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Updated: May 23, 2025
Above all, a great danger threatened; the Turks were extending their conquests in Eastern Europe, the Byzantine Empire was going under before them, and the fall of Constantinople was imminent. It was shortly before this latter event that George Podiebrad was called to the throne.
Potent arguments like these induced Matthias not only to turn his back on Podiebrad, but to accept that deposed monarch's crown which the Bohemian nobles offered him May 3, 1469. Then he proceeded to ally himself with Frederic, elector palatine, and with the elector of Bavaria. This was the moment when the ex-king of Bohemia made renewed offers of friendly alliance to Charles of Burgundy.
A numerous assemblage of the nobles of the three nations was convened, and it was settled that the young king, during his minority, should remain at Vienna, under the care of his maternal uncle, Count Cilli, who, in the meantime, was to administer the government of Austria. George Podiebrad was intrusted with the regency of Bohemia; and John Hunniades was appointed regent of Hungary.
Frederic, the emperor, had been quite sanguine in the hopes of obtaining the crown of Bohemia. Bitterly disappointed there, he at first made a show of hostile resistance; but thinking better of the matter, he concluded to acquiesce in the elevation of Podiebrad, to secure amicable relations with him, and to seek his aid in promotion of his efforts to obtain the crown of Hungary.
For twenty years he had taught his Brethren to study the mind of Christ in the Scriptures and to seek the guidance of God in united prayer, and now he saw them joined as one to face the rising storm. "Henceforth," he wrote gladly to King George Podiebrad, "we have done with the Church of Rome."
The pageant moves on, giving a flash here and there of some one who stood up above his fellows like George Podiebrad, or the strong men who precipitated the Thirty Years' War. Then follows a fleeting vision of a stranger King, a German Protestant with his wife Elizabeth, daughter of "douce Jamie." A short reign this of Frederick Count Palatine, the "Winter King."
The regents quarreled and headed two hostile parties. Anarchy and civil war desolated the kingdom, with fluctuations of success and discomfiture attending the movements of either party. Thus several years of violence and blood passed on. One of the regents, George Podiebrad, drove his opponent from the realm and assumed regal authority.
He tried to obtain the Bohemian and Hungarian crowns; but Podiebrad, a Utraquist nobleman, was made king of Bohemia, and Matthias Corvinus succeeded Hunyady, his father, on the throne of Hungary. By the death of Albert, the brother of Frederick, to whom the emperor had been compelled to give up Vienna, he became master of all the Austrian lands except Tyrol.
Of the latter again, which fronts the Rath-haus, and so occupies a conspicuous position in the same square, why should I say more than has been said already? Here, in 1458, the states assembled to elect to the vacant throne the virtuous George of Podiebrad; here Huss preached, and John of Rokysan taught; and Tycho Brahe found here the last resting-place which is allotted to mortality.
Mary under the Chain" and the house of the Knights of Malta. Of George Podiebrad, of Frederick the Winter King and his wife Elizabeth. A word or two about the Hussites and the host of crusaders that came out of the West and were defeated by Žiška. A pageant of those whose life and work was connected with the Cathedral of St. Vitus.
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