Helene Kottanerin steals the Crown of Saint Stephen in 1440, 1882 (litho)

Helene Kottanerin (c.1400-p.1458) writer of earliest known autobiography written by a German woman; lady in waiting to Elisabeth of Luxembourg (1409-42), Queen Consort of Hungary and Bohemia, who commissioned her to steal the heavily guarded royal crown of St. Stephen from the castle of Plintenburg (in Hungarian,: Visegrad);on February 20, 1440, she and a Hungarian nobleman carried out a daring raid and the next day, Helene embarked on a dangerous winter journey and delivered the royal crown to Elizabeth at her castle in Komorn. The queen’s son, known to history as Ladislaus (Hungarian: László) Posthumous, was born just a few hours later and would be crowned on 15 May with St. Stephen's crown; illustration from 'A Pictorial History of the World's Great Nations, from the earliest dates to the present time' by Charlotte Mary Yonge, published in New York in 1882;