Louis II, Duke of Bavaria
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- Not to be confused with King Ludwig II of Bavaria .
Duke Louis II of Bavaria (German: Ludwig II der Strenge, Herzog von Bayern, Pfalzgraf bei Rhein; 13 April 1229 – 2 February 1294), was Duke of Bavaria and Count Palatine of the Rhine from 1253. Born in Heidelberg, he was a son of duke Otto II and Agnes of Palatinate. She was a daughter of the Welf Henry V, Count Palatine of the Rhine, her grandfathers were Henry XII the Lion and Conrad of Hohenstaufen.
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[edit] Biography
In 1246 Louis supported his brother-in-law king Conrad IV of Germany against Heinrich Raspe and in 1251 Louis was at war again against the bishop of Regensburg. In 1253 Louis succeeded his father as duke of Bavaria.
When the Wittelsbach country was divided in 1255 among Otto's sons, Louis received the Palatinate and Upper Bavaria, while his brother duke Henry XIII of Bavaria received Lower Bavaria. This partition was against the law and therefore caused the anger of the bishops in Bavaria who allied themselves with king Otakar II of Bohemia in 1257. In August 1257 Ottokar invaded Bavaria, but Louis and Henry managed to repulse the attack. It was one of the rare harmonious actions of the two brothers, who often argued.
During the German interregnum after king William's death in 1256 Louis supported Richard of Cornwall. Together with his brother Louis also aided his young Hohenstaufen nephew Conradin in his duchy of Swabia, but it was not possible to enforce Conradin's election as German king. As a result for his support Louis was banned by the pope in 1266. In 1267 Louis accompanied Conradin only to Verona. After the young prince's execution in Naples in 1268, Louis inherited some of Conradin's possessions in Swabia and supported the election of the Habsburg Rudolph I against Ottokar II in 1273. On 26 August 1278 the armies of Rudolph and Louis met Otakar's forces on the banks of the River March in the Battle of Dürnkrut and Jedenspeigen where Otakar was defeated and killed. In 1289 the electoral dignity of Bavaria passed to Bohemia again, but Louis remained an elector as Count Palatine of the Rhine. After Rudolph's death in 1291 Louis could not enforce the election of his Habsburg brother-in-law Albert I against Adolf of Nassau.
Louis died at Heidelberg. His son Rudolf succeeded him, with Adolf of Nassau becoming his father-in-law a few months later. Louis was buried in the crypt of Fürstenfeld Abbey.
[edit] Family and children
Louis II was married three times.
[edit] The execution of Marie of Brabant
He had his first wife Marie of Brabant —a daughter of Henry II, Duke of Brabant and Marie of Hohenstaufen— executed in Donauwörth in 1256 due to mistaken suspicion of adultery; back in those days the punishment for an adulterous wife was beheading. Any actual guilt on her part could never be validated. As expiation Louis founded the Cistercian friary Fürstenfeld Abbey (Fürstenfeldbruck) near Munich.
Different sources tell varying tales about how this terrible mistake could happen in the first place: In 1256 Louis had been away from home for an extended time, due to his responsibilities as a sovereign in the area of the Rhine. His wife wrote two letters, one to her husband, and another to the earl of Kyburg at Hunsrück, a vassal of Louis. Details about the actual content of the second letter vary, but according to the chroniclers the messenger who carried the letter to Louis had been given the wrong one, and Ludwig came to the conclusion that his wife had a secret love affair.
Over time a great many tales of folklore sprang up around Louis' bloody deed, most of them written long after Louis' death: Ballad-mongers embellished the tale into a murderous frenzy, during which Louis allegedly not only killed his wife after having ridden home for five days and nights, but also stabbed the messenger who brought him the wrong letter, then upon entering his castle stabbed his own castellan and a court lady and threw his wife's maid from the battlements, before he massacred his wife either by stabbing her (why change a winning formula?) or cutting off her head.
Several more restrained chronicles support the account of Marie's execution in January 18, 1256 in Donauwörth at castle Mangoldstein by ducal decree for alleged adultery, but nothing beyond that.
[edit] Later marriages
In 1260 Louis married his second wife Anna of Glogau. They had the following children:
- Maria (b. 1261), a nun in Marienburg abbey.
- Ludwig (13 September 1267–23 November 1290, killed at a tournament at Nuremberg.
He married his third wife Mechthild, one of king Rudolph's daughters, on 27 October 1273. Their children were:
- Agnes (ca. 1267/77–1345), married to:
- 1290 in Donauwörth Landgrave Henry II of Hesse;
- 1298/1303 Heinrich I "Ohneland" ("Lackland"), Margrave of Brandenburg.
- Rudolf I (4 October 1274, Basle–12 August 1319).
- Mechthild (1275–28 March 1319, Lüneburg), married 1288 to Duke Otto II of Braunschweig-Lüneburg.
- Louis IV (1 April 1282, Munich–11 October 1347, Puch bei Fürstenfeldbruck).
Louis II was succeeded by his oldest son Rudolf.
| Preceded by Otto II |
Duke of Upper Bavaria Count Palatine of the Rhine 1253–1294 |
Succeeded by Rudolf I |
