He returned at the death of Soběslav in 1140 and, with the help of his brother-in-law, the king of Germany, Conrad III, he was elected Duke of Bohemia by the Bohemian nobility.

At Soběslav's request, Emperor Lothair II recognised the rights of his son at the Diet of Bamberg in May 1138.

The territorial dukes then defeated Vladislav through treason at Vysoká on 22 April 1142, but their siege of Prague failed.

Vladislav kept his throne with the assistance of Conrad III of Germany, whose half-sister Gertrude of Babenberg he married.

After the election of Frederick Barbarossa to succeed Conrad in 1152, Vladislav was summoned to attend a diet at Merseburg in May 1152.

Upon the latter's return to Bohemia, the aristocracy strongly opposed both his commitment to campaigning in Italy and his unilateral amendment to the Bohemian constitution.

During the Italian expeditions of 1161, 1162, and 1167, Vladislav entrusted the command of the Czech contingent to his brother Duke Děpold I of Jamnitz and his son Frederick.

He married his second son, Sviatopluk, to a Hungarian princess and had diplomatic contact with Emperor Manuel I Comnenus of Byzantium.

Eager to impose his son Frederick on the throne of the still-elective duchy of Bohemia, he abdicated in 1173 without either the consensus of the Bohemian noblemen or the emperor's permission.