Elizabeth of Poland, Queen and Regent

Elizabeth of Poland, Queen of Hungary and Regent of Poland (died 29 December 1380)

Born in the year 1305, Elizabeth of Poland was the daughter of Władysław of Poland and Jadwiga of Kalisz. 

Elizabeth of Poland's marriage
to the king of Hungary,
from a fourteenth-century manuscript

Władysław had succeeded his father as ruler in one of the Polish principalities in 1275 and was elected by the nobility of Greater Poland as their prince in 1296--but those nobles transferred their allegiance, and Władysław saw a rival crowned as king of Poland in 1300.

Pressing his claim to his title with the pope, Władysław went to war, eventually gaining control of--and uniting--much of Poland. He was crowned king at Krakow on 20 January 1320. 

It was at this point that his daughter, Elizabeth, was married to Charles Robert of Anjou, king of Hungary and Croatia, who had claimed the throne of Hungary through his father, who in turn had inherited the claim of his mother, Mary of Hungary. 

Elizabeth of Poland was the third or fourth wife of the thirty-two-year old Charles Robert (there are disputes about whether or not his first wife was Mary of Galicia). At the time of her marriage to the king of Hungary, she was just fifteen years old, but the alliance brought needed political support to Władysław as he continued his campaign to reunify Poland.

As for the king of Poland--his new young wife brought him, in the words of historian Nancy Goldstone, "an exceptionally determined and energetic partner--manipulative, capable, and eager for power." She managed her own household and advisers as well as administering a number of towns and estates. 

Elizabeth, now queen of Hungary, was also involved in a particularly terrible act of "justice"--in 1330, on a visit from Poland, her brother raped a young woman, and the woman's father, Felician Zah, attempted vengeance, rushing into a royal dining room with a sword. He managed to mutilate Elizabeth's hand, but he failed in his assassination attempt. He was brutally executed, as was his immediate family (including the young woman who had been raped) and his extended family--all his relatives "within the third degree of kingship" were tortured and executed. Yikes.

And yet, during the years of her marriage, Elizabeth of Poland was recognized for her piety, and she founded a number of religious houses. She also fulfilled her duties as queen; unlike her husband's previous wives, she produced sons, giving birth to five boys before the death of her husband in 1342. (Two of these boys died in their childhood, and a third died as a young man; she may also have given birth to two daughters, though they may also have been born to another of the king of Hungary's wives.)

Elizabeth of Poland, queen of Hungary,
and her five sons,
from a fourteenth-century manuscript

Elizabeth of Poland's eldest surviving son, Louis, succeeded his father as king of Hungary, and although he had attained the age of majority (sixteen), his mother acted a kind of co-regent for him. In Goldstone's words, Elizabeth was a "shrewd political tactician," a politician who was "highly proficient at management." 

As her son's political adviser, Elizabeth was particularly intent on "expanding Hungarian influence in Eastern Europe and on maintaining strong ties with her native Poland." To that end, she arranged for her son's marriage to the daughter of the heir to the throne of Bohemia, Margaret of Bohemia, then only seven years old.

Unfortunately, Margaret, the titular queen of Hungary, died when she was just fourteen years old. And so, in 1350, the queen turned to Elizabeth of Bosnia, whom she was fostering at the Hungarian court--Elizabeth of Bosnia was Władysław's grandniece, while the queen herself was related to the girl's mother. Despite the fact that her son and Elizabeth were related within the "prohibited degrees of kinship," the couple were married on 20 June 1353--and sought papal dispensation after the fact. 

Soma Orlai-Petrich's nineteenth-century painting,
The Anger of Felician Zah (1860)

Meanwhile, the queen's second son, Andrew, had been betrothed to Joanna I of Naples in 1333, when he was just a child of six, and he had been sent to live in the Neapolitan court. When Joanna succeeded to the throne as queen in 1343, Andrew assumed, or hoped, he would have a significant role to play as king of Naples, but the young queen regnant had other ideas. 

Although Joanna's position was supported by a papal decision, Elizabeth of Poland traveled to Naples and, before returning to Hungary, bribed the pope, who reversed his decision. But Andrew did not gain any significant role in government--instead, he was assassinated in 1345, when he was just seventeen. 

While Louis pursued vengeance in Naples and, later, undertook an endless string of other military adventures, his mother remained in Hungary as his most steadfast and respected adviser. After the death of her older brother Casimir III, king of Poland, in 1370, Elizabeth's son, Louis, succeeded his uncle as king of Poland. 

Louis was crowned king of Poland in November, but by December he was off again, leaving his mother there to act as regent. Elizabeth of Poland, dowager queen of Hungary, was not beloved in this role, but she remained in the kingdom as regent until 1375, working to ensure the Polish succession for her granddaughters. 

After a Polish rebellion, she returned to Hungary, where she quietly entered a convent. She did return to Hungary in 1379 and again in 1380, again to ensure the rights of her granddaughters. 

She died on 29 December 1380, aged about seventy-five, and is buried at the Monastery of the Poor Clares in Buda (today's Budapest), a religious institution she had established many years before. 

Elizabeth of Poland's granddaughter, Jadwiga, succeeded her father as ruler of Poland. And her granddaughter Mary became queen of Hungary.

To look a bit further, you may want to check out Laura York's brief entry on Elizabeth of Poland in Women in World History: A Biographical Encyclopedia (click here).

Jadwiga of Poland, Queen Regnant of Poland

Jadwiga, Queen of Poland (crowned 15 October 1384)

Born in 1373, Jadwiga was the youngest of three daughters born to Elizabeth of Bosnia and Louis, king of Hungary and Croatia--and, after 1370, of Poland--a member of the extended Anjevin line of the French Capetian dynasty.

A sixteenth-century imagined portrait
of Jadwiga of Poland

Without a male heir, Louis made plans for his three daughters, Catherine, Mary, and Jadwiga, to succeed him in Poland and Hungary as well as in Provence and in the kingdom of Naples.* His daughters were not only desirable marital prospects, but their marriages were also a way for Louis himself to consolidate his influence and power. 

In pursuit of his political ends, Louis arranged for the marriage of his eldest daughter, Catherine, to Louis I, duke of Orléans, and he promised the Holy Roman Emperor that his second daughter, Mary, would be married to Charles IV's second son, Sigismund of Luxembourg, an agreement that was signed by deed in 1373. In 1375, Louis arranged Jadwiga's marriage to the Habsburg William of Austria, and the girl was sent to the court in Vienna, where she lived from 1378 until 1380.

After the death of Catherine in 1378, Louis clarified his intentions for Mary and Jadwiga, indicating that Mary was to succeed him in Poland and Jadwiga in Hungary. But after the death of Louis himself in 1382, Elizabeth of Bosnia had Mary crowned "king" of Hungary, with Sigismund of Luxembourg attempting to take control of Poland. 

In resisting Sigismund (and the Habsburg powers), the Polish nobility ultimately ended the personal union of Hungary and Poland that Louis had forged, electing Jadwiga--then a child of nine--as "king" (rex) of Poland on 15 October 1384.** She was crowned immediately--probably as a signal that William of Austria was considered an altogether unsuitable match.

Instead, Jadwiga was married to Jogaila, grand duke of Lithuania, on 15 February 1386. The marriage was desirable for Poland and not only because it would allow them to resist pressures from Austria--the newly combined territories of Lithuania and Poland were larger than the previous union of Hungary and Poland. 

But Leopold of Austria did not relinquish his son's marriage to Jadwiga easily. Leopold demanded that the marriage between Jadwiga and his son be consummated, and William of Austria traveled to Krakow, only to be barred entry to Wawel Castle. A confusion of accounts blurs what might--or might not--have happened when Jadwiga and William did finally meet. Did William and Jadwiga consummate their marriage? 

Contemporary chroniclers provide different answers, and modern historians are also divided, but one fact is clear: William of Austria was ultimately forced out of Poland, and the match with Jogailo was made. 

Jadwiga of Poland,
Wawel Cathedral

There was one still slight problem to be overcome before the marriage could be solemnized--neither Jogailo nor his people were Christian. And so, by the terms of the Union of Krewo, Jogailo converted to Catholicism, was baptized as Władysław Jagiełło, and pledged to promote the conversion of the people of Lithuania. 

(The duke's mother, Uliana of Tver, had hoped her son would marry Sofia, the daughter of Prince Dmitri of Moscow, but that would have required his conversion to the Orthodox faith--and since Lithuania was subjected to a series of crusades by Catholic Teutonic knights, that wouldn't have ended the problems of Lithuania quite the way his conversion to Catholicism did . . . )

By the way, one more note about traditional marriage: on the day of their marriage, 15 February 1386, Władysław Jagiełło was thirty-five years old, and Jadwiga just twelve. Sigh. 

Of course, the rejected William refused to give up, his Teutonic knights invading Lithuania, despite having been offered compensation by Władysław Jagiełło. William persisted in claiming that he had consummated his marriage with Jadwiga, the rumors and claims ultimately leading to a papal investigation, forcing Jadwiga to swear that she had never had a sexual relationship with anyone but Władysław Jagiełło.

When she wasn't defending her marriage against William, Jadwiga and her husband also had to resist invasion by her sister Mary's husband, now king of Hungary, who hoped to add Poland, or parts of it, to his own territory (he had problems of his own, however, and spent a great deal of time defending Hungary against the threatening Ottomans).

After her sister Mary's death in 1395, Jadwiga became the heir to the crown of Hungary. If she and her husband were to succeed there, they would themselves pose a threat to the German empire--and so, after years of turmoil, a peace was negotiated. Jadwiga's claims to Hungary were recognized, but no further conflict with Sigismund followed, though tensions remained. 

On 22 June 1399, Jadwiga, queen of Poland, gave birth to a daughter, named Bonifacia. Within a month, both daughter and mother had died. Jadwiga, queen regnant of Poland, was just twenty-five years old. She is buried in Wawel Cathedral.

After his wife's death, Władysław Jagiełło ruled as king of Poland  

Despite her relatively brief reign, Jadwiga is regarded by historians as one of the most important rulers of Poland--primarily for her marriage, which resulted in the creation of a great state. She is also noted as a patron of religion and scholarship. She founded hospitals and schools, notably a college in Prague. The University of Krakow, which had been founded in 1364, had dissolved; Jadwiga refounded the university, modeling it after the University of Paris.  

Related to Elizabeth of Hungary, Jadwiga was also noted for her holiness. A number of legends attest to her religious faith. She was canonized by Pope John Paul II in Kraków on 8 June 1997.

Jadwiga of Poland,
Wawel Cathedral

A brief biography in Europe, 1450-1789: Encyclopedia of the Early Modern World, can be accessed by clicking here. There is also a brief entry on Jadwiga of Poland in the online Encyclopedia Britannica (click here). 

I recommend the entry on Jadwiga in Helen J. Nicholson's The Crusades--you should be able to access it via Google Books. It is particularly good for its account, though brief, of the Jadwiga-William-Jogailo marriage question. And, then, there is Charlotte Kellogg's 1931 biography, Jadwiga: Poland's Great Queen; it is out of print, but used copies do pop up on Amazon occasionally.

*Louis involved himself in Neapolitan power struggles after his brother, Andrew of Hungary was assassinated, and Andrew’s wife, Queen Joanna I of Naples, was held by some to be responsible for her husband's murder. Despite all of Louis' claims and meddling, he could never acquire the kingdom of Naples, and Queen Joanna's successor, Charles of Durazzo, in his turn claimed the crown of Hungary.

**In designating her as rex, the intention seems to have been to emphasize that Jadwiga was a queen regent, and that whomever she married would be her consort, not her replacement.

Mary, "King" of Hungary and Croatia

Mary of Hungary and Croatia, queen regnant of Hungary and Croatia (crowned 17 September 1382)

Born in 1371, Mary was the second of three daughters of Elizabeth of Bosnia and Louis I, king of Hungary and Croatia, a member of the extended Anjevin line of the French Capetian dynasty. After the death of his uncle in 1370, Mary's father inherited the kingdom of Poland as well.

Mary of Hungary and Croatia,
from János Thuróczy's fifteenth-century
Chronica Hungarorum

Since Louis had no sons to succeed him, Catherine, Mary, and Jadwiga were to be their father's heirs in Hungary and Poland as well as to his claim to Provence and to the kingdom of Naples--making them not only desirable marital prospects but also a way for Louis to consolidate his power.* 

Thus, before she was a year old, Louis had promised the Holy Roman Emperor that his second daughter, Mary, would be married to Charles IV's second son, Sigismund of Luxembourg, an agreement that was signed by deed in 1373. In 1375, Hungarian and Polish lords confirmed the arrangement. 

In the mean time, Mary's elder sister, Catherine, was promised in marriage to Louis I, duke of Orléans, and her young sister, Jadwiga, was promised to William, the son of Leopold III, duke of Austria.

Louis of Hungary's plans began to fall apart in 1378, when his eldest daughter died. Following her death, Louis confirmed his plans for Mary's marriage. By 1379, Mary and Sigismund of Luxembourg were formally betrothed, and Sigismund arrived in Hungary so he could learn not only the language but the customs of the country. 

In September 1379, in order to assure Mary’s succession to the kingdom of Poland, Louis summoned Polish nobles and ecclesiastical leaders so that they could affirm her rights to succeed him. He achieved his goal, though contemporary reports suggest that the assent was not freely given. 

At the same time, Louis planned for his youngest daughter, Jadwiga, to inherit the throne in Hungary and Croatia, though there is some evidence to suggest that, rather than dividing his kingdoms between his two daughters, he hoped to leave everything to Mary.

Whatever his hopes may have been--for Jadwiga to rule in Hungary, for Mary to rule in Poland, or for Mary to inherit both thrones--his plans never materialized. After his death in 1382, Elizabeth of Bosnia moved quickly to claim the regency, and on the day following Louis' burial, Mary, rather than Jadwiga, was crowned "king" of Hungary. 

Sigismund was notably out of the picture at the time--he was not present at Mary's coronation--having been sent to Poland the year before in order to learn Polish and to become familiar with the Polish culture. Although he tried to take control of the Polish throne, even calling himself "lord of the kingdom of Poland," the nobility refused any ruler who would not reside  permanently in Poland.

Meanwhile, although Mary had succeeded her father in Hungary, the Hungarian nobility preferred to be ruled by a king, not a queen--or, in this case, two queens, the dowager Queen Elizabeth, as regent, and the new queen regnant, Mary, still a minor.   

By 1383, rebellion broke out. In part to solicit assistance in her struggles, Queen Elizabeth turned to France, hoping to marry her daughter Mary, now queen, not to her promised partner, Sigismund, but to Louis I, duke of Orléans, whose elder brother had become king of France. (Louis, remember, had been the marriage partner arranged for Mary's elder sister  before her death.)

The proposed French marriage caused even more difficulties in Hungary. Despite the ongoing conflict, Queen Elizabeth completed the formal negotiations for the French marriage in 1385. But the French alliance did not save the Hungarian queens--Hungarian nobles invited Charles of Durazzo, the new king of Naples, into the kingdom. 

Although Sigismund of Luxembourg still hoped to marry Queen Mary, her mother refused, and Sigismund left Hungary in 1385, returning with an army. After the king of Naples landed in Croatia in September (with no sign of a French army coming to her aid), Queen Elizabeth changed her mind again. Sigismund of Luxembourg and Queen Mary of Hungary and Croatia were married in October.

Despite this desperate move, Sigismund was not crowned king, nor was he given any official governmental role. Nevertheless, he continued his fight.

Once Charles of Naples arrived in the capital in December, he claimed power. Mary quickly renounced the crown, and Charles was then crowned king of Hungary. Both Elizabeth and Mary continued to live at the royal palace, a situation the new king of Hungary would regret. Within a year, and with the connivance of the dowager queen, Charles of Naples was dead, the victim of an assassination.  

Mary of Hungary and Croatia's royal seal

After Charles's death in February 1386, Mary was restored to the throne of Hungary, though her mother continued to rule in her daughter's name. 

Sigismund once again invaded, and since the son of the murdered king of Naples was inspiring some of the Hungarian nobility to continue their rebellion, the two queens were reconciled with him.

Sigismund's position as Mary's consort was also  recognized, and arrangements to repay him for lands that he had mortgaged in his fight for Hungary were made. Still, Sigismund left court after the treaty was signed, perhaps not yet content with his role in the kingdom.

In an act that a fifteenth-century Hungarian chronicler said was "driven by folly," Queen Elizabeth decided that she and her daughter would tour the southern part of Hungary--those areas where support for the son of the murdered Neapolitan king were strongest. And, sure enough, there they were ambushed, their retainers and retinue killed, and the two women--Mary, queen regnant of Hungary and Croatia, and her mother, the dowager queen--were taken captive and imprisoned.  

Negotiations to end the conflict and free the queens did not go well, although they could have gone worse. Sigismund of Luxembourg was made regent of the kingdom. Queen Elizabeth was strangled in front of her daughter's eyes on the anniversary of the assassination of Charles of Naples. But Queen Mary was not killed. 

Sigismund was finally crowned king on 31 March 1387. Mary was liberated just over two months later, on 3 June. On 4 July, she was finally reunited with Sigismund. In the years that followed, while she was queen of Hungary and Croatia, a co-ruler with Sigismund, she had virtually no authority. 

On 17 May 1395, still in her early twenties, a pregnant Mary of Hungary and Croatia suffered a fall from her horse while she was out hunting. The trauma of the accident sent her into a premature labor. She and her son both died.

*Louis involved himself in Neopolitan power struggles after his brother, Andrew of Hungary was assassinated, and Andrew’s wife, Queen Joanna I of Naples, was held by some to be responsible for her husband's murder. Despite all of Louis' claims and meddling, he could never acquire the kingdom of Naples, and Queen Joanna's successor, Charles of Durazzo, in his turn claimed the crown of Hungary.