Bohemian Crown

“ As this virtually removed the new churches from the authority of the old Consistory, the Diet was satisfied, and willing to acquiesce in the demands of their sovereign; and accordingly the desired subsidy was voted, and Rudolph was declared the rightful heir of the Bohemian crown.
During the brief reign of Maximilian, the Bohemians gained much religious liberty, and Protestantism greatly increased in strength and numbers. The more progressive people looked with great hopes to the future ”

“ The dangers which seemed most to threaten Bohemian liberty were the possibility of Ferdinand’s election to the throne of Spain, and the extreme probability of his election to the throne of Hungary; while the subjects which ranked next in importance to these were the maintenance of the right of the Assembly to elect their future King, and the preservation of the supremacy of Bohemia over the dependent crown lands.
Never, perhaps, did the controversies at the beginning [375] of a reign more completely fail to foreshadow the events which should make it memorable. ”

“ In spite of the dislike of the Turk, which was then common to all Christian nations, the Bohemians looked with alarm on any increase in those burdens of taxation which already weighed so heavily upon them; and, as already hinted, they dreaded the rule of a King, who might find it more convenient to reign at Presburg than at Prague. So strong was this feeling, that the [377] Bavarians, who had hoped to win the crown of Bohemia for their Duke, now believed that they could form a Bohemian party, which should commit itself openly to the side of Zapolya. ”

“ It sometimes happens that, as a gipsy’s child turns out to be a prince’s child, who, perforce, dwells in a palace, so the Bohemian is found in a fine house and high society. Bohemia is a fairyland on this hard earth. ”

“ The coronation of the Empress, the steward said, was even more magnificent than that of the Emperor. It took place three days after his, and was attended by Charles himself in the robe of a Roman Emperor. But the Bohemian noblewomen contributed to the celebration even more magnificence than the Emperor with his suite. The steward had counted one thousand carriages in which the women, glittering with pearls, gold and diamonds, came with their husbands, fathers and brothers. The Bohemian nobles at that time were immensely wealthy, and were famed for their wealth over all Europe. ”

“ The harper, who had modestly stepped back among the youngest members, now quickly returned to his former place before the old man.
“You have accepted me as a Brother; oh, prove your brotherhood to me; patiently allow me to say a few words.”
“You are at liberty to speak,” the old man replied.
“I hear that you want to go to a king. How can it be that so many wise men forget that kings have always been the greatest enemies of the Bohemian people? Who of the long list of kings called to the Bohemian throne has been our father, our providence, as he should have been? ”

“ 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. ”

“ Descending the centuries to modern times, the Bohemian reckons his ancestors among the prominent figures of every great literary epoch. In the middle ages, the great family tradition is perpetuated among the minstrels and ballad-makers, the devotees of the gay science, the whole tribe of the melodious vagabonds of Touraine; while, as we pass from the days of chivalry to the dawn of the Renaissance, we find “Bohemia still strolling about all the highways of the kingdom, and already invading the streets of Paris itself.” ”

“ Not only was it the sound-board from which in a lucky moment the struggling whisperer on the left bank might hear his utterances booming forth to a multitude eager for novelty, not only was it an unofficial academy to which every Bohemian might aspire to belong as soon as he had made his mark, but it was also, during the years following 1830, animated by such a spirit of revelry and reckless amusement that the riots of true Bohemia were as pale ghosts before its more notable orgies. ”

“ The German princes now cast their looks about to find a man for an emperor, who should help them to humble the pride of the Bohemian: prince, and who, at the same time, should not stand in the way of their own aggrandizement. They found such a prince in Rudolph, the Count of Hapsburg, who, having some small possessions in Switzerland and Suabia, was too weak to assume any great authority over his constituents, and, moreover, agreed to wrest from the kingdom of Bohemia its recently acquired territories—Austria, Styria, and Carinthia. ”

“ The merciless ridicule of Paris would have killed them in a week, without support as they were. Defiance of the bourgeois, an absolute essential of the true Bohemian creed, was, therefore, not appropriate to the first cénacle, who lived openly the life of ordinary, decent citizens, while secretly preparing the proclamations, the standards, and the weapons by which the cataclysmic victory of 1830 was to be won. In such a tense moment Bohemia could not be born. Their outlook, in the second place, was too lofty to comprehend the lower planes in which Bohemia made itself conspicuous. ”

“ The Bohemian lords did not object to this, since the chief of these was Peter, the Archbishop of Mayence, who had been greatly loved and honored by Václav II. Later, when the German lords began to grow too domineering, King John was held to the agreement, and ordered to dismiss them.
When the nobles had established King John and Queen Elizabeth upon the throne of Bohemia, they imagined that they had done their country a good service, and that his reign would be an era of peace and prosperity to all the people. ”

“ All these memorials of many centuries of diligence and unceasing cultural efforts of the small but staunch and dauntless Bohemian nation, unite here in a beautiful picture, in a sight of passing charm and freshness, which speaks to every one, to the foreigner as well as native who has preserved a sense of the beautiful; an undeniably exotic but at the same time an attractive and comprehensible language. It proclaims the earnest endeavour of the Bohemian nation to win an honourable place on the large wrestling-field of civilized European nations. ”

“ The only offense of the Bohemian king is that he is Slav, but that, with the jealousy of his power, the democratic institutions, and the wealth of his country, which contains the richest mines of silver in Europe, is sufficient. Great armies, German and Hungarian, are raised against him; finally he is treacherously slain in battle, his kingdom torn apart, and Bohemia is ravished and reduced almost to a "possession" or a fief of the Empire.
Yet the wound is not mortal, the nation is too strong ”

“ And the most astonishing thing about the Bohemian is this: that he does not—as the non-Bohemian charitably supposes and reports—die in an hospital, to be saved from dissection, and humbly buried, only by a subscription among his Bohemian associates. If he be an ass and a profligate, he goes to the bad, and serve him right; but the Bohemian, dying, frequently leaves a great deal more money behind him than yonder starched man of business, who professed to regard him, during his lifetime, with a shuddering, pitying horror. ”

“ The battlefield where the independence of Bohemia was lost in November 1620 lies on a plateau, as background to which stands a peculiar building. Surrounded by a park and overlooking undulating country stands the "Star." It is a former royal hunting-box, built several centuries before the battle and planned as a six-pointed star. It has no architectural beauty; it is in appearance a somewhat ungainly landmark and must have been pretty uncomfortable to live in, even for the less exacting royalties of the Middle Ages, but it stands on what, for the Bohemian, should be holy ground. ”

“ Bohemia was glorious for a few years after 1830 as it has never been since because it proclaimed a creed, the creed of Romanticism. It was glorious then because, with Romanticism, Bohemia was a living force. Given this connexion, there was some point in the bravado, the extravagances and conceits of Bohemian life. They were an irregular army, those young men, and they rejoiced in their irregularity. Épater le bourgeois was a legitimate war-cry when the bourgeois stood for all that was reactionary in art. ”

“ The steward remembered well the coronation of Charles VI., which took place in Prague amid general rejoicing. It was just sixty-seven years since an Emperor of Austria had been crowned in Prague as King of Bohemia. The Bohemian nobility, the steward said, already had much anxiety lest Charles should do as had been done by his brother, Joseph I., who reigned without being crowned as King of Bohemia. The nobility thought that he intended in many things to curtail their rights and privileges, and for that reason would refuse to be crowned as their king. ”

“ Although five centuries have passed since this Father of Bohemia lived—and since that time fearful storms and changes have come over the country—yet, at the present time, no one can travel over the land without meeting on every side works that perpetuate the name of Charles IV, rendering it dear to every Bohemian heart. ”

“ And we trust the time is not far distant, when by redoubled energy, discipline and honesty, free from foreign influence the Bohemian nation will win for its royal Prague peacefully by its own genius and by weapons of intellect alone that importance and glory, of which whole generations of the past dreamt visions in joyful anticipation. ”

“ Then he was dragged into Italian wars with which he had little sympathy, and [131] where men seemed to fight as much with poison as with swords; a witness of his father’s dissolute life, and surrounded by evil companions; and, to crown all his difficulties, when he had attained to full manhood, but had not yet become king of Bohemia, he had been suddenly raised to the highest dignity in Europe. ”

“ It seems to take shape, like a mirage, only in prospect or retrospect. There are witnesses to the distant glint of its magic towers in the rosy mists of sunrise or the golden haze of sunset, but of the light and shade within its streets there are none, for those who might be supposed to be passing through its gates are strangely reticent, and seem mysteriously to lose the sense of their glorious nationality. A man may say with a thrill, "I will be a Bohemian," or with a glow, "I was a Bohemian," but of him who said, "I am a Bohemian," the only proper view would be one of deepest suspicion. ”

“ Yet any pride of succession which they may have had was legitimately theirs, for, if they were less materially and intellectually endowed, if the peculiarly happy circumstances of their civic foundation had passed to make their ultimate disruption certain under the changed conditions of all that is included in social development, they still preserved the Bohemian character, with its simplicity, gaiety, humour, and courage. To labour the point further is unnecessary, for if it is not already clear, the fault is too remote to be here corrected. ”

“ The leading men were executed or exiled, the greater part of the soil was confiscated, and the nation that had taken such a noble part in the history of Europe was beggared and decimated until its name almost disappeared from the roll of living nations. The peace of a churchyard prevailed in the Bohemian lands deprived of its leaders, and lying helpless under the most oppressive and reactionary regime of a foreign dynasty. ”

“ It must be remembered that Bohemia is no insignificant part of the empire. It has an area of twenty thousand square miles and a population of more than six millions, and is rich in minerals and in manufactures. It is noted for glass works, Bohemian glass having a world-wide reputation. It has important textile industries also, and its agriculture has been carried to a high state of perfection. It has played a conspicuous part in the history of central Europe, is rich in heroes and possesses a strong national spirit. ”

“ Because the Bohemian nation was the first among the nations of Continental Europe that lifted up the torch of liberty, both of body and soul. Bohemians were the people that championed true democracy since the dawn of the fifteenth century. These ideals of freedom came into collision with the German government of the Hapsburgs, for this sinister dynasty has always been characterized by a blind hatred of every symptom of freedom and democracy. ”

“ They were now thrust in amongst other nations, and their name no more resounded on the field of battle. Formerly it was said: The Bohemians have marched into the field; the Bohemians have carried the fortifications; the Bohemians have taken the town; the Bohemians have advanced against the enemy; the Bohemians have gained the victory. These glorious expressions were never more uttered by a mouth, or transmitted to posterity by a historian. Up to that time the Bohemians, taken as a nation, were brave, dauntless, passionately fond of glory, enterprising ”

“ Intoxicated by their brilliant success, they determined to march home across Bohemia, without even asking permission of the ruler of that country. Very probably, they counted upon the favor of the fourteen lords who had been baptized in Ratisbon, for this was before the baptism of the Bohemian prince. The Bohemians, highly indignant that a hostile army dared cross their territory, hastily collected a large army, fell upon the Germans, and defeated them so that they fled, leaving rich spoils in the hands of the victors. ”