page_title: Anna Jagiellon
section_title: Later Years
hierarchical_section_title: Anna Jagiellon / Later Years
context_page_description: Anna Jagiellon was Queen of Poland and Grand Duchess of Lithuania from 1575 to 1586.
  Daughter of Polish King Sigismund I the Old and Italian duchess Bona Sforza, Anna received multiple proposals, but remained unmarried until the age of 52. After the death of King Sigismund II Augustus, her brother and the last male member of the Jagiellonian dynasty, her hand was sought by pretenders to the Polish throne to maintain the dynastic tradition. Along with her then-fiancé Stephen Báthory, Anna was elected as co-ruler in the 1576 royal election of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. Their marriage was a formal arrangement and distant.
  While Báthory was preoccupied with the Livonian War, Anna spent her time on local administrative matters and several construction projects, incluiding the city wall Stara Prochownia to protect Sigismund Augustus Bridge. After her husband's death in December 1586, Anna had the opportunity to claim the throne again, but instead promoted her nephew Sigismund III Vasa as the next ruler and established the House of Vasa on the Polish throne for the next eighty years.
context_section_description: After the coronation and the brief War of the Polish Succession, Anna and her niece settled in Warsaw while Sigismund spent most of his time in Kraków. She became attached to her nephew, participating in his wedding with Anne of Austria and the baptism of their firstborn, Anna Maria. After his father's death in November 1592, Sigismund Vasa spent about a year in Sweden. During that time, his newborn daughter was entrusted to the Polish Infanta's care. In July 1595, she was the godmother of Władysław Vasa, the future King of Poland. A happier Anna died in Warsaw on 9 September 1596 at the age of 72 as the last Jagiellon.
caption: Anna Jagiellon as a widow by Marcin Kober.
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