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

by C. Edmund Maurice

Apart from the claim given to the Margrave of Meissen by the choice of the nobles, there were two rival claimants to the dukedom of Austria; Margaret the widow of the Emperor Henry VI., and daughter of Leopold the Glorious, the most popular of all the Babenberg House; and Gertrude a niece of Frederick the Quarrelsome, and wife of the Margrave of Baden. Margaret was, of course, tolerably advanced in life, and had taken a vow of virginity after the death of her husband; but Wenceslaus and Bruno of Olmütz persuaded young Ottakar to make good his claim to the duchy by wooing the widow. In an evil hour for herself, Margaret consented to Ottakar’s proposal; the approval of the Pope, and possibly some slight display of military force, completed Ottakar’s claim; and he was accepted by some at least of the Austrian nobles as their Duke.

In Austria, as in Bohemia, Ottakar looked chiefly for his support to the great cities. Vienna flourished under his rule; and he granted special privileges to the neighbouring town of Neustadt. But the hostility of the nobles still continued; and they were resolved that, at all events, the German province of Styria should not fall into Bohemian hands. The difficulty of Ottakar’s position on this question lay in the fact that the most important rival claimant was Bela, King of Hungary, who, like Ottakar, was a special favourite of the Pope; and in the beginning of the struggle the King of Hungary succeeded in establishing his authority in Styria. But, by the admission even of Ottakar’s enemies, the tyranny of the Hungarians in Styria was so great that, when Ottakar again made an attempt on the province, he was welcomed as a deliverer; and for the time he made good his footing.

It was now necessary to get a formal sanction for these conquests; and Ottakar chose Richard of Cornwall, from the rival claimants to the German Empire, as the puppet most useful for this purpose. Richard was willing enough to secure so influential a supporter; but the King of Hungary was not so easily satisfied. In 1260, he once more poured his forces into Styria and Austria; and he was now followed, not only by the Hungarian troops, but by the savage Cumanians, and even, according to one account, by the Tartars. The struggle was a fierce one; but it ended in the complete victory of the Bohemians.

Ottakar, however, thought it necessary to secure himself against future invasions, by a singularly questionable step. The unfortunate Margaret, to whom, it was evident, he must very soon have become unfaithful, was to be repudiated on the ground of her former vow of virginity, in order that Ottakar might marry Kunigunda, the daughter of Bela, King of Hungary. Urban IV., like many of his predecessors, was extremely desirous to procure a good understanding between Hungary and Bohemia, as in the union of these kingdoms he saw the best hope of security against a future Tartar invasion; so Kunigunda was crowned Queen of Bohemia by the Archbishop of Mainz.

But Ottakar’s conquests were not yet at an end. Ulrich, the Duke of Carinthia and Carniola, had a very troublesome brother called Philip, who was generally at feud with some prince or other. Amongst his other enemies was the Patriarch of Aquileia, to whose office he desired to succeed. Ulrich, knowing Ottakar’s influence with the Pope and the ecclesiastics generally, tried to secure that influence in favour of the election of Philip to the patriarchate. Ottakar agreed, on condition that Ulrich would make him his heir in Carinthia and Carniola. Ulrich consented to this proposal; and, by Ottakar’s influence, the Chapter of Aquileia elected Philip Patriarch. Philip was apparently unaware of the bargain; and he was therefore extremely indignant, when, on Ulrich’s death, the King of Bohemia entered Carinthia and Carniola as the lawful heir of Ulrich. This bitterness was further increased when the Pope refused to confirm the election of the Chapter, and Philip found himself without either patriarchate or dukedom.

Ottakar was now the lord of all the territories which form the western part of the present Austrian Empire, with the exception of the Tyrol. But his hold on these conquered territories was by no means so certain as it at first appeared. Though none of his rivals were able, at the moment, to make good their claims against him, yet any one of them might reckon on a formidable amount of discontent in all the conquered provinces. For the same policy which he had pursued in Bohemia of breaking down the power of the nobles, by destroying their castles, was carried on in his new dominions; and, while in all of them it caused considerable opposition, in Styria the discontent soon ripened into rebellion.

The attitude of the Styrian nobles had, from the first, been one of more determined hostility than Ottakar had encountered in his other dominions; and it soon provoked him into measures which increased the evil. One can scarcely accept as undoubted history all the charges of cruelty made against him by the Styrian noble Ottakar von Horneck, who was evidently in full sympathy from the first with those who resisted the Bohemian claims. Still less can we accept as authentic the reckless attacks of the chronicler Victor, who was a chaplain of the House of Hapsburg. But those facts, which seem to be indisputable, are sufficient of themselves to account for Ottakar’s failure to reduce the province to submission. As usual in such cases, intriguers were found to intensify the king’s suspicions by false accusations; some nobles were thrown into prison on insufficient evidence; and when the case broke down against them, their accuser was in turn imprisoned. Finally, Milota, the governor appointed by Ottakar, tried to bring in Bohemian soldiers and Bohemian settlers to maintain the authority of the king.

But, though all these elements of discontent were gradually ripening to violent conclusions, to outward appearance Ottakar was still at the height of his power. Old King Bela of Hungary, in dying, placed his wife, daughter, and barons under the special protection of Ottakar; and, when Bela’s son and successor Stephen tried to shake off the power which his father had given to Bohemia, he found himself opposed by the bishops and archbishops of Hungary, and by some even of the barons. Ottakar was able to dictate peace in Hungary itself, and Stephen was forced to renounce all claims to Styria and Carinthia.

A change, however, was shortly to occur in Europe which was to diminish one of the chief causes of Ottakar’s success. In his, as in former reigns, Germany’s difficulty had been Bohemia’s opportunity; and it was Ottakar’s too ready recognition of this fact which now brought him into collision with the wisest and most patriotic rulers in Europe, as well as with some of the most daring intriguers. Ever since the death of Henry VI., the son of Barbarossa, the claim to the throne of the Holy Roman Empire had been perpetually disputed. The striking and romantic figure of Frederick II. had indeed arrested the attention of Europe in a marked manner; but the intense hatred felt for him by all the Popes, his own preference of Sicily to Germany, and the complete disorganisation produced by the Tartar invasion, had combined to prevent him from establishing any firm rule in the Empire. Since his death the phantom figures of William of Holland, Conrad the Fourth, Alfonso of Castille, and Richard of Cornwall had flitted across the stage of German politics, each contributing a certain amount of increase to the general anarchy. In the absence of any settled central government, the great towns of Germany had endeavoured to form leagues for their own protection, and in the general interest of order; but even these had a difficulty in maintaining their existence against the pretensions of the archbishops and the robberies of the knights and nobles.

In such a state of things the first instinct of those who desired to restore order was to choose the strongest ruler who could be found; and therefore it was not altogether surprising that the Imperial crown was offered, by some at least of the German princes, to Ottakar himself. The grounds of Ottakar’s refusal have been variously given; and it is highly probable that both of the explanations offered were parts of the truth. On the one hand his nobles, already jealous of his power, were extremely unwilling that he should have a new and independent force at his back, which would enable him still further to overawe them; while, on the other hand, Ottakar himself saw clearly that the position of King of Bohemia and King-maker of the Empire was a far safer and more powerful one than the position of a Holy Roman Emperor, checked, and often controlled, by the Electors of the Empire.