Blanche of Bavaria

* **Blanche of Bavaria** (1560-1621) was a queen of Bavaria in the sixteenth and seventeenth century.

Following her father's death, she fought her stepmother and married the next heir. She defeated her stepmother and won the throne.

## Early life

Blanche was born February 4th, 1560. This winter was particularly harsh and killed Blanche's mother, aged just 19 six days after her birth. She was raised mainly by her servant Johanna, while her father travelled.

In the summer of 1563, her father remarried, to a merchant's daughter named Grimhilde, who was just 17 at the time. Her father died in the Prussian war (1566-1571) in 1570 when Blanche was 10.

## Heir to the throne

In his official will, Ferdinand left his entire kingdom to his wife, Grimhilde. In the first year, while mourning, the young queen lost the Prussian war. Many wished to kill Grimhilde and put Blanche on the throne with her distant cousin as either husband or regent. Floris, however, wasn't interested in the throne and persued it not.

Grimhilde locked Blanche in the castle and survived two murder attempts. In April 1574, Johanna (the nanny) tried to assassinate the queen and was beheaded. In May, Grimhilde heard plots that the mobs would soon free her stepdaughter and kill her. While out on a supposed walk, she ordered her guard to kill the 14-year-old Blanche.

## Survival of assassination

> *"He saved her. He wasn't part of her resistance but he couldn't bring himself to kill a child. He helped her escape to the forests, thinking the animals would kill her for him. He announced he had killed the princess."*
>
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###### -Princess Joanna about her mothers escape-

The guard couldn't bring himself to kill the child and ordered Blanche to go into the forest, thinking she'd perish within a few days. The resistance mourned her for weeks, while she hid in a remote village, Zwergen, with some mineworkers.

When rumours started spreading she had escaped to Zwergen, she ran away with two of the men she lived with (Harald and Georg) and escaped to the court of Schönen in Nuremberg. Upon arrival, she demanded a marriage to her second cousin Floris. While still in her travelling clothes, she negotiated the terms of her union. She'd add Schönen to her kingdom, protect it and fund it but they had to lend her their army upon marriage. Floris didn't want the responsibility of a crown matrimonial and married her in the chapel the same night.

## Marriage and life in Schönen

The war of the two Queens (1570-1583) continued and Queen Grimhilde refused to believe her stepdaughter was still alive, claiming it to be a pretender. Her married life wasn't easy. Many claimed that despite her young age, she wasn't a virgin (having lived with seven men in Zwergen) or was too much trouble with her falling kingdom.

She and Floris got along great and fell in love eventually. In 1578. aged 18, he crowned her Queen of Bavaria. After this, Grimhilde officially acknowledged her stepdaughter's survival. In response, the fought a battle of Zwergen, where they met for the first time in four years.

## War

The reached its peak in the early 1580s. In 1580, after six years of marriage, Blanche had given birth to a healthy girl, named after her mother, Princess Margaret. A year later, she gave birth to Joanna, named after her childhood nanny.

In 1581, Grimhilde reached out to Blanche to come to their Summer Palace and mourn the anniversary of King Ferdinand's death together. Blanche left her two young daughters behind and spent three days with her stepmother. They spoke for the first time in seven years. It was there that Blanche was poisoned by her stepmother, and fell ill. The same guard that had "protected" her years ago now again suggested the Queen threw her in the forest to perish, knowing Blanche could survive. Grimhilde realised he had saved her years ago and had him executed.

The palace was sieged by Prince Floris, who saved his wife and captured Queen Grimhilde. He lawfully and officially took her title but some loyal to her managed to free her.

## An heir and victory

Blanche survived the poisonous attack, in her own words after seeing her daughters again. She gave birth to a son six months later: Prince Victor (1583), named after the victory of the battle. Around the time of the birth, Grimhilde was turned in by her own men.

Grimhilde was pregnant however by one of her soldiers. With some persuasion from Floris, Blanche decided to spare her stepmother's life. For three months, she was kept in her room at the Bavarian Castle until she gave birth to a girl, Josepha (1584). Grimhilde met her daughter once every two months from her new prison in Dresden, where she died in 1591.

## Later life

In 1585, aged 25, Blanche gave birth to her last child, Robert. She oversaw the education of her own four children, including her daughters, as well as her stepsister Josepha. In 1690 she became a widow at just 30 when her husband fell out a window to his death in front of his wife, daughter Margaret (10) and son Victor (7). The next year, her stepmother died from suicide after a failed plan to escape.

The castle was attacked, Grimhilde's supporters coming for Josepha, their next queen. She was sent to a quiet village under the name "Josepha Hilddotter" and lived with a pension from Queen Blanche, who kept her whereabouts a secret.

She was reluctant to marry off her daughters, despite her own happy marriage at age 14. In 1600, Joanna married her lover, Paul of Saxony, at her own request. Two years later, Margaret was married off to George of Prussia. Both marriages were accordingly very happy and Blanche visited them often.

She made a political alliance with Hannover and married off both her sons to Hannoverian princesses in 1605 in a double wedding.

She spent the next sixteen years caring for Bavaria. She died at home nursed by her daughters Margaret (41) and Joanna (40). Her sons Victor (38) and Robert (36) read her stories. Her funeral was attended by her eight grandchildren ( 3, 2, 2,1) and stepsister Josepha (37).

## Issue

 Princess *Joanna* Carolina of Bavaria
 King *Victor* Ferdinand of Bavaria
 Prince *Robert* Floris of Bavaria