Note 6 — Chapter IV · POLAND AND BOHEMIA.

It cannot be too strongly impressed on the British reader who has not made a study of mediæval politics on the Continent, that this acknowledgment of the rule of certain royal Houses was voluntary, and not at all brought about by conquest. If these elected rulers chose to abuse their privileges, the nations who had chosen them reserved to themselves the right to protest and even repudiate their authority (cf. the Swiss Rebellion against Austria [William Tell] and the Rise of the Dutch Republic).—Translator’s Note, F.S.C.