In brilliant festivities and moonlight excursions the young lovers passed a few happy months, when Hedwige was called home by the final sickness of her father.

Louis died, and Hedwige was immediately crowned Queen of Poland, receiving the most enthusiastic greetings of her subjects.
Bordering on Poland there was a grand duchy of immense extent, Lithuania, embracing sixty thousand square miles.

The Grand Duke Jaghellon was a burly Northman, not more than half civilized, whose character was as jagged as his name.

This pagan proposed to the Polish nobles that he should marry Hedwige, and thus unite the grand duchy of Lithuania with the kingdom of Poland; promising in that event to renounce paganism, and embrace Christianity.

The beautiful and accomplished Hedwige was horror-struck at the proposal, and declared that never would she marry any one but William.
But the Polish nobles, dazzled by the prospect of this magnificent accession to the kingdom of Poland, and the bishops, even more powerful than the nobles, elated with the vision of such an acquisition for the Church, resolved that the young and fatherless maiden, who had no one to defend her cause, should yield, and that she should become the bride of Jaghellon.