[2][3] His ancestors had been members of the community of the Bohemian Brethren, and had clandestinely maintained their Protestant belief throughout the period of religious persecution, eventually giving their adherence to the Augsburg confession as approximate to their original faith.

Here he found a warm friend in Josef Dobrovský, whose good relations with the Austrian authorities shielded him from the hostility shown by the government to students of Slav subjects.

Palacký had received a modest appointment as archivist to Count Sternberg and in 1829 the Bohemian estates sought to confer on him the title of historiographer of Bohemia, with a small salary, but it was ten years before the consent of the Viennese authorities was obtained.

[4] Meanwhile, the estates, with the tardy assent of Vienna, had undertaken to pay the expenses of publishing Palacký's capital work, Dějiny národu českého v Čechách a v Moravě (History of the Czech Nation in Bohemia and Moravia).

This book, which covers the period up to 1526 and the extinction of Czech independence (Palacký admitted that in writing about the national history since 1526, he "would have to lie"), was founded on laborious research in the local archives of Bohemia and in the libraries of the chief cities of Europe, and remains the standard authority.

[4] Palacký, though entirely national and Protestant in his sympathies, was careful to avoid an uncritical approbation of the Reformers' methods, but his statements were held by the authorities to be dangerous to the Catholic faith.

Konstantin von Höfler, a German professor of history at Prague, edited the historical authorities for the period in a similar sense in his Geschichte der hussitischen Bewegung in Bohmen.

His views met with small support from the assembly, and with the exception of a short period after the decree of September 1871, by which the emperor raised hopes for Bohemian self-government, he ceased to appear in the senate from 1861 onwards.