26.2.1361 King Wenceslas IV of Bohemia is born.

He did not have a happy childhood, his father Charles IV. initiated him into the duties of a ruler from a young age. He traveled abroad with him and worked his way up to the throne. Václav IV was crowned King of Bohemia even as a two-year-old boy, born on 26 February 1361.

Wenceslas IV was nurtured from birth because he was the successor of the great Charles IV, who was one of the most important Czech monarchs. His legacy needs no further introduction. During his lifetime, he secured both the Czech and Roman thrones for his successor. There were no problems with the former. Wenceslas was crowned King of Bohemia on 15 June 1363 in St. Vitus Cathedral at the age of two.

"The then Archbishop Arnost of Pardubice did not like it, because he considered the coronation unworthy, given Wenceslas' young age and the national importance of such an act. However, as a friend of the Emperor, he finally relented and performed the ceremony," writes Vladimír Liška in his book Václav IV - Mysteries and Mysteries.

Václav's mother, Anna Svídnická, did not live to see the coronation; his stepmother was Elizabeth of Pomerania. She was able to provide her husband with the peace of the home hearth. However, it is not known how she behaved towards little Václav. Later there was tension between them as Elizabeth became more attached to her own son Sigismund.

However, her father Charles IV soon began to involve Wenceslas in political affairs. His upbringing was first entrusted to Arnošt of Pardubice, and after his death to Jan Očko of Vlašim. "Moreover, Charles IV also invited the Italian poet Petrarch to Prague, with whom he had corresponded for years and intended to make him Václav's teacher. But the strict supervision of his education was still kept by the king himself, and so his successor lived until histo his fifteenth year, always in his father's shadow as a political official," notes Liška.

Charles was always impressing upon his son how important he was. He paved the way for his successive titles and secured a prominent position. Václav admired and revered his father, he simply had an uncritical admiration for him. He got the impression that the royal majesty was not to be resisted by anyone and that it was quite easy to rule. His father would take him on trips to the German Empire, for example, and he would see everyone bowing down to Charles, which Wenceslas saw as a natural thing.

When Wenceslas ascended the throne, he was fully convinced that he was a ruler by God's grace, destined for great acts of statesmanship. As his father guided him from a young age, the sense of his own exceptionalism became deeply ingrained in him. Wenceslas took over the Czech kingdom in a stable and economically prosperous state. The period of his reign is linked, for example, to the personality of Jan Hus, whom Václav initially supported. However, they were alienated by the issue of the sale of indulgences. His brother Sigismund and the Council put pressure on the king to condemn Hus as a heretic. However, Wenceslas could not commit himself to an unequivocal position and increasingly retreated into the background. He died on 16 August 1419 at Nový hrad near Kunratice, where he was probably stricken with a stroke or epilepsy as a result of bad news from Prague.

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