Guta von Habsburg

Judith of Habsburg, also known as Guta, was born on March 13, 1271, in Rheinfelden. She was the youngest daughter of Rudolf I of Habsburg, the future King of the Romans, and his wife, Gertrud of Hohenberg. Her childhood was closely tied to her father’s political strategy. When Rudolf made peace in Vienna in 1276 with his former rival, the Bohemian King Ottokar II, it was agreed that Judith would marry Ottokar’s heir, Wenceslaus II. The agreement did not last long, however. Conflict between the two rulers broke out again and ended in 1278 with Ottokar’s defeat and death at the Battle of Marchfeld. Rudolf then deliberately used marriage alliances to secure his rule. Judith’s older sisters were also married to influential princes and members of royal families. Judith’s own fiancé, Wenceslaus, was still a minor after his father’s death. Margrave Otto V of Brandenburg assumed his guardianship and the regency of Bohemia. During disputes with Wenceslaus’s mother, Kunigunde of Halych, the young prince was temporarily held at Bezděz Castle and in Spandau. He did not return to Prague until 1283. The marriage agreement between Judith and Wenceslaus was formally renewed in Jihlava in 1279. The two did not meet, however, until their wedding in Cheb in January 1285. Judith received as her dowry territories extending from the Duchy of Austria across the Moravian border to the Danube. After the festive wedding and wedding night, her father took her back to Germany because she was still very young. Rudolf also disapproved of the morganatic marriage between Wenceslaus’s mother, Kunigunde, and the Bohemian nobleman Záviš of Falkenstein. Kunigunde died later that same year. Wenceslaus swore fealty to Rudolf in order to claim his Bohemian inheritance, but his coronation had to be postponed as long as Judith was not at his side. It was not until the summer of 1287 that she left her family in Germany and moved to the court in Prague. A year later, Wenceslaus assumed political power. Judith shared her father’s hostility toward Záviš, who had previously wielded considerable influence as regent. She urged her husband to take action against him. Záviš was eventually arrested and executed at Hluboká Castle in 1290. After the death of Rudolf I in 1291, Judith tried to reconcile her husband with her older brother, Albert I of Habsburg. Albert was then contesting the succession to the German throne with Adolf of Nassau. Judith also brought German influences to the Prague court. Among other things, she encouraged the presence of knights and helped make Prague a cultural center of the Holy Roman Empire. Judith also supported Wenceslaus’s claim to the Polish crown. From 1291, Wenceslaus ruled the region around Kraków and in 1296 succeeded the Polish King Przemysł II. Judith and Wenceslaus were finally crowned King and Queen of Bohemia on June 2, 1297. By then, however, Judith was severely weakened. She had recently given birth to her tenth child and had been pregnant for much of their twelve-year marriage. She died in Prague a few weeks after the coronation, on May 21, 1297, at the age of twenty-six. Her youngest daughter, also named Judith, was stillborn. Judith and Wenceslaus had ten children, only four of whom reached adulthood. They included Wenceslaus III, who later became King of Bohemia, Hungary, and Poland, as well as Anna, Elisabeth, and Margaret. Elisabeth married John of Bohemia in 1310 and became the mother of Emperor Charles IV and the grandmother of Sigismund of Luxembourg. Through Elisabeth, all Habsburg rulers of the Bohemian Crown lands from 1526 onward descended from Judith. Judith was also an ancestor of Anne of Denmark, the wife of James I of England and VI of Scotland. Contemporary family chronicles described Judith as beautiful, noble, and virtuous.