When Elizabeth was ten years old there took place another of the crusades in which knights, nobles and common peasants set forth for the Holy Land to make war against the heathen; and Elizabeth's father, the King of Hungary, left his dominions to engage in the holy war. There was grave doubt if he would ever return, and it seemed too as if his throne might be wrested from him by rebellion in his absence; so many of the noblemen and statesmen of Thuringia believed that the marriage of Ludwig with Elizabeth would be unwise, since there might be no benefit to be reaped from it on behalf of the State. The Landgravine Sophia, we are told, was inclined to agree with them—all the more so because the kind ruler, Herman, had lately died and Ludwig was now on the throne of Thuringia, and could marry some great princess whose country was not in the danger of civil war.
It is not known if the stories of the ill-treatment that was then visited on the helpless little Elizabeth are true or not, but many writers have told us that Sophia was determined by harshness and unkindness to force Elizabeth to enter a convent so that her son would be free to marry elsewhere. At all events, Ludwig heard of the plans to break off his engagement, and angrily refused to listen to them, declaring that he loved Elizabeth dearly and would marry her in spite of every person and relative in his dominions. And when Elizabeth was fourteen years old, she was married with great magnificence to Ludwig, who was as handsome as he was honorable, and made a fitting husband for the beautiful young girl who had already become famous for her great piety and her charitable deeds.
The marriage was ideally happy, for the young couple was passionately attached, and Ludwig encouraged his wife in her pious and kindly undertakings. He understood her so well and gave her such hearty support in her dealings with the poor and her gifts of food, money and clothing, that after his death he was often referred to as Saint Ludwig, just as his wife was called Saint Elizabeth.
Ludwig, however, did not like to see his wife go poorly dressed, and she wore splendid raiment to please him. Moreover, he disapproved of her giving so much time and effort to her charity and her prayers that she taxed her strength. She had to desist from many of her undertakings, or perform them without his knowledge, when he feared that her severe fasts and her long prayers were wearing out her health; and Elizabeth would steal from her chamber to pray when she thought him asleep, and would wear a coarse sackcloth skirt beneath the silks that pleased him.
One time, when Ludwig was climbing the steep path to the castle of the Wartburg where he held his court, he met Elizabeth, who was carrying in her dress loaves of bread for the poor people in the nearby village of Marburg. Elizabeth always tried to perform her charity secretly, for she believed that it would lose its value if it were widely known—and moreover she feared that her husband would not approve of her taking a heavy burden down the steep path into the village. When he stopped her and gaily asked her what she had in her apron, she opened it shyly, expecting him to blame her when he saw its contents—but how great was her amazement as well as his when there tumbled forth upon the ground a profusion of the sweetest smelling roses of all colors, which had miraculously taken the place of the provisions that Elizabeth had carried!
That was only the first of a series of miracles that those who worshipped her memory have accredited to her lifetime, and Ludwig, astonished and awed by what had taken place, is said to have erected a monument at the spot where the beautiful roses appeared.
Elizabeth pitied the sick and tended them with the utmost kindness—and she was particularly kind to the wretched sufferers from the dreadful disease of leprosy. From earliest times the leper was an outcast from his fellow men. They fled at his approach, and he was obliged to warn them of his coming by outcry, or by use of a clapper or bell. But Elizabeth went to the lepers without fear and fed and comforted them, and even bathed their sores and bandaged them with her own hands.
At last her father, King Andrew, returned from the crusade, and on his way back to his own dominions stopped in Thuringia to see his daughter. By this time Elizabeth had refused to wear her splendid garments any longer and had parted with all except her simplest dresses; and Ludwig feared that her father the King might blame him for not maintaining Elizabeth in the state that was her due as a royal princess, so he inquired of Elizabeth if she had any fine dress to wear when greeting her father. She replied that she had none, but that by grace of God some way would be found out of the difficulty; and when she put on the only dress that was left to her it suddenly changed by a miracle into a gown so beautiful and lustrous that its like had never been seen before, and King Andrew rejoiced in the appearance of his daughter when she came before him.
By this time Elizabeth had two children, and the Landgrave was rejoiced. He was a powerful and a wise ruler, and while he was perfectly just, he punished evil-doers with a hand of iron. On one occasion he was called away from home to give aid to the Emperor Frederick the Second in putting down a revolt in his dominions; and Elizabeth ruled over Thuringia until his return.
Famine and pestilence wasted the country, and the gentle lady was sorely beset to give aid to her suffering people. She spent so much on charity that she nearly emptied the treasury, and even sold the robes of state and the official ornaments to feed the poor. When Ludwig returned he found his coffers nearly empty—but the money had been wisely used, for Elizabeth had saved the lives of many of his subjects.