Costly as was the bride of Richard II of England, I like to linger on her memory, feeling convinced that we all have benefited by the outlay. It is my firm opinion that we owe our grand old Christmas carol about "Good King Wenceslaus" to Anne of Bohemia directly. I have consulted various living Bohemian authorities on this subject. They had not even heard of our carol: I hummed the tune to them—it told them nothing. They tried to palm me off with St. Wenceslaus, but I declined him; he is not quite suitable as "theme" of a rollicking carol; besides, he gets plenty of attention in his own country. I grant that St. Wenceslaus was full of good works, all of the kind that looks well in frescoes, and in which everybody moves with feet in the first position, it was de rigueur. King Wenceslaus IV, also performed acts of kindness among his people, so the reference in the carol to "flesh and wine" suits this merry monarch thoroughly: he would certainly have called for both these forms of sustenance. St. Wenceslaus might have forgotten the wine; King Wenceslaus would have thought of that at once; in fact, he was a firm believer in the French adage, "l'alcool conserve." Then we learn from the carol that the page found warmth in the footsteps of the King, and Wenceslaus was certainly "hot stuff," as you will agree when I have told you more about him. Moreover, what is more likely than that Anne should have told her new English friends all about that jolly, popular brother of hers? The tune and its quaint harmonization is surely from some time in the joyous fifteenth century; if it had to deal with St. Wenceslaus it would have to grunt about in Gregorian phrasing. No doubt Anne's ladies who accompanied her from Bohemia would invoke the patron saint from time to time, and English people, hearing a strange and difficult name, and thinking it impossible that several well-known men had borne it, would be likely enough to get saintly prince and jovial monarch thoroughly mixed up. Anyway, I am firmly convinced that the "Good King Wenceslaus" we sing about at Christmas is no other than the brother of Anne, German King, King of Bohemia, fourth of that name, and Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire.
Meanwhile the River Vltava continued to reflect indifferently the doings of small and great, and among others those of Wenceslaus.
The laudable habit of bathing met with every encouragement from "Good King Wenceslaus," who was generally to be found ready to take part in any popular diversion. It was he who raised those humble but useful citizens, the keepers of bathing establishments, to prominent rank among their fellows. And hereby hangs a tale.
King Wenceslaus did not always see eye to eye with the leaders among the people; there were misunderstandings and bickerings, and despite his popularity among the more jovial elements, he had enemies even in his own capital. On the occasion of one such unpleasantness his enemies had detained him at the Old Town Hall. The King, finding this very irksome, deliberated on some method of escaping, and had the happy thought of insisting on a bath. It was in the autumn of the year 1394; the weather was warm and the river close by. A few turns down the narrow winding street named after his father would bring Wenceslaus to the river, where, somewhat above the old town mill, was a bathing establishment. The name of the owner of these baths seems to have been lost to history. Not so that of his daughter Susanna. Now the name Susanna has appeared before in recorded history also in connection with bathing—a most irreproachable Susanna. We draw no parallel; we make no comparisons, especially as no elders enter immediately into this story; we merely state historic facts. Moreover, it was not Susanna who was taking the bath this time, it was the King, and Susanna seems merely to have been hovering about in a punt. Here was the monarch's opportunity. He persuaded Susanna to take him across the river. Thus he escaped from his enemies. Now there is no hint of an assignation, no suggestion that Susanna was an accessory before the fact, merely the chronicler's statement that the lady happened to be there and that she helped the King to escape.
As was only right, King Wenceslaus proved his gratitude right royally. He began by breaking up the lady's bathing establishment as a preliminary to building a new and much more sumptuous one. Susanna's father seems to have been left out of the deal altogether by this time. The King then sent for Susanna, who appears to have been close at hand, namely, in the Royal Castle of Žebrac, where the solemn rite now to be related took place. After all, if you must break up a lady's home, the least you can do is to offer her suitable accommodation elsewhere. Susanna therefore appeared before the King, who solemnly invested her with a charter by virtue of which all those who followed the pursuit of keeping a bathing establishment should by their occupation be placed on a social level with the masters of other arts and crafts. They might, indeed, hold high their head among their fellows. It was expressly stated that no Jews, infidels, heretics, or lewd persons should be allowed to patronize bathing establishments; nor might they even enter into the dwelling-places of those who came under the new charter. Severe penalties were to be imposed on those who ventured to speak ill of the keeper of a bathing establishment; he might even lose his head for such temerity; anyway, his property would go to the senior member of the new guild.
Thus spake the King. Furthermore, he ordained that this worshipful guild which did so much towards encouraging cleanly habits should hold as its crest or cognizance within a garland argent and azure, a kingfisher proper. Some chroniclers suggest that the bird was a parrot, but this seems unlikely—parrots can be so indiscreet. Moreover, you may see for yourself on the Old Town side of the tower of the Charles Bridge the bird within the garland, and will recognize it at once for a kingfisher.
Let us watch the pageant that crosses the bridge that Charles built. They pass in the serene atmosphere which, to my thinking, enveloped the city in the Golden Age of Charles "the Father of his Country." They hurry to and fro under the lurid light of civil war waged in the name of religion; they linger on the bridge looking to the sky and its reflections in the water, under the false light which precedes disaster, or move mournfully cast down by the lowering clouds of oppression, to revive when Prague came into her own again one crisp October morning in 1918.
Charles, it seems, lived in the Royal Castle a good deal. We may see him crossing the bridge he built, to look to the progress of the work he was engaged upon. Perchance he was deep in thought on high matters of State, on his Golden Bull which reaffirmed all the privileges granted to Bohemia. This Bull caused a coolness between him and the Pope, whose indefinite claims to interfere in German elections were certainly restricted by that engine. Around him the populace would be talking of the great preachers, Conrad Waldhauser and Milič of Kroměřiže, whom the King protected in their fiery onslaught on the abuses in the Church and immorality of the children of their time. Charles may have thought all this very beautiful but unlikely to last. He saw clouds arising, and they closed over Bohemia when he died.
Of the works that Charles constructed for the beautifying of his capital, several are reflected in the waters of Vltava. There is, for instance, the bridgehead tower on the Mala Strana side, a graceful monument to Charles's gracious days. You may notice on passing under the gateway from the bridge the figure of a witch carved in stone, complete with broom and general air of nocturnal enterprise. I often wonder as I pass by here whether this figure inspired Marion Crawford when he was casting about for a title to his novel which you may have read, The Witch of Prague. There lingers a strong, a powerfully attractive allure of old Prague, just about this quarter, at the left bank end of the Charles Bridge. There is a quaint old tower that dates from Queen Judith's time. I have already pointed it out to you, and told you that it was until fairly recently used as a lock-up. The battlement across the gateway used to bear indications of rough justice as executed in those days; it was frequently adorned with the heads of rebels, traitors or others who had become unpopular, as, for instance, one Bohemicky. It appears that Bohemicky was quite unable to get along with his fellow-citizens, so they had his head off and added to the collection over the gateway. This happened in 1517, when the nations had emerged out of the darkness of the Middle Age and were struggling along by the yet uncertain light of civil progress and religious reform.