Bohemia: Political History and Notable Political and Military Figures

721 - Princess Libousa (All Facts)

• Legendary Founder of Prague and Legendary Ruler of Bohemia

870 - 1198 - Duchy of Bohemia (All Facts)

1198 - 1918 - Kingdom of Bohemia (All Facts)

1192 / 1198 - 1230 - Ottokar (All Facts)

• First King and Founder of the Kingdom of Bohemia

  • He was previously Duke of the then-Duchy of Bohemia

1253 - 1278 - Ottokar II (All Facts)

• 3rd King of Bohemia

• He was defeated by his rival King Rudolf of Germany, who was supported by King Ladislaus IV of Hungary

1346 - 1378 - Charles (All Facts)

• 8th King of Bohemia

  • He became king after his father and predecessor died in the Battle of Crecy during the Hundred Years’ War

• He established Prague as the capital of the Holy Roman Empire

  • He oversaw a Golden Age of Prague during this time in which

    • a cultural boom occurred in which numerous and famous European artists, architects, sculptors, and writers flocked to Prague

    • an economic boom occurred in which there was

      • a growth in trade amongst Slavs, Russians, Muslims, Jews, and Turks

      • increasing importance in artisans’ guilds

      • the city’s development into a key religious center

  • He worked to transform the city on the banks of the Moldau River or Vltava into the “Rome of the North”

  • He oversaw the construction of

    • The Church of St. Vitus

    • a stone bridge spanning the Moldau River carrying his name

    • monasteries and fortifications

• He issued the “Golden Bull,” which

  • made it so that the next King of Germany will be elected by an electoral college of seven members, which were the

    • Archbishop of Trier

    • Archbishop of Cologne

    • Archbishop of Mainz

    • Ruler of Bohemia

    • Ruler of the Rhine Palatinate

    • Ruler of Saxe-Wittenburg

    • Ruler of Brandenburg

  • made it so that the electoral college purposefully excluded the pope, who had frequently repeated his claim that he should be allowed to confirm whoever is elected, but which was largely ignored by the namesake and the Holy Roman Empire

  • made it so that the seven electors could only discuss their choice after casting their votes

  • was designed to end the succession disputes that had been plaguing the Holy Roman Empire

• Under his reign, the University of Prague was founded

  • This was the first university founded in central Europe

• He died and was succeeded by his son

1378 - 1419 - Wenceslaus IV (All Facts)

• 9th King of Bohemia

• He implemented a series of Catholic policies

  • He did so due to fears of a potential Roman Catholic crusade against Bohemia

  • In response, the Hussites began their revolution against him and he was eventually deposed as a result, having taken no action against them

  • He was convinced by his courtiers and members of the conservative Hussite group that, if he does not accept the new pro-Hussite council, the mutiny might grow

1378 - 1424 - Jan Zizka (All Facts)

• Bohemian General

• He and his Hussite forces, in the Hussite Wars / Revolution were defeated in a series of imperial crusades against the Hussites

1419 - 1437 - Sigismund (All Facts)

• 10th King of Bohemia

  • He was recognized as such as per an agreement he made with the Utraquist Hussites following the Hussite War

1453 - 1457 - Ladislaus the Posthumous (All Facts)

• 12th King of Bohemia

• He died of plague

1458 - 1471 - George Podebrad (All Facts)

• 13th King of Bohemia

  • Leading Czech politician

  • He was regent for five years under his predecessor before he was elected king

• He formed his namesake Hussite league / union, which officially defied the Catholic party in Prague and the rest of the country

  • With the union’s backing, he made himself “Master of Prague,” driving out the Catholics there and restoring the cardinal

  • His conciliatory policies thus ended the Hussite Wars

• His enemies in Bohemia were strengthened by papal condemnation of the namesake as a heretic

1469 - 1490 - Matthias Corvinus (All Facts)

• King of Bohemia

  • He was Catholic

1471 - 1516 - Vladislaus II (All Facts)

• 14th King of Bohemia

• He forged an alliance with Holy Roman Emperor and Austrian Archduke Maximilian between the Habsburg Dynasty and the Jagiellon Dynasty

  • In this agreement, he had Louis and Anne, his children, marry Mary and Ferdinand, Maximilian’s grandchildren

1526 - 1564 - Ferdinand (All Facts)

• 16th King of Bohemia

1564 - 1576 - Maximilian (All Facts)

• 17th King of Bohemia

1576 - 1612 - Rudolf II (All Facts)

• 18th King of Bohemia

1612 - 1615 - Matthias II (All Facts)

• 19th King of Bohemia

1619 - 1620 - Frederick (All Facts)

• 21st King of Bohemia

  • He was nicknamed “The Winter King”

  • He was Protestant

  • He was elected in place of (Holy Roman Emperor) Ferdinand II

  • He had become king in defiance of Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand II, representing the Protestants in place of their Catholic overlords

1604 - 1634 - Albrecht von Wallenstein (All Facts)

• Bohemian Military Leader and Holy Roman Imperial Commander-in-Chief during the Thirty Years’ War

  • He was the Duke of Friedland and Mecklenburg

  • He called himself “General of the Whole Imperial Fleet and Lord of the Ocean and Baltic Sea”

• He

  • was born into a minor noble family

  • was of noble Bohemian stock

  • converted to Catholicism

  • was a brilliant and (mostly) successful warlord, securing his warlord status in his own right

  • became governor of Bohemia

• He

  • married a wealthy widow, bringing him early financial success

  • was an enormously wealthy magnate, as he owned the largest feudal network of land in Bohemia at the time

  • made a fortune out of debasing the coinage and using the profits to buy 60 estates owned by executed and exiled Czech nobles

  • used his wife’s fortune and borrowed money to raise an army, which was at the service of Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand II

• During the Thirty Years’ War,

  • He led his army, which he used to help to crush the Bohemian Revolt against Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand II and the Habsburgs

    • He and his forces defeated and suppressed King Frederick V of Bohemia (and of the Electorate of the Palatinate) and the Bohemian Revolt against Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand II and the Habsburgs

  • He and his Holy Roman forces and Catholic League

    • defeated the Danes in the Battle of Dessau Bridge

  • He and his Holy Roman forces and Catholic League

    • were defeated by Gustavus Adolphus, Bernard of Saxe-Weimar, and their combined Swedish forces in the Battle of Lutzen

• He was “fired” by Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand II after the German princes under the emperor grew weary of the namesake’s growing power and his creating more power for the emperor

  • He was fired as imperial commander-on-chief for behaving like an independent warlord

  • He was recalled after to fight the Swedes

• He had grown increasingly eccentric and megalomaniacal by the end of his lifetime, having notably

  • hated loud noises

  • ordered the killing of every dog in any town in which he stopped

  • threatened to have any servant or officer who talked loudly or shouted near him executed

  • demanded an oath from his colonels that they be loyal to him alone

• He frequently employed Adrian de Vries

• He was stabbed to death in his bedroom in his fortress at Eger by Walter Devereux, an Irish Captain

  • The assassin acted on the orders of Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand II, who had learnt of the namesake’s secret negotiations with the Swedes and other enemies of the Holy Roman Empire and Catholic League following his having been “fired” by the emperor

1615 - 1627 - Ferdinand II (All Facts)

• 20th and 22nd King of Bohemia

  • He was made king by his cousin and predecessor Matthias II

  • He was “accepted” as king by the Bohemian estates prior to his interregnal successor

• During his reign,

  • The Kingdom of Bohemia became a hereditary possession of the Habsburgs

    • As a result, the Czech nobility emigrated in droves

• He “fired” Albrecht von Wallenstein as one of his military generals

1567 - 1640 - Jindřich Matyáš Thurn (All Facts)

• Czech General and Leader of the Protestant Bohemian Revolt against Ferdinand II and the Catholic Holy Roman Empire

  • He led the Bohemians in a revolt against the pro-Catholic policy of the regents in Prague

1627 - 1657 - Ferdinand III (All Facts)

• 23rd King of Bohemia