Casimir, the last Polish king of the house of Piast, died on the 5th of November, 1370. His death was caused by an injury contracted in falling from his horse during the chase.
On the 17th of the same month Louis was crowned King of Poland, at Cracow, by the Archbishop of Gnesen. At the very moment when he was about to reach the goal of the highest ambition of his predecessor, and of himself, Louis seemed to waver, and to doubt the expediency of accepting the crown. He could not help reflecting that governing two nations, which were united by no other tie except his own person, and defending them against their enemies, might prove a task to which one king was not equal. He nevertheless accepted the crown, but his sinister presentiments were fated speedily to be confirmed. The Polish lords were not used to an energetic rule. The nobles of Little and Great Poland were eager, each for themselves, to secure the offices of state, but both equally hated the queen-mother sent there to rule. The country soon fell a prey to internal dissensions and strife, compelling the queen to fly from the land, in which a new pretender had appeared. This pretender to the throne was a kinsman of the late king of Poland, and had retired to a convent in France in the lifetime of Casimir. His ambition made him exchange the cassock for armor, and a large portion of the people of Poland very soon acknowledged him to be their king. But his royalty was of short duration; the army of the adventurer was scattered by the adherents of King Louis.
The Lithuanians, whom we have before mentioned as being driven back by Andrew Laczfy, now took advantage of the disorders prevailing in Poland, and succeeded in securing such a foothold in that country that one of their dukes, Jagello, who was converted to Christianity, and subsequently married Hedvig, the daughter of King Louis, became in the course of a few years the founder of a new Polish dynasty, the Jagellons, a dynasty of mournful memory in the history of Hungary.
CASTLE OF BETZKÓ.
The last days of Louis were embittered by the disorders in Poland. He who had succeeded everywhere else failed there. Disappointment shortened his life; upon returning to Tyrnau on the 11th of September, 1382, from attending the Polish diet convened in Hungary, he was taken ill, and breathed there his last. The Hungarian nation lost in him one of their greatest kings. His reign was stormy but glorious. The Hungarian banner floated always victoriously on his numerous battlefields, and he humbled the enemies of the nation. In spite of his many wars, Louis found leisure to devote his time to the cultivation of the arts of peace. He gave laws to his country, which secured her permanence, and remained in force up to the most recent ages. He brought order into the affairs of the Church, and into the administration of justice. He was a zealous patron of learning, and established a university at Fünfkirchen (Pécs). His court, the seat of which he fixed at Buda, was brilliant; the Western customs, brought over from Italy, prevailing there. In times of peace magnificent tilts and tournaments at home took the place of the bloody game of war abroad, and the distribution of arms and knightly distinctions introduced by his father continued during his reign on even a larger scale. On all occasions Louis showed himself to be a brave, wise, and pious king, whose long rule is described by an eminent Hungarian historian as proving “a continued blessing” for his nation.
Dark days succeeded the glorious reign of Louis. The Hungarian nation was eager to testify their gratitude to their great king by a concession made to his dynasty—notwithstanding its foreign origin,—which they had refused to make to the glorious dynasty of the native Árpád family. After the king’s death his daughter Mary was proclaimed queen and the crown conferred upon her. But the crown brought little joy to Mary, for the festivities of the coronation were hardly finished when she was menaced by dangers coming from two sides. The Poles hated Sigismund, to whom Mary was affianced, and insisted also that their ruler should live amongst them. Elizabeth, the queen-mother, in order to conciliate the opposition of the Poles, and not to risk the loss of Poland, offered them, as a substitute for Mary, her younger daughter Hedvig. The Poles agreed to this compromise, upon the condition that they should select a husband for Hedvig, their queen. It was a great trial for Hedvig to part from William, Duke of Austria, to whom she was betrothed, but her choice lay between him and the crown of Poland. The allurements of the latter prevailed, and in February, 1386, the Polish nation celebrated the nuptials of their queen with the Lithuanian duke, Jagello, recently converted to Christianity, whom they had chosen for her husband. This marriage put an end to the union of the two countries, and Poland had once more a ruler of her own.
There was greater danger threatening Hungary from the south. The nobles of Croatia were dissatisfied with female rule. There were some ambitious men who were incensed to see themselves excluded from the royal court, whilst a man of low descent, like Garay, the palatine, took the lead there. They were intent upon destroying the government in order to remove the queen. In Charles of Durazzo, who owed the throne of Naples to Louis the Great, they found a man who was willing to become a candidate for the throne of Hungary. The traitors, however, on the appearance in their midst of the energetic Garay, accompanied by the queen and the queen-mother Elizabeth, kept quiet for a while. But no sooner had the royal party left Croatia, when these men, who all owed their honors to the favor of the late king, resumed their machinations, and prevailed upon Charles of Durazzo to perjure himself and to break the oath he had pledged to the late king not to disturb his daughter Mary in the possession of her throne. In 1385, undeterred by the warnings of his wife, he arrived in Croatia.