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Rh to Henry, in the midst of his preparations for war, bringing with them Břatislav's son as a hostage; and of a promise made by Břatislav that he himself would soon come to pay homage. This might well, for the time, seem sufficient.

It was in the year 1040 that the first important expedition was launched against Bohemia. Břatislav's intentions were by this time quite clear; for he had, in the interval, not only demanded from Rome the erection of Prague into an archbishopric, a step which meant the severing of the ecclesiastical dependence of Bohemia upon Germany, but had also formed an alliance with Peter, the new King of Hungary, who had signalised the event by winter raids over the German frontiers.

The wrongs of Poland and of Casimir, and the danger to Germany, were reasons amply justifying Henry's interventions. Preliminary negotiations probably consisted in Henry's ultimatum demanding reparation to Poland, and the payment of the regular tribute to Germany. On Břatislav's refusal, the expedition was launched, but failed (August, 1040).

Henry, humiliated for the moment, was not defeated. He "kept his grief deep in his heart," and the Bohemian overtures were rejected, as we have seen. Even before this refusal, the Bohemians and their ally, Peter of Hungary, were already raiding the frontier.

In 1041 the German forces, which were "very great," advanced more cautiously, and Henry, breaking his way into the country in the rear of its defending armies, found the country-side living as in the midst of peace. It was in August. For six weeks the German forces lived at ease, the rich land supplying them plentifully with corn and cattle. Then, burning and destroying all that was left, and devastating far and wide, "with the exception of two provinces which they left to their humbled foes," the armies towards the end of September moved to the trysting-place above Prague. Meanwhile Austrian knights, under the leadership of the young Babenberger prince, Leopold, made a successful inroad from the South.

Břatislav, unable to protect his land, made ineffectual overtures. Then he was deserted by his own people. The Archbishop of Prague, Severus, had been appointed by Udalrich in reward for his skill in catering for the ducal table. This traitor now led a general desertion. The Bohemians promised Henry to deliver their duke bound into his hands. Břatislav perforce made an unqualified surrender. He renounced the royal title, so offensive to German ears; he promised full restitution to Poland; he gave his duchy into Henry's hands. In pledge of his faith he sent as hostages his own son Spitignev and the sons of five great Bohemian nobles. These, if Břatislav failed, Henry might put "to any death he pleased." Henry at last accepted his submission.

Břatislav himself built a way back to Bavaria for the booty-laden invaders; and a fortnight later he himself appeared at Ratisbon, and there before the king and assembled princes and many of his own chieftains, "barefooted, more humiliated now than formerly he had been