principal councillor of the young king. His influence for a time seems to have been unlimited; and the towns of Landskron and Policka, and the castle of Landsberg, are mentioned as only a few of the many estates that Venceslas granted to him.
Zavis was undoubtedly a great statesman. His policy provided a link between the reigns of Ottokar II and Venceslas II. He constantly reminded the young king of the greatness of Bohemia during the reign of Ottokar.[1] He thus naturally incurred the displeasure of Rudolph, and Habsburg intrigues were undoubtedly the cause of his fall. To secure a foreign alliance Zavis obtained the consent of King Ladislas of Hungary to his marriage with the king's sister Jutta, and after his marriage retired to one of his castles. It is probable that he knew that the Habsburg party at the Bohemian court had already influenced the young king against him; still Zavis, on the birth of a son, requested Venceslas to be present as godfather at the christening; and the king, thinking he had now found an opportunity of ridding himself of his over-powerful vassal, accepted the invitation on condition that Zavis should first come to Prague and escort his sovereign to the castle where the baptism was to take place. On arriving at Prague, Zavis was immediately confined in a dungeon; he was accused of having illegally appropriated lands belonging to the Crown, and all his estates were confiscated. The powerful relations of Zavis, supported by other Bohemian nobles, took his part against the king, to whom they refused to give up his castles, which they had occupied with armed forces. Venceslas, it is said, on the advice of the German King Rudolph, resorted to a cruel device for the purpose of subduing their resistance. He obliged his step-father to accompany, as a prisoner, the force with which he besieged the castles held by the rebels, and forced them to capitulate by the menace of immediately putting Zavis to death. The menace was successful in several cases; but when the king's forces arrived before the castle Hluboka,[2] which was held for Zavis by his brother Vitek, the latter, not believing the king capable of the cruel act which he threatened to do, refused to capitulate. Zavis was thereupon decapitated in a meadow just outside of the castle walls in view of his brother.
