Book IV: Cost of a Crown

Available as Kindle or Paperback on Amazon

Or scroll below to use PayPal to download as a PDF

The Story of a Courageous Woman, Book IV of V

Lady Nephele’s Devilry is the story of Elizabeth of Bosnia, krstjani princess who at age 11 was taken, against her will, to become the next queen of Hungary, second wife of King Louis the Great. Despite incredible challenges, she never gave up her struggle to find self-agency in a political and religious culture that denied that agency to women.

Dr. Gregov has brought this young woman’s story to life. The five volumes of the book embed the meager known history of Elizabeth into the larger historical context of 1300s Eastern Europe and the Balkans to create a rich portrait of life in that turbulent century, a portrait that enlarges the historical narrative about Elizabeth’s life and proposes an answer to the many questions raised by recorded history. Fortunately for us, it also allows the reader to vividly imagine life in those medieval times.

In Book IV – Cost of a Crown Queen Jelisaveta, now 22 years old, risks asserting her agency, an action that could result in her banishment to a convent. She tells her husband King Louis that so long as the Queen Mother remains in residence in Visegrad, there is no place for Jelisaveta in the castle nor in the kingdom. She seeks permission to return to Zadar with Lady Nephele to continue the school for girls and open a safe house for abused women. Faced with increasing harassment from his mother and unrest among his nobles, King Louis agrees to fund Queen Jelisaveta’s projects in Zadar. The next three years are happy ones for the young women, teaching, writing, helping women find safety at Hypatia House. But the Dominican Inquisitors are becoming more powerful in Zadar and increasingly angered by the success of the school for girls, because the Roman Church forbade education to females. Meanwhile in Hungary, King Louis inexplicably promises the Hungarian throne to three young men. Queen Jelisaveta returns to Hungary and gives birth to three healthy girls within five years, the Hungarian heirs. Nevertheless, King Louis dies without naming an heir.