07/10/2025
The stolen Crown of St. Stephen
It is October 1439 and Albrecht, King of the Romans, king of Bohemia and king of Hungary is dead. This energetic and warlike prince was felled by dysentry he picked up on a campaign against the Turks.
Albrecht II did not have an heir when he died. But his wife Elisabeth was pregnant. Her doctors assured her the child would be a boy, a boy who was to become the heir to the crowns of Hungary and Bohemia, and the duchy of Austria.
The magnates of Hungary faced a dilemma. They were loyal to Elisabeth, the daughter of Sigismund who had ruled Hungary for half a century, and hence if she had a son, that son was the legitimate heir to the kingdom.
But then the Turkish offensive of 1439 had only stopped because of the disease. Sooner or later the Ottomans were going to be back. And probably sooner if they found out that the kingdom was ruled by a newborn. They needed a fully functional ruler.
To square the circle they suggested to Elisabeth should marry the king of Poland and grand duke of Lithauania, Wladyslaw III. The united forces of Poland, Lithuania and Hungary led by a competent military leader who might even rally the feared Bohemian fighters, that would be a mighty defence against the fearsome Ottomans.
However, the dowager queen would not hear any of it. She knew she was carrying a son and she did not want to squander the boy’s chances of becoming king - nor her chances of ruling Hungary as is regent. She was a formidable lady, every inch her father’s daughter.
Nevertheless, the Hungarians elected Wladislaw of Poland and Lithuania as king of Hungary and were preparing his coronation.
Elisabeth had to stop them. But how? By using – drumroll - the crown of St. Stephen. This was one of Europe’s oldest crowns—by tradition a papal gift from pope Sylvester II to King Stephen in the year 1000, though more likely made in Constantinople around 1070. Either way, it was sacred, ancient, and indispensable for a viable coronation.
So Elisabeth staged the greatest heist of the 15th century.
We know all about it, because the lady who snuck into the vaults of Visegrad castle, Helene Kottanerin, wrote it all down , how she placed some decoy ladies in waiting in the castle who let her in, how she filed through locks, removed and then replaced the seals and sewed the invaluable crown into a cushion, a cushion she kept next to her all throughout the journey back to her mistress.
Lady Helene was adamant she had brought the crown to queen Elisabeth, safe and sound. But today you can see the cross at the top of the crown is bent. So maybe, maybe someone sat down on that cushion when she placed it next to her in the carriage, at the inn or in the halls she visited … who knows.
Bent or not, Elisabeth had the crown and shortly afterwards a boy, on whose head she then placed said crown.
Kind Wladislaw of Poland had to make do with a fake crown. But his army and his support was not fake. Elisabeth and her came under siege in Bratislava. Very reluctantly the queen had to seek support from her husband’s distant cousin Albrecht VI of Habsburg. With his help she pushed Wladislaw III out of Western Hungary, but most of the Kingdom was lost to her.
What happened to her, king Wladislaw III of Poland, Lithuania and Hungary, the boy, known as Ladislaus Postumus and what all that had to do with the much maligned emperor Friedrich III, you can find out in the latest episode of the History of the Germans.
