MARGARET MAULTASCH (1318-1369), countess of Tirol, who received the name
of Maultasch (pocket-mouth) on account of the shape of her mouth, was
the daughter and heiress of Henry, duke of Carinthia and count of Tirol.
When Henry died in 1335 Carinthia passed to Albert II., duke of Austria;
but Tirol was inherited by Margaret and her young husband, John Henry,
son of John, king of Bohemia, whom she had married in 1330. This union
was not a happy one, and the Tirolese disliked the government of
Charles, afterwards the emperor Charles IV., who ruled the county for
his brother. The result was that John Henry was driven from Tirol, and
Margaret's cause was espoused by the emperor Louis IV., who was anxious
to add the county to his possessions. Declaring her marriage dissolved
on the ground that it had not been consummated, Louis married Margaret
in 1342 to his own son Louis, margrave of Brandenburg. But as this
action on the emperor's part entrenched on the privileges of the Church,
Pope Clement VI. placed father and son under the ban, from which they
were not released until 1359. In 1361 Margaret's husband died, followed
two years later by her only son, Meinhard, when she handed over Tirol to
Rudolph IV., duke of Austria, and retired to Vienna, where she died on
the 3rd of October 1369. She lived long in the memory of the people of
Carinthia, who regarded her as an amazon, and called her the _Wicked
Gretl_.
See A. Huber, _Geschichte der Vereinigung Tirols mit Oesterreich_
(Innsbruck, 1864).
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account