Charles's first concern seems to have been for his people's spiritual welfare: from all accounts some attention to this side of the national life of Bohemia was sorely needed. The first and most obvious duty was to set about the restoration of the Royal Castle, the Hradšany, with its venerable cathedral. Both castle and cathedral were inadequate to the high mission of Prague as a royal and imperial residence. The castle had been repaired fitfully by one king or another as we have seen, and had been provided with strong towers chiefly used as dungeons, and had been allowed to fall into disrepair by the impecunious and extravagant John. The cathedral was probably in not much better case. We have seen glimpses of that sacred fane with its memories of royal saints and martyrs, how St. Wenceslaus built the first church on the site of the present one, as a casket to hold that precious relic the arm of St. Vitus, given him by Henry the Fowler. The words of the chronicler will give you some idea of this first church: "Ecclesiam Sancti Viti quam Sanctus Wenceslaus construxerat ad similitudinem Romanae ecclesiae rotundam." This building was yet unfinished when Wenceslaus was martyred. The body of the saint was conveyed from Stara Boleslav to St. Vitus for burial, and this was not allowed to pass without a miraculous manifestation. The old wooden bridge, connecting the right bank of the Vltava with the Mala Strana, had been partly destroyed by floods; nevertheless the bearers passed over the half-ruined bridge as if they had no burden to carry at all. This was very wonderful, and redounded greatly to the saint's growing reputation, which was enhanced a little farther along the route to be traversed. As the procession passed the town-hall prison its inmates, clutching the bars, cried out for mercy; the bearers were forced to halt, and found themselves quite unable to proceed until all the captives had been released. Now this was very beautiful, and it happened long ago.
Prince Spytihnev II, also a pious soul, considered the church built by Wenceslaus too small for his religious requirements; he had it demolished, and another one, also in the Romanesque style, erected in its place. The church that Spytihnev built was also destroyed to make way for the present edifice, which in its inception is due to Charles. It must have been about the time when Charles joined his father at Luxemburg, in 1344, that the former interviewed the master-builder Matthew of Arras, to discuss plans for the reconstruction of Prague's Cathedral Church. John and Charles, as we have seen, then went on together to visit the Pope at Avignon. It seems to have been on this occasion that Prague was raised to the dignity of an archbishopric, and Charles wished to build a temple worthy of the high dignity to which in matters spiritual, as temporal, his country had arisen; and so under the hand of skilled craftsmen, from out the ruins of earlier shrines, rose that crowning glory of Golden Prague, the Cathedral of St. Vitus. This great temple was many years a-building, and is not completed yet. Great men devoted their labours to this glorious fane: Peter Parler and his son John, Beneš of Loun and others were among the master-builders, while many artists, goldsmiths and other craftsmen famous in their day contributed to the decoration of "the Father's House." Great men lie buried under its shadowy arches, and their memory lives on in sculpture, in paintings and wonders of wrought iron. In a chapel dedicated to St. Wenceslaus rests that princely martyr; you may see his epitaph and the shirt of mail he wore. In the bronze gates of this chapel you are shown a ring to which the saint is said to have clung when his murderers hacked him down. The walls of the chapels are inlaid with the precious stones of Bohemia—jasper and achates, chalcedon, amethyst and carneol—and are adorned with frescoes illustrating incidents in the life of the saint, most of them dating from the reign of Charles; the scene of his martyrdom is from the brush of Lucas Cranach. The candelabra and statue of St. Wenceslaus are attributed to Peter Fischer. King Charles, the founder, father of his country, lies buried here with his four wives, so do other Kings of Bohemia, Ladislas Posthumus, George Podiebrad, Ferdinand I and Maximilian.
THE CATHEDRAL OF ST. VITUS
Looking out over my terrace to where the Cathedral of St. Vitus points its tapering spires towards high heaven, a misty pageant seems to pass beneath it. Following rapidly on the golden peace of Charles come the troublous days of religious strife, for with his son began the Hussite wars which left Bohemia desolate and a prey to the eagles of Habsburg. Angry flames rising up out the township below the Hradšany cast clouds of smoke over the cathedral what time the Hussites failed to capture the Royal Castle and in their zeal for reform set fire to various quarters of the Mala Strana. The Bishop's Palace, which stood near the left bank bridgehead, was utterly destroyed, the glorious Church of "St. Mary under the Chain," and with it the home of the Knights of Malta, suffered the same fate. Of St. Mary's Church there remain the chancel and two stout towers; I can see them from my embowered terrace, the blunt red roofs rising above a glorious riot of fruit blossom. The pageant moves on, giving a flash here and there of some one who stood up above his fellows like George Podiebrad, or the strong men who precipitated the Thirty Years' War. Then follows a fleeting vision of a stranger King, a German Protestant with his wife Elizabeth, daughter of "douce Jamie." A short reign this of Frederick Count Palatine, the "Winter King." We see him enter by the Strahov Gate to be crowned at St. Vitus on November 4, 1619. We may imagine the indignation of his people at Frederick's Calvinist divines who wished to remove the altar and paintings from the cathedral. We see Frederick a year later, again entering the city by the Strahov Gate, fleeing in hot haste from the stricken field of the White Mountain where Bohemia's freedom went under before the foreign mercenaries of the Emperor. Not for the first time either that the troops of Western Europe had marched on Prague to conquer it in the name of religion. Shortly after the burning of "St. Mary under the Chain" the Pope called upon Western Europe to undertake a crusade against the Hussites. A contemporary chronicler, Lawrence of Brežova, gives us a list of the nationalities represented in this host of crusaders raised by Sigismund, King of Bohemia, Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, and led by an English Cardinal. According to Lawrence there were Bavarians, Saxons, Austrians, Frenchmen, men of Brabant and Dutchmen, Switzers, Lusatians and Spaniards, a compact body of English, and soldiers of many other nationalities; their number is estimated at between one hundred thousand and one hundred and fifty thousand. Sigismund entered the Castle of Prague and his motley forces encamped around the town, but "the Empire's mismanaged feudal levy was no match for an infuriated people which stood shoulder to shoulder in the service of the same inspiring idea." I quote from Europe in the Middle Age, by Thatcher and Schwill. Moreover, the Hussites were led and inspired by one of the greatest military leaders of all ages, John Žiška. This is not the place to tell of the doings of those Hussite armies and their exploits, and how they kept all Europe at bay so that every Bohemian might feel secure in the faith that was in him. Right away in the hazy background of hills against which stand up the towers and spires of Prague you may see an incline sloping down towards the river and to northward. This incline is now all built over, and this quarter of the town is called Žiškov in memory of the great Hussite who held this hill against repeated attacks until he was in a position to go over to the offensive. Dissensions had broken out among the crusaders, the imperial armies melted away and left Sigismund to face his people alone. He came to some agreement with the leaders of the opposition and was even solemnly crowned at St. Vitus; but the battle on Žiška's hill marked the beginning of the Hussite wars.
With the defeat of the Bohemian army on the White Mountain ends the story of St. Vitus as the cathedral of a free country. The building was resumed after the Thirty Years' War came to an end, and other kings were crowned in the church that had known the glory of Charles IV and George Podiebrad; but those who came after were aliens to Bohemia, neither came they to that country intent only on its interests; a succession of Habsburgs passes by in pageant, to receive the crown of Bohemia as one among many distinctions to which their house was heir. Ferdinand III and Leopold I pass by, and Leopold's second son Charles VI second as King of Bohemia, last male representative of the House of Habsburg, who was succeeded by his daughter Maria Theresia. Troubles began again as in the days when the Přemysl dynasty died out, and the German Electors decided to choose a new Emperor. The choice fell on Charles of Bavaria, so old St. Vitus saw again a coronation pageant and one which much resembled that of Frederick the Winter King. Charles of Bavaria was crowned at Prague with all the usual pomp and ceremony; he then left Bohemia never to return. Officially this Charles' coronation seems to count for nothing in the history of Austria into which that of Bohemia was merged. Bohemia became for years a pawn in the stern game between Maria Theresia and Frederick of Prussia, and St. Vitus suffered damage from the latter's guns; the glory of Golden Prague had departed and the stately cathedral looked down for nearly three centuries on a city that had been put aside, out of the way of the world's commerce and its great affairs, to dream of the days when Charles IV was King and Bohemia the land of a free and prosperous people.
We were really still in the days of Charles IV when it occurred to me to sketch out a special pageant for the Cathedral Church of St. Vitus. Charles, as I have said before, was particularly interested in churches, was altogether a good, pious soul, and never missed an opportunity of bearing testimony to his faith by deeds as well as words. This does not mean that he submitted his judgment, even in things spiritual, entirely to the ruling of the Church; on the contrary, he found that there was more need of reform among the clergy of his land than of churches. He did not hesitate, either, to point out to the Pope what reforms were needed, and, moreover, took his part in improving matters, with his usual energy and thoroughness. Indeed, according to all accounts, the Bohemian clergy were sorely in need of the curb: they allowed their sporting proclivities to run to excess in such pastimes as warfare, tournaments, hunting and gambling, and the law of celibacy had fallen into complete disuse. I have already noted that the St. Anthony of one particular kind of temptation (I forget whether he was of Padua or elsewhere) was not as popular in Bohemia as were many other saints. After all, the clergy of Bohemia were probably no worse than that of other countries, and Rome was not of much use as a "godly ensample"; there is, for instance, that little story told by Richenthal in his chronicle about one of the Popes travelling across the Alps to some council or other. This pontiff, it appears, "clothed himself with curses as with a garment" and his horrible imprecations filled with terror the souls of the pious peasants who flocked to see him. So when by some accident the carriage of His Holiness was upset and himself pitched into the road he exclaimed: "Here I lie in the name of the devil." This sounds a bit feeble, and I could probably do better myself under similar provocation; but such language at all is very shocking in a clergyman. It is chiefly German historians who complain of Charles as being priest-ridden, and also of neglecting the affairs of the Empire while concentrating too much on Bohemia. This is a matter for historians to wrangle about; personally I consider that by his Golden Bull, which very much restricted the power of the Popes to interfere with the election of Kings of the Germans, and in the protection he extended to priests accused of heresy for their ardour on reform, Charles proved himself a strong man, free from undue outside influence, and no bigot. But we are concerned with what Charles did for Prague, and will take a look round the churches which meant so much to him, many of which he built or restored himself. One of these appeals to me particularly; I cannot say why exactly, perhaps because I heard some glorious music there, one grey evening in Lent. St. Henry's has long been famous for its Musical Society. I have mentioned this church before; it is dedicated to St. Henry and his wife Kunigunde. It is interesting and unusual to find a married saint; in fact, as in this case, a couple of them. The portraits of these two may be seen in the chancel of St. Henry's Church, but it was too dark for me to distinguish anything on the occasion of my visits there; moreover, I was sufficiently impressed with the shapely Gothic pillars, the work of Charles IV's craftsmen, which rose over the dilapidations of a much earlier building. Charles lost no time about the restoration of St. Henry's, as he seems to have begun it in 1348 and it was finished two years later. This church stands back from the rushing traffic of the Henry Street—Jindřišska Ulice, to give it its Czech name; the campanile of St. Henry's, a graceful tower with characteristic turrets and saddle-roof, is set apart and looks down the broad thoroughfare. This campanile is of more recent times than the church: it dates from the early days of Vladislav II, about the end of the fifteenth century. A sixteenth-century bell hangs in the campanile of St. Henry's Church; its inscription recalls the famous lines of Schiller's Die Glocke: "En ego campana, nunquam pronuntio vana, Ignam, vel festum, bellum, vel funus honestum." About the time of the restoration of St. Henry's, since much rebuilt outside, Charles set about building another church on the rising ground north-east of Vyšehrad; it is quaint rather than beautiful. You may note this church by its squat appearance, a broad cupola flanked by a couple of more slender ones, and the whole group is generally concealed by scaffolding. This church has had as hard a time as any of those in Prague. King Charles built it in 1350 and intended it to remind him of the cathedral at Aachen where Charlemagne is buried. There certainly is a good deal of resemblance still within this church dedicated appropriately to the Virgin and St. Charles, for the original outlines remain, as also the crypt below. But this church has suffered heavily both at the hands of wilful destroyers and of the restorer. Matthew of Arras was the architect. I wonder whether he would recognize his work to-day, so much has happened to it since he completed it. Consecrated in 1377 and given over to the monks of the Augustine Order, church and monastery were thoroughly destroyed by the Hussites less than a century later. The church was rebuilt in 1498, seriously damaged in 1611, and left in a state of disrepair for forty years. It had not long been restored for the second time, when Frederick II of Prussia made a target of it in his siege of Prague. Some eight hundred hot shot are said to have struck this church and set it on fire more than fifty times: quite good shooting but bad manners. No wonder, then, that this Church of the Virgin and St. Charles has lost its pristine beauty; yet it has an attraction of its own to those who sympathize with its misfortunes, and there are still some quaint old corners of the Hermitage attached to the edifice, built by Dienzenhofer, for those who like baroque.
We have noted Charles's interest in his cathedral on the Hradšany; he also paid a delicate compliment to the Lady Abbess of the convent attached to St. George's Church within the castle precincts. You will remember how Boleslav II, of pious memory, founded this convent and that his sister Milada was the first abbess. Charles raised that lady's successors to princely rank and gave them the right to place the crown on the head of the King at his coronation.