Jogaila - King of Poland

King of Poland

On 22 June 1399, Jadwiga gave birth to a daughter, baptised Elizabeth Bonifacia; but within a month the mother and daughter died, leaving Władysław sole ruler of the Kingdom of Poland and without an heir nor much legitimacy to rule the kingdom. Jadwiga's death undermined Władysław's right to the throne; and as a result old conflicts between the nobility of Lesser Poland, generally sympathetic to Władysław, and the gentry of Greater Poland began to surface. In 1402, Władysław answered the rumblings against his rule by marrying Anna of Celje, a granddaughter of Casimir III of Poland, a political match which re-legitimised his reign.

The Union of Vilnius and Radom of 1401 confirmed Vytautas's status as grand duke under Władysław's overlordship, while assuring the title of grand duke to the heirs of Władysław rather than those of Vytautas: should Władysław die without heirs, the Lithuanian boyars were to elect a new monarch. Since no heir had yet been produced by either monarch, the act's implications were unforeseeable, but it forged bonds between the Polish and Lithuanian nobility and a permanent defensive alliance between the two states, strengthening Lithuania's hand for a new war against the Teutonic Order in which Poland officially took no part. While the document left the liberties of the Polish nobles untouched, it granted increased power to the boyars of Lithuania, whose grand dukes had till then been unencumbered by checks and balances of the sort attached to the Polish monarchy. The Union of Vilnius and Radom therefore earned Władysław a measure of support in Lithuania.

In late 1401, the new war against the Order overstretched the resources of the Lithuanians, who found themselves fighting on two fronts after uprisings in the eastern provinces. Another of Władysław's brothers, the malcontent Švitrigaila, chose this moment to stir up revolts behind the lines and declare himself grand duke. On 31 January 1402, he presented himself in Marienburg, where he won the backing of the Knights with concessions similar to those made by Jogaila and Vytautas during earlier leadership contests in the Grand Duchy.