It is well known that Shakespeare in The Winter’s Tale gives Bohemia a sea-coast, a thing which at the present time, when many countries intervene between Bohemia and the sea, seems absurd. There is, however, no real absurdity in it. The date of the play is not fixed, and the traditions of Bohemia’s ancient dominions existed long in the minds of those who had known them. It is true that even in the “long ago” the sea-coast can hardly be described as Bohemia itself, but it was under the rule of the king, and therefore the “absurdity” at all events disappears.
The word “Bohemian,” which has become so deeply rooted in our language as a synonym for those who despise convention and live careless artistic lives, has nothing to do with the real Bohemians, who, artistic as they undoubtedly are, especially in the direction of music, cannot be described as unconventional in any unusual way. It arises from the fact that certain wandering gipsies were supposed to have come from Bohemia in the Middle Ages, whether with truth or not seems unascertainable, and “Bohemian” was thenceforth used as a synonym for gipsy.
There is another point which tends to make Bohemia known even to those who have no taste for European geography, and to whom the middle of Europe is for the most part only a confused welter of nationalities, usually German-speaking, and at any rate quite uninteresting. This is the fact that the motto of the English Prince of Wales, “Ich dien,” with its proud humility, and the crest of three feathers were taken from those of the blind king of Bohemia, who was killed at the battle of Crécy in 1346 while fighting for his ally, King Philip of Valois. The Black Prince, his conqueror, adopted as his own the crest and motto, which have been held by successive Princes of Wales ever since.
This compact little land of Bohemia, lying surrounded on three sides by mountains, now forms the north-western corner of the Austrian Empire. It contains much beautiful scenery and is more varied than many other parts of the Empire, being hilly and level, wooded and cultivated in different places, so that every kind of landscape is met with. Bohemia has always had a struggle to preserve its national unity, for it was surrounded on the one side by the German-speaking peoples of Bavaria and Saxony and on the other by the Magyars of Hungary, and it had to sway into alliance with one or the other accordingly as the opposite one attacked it. Moravia has always been closely associated with it, and Poland and Hungary have frequently in the course of history been ruled by the same king.
Many times before the ruler of Bohemia adopted the title of king had it been offered to him by the Emperor of “The Holy Roman Empire.” Once this was in the reign of Ottakar II. one of the best remembered and most loved of the rulers of Bohemia. He was of the Premsyl dynasty and succeeded to the throne in 1253.
The ancient tradition of the origin of this dynasty, which gave a long line of rulers to Bohemia, beginning before authentic history and continuing to 1306, is too picturesque to pass over. One of the semi-mythical rulers of Bohemia, Krok, is said to have left no sons but only three daughters, the youngest of whom, Libussa, a woman of intrepid spirit and masculine force, succeeded him. However, in spite of her fine qualities, her subjects disliked being ruled by a woman and some of them questioned her judgments. At length, to satisfy them, she agreed to select a husband, and standing in the midst of her nobles she pointed to the hills and told them to go to such and such a place where they would find a man ploughing with two oxen; him they must bring and him only would she marry. His name was Premsyl. The peasant was found as described, and readily took up the rôle allotted to him, becoming the husband of Libussa, ruler of Bohemia, and founder of the greatest dynasty in his country’s annals.
Ottakar, his descendant, brought the fame of Bohemia to its highest pitch, for he possessed himself of the dukedom of Austria, and became lord of all the territories now included in the Austrian Empire on the western side, with the exception of the Tyrol. Mr. James Bryce, in his Holy Roman Empire, speaks of him as “the rampart of Christianity, a lion in bravery, an eagle in goodness.”
Ottakar was offered the dignity of Emperor when it became vacant, but refused, and Rudolph of Hapsburg, whose domains lay in Switzerland, and who until that time had been comparatively unknown, was chosen instead. Curiously enough this man was to found a dynasty ruling not only over all the lands held by Ottakar, but also over Hungary, which had not even acknowledged his lordship. It seems almost as if Ottakar must have had some intuitive dread of this new candidate for the high honour, for he protested violently against his election, basing his protest on the ground that he himself, though an elector, had not cast his vote. He appealed to the Pope, but was overruled on the ground that even had he cast it he would have been in a minority. His fears were quickly justified, for Rudolph was no sooner in firm possession of the Imperial dignity than he attacked Ottakar, claiming that Austria, Styria, Carniola, and Carinthia should be restored to the German Empire, of which they had formerly been a part. When his claims were refused he made war on Ottakar, and quickly got the best of it, using the forces of the German confederation to enforce his claim. Ottakar was compelled to yield up his latest acquired provinces on condition of being allowed to keep his older dominions of Bohemia and Moravia, and Rudolph made the Austrian lands hereditary in his own family, even though they had been won at German expense.
Rudolph had a numerous family of daughters, and he was accustomed to cement peace or buy over a foe by offering one of them in marriage as a prize. As Ottakar had already been married more than once, his present wife being a daughter of the King of Hungary, it was on behalf of his son, then a child, that the bribe was offered. It seemed for a while as if peace might be secured, but not so; there was between the two men a deadly and ineradicable antipathy, and it was not long before the smouldering flame burst out again. With the fire of despair Ottakar collected his troops and flung himself into a contest with the conqueror and was slain at the battle of Marchfeld.
Rudolph did not act vindictively; he arranged that the dead king’s son should succeed to the Bohemian throne, ruling in subordination to himself as overlord, and that when he was old enough he should still marry the promised bride. But Queen Kunegunda, his mother, restless under this submission, called in help from outside in the person of Otto of Brandenburg, who promptly repaid her by grinding Bohemia into misery and carrying away her and her son as prisoners. The Queen, however, managed to escape, and the young King Wenceslaus was at length ransomed, and returned to Bohemia in 1285 as a boy of twelve to begin his reign. Two years later he married Rudolph’s daughter.