Throughout the centuries there have been many different Kings and Queens who in death had
a significant tragic tale after their deaths. Catherine of Valois for example was left unburied
for over 400 years inside of Westminster Abbey, and people would tamper with her remains.
Mary Queen of Scots also after her death was exhumed and moved from the place she was initially
laid to rest. But across Europe there were many influential and powerful women who ruled
in different countries, and one example was Barbara Raziwill. She was a woman who had
a very interesting life, but in death her remains were subjected to a strange and shocking
ordeal. But what is the story of the horrific treatment of the remains of the Polish Queen?
Barbara Raziwill was born in December 1520, and her father was the Voivode of Trakai and
her mother was very noble also. It’s believed that she had a rather settled early life,
however she wasn’t necessarily educated in the way that a Queen would be. She was
not schooled like a princess would be, and she did not learn many languages that were
hoped to be useful if she married a European noble or even a prince. She could only speak
and write in her native polish, and she was considered a very beautiful young woman who
was also very charming. She was greatly interested in cosmetics and also fashion, and she often
wore heavy lead makeup like many 16th century women would for example Elizabeth I. Much
of this makeup was of course very dangerous, as it was actually lead based.
As she was a prominent member of the nobility, she was offered up to marry Stanislovas Gostautas,
who was a member of the Lithuanian nobility. With this, they even had a wedding treaty
drawn up, however the pair married on the 18th May 1537 and Barbara at the time was
around 16 years old. In her dowry, there was a a significant amount of wealth, and also
items such as silver crockery and horses. Their marriage was short lived though as after
5 years Barbara’s husband died, after a short battle with illness. However the marriage
did not produce any children. But Barbara Radzwill was now a catch, but within 6 months
of her husbands death, she was having an affair with Sigismund Augustus who was the future
King of Poland, and was the Grand Duke of Lithuania. The pair’s affair began in 1543
but Sigismund was married to Elizabeth of Austria. The pair would travel to Vilnius
where Barbara lived with her mother, however the next year Sigismund’s wife died from
complications following a seizure. After this, the Prince of Poland and Barbara Radziwill
would spend a lot of time together, and it’s believed that they were both in love. There
were many rumours from the royal court about the pair, and they would go together hunting.
Gossip continued and it’s believed that Sigismund even had a tunnel made to Babrara’s
apartments from the royal palace, so in the evening the pair could meet together in secret
and continue their affair. At the time, many people wanted the prince to marry other women
who were European princes to secure alliances for Poland, and to unite European dynasties.
However Barbara and Sigismund were in love, but in 1547 they married in secret.
Their wedding took place at the end of July 1547 and the start of August 1547, and the
wedding was kept quiet as it’s believed that Barbara may have been pregnant at the
time. But this child did not live, and Sigismund then told his parents about their marriage.
This did not go down well at all, and the royal family were enraged. Many people considered
Barbara to have been a harlot and nothing more than a woman that Sigismund slept with,
and they did not take into account that Barbara and Sigismund were in love. Some accused her
of being a witch, and they accused her of using sorcery and potions to seduce the Prince
and to trap him, but when his father died, there were many people who said that Sigismund
the next King should leave his wife, however the new Sigismund II remained with Barbara
Radziwill. The royal couple moved into the royal palaces, and they lived a very lavish
lifestyle and Barbara got a huge amount of land, and jewellery along with royal palaces,
however she was a Queen now who was not interested in politics.
But the Raziwill family then sought to secure power and further wealth for their family.
They wanted Barbara to be coronated and to be formally recognised as the Queen of Poland,
not just the wife of the King. The King also wanted this, and Sigismund made sure that
Barbara should be the Queen of Poland. This went ahead, and she was crowned Queen of Poland
on the 7th December 1550, which did attract criticism. However her reign as Queen was
a short lived one. When she married the Polish King, she was suffering with her health, and
she was often very sick, and she had problems with her stomach and also gall stones. But
after the coronation, things got even worse for her as she had a fever, and also lost
her appetite. The stomach pain got much worse, and her stomach had a lump in it which was
filled with pus, and likely contributed to blood poisoning. But the King was seeing his
new Queen dying and getting sicker each day, and Sigismund asked the best doctors in the
land to treat her, but despite a short recovery she went downhill yet again.
As things continued, her health continued to deteriorate, and the King himself was waiting
on his dying wife. Barbara now became to stink pf pus, and she was suffering with diarrhoea
and sickness, but on the 8th May 1551 in Krakow, Barbara Raziwill the Queen of Poland died
in her bed. She insisted that she should be buried back in Vilnius, and that her body
should be taken to the cathedral, and she was actually buried next to Sigismund’s
first wife that died. However the King was gutted and distraught, and he walked a large
part of the journey to the Cathedral following her coffin on foot. But after her death he
wore mourning black, and became much more serious, shunning the partying life and lavish
life. It’s not known for certain what killed Barbara Razwill, but some historians have
said that it was ovarian cancer or cervical cancer, but at the time many dissenters claimed
that she had suffered from syphilis. But this was not the end of the story, and her remains
would be uncovered and be found almost 400 years after her death.
In 1931, the remains of Barbara the Queen of Poland emerged and were found. Following
her death, on the journey from Krakow to Vilnius, her remains had been covered in some strange
substance to help preserve her remains during the long summer days travelling. Her body
was coated in a mix of ash and burned lime to protect her remains, and then the wooden
coffin she had been placed inside of had rotted in the 400 years since her death, but the
lime that covered her body had formed a protective shell, and with this her remains were preserved
well by the standards of 4 centuries worth of decay. The people who discovered her remains
were horrified and shocked, and Barbara’s remains were covered in her jewellery, and
on top of her head was a silver gilded crown, and in her arms were a silver sceptre along
with the golden orb and a cross which was given to her from the King her husband. These
artefacts were amazingly preserved, but during the deadliest conflict in human History, they
could not escape the clutches of the Nazis.
As the Second World War broke out, Vilnius was captured and seized by the Nazis and they
treated the civilians there terribly. They set up two ghettos for the huge Jewish population
there, and the Nazis looted and savaged Jewish homes stealing art and wealth. But some of
Barbara’s jewellery and artefacts that she had been buried with and had been in her tomb
were stolen and went missing. It’s believed that these were taken by the Nazis who broke
into her tomb to take these riches. But when her remains were found and discovered, it
was checked and repaired by the professors in a nearby university. They shockingly glued
some of her remains together, and they fixed some of her skeleton. Following this they
worked out that she was 5 foot 3 inches tall, and had white and straight teeth, as well
as a slim body and a narrow face. But it was said that she did have a number of strange
defects including an extra rib. She also had signs of rickets, and her remains were then
hidden away again because of the Second World War. They were moved to a crypt under the
Chapel of Saint Casimir, and they were left until 2001. But then more work took place
on her remains, and experts reconstructed her face to see what she looked like.
Barbara Radziwill was a Queen who was very controversial in the 16th century, and in
Poland a number of people did not want her on the throne as Queen. But she was a woman
who captured the heart of the polish King, but she suffered greatly in her final days.
She died a very painful death, but then her remains were looted and were taken by the
Nazis, and much of the wealth inside of her coffin that she was buried with her disappeared
during the German occupation of Vilnius. What was shocking was that her remains were broken
into and her coffin was looted in the last century, despite the fact she had died in
the 16th century. The afterlife of Barbara Radziwill was a shocking one.
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