Wenceslaus II

**Wenceslaus II** (Czech: *Václav,* German: *Wenzel*, born 1257) also known as **Wenceslaus the Moderate,** is the eldest son of Ottokar II and Agnes of Babenberg and their successor as ruler of the southern Premyslid realm known as Austria-Hungary.

## Biography

### Childhood

His father inherited Austria and its adjacent Hungarian territories upon the death of his grandfather Frederick of Babenberg*,* but was prone to leave his Duchess and children attached to the royal court of Bohemia, where Wenceslaus spent the greater part of his infancy and adolescence.

Like the other Premyslid men of his generation, Wenceslaus was the fruit of a hybrid marriage and equally hybrid upbringing. By blood he was Czech, German and Latin in equal parts. In later years he would also adopt and sponsor the influence of Byzantine (Greek) elements introduced into his court from Constantinople, Hungary and Russia.

### Marriage & Offspring

He married first, by proxy in 1286, his cousin Sophia of Sponheim-Kraiburg, daughter of Count Palatine Rapoto of Bavaria and his sometime intended Queen Hedwig of Bohemia.

On account of their espousal he received the lands and government of Carinthia, styling himself as Duke of Carinthia from then onward. In exchange he renounced the Palatinate of Bohemia in favour of her father.

He was, by her, father of:

* ~~Helen of Hungary~~ (1302) otherwise Jelena, dead at birth or shortly thereafter,
* **Isabella of Hungary** (1303-),
* ~~Catherine~~ and ~~Margaret~~ (1305), triplets, died at birth or shortly thereafter,
* **Stephen Postumus** (b.1305), the surviving triplet.

He married secondly another cousin, Beatrice of Poland, Dowager Electress of the Rhine, in whose right he claimed the crown of Poland in 1307. They divorced on amicable terms c.1309.

He married thirdly another cousin, **Maria Palaiologina Kantakouzene Angelina Laskarina Arpadina**, a Hungaro-Byzantine noblewoman, the daughter of Prince Emeric of Hungary and Eugenia Palaiologina Kantakouzene.

He was additionally associated with the noblewoman Euphrosyne of Halych, an exile derived from the Rurikid branch that ruled Galicia until the arrival of the Jochids. She would remain a royal favourite until her death but was married off upon his ascension. She died the abbess of a Latin-rite religious house. They were, together, the parents of three children:

* ~~Jobst~~ (1290), died in infancy.
* **Constance of Pressburg** (b.1291), wife of Albert of Hapsburg, King of Poland.
* **Clemence of Pressburg** (b.1293), wife of Jovan, Voivode of Belgrade.

### Career & Titles

Named Palatine of Bohemia by his father (1280/1281) and subsequently acquiring the Dukedom of Carinthia by marriage (1287), he became King of Hungary, Croatia, Dalmatia, Slavonia and Rama, Duke of Austria, Styria, Merania and Friuli, Margrave of Istria, Carniola and Meissen, and Count of the Tyrol and Gorizia upon his father's death (1296). Like his father before him, he emphasised his absolute and autocratic power using the Imperial *Tsar* ("Caesar") as a preferred and proper title in all his dominions, even before his election as King of the Romans. The use of a single title accurately the Premyslid focus on unity and cohesion of law, identity and purpose for themselves and their realm. The practice further enshrined the use of *Tsar* as the primary royal title of the Premyslid monarchy, making its use a matter of course when he passed.

Like his father before him, he also styled himself *Autokrator* and *Basileus* and recognised no superior or sovereign in his non-Imperial lands. His sobriquet, *Moderator*, was derived from the Latin rendering of the Greek *Autokrator,* which together with *Basileus* was one of the Imperial titles most frequently used by Slavic princes and rulers who wished to assert their autonomy from the western and eastern Empires.

In the Holy Roman Empire, he simultaneously held the two prestigious roles of Arch-cupbearer and Archchamberlain and both exercised and delegated authority as an Imperial Vicar in the East.

He further augmented his prestige by claiming the crowns of Jerusalem and Cyprus and styling himself Defender of the Holy Sepulchre.

He claimed the crown of Poland by virtue of his marriage to Beatrice of Poland, the Dowager Electress Palatine, (c.1307) but withdrew himself as a contender once Albert of Hapsburg, her would-be son, came to terms with him in 1309.

When Nemanjic Serbia collapsed under the weight of outside invasion and internal unrest, he acquired the north-western portions of that kingdom. Electing the old Roman capital of Sirmium as the base for Premyslid royal power in those parts, he had himself crowned King of Raska and Syrmia, reviving old Arpad claims to suzerainty (he did not, however, crown himself King of Serbia).

## Politics

### Bohemia

He was promoted by his father and uncle from an early age. The death of his eldest son and estrangement from the second made King Vladislaus II the Vexed dependent on others, chief of which was his brother Ottokar. Unsurprisingly, perhaps, he associated Ottokar with him on the throne and advanced Wenceslaus as Palatine of Bohemia.

He served for many years as Palatine of Bohemia and commanded the elite company known as the Red Lions or Palatine's Lions. In this capacity he was essentially the third man in the realm, second only to the King and associate King. When King Vladislaus died, he effectively shared in the joint reign of his father and Queen Hedwig.

King Vladislaus sought to secure the desired introduction of primogeniture and accompanying succession of his granddaughter by bestowing her in marriage suitably. His choice first fell on Henry IX of Wittelsbach, later King of the Romans, grandson of Duke Frederick of Bohemia (of a defunct rival branch of the Premyslid family). For a time, Vladislaus associated both Henry and Ottokar with him on the throne, forming a triumvirate intent on precluding the sort of internal division and factitious warfare that had plagued the Premyslid family in times past.

The opposition of the Roman authorities prevented the much-desired matrimony of Wenceslaus and Hedwig, resulting in her marriage elsewhere - first to Henry IX of Wittelsbach, later King of the Romans (a nominal union, never consummated) and then to his nephew Rapoto of Sponheim-Kraiburg, Count Palatine of Bavaria and sometime Duke of Bavaria, both cadet members of the Imperial family.

Both marriages were architected by the girl's grandfather, Vladislaus II 'the Vexed' with a view to securing the assent and support of neighbouring Bavaria and the Holy Roman Empire - yet both came accompanied by the same impediments, namely, the accompanying end of the Premyslid reign in Bohemia, the loathed threat of a foreign King introducing his foreign favourites into power, the feared subsumption of Bohemia into the Holy Roman Empire as yet another dependency, the draining of Bohemian resources in favour of a foreign King's foreign affairs, etc. Adopting a defensive stance, Wenceslaus was promoted by his father to Palatine of Bohemia and third co-ruler - and once Rapoto had definitively wed Hedwig, as the preferred successor to the couple, of which Rapoto was barred from the crown and only allowed the powers of the Palatinate upon renouncing the much-desired fief of Carinthia in Wenceslaus' favour.

Fears of internal fracture were smoothed over by Wenceslaus' prompt marriage to the infant Sophia, daughter of Rapoto and Hedwig. The young Tsarina was fated to die young, but lived long enough to provide her cousin with the crucial male heir he needed. Following her death he would march north to succour Queen Hedwig, whose invasion of Silesia and Poland had ended in defeat and shame with the death of Count Rapoto.

### The Church

Like most of the Premyslids of his generation, Wenceslaus was imbued with a healthy distrust of the Roman Catholic church and the dangers of clerical interference in secular affairs. He famously blamed the Papacy for the death of his beloved father and spear-headed the widespread denunciation of the Council of Lyon and all its dispositions. The waning power of the Papacy and the ongoing wars dominating the Italian peninsula allowed the Premyslid monarchy to actively pursue its dreams of autocephaly, justified on the twin basis of the Apostolic Privilege granted Saint Stephen, the first King of Hungary, and the Patriarchal authority of the metropolitans salvaged from the defunct monarchies of Outremer and Galicia.

Communion with Rome was later restored for expediency's sake, but did not undo the general development of the Austro-Hungarian church into a creature of its own, drawing heavily from the old Slavonic rite and imbued with its fair share of Byzantine, Orthodox influence, as manifested in the tolerance and proliferation of such practices as priestly beards, the use of the Slavic tongue and liturgy during the mass, clerical marriage or concubinage, divorce and remarriage among lay persons, the consecration and reverence of its own (and Byzantine) saints, amongst others.