The ruin of the Moravian dukedom speedily followed. According to one tradition, Wiching, Svatopluk’s German bishop, was used by Arnulf to stir up division between the sons of Svatopluk. If so, he must undoubtedly have used his influence in favour of the younger Svatopluk, and against Mojmir, the champion of the Slavonic ritual. But, whatever the cause of division, the fact of the civil war is undoubted; and all the enemies of the country took advantage of it. In 896 the Hungarians again invaded Moravia, and this time with much greater success. The struggle was, however, continued for a few years longer, during which the Emperor endeavoured to assist Mojmir; but at last, in 907, Mojmir was killed in battle, and the old dukedom of Moravia was completely destroyed.
Although the overthrow of this powerful State broke down, for a time, a barrier between the savage invaders and the settled governments of Europe, it seems, strangely enough, to have produced less immediate evil to Bohemia than to the German principalities. It is, however, easy to understand that the protection and championship of a neighbouring State by such a ruler as Svatopluk may have had its disadvantages, both in checking the independence of the country protected, and in involving it in wars in which it had little interest. Indeed, it appears as if Bor̆ivoj and his immediate successors were too much concerned with the internal struggles of their country, to take much immediate interest in the apparently larger issues which were being settled in the neighbouring States. The Bohemian struggles were mainly concerned with the rivalry between heathens and Christians. The zeal of Bor̆ivoj for the new faith soon irritated a large number of his subjects against him; and, being unwilling to maintain his authority by force of arms, he abdicated in favour of his son Spitihnĕv. In the latter we seem to catch a glimpse of a premature champion of toleration, who, while desiring to encourage the progress of Christianity, resented the excessive influence of the Christian priests, and declared that he was equally the king of his heathen and Christian subjects alike. This, however, was a position that it was obviously impossible to maintain at such a transitional period; and, after Spitihnĕv’s death, Bor̆ivoj, being recalled to the throne, resolved that the propagation of his creed should not again suffer by the laxity of his family. He therefore put his second son, Vratislav, under the special care of Methodius; and, after Bor̆ivoj and Methodius were both dead, Vratislav’s mother, Ludmila, continued to influence him in favour of the new faith. But the power of Ludmila was counteracted, especially among the nobles, by her daughter-in-law Drahomíra, who became the centre of the heathen opposition to Ludmila and the clergy; and she trained her son Boleslav to follow in her footsteps. Vratislav’s other son, Václav (or, as we call him, Wenceslaus), was protected from Drahomíra’s influence by his grandmother Ludmila; and thus the two brothers became the champions, the one of the Christian, and the other of the heathen party, in the State. The Duke was so little conscious of the mischief that was brewing that, after building the town of Bolislava in honour of his younger son, he celebrated the occasion by building a church in that town in honour of Cyril and Methodius; and he apparently sanctioned that division of his territory between his sons which was carried out after his death. No sooner, however, was Vratislav dead, than Drahomíra commanded the Christians to close their churches; and this order was speedily followed by a massacre; nor was Wenceslaus able to save even his grandmother Ludmila from the vengeance of his mother. Indeed, this favourite saint of the Bohemians seems to have had so little vigour, as a ruler, that he could not protect even the clergy, whom he most desired to favour, from the intimidation of Boleslav and Drahomíra. Thus, for instance, when he invited the Bishop of Regensburg to consecrate a new church at Prague, the bishop was so terrified by the threats of his enemies that he dared not come. It would, indeed, be unjust to deny that the position of a Christian Duke in the midst of this sudden revival of heathenism was a most difficult and dangerous one; nor is there the smallest ground to suspect Wenceslaus of personal cowardice. On the contrary, he is represented on two occasions as offering personal combat to an invading prince, in order to save his country from the evils of war; and no doubt, according to his lights, he was very willing to sacrifice himself for the good of Bohemia.