Though his elder brother William's engagement with the Polish princess Jadwiga had mortifyingly failed, Duke Ernest the Iron, after the death of his first wife Margaret of Pomerania, proceeded to Kraków in disguise to court Cymburgis. According to legend, he stepped into her heart when he participated in a royal hunt and saved the princess from an attacking bear. Actually, her uncle King Władysław II, stuck in the Polish–Lithuanian–Teutonic War and struggling with the Luxembourg king Sigismund of Hungary took the occasion to strengthen ties with the Habsburg dynasty and gave his consent.
