C. Edmund Maurice

“ Him whom the Senate and Roman people, whom law and virtue, whom God Himself has established on the throne, every one will despise as scorning the bridle of a poor man. And thus justice will be stifled, concord will be banished, peace will perish in a reign of crimes, injuries will flourish unpunished, neighbour will rise against neighbour, and such calamity and misery will hang over us that all who live will hate their life. ”

“ In short, in his position as King of Bohemia, Charles generally appears as one of those exceptional rulers who combine a genuine zeal for reform with a real sense of justice, and that statesmanlike self-restraint which teaches a man the difference between the desirable and the possible, between the ultimate ideal and the immediately practicable. But it is impossible to separate Charles the Emperor from Charles the King of Bohemia. ”

“ Sobeslav, the next Duke of Bohemia, had just obtained the throne by the influence of his mother Svatava, who had persuaded the Bohemian nobles to ignore the claims of her eldest son, Otto. Otto at once appealed to Lothar, who asserted his right, as Emperor, to decide the succession to the Dukedom of Bohemia.
Such a claim would have been resented at any time; but Otto had specially offended Bohemian feeling, by consenting to hold the province of Moravia as a fief from the Emperor, instead of a dependency of the Duke of Bohemia. All the national feeling of independence at once burst into flame ”

“ Few great teachers are ever well represented by their immediate followers and disciples; but hardly any have been distinguished from their followers by so many and such important differences as those which separated John Hus from the men who are known by his name. First of all there was the gulf which separates the man who rejoices to die for his faith from those who delight in killing on its behalf. ”

“ Kings and warriors, who had done much to extend the prestige and power of Bohemia, are remembered mainly for their cruelty and oppression; while saints, who may in some degree have weakened the sense of Bohemian independence, are not merely honoured, but are even put forward as the symbols of distinctive national life. ”

“ Thus the treatment by the jurors of the questions of the value of torture, and ordeal by battle, as methods of discovering truth, show how experience was already preparing the way for the overthrow of abuses, which were yet too strongly supported by popular prejudice to be removed at once. The steady growth of these liberties, which had received so powerful an impulse from the needs produced by the Tartar invasion, was still further promoted by Pr̆emysl Ottakar II., and became in his hands part of a complete scheme for humbling the power of the nobility. ”

“ The Brotherhood alone had witnessed for wider sympathies and a higher conception of humanity and religion; but, as we have seen, even the Brotherhood had often found it difficult to resist the encroachment of aristocratic principles on its own organisation. The cry for freedom for a class could not animate a nation to resist the enthusiasm of sincere bigots like Ferdinand of Austria and Maximilian of Bavaria, nor the military ability of Tilly. ”

“ It might be expected, perhaps, that all this stirring of thought and life would be favourable to the revival of civic and religious liberty; and some of the men who were eminent in the literature and art of the time did take an active part in the struggles at the beginning of the seventeenth century. But a power had arisen in Bohemia, which continued steadily to gain ground during the reign of Rudolf, that could turn even literature and art into the cause of opposition to reform. This was the Order of the Jesuits, which, since the time of Ferdinand, had been steadily gaining ground in Bohemia. ”

“ As the struggle went on, the enthusiasm of the Bohemians rose; and on April 7, 1547, the fiercer spirits of Prague suddenly seized the Town Council Houses and bridges into their own hands, demanded a safe-conduct for one of the men whom Ferdinand had just condemned for mutiny, and insisted on the imprisonment of one of Ferdinand’s Councillors, and the recall to the Teyn Church of a preacher who had been expelled for heresy. They even compelled many of the Catholic leaders to give in their adherence to the League; and all seemed ready for an actual revolution. ”

“ Rudolf had by no means abandoned that championship of the towns for which he had been so distinguished before his election to the Imperial throne; and of all the enemies of the town life of Germany the prince-bishops were looked upon as the most determined and dangerous. Rudolf had therefore to choose between adherence to his old policy and the favour of his archiepiscopal supporters. With a courage which was doubtless united to far-sighted wisdom, he boldly defended the municipal rights of Köln against the encroachments of its Archbishop. ”

“ Even the earliest traditions show that long before the introduction of Christianity the Bohemian ideal of national life had been totally different from that of the surrounding nations. The poem of “The Judgment of Libus̆a,” which seems to embody the earliest picture of Bohemian life, is no Iliad or Niebelungen Lied, no story of robber dens or rapes of the Sabines, but the representation of a peace-loving nation trying to uphold traditions of communal ownership of land, and the gentle guidance of the wisest in judicial affairs, modified by an organised expression of popular opinion. ”

“ Serfdom, it cannot too often be remembered, had gained a new footing in Bohemia at the close of the fifteenth century; and Krajek, in his championship of so eminent a Brother as Augusta, had insisted much on his right, as a feudal landlord, to protect his dependant against the King. In such a condition of society, it ought not to surprise us that the leaders of the Brotherhood may have sometimes seemed to wink at offences in the nobles which they condemned severely in their more plebeian members. ”

“ Doubtless both Vratislav and Vladislav meant well by their country, and they secured it a more brilliant position for a time; but they involved that country in many wars and disputes which hindered its progress, and which often encouraged unpatriotic intrigues. Doubtless, too, Wenceslaus and Ottakar promoted the trade and, for a time, even the freedom of Bohemia, by the introduction of German laws and German settlers into their towns; but this innovation, intended by them as a development of good government in Bohemia, was easily perverted by Otto of Brandenburg into a means of new tyranny. ”

“ Himself a German by birth, he warmly encouraged the introduction of German town rights into the cities of Moravia; while, on the other hand, he always succeeded, until the final catastrophe of Ottakar’s life, in strengthening the good understanding between the Pope and the King of Bohemia.
Thus there were now growing up in Bohemia the elements of internal liberty, under the patronage of a king strong and wise enough to hold his own against the nobles. Had Ottakar been content to remain King of Bohemia alone, the effect of his reign on his country might have been permanently beneficial. ”

“ Luther, in his desire to win the Bohemians to his side, energetically protested against this practice. He pointed out to them the dangers to morality and order which they were incurring by letting in priests of whom they knew nothing, except that they had been consecrated; men who, in many cases, had left their country from discreditable reasons. Finally, he appealed to them not to sacrifice that Bohemian independence for which they had struggled so long, nor to compromise with the representatives of those who had shed the blood of Hus and Jerom. ”

“ Under Ottakar II., indeed, an attempt had been made to enlarge the range of studies, and perhaps to interest in them people of other professions and races. But, after the fall of Ottakar, Rudolf had feared anything which would attract his Austrian subjects to Bohemia; and the Austrian students had been ordered to leave Prague. Wenceslaus II. had tried to revive and develop his father’s ideas; but, as it was not even then understood that a University could be intended for all men, the nobles successfully opposed the scheme, as an attempt to increase the power of the clergy. ”

“ The leader who first attracted the attention of the crowd and the fears of the King was Nicholaus of Hus, the Guardian of the Fortress of Hus, and the proprietor of the village of Husinec. He had been a favourite with the King, and was reputed, even by his enemies, to be a man of great ability and insight. He now gathered together such great crowds of people for prayer and preaching that Wenceslaus began to suspect him of aiming at the throne. But the more pacific abilities of Nicholaus were soon to be thrown into the shade by his fiercer and more brilliant ally, John Z̆iz̆ka of Troc̆nov. ”

“ The Estates might make Protestant laws, and refuse to vote necessary taxes for his wars; their power must therefore be practically suppressed; the king must be allowed to re-model the Constitution, to appoint officials, to raise forces, and to levy taxes, without interference from any other authority. Nay, might not Prague rise, again, against his authority? Therefore the king must carry off the Bohemian crown to Vienna, and govern Bohemia by the advice of Austrian councillors. ”

“ One man in particular stands out amongst his favourites, as a proof of Vratislav’s sympathy with artistic power. This was Boz̆etĕch, who was distinguished both as painter, sculptor, and architect. Such a variety of excellence so attracted the Duke that he appointed Boz̆etĕch as Abbot of Sázava; and by his help he once more brought back into use the often-disputed Slavonic ritual. Pope Gregory, indeed, indignantly demanded its suppression; but Vratislav, strong in the support of the Emperor and of the general feeling of Bohemia, stood firm on behalf of this symbol of national life. ”

“ We see there a king suppressing disorder without suppressing [62] 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. ”

“ Nor was it only by foreigners that the influence of Cyril and Methodius was endangered; an opposition was roused even among the Moravians themselves. Svatopluk, the nephew and rival of Rostislav, seems to have accepted some kind of nominal Christianity, but unaccompanied by any change of life, or even by any great reverence for the externals of worship; and he opposed the new apostles of the Slavs with the greatest fierceness. The opposition of this ambitious prince no doubt arose at first from his desire to pose as the champion of the German party, who were undermining his uncle’s authority. ”

“ Unfortunately, Kunigunda had in the meantime formed a connection which proved most dangerous to the peace and order of the country. Zavis̆ of Falkenstein belonged to a noble family of Moravia, and he had succeeded in securing the queen’s affection during her residence in Opava. Whether the marriage, which was recognised at a later time, had already taken place, or whether, as some said, their connection was one of illicit love, certain it is that it was the affection between them, rather than the form of its expression, which excited the indignation and jealousy of the Bohemian nobles ”

“ 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 ”

“ George was determined that Silesia should never be separated from the Bohemian crown; and he had equally little wish that any foreigner should again become king of Bohemia. Rokycana, on his part, was not less [326] determined that no one but George should be the King. In addressing the Bohemian Assembly in March, 1459, the Archbishop boldly grounded his appeal for George not only on his Bohemian birth, the purity of his life, and his proved power to defend them against their enemies, but also on his devotion to the Utraquist cause. ”

“ It is now that the strong and cruel aristocracy of Bohemia begin to show their power both against king and people. Even in heathen times we hear of at least one family who claimed a sort of equality with the royal line, and who continued during the tenth and eleventh centuries to play much the same part as that of the Douglases in Scotland in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. ”

“ But, though Matthias could not succeed in the conquest of Bohemia, Rudolf, on his part, was unable to defend or recover the rest of his hereditary dominions; nor is it probable that Budovĕc and his friends were at all prepared to engage in a war against their fellow-Protestants in Moravia, Hungary, and Austria. Rudolf, therefore, after vainly attempting a compromise, consented to renounce Hungary and Austria in favour of Matthias, and to allow him to administer Moravia during his lifetime. Matthias thereupon evacuated Bohemia; but Rudolf’s resistance was not yet at an end. ”

“ The Brotherhood, as already hinted, had found, even more than most religious communities, a perpetual difficulty in solving that painful problem of the proper relation of the Church to the World; for, while they would never consent to drift tamely into the conventional morality of a comfortable and generally accepted Church, they were yet continually forced to make concessions to the prejudices of the world around them, which endangered the spiritual life of their community. ”

“ Strange as it sounds, in speaking of so turbulent a country, it is none the less true that, till this time, there had been no instance of a combined national resistance in Bohemia to a King who was the sole lawful claimant of the throne. There had been plenty of instances of setting up rival members of the royal family against each other; attempts by discontented nobles to call in a foreign King or Emperor to their help; and even something like a provincial insurrection of Moravia against Bohemia ”