Wenceslaus was born in the
Imperial city of
Nuremberg, the son of the
Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV by his third wife
Anna of Svídnická, a scion of the
Silesian Piasts, and
baptized at
St. Sebaldus Church. He was raised by the
Prague Archbishops Arnošt of Pardubice and
Jan Očko of Vlašim. His father had the two-year-old crowned
King of Bohemia in June 1363 and in 1373 also obtained for him the Electoral
Margraviate of Brandenburg. When on 10 June 1376 Charles IV asserted Wenceslaus' election as
King of the Romans by the
prince-electors, two of seven votes, those of
Brandenburg and
Bohemia, were held by the emperor and his son themselves. Wenceslaus was crowned at
Aachen on 6 July. In order to secure the election of his son, Charles IV revoked the privileges of many
Imperial Cities that he had earlier granted and mortgaged them to various nobles. The cities, however, were not powerless, and as executors of the public peace, they had developed into a potent military force. Moreover, as Charles IV had organized the cities into leagues, he had made it possible for them to cooperate in large-scale endeavors. Indeed, on 4 July 1376, fourteen
Swabian cities bound together into the independent
Swabian League of Cities to defend their rights against the newly elected King, attacking the lands of
Eberhard II, Count of Württemberg. The city league soon attracted other members and until 1389 acted as an autonomous state within the
Holy Roman Empire.
Rule Wenceslaus took some part in government during his father's lifetime, and on Charles' death in 1378, he inherited the
Crown of Bohemia and as king assumed the government of the
Holy Roman Empire. In the
cathedral of
Monza there is preserved a series of reliefs depicting the coronations of the
kings of Italy with the
Iron Crown of Lombardy. The seventh of these depicts Wenceslaus being crowned in the presence of six electors, he himself being the seventh. The depiction is probably not accurate and was likely made solely to reinforce the claims of the cathedral on the custody of the Iron Crown. In 1387 a quarrel between
Frederick, Duke of Bavaria, and the cities of the Swabian League allied with the
Archbishop of Salzburg gave the signal for a general war in Swabia, in which the cities, weakened by their isolation, mutual jealousies, and internal conflicts, were defeated by the forces of
Eberhard II, Count of Württemberg, at Döffingen, near
Grafenau, on 24 August 1388. The cities were taken severely and devastated. Most of them quietly acquiesced when King Wenceslaus proclaimed an ambivalent arrangement at
Cheb (
Eger) in 1389 that prohibited all leagues between cities while confirming their political autonomy. This settlement provided a modicum of stability for the next several decades, however, the cities dropped out as a basis of the central Imperial authority.
King of Bohemia (the so-called
Wenceslas Bible, late 14th century) During his long reign, Wenceslaus held a tenuous grip on power at best, as he came into repeated conflicts with the
Bohemian nobility led by the
House of Rosenberg. On two occasions he was even imprisoned for lengthy spells by rebellious nobles during the
Moravian Margrave Wars. But the greatest liability for Wenceslaus proved to be his own family. Charles IV had divided his holdings among his sons and other relatives. Although Wenceslaus upon his father's death retained
Bohemia, his younger half brother
Sigismund inherited
Brandenburg, while
John received the newly established Duchy of
Görlitz in
Upper Lusatia. The
March of Moravia was divided between his cousins
Jobst and
Procopius, and his uncle
Wenceslaus I had already been made
Duke of Luxembourg. Hence the young king was left without the resources his father had enjoyed, although he inherited the Duchy of Luxembourg from his uncle in 1383. In 1386, Sigismund became
King of Hungary through marriage with the Queen of Hungary
Maria of Anjou and became involved in affairs further east. Wenceslaus also faced serious opposition from the Bohemian
nobles and even from his
chancellor, the
Archbishop of Prague Jan of Jenštejn. In a conflict surrounding the investiture of the
abbot of
Kladruby, the torture and murder of the archbishop's vicar-general
Saint John of Nepomuk by royal officials in 1393 sparked a
noble rebellion. In 1394 Wenceslaus'
cousin Jobst of Moravia was named
regent, while Wenceslaus was arrested at
Králův Dvůr. King
Sigismund of Hungary arranged a
truce in 1396, and for his efforts, he was recognized as heir to Wenceslaus. In the
Papal Schism, Wenceslaus supported the Roman
Pope Urban VI. As the
King of Bohemia, he sought to protect the religious reformer
Jan Hus and his followers against the demands of the
Catholic Church for their suppression as
heretics. Hus and his followers drove German academics from the
University of Prague, who then set up their own
university at Leipzig, through the
Decree of Kutná Hora in 1409. He then met
King Charles VI of France at
Reims, where the two monarchs decided to persuade the rival popes, now Avignonian
Antipope Benedict XIII and Roman Pope
Boniface IX, to resign, and to end the papal schisms by the election of a new pontiff. Many of the
princes were angry at this abandonment of Boniface by Wenceslaus, who had also aroused much indignation by his long absence from
Germany and by selling the title of
Duke of Milan to
Gian Galeazzo Visconti. Hus was eventually executed in
Konstanz in 1415 by the
Council of Constance, and the rest of Wenceslaus' reign in Bohemia featured precursors of the
Hussite Wars that would follow his death.
Dethronement in 1400 of the
Holy Roman Empire in 1400 In view of his troubles in
Bohemia, Wenceslaus did not seek a
coronation ceremony as
Holy Roman Emperor. Consequently, he faced anger at the
Reichstag diets of
Nuremberg (1397) and
Frankfurt (1398). The four
Rhenish electors,
Count Palatine Rupert and the archbishops of
Mainz,
Cologne and
Trier, accused him of failing to maintain the public peace or to resolve the
Schism. They demanded that Wenceslaus appear before them in
Oberlahnstein to answer to the charges in June 1400. Wenceslaus demurred, in large part because of renewed hostilities in Bohemia. When he failed to appear, the electors meeting at
Lahneck Castle declared him deposed from the title
King of the Romans on 20 August 1400 on account of "futility, idleness, negligence and ignobility". They concluded that they were relieved of their oaths to Wenceslas, using the
Golden Bull of 1356 as justification for their defection. They claimed that, because the electors had the right to elect the Emperor, they also had the right to depose of an ineffectual monarch. The next day they
chose the Count Palatine
Rupert as the King of the Romans at
Rhens. Although Wenceslaus refused to acknowledge this successor's decade-long reign, he made no move against Rupert. Shortly after, the
Bohemian Palatinate also fell into Rupert's hands. On 29 June 1402, Wenceslaus was captured by
Sigismund,
King of Hungary, who at first intended to escort him to
Rome to have him crowned
Holy Roman Emperor, but Rupert III heard of this plan and tried to prevent the passage to
Italy, so Sigismund had Wenceslaus imprisoned, at first in
Schaumberg and from 16 August in
Vienna, in the charge of
William,
Duke of Austria. On 20 November, Wenceslaus was forced to sign his renunciation of all his powers to Sigismund and the Dukes of Austria. In exchange, the conditions of his imprisonment were relaxed. In early 1403, Rupert made diplomatic overtures to Sigismund, attempting to get him to forgo his attempt to secure the imperial crown, but Sigismund invaded Bohemia with Hungarian forces, looting, imposing heavy taxes, and persecuting the supporters of Wenceslaus. He also plundered the royal treasury to pay for his military campaigns against the supporters of
Rupert III and of
Jobst of Moravia. An armistice between Sigismund and Jobst was agreed to be in effect from 14 April until 20 May. This gave Sigismund's opponents time to prepare, and after the end of the armistice, Sigismund could make no further gains and retreated from Bohemia, reaching
Bratislava on 24 July. On 1 October 1403,
Pope Boniface IX finally acknowledged the deposition of Wenceslaus and the election of Rupert as King of the Romans. As a
coronation of Wenceslaus was now no longer a possibility, and while he was nominally still prisoner in Vienna, he was no longer under strict guard, and he managed to escape on 11 November. He crossed the Danube and was escorted by
John II of Liechtenstein via
Mikulov back to Bohemia, meeting his supporters in
Kutná Hora before moving on
Prague, which he entered on
Christmas. Among the charges raised by Rupert as the basis for his predecessor's deposition was the
Papal Schism. King Rupert III called the
Council of Pisa in 1409, attended by defectors from both papal parties. They elected
Antipope Alexander V, worsening the situation because he was not acknowledged by his two rivals, and from 1409 to 1417 there were three popes: Avignon, Pisa and Rome. After the death of Rupert in 1410, his succession at first proved difficult since both Wenceslaus's cousin
Jobst of Moravia and Wenceslaus's brother
Sigismund of Hungary were
elected King of the Romans. Wenceslaus himself had never recognized his deposition and hence still claimed the kingship. Jobst died in 1411, and Wenceslaus agreed to give up the crown, so long as he could keep
Bohemia. This settled the issue, and after 1411, Sigismund reigned as king (in which Wencesclaus himself and all six other
prince-electors elected) and later also crowned
Holy Roman Emperor by
Pope Eugene IV in 1433. The
bishops and secular leaders, tired of the Western Schism, supported Sigismund when he called the
Council of Constance in 1414. The goal of the council was to reform the
Church in head and members. In 1417, the council deposed all three popes and elected
a new one. By resolving the schism, Sigismund restored the honour of the imperial title and made himself the most influential monarch in the West. ==Personal life==