Bohemia, from the earliest times to the fall of national independence in 1620 / With a short summary of later events

by C. Edmund Maurice

This was the third occasion on which a royal crown had been offered to the Dukes of Bohemia; and it was in some ways the most significant of the three. The first offer had been made to St. Wenceslaus, and had been based entirely on the ground of his personal qualities. The saint had refused it as inconsistent with his character. The offer made to Vratislav had been of a wholly different kind from the first proposal; but the way in which the title speedily fell into disuse has led some to doubt if Henry IV. had intended the crown to be hereditary. In the case of Vladislav, however, there was no doubt as to the intentions of Barbarossa. Indeed, he clearly showed that he considered the grant of this dignity as the revival of the old Moravian kingship; and, in order to emphasise the importance and independence of the new dignity, he accompanied it by the grant of territory which the Bohemians had previously claimed, but over which their rights had hitherto been disputed. Although, therefore, the continual contests for the throne of Bohemia, which followed the death of Vladislav, made it impossible for the rival pretenders to make good their claim to the royal title, there was, nevertheless, no doubt that, from this time forth, any lawfully elected ruler of Bohemia had the right to call himself king. Yet, splendid as this proposal was, Vladislav felt it necessary to consult his chief adviser, Bishop Daniel of Prague, before he would give the promise which could alone secure him the new dignity. Daniel had no doubts in his own mind; indeed, he seems throughout to have been more zealous for the Imperial alliance than Vladislav himself, and even to have taken a warm interest in the details of the Italian campaign. He, therefore, readily used his influence in favour of the proposal; and the bargain between the Emperor and the King was accordingly struck.

Few wise and well-meaning rulers have ever done greater mischief to their country than Vladislav accomplished by that hastily made bargain; but nothing could be honester than his way of carrying out the compact; and he clearly showed that he believed himself to be acting for the good of his country. He hastened back to Bohemia, and called a General Council of the nobles, to whom he announced the whole transaction. Immediately fierce protests broke forth. The Duke, without any consultation with his lawful advisers, had raised himself to a new dignity, and had dragged the country into a foreign war. The adviser of such unlawful acts deserved to be crucified. This threat was obviously aimed at Bishop Daniel, but Vladislav hastened to take the whole responsibility upon himself. “I have made this promise,” he said, “to the Emperor, by no man’s advice, but of my own free will. I give this answer to the honours which he has granted to me. Whosoever intends to help me in this business, him I will provide with fitting honour and with the money necessary for this work; but he who cares not for it let him sit at home content with the games and the ease of women, and secure of the peace which I will guarantee to him.”

It should be noted that, under the scornful rhetoric of this speech, there is concealed the admission of the important constitutional principle, that the king had no right to demand the service of his subjects in a foreign war. In saner moods and at later periods, Bohemians were eager to assert this great liberty. But, for the moment, the king’s appeal acted like magic in silencing opposition and rousing enthusiasm for the war. Songs were composed and speeches delivered in honour of the siege of Milan; and, while the young nobility disregarded the warnings of their elders and hastened to take up arms in the Imperial cause, the peasants gladly left their wearisome occupations and oppressed condition to flock to the banner of their beloved king. The splendid services accomplished by Vladislav in that ill-fated war strengthened his influence in the Councils of the Empire; and it is at least pleasant to mention that, at the siege of Brescia, the King of Bohemia used his influence with Barbarossa to soften the terms offered to the unfortunate Brescians. His personal share in the war was indeed cut short, partly by ill-health, partly by the necessity of returning to Bohemia, which was disturbed by the insurrection of a new pretender. But his son Frederick and his brother Theobald brought new reinforcements to the camp of Barbarossa; and a large part of all the glory that could be won in such a cause was due to the Bohemian soldiers.

Nor was Vladislav less successful in rousing the enthusiasm of his subjects in favour of another war, which had as little connection as the Italian expedition had had with the welfare of Bohemia. Queen Geysa, of Hungary, appealed to Vladislav in 1164 to help her young son in his struggle against a pretender to the Hungarian throne. Again Vladislav promised his help, and again the constitutional protest against his promise produced an explanation which served to show the deference of the king to the laws, while its complete success proved his personal popularity in the country. This campaign gave additional proof of the king’s military reputation; for the Emperor of Constantinople, who had invaded Hungary on behalf of the rebels, was eager to make a special peace with his Bohemian opponent; and when he failed to effect this purpose, he speedily returned to his own country and accepted the proposals of Vladislav about the terms of his peace with Queen Geysa.

The reign of Vladislav stands out strangely in the middle of the disorderly twelfth century. We see there a king suppressing disorder without suppressing freedom; armed insurrection by selfish intriguers, changing as if by magic into constitutional opposition on behalf of most important liberties; and all these gains apparently connected with an increase in military glory and national prestige, such as might well dazzle even men of some sagacity and foresight.

But the glory, and, what was of far more importance, the peace of Bohemia, were of short duration. The death of Bishop Daniel broke the chief link between Vladislav and Barbarossa. The bishop had remained with the Emperor during his Italian campaign; his counsels had always been welcome, and his influence had, no doubt, been a strong force in securing Bohemia to the Imperial cause. Nor did his death produce a merely negative effect on the relations between Bohemia and the Empire. It brought into play another influence which was exerted on the opposite side.

Vladislav’s queen, Judith, favoured the party of Pope Alexander III.; and by her advice a Saxon bishop, who had taken the Papal side, was elected as Daniel’s successor. As the new bishop was totally ignorant of the Bohemian language, his election weakened Vladislav’s popularity with his people as much as his favour with the Emperor. Three years later, the enemies of the king once more found their opportunity to make use of these discontents against him. Vladislav, without any consultation with the nobles, and without any notice to the Emperor, resigned his power to his son Frederick; and the intriguers, whom he had with such difficulty suppressed, were now easily able to rouse an insurrection against his successor. Then followed twenty-five years of miserable dynastic squabbles, during which Conrad of Moravia was able to play the part of king-maker, and, by the help of the puppets whom he placed on the throne of Bohemia, to secure a temporary independence for the province which he governed.

At last the contest was brought to an end by the accession of King Pr̆emysl to the throne in 1198; and he settled the question of Moravian government by conceding the rule of that province to his brother Vladislav. Pr̆emysl came at the right moment to recover for Bohemia the power and influence of which the civil wars of a quarter of a century had deprived her. Once more, as in the time of Henry IV., Germany’s difficulty was Bohemia’s opportunity. The death of Henry VI., the son of Barbarossa, had thrown the Empire into all the disorder which arises from a disputed succession; and Pr̆emysl found his interest in playing off one rival emperor against another, just as the Emperors had previously played with the rival candidates to the Bohemian throne. Philip and Otto soon found that their respective causes were practically at the mercy of the Bohemian king; and, if Dubravsky has any authority for saying that Pr̆emysl’s surname of Ottakar was a tribute to his devotion to Otto, never, certainly, did a nickname convey keener irony.

Nor did the election of Frederick II. diminish the power of Pr̆emysl. His influence had considerably contributed to that election; and Frederick’s lifelong war against popes and priests compelled him to rely on any friend who would stand by him against those dangerous antagonists. In his eagerness to secure Pr̆emysl’s help, the Emperor confirmed to the Bohemian crown those German territories in Silesia and the Lausitz, which had so long been the subject of dispute. He also granted to Pr̆emysl the power of appointing bishops in Bohemia without any outside interference. Pr̆emysl’s sympathies with Frederick were further quickened by the struggles with the clergy of Bohemia in which he found himself involved. The same difficulties which our Henry II. had so recently experienced, in his attempts to bring the clergy under the authority of lay tribunals, were harassing Pr̆emysl during a large part of his reign; and his attitude in these matters provoked against him Papal censures as stern as those which were aimed at his Imperial ally. The contest between king and priest in Bohemia ended in a compromise; but the substantial victory probably remained with the king.

Pr̆emysl’s vigour tended, no doubt, to reconcile the discontented nobles to his rule; but, in the reign of his son Wenceslaus, the opposition again began to make head. Young Pr̆emysl Ottakar, the son of Wenceslaus, had been appointed Margrave of Moravia; and the power connected with this office induced the nobles to make the young prince the centre of their intrigues. The terrible events of 1241 suppressed faction for a time in Bohemia; for in that year the invasion of Genghis Khan shook all the States of Europe to their centre, and gradually forced into the background any minor cause of division. The details of this invasion are more properly connected with the events to be dealt with in the following chapter. Here it is enough to say that the panic produced by this invasion enabled Wenceslaus to rally round him the whole forces of the kingdom, and to establish the reputation of Bohemia as the champion of European civilisation.