arrived before the city. With German aid the Poles were driven out of Bohemia, and Jaromir ascended the throne with the sanction of the German king, probably—though this is not positively mentioned—under the condition of paying the former tribute. The Bohemians continued the war against Poland as allies of the German king up to the year 1013, when Henry II made peace with Boleslav the Brave. By this treaty Boleslav was to retain all his conquests, with the exception of Bohemia, that country being thus reduced to its narrowest limits, its natural frontier.
Even their great misfortunes did not induce the princes of the house of Přemysl to desist from their family quarrels. About this time Ulrich revolted against Jaromir; and both brothers appealing to the German king, Henry II, for reasons which are not stated by the chroniclers, awarded the crown to Ulrich. He also caused Jaromir, who had sought refuge with him, to be delivered over to his brother, by whose orders he was imprisoned in the castle of Lysa.
The only two remaining princes of the house of Přemysl[1] having no descendants, it seemed at this period probable that Libussa's prophecy would prove untrue; but the old chroniclers tell us that the extinction of the race of Přemysl was averted by a romantic incident. When Prince Ulrich—whose wife was childless—was returning from a hunting expedition to his castle of Postelberg, he rode through the village of Peruc, and saw a young and beautiful maiden who was washing linen at a fountain.[2] Ulrich immediately became violently enamoured with this maiden, whose name was Božena, and he married her.[3] She became the mother of the brave and handsome Břetislav, the restorer of the greatness of Bohemia.
The power of Poland, which country had for some time taken the place of Bohemia as the most powerful West-Slav State, did not outlast the life of Boleslav the Brave. After his death (1025) dissensions broke out among his sons, and both Hungary and Bohemia became involved in these intestine dissensions. Ulrich sent an army under his brave son Břetislav into Moravia, which the Bohemians always
