Kingdom of Bohemia

History

The Kingdom of Bohemia - Bohemia is the region that makes up the western half of today's Czechia, a wide basin ringed by mountains. The Vltava river runs through its middle, past Prague and on into the Elbe, which made it a crossroads of trade and travel in central Europe from early times. Rich silver mines also made it one of the wealthiest lands in the Holy Roman Empire.The King of Bohemia held one of the seven electoral votes that chose the emperor, so this crown carried unusual weight in imperial politics. The throne, however, was traditionally filled by a vote of the nobles rather than passing automatically from father to son — and that tradition became the spark of the quarrel of 1618.Bohemia was also the land where Jan Hus called for church reform a century before the Reformation and was burned for it. The Hussite tradition that followed gave Protestant belief deep roots here, and when a Catholic ruler tried to undo it, the first revolt of the Thirty Years' War broke out in these lands. lay in the western part of today's Czechia and was recognised as a kingdom from the late 12th century. Its heart was a wide basin ringed by mountains, with the Vltava river running through the middle and the capital, Prague, sitting on its banks.

Silver mines made it one of the richest lands in central Europe, and because its king held one of the seven elector - The name for the seven princes who had the right to choose the Holy Roman Emperor. The group was made up of the archbishops of Mainz, Cologne and Trier, together with the King of Bohemia, the Count Palatine of the Rhine, the Duke of Saxony and the Margrave of Brandenburg.Because the emperor was not simply inherited from father to son but voted in by these seven men, each elector carried enormous weight. A candidate hunting for votes had to promise them privileges and money, which is one reason the emperor's power always had limits.In the Thirty Years' War an electoral title was itself a great prize. When Frederick V of the Palatinate reached for the Bohemian crown and lost, the emperor stripped him of his electorship and handed it to the Duke of Bavaria — a move that angered the Protestant princes deeply and helped stretch the war out for decades.al votes of the Holy Roman Empire - The Holy Roman Empire was a decentralized medieval Central European empire founded in 962 AD, characterized by its elective emperors and complex relations with the Papacy., it carried great political weight as well. Bohemia had a religious tradition all its own.

In 1415, a century before the Reformation, the Prague scholar Jan Hus was burned for criticising corruption in the Church, and the Hussite movement that followed put down deep roots. By the 16th century most Bohemians were Protestant, and the king had to guarantee their freedom of worship in writing.

The throne, too, was traditionally filled by a vote of the nobles rather than passing automatically from father to son. Prague is a city full of legends.

There is the tale of Libuše, the founding queen who stood on a hill and prophesied, 'I see a city whose glory will touch the stars,' so Prague was built; the story of the Golem, a giant of clay brought to life by a rabbi of the Jewish quarter; and the belief that Saint Wenceslas and his knights sleep inside Blaník mountain, ready to wake when the land is in its greatest danger. In 1618 Protestant nobles threw the emperor's officials out of a window in Prague Castle and Bohemia rose against its Habsburg ruler.

Defeat at the Battle of White Mountain in 1620 cost the kingdom both its self-rule and its Protestant faith, and it passed firmly under Habsburg control.