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:
“His youth was distinguished by all the tumult and storm of pleasures, in which he licentiously triumphed, disdaining all decorum. His fine imagination was often heated and exhausted with his body in celebrating and deifying the prostitute of the night, and his convivial joys were pushed to all the extravagancy of frantic bacchanals.”
—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)
“Man’s own youth is the world’s youth; at least he feels as if it were, and imagines that the earth’s granite substance is something not yet hardened, and which he can mould into whatever shape he likes.”
—Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804–1864)
“Rebellious hell,
If thou canst mutine in a matron’s bones,
To flaming youth let virtue be as wax
And melt in her own fire.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)