Wenceslaus, King of the Romans

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Wenceslaus (also Wenceslas, German: Wenzel, Czech: Václav, Italian: Venceslao; February 26, 1361 – August 16, 1419), called the Drunkard, was, by election, King of the Romans^[1] from 1376 and, by inheritance, King of Bohemia (as Wenceslaus IV) from 1378. He was the third Bohemian and second German monarch of the House of Luxembourg. He was never crowned Holy Roman Emperor by the Pope, as would have been customary for a "King of the Romans," and he was deposed in 1400 from his elected royal office, though he did not recognise this and continued to employ his Roman title from his hereditary kingdom of Bohemia.

In 1373, Wenceslaus father, Charles IV, Holy Roman Emperor, obtained for him the Electoral Margraviate of Brandenburg. In 1376, he also obtained Wenceslaus's election as King of the Romans by the six prince-electors. On Charles's death in 1378, Wenceslaus inherited Bohemia. In the cathedral of Monza there is conserved a series of reliefs depicting the coronations of the kings of Italy with the Iron Crown of Lombardy. The seventh of these depicts Wenceslaus being crowned in the presence of six electors, he himself being the seventh. The depiction is probably not accurate and was likely made solely to reinforce the claims of the cathedral on the custody of the Iron Crown.

Wenceslaus married, first, Johanna of Bavaria on 29 September 1370. Following her death on 31 December 1386, he married her first cousin once removed, Sofia of Bavaria on 2 May 1389. He had no children by either wife.

Accusing Wenceslaus of devoting far more attention to his Bohemian than to his German duties, and of weakness in agreeing with Charles VI of France to end their support of rival Popes, the princes of the German states deposed him as King in August 1400 in favour of Rupert III, Count palatine of the Rhine, though Wenceslaus refused to acknowledge this successor's decade-long reign.

As King Wenceslaus IV of Bohemia, until his death in 1419, he came into repeated conflict with the Bohemian nobility, and sought to protect the religious reformer Jan Hus and his followers against the demands of the Roman Catholic Church for their suppression as heretics. This caused many Germans to leave the University of Prague, and set up their own University at Leipzig. Hus was executed in Konstanz in 1415, and the rest of Wenceslaus's reign in Bohemia featured precursors of the Hussite Wars that would follow his death.

He was the one who had John of Nepomuk tortured and put to death, allegedly because he was not willing to reveal the confessional secrets learned from king's wife Sofia of Bavaria as the popular Roman Catholic legend goes. In reality John of Pomuk was a notary in the consistory of Archbishop of Prague Jan z Jenštejna, and was killed as a result of the property dispute and long personality conflict between the king and the fanatical archbishop.

Wenceslaus's political authority was severely limited by his schizophrenia and alcoholism. He died of a heart attack during a hunt in the woods surrounding his castle Nový Hrádek near Kunratice (today a part of Prague), leaving the country in a deep political crisis.

[edit] Ancestors

Wenceslaus's ancestors in three generations

Wenceslaus	Father: Charles IV, Holy Roman Emperor	Paternal Grandfather: John I of Bohemia	Paternal Great-Grandfather: Henry VII, Holy Roman Emperor
			Paternal Great-grandmother: Margaret of Brabant
		Paternal Grandmother: Elisabeth I of Bohemia	Paternal Great-Grandfather: Wenceslaus II of Bohemia
			Paternal Great-Grandmother: Judith of Habsburg
	Mother: Anne of Świdnica	Maternal Grandfather: Heinrich II of Świdnica	Maternal Great-Grandfather: Bernard of Świdnica
			Maternal Great-Grandmother: Kunegunda
		Maternal Grandmother: Catherine of Hungary	Maternal Great-grandfather: Charles I of Hungary
			Maternal Great-Grandmother: Maria of Bytom

[edit] Notes

[edit] References

• Lindner, Thomas. Deutsche Geschichte unter den Habsburgern und Luxemburgern. Vol. II. Stuttgart, 1893.

House of Luxembourg Born: 26 February 1361 Died: 16 August 1419
Preceded by Charles IV, Holy Roman Emperor	King of Germany, King of the Romans 1376–1400	Succeeded by Rupert
	King of Bohemia 1378–1419	Succeeded by Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor
Preceded by Otto V, Duke of Bavaria	Elector of Brandenburg 1373–1378