Why Wenceslas?
SIR, Mr. Nicolson's Marginal Comment in the Spectator of December 23rd was full of the sealon's spirit and provided a welcome contribution to the week-end's reat4ipg. In his third paragraph he asks for informa- tion,
and although I am neither well-informed nor a doryphore, I shall venture to correct him.
The princeling who sold the title of Duke of Milan to Visconti was, indeed, a shambling potentate ; but he was not a German princeling. Wenceslaus IV was King of Bohemia and a grandson of John of Luxemburg, whose scutcheon and motto are used by the Princes of Wales (John was killed, fighting on the French side, in the battle of Crecy). All this has nothing to do with the carol. The King of the carol is Saint Wenceslas, a Duke of Bohemia, renowned for good works, who died a martyr's death at his brother's hand in 929. Surely this patron saint of Bohemia, whose statue adorns one of the main squares of Prague, is a more fitting subject for a carol than the " obscure princeling " who in fact ordered the murder of another Czech saint, Saint John of Nepomuk.
May I add that I am not ready to stand up for " Good King Wenceslas " as a carol ; a fine old sixteenth-century tune, originally used for an Easter carol, has been subjected to grave mutilation.—
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