Page:Guide to the Bohemian section and to the Kingdom of Bohemia - 1906.djvu/83

63 tented with the spiritual teaching and authority in their own country.

All these years of „religious“ warfare (1420—1434) were a serious check to an advancement of the cities drawing every mind away from the cultivation of science and art; on the other hand, in consequence of some new ideas regarding divine worship and the liturgy many artistic monuments were destroyed principally in the churches, monasteries and the seats of the nobility, which clung to Rome. So the royal castle of Vyšehrad, then garrisoned by the hated emperor Sigismund, was destroyed, became in a short time a mass of ruins and ceased for ever to be the residence of the king; the Malá Strana had a similar fate but even what the catholic royal party possessed in castles and churches was lost, as Sigismund had to spend for his wars whatever he found of gold, silver and other precious articles. Prague gained in consequence of the victories of the Calixtines the highest political power in the kingdom, and was the centre where all decisions of important affairs originated, but many years elapsed before the city and the land could recover from the disastrous effects of the war and the uncertainty of the political situation. It was reserved to George of Poděbrad elected in the townhall of the Old town of Prague to the royal crown (1457), to restore order in the kingdom, to finish some buildings, as the Týn church, the town hall of the New Town, the bridge towers on the left bank, and to raise the prosperity and wealth of Prague and the land, which continued also under his successor, Wladislaus II. son of Casimir King of Poland, elected in Kutná Hora 1471. His reign is marked by some prominent edifices in Prague as, the Prašná brána (Powder gate), the south front of the Old Townhall and the magnificent hall in the royal castle on the Hradčany, bearing to our time the name of its founder. It is also to be mentioned that under Wladislaus the first waterworks were constructed in Prague.

After the death of Wladislaus’ son Louis in the battle near Mohacs the representatives of Bohemia elected Ferdinand, archduke of Austria, brother of the emperor Charles V., in the chapel of St. Wenceslaus in the cathedral (1526) as king of Bohemia, and since that time the crown