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 the executive and judicial powers in the country. But the provisions of this law were not carried out; for the cities were so indignant that they prepared for war. Finally the cities found an able champion in Prince Bartholomew of Minsterberg, nephew of George Poděbrad. He succeeded in convincing the king that a great wrong was done to the cities, and also showed him how the crown itself was deprived of much revenue by the continual disturbances in the country. From this time on, the condition of the cities began to improve.

King Vladislav died in 1516, being sixty years old. He was succeeded by his son Louis, then only ten years of age.

In the continual struggle between the cities and the nobility, almost no mention is made of the country people or peasantry, and yet they constituted by far the greater part of the population. The fact is, that at this time they were reduced to such a miserable state of servitude that their rights were not deemed worthy of consideration, and they themselves were helpless to assert them.

Except during the short period of the Hussite wars, the common people were usually entirely ignored. Everything of interest in the history of the country circles around the royal family and the nobility, and later about the inhabitants of the cities; and yet, in the earlier period of the nation’s history, the common people were free, and in theory stood before the law on an equality with the higher classes. During the reign of Vladislav, servitude was fully established; but just when and how this came about, it is not easy