personal failings. Biography Early life Born in Nuremberg or Prague, Sigismund was the son of Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV and his fourth and final wife, Elizabeth of Pomerania, who was the granddaughter of King Casimir III of Poland and the great-granddaughter of Gediminas, a Grand Duke of Lithuania. He was named after Saint Sigismund of Burgundy, the favourite saint of Sigismund's father. From Sigismund's childhood, he was nicknamed the "ginger fox" (liška ryšavá) in the Bohemian Crown lands on account of his hair colour. King Louis the Great of Hungary and Poland always had a good and close relationship with Emperor Charles IV, and Sigismund was betrothed to Louis' eldest daughter, Mary, in 1374, when he was six years old and Mary but an infant. The marital project aimed to augment the lands held by the House of Luxembourg. Upon his father's death in 1378, young Sigismund became Margrave of Brandenburg and was sent to the Hungarian court, where he soon learned the Hungarian language and way of life, and became entirely devoted to his adopted country. King Louis named him as his heir and appointed him his successor as King of Hungary. In 1381, the then 13-year-old Sigismund was sent to Kraków by his eldest half-brother and guardian Wenceslaus, King of Germany and Bohemia, to learn Polish and to become acquainted with the land and its people. King Wenceslaus also gave him Neumark to facilitate communication between Brandenburg and Poland. While Mary was accepted as monarch of Hungary, Sigismund vied for the crown of Poland as well. However, the Poles were unwilling to submit to a German sovereign, nor did they want to be tied to Hungary. The disagreement between Polish landlords of Lesser Poland on one side and landlords of Greater Poland on the other, regarding the choice of the future monarch of Poland, finally ended in choosing the Lithuanian side. The support of the lords of Greater Poland was however not enough to give Prince Sigismund the Polish crown. Instead, the landlords of Lesser Poland gave it to Mary's younger sister Jadwiga, who married Jogaila of Lithuania. King of Hungary On the death of her father in 1382, his betrothed, Mary, became queen of Hungary and Sigismund married her in 1385 in Zólyom (today Zvolen). The next year, he was accepted as Mary's future co-ruler by the Treaty of Győr. However, Mary was captured, together with