In B movies, the mentally ill invariably pretend to be Napoleon. In the true Polish history, we also have a king who started a real fashion for his doubles. Even in Spain, people were found who considered themselves ...
Władysław, the king of Poland and Hungary, died in the battle with the Turks at Varna on November 10, 1444 . When he fell from his horse during the attack on the enemy, Janissary cut off his head and exposed him to the terror of the Christian armies. Then it was transported as a trophy throughout the entire Sultan empire. However, not only is it unknown where the king's head is today, but even in those days, the authenticity of the trophy was doubted. The body of the ruler was never found either.
And that's water to the mill for conspiracy theories. The Polish knighthood, unsure of what had happened, delayed the coronation of the heir. It sent a kind of "Varna Commission" to the Balkans to investigate the matter. The allied Burgundians also made a search and decided that the young ruler was alive and somewhere in Hungary. However, when it was not found, the Władysław family, "miraculously saved", suddenly began to grow up in Europe like mushrooms.
Whip for doppelgangers
There were rumors that some "pseudo-Warnean" had been spotted in the Rhineland, or that he was recognized in the face of a Krakow Franciscan. The appearance of the alleged Władysław in Stadice in the north of Bohemia in 1448 was more reliably documented. It turned out, however, that he was just a man of his mind, as evidenced by the fact that he also claimed to be King Arthur.
According to some theories, Władysław Warneńczyk was supposed to survive the Battle of Varna.
In 1452, another ruler "miraculously saved" appeared in Silesia, and even Prince Henry IX of Głogowski took up his case. Someone with a sober mind noticed, however, that the self-proclaimed man did not resemble Władysław at all, while someone else recognized in the "king" a certain John of Wilczyna. And that was the end of his career.
Also in 1452, the Dominican Nicholas Floris, in a letter to the Grand Master of the Teutonic Knights, informed that the lost Polish king lived alone on the Portuguese islands, and his case was known at the court in Lisbon. It is not known that the Polish side took any serious steps in this matter, but no wonder:the country was already ruled by Kazimierz Jagiellończyk, who from 1454 dealt with another war with the Teutonic Knights.
Meanwhile, in 1459, another candidate for the lost ruler appeared. It was even stated that he actually participated in the Battle of Varna. However, he was not a king, but his courtier. His name was Mikołaj Rychlik and he probably got confusion after the battle (maybe a medieval post-traumatic stress disorder?), Which made him identify with the king. However, Władysław's mother, Queen Sonka Holszańska, stated unequivocally that it was not her son. The self-proclaimed man had an artificial crown made, then whipped and thrown into a dungeon for the rest of his life.
Catchy six fingers
However, this is not the end of the story. In 1466, i.e. 22 years after the unfortunate Battle of Varna, the Czech magnate, Lev of Rozmital, met a mysterious hermit during his pilgrimage around Spain, near the town of Cantalapiedra. He was regarded in the area as "the king who was defeated in battle with the Gentiles and devoted himself to a life of eternal solitude because he had not kept his faith."
Having drawn tongues from Polish pilgrims and finding that the hermit had six toes (a similar story about Henry the Pious, who died in a clash with the Mongols in 1241), the Czechs began to wonder whether it was really the Polish king Władysław. However, they were not sure. Especially that the hermit looked to be 70 years old, and the Warnaese should be 42. Another thing was that the hermit looked disguised:he was hiding his shirt under the rags and had dyed hair ...
The Madalena do Mar estate in Portuguese Madeira is a hypothetical place where Władysław Warneńczyk was to live.
The question, however, is whether all these doubles appear by chance. Perhaps so, at least most of them. But there is no doubt that hermits in Portugal and Spain in particular seem highly suspect. They appeared in the forest and at the end of the Polish-Teutonic war. Rumors about them were confusing and undermined the authority and rights to the throne of King Kazimierz Jagiellończyk. Who knows if both hermits were 'fabricated' by the Teutonic Knights, masters of intrigue? Although the hermit, whom Lew z Rozmital met, was too old for Władysław, it was probably not easy to find a man with six fingers ...
The secret of Henry the German
The last installment of this story is the case of Henryk Alemão living in Madeira. The matter is intriguing because this stranger from Portugal would be the real father of Christopher Columbus. The discoverer of America, the son of a Varna - that would be something. However, the evidence that Henryk Alemão is a saved Polish king is like a cure. His nickname in Polish means "German". Nevertheless, all visitors from across the Rhine were so often referred to.
The fact that Henry was considered a knight from the monastery of St. Catherine on Mount Sinai, adds a mystery to it, but has no direct, clear connection with the Varna. And although Henry appeared on the Portuguese island around 1457, mentions that may link him with Władysław appear in Portuguese records only in the second half of the 16th century. Romantic legend that Alemão was a Polish ruler who was defeated at Varna, a penitent and a knight of St. Catherine, who started a family on the Portuguese island, was finally recorded in 1722 by the historian from Madeira Henrique Henriques de Noronh.
The legend is alive and probably only finding Henryk's bones in Madeira and comparing them with the Jagiellonian DNA (if we had any) would settle the matter - at least for conspiracy theorists. But not entirely. After all, it could have been the case that the Teutonic Knights created a double of the Warnaese for their own political purposes, and this one ended up in Madeira as a "German", with a head full of fantasy and an imaginary biography. Whether Columbus could have been the son of such a "pseudo-Varna" is another matter.
But the biography of Władysław, changes in the perception of this ruler over the following centuries and the search for the truth about him are a multi-threaded topic. As evidenced by the sensational book "444" by Maciej Siembieda, in which we track the secrets of not only the Varna, but also Matejko and Christian-Muslim relations.
Bibliography:
- J. Długosz, Dziejów Polish books twelve , Krakow 1870.
- F. Ziejka, Eternal memorial among Christians ... , 2003.
- L. Kielanowski, The Odyssey of Władysław Warneńczyk , Oficyna Poetów i Malarzy 1991.
- K. Łukasiewicz, Władysław Warneńczyk, Teutonic Knights and Knight of Saint Catherine , Publishing House Alegoria 2010.
- M. Rosa, Columbus. History unknown , Rebis 2012.
- Piotr Węcowski, Life after the life of Władysław Warneńczyk , in: Focus Historia Ekstra No. 4/2016.