Bohemian kings, Charles IV, with Richard II. Queen Anne justly made herself popular in England through her wisdom and love of literature. It was her grandfather, King John of Luxemburg, who fought and fell as King of Bohemia on the side of the French at Crecy in 1346, with bravery admired even by his adversary King Eward III, who was unable to refrain from tears when learning of his death. His plumes, taken from him by the Black Prince, form the coat of armes of the Prince of Wales.
The dynastic ties between England and Bohemia were not confined to the marriage of Charles’ daughter Anne. The wife of the last Bohemian King Frederick of the Palatinate, Elizabeth, was the daughter of James I, but Queen Anne’s marriage was of far greater importance, since it gave impulse to mutual relations between the two countries which led to historical events of great significance. It was about this time (end of the fourteenth century) that the writings of John Wycliff began to be studied in Bohemia and stimulated the Bohemian movement for Church reform which resulted in the Hussite wars. There is no doubt that even John Hus himself, though not actually in complete agreement with Wycliff, nevertheless was largely influenced by his writings. The Czech Protestant movement naturally did not pass unnoticed in England, and various criticisms and historical studies, both favourable and unfavourable have been written upon this momentous period in our history, when our nation showed its inner potentiality by becoming the first Protestant nation in Europe.
After the fateful battle of the White Mountain in 1620, England became the refuge of Czech exiles who had to leave their native country, conquered by the Habsburgs. Among these exiles was also the famous painter and engraver Venceslas Hollar who became Master of Designs to King Charles II., and the great paedagogue Komensky (Comenius) who came to England at the express wish of the Long Parliament in 1641. Komensky whose educational and religious views were very advanced for those days, drafted a scheme for the establishment of three Colleges, and the Parliament readily voted the money for them, but the subsequent events in England which culminated in Civil War, prevented the realisation of his scheme, and Komensky had to return. He was a bishop of the church called the Unity of Bohemian Brethren whose spiritual descendants are the Moravian Church.
The influence which in its turn English civilisation has made itself felt in Bohemia a hundred years ago, is not negligeable. There is no doubt that while the French humanitarian ideas contributed a great deal towards creating the necessary atmosphere and ideology for the
