Hedwig of Poland

Jadwiga (; 1373 or 137417 July 1399), also known as Hedwig ( hu, Hedvig), was the first woman to be crowned as monarch of the Kingdom of Poland. She reigned from 16 October 1384 until her death. She was the youngest daughter of Louis the Great, King of Hungary and Poland, and his wife, Elizabeth of Bosnia. Jadwiga was a member of the Capetian House of Anjou, but she had more close forebears among the Polish Piasts than among the Angevins.

In 1375, it was planned that when becoming old enough, she would marry William of Austria and she lived in Vienna from 1378 to 1380. Jadwiga's father is thought to have regarded her and William as his favoured successors in Hungary after the 1379 death of her eldest sister, Catherine, since that same year the Polish nobility had pledged their homage to Louis' second daughter, Mary, and Mary's fiancé, Sigismund of Luxembourg. However, Louis died, and in 1382, at her mother's insistence, Mary was crowned "King of Hungary". Sigismund of Luxembourg tried to take control of Poland, but the Polish nobility countered that they would be obedient to a daughter of King Louis only if she settled in Poland.

Queen Elizabeth then chose Jadwiga to reign in Poland, but did not send her to Kraków to be crowned. During the interregnum, Siemowit IV, Duke of Masovia, became a candidate for the Polish throne. The nobility of Greater Poland favored him and proposed that he marry Jadwiga. However, Lesser Poland's nobility opposed him, and they persuaded Queen Elizabeth to send Jadwiga to Poland.

Jadwiga was crowned king in Poland's capital, Kraków, on 16 October 1384. Her coronation either reflected the Polish nobility's opposition to her intended husband, William, becoming king without further negotiation, or simply, emphasized her status as the monarch. With her mother's consent, Jadwiga's advisors opened negotiations with Jogaila, Grand Duke of Lithuania, who was still a pagan, concerning his potential marriage to Jadwiga. Jogaila signed the Union of Krewo, pledging to convert to Catholicism and to promote conversion of his pagan subjects. Meanwhile, William hastened to Kraków, hoping to marry his childhood fiancé, Jadwiga, but in late August 1385 the Polish nobles expelled him.

Jogaila, who took the Catholic baptismal name Władysław, married Jadwiga on 15 February 1386. Legend says that she had agreed to marry him only after lengthy prayer, seeking divine inspiration. Jogaila, now styled in Polish as, Władysław Jagiełło, was crowned King of Poland on 4 March 1386 as Jadwiga's co-ruler. Jagiełło worked closely with his wife in that role. In any case, her real political power was limited.

She remained passive when the rebellious nobles of the Kingdom of Hungary-Croatia murdered her mother in early 1387. After that, Jadwiga marched into the Kingdom of Galicia–Volhynia, which had been under Hungarian rule, and persuaded most of the inhabitants to become subjects of the Polish Crown, aggravating the relations with Hungary. She mediated between her husband's quarreling kin and between Poland and the Teutonic Order.

After her sister Mary died in 1395, Jadwiga and Jagiełło laid claim to Hungary against the widowed Sigismund of Luxembourg, but the Hungarian lords did not support their claim and Sigismund easily retained his Hungarian throne. Jadwiga died four years later due to postpartum complications.

In 1997, Jadwiga was canonized by the Catholic Church.

Childhood (1373 or 1374 – 1382)

Jadwiga was born in Buda, the capital of the Kingdom of Hungary. She was the third and youngest daughter of Louis I, King of Hungary and Poland, and his second wife, Elizabeth of Bosnia. Both her grandmothers were Polish princesses, connecting her to the native Piast dynasty of Poland. Historian Oscar Halecki concluded that Jadwiga's "genealogical tree clearly shows that hehad more Polish blood than any other". She was probably born between 3 October 1373 and 18 February 1374. She was named after her distant ancestor, Saint Hedwig of Silesia, who was especially venerated in the Hungarian royal court at the time of her birth.

King Louis, who had not fathered any sons, wanted to ensure the right of his daughters to inherit his realms. Therefore, European royals regarded his three daughters as especially attractive brides. Leopold III, Duke of Austria, proposed his eldest son, William, to Jadwiga already on 18 August 1374. The envoys of the Polish nobles acknowledged that one of Louis's daughters would succeed him in Poland after he confirmed and extended their liberties in the Privilege of Koszyce on 17 September 1374. They took an oath of loyalty to Catherine on Louis's demand.

Louis agreed to give Jadwiga in marriage to William of Austria on 4 March 1375. The children's '' sponsalia de futuro'', or "provisional marriage", was celebrated at Hainburg on 15 June 1378. The ceremony established the legal framework for the consummation of the marriage without any further ecclesiastical act as soon as they both reached the age of maturity. Duke Leopold agreed that Jadwiga would only receive Treviso, a town that was to be conquered from the Republic of Venice, as dowry from her father. After the ceremony, Jadwiga stayed in Austria for almost two years; she mainly lived in Vienna.

Catherine died in late 1378. Louis persuaded the most influential Polish lords to swear an oath of loyalty to her younger sister, Mary, in September 1379. She was betrothed to Sigismund of Luxemburg, a great-grandson of Casimir the Great, who had been Louis's predecessor on the Polish throne. The "promised marriage" of Jadwiga and William was confirmed at their fathers' meeting in Zólyom (now Zvolen in Slovakia) on 12 February 1380. Hungarian lords also approved the document, implying that Jadwiga and William were regarded as her father's successors in Hungary.

A delegation of the Polish lords and clergy paid formal homage to Sigismund of Luxemburg as their future king on 25 July 1382. The Poles believed that Louis planned also to persuade the Hungarian lords and prelates to accept Jadwiga and William of Austria as his heirs in Hungary. However, he died on 10 September 1382. Jadwiga was present at her father's death bed.

Accession negotiations (1382–84)

Jadwiga's sister, Mary, was crowned king of Hungary five days after their father's death. With the ceremony, their ambitious mother secured the right to govern Hungary on her twelve-year-old daughter's behalf instead of Mary's fiancé, Sigismund. Sigismund could not be present at Mary's coronation, because Louis had sent him to Poland to crush a rebellion. After he learnt of Louis's death, he adopted the title "Lord of the Kingdom of Poland", demanding oaths of loyalty from the towns in Lesser Poland. On 25 November, the nobles of Greater Poland assembled at Radomsko and decided to obey nobody but the daughter of the late king as she would settle in Poland. On their initiative, the noblemen of Lesser Poland passed a similar agreement in Wiślica on 12 December. Queen Elizabeth sent her envoys to the assembled lords and forbade them to swear an oath of loyalty to anyone other than one of her daughters, thus invalidating the oath of loyalty that the Polish noblemen had sworn to Sigismund on the late King Louis's demand.

Both Elizabeth's daughters had been engaged to foreign princes (Sigismund and William, respectively) unpopular in Poland. Polish lords who were opposed to a foreign monarch regarded the members of the Piast dynasty as possible candidates to the Polish throne. Queen Elizabeth's uncle Władysław the White had already attempted to seize Poland during Louis's reign. However, he had taken monastic vows and settled in a Benedictine abbey in Dijon in Burgundy. Antipope Clement VII, whom King Louis had refused to recognize against Pope Urban VI, released Władysław from his vows, but he did not leave his monastery. Meanwhile, Siemowit IV, Duke of Masovia, appeared as a more ambitious candidate. He was especially popular among the nobility and townspeople of Greater Poland.

Queen Elizabeth's representatives released the Poles from their oath of fidelity that their representatives had sworn to Mary at an assembly in Sieradz in February 1383. The envoys also announced that she was willing to send Jadwiga to be crowned instead, on condition that she return to Buda after her coronation to live there until her twelfth birthday. The Polish lords accepted the proposal, but they soon realized that thereby the interregnum would be extended by a further three years. At a new meeting in Sieradz, most noblemen were ready to elect Siemowit of Masovia king on 28 March. They proposed that Siemowit should marry Jadwiga. A member of the influential Tęczyński family, Jan, convinced them to postpone Siemowit's election. The noblemen agreed to wait for Jadwiga until 10 May, stipulating that she was to live in Poland after her coronation. They also demanded that Dobrzyń and Gniewków (two fiefdoms which her father had granted to Vladislaus II of Opole), and " Ruthenia" (that had passed to Hungary in accordance with a previous treaty) be restored to the Polish Crown.

Meanwhile, Jan Tęczyński and his allies, including , seem to have started negotiations with Jogaila, Grand Duke of Lithuania. Siemowit's supporters however, tried to enter Kraków in the retinue of Bodzanta, Archbishop of Gniezno, in May, but the townspeople closed the gates of the city before their arrival. Jadwiga had not arrived in Poland by the stipulated date (10 May). Her mother's envoys stated that the spring floods had hindered Jadwiga's progress over the Carpathian Mountains.

Siemowit of Mazovia took up arms and advanced as far as Kalisz. His supporters assembled in Sieradz in August in order to elect him king, but Archbishop Bodzanta refused to perform his coronation. In a meeting in Kassa, Queen Elizabeth promised the delegates of the Polish provinces to send Jadwiga to Poland before November. The queen mother and the Poles also agreed that if either Jadwiga or Mary died childless, her kingdom would pass to her surviving sister. Siemowit having laid siege to Kalisz, Queen Elizabeth sent Sigismund of Luxemburg at the head of an "improvised army" to Lesser Poland. Siemowit failed to take Kalisz, but news about the appalling behaviour of Sigismund's soldiers increased Sigismund's unpopularity in Poland. Sędziwój Pałuka, who was the castellan of Kalisz and '' starosta'' of Kraków, led a delegation to Zadar in Dalmatia to negotiate with Queen Elizabeth, but she had him imprisoned instead. She sent Hungarian soldiers to Poland to garrison them in Wawel Castle in Kraków, but Pałuka escaped and successfully obstructed her soldiers entering the castle.

At a general assembly in Radomsko in early March, the delegates of all the Polish provinces and towns decided to elect Siemowit king, if Jadwiga did not come to Poland within two months. They set up a provisional government, stipulating that only the "community of lords and citizens" had the authority to administer Poland during the interregnum. Queen Elizabeth, who was only informed of the decision by an informal message, realized that she could not any longer postpone Jadwiga's coronation and so sent her to Poland. The exact date of Jadwiga's arrival is unknown, because the main source for the history of Poland during this period Jan of Czarnków's chronicle ended prior to this event.

Reign

Coronation (1384)

The interregnum that followed Louis's death and caused such internal strife came to an end with Jadwiga's arrival in Poland. A large crowd of clerics, noblemen and burghers gathered at Kraków "to greet her with a display of affection", according to the 15th-century Polish historian, Jan Długosz. Nobody protested when Archbishop Bodzanta crowned her on 16 October 1384. According to traditional scholarly consensus, Jadwiga was crowned king. Thereby, as Robert W. Knoll proposes, the Polish lords prevented her eventual spouse from adopting the same title without their consent. Stephen C. Rowell, who says that sources that contradict the traditional view outnumber those verifying it, suggests that sporadic contemporaneous references to Jadwiga as king only reflect that she was not a queen consort, but a queen regnant.

Bodzanta, Archbishop of Gniezno, Jan Radlica, Bishop of Kraków, Dobrogost of Nowy Dwór, Bishop of Poznań, and Duke Vladislaus II of Opole were Jadwiga's most trusted advisers during the first years of her reign. According to a widely accepted scholarly theory, Jadwiga, who was still a minor, was "a mere tool" to her advisers. However, Halecki refutes this view, contending that Jadwiga matured quickly and her personality, especially her charm and kindness, only served to strengthen her position. Already in late 1384 she intervened on Duke Vladislaus's behalf to reconcile him with her mother's favourite, Nicholas I Garai.

Refusal of William (1385)

The Polish lords did not want to accept Jadwiga's fourteen-year-old fiancé, William of Habsburg, as their sovereign. They thought that the inexperienced William and his Austrian kinsmen could not safeguard Poland's interests against its powerful neighbours, especially the Luxemburgs which controlled Bohemia and Brandenburg, and had a strong claim on Hungary. According to Halecki, the lords of Lesser Poland were the first to suggest that Jadwiga should marry the pagan duke Jogaila of Lithuania.

Jogaila sent his envoysincluding his brother, Skirgaila, and a German burgher from Riga, Hanul to Kraków to request Jadwiga's hand in January 1385. Jadwiga refused to answer, stating only that her mother would decide. Jogaila's two envoys left for Hungary and met Queen Elizabeth. She informed them that "she would allow whatever was advantageous to Poland and insisted that her daughter and the prelates and nobles of the Kingdom had to do what they considered would benefit Christianity and their kingdom",''The Annals of Jan Długosz'' (A.D. 1385), p. 345. according to Jan Długosz's chronicle. The nobles from Kraków, Sandomierz and Greater Poland assembled in Kraków in June or July and the "majority of the more sensible" voted for the acceptance of Jogaila's marriage proposal.

In the meantime, William's father, Leopold III hurried to Buda in late July 1385, demanding the consummation of the marriage between William and Jadwiga before 16 August. Queen Elizabeth confirmed the previous agreements about the marriage, ordering Vladislaus II of Opole to make preparations for the ceremony. According to canon law, Jadwiga's marriage sacrament could only be completed before her twelfth birthday if the competent prelate testified her precocious maturity. Demetrius, Archbishop of Esztergom, issued the necessary document. William went to Kraków in the first half of August, but his entry to Wawel Castle was barred. Długosz states that Jadwiga and William would only be able to meet in the nearby Franciscan convent.

Contemporary or nearly contemporaneous records of the completion of the marriage between William and Jadwiga are contradictory and unclear. The official accounts of the municipal authorities of Kraków record that on 23 August 1385 an amnesty was granted to the prisoners in the city jail on the occasion of the celebration of the Queen's marriage. On the other hand, a contemporary Austrian chronicle, the ''Continuatio Claustroneubuzgis'' states that the Poles had tried to murder William before he consummated the marriage. In the next century, Długosz states that William was "removed in a shameful and offensive manner and driven from the castle" after he entered "the Queen's bedchamber"; but the same chronicler also mentions that Jadwiga was well aware that "many people knew she had for a fortnight shared her bed with Duke William and that there had been physical consummation".

On the night when William entered the queen's bedchamber, a group of Polish noblemen broke into the castle, forcing William to flee, according to Długosz. After this humiliation, Długosz continues, Jadwiga decided to leave Wawel and join William, but the gate of the castle was locked. She called for "an axe and riedto break it open", but Dymitr of Goraj convinced her to return to the castle. Oscar Halecki says that Długosz's narrative "cannot be dismissed as a romantic legend"; Robert I. Frost

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