It is only from this date that Venceslas can really be said to have reigned over Bohemia. After a short interruption he resumed the policy, hostile to the house of Habsburg, which Zavis had adopted. It is probably for this reason that the contemporary chroniclers—mostly Germans—have done scant justice to Venceslas. Bohemia was certainly very prosperous during his reign, and we read that the silver mines of Kutna Hora, the great source of prosperity for Bohemia in the Middle Ages, were again worked during the reign of Venceslas II. The richness and prosperity of the country at this period no doubt attracted notice in the neighbouring countries, Hungary and Poland, and inspired the people with the wish of also being under the mild rule of King Venceslas.
During more than a hundred years Poland had been in a state of complete anarchy, principally caused by the rival claimants to the throne and by the incessant and ever-varying partitions of the country, which were made to satisfy the numerous pretenders. In the year 1291 Venceslas was requested by a large party in Western Poland to undertake the government of their country. The king consented, and occupied these lands after very slight resistance, assuming the title of Grand Duke of Cracow, from the name of the principal city in the district. A few years later (1300) King Venceslas, again at the request of the Polish nobles, occupied the whole of that country, and was crowned King of Poland at Gnesen. Bohemia and Poland were thus again for a short time under one king.
In the following year, on the extinction of the old royal family of Hungary, a large party in that country wished to elect Venceslas II as king. They sent envoys to Bohemia, and Venceslas declared to them that, being already King of Bohemia and Poland, he feared the burden of another crown, and advised them to elect his son Venceslas, then only twelve years of age, as their king.
King Venceslas may also have thought that his son, because of his youth, would be more likely to adapt himself to the customs of Hungary. The Hungarians followed the king's advice, and the younger Venceslas was crowned as King of Hungary at Stuhlweissenburg (1301), and for some time resided at Ofen, the Hungarian capital.[1]
- ↑ The first wife of Venceslas, Gutta, daughter of King Rudolph, died in 1298; he shortly afterwards—about the time of his coronation at Gnesea—married a Polish princess.
