Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
GOOD KING WENCESLAS
There's very little substance to the story related in the nineteenth-century English Christ-
mas carol,
Good King Wenceslas
, by J.M. Neale, itself a reworking of the medieval spring
song
Tempus adest floridum
. For a start,
Václav
was only a duke and never a king (though
he did become a saint); he wasn't even that “good”, except in comparison with the rest of
hisfamily;Prague'sStAgnesfountain,bywhich“yonderpeasant”dwelt,wasn'tbuiltuntil
the thirteenth century; and he was killed a good three months before the Feast of Stephen
(Boxing Day) - the traditional day for giving to the poor, hence the narrative of the carol.
Born in 907, Václav inherited his title at the tender age of 13. His Christian grandmother,
Ludmila
, was appointed regent in preference to Drahomíra, his pagan mother, who subse-
quentlyhadLudmilamurderedinafitofjealousyin921.Oncomingofagein925,Václav
became duke in his own right and took a vow of celibacy, intent on promoting Christian-
ity throughout the dukedom. Even so, the local Christians didn't take to him, and when
he began making conciliatory overtures to the neighbouring Germans, they persuaded his
pagan younger brother,
Boleslav the Cruel
, to do away with him. On September 20, 929,
Václav was stabbed to death by Boleslav at the entrance to a church in the Bohemian town
ofStaráBoleslav.ThecultoftherighteouskingspreadrapidlyacrossBohemiaandVáclav
became one of the four patron saints of the Czech Lands, the other three being St Ludmila,
St Adalbert (sv Vojtěch) and St Procopius (sv Prokop).
Imperial Mausoleum, Royal Crypt and Great Tower
Great Tower
Daily 10am-6pm • 150Kč - not included in Prague Castle tickets price
It'sworthtakingalookatthesixteenth-centurymarble
ImperialMausoleum
,situatedinthe
centre of the choir and surrounded by a fine Renaissance grille on which numerous cherubs
are irreverently larking about. It was commissioned by Rudolf II and contains the remains
of his grandfather Ferdinand I, his Polish grandmother and his father Maximilian II, the first
Habsburgs to wear the Bohemian crown. Unfortunately the tomb is effectively roped off and
difficult to appreciate from afar.
Rudolf himself rests beneath them, in one of the two pewter coffins in the somewhat
cramped
Royal Crypt
(Královská hrobka), whose entrance is beside the Royal Oratory.
Rudolf's coffin (at the back, in the centre) features yet more cherubs, brandishing quills,
while the one to the right contains the remains of Maria Amelia, daughter of the Empress
Maria Theresa. A number of other Czech kings and queens are buried here, too, reinterred
in incongruously modern 1930s sarcophagi, among them the Hussite King George of
Poděbrady,Charles IVand, sharing a single sarcophagus, all fourofhis wives. The exit from
the crypt brings you out in the centre of the nave.
