KING WENCESLAS

Greymouth Evening Star, 24 December 1942, Page 6

KING WENCESLAS

YOUNG HERO OF BOHEMIA

It would be difficult to find anyone who has not heard of “Good King Wenceslas.” whose good deeds are linked with St. Stephen’s the morrow of Christmas (wrote C. B. Mortlock). His name is probably more familiar than those of some of the less prominent of the Twelve Apostles. His fame among us, however, is a comparatively recent thing and dates from the immediate popularity gained by the Christmas carol written by John Mason Neale in the middle of last century. You will find no mention of “Good King Wenceslas” in any of Dickens’s Christmas stories. “God rest you merry. Gentlemen” was the carol Scrooge heard the urchins singing on Christmas Eve. As a figure identified with the observance of Christmas Wenceslas came into vogue at much about the time that the turkey was ousting the goose from the Christmas dinner-table. In honouring the memory of the great prince and saint of Bohemia, Dr. Neale has in a curious way misled us. I imagine that most people, as they sing the verse of the carol which tells how Wenceslas set out with his page in the bitter cold of St. Stephen’s night to carry comfort to the starving old man, picture the king as a venerable figure, bald of head and white of beard. Neale, it is true, says nothing about his age, but his verses somehow suggest a mature benignity which has no warrant in fact. St. Wenceslas was little more than a youth when he wrested the government of Bohemia from his mother, under whose regency it had been descending into pagan wickedness. Although he reigned only nine years and died before he was 30, he did more for Bohemia than any other prince with, the possible exception of Charles IV. SOCIAL REFORMER In the history of his country he is anything but a legendary figure, and co this day he is venerated for the great qualities of Christian statesmanship by which he was enabled to place the nation on a foundation which endured for centuries. In many respects he was in ad-| vance of his times. In reforming tTie penal system, for instance, he abolished brutalising elements which, in our country, persisted for nearly 1,000 years afterwards. Under the Hapsburgs the singing of the Wenceslas commemorative anthem, which has come doyvn from the XHlth Century, was forbidden, but the Czechs have always rallied to the Wenceslas standard in the darkest days of their history.

In September, 1929, I was in Prague for the national celebrations of the thousandth anniversary of King Wenceslas’s martyrdom—he was stabbed by his brother Boleslav while on his way to Mass. The anniversary was signalised by tvto impressive ceremonies. One was the solemn celebration of the completion of the great cathedral church of St. Vitus, which he founded, and the other was the opening of his tomb so that on the head of the dead saint might be placed a diadem presented by Czechs living in the United States of America. The actual crown which he wore in

life is one of the precious .relics preserved in the cathedral.