Louis I of Hungary
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Ludwik_Wegierski.jpg
Louis I (the Great), Lajos, Ludwik Węgierski (1326 - 1382) became king of Hungary in 1342 at the death of his father. He was the son of Charles I, king of Hungary, and was the head of the Angevin branch, and a member of the Capetian royal family. Became a king of Poland in 1370 in right of (and practically together with) his mother Elisabeth of Poland, sister of Casimir III of Poland who died 1370.
Louis' mother was Elizabeth, the daughter of Ladislaus the Short, and the sister of Casimir III the Great, king of Poland and the last ruler of Piast dynasty.
The Piasts did not die out in 1370, there were plenty of Piasts as princes in Silesia and in Masovia. King Casimir III however left only female issue, and an only grandson. As Louis has been arranged to succeed in Poland already since 1355, he became king of Poland.
Louis married firstly 1342 Margaret of Luxemburg (1335-1349), underage daughter of Emperor Charles IV, who died still a minor. He married secondly 1353 Elisabeth of Bosnia (c 1340-1387), daughter of Stephen II of Bosnia and Elisabeth of Kujavia. Her maternal grandfather was Casimir of Kujavia, son of Ziemomysl of Kujavia and Salome of Pomerelia. Ziemomysl, Elisabeth's great-grandfather, was a Polish prince, a brother of Vladislav I of Poland, Louis's grandfather. Elisabeth's father was Louis's vassal in southern frontiers of Hungary.
Louis had three daughters, all born of his second wife:
- Catherine (1366-77)
- Mary, Queen of Hungary, wife of Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor, at that time Margrave of Brandenburg
- Hedwig (Queen Jadwiga of Poland).
Until rather recently, Poland had been ruled by her independent king Casimir III of Poland, of the ancient Piast dynasty. He had arranged, sonless and deeming his own descendants either unsuitable to inherit or too young, that his surviving sister Elisabeth of Poland and her son Louis king of Hungary will be his successors in Poland. Louis had been proclaimed king, and Elisabeth held much of the practical power until her death in 1380.
When Louis died in 1382, the Hungarian throne was inherited by Mary. In Poland, however, the lords of Lesser Poland (the virtual rulers of Poland) did not want to continue the personal union with Hungary, nor to accept Mary's fiancé Sigismund as a regent. They therefore chose Mary's younger sister, Jadwiga, as their new monarch. After two years of negotiations with Jadwiga's mother, Dowager Queen Elisabeth of Hungary (Elisabeth of Bosnia) who was regent of Hungary, and a civil war in Greater Poland (1383), Jadwiga finally came to Kraków and was crowned King (sic) of Poland on 16 November 1384. The masculine gender in her title was intended to underline the fact that she was a monarch in her own right, not a queen consort.
Names in other languages: Hungarian: I (Nagy) Lajos, Polish: Ludwik Węgierski, Slovak: Ľudovít I (Veľký)
| Preceded by: | King of Hungary | Succeeded by: |
| Charles I | Mary |
Template:Kings and Dukes of Poland Template:Euro-royal-stubbe:Людвік I Вялікі de:Ludwig I. (Ungarn) he:לאיוש הראשון מלך הונגריה ja:ラヨシュ1世 pl:Ludwik Węgierski sr:Лудовик I zh:拉约什一世