ABSTRACT
It is generally supposed that great events have great causes, but I doubt this. I am inclined to think that they often have quite trivial origins.
Having been engaged lately in the study of the nineteenth century, I began to wonder why the Victorians were so much more virtuous, at least outwardly, than their predecessors. After prolonged research, I came to the conclusion that it was because King Richard II, who came to the throne in 1377, married a Bohemian princess. In his reign Wycliffe taught heretical doctrines, which were carried to Bohemia by the Queen’s entourage; they had much more success in Bohemia than in England and gave rise there to the Hussite movement. Out of this, after various vicissitudes, came the Moravian Brethren, who were preReformation Protestants but thought a good life more important than the niceties of theological dogma. After some centuries of persecution, these excellent people acquired a home in Germany, from which they sent missions all over the world; those who liked cold converted Eskimos, and those who liked warmth converted Negroes. When John Wesley, as a very young man, sailed for Georgia, there were on the same ship several Moravian Brethren who impressed him by their deep piety. It was largely through their influence that he became a Wesleyan. From Wesley’s teaching, not only as it affected Wesleyans but also as it affected evangelicals who remained Anglican, sprang the reformation of manners. The worthy Mr Bowdler,19 who bowdlerised Shakespeare, was an admired member of the evangelical sect. The French Revolution helped by making the rich afraid that if they roused
the moral indignation of the masses their heads would be cut off. But all this would not have happened without Wesley, and he might never have happened but for the Moravian Brethren, and they would never have happened if Richard II had not married Anne of Bohemia. This shows that you cannot be too careful whom you marry.
