Eliška Přemyslovna (1292 - 1330)

Born 20 Jan 1292 in Prague, Bohemia, Holy Roman Empire (Praha, České království, Svatá říše římská)

Ancestors

Descendants

Died 28 Sep 1330 at age 38 in Prague, Bohemia, Holy Roman Empire (Praha, České království, Svatá říše římská)

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Biography

Elizabeth of Bohemia (1292–1330) (Wikipedia English) ^[1]

Élisabeth de Bohême (1292-1330) (Wikipedia French) ^[2]

Elżbieta Przemyślidka (Wikipedia Polish) ^[3]

Elisabeth von Böhmen (Wikipedia German) ^[4]

Elisabeth of Bohemia (Czech: Eliška Přemyslovna) (20 January 1292 – 28 September 1330) was a princess of the Bohemian Přemyslid dynasty who became queen consort of Bohemia as the first wife of King John the Blind (John of Luxembourg). She was the mother of King of Bohemia and Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV.

Children: Elisabeth and John were parents to seven children:

• Margaret (8 July 1313–11 July 1341, Prague), married in Straubing 12 August 1328 to Henry XIV, Duke of Bavaria.
• Bonne/ Jutta (21 May 1315–11 September 1349, Maubuisson Abbey, Saint-Ouen-l'Aumône), married in Melun 6 August 1332 to King John II of France.
• Charles IV (14 May 1316–29 November 1378), King of Bohemia and Holy Roman Emperor.
• Ottokar ("Otto") (22 November 1318–20 April 1320), Prince of Bohemia.
• John Henry (Jan Jindrich) (12 February 1322, Mělník–12 November 1375), Margrave of Moravia.
• Anna (1323–3 September 1338), twin of Elisabeth, married 16 February 1335 to Duke Otto of Austria.
• Elisabeth (1323–1324), twin of Anne [5]

Research Notes

• Women in power, scroll down to 1307-10 Opposition Leader Eliška Přemyslova in Bohemia 1310-25 Politically Influential Queen of Bohemia (Czech Republic)
• Encyclopaedia of the Middle Ages : Volume III Column 1832
• Ferdinand Seibt: page 76,83,90
• Gertrud Benker: Page 59,97
• Jörg K. Hoensch: Pages 38,52,58-61,76,78,102

Sources

1. ↑ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_of_Bohemia_(1292–1330)" Seen and entered by Anton Bergh on 24 Nov 2021
2. ↑ "https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Élisabeth_de_Bohême_(1292-1330)" Seen and entered by Anton Bergh on 24 Nov 2021
3. ↑ "https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elżbieta_Przemyślidka" Seen and entered by Anton Bergh on 24 Nov 2021
4. ↑ "https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elisabeth_von_Böhmen" Seen and entered by Anton Bergh on 24 Nov 2021

Acknowledgements

Bio Work in Progress

• needs editing, but not deleting as this information is difficult to recreate

Elizabeth, Queen of Bohemia

Born 20 January 1292, Died 28 September 1330

Prague Prague

Buried: King's Hall Monastery

Younger daughter of King Wenceslas II of Bohemia from his 1st marriage with Jutta of Habsburg, daughter of King RUDOLF I.

Raised in the spirit of strong kingship at her father's glittering court, Elisabeth came to play a key role in the question of succession after his death (1305) and the assassination of her brother, King Wenceslas III, the last male PREMYSLIDEN (1306). Through her marriage to Johann, the son of HEINRICH VII. (Speyer 1310); the LUXEMBOURGERS gained a foothold in Bohemia. When King John was finally forced by the Bohemian high nobility to abandon his centralist policy in 1318, Elisabeth, supported by a party of clergy and Prague citizens, remained an unbending representative of the old royal claim to power; her efforts to enforce it, which extended to intrigues against John. Her marriage broke down as a result. Tensions were exacerbated by Elizabeth's rivalry with her stepmother Elizabeth of Poland, who, linked to the leader of the nobility, Henry of Leipra, gained influence also over John. Elisabeth was banished from Prague to Melnik, and she spent her last years in Bavarian exile. The last PREMYSLIDIN, the mother of Emperor KARLS IV, also found a special place in the Bohemian tradition since the 14th century because of her tragic life.

Childhood: She was the daughter of Wenceslaus II of Bohemia and Judith of Habsburg. When Elisabeth was five years old, her mother died. Of the ten children only four of them lived to adulthood; Wenceslaus, Anne, Elisabeth and Margaret. Elisabeth and her siblings also had a half-sister called Agnes. Six years after the death of her mother, her father Wenceslaus re-married. He chose to marry a Polish princess called Elisabeth Richeza of Poland from the Piast dynasty. Elisabeth's father then gained the Crown of Poland.

Many notable events occurred during Elisabeth's youth; a devastating fire at Prague Castle in 1303, the death of her father and the assassination of her brother Wenceslaus. Elisabeth was orphaned by the age of thirteen and lived with her sister, Anne. Her other sister, Margaret had married at the age of seven to Bolesław III the Generous, after he had come to the court of Bohemia with his mother, Elisabeth of Greater Poland.

Elisabeth went to live with her aunt Kunigunde in a nunnery near Prague Castle. Elisabeth was influenced by her aunt, since she had no mother from whom she would normally learn.

Her sister-in-law, Viola Elisabeth of Cieszyn as well as her stepmother, Elisabeth Richeza came to live with Anna and Elisabeth until the relationship between the sisters became bad.

The fight for the throne: In 1306, after the murder of Elisabeth's brother Wenceslaus, Elisabeth's brother-in-law Henry became King of Bohemia. Elisabeth was now the only single princess in the family, she was fourteen years of age so was a good age to marry and she became one of the key players in the power disputes for the Kingdom of Bohemia.

The quarrels of the Bohemian throne between Henry of Bohemia and Rudolph of Habsburg resulted in Rudolph taking Bohemia and marrying Elisabeth Richeza of Poland (Elisabeth's stepmother). Elisabeth went to live in Prague Castle with her brother's widow, Viola Elisabeth of Cieszyn. But in 1307 the throne returned to her brother-in-law and sister, because of Rudolph's death. They wanted Elisabeth to marry the lord of Bergova (Otto of Löbdaburg) for political reasons. Elisabeth refused to marry Otto and so Elisabeth and Anne fell out with each other.

An opposition group was formed against Henry and Anne, with Elisabeth as the figurehead.

Marriage to John of Luxembourg: Elisabeth married the son of Henry VII, Holy Roman Emperor, John of Luxembourg. Elisabeth knew Anna and Henry's weaknesses and this marriage was one of them. The wedding took place on September 1310, after John was forced to invade Bohemia. Henry and Anne fled to Carinthia where Anne died in 1313. The coronation of John and Elisabeth took place on 7 February 1311.

The marriage was at first a disaster, Elisabeth needed to give birth to a son to prevent the inheritance of the descendants of her sisters, Margaret and Agnes. Elisabeth didn't have a son until six years into the marriage, when she gave birth to Charles IV, Holy Roman Emperor.

For a time the marriage was much better since the succession was safely secured.

After a while Elisabeth grew jealous of John, who had listened to her but had different political opinions than her. Then in 1319 a plot was uncovered which had planned to dispose of Elisabeth and John and replace them with their eldest son Charles. John had the culprits punished but Elisabeth locked herself away at Mělník Castle and took her children with her.

John decided to prevent his wife from interfering in the education of their children. John later took the three eldest children: Margaret, Bonne, and Charles from Elisabeth's custody. Elisabeth fleeing Prague in disguise

Later years: Elisabeth was in total isolation and abandoned by all, she left Bohemia and went to live in exile in Bavaria. Some of the proceedings were considered an act of open hostility towards John, and his nobles. In exile Elisabeth gave birth to her last children; twin daughters Anne and Elizabeth. John sent Elisabeth funding during her exile. Elisabeth returned to Bohemia in 1325, with her only one of her daughters Anne, since Elizabeth had died months before. When she returned, John found Elisabeth to be ill but she still lived for another five years. Her final years were influenced by her lack of finances, which made her unable to maintain a court.[2] She eventually died of Tuberculosis in 1330 aged thirty eight.[3][4]

This was later written: "When the King heard the news he was distraught for the loss of his wife and manifested his feelings using mourning clothes, after all, they were married for twenty years, and yet remained completely himself apart from a brief time in Bohemia, he never really disscussed the matter"

On 30 August 1310, John was enfeoffed with the Kingdom of Bohemia by his father and married to Princess Elisabeth by Archbishop Peter Aspelt of Mainz. In mid-October the young couple set off for Bohemia with a contingent of troops. However, the Carinthian still occupied the capital as elected and crowned king. Therefore, Johann and his Bohemian and Rhenish followers first turned to Kuttenberg and sought in vain to conquer the richest city in the country. Finally, Johann moved before the capital and after some time also found open gates through his followers within the walls. Johann was no match for the civil war that followed. He asked the two Elector Archbishops of Mainz and Trier to mediate, and also appointed the Mainzer as Captain General in Bohemia and left the country. It was Peter Aspelt's last attempt to order Bohemian affairs in the royal sense. By 1317 he had finally despaired of this. Now the queen tried for half a year to mobilise her supporters before Johann returned with his Rhenish followers. Then the royal couple, forced into the western corner of the country, had to capitulate under the mediation of their Bavarian neighbour. So the Bohemian king and his nobility finally conjured up a new agreement, after which Johann had to dismiss his Rhinelanders. Apparently, this compromise broke up the royal marriage. Johann stayed for another 3 weeks at the castle of the more powerful Peter of Rosenburg, perhaps to cultivate his new political friendship. That left only the queen as the last stronghold of the royalists. And she now attempted a coup d'état against her own husband a few months later, supported mainly by the citizens of Prague. This time the crowd of high nobility sided with the king, who was victorious.

Ludwig der Bayer Once again, a marriage had to serve as legitimation: The younger sister of Wenceslas III, through whom PREMYSLIDEN tradition was to be shown, was bound to Johann in 1310. How old was the candidate for marriage? Fourteen years. His bride Elisabeth, after all, was already 18 years old, and she had already had a political affair at the time of her marriage: in the turbulent years after the fall of Premysl Ottokar (1278) Bohemia had split into parties. The King's Hall chronicler reports that the Cistercians had thrown their weight behind Princess Elisabeth and won her over to the LUXEMBOURG. The project of exchanging Bohemia for the Palatinate, which had been initiated by Johann, probably came to nothing due to the resistance of Queen Elisabeth and her backers. Johann suspected that they wanted to oust him from the throne in favour of his son Wenzel (later KARL IV), born in 1316. The family life of the Bohemian royal couple dissolved in 1319; nevertheless, 3 children still grew out of this troubled marriage, important objects of speculation for European politics. The little heir to the throne was taken to the remote castle of Pürglitz and kept isolated from all relatives. The three-year-old prince is said to have atoned for his refusal to be separated from his mother with two months of dark imprisonment.

"The Luxembourgers"

Whether already on this occasion the confiscation of Bohemia as a settled imperial fief, a marriage of PREMYSLIDIN, Elisabeth, the 4th daughter of Wenceslas II born in 1292 and Guta of Habsburg, with a LUXEMBOURGIAN - thought was obviously given to the king's brother Walram and the establishment of a secondary monarchy - and the subsequent election of the thus legitimised candidate by barons, nobility and burghers as the new bearer of the crown of St. Wenceslas cannot be gathered from the sources in detail. After the hesitant princess had been forced to agree to the marriage and HEINRICH VII had made a comprehensive confirmation of the privileges previously granted to the kingdom of the Crown of St. Wenceslas on 31 January 1310 in the event that his nominee was elected monarch, the barons, nobility and representatives of the patrician bourgeoisie of the royal cities agreed to the election of a LUXEMBOURGER as king of Bohemia in Prague at the end of June. It was only on this occasion that the Bohemian envoys - probably with the intention of being able to educate and shape the young man in the country according to their own ideas - decided that the king's son John, who had just turned 14, should be the candidate for succession and marriage. Because HEINRICH VII had insisted on a wedding before 1 September due to his energetic preparations for a trip to Rome, Elisabeth, who had been hurriedly brought from Prague, was married to Johann on this day in Speyer, after his father had granted him the Kingdom of Bohemia and the Margraviate of Moravia the day before and had guaranteed the right of succession in the male line. The civil war that broke out immediately was so unfortunate for Johann that in the middle of winter he had to send his pregnant wife Elisabeth to the court of LUDWIG BAVARIA with a request for help, and he wrote letters to the archbishops of Mainz and Trier asking for military assistance. In April 1317, the Archbishop of Mainz, unnerved, handed over his office to the Queen, who, with her party led by William Zajic and recruited mercenaries, began to put the opponents led by Henry of Leipa in their place. It was not until the end of June, after Elisabeth had fled with her children to the castle of Elbogen in western Bohemia, that an armistice was agreed upon, but it was not possible to reach agreement on the pacification of the country. The king, who had been asked to return several times, did not arrive in the country with a small force until the beginning of November and sought a military solution. This concession - which was also bought by the promise of regular payments to the king, who was always in financial difficulties - shattered Johann's marriage to the proud PREMYSLIDIN Elisabeth, which had already not exactly been harmonious and was subject to great tension due to the young husband's frequent escapades and uncharitable behaviour.

When the queen learned of her husband's simultaneous negotiations with LUDWIG DEM BAYERN to exchange the Kingdom of Bohemia for the Rhine Palatinate, the break was final. In his mistrust that the royal mother could use the heir to the throne against him, and proclaim him successor with the help of a few noble families, and take over the regency herself, Johann sought to remove his children from Elisabeth's influence. After the capture of her West Bohemian refuge Elbogen, he forced her to hand over the children to him, whom he then immediately handed over to monasteries, allies or foreign courts for further education. In July 1319, when Elisabeth yielded to the insistence of the patriots who felt closely bound to the Premyslid traditions, among whom the German patrician families of the royal cities set the tone, and approved a coup d'état-like attempt to overthrow John, the citizens of Prague's Old Town and the barons who supported them came to open combat with the king, which led to a truce after 10 days through the mediation of the former noble opposition around Henry of Leipa. The metropolis had to pay for this only independent initiative of its citizens with political disenfranchisement and economic sanctions, as a result of which Prague lost its previous pre-eminence for many years. The ruling couple was also included in the settlement, but Elisabeth did not get over the rebukes and slights inflicted on her by Johann. She withdrew to her feudal city of Melnik on the Elbe, and in 1322 to Cham in the Upper Palatinate, and took no further part in day-to-day politics and, although her marriage had broken down completely, she bore the king two more children who survived infancy. In Trent, news reached Johann of the death of his wife Elisabeth, who had died in Prague on 28 September, just 39 years old, impoverished and lonely. Although the widower wore mourning clothes for a few days, he probably accepted the loss of his wife without any great emotion; in any case, for the next three years he did not even consider it necessary to inform the heir to the throne KARL of his mother's passing.