![]() ![]() He is now the patron saint of Bohemia, Prague and the Czech Republic. ‘Good King’ Wenceslas was later canonised and given the feast day of 28 September, which is said to be the day he died. This has the potential to be confusing, because the real Wenceslaus I of Bohemia reigned in the thirteenth century. She certainly had criminal form because apparently she had previously arranged for her mother-in-law, St Ludmila, to be strangled.Īlthough Wenceslas was not a king when he died, later in the tenth century he was posthumously styled Wenceslas I by Otto I, the Holy Roman Emperor. Their mother, Drahomira, may also have been involved. He was murdered in a plot that is thought to have been hatched by his brother, the aptly named Boleslav the Cruel. Fortunately, bearing in mind its seasonal nature, the carol fails to mention the most memorable fact about the real Wenceslas, which is that he was assassinated in his native Bohemia in 935. The carol does concern a real person – Wenceslas, Duke of Bohemia, who lived in the tenth century. ![]() ![]() But most of us haven’t a clue whether this is simply a story or if there really was a Good King Wenceslas. We sing about him every Christmas in the eponymous carol, which tells us that the ‘good king’ and his page ventured out in the snow on the feast of Stephen (26 December) to take food, wine and logs to a man who was struggling to collect firewood. In this extract from The Book of Christmas, Jane Struthers demystifies the protagonist of a popular Christmas carol. ![]()
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