out his tyrannical purposes, began a series of plundering expeditions
on their own account. The unfortunate peasants fled from their fields
and took refuge in the woods, leaving the lands wholly uncultivated.
Even worse calamities fell on the towns. The large-minded policy of
the two Ottakars and of Wenceslaus I. now proved a source of evil
and division. They had tried to induce Germans and Bohemians to live
together in towns, established under German municipal laws, and
often peopled in the first instance by German immigrants. But these
enlightened kings had not been able thereby to stifle race-hatred and
jealousy; and the German settlers now looked upon the wild soldiers
of Otto as their allies against the native Bohemian citizens. They
invited the leaders of the plundering parties into the towns, and with
their help expelled the Bohemians. Prague was the only city strong
enough to resist this Germanising process; and Tobias, the Bishop
of Prague, tried to rally the faithful nobles of the kingdom round
Kunigunda. This effort was a desperate one; and, even when Otto left
Bohemia for a time, his viceroy, the Bishop of Brandenburg, carried his
ruthless policy still further, plundering the clergy and treating the
remonstrances of Bishop Tobias with scorn and insolence.
At last the Bohemians were forced to call in their former conqueror
to deliver them from this cruel tyranny; and Otto soon succumbed to
the Imperial forces. He consented to summon an Assembly at Prague, at
which he appointed Bishop Tobias as chief ruler of the kingdom; and he
further issued a decree that those Germans who had entered Bohemia for
the purposes of plunder should leave the country within three days.
He again promised to release young Wenceslaus, and again broke his
promise. The German robbers, awed doubtless by the power of Rudolf,
hastened to obey the orders of their master. But the evil seed which
they had sown did not cease to produce its natural fruits.
It must be remembered that for three years the lands had been left
uncultivated; and trade, except where carried on by Germans, had been
totally paralysed. The consequence of these misfortunes was a terrible
famine. Unemployed workmen and starving peasants crowded into Prague
and enforced by violence their demands for food and clothing. Driven
out by the authorities of the city, they perished of cold in the woods;
large holes were filled with the dead bodies; family affection ceased
in the bitter struggle for life; and, when all kinds of strange food
had been tried and exhausted, mothers killed and ate their own children.
At last, in 1283, a better harvest began to restore some hope for a
return to human conditions of life. Then wild rumours and speculations
fed the rising expectation. A beautiful rainbow was the source of
bright prophecies; and a half belief began to arise in some minds that
King Ottakar was not really dead, and would return in triumph. Suddenly
a definite announcement took the place of dreams and fancies. Not
Ottakar, but his son Wenceslaus, was to return to reign in Bohemia.
Base and sordid to the last, Otto had demanded from the half-starved
Bohemians a ransom of 35,000 marks, as compensation for what he called
his care and expense in guarding the young Bohemian king, in reality
as a bribe not to break any more promises. But the sum was paid, and no
doubt willingly.
There is something inexpressibly touching in the enthusiasm which
greeted the return of the twelve-year-old king. Men, hardly recovered
from years of starvation and plague, seemed at once convinced that at
last a better time was coming; and on June 9, 1283, barons, knights,
clergy, citizens, and peasants flocked out to meet the young king,
Bishop Tobias leading the motley throng, and all singing the hymn
of St. Adalbert, the opening words of which had served Ottakar as a
war-cry at the fatal battle of the Marchfeld.
But the troubles of Bohemia were not yet at an end. The boy followed
his most natural instinct in appealing to his mother to join him
in Prague. Unfortunately, Kunigunda had in the meantime formed a
connection which proved most dangerous to the peace and order of the
country. Zavis̆ of Falkenstein belonged to a noble family of Moravia,
and he had succeeded in securing the queen’s affection during her
residence in Opava. Whether the marriage, which was recognised at a
later time, had already taken place, or whether, as some said, their
connection was one of illicit love, certain it is that it was the
affection between them, rather than the form of its expression, which
excited the indignation and jealousy of the Bohemian nobles; and Zavis̆
soon justified that indignation.
No sooner did he appear at the Court of Prague than he set himself to
oppose and drive away such patriots as Bishop Tobias, and to put his
own favourites in their place. An insurrection quickly followed; and
though Rudolf exerted himself to pacify the insurgents, he soon showed
in an unmistakable manner his own distrust of the new ruler of Bohemia.
In January, 1285, Wenceslaus, now arrived at his fourteenth year, was
married to Guta, the daughter of Rudolf. Zavis̆ was so conscious of
Rudolf’s distrust, that he did not venture to enter the town where the
marriage was solemnised. This absence, however, did not satisfy the
Emperor; and he took the extreme step of carrying back Guta with him,
after her marriage, to preserve her from the influences which prevailed
at Prague. Either encouraged by these signs of Rudolf’s feelings, or
irritated by some new insolence on the part of Zavis̆, the Bohemian
nobles raised a second insurrection; but they were again unsuccessful,
and it was not till the death of Kunigunda, in 1287, that Wenceslaus
succeeded in shaking off the power of his stepfather.
An excellent excuse for this final effort for freedom was supplied by
Rudolf, who declared that he would not restore Guta to her husband
until Zavis̆ was banished from the court. Wenceslaus was, no doubt,
glad enough to get back his wife in exchange for his stepfather; and,
when Zavis̆ intrigued with the King of Hungary and tried to entrap
Wenceslaus, the young king decoyed him back to Prague and there
imprisoned him. The friends of Zavis̆, both in Hungary and Bohemia,
attempted his rescue; but Rudolf again intervened; and after the
Hungarian invasion had been repelled, Wenceslaus was at last persuaded
by his Imperial father-in-law to put Zavis̆ to death.
The young king now devoted himself to the restoration of order. He
broke down castles, encouraged trade, extended the liberties of the
cities, and gained a high reputation for justice. He even attempted to
substitute for the vague mass of traditional custom a regular code of
written laws; but in this attempt he was defeated by the nobles, who
often showed themselves too strong for him.
The fatality which seemed to attend the best and most law-loving kings
of Bohemia dragged Wenceslaus also into the complications of Imperial
and Polish politics. In 1291 Rudolf died; and it soon became evident
how bitter was the hostility which the Hapsburg family had excited
among the princes of Germany.
Albert, the son of Rudolf, had indeed made good his power in the
dukedoms of Austria and Styria, but he had shown little sign of his
father’s vigour or ability; and the suspicion felt by the Bohemians
towards the whole house of Hapsburg was increased, in the case of
Albert, by the personal quarrels which had embittered his relations
with his brother-in-law, Wenceslaus. Rudolf, indeed, had made great
efforts to preserve the peace; but, as soon as he was dead, the quarrel
again broke out, and Wenceslaus joined with other Electors of the
Empire to choose Adolf of Nassau as Emperor, in opposition to Albert.
His success in securing this election left the King of Bohemia free
to carry on the struggle with Poland. He recovered the often-disputed
town of Cracow, and resumed that claim to the kingdom of Poland
which, in some form or other, had been traditional in Bohemia since
the time of King Vladislav. Adolf would gladly have strengthened the
allegiance of Wenceslaus by this or any other concession; but Albert
had an advantage which eventually enabled him to outbid his rival.
He still retained in his hands the towns of Eger (Cheb) and Pilsen
(Plz̆en), which his father had never surrendered to Bohemia. These
towns, from their nearness to the Bavarian frontier, might be specially
dangerous to the Bohemians if held by an enemy of their country; and
their restoration to Wenceslaus meant the practical revival of Bohemian
independence. This bribe therefore proved too strong for Wenceslaus’s
faith; he withdrew his support from Adolf, and helped to place Albert
on the throne of the Empire. In the following year the King of Poland
finally surrendered his crown to Wenceslaus; and in 1300 Albert gave
his Imperial sanction to the union of Poland with Bohemia.
There was yet another kingdom whose internal affairs had always a
dangerous attraction for the kings of Bohemia. In 1301 the direct line
of the old kings of Hungary came to an end; and a Hungarian bishop,
backed by some of the nobles, offered the crown to Wenceslaus. The
young king, though refusing the offer on his own account, was disposed
to accept it on behalf of his son; but this acceptance brought upon him
the hostility of the two greatest Powers of Europe. The Pope complained
that the election was uncanonical; because the bishop who had taken
the leading part in it was not authorised to crown the kings of
Hungary. The Emperor Albert, on his side, had already become suspicious
of the growing power of Bohemia; and, according to one chronicler, his
avarice had been excited by the fame of the silver mines at Kuttenberg
(Kutna Hora). Wenceslaus, indeed, though ready enough to hold his own
against the Emperor, was as anxious as his father had been to remain on
good terms with the Pope. He acknowledged the irregularity in the form
of his son’s election; and, at the same time, he entreated the Pope to
secure him the crown in a canonical manner. But it soon appeared that
Boniface’s complaint about the form of election was a mere pretext, and
that the Pope was really intending to grant the crown of Hungary to the
King of Naples. To this arrangement Wenceslaus would not consent; and
hence it came that in 1304 he was compelled to defend Bohemia against
the forces of the Empire, supported by the authority of the Pope. This
time, however, there was no division in the national feeling. However
unwelcome some of Wenceslaus’s schemes might be to the Bohemian nobles,
they had too recently learnt, by bitter experience, the folly of
deserting a national king for a foreign invader. The Bohemians offered
a unanimous resistance to the Imperial army, and Albert was forced to
retreat.
But the doom of the male line of the House of Pr̆emysl was, none the
less, hopelessly fixed. Wenceslaus died in the following year; and
his son, after resigning his claim to the kingdom of Hungary, gave
himself up to dissipation and profligacy. The Poles began to revolt;
and during an expedition to Cracow the last of the male line of the
Pr̆emyslovci was murdered by a traitor.
[Illustration: CATHEDRAL OF OLMÜTZ On SITE OF CASTLE WHERE WENCESLAUS
III. WAS MURDERED.]
It seemed for the moment as if the turn of the House of Hapsburg had
once more come. During the bitter divisions in the Bohemian Assembly
which followed the death of their king, Albert succeeded in thrusting
his son Rudolf on the attention of the Electors; and the majority of
those who were present consented to elect this prince to the Bohemian
throne, and even to declare their crown hereditary in the House of
Hapsburg. But this success was only momentary, for a fierce hatred of
the Hapsburgs was deeply rooted in the Bohemians; and, by a curious
irony of fortune, the opponents of Rudolf called to their aid the
son of that Duke of Carinthia who had won his Dukedom by supporting
Rudolf’s grandfather against Ottakar II. Rudolf died after a few
months; and the majority of the next Assembly chose Henry of Carinthia
as their king.
But Albert would not yet yield; and he set up his son Frederick as
Rudolf’s successor. The fight was a fierce one; and it was soon
changed from the attempt of an Emperor to conquer a new kingdom into a
struggle of the House of Hapsburg to maintain its political existence.
The opposition to that House was due, not only to the bitter Bohemian
feeling against the German oppressor, nor yet to the jealousy felt by
the great Princes of the Empire towards successful upstarts, but also
to the hatred of those townsmen and peasants who had looked to Rudolf
as their protector, and who found in his descendants their most deadly
enemies.
In May, 1308, the Emperor Albert was murdered by his nephew; and, as
the murderer was the son of Ottakar’s daughter, he was looked upon by
the Bohemians as the avenger of his grandfather. The Electors of the
Empire were now resolved that no further chance should be given to the
House of Hapsburg; and Henry of Luxemburg was elected to the Imperial
throne. The fate of Bohemia once more followed that of the Empire;
for the new Emperor quickly saw his opportunity in the unpopularity
of both the claimants of the Bohemian crown. He secured the hand of
Elizabeth, the daughter of Wenceslaus, for his son John, and thus paved
the way for the latter’s succession to the Bohemian throne. Hence it
came about that in 1310 the Estates of Prague enthusiastically welcomed
John of Luxemburg as their king.
It even seemed, for the moment, as if this election would be the signal
for a yet more complete victory of the House of Luxemburg over that
of Hapsburg; for, at the very same time, the Austrians suddenly rose
against their Dukes, and expelled them from all but three towns of the
Duchy. But the Emperor Henry refused to encourage this insurrection;
and the Hapsburgs continued to maintain their position as Dukes of
Austria.
Few kings have ever succeeded to the rule of a foreign country
with a better hope of popularity than did John of Luxemburg. The
terrible years of anarchy had made the Bohemians desirous of a strong
government, and ready to welcome any one who seemed to have force and
vigour enough to restore order. As the rival of the hated House of
Hapsburg, and the deliverer from the incapable Henry of Carinthia, the
new king was specially acceptable; while his marriage with the daughter
of Wenceslaus might have almost cheated the enthusiastic Bohemians
into the belief that they were once more to be governed by a national
sovereign. John, too, seemed willing enough to meet these aspirations
more than half way. He not only recognised that claim, which had been
formerly asserted against Vladislav, that Bohemians should not be
called to fight outside their kingdom; but he declared that no official
should be appointed in Bohemia or Moravia who was not a native of those
countries; and, more startling still, that none but natives should be
suffered to buy lands, inheritances, fortresses, or any other rights
within the country.
But it soon became evident that, if these promises were to be kept to
the ear, they were certain to be broken to the sense. The earliest
cause of offence, was, no doubt, one which might be excused to a boy of
fourteen. By the advice of his father, John accepted the Archbishop of
Mainz as his chief counsellor, and gradually drew around him a number
of German courtiers. It appears, indeed, from trustworthy evidence,
that this German Churchman preserved better order in Bohemia than that
which prevailed in the latter part of John’s reign; yet his position
was, notwithstanding, a most difficult one, and several circumstances
combined to make it impossible.
The national feeling of independence, which had been roused to new
life by the promises of John, was unfortunately manipulated at this
period by one of those unscrupulous intriguers who sometimes drift to
the front in times of disorder. His name was Henry of Lipa; and he had
already played a part in the reign of Henry of Carinthia, in exciting
the nobles of Bohemia against the rulers of the towns.
Ever since the time of Ottakar II. the claim of the towns to a share
in the government of Bohemia was being more strongly asserted; and a
controversy which, under their native rulers, might have been settled
by peaceful means, had led, in a time of foreign tyranny, to an
outbreak of civil war. In the first phase of the struggle, the towns
had so far made good their claim that they were admitted to share in
the discussions of the Assembly which offered the crown to John; and
such a victory must have tended to prejudice men like Henry of Lipa
against the new king.
Nor was it difficult to give a national colouring to the class
selfishness of the nobles. It will be remembered that Ottakar II. had
introduced a large German element into the towns which he had founded.
This measure of wise policy had been changed into a means of cruel
oppression by Otto of Brandenburg; and, unfortunately for the cause
of the towns, Otto had been, apparently, the first ruler who summoned
their representatives to share in the deliberations of the Estates of
the Realm.
Moreover, Henry of Lipa added to his class prejudices a more personal
reason for opposing the existing government. He was attached to the
widow of the late King Rudolf, who was known to her supporters as the
Queen of Grätz; and he was resolved to make good both her claims and
his own at the expense of the peace and order of the country.
To the unscrupulous intriguers who were plotting against their power,
John and the Archbishop of Mainz were unfortunately soon to supply
some just causes of complaint. The death of the Emperor Henry seemed
to open to John a chance for claiming the Imperial throne; and, when
he found that his youth was held to disqualify him for that dignity,
he threw all his influence on to the side of Louis of Bavaria, as he
was resolved that no Hapsburg, at any rate, should again become Holy
Roman Emperor. This contest withdrew both him and the Archbishop from
Bohemia; and the German Councillors who were left to support the queen
were little able to stand against Henry of Lipa. John soon found that
his championship of the Bavarian cause was likely to involve him in a
dangerous war; and, fearing to leave a disturbed Bohemia behind him, he
hastened to satisfy his opponents by dismissing his German advisers and
taking Henry of Lipa into his counsels.
A new Hungarian war which broke out at this time enabled Henry to
increase his power, and he used it for inflicting new oppressions on
the Bohemian towns. But a bolder act of presumption at last exhausted
the patience of the Court. Henry ventured, without consulting king or
queen, to grant Agnes, the queen’s sister, in marriage to a Duke of
Silesia. This insolence at last roused John to action, and Lipa was
arrested. Before any further steps could be taken, John was once more
called to the German war; and he again left the Archbishop of Mainz
as his viceroy. Henry of Lipa once more appealed to Bohemian feeling
against the German prelate; and, though many of the better men among
the Bohemian nobility were now disposed to stand by their queen, they
were not strong enough to hold their own against these intrigues. John
was now earnestly entreated to return to Bohemia; but, when he hastened
back, at the head of his Rhenish forces, his Bohemian advisers urged
him to leave the Germans behind, and to throw himself on the support of
his faithful nobles. John rejected this advice; he re-entered Bohemia
at the head of his German troops, and proceeded to attack the lands of
those nobles who had resisted him.
A general panic now seized the Bohemians; they recalled to their minds
the tyranny of Otto of Brandenburg; and the rumour quickly spread
that John was about to use German soldiers to crush out Bohemian
independence. What had been the intrigue of a mere selfish faction, now
swelled into a national opposition; and the war raged fiercely. Henry
of Lipa, indeed, remained the ostensible leader of the insurgents; but
he had so little sympathy with real national feeling, that he called
in Frederick of Austria as his ally; and, when John offered terms to
the rebels, Henry refused them, on the ground that any treaty of peace
must also include the Austrians. At last the Emperor Louis intervened
in the struggle. John was persuaded to send away his Rhenish troops, to
renew his promise to appoint only Bohemian advisers, and once more to
give high office in the State to Henry of Lipa. To these terms the king
consented; but Queen Elizabeth, with keener insight, refused altogether
to trust this new Councillor; and Henry thereupon devoted his whole
energies to making mischief between the king and queen.
The intriguers had now discovered what manner of man they had to deal
with. Vain, profligate, and pleasure-seeking, John was easily persuaded
by the young nobles that his wife had gained too much power over him;
and, when they had once sown in his mind this suspicion, they were able
to develop an elaborate romance of imaginary plots, by which the queen
was supposed to be undermining the throne of John, and securing the
power to herself and her son. John’s selfish vanity soon drove him into
violent action. He hastened to the fortress where the queen was then
staying, and used such violent language that she fled in terror from
the place. Then he removed from her her favourite attendants, carried
off her children, and shut up his eldest son for two months in a dark
room.
The indignation which this conduct caused among the citizens of Bohemia
was much increased by the various forms of extortion which John now
proceeded to inflict both on towns and monasteries--extortions devised
solely to obtain money for the pleasures of the King and his courtiers.
John, indeed, had been as ready as any other King of Bohemia to promise
the citizens exemption from certain forms of taxation; and consequently
they now complained, not only of oppression, but also of broken faith.
Nor was it merely in the matter of taxes that the privileges of the
citizens were violated. In earlier times the nobles had claimed the
right of demanding forcible quartering in the houses of citizens for
those who were engaged on expeditions in the king’s service. This claim
naturally led to great abuses, against which Ottakar and Wenceslaus had
tried to protect their subjects. In this matter also John had promised
to carry out the policy of his predecessors. But he now encouraged even
his own kinsmen to demand this compulsory entertainment. One citizen
was seized and crucified because he would not give up his money to
these intruders; others were plundered and unjustly imprisoned.
At last the citizens of Prague drew up a formal complaint, which they
authorised six of their number to present to John. Some mischief-maker
persuaded the king that this protest was a first step to insurrection;
and his suspicions were further inflamed by the news that the queen
had recently come to Prague, and had been received with great honour.
Furious at this supposed conspiracy, the king and Henry of Lipa at once
marched against Prague. The citizens, astonished at the interpretation
which had been put upon their remonstrance, were at first disposed to
admit the king, in the hopes of an easy explanation; but some of the
nobles, who had remained faithful to the queen, were opposed to this
policy; and they offered such determined resistance, that John was
compelled to retreat from the city. A sort of truce was patched up for
a time, though John insisted that the six citizens who had drawn up the
remonstrance should be expelled from the city. Then he hurried away
to finish the war between Louis and Frederick; and Henry of Lipa was
left chief ruler of the kingdom. He soon succeeded in bringing to an
end the temporary reconciliation between John and Elizabeth; and the
queen was forced to fly to Bavaria, where she remained for some time,
in dependence on her Bavarian relations, since John would not allow any
support to be sent to her from Bohemia.