Description

Wenceslaus III (1289–1306) was King of Hungary and Croatia from 1301 to 1305, and King of Bohemia and Poland from 1305. Son of Wenceslaus II of Bohemia and Judith of Habsburg, he was betrothed to Elizabeth, daughter of Andrew III of Hungary. Following Andrew III's death in 1301, Hungarian lords and prelates elected Wenceslaus as king, despite Pope Boniface VIII supporting another claimant, Charles Robert. Wenceslaus was crowned on 27 August 1301 but faced significant opposition from powerful lords, leading his father to bring him back to Bohemia in 1304. He succeeded his father as King of Bohemia and Poland on 21 June 1305 and renounced his claim to Hungary in favor of Otto III of Bavaria on 9 October.

In Bohemia, Wenceslaus granted large parcels of royal land to his friends. Władysław the Elbow-high, a Polish claimant, captured Kraków in early 1306. Wenceslaus planned to invade Polish territories but was murdered before he could launch his campaign, marking the end of the male Přemyslid line in Bohemia.