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MARIA FELICIA

crowned as King of Bohemia. The nobility thought that he intended in many things to curtail their rights and privileges, and for that reason would refuse to be crowned as their king. The steward asserted that the Bohemian nobles, for that cause, had instigated some one, most likely the Emperor’s confessor, to relate to Charles the old Bohemian tradition, that the Emperor who ruled Bohemia without being anointed at St. Vitus’s Cathedral as the king of that country, would never have any male heirs. Some said that Charles really believed the tradition, and for that reason, after the death of his infant son Leopold, decided to be crowned there. Others asserted that he did so on account of his daughters, Maria Theresa and Maria Anna, for whom he thus confirmed the right to the throne after his death. And a few said he did so on account of his wife, that she might not, should he die suddenly, be deprived of part of her domains. Chrudim, Trutnov and other prominent cities belonged to the crown, and these might easily have been denied her had she not been anointed