page_title: Adelaide of Meissen
section_title: Two queens
hierarchical_section_title: Adelaide of Meissen / Two queens
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Ruine: Kloster zum Heiligen Kreuz, Meißen
context_page_description: Adelaide of Meissen, a member of the House of Wettin, was Queen of Bohemia from 1198 to 1199 as the first wife of King Ottokar I. When her husband declared their marriage null and void, she began a longstanding legal dispute that involved numerous religious and secular dignitaries of her time.
context_section_description: By the end of 1197, Ottokar came to terms with his younger brother Vladislaus III and succeeded as Bohemian duke for the second time. He finally obtained the hereditary royal title according to the Golden Bull of Sicily issued by Philip of Swabia. Shortly after that, he repudiated his wife and also his adult son Vratislav. Ottokar was at least 40 at that time and risked losing the heir. Adelaide and her daughters again stayed in Meissen, while Vratislav became a mercenary in Germany and Italy.
  In 1199, King Ottokar divorced Adelaide, officially on the grounds of consanguinity. They were both descendants of Margrave Henry of Schweinfurt and the Polish king Mieszko II Lambert.  They were fifth cousins once removed or fourth cousins once removed. Ottokar married Princess Constance of Hungary, daughter of King Béla III, who was his fourth cousin thrice removed, later in the same year.
  Adelaide, however, had no intention to waive her rights nor to have her children considered as illegitimate. She began litigation in 1199, calling the Hohenstaufen family and Pope Innocent III for help. In the German throne dispute, both the Hohenstaufen and Welf party alternating stood for her rights. In 1205 Adelaide could return to Prague for a while after Ottokar had signed an agreement with Philip of Swabia. Moreover, his first-born son with Constance of Hungary had died, and Ottokar decided to marry his daughter with Adelaide, Margaret (Dagmar), to King Valdemar II of Denmark in this time. However, when Constance gave birth to another son, later king Wenceslaus I, in 1205, Adelaide, with her daughters, had to leave Bohemia permanently. She retired to the Holy Cross monastery in Meissen.
  The Pope still used the pending lawsuit for leverage, but finally decided that the cessation of marriage was legal. Adelaide still struggled, though, in 1210, she had lost. She died one year later in her Meissen exile.
caption: Ruins of Holy Cross Abbey, Meissen
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