Every story needs a villain, but anyone casting Don Julius as their villain has struck gold. Julius Caesar D'Austria was the illegitimate son of the Holy Roman Emperor Rudolph II and his favourite mistress Katerina Stradová. Rudolph was a strange man, to say the least, and left no legitimate heirs, but he doted on Julius. In fact, naming your son 'Julius Caesar' is a bit of a clue you have ambitions for him. Julius received a noble education and was groomed for greatness at court. There was only one obstacle to block his starry progress: Julius was utterly insane.
It started as alcoholism, sadism and violent rages and went downhill from there. The teenage Julius took to roaming the countryside with murderous cronies abducting peasant girls in a style reminiscent of Count Karnstein in that old Hammer film or an early prototype of the Hellfire Club. The Emperor sent Julius away to a sort of genteel exile in the fabulous castle of Český Krumlov in Czechoslovakia, but Julius' urges didn't stop and he spent a time in a Carthusian monastery, going through the 17th century equivalent of rehab.
Julius seems to have runaway from his monks and ended up back at Český Krumlov in the company of a barber surgeon called Zikmund Pichler. Pichler was perhaps using his skills to 'bleed' Julius, which was cutting edge medical intervention for madness in the early 1600s. Pichler also had a lovely daughter, Markéta Pichlerová, and a relationship soon started.
If Markéta was a good influence on Julius at first, it didn't last. The lovers fought and Julius stabbed her and, thinking her dead, through her body out of a window. Castle Krumlov stands on a particularly impressive crag overlooking the village, so window-tumbles could be expected to be fatal.
But Markéta survived. Somehow. Oddly, this was an age in which defenestration (throwing people out of windows) became a craze in Eastern Europe, a sort of cross between political protest and competitive sport. A surprising number of defenestrated victims survived, but Markéta was wise enough to go into hiding.
In the best tradition of sexually obsessed maniacs, Julius demanded Markéta be returned to him and threatened to murder her father if she didn't. The girl complied. Whatever happened between them that night, by the morning the girl was dead. It was 18 February 1608.
Julius had so terribly mutilated the girl's body, including cutting off her head, the family had to bury her in pieces. The news was assiduously reported by the local chronicler Václav Brezan, who detested Julius. Europe was scandalised at the bastard prince's behaviour and not even Emperor Rudolph could save him. Julius was placed under a form of house arrest, but his condition deteriorated. He lived among filth, naked and unshaven, refusing to eat and throwing clothes and furniture out of windows (still with the windows!). The servants were too terrified to enter his chambers which reeked to gag a maggot.
Julius was certainly schizophrenic. His physical health deteriorated too and a burst ulcer was probably what killed him. Václav Březan exulted in the maniac's death in 1609, writing: "On 25th June, during the night, Julius that bastard, the illegitimate son of Emperor Rudolf II, being prisoned in the castle under Pelikán´s rooms, fell down and sent his dangerous soul off to the devil."
The Emperor Rudolph intended his son to receive a princely funeral, but also died soon after, so Julius was interred in the walls of Castle Krumlov, but the location of his grave is unknown.
In Hexenfire, I fancifully propose that Julius did not die, but was imprisoned for two decades in the Wenceslaus Vaults under the Castle, with the connivance of the new Emperor (his uncle Matthias) and the Teutonic Order. I've also linked him to the enigmatic Voynich Manuscript but that will have to wait for another blog entry.
You might view Don Julius as a monster, a classic example of the atrocities condoned by arbitrary privilege in the age before we discovered human rights and democratic accountability. Or is Don Julius another victim, a schizophrenic in the benighted times before mental illness was understood and properly treated? It's interesting that whatever Don Julius got up to, no one accused him of witchcraft. The witch trials were never a threat to the ruling classes in Christian Europe, after all.
It started as alcoholism, sadism and violent rages and went downhill from there. The teenage Julius took to roaming the countryside with murderous cronies abducting peasant girls in a style reminiscent of Count Karnstein in that old Hammer film or an early prototype of the Hellfire Club. The Emperor sent Julius away to a sort of genteel exile in the fabulous castle of Český Krumlov in Czechoslovakia, but Julius' urges didn't stop and he spent a time in a Carthusian monastery, going through the 17th century equivalent of rehab.
Julius seems to have runaway from his monks and ended up back at Český Krumlov in the company of a barber surgeon called Zikmund Pichler. Pichler was perhaps using his skills to 'bleed' Julius, which was cutting edge medical intervention for madness in the early 1600s. Pichler also had a lovely daughter, Markéta Pichlerová, and a relationship soon started.
If Markéta was a good influence on Julius at first, it didn't last. The lovers fought and Julius stabbed her and, thinking her dead, through her body out of a window. Castle Krumlov stands on a particularly impressive crag overlooking the village, so window-tumbles could be expected to be fatal.
But Markéta survived. Somehow. Oddly, this was an age in which defenestration (throwing people out of windows) became a craze in Eastern Europe, a sort of cross between political protest and competitive sport. A surprising number of defenestrated victims survived, but Markéta was wise enough to go into hiding.
In the best tradition of sexually obsessed maniacs, Julius demanded Markéta be returned to him and threatened to murder her father if she didn't. The girl complied. Whatever happened between them that night, by the morning the girl was dead. It was 18 February 1608.
Julius had so terribly mutilated the girl's body, including cutting off her head, the family had to bury her in pieces. The news was assiduously reported by the local chronicler Václav Brezan, who detested Julius. Europe was scandalised at the bastard prince's behaviour and not even Emperor Rudolph could save him. Julius was placed under a form of house arrest, but his condition deteriorated. He lived among filth, naked and unshaven, refusing to eat and throwing clothes and furniture out of windows (still with the windows!). The servants were too terrified to enter his chambers which reeked to gag a maggot.
Julius was certainly schizophrenic. His physical health deteriorated too and a burst ulcer was probably what killed him. Václav Březan exulted in the maniac's death in 1609, writing: "On 25th June, during the night, Julius that bastard, the illegitimate son of Emperor Rudolf II, being prisoned in the castle under Pelikán´s rooms, fell down and sent his dangerous soul off to the devil."
The Emperor Rudolph intended his son to receive a princely funeral, but also died soon after, so Julius was interred in the walls of Castle Krumlov, but the location of his grave is unknown.
In Hexenfire, I fancifully propose that Julius did not die, but was imprisoned for two decades in the Wenceslaus Vaults under the Castle, with the connivance of the new Emperor (his uncle Matthias) and the Teutonic Order. I've also linked him to the enigmatic Voynich Manuscript but that will have to wait for another blog entry.
You might view Don Julius as a monster, a classic example of the atrocities condoned by arbitrary privilege in the age before we discovered human rights and democratic accountability. Or is Don Julius another victim, a schizophrenic in the benighted times before mental illness was understood and properly treated? It's interesting that whatever Don Julius got up to, no one accused him of witchcraft. The witch trials were never a threat to the ruling classes in Christian Europe, after all.