Elizabeth of Austria

Life

Elizabeth was the first born child of Anna and Ferdinand, the couple had been married for five years before giving birth.

Elizabeth spent most of her childhood in the Hofburg, Innsbruck.

As both of Elizabeth's parents had a love of learning, she and her siblings received a strict and thorough education from the humanist Kaspar Ursinus Velius. as well as receiving a Catholic religious education. Both Elizabeth's parents were devout Catholics. Ferdinand, on one occasion threatened to have anyone who exposed his children to Lutheranism executed after he discovered that a tutor of Elizabeth's had Lutheran sympathies and had joked about cardinals. Elizabeth and her sisters were also taught to play keyboard instruments and to dance. The marriage plan was first discussed when Elizabeth was only one year old. Louis, King of Hungary and Bohemia, died in August 1526 without leaving an heir. The Hungarian throne was contested between Louis' brother-in-law Ferdinand I and John Zápolya.

In February 1530, ten-year-old Sigismund II Augustus was co-crowned vivente rege as King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania (his father was still alive and in good health) to secure his inheritance in Poland. Envoys of George, Duke of Saxony, attended the coronation ceremony and negotiated the marriage between Elizabeth and Sigismund August on behalf of Ferdinand. Great Chancellor of the Crown Krzysztof Szydłowiecki supported the match and organized a preliminary marriage treaty, signed on 10–11 November 1530 in Poznań.

In October the same year, Elizabeth and her younger siblings Maximilian, Ferdinand and Anna traveled with their father to Linz before traveling on to Vienna. This so that they could gain some experience in handling themselves in a formal court environment and also prepare for being confirmed in the Catholic faith. The confirmation took place in October 1539 in the royal chapel, with a Venetian envoy acting as Elizabeth's godfather. The cardinal Girolamo Aleandro, who conducted the ceremony, thought the young archdukes and archduchesses resembled "a chorus of angels".

Elizabeth and her family would return to Innsbruck in 1541.

Queen of Poland and Grand Duchess of Lithuania Elizabeth and a twelve-person escort departed Vienna on 21 April 1543. She was met at Olomouc by Samuel Maciejowski, Bishop of Płock and a retinue of 1,500 knights. On 5 May 1543, Elizabeth entered Kraków and met Sigismund Augustus for the first time. The wedding celebrations continued for two weeks. Bona Sforza was reported to detest her daughter-in-law, who was called "the Young Queen" was Bona was now titled "Old Queen". Raised in a strict household to be obedient, Elizabeth was too timid and meek to object to this. On the other hand, Polish nobility liked and sympathized with Elizabeth – a young, pleasant woman who was ignored by her husband and taunted by her ambitious mother-in-law. Her father-in-law Sigismund I the Old was also sympathetic to her, but was too weak to protect her from Bona.

Two months after the wedding, plague reached Kraków and the royal family departed the capital city. Sigismund Augustus left for the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, while Sigismund I the Old, Bona, and Elizabeth toured various cities in Poland. After a year of separation, the couple met again in Brest. In fall 1544, Elizabeth and Sigismund Augustus moved to Vilnius. For a few months Sigismund Augustus attempted to keep up appearances of a successful marriage to appease the Habsburgs, but soon started ignoring his wife and continued his affair with Barbara Radziwiłł.

Ancestors