Elizabeth of Bosnia

Infobox Monarch|royal|consort
name =Elizabeth of Bosnia
title =Queen consort of Hungary, Poland, Croatia and Dalmatia


caption =Elizabeth of Bosnia with her daughter Mary
consortreign =June 20, 1353 - September 10, 1382
spouse =Louis I
issue =Mary of Hungary
Jadwiga of Poland
royal house =Kotromanić
father =Stephen II of Bosnia
mother =Elizabeth of Kujavia
date of birth =
date of death =|

Elizabeth of Bosnia (1340 – 1387) was the Queen consort of the Kingdom of Hungary and Poland. She was the second wife of Louis I of Hungary and served as regent for her daughter Mary.

Descent and early years

Elizabeth's father was Stephen II of Bosnia and Syrmia, the head of the Kotromanic dynasty and claimant to the Kingdom of Serbia. She descended from the Nemanjic dynasty too. Her mother was Elizabeth of Kujavia, a grandniece of Władysław I the Elbow-high.

Elisabeth of Poland, the mother of the Hungarian King had heard that Stephen II had a young daughter named Elizabeth, and she insisted immediately on bringing her to the Hungarian Court for fostering. Stephen was reluctant at first, but eventually dispatched Elizabeth. After three years of life in the Hungarian Court, Elizabeth fell in love with Louis, and the King's mother immediately invited Stephen II to Hungary and arranged a marriage so that Elizabeth could marry Louis. The first wife of Louis I had died earlier leaving Louis childless.

Queen consort

On 20 June 1353 Elisabeth married the Hungarian King, achieving a huge diplomatic success for her father. Her father became seriously ill and could not be present at the actual wedding.

It was discovered that Elizabeth and Louis were related in the fourth degree through a common ancestor, a Duke of Kujavia in Poland (some have also insinuated a link through a branch of the House of Nemanja). The Roman Catholic Church regarded the marriage to be within a prohibited degree of consanguinity and some ecclesiastics were tempted to curse the couple. Later in the same year Pope Innocent IV wrote to the Bishop in Zagreb granting a dispensation for the marriage and forgiving the sin.

Elizabeth gave birth to three or four daughters, but only two survived:
* Mary (1371-1395)
* Jadwiga (1373-1399)

Her eldest surviving daughter, Mary, was intended to inherit both her father's kingdoms, Hungary and Poland, or at least the Kingdom of Poland.

King Louis I arranged marriages for Mary and Jadwiga, but neither of his daughters married during his lifetime. Sigismund of Luxemburg, an heir of the Polish Kujavian dynasty and a member of Bohemian royal family, married Mary. William of Habsburg then was to marry her younger sister Jadwiga. However, after Sigismund was expelled by the Poles, where he had been living in Cracow since 1381, Jadwiga unexpectedly became Queen regnant of Poland, and instead married Jogaila of Lithuania by the Act of Kreva, where Elizabeth, as her daughter's guardian, was one party to the negotiations.

Queen dowager and regent

Mary became Queen regnant of Hungary as a ten-year-old child after her father's death in 1382. Queen Elizabeth, now queen dowager, acted as the regent from 1382 onwards on behalf of her daughter Mary, until her death in 1387. The Hungarian holdings were "de facto" ruled by Elizabeth, but the Poles discontinued her regency in Poland.

In Hungary, Elizabeth was helped by Palatine Miklós Garai, Nikola I Gorjanski Stariji.

Sigismund, his powerful brother king Wenceslaus IV of Bohemia and many noblemen of Hungary were opposed to Elizabeth and the Palatine. Some noblemen helped Maria's relative Charles of Durazzo, King of Naples to become briefly the King of Hungary in 1385. Elizabeth and Garai had Charles II assassinated in 1386. Charles's heir was his underage son Ladislas of Naples (d. 1414) who as an adult, attempted all his life to conquer Hungary, but despite some support in from interests in Hungary itself, did not succeed.

Magnates of Lesser Poland had been deeply dissatisfied by the family connection (1370-1382) with Hungary, and despite the decreed succession order, chose the nine-year-old Jadwiga of Hungary as monarch of Poland in 1384. After a couple of years, Jadviga was compelled to leave Hungary for Poland. Mary and her guardians never managed to govern Poland. Halych, the Ruthenian province recently (1340-1366) annexed by Poland, however was taken by Hungary, and only after several years did Poland recover it.

Death and aftermath

Elizabeth and Mary were captured in 1386 by powerful Horvat brothers, but probably on the orders of Mary's smart seventeen-year-old husband and co-ruler, Sigismund of Luxembourg. On the first anniversary of the death of Charles II, January 1387, Elizabeth was strangled before Mary's eyes. Mary bitterly accused squarely her husband of arranging the kidnapping and murder of her mother.

Mary reconciled with the Horvats and granted them estates in Slavonia and Northern Bosnia. Mary refused to live with Sigismund, due to the murder of her mother, therefore keeping a separate household.

In July 1387 Mary was rescued from that captivity by troops of Trvtko I of Bosnia (cousin and adopted brother of Elizabeth of Bosnia) and the Croatian noble family later known as Frankopan (who were relatives of the Garay (Gorjanskih) clan), main supporters of the Bosnian faction.

It has been claimed that Sigismund took revenge on the murderers of Elizabeth. The Horvats were murdered by Sigismund's men near their stronghold of Dobor.

Neither of Elizabeth's daughters left surviving children, so Elizabeth's progeny of Kotroman blood went extinct with the death of Jadwiga, the last surviving of them, in 1399.

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