Jadwiga, Poland’s Great Queen

HERE is the story of a great love and a great sacrifice and of a queen’s work built on that sacrifice. It takes us back five hundred years, to the brilliant court of that King Louis of Hungary who ruled the half of Europe—the court where his gifted youngest daughter, Jadwiga, grew up. It takes us to Vienna, for Jadwiga was betrothed to the young Crown Prince of Austria. Then to Krakow, early capital of Poland, where Jadwiga was called as queen and where she made her supreme renunciation. Through it and her marriage with the Lithuanian Grand Duke, Jagiello, she brought the last pagan people of Europe into the fold of the Western Church, and raised a barrier against the eastern push of the German soldiers of the Cross, which made possible a Poland stretching from the Baltic to the Black Sea. Thenceforth the union of Poland and Lithuania was known as the “Wedding ring of Jadwiga.” Through darkest days she kept her faith, until she was reverenced throughout Europe for her holiness and admired for her wisdom. Like Joan of Arc in France, she has been in Poland a symbol of national aspiration and a source of national idealism. This book represents years of travel and research and has already been accepted by the Polish historical congress. It is important as history and interesting also as the love story of a great woman.