5 Dollars - Charles III Hedwig

Hedwig of Anjou became Queen of Poland in 1384 at roughly eleven years old — not as consort, but as sovereign in her own right, a constitutional distinction the Polish nobility insisted upon. She is one of very few medieval women to hold that title without a ruling husband. Her 1386 marriage to Władysław II Jagiełło, Grand Duke of Lithuania, forged the Polish-Lithuanian union that would define Central European politics for two centuries. She was canonized by John Paul II in 1997, making her a saint of living memory rather than distant hagiography.