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366 366 ST. HEDWIG on iDsanity; they foresaw that if he should ever succeed to the dukedom, he could not be a good ruler. Hedwig lived among the nuns at Trebnicz, where her daughter Grertrude was abbess, practising wonderful aus- terities, and paying extraordinary rever- ence to all religious objects and persons. Among the proofs of her sanctity, it is recorded that one day, when she had stood for a long time barefooted in con- templation before a crucifix, her maid, who was better clothed, complained that she could no longer endure the cold, and begged that her highness would bring her devotions to an end for this time. Hedwig moved a little aside, and bade the woman stand where -she had stood. She did so, and felt a glow of comfortable warmth in her freezing feet and through all her frame. Besides Trebnicz, Henry and Hedwig founded or completed many other re- ligious houses and churches. It is told of St. Hedwig, and also of her grand-niece, St. Kinqa, or Cune- OUND (4), to whom, I think, the story more truly belongs — that she habitually went barefooted, her feet a mass of chilblains, frightful to behold. Her friends begged in vain that she would wear shoes : her confessor at length en- joined it. She obeyed him, and continued to go barefooted nevertheless, for she wore her shoes hanging from her girdle. Hedwig died at Trebnicz, 1243, and was canonized by Clement IV. in 12G6. Through her grandson, Conrad, second son of Henry IL and B. Anna, of Bohemia, Hedwig is the ancestress of our most gracious Eling, and of the representatives of most of the illustrious families of Europe, including the Czar of Eussia and the Bourbons. Tables showing these descents are to be seen in her Life in the Acta Sanctorum of tho Bollandists. Dlugosz, Hist. Polon., lib. vi., vii. Stenzel, Oeschichte Schleaiens, Butler. Some old annals and chronicles pre- served in Pertz's Monumenta. A full and interesting account of tho Tartar invasion is given in Palacky's Grschichte v<m Bohnen. St. Hedwig (4), July 12, 17, Feb. 2i», queen of Poland, called by the Poles Jadwioa. c. 4- 1371-1399. Youngest daughter of Louis the Great, king of Hungary and Poland, by his second wife, Elizabeth of Bosnia. Louis was a scion of the house of Anjou, and heir, through his mother, to the ftunons Polish dynasty of the Piasts. He had no son, but he was careful to arrange brilliant marriages for his three daughters. The eldest was to be married to the Dauphin, but she died in childhood; Mary, the second daughter, became "King" of Hungary, and married Sigismund, after- wards emperor; Hedwig, the youngest, was married, in 1377, at the age of six, to William, who was about two years her senior; he was a son of Leopold, duke of Austria. The children were brought up together, sometimes at Vienna, sometimes at Budapest. The intellectual King Louis educated his daughters with great care. They were instructed in the Holy Scriptures and the homilies of the Fathers. They knew several languages, and excelled in all the arts and accomplishments taught to women of their rank in those days. The king died in 1382 ; and the Poles, tired of being subservient to Hungary, declared they would have for their queen which- ever of his daughters would bring her husband and settle amongst them. Eliza- beth promised to send the Princess Hedwig, but delayed so long that other pretenders to the throne asserted their claims, and the Poles threatened to make a new election if their young queen were not sent to them immediately. She arrived in June, 1384, and was crowned in October of the following year. Three at least of the rivd claimants to the crown aspired to the hand of the queen. The most powerful of these was Jagiello, duke of Lithuania. He ruled from the Baltic to the Black Sea ; part of Bussia, and many wandering tribes of Tartars, paid him tribute. He promised, if accepted, to make good all Poland's claims in neighbouring countries, to fill her empty exchequer, and, above all, to be converted and baptized with all his people. In case of refusal, he would, he said, invade Poland, take the crown by force, and make his own terms. Most