Přemek I, Duke of Opava

Lacek of Kravaře died in 1416, before the revolution could attest his commitment to the Hussite ideas. He had no male heirs, and Helfštýn passed to his relative, Peter of Kravaře and Strážnice, whom the anti-Hussite pamphlet also accused of being a strong supporter of the Hussites.

As was the case with Lacek, denigration of Peter was well-founded because the Hussite ideology spread heavily in Peter’s domains in Strážnice and Uherský Ostroh, in all likelihood with direct and indirect support of the overlords. At the beginning of the Hussite movement, Peter of Kravaře and Strážnice sided with the movement, refusing to acknowledge King Sigismund’s rule together with the Czech Hussite nobility. In 1421, Sigismund ordered his army led by Pippo Spano to pillage Peter’s domains in eastern Moravia, and Peter surrendered to the king. The capitulation was mediated by Přemek I, Duke of Opava. The conditions under which Peter of Kravaře and Strážnice could return among Moravian nobility loyal to Sigismund were brutal, and Peter had to pledge Helfštýn Castle to Přemek of Opava as a guaranty of fulfilling the conditions.

This impressive fortress had not been fought for yet, as if its impregnability had repelled all potential enemies; but there was no doubt about its strategic importance. At the hands of Přemek of Opava, Helfštýn became doubly important as a castle protecting the route to Silesia, and that is probably why it was not returned to Peter of Kravaře and Strážnice, even if his reconciliation with King Sigismund seemed finished and crowned in 1422 with appointment of Peter of Kravaře as land governor of Moravia. After falling away from Sigismund once again in 1425 and returning to the Hussite side, Peter of Kravaře surely could not count on regaining Helfštýn. The castle was not fought for in the revolutionary years to come and little is known about its fate at the time. From 1434, the castle was the seat of John of Menspeck – in his case, we can only hypothesise that he took hold of Helfštýn as a distant relative of the House of Kravaře. However, the actual ownership rights of the House of Kravaře remained valid, and so Helfštýn was returned to them through a landfried contract concluded in 1440 in Valašské Meziříčí. Peter of Kravaře and Strážnice died in 1434, and the last member of the House of Kravaře residing at Helfštýn was his son George of Kravaře. He sold Helfštýn Castle with the town of Lipník, 27 villages, and 4 parts of other villages to Vok of Sovinec in 1447.