated: May 7, 2025
He had beaten the Hungarian King Bela and his friends, Daniel Romanovic the King of Russia and Prince of Kiev, a Prince of Cracow and odd assortments of Serbs, Bulgars, and Wallachians, most handsomely at Kressenbrunn on the plains of the River March. Ottokar's political conception of the part which Bohemia should play in Central Europe is particularly interesting.
It is interesting to note that Ottokar's policy brought him into a certain degree of contact with England.
Ottokar's plans were completely upset, first by the death of his obliging friend Richard of Cornwall, next by events attending and arising out of the choice of a new Emperor by the German Electors.
A pretty and tactful compliment it was on the part of Frederick to allow Ottokar's heralds, when preceding their royal master to the Imperial Diet, to carry lighted torches on poles before him, and this to signify that the Bohemian excursionists were at liberty to burn down anything they had a mind to.
History of this time was recorded by Germans chiefly, and they have spared no trouble to blacken Ottokar's character, by which process Rudolph of Habsburg is made to stand out as a light shining in the darkness. In Germanic eyes Ottokar's fault was that of being a Slav, successful and of great ability. I cannot agree with the German chronicler's estimate of Rudolph.
Anarchy reigned in Bohemia when young Wenceslaus, at the age of twelve, nominally assumed the reins of government. The actual ruler of the country, however, was Zavis of Falckenstein, an able man but of doubtful morality; there was some unsavoury story concerning him and Ottokar's widow Kunhuta, whom Zavis eventually married.
Ottokar being a Slav, and a very powerful one at that, was heartily hated by all German Princes, so they, being in a majority, disallowed Ottokar's right to vote at all, and elected as Emperor one Rudolph Count of Habsburg.
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