Maria of Livonia

Maria of LivoniaFact|date=October 2007 or Maria of Staritsa [ [http://books.google.com/books?id=wuPGAAAACAAJ&dq Lines of Succession: Heraldry of the Royal Families of Europe; P.46/Table 19; ISBN 0756773644] ] (ca 1560, Staritsa – 13 May 1610) was a Russian princess and QueenFact|date=November 2007 of the Kingdom of Livonia, a rather theoretical Kingdom established under Russian auspices. She was the daughter of Prince Vladimir of Staritsa and his wife, Princess Evdokiya Odoyevskaya, and, through her father, descended from Zoe Palaiologina (being her last known descendant).

On 12 April 1574, in Novgorod, she married Magnus of Livonia. They had two children:
# Marie Oldenburg (ca July 1580 – ca 1597).
# Eudoxia Oldenburg (ca 1581 – ca 1588).

Upon her husband's death, Jerome Horsey escorted Maria from the Bishopric of Courland to the court of Boris Godunov. Although Horsey proposed to marry her, Godunov was anxious to get rid of a potential claimant to the throne. As a result, Maria was forced to take the veil and entered a convent adjacent to the Troitse-Sergiyeva Lavra.

In 1609, she entered into correspondence with her false cousin False Dmitry II, who had proclaimed himself Tsar. Her subsequent fate is not documented.

References

External links

* [http://genealogy.euweb.cz/russia/rurik15.html#I4 Genealogy of Marie's family]
* [http://www.thepeerage.com/p11295.htm#i112946 Details]