Alexander Jagiellon
Alexander I Jagiellon (Polish: Aleksander Jagiellończyk; Lithuanian: Aleksandras Jogailaitis) (5 August 1461 – 19 August 1506) of the House of Jagiellon was the Grand Duke of Lithuania and later also King of Poland. He was the fourth son of Casimir IV Jagiellon. He was elected Grand Duke of Lithuania on the death of his father (1492), and King of Poland on the death of his brother John I Albert (1501).
Biography
Alexander was born as son of the King Casimir IV Jagiellon of Poland and Elisabeth Habsburg of Hungary, daughter of the King Albert of Hungary. Alexander's shortage of funds immediately made him subservient to the Polish Senate and nobility (szlachta), who deprived him of control of the mint (then one of the most lucrative sources of revenue for the Polish kings), curtailed his prerogatives, and generally endeavored to reduce him to a subordinate position. For want of funds, Alexander was unable to resist the Grand Master of the Teutonic Knights or prevent Grand Duke of Muscovy Ivan III from ravaging Grand Duchy of Lithuania with the Tatars. The most the Grand Duke of Lithuania could do was to garrison Smolensk and other strongholds and employ his wife Helena, the Tsar's daughter, to mediate a truce between his father-in-law and himself after the disastrous Battle of Vedrosha (1500). In the terms of the truce, Lithuania had to surrender about a third of its territory to the nascent expansionist Russian state.
Alexander I
Alexander I may refer to:
See also
Alexander I of Scotland
Alexander I (medieval Gaelic: Alaxandair mac Maíl Coluim; modern Gaelic: Alasdair mac Mhaol Chaluim; c. 1078 – 23 April 1124), posthumously nicknamed The Fierce, was the King of Scotland from 1107 to his death.
Life
Alexander was the fifth son of Malcolm III by his wife Margaret of Wessex, grandniece of Edward the Confessor. Alexander was named after Pope Alexander II.
He was the younger brother of King Edgar, who was unmarried, and his brother's heir presumptive by 1104 (and perhaps earlier). In that year he was the senior layman present at the examination of the remains of Saint Cuthbert at Durham prior to their re-interment. He held lands in Scotland north of the Forth and in Lothian.
On the death of Edgar in 1107 he succeeded to the Scottish crown; but, in accordance with Edgar's instructions, their brother David was granted an appanage in southern Scotland. Edgar's will granted David the lands of the former kingdom of Strathclyde or Cumbria, and this was apparently agreed in advance by Edgar, Alexander, David and their brother-in-law Henry I of England. In 1113, perhaps at Henry's instigation, and with the support of his Anglo-Norman allies, David demanded, and received, additional lands in Lothian along the Upper Tweed and Teviot. David did not receive the title of king, but of "prince of the Cumbrians", and his lands remained under Alexander's final authority.
