The order of King Lajos the Great had envisaged was upset, partly because the Poles did not want to continue in personal union with the Kingdom of Hungary, but wanted a ruler who would rule their lands from Polish territories. The other reason was the rule of Queen Erzsébet’s League and the Palatine Garai Miklós’s League, whose political aims few people agreed with. The rebellion against Mária’s rule finally broke out when it became official that Erzsébet and her circle had chosen Louis, brother of the French King Charles VI (the “Mad” r. 1380-1422), as Mária’s betrothed instead of Zsigmond.

On the face of it, the French marriage would have been a prestigious one, as the kingdom of France was going through a more successful period of the Hundred Years’ War, and Louis was also engaged to Catherine. However, the distant ally only got as far as the betrothal in his absence, for by the time the marriage could take place the political situation had changed radically.

Maria’s engagement to Zsigmond was broken off by Pope Clement VII of Avignon, but this did not console Zsigmond, who quickly raised money and attacked the north-western regions of the Hungarian kingdom. The Hungarian elite, who were drawn to Rome, were not happy with the French marriage, which brought war and enemies, and were dissatisfied with Erzsébet’s actions, who was also forced to accept that Mária would not receive the Polish crown, and instead was crowned Hedvig, breaking her engagement to William of Habsburg.

 On the other hand, the ‘female domination’ was not a successful idea, Mária and Erzsébet had to give up in 1383 to keep King Lajos the Great’s empire together, and the Polish throne went to the youngest princess, Hedvig.

The new king of Naples, Charles of Durazzo, was also unhappy with the political changes in Hungary, as his defeat of Joanna brought him face-to-face with the uncle of the French king, the last husband of the queen of Naples, also called Louis. The aristocratic alliance led by Horváti János, Bán (Duke) of Macsó, and Horváti Pál, Bishop of Zagreb, rebelled and invited Charles of Anjou to the Hungarian throne.

The chaos and Mária’s marriage plans led to civil war from 1384 onwards, as many expected Zsigmond to bring peace; the regent queen tried to settle the differences, but even after her failure, she supported Prince Louis of France, and the two young people were married by proxy. Zsigmond, the outlawed bridegroom, then came to Hungary with an army from his brother and forced Lajos to retreat in November 1385.

The disputes were apparently settled, but then the Horváti family from the south of Hungary interfered, inviting Lajos the Great’s relative, Charles Durazzo of Naples, who took the Hungarian throne on the last day of 1385, under the name of Charles II (r. 1385-1386). In 1385 Charles II (Little) (1385 – 1386) finally succeeded to the Hungarian throne. Mária was forced to abdicate but remained in Buda despite the coronation of her rival. This allowed her mother to organize an assassination attempt on the newly crowned king. This way, the new king’s reign lasted only 55 days, for the nobles, led by Forgách Balázs, organized an assassination attempt against him on 7 February 1386 and imprisoned him in Visegrád, where he remained unburied for four years after his death, under a papal curse.

Mary was thus restored to the Hungarian throne.

Despite the failure of Charles, the Horváti family did not falter, and soon László of Naples, the son of the deceased monarch, was put forward as another candidate. Mária and Erzsébet thought they would be able to personally pacify the disobedience in the south, but the Horváti attacked the queen’s entourage at Diakóvár on 25 July 1386. During the brief battle, Palatine Garai and Forgách gave their lives in defense of the queens, who were taken by the rebels to the castle of Novigrád on the Adriatic coast. There Erzsébet was strangled (in front of her daughter) in January 1387, but the rebels lost the sympathy of the country for good.

In the meantime, Zsigmond returned to Hungary and, in March 1387, he took the crown as Mária’s husband and freed his wife in June with Venetian help, thus ending the civil war. With the consolidation of the order, Mária and Zsigmond officially became co-regents, with Kanizsai János, Archbishop of Esztergom, acting as chancellor on his own. Although the law was in favor of the queen, the custom was so unfamiliar with the rule of women that Mária only wore the Holy Crown by sonship, i.e. by the title of “rex”. They became co-rulers – on paper – but she was only a figurine, a dame on the throne.

In practice, the reign soon passed into the hands of Zsigmond of Luxembourg (r. 1387-1437), and his wife retired from politics to court life. Mária did not have much joy in her marriage, according to a topos. She preferred to live in Diósgyőr Castle, but her husband always told her where she could stay. However, one of the topos of the relationship between Mária and Zsigmond, which is a recurring theme in history and fiction, is that the two not only disliked each other but were downright estranged.

Even though Zsigmond spent years at the Hungarian court, the two had plenty of opportunities to get to know each other. The picture that emerges of them is that of Mária as the unhappy bride who was dragged around until she ended up at the side of Zsigmond, who never even looked at her, but made passes at everyone from the prostitutes to the foreign women who put him up. But this image, as Norbert C. Tóth points out in his article, has no historical source and is primarily the creation of a posterity that wants to shudder.

Not many descriptions of her have survived, but those that do suggest that she was not particularly pretty in the eyes of medieval men. As Süttő Szilárd notes, the descriptions of Monaci Lőrinc, who later met her, praise her spiritual greatness, her gratitude, and her inner attitude, but not her appearance. Of course, we can only conclude her personality and appearance from historical sources with extreme caution, but we do know that she made a serious and mature impression for her age and that her stature distinguished her somewhat from her contemporaries. Anthropological studies of her sister’s remains were carried out in the 19th century, and the long bones show that Hedvig was between 1.76 and 1.82 meters tall, although it should be added that the studies of the time were wrong about her actual height, which was probably less than today. And it is only a very tentative conclusion that her sister must therefore have been taller than the medieval average.

If we compare the itineraries of the Hungarian king and queen, i.e. the information about their whereabouts that we can obtain from the documents, we can see that Mária and Zsigmond, when the latter did not have to go into battle, did not avoid each other at all, they stayed in the same place.

The death of Queen Mária

In March 1395, Queen Mária stayed in Verőce and then in Pécs, while Zsigmond was fighting against the Turks at the same time. The king traveled from Brassó via Szeben to Kolozsvár, arriving at Várkony on 5 April, where he must have heard of the queen’s presence in South Transdanubia, for he interrupted his journey to Buda and hurried to Báta. From there the royal couple marched to Buda, which they reached on 16 April. On 9 May, while organizing the campaign, he visited the Pauline monks of Budaszentlőrinc. This was followed by a hunting expedition, in which the king was probably accompanied by the entire court since the courts of the Curia were simply closed during these days.

Interestingly, the Hungarian narrative sources are rather terse in their recollections of Mária’s death. Thuróczy János wrote the following in his chronicle:

“Zsigmond had not yet returned home when Queen Mary, seriously ill, left the country and life. Her death caused King Zsigmond no small amount of trouble. The queen’s sister, Jadviga, lived in the sweet company of a marriage contract with the King of the Poles, King László (Jagiełło (László / Ulászló) Władysław II). The latter, thinking that his wife might inherit the scepter of his dead sister, led a large army against King Zsigmond. And if the venerable father, Archbishop János Kanizsai of Esztergom, had not fortified the frontiers of the country with many armed troops, the ambitious monarch might have disturbed the government in the absence of King Zsigmond”. (Translation by Kristó Gyula)

The death of the young queen, who was about to give birth in May 1395, was finally caused by a reckless and unfortunate outing: on 17 May, Mária was riding (not alone) out of Buda and fell from her horse in the hills. The Queen suffered a miscarriage as a result of her injury, and the loss of blood caused her and her child to die.

According to a German chronicle:

“At a time when the king had been reigning for more than two years and Queen Mária was pregnant and was halfway through her pregnancy, it happened that one day the queen went hunting in the woods near Buda, called Vértes (Schiltberg), and she too went after the game. But the stallion fell with her: [the queen] gave birth in the woodland, and they both died immediately. The king then became very sorrowful at her death [i.e. Mária’s], of which one could write at length.” (Translation by Bence Péterfi)

The queen’s sealAccording to C. Tóth Norbert’s study, the Polish invasion of 1395 came as suddenly as it ended, probably without a major confrontation. The Poles, relying on the element of surprise, did not confront the Hungarian forces, so Zsigmond’s throne was not seriously threatened.

In addition to the fact of the Polish invasion, the chronicler Bonfini points out the childlessness and the mistake of burying Mary in Székesfehérvár, because Zsigmond, as it turned out later, buried her in Várad, next to his ideal, King Saint László. It was he who later chose to be buried next to his first wife. It is relatively easy to prove from the king’s documents that on 31 May Zsigmond was still in Buda, but on 5 June he was already in Várad, where the queen was presumably buried.

The throne of Mária of Anjou, the first Hungarian queen who could wear the Holy Crown, was inherited by Zsigmond of Luxembourg, who later married Cillei Borbála. Unlike Hedvig, who was later canonized in Poland, Mária did not become a monarch of great stature, and the chronicles and legends about her life focus on her imprisonment in Novigrád. Popular memory also associates her with Diósgyőr, one of Mária’s favorite places of residence during her short reign.

Source: http://www.rubicon.hu, and https://ntf.hu/index.php/2017/05/12/lovaglas-a-halalba-tiz-kulonos-halal-a-magyar-tortenelembol-vi/

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