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'Wenceslaus III Premyslid' (Czech and Slovak ''Václav'', German: ''Wenzel III'', Hungarian ''Vencel'', Polish ''Wacław'', Croatian: ''Vjenceslav''), (October 6, 1289 – August 4, 1306, Olomouc, Moravia, in the east of the Czech Republic) 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 Germany. 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.

Contents

Kingdom of Hungary

Poland

Ancestors

See also

Kingdom of Hungary

His father accepted the crown of Hungary on behalf of Wenceslaus III in 1301. On August 27 1301, Wenceslaus III was crowned in Stuhlweißenburg as the King of Hungary and as such assumed the name Ladislaus (Hungarian: ''László'', Czech, Slovak and Croatian: ''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 [Kőszegis]). 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 Ofen, 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.

Poland

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.

Ancestors

'Wenceslaus III's ancestors in three generations'

'Wenceslaus III of Bohemia'	'Father:' Wenceslaus II of Bohemia	'Paternal Grandfather:' Ottokar II of Bohemia	'Paternal Great-grandfather:' Wenceslaus I of Bohemia
			'Paternal Great-grandmother:' Kunigunde of Hohenstaufen
		'Paternal Grandmother:' Kunigunda of Slavonia	'Paternal Great-grandfather:' Rostislav of Slavonia
			'Paternal Great-grandmother:' Anna of Hungary
	'Mother:' Judith of Habsburg	'Maternal Grandfather:' Rudolph I of Germany	'Maternal Great-grandfather:' Albrecht IV of Habsburg
			'Maternal Great-grandmother:' Hedwig of Kyburg
		'Maternal Grandmother:' Gertrude of Hohenburg	'Maternal Great-grandfather:' Burchard V, Count of Hohenberg
			'Maternal Great-grandmother:' Mechtild of Tübingen

See also

★ History of Poland (966-1385)