Page:Bohemia An Historical Sketch.djvu/88

 The result of these family connections was an alliance between Bohemia and France, that lasted up to the end of the reign of King John.

The death of Duke Henry of Carinthia and the Tyrol (1335) was followed by new strife in Germany, and the ever-warlike King John now returned to Bohemia. The German King Louis, John's former ally, joined the Austrian dukes in an attempt to deprive King John's son, John Henry, of the Tyrol and Carinthia, to which lands he had become entitled as husband of Margaret "Mouth-poke." To be secure in the north and east King John, on the advice of his son Charles, came to a peaceful understanding with the kings of Poland and Hungary. He renounced all claims on the crown of Poland, but, on the other hand, obtained the recognition of his rights over Silesia from the two kings.

Unfortunately, an estrangement took place about this time between John and his eldest son. Again fearing to find a rival to the crown in Charles, whose popularity in Bohemia was indeed far greater than his father's, King John suddenly deprived him of all share in the government of Bohemia and Moravia, and even of the revenues he drew from these lands.

Charles acted with great nobility in the difficult position in which he found himself. Contrary to what had so often happened in similar cases, he declined to stir up civil strife in a country which was already engaged in foreign war. He left Bohemia for a time, and joined his brother John Henry in the defence of the Tyrol, which Louis, King of the Germans, had already attacked. John in the meantime entered Austria with a Bohemian army, and succeeded in separating the Austrian dukes from their ally, the King of the Germans; he concluded a treaty with them, by which Carinthia was made over to the Austrian princes, while the Tyrol fell to the share of John Henry (1336).

King John soon after (1336) undertook a second crusade to Lithuania, during which he, through illness, lost the sight of one eye—a loss that was soon followed by complete blindness. We are told that the people did not pity him, but said that his misfortune was God's punishment for the hardness with which he—after superseding his son Charles—had extorted money from the people of Bohemia. Charles had accompanied his father on this Lithuanian campaign;