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 to the wishes of the Pope; and about the year 1203 we find him fighting in Thuringia on Otho's side against the adherents of Philip. Otho naturally rewarded him by confirming his title as hereditary king; and the Pope also for the first time recognized the kingly title of the Přemysl princes, and guaranteed to them all the privileges they had obtained from the German monarchs (1204). Ottokar seems to have pursued a dynastic policy, striving to increase the power of the house of Přemysl, and alternating in his allegiance between the rival German sovereigns. In 1206 we again find him an adherent of Philip, and it was only after that prince's murder (1208) that he again recognized Otho as king.

Otho, now undisputed ruler of Germany, soon became involved in the same dissensions with the Pope as his former rival; and Innocent III therefore invited the German princes to raise to the throne Henry VI's son, Frederick II, who was afterwards to become so dangerous an enemy to the Papacy. Ottokar was again subservient to the wishes of Rome; and Otho attempted unsuccessfully, though aided by an insurrection in Bohemia, to revenge himself on Ottokar for his desertion. The Bohemian king became an ally of Frederick II, who, besides confirming all former privileges of the Bohemian princes, granted them permission to liberate themselves, whenever they wished it, from the obligation of sending three hundred men to escort the German kings on their journey to Italy by the payment of three hundred marks of silver. Frederick further decreed that the attendance of the Bohemian monarchs at the Imperial Diets should only be obligatory when these assemblies were held in towns near the Bohemian frontier—Bamberg, Nürnberg, and Merseburgh were specified as being such towns. Ottokar was present at Frederick's coronation (1213), and the German king became undisputed ruler after Otho's death (1218).

About this time Přemysl Ottokar, to prevent the renewal of the troubles so often before caused by the uncertainty of the succession, persuaded the Bohemian nobles and Vladislav, Margrave of Moravia, to recognize his son Venceslas, then only eleven years of age, as heir to the throne (1216).

The later years of the reign of Ottokar were troubled by difficulties with the ecclesiastics, of which we have only