John Henry, Margrave of Moravia

Biography

Henry was born at Mělník, the third surviving son of King John of Bohemia (1296–1346) and his consort, the Přemyslid princess Elizabeth (1292–1330). John Henry therefore was the younger brother of Emperor Charles IV. At the time of his birth, the marriage of his parents was already broken; his mother fled to the Bavarian court of the Wittelsbach duke Henry XIV, the husband of her daughter Margaret, and John Henry was raised in Cham, Upper Palatinate.

During the rise of the Wittelsbach emperor Louis IV, King John had made attempts to reconcile with his former rival Henry of Gorizia-Tyrol, Duke of Carinthia and Count of Tyrol, whom he had deposed as Bohemian king in 1310. In 1327, his younger son John Henry and Henry's daughter, Countess Margaret of Tyrol (Margarethe Maultasch), were betrothed. As Henry had no male heirs, King John expected a considerable enlargement of the Luxembourg lands and control over the Tyrolean mountain passes to Italy. John Henry and Margaret were married on 16 September 1330 at Innsbruck. Nevertheless, Emperor Louis IV in the same year secretly promised the Carinthian duchy including the March of Carniola and large parts of Tyrol to the Habsburg dukes Albert II and Otto of Austria.

Thus, after Henry of Gorizia-Tyrol had died on 2 April 1335, Emperor Louis IV gave Carinthia and southern Tyrol including the overlordship of the Trent and Brixen bishoprics to the Austrian dukes, who themselves could refer to their mother Elisabeth of Gorizia-Tyrol, sister of deceased Henry. King John the Blind felt deprived, he put an end to his quarrels with the Polish king Casimir III and campaigned the Austrian duchy. A peace was concluded at the city of Enns on 9 October 1336, when John the Blind renounced Carinthia, while Margaret and John Henry could inherit the Tyrolean estates.

Charles IV acted as regent for his 14-year-old brother John Henry and soon came into conflict with the Tyrolian nobility. Furthermore, John Henry and his –reportedly– ugly wife had developed a strong aversion to each other. Margaret finally took the lead of the insurgence against her husband, when she refused him the access to Castle Tyrol on 1 November 1341. John Henry fled to the Patriarchal State of Aquileia, while his wife claimed that their marriage had never been consummated. Margaret was backed by Emperor Louis IV, who himself had plans to assure the Tyrolian heritage for the House of Wittelsbach. He had the scholars Marsilius of Padua and William of Ockham rendered an opinion that the marriage was not vaild. In 1342, Margaret took her inheritance of Tirol to her next husband, the Emperor's eldest son Margrave Louis of Brandenburg.

Humiliated, John Henry returned to Bohemia. Furious King John allied with Pope Clement VI, who banned both Louis and Margaret; nevertheless, the Luxembourg rule over Tyrol was terminated. In 1346 the Bohemian king died in the Battle of Crécy and was succeeded by his eldest son Charles IV.

After John Henry's marriage was conclusively divorced according to canon law in 1349, he married Margaret of Opava, daughter of Duke Nicholas II and Charles IV gave him the Bohemian Margraviate of Moravia as appanage. In turn, John henry had to renaounce all rights to the Bohemian throne. His second marriage produced several sons, none of whom however was able to leave surviving children, so John Henry's line ended in 1411. The eldest was Margrave Jobst of Moravia, the Elector of Brandenburg from 1388 on, who in 1410 became elected King of the Romans, but remained actually a rival king.

After Margaret of Opava had died in 1363, John Henry married Margaret of Austria, the daughter of Duke Albert II and widow of Margaret Maultasch's son from her marriage with Louis of Wittelsbach, Count Meinhard III of Tyrol.

He is buried at St Thomas's Abbey, in Brno.