In 1452 the Estates of Bohemia met at Prague and recognised Ladislas as their King, and in the following year he was, on October 28, crowned as King of Bohemia in St. Vitus’s Cathedal. The ceremony was performed by the Bishop of Olmütz, as King Ladislas, then only fourteen years old, yet refused to be crowned by Rokycan, the Utraquist Archbishop of Prague. In consequence of the youth of the King, Podebrad continued to rule Bohemia, not without much difficulty, as the young King’s open sympathy with Rome and marked hostility to Rokycan embittered the enormous Utraquist majority of the Bohemian population. Ladislas, who had proceeded to Hungary in 1456, returned in the following year to Prague. Shortly after his return the young King, who was on the point of being betrothed to Magdalen, daughter of Charles VII., King of France, was attacked by a mysterious illness that was similar to the Asiatic plague, if not identical with it. That terrible illness had, since the Turkish invasion, spread widely in Hungary, from which country Ladislas had just returned. The King summoned Podebrad to his bedside, took leave of him in touching words, and then died on the third day of his illness (November 23, 1457).
The body of Ladislas was conveyed to St. Vitus’s Cathedral on November 25. The Romanist chronicler, Eschenloer, who was then at Prague, writes: ‘The sorrow and wailing of the people was very great. Rokycan walked nearest to the bier with his sacrilegious clergy, carrying the sacrament and lighted candles. Then the good’ (i.e., Romanist) ‘clergy in small number followed.’
The premature death of Ladislas again brought the difficult question of the succession to the throne before the nobles and citizens of Bohemia. Foreign candidates, such as William, Duke of Saxony, Charles
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