Page:Zawis and Kunigunde (1895).djvu/292

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288
INNOCENCE OF ZAWIS PROVED

“My own share in these events, merely clerical, is also corroborated, and the official entries sustained by further evidence at hand.

“Your highness perceives the widely different usage these too portions of the same document have under gone; one clean, fresh, and uncreased; the other soiled, bruised, and worn. One has lain almost untouched, the other has been concealed, either for protection, or misuse. Place them together, and the rough edges correspond even to the minutest thread. Your illustrious father’s signature is perfect and the name and probity of his excellent queen, Kunigunde, have been vindicated by the most official proofs.

“Permit me to add that these documents all attest a deep and foul conspiracy to remove, by cruel and crafty violence, the one man whose honor and fidelity have hereby received absolute demonstration. Those fifty thousand marks did appertain by right to the personal estate of the queen; and a gross wrong has been committed against a true subject as well as against the whole kingdom of Bohemia.”

Jaroslav also read to the king many entries of royal estates recovered, of crown property restored, of rents alienated, much of the sum not yet paid by the unlawful possessors, and one most serious item of large tracts of land forcibly seized by the community of the Thorn Crown, at the moment of the king’s fall.

Above all. Jaroslav read the official entry recording the birth of Wenzel and the corresponding annexncement entitling him sole heir to the throne of