John of Luxembourg Crowned

JAN 01 1311 · 12:00

Bust of John of Luxembourg, the rex peregrinus, in the triforium of St Vitus Cathedral, Prague. Place: St Vitus Basilica, Prague Castle Figures: John of Luxembourg, King of Bohemia · Eliška Přemyslovna, his queen and sister of the murdered Wenceslas III · Peter of Aspelt, archbishop of Mainz, officiating From the August afternoon of 1306, when a dagger ends Wenceslas III in an Olomouc deanery, the Bohemian throne is contested for four and a half years. Rudolf of Habsburg holds it for a year and dies. Henry of Carinthia holds it twice and is twice expelled. The nobility, the burghers, and the bishop of Prague Jan IV of Dražice all want a king they can manage. None of the local candidates can manage them in return. In August 1310, the Emperor Henry VII proposes his fourteen-year-old son. The Bohemian estates accept. The boy is betrothed at Speyer to Eliška Přemyslovna, eighteen, the last available daughter of the old line. Bohemia is to be ruled by marriage to a foreigner who has never seen it.