Wenceslaus III of Bohemia
Wenceslaus III Premyslid (
Czech and
Slovak Václav,
Hungarian Vencel,
Polish Wacław), (
October 6,
1289 –
August 4,
1306) was the King of
Hungary (
1301 -
1305) and King of
Bohemia (
1305 -
1306).
Wenceslaus III was the son of
Wenceslaus II, King of Bohemia and
Poland, and Judith von
Habsburg, the daughter of
Rudolf I, King of the Romans. He faced the problem of internal quarrels in Hungary and in Poland.
Wenceslaus was the last of the male
Premyslid rulers of Bohemia. His sister,
Elisabeth (Eliška), heiress of Bohemia, married
John "The Blind" of Luxembourg, who assumed the Bohemian throne in his wife's right.
His father accepted the crown of Hungary on behalf of Wenceslaus III in 1301. On
August 27 1301, Wenceslaus III was crowned in
Székesfehérvár as the King of Hungary and as such assumed the name Ladislaus (Hungarian:
László, Czech and Slovak:
Ladislav). At that time the
Kingdom of Hungary was split into several de-facto principalities, and Wenceslaus was only accepted as the King of Hungary by the rulers in modern
Slovakia (
Matthew Csák and the
Abas) and
Burgenland (the
Güssings [Köszegs]). But the Abas and Matthew Csák switched sides in 1303 and started to support Wenceslaus' rival
Charles Robert of Anjou. Consequently, the young Wenceslaus, in
Buda, became afraid and wrote to his father in
Prague for help. His father took a large army and invaded Buda, but having considered the situation, he took his son and the Hungarian crown and returned to Bohemia. Ivan of Güssing was named to represent Wenceslaus III in Hungary. After his father's death, Wenceslaus III decided to renounce the Hungarian throne, and on December 6, 1305, he relinquished the crown to
Otto, Duke of Lower Bavaria. But Otto, supported only by the Güssings, was imprisoned in 1307 and abdicated the throne in 1308, leaving
Charles Robert as ruler of Hungary. In Hungarian historiography he is noted as an anti-king during the
interregnum of 1301-1310.
Wenceslaus III, however, wanted to claim his hereditary right to the Polish throne, but was murdered under mysterious circumstances in
Olomouc,
Moravia on August 4, 1306, while on a campaign to that end.
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History of Poland (966-1385)Venceslau III da Boêmia
