[To THE EDITOR or 71111 "SPECTATOR."] SIR,—The interesting article, "
The Crumbling of Austria- Hungary," in the Spectator of the 10th inst. has brought vividly back to my memory my childish friendship with Miss Wratislaw and her telling me that her grandfather—I think that was the generation—Count Wratislas, a Bohemian noble, had, as the descendant of the former Kings of Bohemia and as the bead of the House of Wratislas, been selected as the leader of a national Czech rising against the Austrians some time in the eighteenth century. This proving abortive, he fled for his life and took refuge in England, and, his estates having been confiscated and he being penniless, became " Foreign Language" Master at Rugby School. Here, she said, he remained, "the world forgetting, by the world forgot." Years passed, and ultimately, an amnesty having been accorded and published to all those who had taken part in the movement, he was advertised for, but such was the obscurity in which be lived that he never heard of this until the space of seven years had elapsed during which it is legally necessary in Bohemia that estates should be claimed; and when be did later hear of the amnesty and came forward and claimed his property, be found that it bad been granted to the next heir. As there was no redress, he stayed on in England and founded a family, some of whom were well- known classical scholars—one was Head-Master of Foisted School, I think. Another descendant is Admiral Henry Wratislaw, C.B., and H.M. Consul-General in Crete, Mr. A. C. Wratislaw, C.B., C.M.G., is another, but I do not know who is the head of the family.
Miss Wratislaw told me also that the blind King John of Bohemia, who was taken prisoner—or was he killed P--by the Black Prince at the battle of Crecy, whose badge of the ostrich feathers and whose motto Ic7s diem were by popular tradition adopted for all time by the Princes of Wales—a pleasant tradition which modern heraldic iconoclasts have unkindly attacked—was her direct ancestor, and that if ever I went to Prague I should see in the Cathedral the tombs of her ancestors of the dynasty of Wratislas, Kings of Bohemia, and of Hungary, as I did many years afterwards, when I also ascertained that there is still a Count Wratislas in Bohemia, and was told that that line was nearly extinct, so it was not impossible that the property might revert back to the senior branch residing in England.
In your article you talk of an impending new "strong and independent Czech Kingdom." How interesting it would be if the whirligig of time should bring its old Wratislas dynasty back to this long-lost realm ! But I fear that that is hardly within the scope of practical politics.—I am,
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