Elizabeth of Bosnia, Regent of Hungary and Croatia

Elizabeth of Bosnia, Queen of Poland and Regent of Hungary (married 20 June 1353)

Elizabeth of Bosnia was the daughter-in-law of a remarkable queen, Elizabeth of Poland, queen of Hungary, who was for many years her son's valued and trusted political adviser. Elizabeth of Bosnia was the mother of two ruling queens, Jadwiga, queen regnant of Poland, and Mary, queen regnant of Hungary and Croatia, and she was also regent of Hungary after her husband's death.

Elizabeth of Bosnia and her husband,
Louis of Hungary,
kneeling at the feet of St. Catherine,
from a fourteenth-century chronicle

Born about the year 1340, Elizabeth of Bosnia was the daughter of Stephen II, the ruler (or "ban") of Bosnia, and Elizabeth of Kuyavia, a Polish noblewoman who was closely related to Elizabeth of Poland. The marriage of the Bosnian ban and a Polish woman was intended to strengthen the ties between Stephen and the Hungarian king, Charles Robert (Elizabeth of Poland's husband).

Not much is known about Elizabeth of Bosnia's early years--but she must have received some education, because she is known to have later written a "manual" on the education of daughters. (See below.) 

By the time she was about ten years old, she was already a valuable commodity in the marriage market. In 1350,  as a way of settling a long conflict between Bosnia and the Serbian empire, Tsar Stefan Dušan suggested a marriage between his son and Stephan's daughter, Elizabeth.

Stephan of Bosnia declined this offer, however. At some point he sent his daughter to the court of Elizabeth of Poland, where she could be reared by the queen. Elizabeth of Poland's son, Louis I of Hungary and Croatia, had been married to Margaret of Bohemia (daughter of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV) in 1342, when she was just seven, but the dowager queen seems to have regarded Elizabeth of Bosnia as a spare for her new daughter-in-law. And after Margaret died of the plague in 1349 (she was just thirteen or fourteen years old), Elizabeth of Poland arranged for her son to marry Elizabeth of Bosnia. The marriage took place in 1353.

Stephen of Bosnia died just three months after his daughter became the queen of Hungary and Croatia, but there seems to have been no question that she (or she and her new husband) would succeed him as ruler of Bosnia. Instead, Stephen was succeeded by an underage nephew.

Throughout the next few years, Elizabeth's husband and her cousin, now king of Bosnia, struggled over the payment of her dowry. In Bosnia, the new young king had trouble maintaining the integrity of the state his uncle had crafted, and in 1357, he was forced to cede a great deal of territory to Elizabeth's husband in exchange for a recognition of his title. By 1370, Louis gained even more influence when he succeeded to the crown of Poland.

Meanwhile, Elizabeth, now queen of Poland as well as of Hungary and Croatia, had her own struggles. Her mother-in-law, the dowager queen, remained an active and powerful political force (Elizabeth of Poland didn't die until 1380, aged about 75), while the younger Elizabeth herself "failed" in her most important duty as queen, producing an heir--she remained childless for over a decade after her marriage.

During this period of "failure," Elizabeth of Bosnia committed--supposedly--a daring but ultimately shameful act, perhaps motivated by a desire to give birth to a son. During a visit to the shrine of St. Simeon in Zadar, Croatia, she stole a part of the saint's finger. (She may have believed this relic would help her infertility.) As soon as she broke the piece off of the saint's body, it began to decompose. Since she couldn't leave the church without revealing her theft, she returned the finger to the body (where it was restored to its previous state).

The casket of St. Simeon, commissioned by
Elizabeth of Bosnia,
Church of St. Simeon, Zadar, Croatia

To atone for her action, Elizabeth of Bosnia commissioned an elaborately wrought reliquary for the body of St. Stephen, produced by the goldsmiths of Zadar between 1377 and 1380. She donated the silver herself. The casket of St. Stephen is now recognized as a masterpiece of medieval gold- and silver-work, and is under UNESCO protection.

Although she did not give birth to a son, she eventually produced three daughters in quick succession--Catherine, born in 1370, Mary, in 1371, and Jadwiga, in 1373. (Although no copies of Elizabeth of Bosnia's book on the education of daughters survives, a copy is known to have been sent to Louis of France, count of Valois, in 1374.)

Unlike some kings (looking at you, Henry VIII of England), Louis made plans for his three daughters, Catherine, Mary, and Jadwiga, to succeed him. 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 his eldest daughter, Catherine, to be married 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.

But plans for a smooth succession began to fall apart in 1378, when Louis and Elizabeth's eldest daughter died. Following Catherine's 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 his throne in Hungary, though there is some evidence to suggest that, after Catherine's death and rather than dividing his kingdoms between his two surviving daughters, he hoped to leave everything to the elder, Mary.

Whatever Louis's hopes may have been--for Jadwiga to rule in Hungary and for Mary to rule in Poland, or for Mary to inherit both thrones--his plans never materialized. Instead, Louis died in 1382, and a great deal of turmoil followed. 

Following her husband's death, Elizabeth of Bosnia moved quickly to claim the regency for her two young daughters, but she ran into trouble. Given her husband's reliance on his mother as his political adviser, Elizabeth of Bosnia had little experience in politics upon which to draw. In addition, her reliance on Nicholas Garay, who had also been one of her husband's advisers, was the source of jealousy and suspicion. (As was frequently the case with powerful women and their male advisers, her enemies said he was Elizabeth's lover.)

The succession difficulties and challenges for Elizabeth of Bosnia' two daughters were many. To start, the marriages Louis had arranged for his daughters were both rejected. 

Rather than accepting Elizabeth's regency, the Polish nobility elected Jadwiga, then just nine years old, as "king" (rex) of Poland, crowning her immediately, but in doing so, they rejected William of Austria. 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. Through Jadwiga and her husband, who became King Władysław II Jagiełło of Poland, the Jagiellon dynasty was established.* (For an extended account of Jadwiga's succession in Poland, including the reactions of the rejected William, click here.)

A depiction of Elizabeth of Bosnia handing a chest
to St. Simeon, with her three daughters, below;
detail on the sarcophagus of St. Simeon,
commissioned by Elizabeth of Bosnia

In Hungary, meanwhile, the nobility also 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 Queen Mary not to her promised partner, Sigismund, but to Louis I, duke of Orléans, whose elder brother had become king of France. (Louis had been the marriage partner arranged for Mary's elder sister, Catherine, before the girl's death.)

But the proposed French marriage resulted in even more conflict in Hungary. (For an extended account of Mary's succession in Hungary, and the marital politics involved, click here.)

Although both of her daughters would eventually succeed to the throne as queens, Jadwiga in Poland and Mary in Hungary and Croatia, their powers were limited. They may have reigned, but they did not rule. And both queens would die while they were still in their twenties.

So Elizabeth of Bosnia may have "succeeded" in helping her daughters maintain their rights of succession, but all of her struggles for her daughters did not end well for Elizabeth of Bosnia--in her effort to secure Mary's crown, Elizabeth of Bosnia had been responsible for the assassination of an opponent the Hungarian nobility had invited into the kingdom. A year later, on the anniversary of the assassination, Elizabeth of Bosnia was herself strangled in an act of revenge.

Elizabeth of Bosnia was not a notably successful regent, but she has often been criticized for the very weaknesses and failings demonstrated by her male contemporaries--inexperience, ambition, and ruthlessness, for example. But the title of historian Janos Bak's essay noting Elizabeth of Bosnia may more accurately suggest why she "failed" in the eyes of her contemporaries--"Queens as Scapegoats in Medieval Hungary."

Or, maybe you prefer Sophia Elizabeth Higgins's view--in her 1885 Women of Europe in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries (vol. 1), she writes, "Few episodes in history are indeed more melancholy than the fortunes of [Jadwiga and Mary]. The retribution for their father's sins fell upon them." Higgins regards their mother's aspirations and goals with a sympathetic eye: Elizabeth of Bosnia was driven by "despairing efforts to avert the ruin of her family," constantly disappointed by the "failure" and "disaffection" of the many rivalries, jealousies, and contending factions that undermined her efforts. (Higgins's discussion of Elizabeth of Bosnia is the most extended account I have found.)

*For three notable Jagiellon queens, see Isabella Jagiellon, queen of Hungary (here), Anna Jagiellon, queen of Poland (here), and Catherine Jagiellon, queen of Sweden (here).

Bona Sforza, Queen of Poland: "Her Yoke Chafed"

Bona Sforza, queen of Poland (died 19 November 1557)

Raised at the brilliant Renaissance court of Milan, Bona Sforza was well educated, her studies including the discipline of statecraft as well as languages, literature, and music, more traditional occupations for women.* And, by the way, she is Caterina Sforza's niece, the daughter of Caterina's half-brother, Giangaleazzo, and his wife, Isabella of Aragon (also, by the way, a Sforza, the daughter of Ippolita Sforza).  

Bona Sforza in 1517,
just before the year of her marriage

In 1518, Emperor Maximilian, the long-standing ally of Milan, arranged the young woman's marriage to Sigismund, the king of Poland; the formal wedding ceremony and coronation took place in Naples on 18 April 1518.

Bona proved to be successful wife, mother, and politician: as a wife and mother, she promptly bore her husband six children, including four daughters, Isabella, Sophia, Anna, and Catherine Jagiellon. 

As a politician, Bona proved herself skillful in maintaining good relations with the contending European powers, including Spain and the Habsburgs and France.

She was, in historian Roland Bainton's estimation, able to manipulate this "unstable balance" of powers to Poland's advantage by her "adroit and even devious diplomacy."

Nor did she ignore domestic politics, where her aim was to strengthen royal power. Thus "she undertook to make Poland a centralized national state in accord with the pattern emerging in Spain, France and England," working to check and balance "the power of the lords, lay and clerical."

She handled the appointment of bishops (with papal permission and her husband's consent), undertook agricultural reform, regained crown lands that had been granted to the nobility, and arranged for her ten-year-old son to be crowned king during his father's lifetime. 

She began a vast building program, provided for mercenary armies, and arranged a series of politically advantageous marriages for her children. Along the way she enriched herself as well as the royal treasury, which drew criticism, though her efforts "to relieve Poland by bringing in the revenues from her Italian estates" drew no praise. 

As her husband's health failed, Bona Sforza "became the real ruler of Poland," and whatever criticism she endured in her own day, her achievements have been recognized by some modern historians:

Bona exerted a powerful influence on the form of the modern Polish state not only by reason of her intellectual gifts but even more because she possessed a profound feeling for the essential needs of the state. She fused completely the foreign Italian strand with the emerging Polish national movement. In the social and economic sphere she aspired through her excellent reforms to create a strong authority based on just distribution of goods. In many respects Bona was ahead of her times and that was the tragedy of her life.

The "tragedy" of her life occurred after her husband's death, when Bona's son Sigismund Augustus, now king of Poland, rejected the political marriage his mother had arranged for him with Anne of Ferrara, daughter of the duke of Ferrara and his wife Renée of France, the daughter of Louis XII of France. 

Sigismund preferred Barbara Radziwill, daughter of a Lithuanian noble, whom he married secretly in 1547. Bona was not the only one to object to her son's marriage; the Polish diet insisted that Sigismund repudiate his bride, but at length, in the face of Sigismund's insistence, they accepted her.

Barbara died, childless, in 1551, and although Bona had reconciled herself to her daughter-in-law, she was suspected of having poisoned her. 

Bona was not reconciled to her son, however, and she decided to return to her Italian duchy of Bari for health reasons, as she claimed. Her son opposed her departure from Poland. "She wants to get back to Italy just to get her hands on all the properties of Bari, Rossano and Naples and to cut me off from my rightful inheritance from my grandmother," he objected, adding that as queen dowager she "should not be permitted to leave" Poland, even if it meant she should be imprisoned--"though it would grieve" him "greatly." It would, after all, be a "genteel incarceration." 

Bona Sforza in 1553,
also painted by Cranach the Younger

But the Polish diet agreed that Bona should be allowed to go, and she left Poland in November of 1556, nearly forty years after her marriage in 1518.

Bona's return to Italy gave her no peace, however. Philip II of Spain, having defeated the French in Italy, was determined that she should cede to him her claims in Naples and "appropriated" much of the income from her estates. She died in poverty in 1557 and was buried in Bari.

Despite her talents and abilities, Bona Sforza was resented in Poland, viewed with a mixture of dislike and suspicion.

Roland Bainton's assessment of her sounds a note that is by now very familiar:

Bona had several counts against her. She was a woman. Of course a woman could exert a powerful influence. Witness Isabella in Spain and Elizabeth in England. But Bona was resented in Poland, when as the old king grew enfeebled, she usurped authority, not only from him but also from the nobles. . . . A further count was that she was not Polish. Isabella was Castillian and Elizabeth an English Tudor. Italianism, was, to be sure, for a period very much the vogue in Cracow. At the same time many Poles resented the Italians and especially one reared in the atmosphere of the political intrigue characteristic of the despots of the Italian Renaissance. . . . Added to all this was her manner. Tomicki, her most faithful chancellor, confided to a complainer that the queen was imperious, blustering and badgering. Sometimes she was brutal. When a blind archbishop stood in her way she told him she wished he had lost not only his eyes but his tongue. Her yoke chafed.

There is no biography of Bona Sforza in English--I've quoted from Roland Bainton's Women of the Reformation from Spain to Scandinavia here. Wish I could read Polish--Maria Bogucka's Bona Sforza was published recently, but there's also a massive biography by Wladyslaw Pociecha, Królowa Bona, 1494-1557, published in four volumes (1949-58).

Update, April 2022: For the HistoryExtra podcast episode "The Jagiellonians, the Dynasty that Shaped Central Europe," click here. 

*This brief sketch of Bona Sforza has been adapted from The Monstrous Regiment of Women: Female Rulers in Early Modern Europe.

Catherine Jagiellon, Her Mother's Daughter

Catherine Jagiellon, queen of Sweden (born 1 November 1526)

I have already posted about two of Catherine Jagiellon's sisters, Isabella, queen of Hungary, and Anna, queen of Poland. (A fourth sister, Sophia, would become duchess of Brunswick-Lüneburg.) 

A miniature of Catherine Jagiellon,
painted in 1563 by Cranach the Younger

Born in Krakow, Catherine was the fifth child (and fourth daughter) of Sigismund I, king of Poland, and his wife, Bona Sforza. 

In 1562, Catherine was married to John Vasa, duke of Finland, thus becoming duchess of Finland. According to some sources, they eloped; at the very least, they seem not to have married with the kind of permission expected for royal marriages. It did not help that John Vasa was Protestant, Catherine, Catholic. John's half-brother, King Erik XIV of Sweden, declared war on John the next year, captured the couple, and imprisoned them in Sweden. 

Although offered the opportunity of returning to Poland, Catherine remained with her husband, giving birth to two children while being held in Gripsholm Castle. Her daughter, Isabella, was born in 1564 but died in 1566. Sigismund, born in 1566, would later become king of both Poland (1587-1632) and Sweden (1592-99). 

In 1567, John and Catherine were released from their imprisonment. An unpopular Eric (who, among other things, was thinking about separating Catherine from John and sending her off to Russia and a disappointed suitor, Ivan IV "the Terrible") was deposed, and John Vasa, duke of Finland, became John III, king of Sweden.

Catherine's Catholicism was always viewed with some suspicion in Protestant Sweden, particularly after her husband attempted a religious reformation, the "Red Book," that would blend both faith traditions and reintroduce some Catholic customs, including the use of Latin in church ceremonies, into the Swedish church, and he allowed Catholic convents to once again receive novices. Catherine's children--Sigismund and a daughter, Anna Vasa, born in 1568--were raised in the Catholic faith, Sigismund sent to a Jesuit institution in the Polish city of Bransberg. (After her mother's death, Anna would convert to the Lutheran faith.)

As an interesting link to an institution we've discussed before, Catherine supported the now-declining Vadstena Abbey, founded by Birgitta of Sweden and once the home of Birgitta's daughter, Catherine of Vadstena, who had been its abbess and who had had St. Birgitta's remains moved from Rome to the abbey.

The king and queen of Sweden would also spend considerable effort trying to gain Catherine's Sforza inheritance, which she should have received after her mother's death. They were not successful.

Catherine Jagiellon, queen of Sweden, died on 16 September 1583. Her son, Sigismund, would become king of Sweden in 1592, but he would be deposed after only seven years of rule at least in part because of suspicions about his Catholic upbringing.

Update, April 2022: For the HistoryExtra podcast episode "The Jagiellonians, the Dynasty that Shaped Central Europe," click here. 

Anna Jagiellon, "By the Grace of God, Infanta of the Kingdom of Poland"

Anna Jagiellon, queen of Poland and grand duchess of Lithuania (died 9 September 1596)

Anna Jagiellon was the sister of a woman whom we have met before, Isabella Jagiellon, queen of Hungary. Anna would also become a queen regnant, elected queen of Poland in 1575.

Anna Jagiellon,
in her coronation robes,
Sigismund's Chapel,
Wawel Cathedral, Cracow

Although the Jagiellons were a remarkable family, ruling over many central European territories, states, and kingdoms, including Hungary, Poland, Lithuania, and Bohemia, they are much less well known than their contemporaries, at least to those of us who speak English. We are obsessed with the Tudors, most obviously, and are likely to know more about the Valois or even the Habsburgs than we do about the Jagiellons.

But the powerful dynasties of western Europe were well aware of the influence of the Jagiellons. Jagiellon daughters were married into royal families with names and geographical homes we may be more familiar with-- Anna's sister Sophia, for example, became the wife of a German duke, and her sister Catherine, became the queen of Sweden. 

And many daughters of royal families with names and geographical homes we may be more familiar with married into the Jagiellon family--Anna, Isabella, Sophia, and Catherine were the daughters of Bona Sforza, herself the daughter of the duke of Milan. Other Jagiellon brides came from the Habsburg Holy Roman Empire, from Foix and Anjou in France, from Russia, and from Aragon.

As for Anna, the information I have is, unfortunately, very limited. She was born in Cracow on 18 October 1523 to Sigismund, the king of Poland and grand duke of Lithuana, and his wife, Bona Sforza. Sigismund had two daughters with his first wife, Barbara Zápolya, who died in 1515, and would have six children with Bona Sforza, whom he married in 1517--Anna was Bona's fourth child and third daughter. (Sigismund also had at least three children with a mistress, a son who became a bishop and two daughters who made well-connected marriages.)

I am assuming that, like her sister, Isabella, Anna would have received an excellent education that included the study of Polish, Italian, Latin, and, like her siblings, a training in politics. After her father's death in 1548, Anna and her sister Catherine moved with their mother from Cracow to Masovia, a duchy in the northeast of Poland, at least in part because of the turmoil surrounding the secret marriage of the new king (their brother Sigismund II) to Barbara Radziwill, a Calvinist. (Bona Sforza did not approve--she had been busy negotiating for his marriage to Anne of Ferrara.)

But by 1551, the unfortunate Barbara Radziwill had died (Bona was suspected of having poisoned her), and although Bona and her son were "reconciled," she decided to return to her Italian duchy of Bari. (You have to wonder about the reconciliation with Sigismund II, though, since he opposed his mother's departure and threatened to imprison her.) After their mother's return to Italy, Anna and Catherine remained in Masovia. 

Anna Jagiellon after 1586

While her elder sisters, Isabella Jagiellon and Sophia Jagiellon, had been married at the ages of twenty and thirty-three, respectively, and her younger sister, Catherine, at age thirty-six, Anna did not marry until 1576, when she was fifty-two years old.

It was then that her quiet life in Masovia changed. In 1572, her brother had died, leaving no male heir behind. Since rule in Poland and Lithuana was determined by election rather than inheritance--much less primogeniture--the parliaments of Poland and Lithuana elected the Valois son of Henry II of France and Catherine de' Medici as the new king of Poland and grand duke of Lithuania. He was elected, at least in part, with the understanding that he would marry Anna Jagiellon.

But once elected and in Poland, Henry did not marry Anna, and by June of 1574, he was gone, back to France, where he had become King Henry III after the death of his brother.

It was at this point that Anna asserted her political significance, adopting the Spanish title of infanta, certainly signifying her sense of herself as heir apparent to the Polish throne. She referred to herself as "Anna Dei Gratia Infans Regni Poloniaeas," or "Anna, by the Grace of God, Infanta of the Kingdom of Poland." 

In 1575, a new candidate for the king of Poland emerged. Stephen Báthory, prince of Transylvania. His election was difficult--there was also a Habsburg candidate--but the view that there should be a Polish king for Poland won out. Polish electors decided that Anna would become the monarch of Poland and that she would marry Báthory, who would be king in jure uxoris--that is, by or through his wife's right. In December 1575 the two were elected as co-rulers. Their coronation as rulers of Poland and Lithuania took place on 1 May 1576. (Their marriage seems to have been primarily a formal affair.)

After the death of Stephen Báthory on 12 December 1586, Anna did not continue to rule as queen and grand duchess. She became the last Jagiellon--her nephew Sigismund Vasa, the son of her sister Catherine (and her husband, King John of Sweden), was elected as king of Poland and grand duke of Lithuania.

Anna Jagiellon spent the final ten years of her life in Warsaw, where she oversaw the building of many fine tomb monuments--she also oversaw the construction of her mother Bona Sforza's tomb in Bari, where she had died in 1557. (Her return to Italy had given her no peace or happiness, and she died in poverty.)

Anna Jagiellon, the last Jagiellon, died on 9 September 1596. She had prepared her own monument, in a chapel (Sigmund's Chapel) in Wawel Cathedral, Cracow.

Wawel Cathedral, Cracow

The best source of information is Maria Bogucka's Women in Early Modern Polish Society, against the European Background, but it is, unfortunately, very expensive. Otherwise it's bits and pieces from books that include information about Bona Sforza, Isabella Jagiellon, and Stephen Báthory . . . 

The tomb of Bona Sforza,
erected by Anna Jagiellon,
Church of San Nicola in Bari

Update, April 2022: For the HistoryExtra podcast episode "The Jagiellonians, the Dynasty that Shaped Central Europe," click here. 

Isabella Jagiellon: A Queen Who Pursued Peace and Toleration

Isabella Jagiellon, queen of Hungary (born 18 January 1519)

Born in the same year as Catherine de' Medici, Isabella Jagellion is much less well known to most American readers than her contemporary, but she is no less a formidable, accomplished ruler.  

The Polish princess was raised in Cracow, where she received an excellent education that included the study of Polish, Italian, Latin, and, as is evident from her life, a training in politics that she would need and that she would put to good use.*

Isabella Jagiellon, c. 1550

In 1539 Isabella Jagellion was married to the fifty-two-year-old king of Hungary, John Zápolya, who, like Isabella's father, was resisting the eastward expansion of the Holy Roman Empire. Zápolya had recently concluded a ten-year war with the Habsburg Emperor Ferdinand I, the terms of which divided Hungary.

(In 1515, Ferdinand, then duke of Austria, had married the Jagiellon princess Anna, the older sister of King Louis II of Hungary and Bohemia. When Louis died, Ferdinand thought he should claim the kingdoms through the right of his wife.)

Under the terms of the treaty of Varda, the western section of Hungary was joined to the empire, with Ferdinand recognized as king of Hungary; the eastern portion was granted to Zápolya, recognized as king of Transylvania. If he died without an heir, Transylvania would become part of the empire.

But John Zápolya did not die without an heir. A year after his marriage to Isabella, she gave birth to a son, John Sigismund. After the child's birth, Zápolya formally rejected the treaty he had made with Ferdinand. Two weeks later he died, naming his wife as queen regent for his newborn son. In historian Roland Bainton's words, "Isabella took up the campaign for the infant." 

On hearing the news of Zápolya's death, Isabella's father, the Polish king, Sigismund I, sent a letter of advice to his daughter. "Do not allow yourself to be crushed by grief," he wrote. "The course of prudence is that reason should rule the emotions. It becomes a prince to bear with composure that which cannot be altered. To succumb to immoderate weeping is to contest the will of God, whose judgments are a great abyss." 

Isabella's mother, Bona Sforza, wrote as well, and she too advised Isabella not "to be mired in grief." "After the sorrow of the night comes the joy of the morning," she reminded her daughter.

Isabella seems to have followed her parents' advice about overcoming her grief, but during the course of the next few years, she faced a great deal of political turmoil. Immediately after her husband's death, one of the guardians he had named for his son usurped Isabella's authority, but by 1542 the Estates of Transylvania "confirmed Isabella as queen regent and recognized Sigismund as their prince." When the emperor laid siege to the castle of Olah where Isabella was residing, relief came to her from the Turkish sultan.

Suleiman I (the Great) with Isabella Jagiellon and her son

 John Sigismund, an image from c. 1550

After breaking the siege, the sultan asked to see Isabella's son. As recorded in a contemporary chronicle, "She was frightened and suggested to her advisers that she go alone with presents, or, if this would not do, that she take the boy."

Her advisers recommended that she should send her son to the sultan, as he had asked. Despite Isabella's concerns, the sultan returned the boy to her unharmed: "The queen thanked the Sultan for returning her son, begged to be taken under his protection, promised not to remarry and sent a present to his daughter." The sultan, for his part, "promised to do his best" for Isabella.

For the next five years, as David Daniel indicates, there was an "endemic triangular contest for hegemony" between the the Habsburg empire, the Turks, and Isabella.

But in 1547 the emperor and the sultan signed a truce, and Isabella was forced to retire with her son to the territory of Opole, assigned to her by the emperor. Isabella refused to give up; instead, she "began to prepare the way for a return to Transylvania," negotiating with the Turks and with opponents of the Habsburgs.

By 1555, she had "established a residence on the Polish-Hungary border"; by 1556, the Estates had "reaffirmed her sixteen-year-old son as their prince." The Habsburgs, Daniel notes, "did not regain control of Transylvania until the end of the eighteenth century."

From 1556 until her death on 20 September 1559, Isabella ruled as queen regent for her son, "actively" governing Transylvania. Like Catherine de' Medici, she extended a measure of religious toleration to her subjects, viewing this as a necessary concession to bring peace to the kingdom and strengthen her political influence and security.

Through her edict of 1558 she became, as Bainton notes, "the first ruler to issue an edict of universal toleration." Like Catherine de' Medici's 1562 edict of Saint Germain, Isabella Jagiellon's own act of toleration, passed forty years before the edict of Nantes, has not received nearly the recognition of Henry IV's, always praised in all our history textbooks.

While her own religious views can be debated, what is clear is that Isabella used her edict "to fulfill her dynastic and political responsibilities." As Daniel concludes, "She used the Reformation and its advocates as she saw fit, on her own terms, for her own reasons, to secure for her son the rightful inheritance of the father he never knew."

There is no complete biography of Isabella Jagiellon in English. I rely here on accounts by Roland Bainton, in his Women of the Reformation: From Spain to Scandinavian and David P. Daniel's "Piety, Politics, and Perversion: Noblewomen in Reformation Hungary," in Sherrin Marshall's Women in Reformation and Counter-Reformation Europe: Public and Private Worlds.

And a couple of additional notes: the Holy Roman emperor of Ferdinand I was the son of a woman we have mentioned before, Queen Juana of Castile, and about whom we will hear more as the year progresses. Ferdinand was also one of the Habsburg children reared by Margaret of Austria.

For Isabella Jagiellon's mother, Bona Sforza, click here. For more about Isabella's sister Anna Jagiellon, click here, and for her sister Catherine Jagiellon, click here.

*This post has been adapted from The Monstrous Regiment of Women: Female Rulers in Early Modern Europe (Palgrave Macmillan).

Update, April 2022: For the HistoryExtra podcast episode "The Jagiellonians, the Dynasty that Shaped Central Europe," click here.