464 BOHEMIA AND MORAVIA. 



that of Moravia differs very little from it ; but German is very com- 

 monly spoken in both countries. 



History... .The Boii, from whom, as mentioned above, the country 

 derived its name, were driven out by the Marcomanni. Bohemia be- 

 came afterwards a province of the Osttogoths, Lombards, Thurin- 

 gians, and Franks, till in 534 it was overrun by the Slavi. Char- 

 lemagne, and some of his successors, made these new inhabitants 

 tributary ;- but they soon regained their independence, though they 

 still preserved a certain connexion with the German empire. The 

 Bohemian nobility however elected their own princes, though the 

 emperors of Germany sometimes imposed a king upon them, and at 

 length usurped that throne themselves. In the year 1438, Albert II, 

 of Austria received three crowns : Hungary, the Empire, and Bohe- 

 mia. 



In 1414, John Huss, and Jerome of Prague, two of the first refor- 

 mers, and Bohemians, were burnt at the council of Constance, though 

 the emperor of Germany had given them his protection. This occa- 

 sioned an insurrection in Bohemia : the people of Prague threw the 

 emperor's officers out of the windows of the council chamber ; and 

 the famous Zisca, assembling an army of 40,000 Bohemians, defeated 

 the emperor's forces in several engagements, and drove the imperia- 

 lists out of the kingdom. The divisions of the Hussites among them- 

 selves enabled the emperor to regain and keep possession of Bohe- 

 mia, though an attempt was made to throw off the imperial yoke, by 

 electing, in the year 1618, a protestant king in the person of the 

 prince palatine, son-in-law to James I, of England. The misfortunes 

 of this prince are well known. He was driven from Bohemia by the 

 emperor's generals, and, being stripped of his other dominions, was 

 forced to depend on the court of England for a subsistence. Since 

 the war of thirty years, which desolated the whole empire, the Bohe- 

 mians have remained subject to the house of Austria. 



Moravia was anciently inhabited by the Quadi, who were driven 

 out by the Siavi. From the beginning of the eighth to the end of the 

 ninth century, it was a powerful independent kingdom ; in the eleventh 

 it v/as subdued by the German emperors ; and in the f^velfth made a 

 margravate ; ip the fifteenth century it came into the possession of the 

 house of Austria, to which it has ever since remained subject. 



