oom for
John. Now John was heavily handicapped and did little to remove his
disabilities, in fact he rather aggravated them. He was only fourteen
when he found himself a King and a married man. His father, a shrewd and
enterprising monarch, died before John had really become acquainted with
his capital, and so there was no unbiassed adviser to whom the young
ruler could turn. John did not live on the best of terms with his
mother-in-law, who from the dower-house at Kralove Hradec, called by the
Germans Koeniggratz, interfered a good deal in the affairs of state; the
trouble is said to have arisen originally between the two Elizabeths,
mother and daughter, and even led to some fighting in which the city of
Prague took an active part. By temperament John was not equal to his
task; he was, it appears, thoroughly unpractical and entirely embued
with all sorts of romantic notions. Those who watched John's doings from
afar, and were not immediately affected by their results, could afford
to approve of him and call him _corona militiae_ as did King Edward III
of England. John was what may be called the "soul of chivalry," in his
opinion Paris was the most chivalrous city in the world, and that is
probably why he felt called upon to roam Europe as a knight-errant
instead of looking after his wife and her relatives, and incidentally
his Kingdom of Bohemia. According to Count Luetzow, John intended to
re-establish the Round Table of King Arthur, and to this end he invited
all the most celebrated knights of Europe to a tournament at Prague;
"nobody responded to the call." So John went abroad for his amusement
and found it in plenty. To begin with, there was always something doing
in his line between rival German Kings and Emperors, so we find him
helping Louis, Duke of Bavaria, at Wittelsbach, to victory over the
Habsburger Frederick at Muehldorf. Expeditions to Hungary, Italy, France
and against the heathen Lithuanians all helped to pass away John's time
pleasurably and unprofitably; as Palacky says: "It would be necessary to
write the history of all Europe if we attempted to describe all the
feuds into which King John entered with chivalrous bravery, but also
with frivolity. It then became a proverb, that 'nothing can be done
without the help of God and of the King of Bohemia.'"

John proved an expensive luxury to Bohemia, and he reigned for
thirty-six years, so his country, although rich, yet peopled by a canny
and thrifty popu