Ondřej Kodelík, town clerk

Legend tells that Budějovice town clerk Ondřej Kodelík did not know his true origin. As a boy he was taken in by Kryštof Radler and raised in Budějovice. Ondřej grew into a man the town trusted, and fell in love with Ludmila, daughter of councillor Mikuláš Šanc.

Ludmila returned his feelings, and at first Šanc did not fundamentally oppose their marriage.

On New Year’s Eve 1613 company gathered at Šanc’s. Kryštof Radler, Ondřej’s foster father, sat there too. Wine loosened his tongue and Radler revealed what he had not said aloud before: Ondřej was not his kin, but a foundling. He had found him as a boy who did not know his true origin. From what was known then, his parents were said to have been Lutherans. A commemorative coin was also found with the boy.

After those words Šanc hardened. He would not give his daughter to a man of such origin, he declared, and sealed it with an oath.

Ludmila suffered under her father’s decision, but Šanc did not retract his word.

At the end of January 1614 King Matthias arrived in České Budějovice with his wife Anna of Tyrol. Because of plague danger in Prague the provincial diet had been summoned here, and the town received the royal couple with ceremony. Ondřej Kodelík appeared at the welcome as town clerk.

The royal visit, however, changed nothing in Šanc’s oath.

The town was to provide the sovereign with a loan of thirty thousand Meissen groschen. The council trusted Ondřej and charged him with helping to raise the sum among the burghers. Ondřej succeeded and the needed amount was gathered in a short time.

When he came with the town council to the royal court, he met Capuchin Cherubín, confessor of Queen Anna. Cherubín learned that Ondřej did not know his origin and noticed the commemorative coin he wore.

He asked to see it.

In that moment the coin stirred a memory. He did not say everything at once. He went to the king, and soon afterward Ondřej was summoned with the town council to an audience.

The town handed Matthias the promised loan, and at the audience it was said that Ondřej had contributed greatly to raising the money quickly. Then came the matter that meant more to him than royal praise.

Capuchin Cherubín explained before those present what he knew of the coin. Ondřej’s mother had been the sister of Arnold Lambert. The parents had perished in troubled times and were not Lutherans. An orphaned boy had been taken in by a woman of Lutheran faith, and it was she who gave him the commemorative coin. Only later did Kryštof Radler take Ondřej in.

That coin, once a clue to his unclear origin, was a gift from the woman who had saved his life.

It thus turned out that Ondřej’s origin was other than Šanc had assumed. The obstacle on which his oath rested fell away.

Šanc admitted his error and gave consent to the marriage.

Not long afterward Ondřej Kodelík and Ludmila Šancová were wed.