Youth
Bretislaus was the son of Duke Oldřich and his low-born concubine Božena. As an illegitimate son could not obtain a desirable wife by conventional means, he chose to kidnap his future wife Judith of Schweinfurt (Czech: Jitka), a daughter of the Bavarian noble Henry of Schweinfurt, Margrave of Nordgau, in 1019 at Schweinfurt.
During his father’s reign, in 1019 or 1029, Bretislaus took back Moravia from Poland. About 1031 he invaded Hungary in order to prevent its expansion under king Stephen. The partition of Bohemia between Oldřich and his brother Jaromír in 1034 was probably the reason why Bretislaus fled beyond the Bohemian border, only to come back to take the throne after Jaromír’s abdication.
Read more about this topic: Bretislaus I, Duke Of Bohemia
Famous quotes containing the word youth:
“If the quick fire of youth light not your mind,
You are no maiden, but a monument.
When you are dead, you should be such a one
As you are now; for you are cold and stern.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“The youth gets together his materials to build a bridge to the moon, or perchance, a palace or temple on the earth, and, at length, the middle-aged man concludes to build a woodshed with them.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Not the less does nature continue to fill the heart of youth with suggestions of his enthusiasm, and there are now men,—if indeed I can speak in the plural number,—more exactly, I will say, I have just been conversing with one man, to whom no weight of adverse experience will make it for a moment appear impossible, that thousands of human beings might exercise towards each other the grandest and simplest of sentiments, as well as a knot of friends, or a pair of lovers.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)