Jadwiga of Poland

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Jadwiga (Polish: [jadˈviɡa] ; 1373/1374 – 17 July 1399), also known as Hedwig (from German, Hungarian: Hedvig), was Queen of the Kingdom of Poland, as well as its last hereditary ruler. Crowned "King" (in regem Poloniae coronata) to highlight her sovereign status, she reigned from 16 October 1384 until her death. Born in Buda, she was the youngest daughter of Louis I of Hungary and Elizabeth of Bosnia. Jadwiga was a member of the Capetian House of Anjou and had forebears among the Polish Piasts. In 1375, Louis I of Hungary planned for Jadwiga to marry William of Austria, to whom she was symbolically married in 1378; she subsequently lived in Vienna from 1378 to 1380. Louis is sometimes thought to have regarded her and William as his favoured successors in Hungary after the 1378 death of her eldest sister, Catherine of Hungary, since the following year the Polish nobility had pledged their homage to Louis I's second daughter, Mary, and her fiancé, Sigismund of Luxembourg. However, in 1382...

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