Krakow Travel

Jadwiga was a daughter of Louis d’ Anjou, King of Hungary and Poland. According to decision taken by her father and Polish nobles she was supposed to come to Krakow to become King of Poland. It is not the error - she was supposed to be a ruler and she was supposed to be crowned in the Wawel Cathedral. It is a true she was very young and completely unexperienced. Anyway she arrived to the Polish capital and she was crowned when she was more or less ten years old, on 16th October 1384.
There was only one problem - she was engaged with an Austrian Prince from the Habsburg family and Polish nobles weren’t happy about that fact. They proposed her a Lithuanian prince whose name was Jogailla - but the girl didn’t even want to hear about him - he was much older, quite ugly and he was considered barbarian since he wasn’t Christian in that moment and her fiancee was very well educated, young and handsome. It is not strange the girl objected. Unfortunately, the Polish nobles didn’t want to consider feelings of the young girl - for them the future of Poland was far important - one of the biggest Polish enemies were the Teutonic Knights who menaced the country from the north - the same problem was for the Lithuanians. The aim was to unite those two countries to protect better from the common enemy.
The girl didn’t want to follow advices of Polish nobles but since she was a very pious person she passed hours and hours, days and days praying in front of the Black Cross in the Wawel Cathedral.
One day it is said Christ pronounced his opinion on the matter saying to the girl that also she herself was obliged to bear the cross as he had done so she was obliged to marry the Lithuanian prince.
And this happened - the prince was baptised and obtained a new, Christian name - Ladislao - and later he married young Jadwiga.
The marriage wasn’t lucky as far as their private life - the only daughter was born only in 1399 and died being only few days old, and due to some complications Jadwiga died as well.
From the political point of view - thanks to that marriage a very strong union between Poland and Lithuanian was created that lasted till the partitions that took place at the end of XVIII century.
And what about Jadwiga? The Pope John Paul II claimed her blessed in 1987 and then years later he canonized her so since that moment we have got Saint Jadwiga.