Queen Anne’s Grace - Anne Of Bohemia

1366–94

When King Richard II of England married Anne of Bohemia, many were left scratching their heads. Yes, she was daughter of the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles IV, but she brought no dowry into the English coffers. In fact, Richard had to pay a substantial sum to wed her. European politics was always a tricky business, and marriages often served to forge important alliances, but the English historians couldn’t figure this one out. One of them described the fifteen-year-old bride as a “tiny scrap of humanity.” Yet Richard, just sixteen, seemed to love her.

There were widespread complaints about this foreign queen—and about the entourage of attendants she brought from Bohemia—but Anne won the people over with her kind heart and gracious ways. (The ladies of England even began to copy her fashion choices.)

Though there had recently been insurrections, the young queen urged her husband to pardon the troublemakers. She became known as a peacemaker in various disputes. Anne was also an avid student of Scripture, and this brought about a significant connection in Christian history. One of the earliest Reformers, long before Martin Luther, was John Wycliffe, an English scholar who translated the Bible into English, completing the text in the same year Anne became queen. Some of Anne’s attendants learned from Wycliffe and later returned to Bohemia, where they influenced another major Reformer, Jan Hus. In God’s grand design, maybe this was the reason the English king married the Bohemian princess.

In her late twenties, Anne died in an epidemic. Grief-stricken, Richard wrote her epitaph, which included these lines: “To Christ were her meek virtues devoted: His poor she freely fed from her treasures; Strife she assuaged, and swelling feuds appeased; Beauteous her form, her face surpassing fair.”

Have you ever been troubled by people saying nasty things about you? Have you been treated as a “tiny scrap of humanity,” disregarded, dismissed, or discarded? Keep your focus on Christ. Offer him your “meek virtues.” Win over your detractors with God’s love and sweet peace. Who knows what impact you could have?

Look at those who are honest and good, for a wonderful future awaits those who love peace.

Psalm 37:37