countries. It has been attempted in these notes to give some idea—as far as a limited space allows—of the policy by which Charles strove, and successfully strove, to raise Bohemia to the rank of one of the great Powers of Europe, and at the same time to secure for it a degree of prosperity the country had never enjoyed before.
On the other hand, Charles has been very severely criticized by the German historians. The title of "Pfaffenkaiser" (Emperor of the priests), which they usually give him, is entirely unmerited, in so far as it implies undue subserviency to the Papal See.[1] The Golden Bull, which very seriously curtailed the rights of the Popes as to the elections of the kings of the Germans, the attitude of Charles at the Diet of Maintz, the protection he afforded to priests—such as Conrad Waldhauser and Milič of Kroměřiže—who were accused of heresy, sufficiently prove that Charles was no bigot. That his disposition was truly and unaffectedly religious is indeed clearly shown by his policy, as well as by his own autobiography. Though he was undoubtedly a sincere friend of the Bohemian nation it is impossible to agree with the often-quoted appreciation of the Emperor Maximilian, who called his illustrious predecessor the "father of Bohemia but the stepfather of the Holy Roman Empire."
Venceslas, son of Charles by his third wife, Anna of Schweidnitz, was only seventeen years of age when he succeeded his father. The Emperor's joy at again having a male heir[2] was perhaps one of the causes of the excessive fondness he showed for his son,[3] of which he gave a proof by causing him, when only two years of age, to be crowned as King of Bohemia. Charles, as already mentioned, also secured the succession to the German throne to his eldest son. Of the two other sons whom Charles left, the one, Sigismund, inherited Brandenburg, the other, John, a part of Eusatia. Charles's brother, John Henry, had died three years before him, and had been succeeded by his eldest son
- ↑ It is curious to find these appreciations of German authors—largely founded on national antipathies—repeated by such modern English writers as Carlyle and Mr. J. R. Green.
- ↑ A son of Charles by his second wife, Anna of the Palatinate, also called Venceslas, was born in 1350, but died in 1351.
- ↑ Palacký tells us that Charles, anxious to obtain as tutor for his son the most learned man of his age, offered that post to Petrarch, who, however, declined it.
