Page:Bohemia An Historical Sketch.djvu/82

 An embassy was sent to the German king requesting his consent to their choice (John being then only fourteen years of age), and also to the marriage of their new sovereign with the Princess Elizabeth, second daughter of Venceslas II. After some negotiations they obtained the consent of Henry, who sent an army to Bohemia to accompany his son and the Bohemian envoys on their journey.

John obtained possession of the country after a slight resistance on the part of Henry of Carinthia, who, however, soon left Bohemia. In the following year (1311) John and Elizabeth were crowned at Prague as king and queen of Bohemia.

It was a great misfortune for the young king that his father, Henry VII of Germany (who had, as was customary with the German kings, undertaken an expedition to Rome to be crowned there as Emperor), died suddenly on his way back to Germany (13111313 [sic]). Many of the faults King John afterwards committed may be traced to the fact that from his earliest youth he had been under no control. We read that King John did not take his father's death much to heart, and he attempted, though unsuccessfully, to secure the succession to the German throne. His extreme youth appears to have been the principal cause of his failure.

The German Electors having voted—some for Duke Frederick of Austria, others for Louis, Duke of Bavaria—one of the many contests for the crown took place which at that period caused so great a decline in the power and influence of Germany. In this struggle between the houses of Habsburg and Wittelsbach King John sided with the Bavarian prince, and his forces are said to have largely contributed to the decisive victory of Mühldorf (1322). We are also told that King John had the command of the whole army, which on that day defeated the Austrian duke.

King John's rule in Bohemia cannot, on the whole, be considered as successful. His heroic death has made him one of those kings whose names linger in the memory of the