Jadwiga

Jadwiga (Hedwig), b ca 1374, d 17 July 1399 in Cracow. The queen of Poland from 1384. With the support of the anti-Hungarian Polish nobility, she succeeded her father, King Louis I, in Poland, while her sister Maria became the queen of Hungary. The Polish nobles rejected the personal union of Poland and Hungary and brought about the annulment of Jadwiga's betrothal to Duke William of Habsburg in 1385, and in 1386 she married Grand Duke Jagiełło of Lithuania, with whom the nobles had negotiated the politically advantageous Union of Krevo in 1385. In 1387, Jadwiga and the Poles embarked on a campaign to regain Galicia, which Hungary had ruled since 1378. By promising privileges to the nobility, burghers, and clergy, they took Peremyshl and Lviv without a conflict, and met with only sporadic opposition from the Hungarian palatine Benedict elsewhere. Thenceforth, until the partition of Poland in 1772, Galicia remained under Polish rule.