Stephen II Kotromanić

Stephen II Kotromanić (c. 1292–1353), Ban of Bosnia from 1314, was the son of Ban Stephen I and Elizabeth Nemanjić. After his father died the family fled to Ragusa, until the Croatian magnate Mladen II Šubić, who dominated Bosnia, installed him as a vassal.

Stephen turned on Mladen with King Charles I of Hungary, whose victory in 1322 left him ruling in person. He annexed Usora and Soli in 1324, took Hum from Serbia, and ceded Ston and Pelješac to Ragusa in 1333. Playing Hungary and Venice against each other, in 1340 he persuaded the pope of his Catholic loyalty.

In 1350 Stefan Dušan invaded with a far larger army; Stephen held Bobovac, and when Dušan gave up he retook the lost lands. His daughter Elizabeth went to Hungary to marry Louis I, but Stephen, ill, missed the wedding and died in September 1353. His young nephew Tvrtko succeeded.