sity of California them Regional brary Facility m itV - ^ -'-' j ' } Km y^ -> % 3=3? > > - I . , V > LIBRARY THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SANTA BARBARA jjjj? FROM THE LIBRARY OF F. VON BOSCHAN > , X ' > - > r~> > J 10 | 11 .^ ' ?-.;KS 3jfa v >* "' ..gr.>^ - :l > > ~ 3> :> j>. *'!> > ! ^ ' i 1> ' > - J > > I - > > > > ^ . > > -> . OCSB LIBRARY THE HISTORY OF HUNGARY AND THE MAGYARS: FROM THE EARLIEST PERIOD TO THE CLOSE OF THE LATE WAR. BY EDWIN LAWBENCE GODKIN, WITH ILLUSTRATIONS. LONDON : JOHN CASSELL, LFD GATE -HILL. 1853. TABLE OF REFERENCES TO THE FIGURES IN THE MAP. [At places marked thus *, battles were fought in the War of Independence.] 1. Defile of Jablunka (passage of the Russians) . 2. Deven. 3. Tyrnavia. 4. Railway from Presburg to Tyrnavia. 5. Trencin. 6. Beczko. 7. Illava. 8. Arva. 9. Kossuth (patrimony of the Kossuth family) . 10. Teplitz. 11. Streczen. 12. Leopoldburg. 13. Nitra. 14. *Sarlo. 15. Strigonia. 16. Comorn. 17. Arabon. 18. Posonia (Presburg). 19. Kesmark. 20. Leocsa. 21. Eperies. 22. Defile of Dukla (passage of the Russians). 23. Bartfa. 24. Kremnitz (gold mines). 25. Tokay (vine district). 26. Zemplin. 27. Unghvar (seat of Huns) . 28. Mungacs. 29. Szigeth. 30. Mount Tatra. 31. Bisztricz. 32. Gyarmath. 33. Vacz. 34. Miskolcz. 35. Agria. 36. Onod. 37. *Kapolna. 38. Tiszafured. 39. Mount Matra. 40. Parad. 41. Gyongeos. 42. Buda. 43. Pesth. 44. Geodoelloe. 45. Railway from Pesth to Vienna. 46. JasbereiMk 47. Debreczm, 48. Szohiok. 49. Railway from Pesth to Debreczin. 50. Great Varadin. 51. Szeguedin. 52. Arad. 53. Vilagos. 54. Kolosvar (capital of Transylvania). 55. Udvarhely (chief town of the Szeklers). 56. Cibina (capital of Saxon Land). 57. Corona. 58. Karlburg. 59. 60. 61. 62. 63. 64. 65. 66. 67. 68. 69. 70. 71. 72. 73. 74. 75. 76. 77. 78. 79. 80. 81. 82. 83. 84. 85. 86. 87. 88. 89. 90. 91. 92. 93. 94. 95. 96. 97. 98. 99. 100. 102. 103. 104. 105. 106. 107. 108. 109. 110. 111. 112. 113. 115. 116. 117. *Piska. Deva. Vajda Hunyad. Defile of the Red Tower (passage of the Russians). Orsova (by which Kossuth escaped). Temesvar. Bega Canal. Berzava Canal. Panczova. Fehertemplom (Weiskircheri) Kevi (Kubin). Semlim. Tetel. Petervaradin. Ujvidek. Roman Ruins. St. Thomas. Great Becskerek. Mehadia. Batz. Eszek. Five Churches. Vukovar. Szigethvar. French Canal. Sarvitz Canal. Alba Regia. *Velentze. Raczkevi Island. Lake Balaton. Tihany. Szigligeth. Keszthely. Bakony Mountains and Forests. Mor. Vesprim. Neusidlesee Lake. Soprony. Papa. Kerszey (Guns). Szala. Kanisa. Isle of Mur. Varadin. Agram, Zagabria (capital of Croatia). Port Royal. Fiume. Fured. Segna. Mohatz. Lugos. rkervar (birth-place of Count Louis Batthyanyi). River Save. Plain of Rakos. Plain of Hortobagy. ERRATA. Page 2, line 32, for Tusculam, read Tusculum. 90, 39, for remains, read remain ; and in the line following, for was, read were. 159, 17, for or title, read and title. ,, 202, ,, 7, from below, /or them, read him. 246, 14, from below, for a no less, read no less. 344, last line, for grand armee", read grande arme6. PEEFACE MANY of the facts detailed in this work will possess no novelty for students of history. The writer does not profess to have derived his materials from any extraordinary sources. With most, if not all, of the books he has consulted, the literary world is, more or less, familiar. His object has been simply to present, in a popular form, the history of a great people, concerning whom the mass of English readers have no information except what can be gleaned from the stray and scanty allusions contained in the various accounts of the wars and revolutions of the German empire. He has dwelt at considerable length upon the relations existing between Hungary and the House of Hapsburg, because it is mainly upon the peculiar nature of these that her claims to the sympathy of Europe are founded. He has endeavoured throughout to make the narrative as plain and succinct as possible ; and for the attainment of this object has, in many places, sacrificed a great number of collateral details. Foreign wars, as the least interesting .episodes in a nation's life, when they leave behind no marked results, he has in many instances passed over witli a mere mention. 7 His great aim has been to convey a clear idea of the nature and the origin of the late revolution to the minds of those who have hitherto given but little attention to European politics. For information regarding the war of independence he has consulted most of the works which have since appeared on the subject. To that of General Klapka, as the most trustworthy, perhaps, he is under greater obligations than any. The interest which the Magyars excited in 1849 is kept alive by the certainty, which every one who pays any attention to the state of affairs on the continent must feel, that, in the next great European convulsion, they will play, if possible, a still more important part than in the last. A history of Hungary, which will satisfy all the requirements of criticism, can never be written until her archives are in the hands of the rightful owners, and until the restoration of her liberties shall have enabled foreigners to study her institutions with the attention they merit. To such a character, therefore, this one lays no claim. LONDON, Septvmbsr, 15th, 1S<33. CONTENTS. PAGE CHAPTER I. Roman Period . . . . . . . . . . 1 II, The Huns Attila . . 7 III. The Magyars Origin, manners, first appearance in Europe, their ravages in Germany and Italy Final overthrow by Otho the Great . . . . . . ... . . 25 TV. The Dynasty of Arpad .. 32 V. Dynasty of Arpad continued . . . . . . ..,31 VI. Ascension of the House of Anjou Charles Robert . . 69 VII. Louis the Great . . . . . . . . . . . 74 VIII. Maria and Sigismond The Turks . . . . Q\ ., X. Ladislaus II. . . . . . . . . . . . . 103 XI. Ladislaus III. Regency of Hunyadi .. .. .. 116 XII. Mathias Corvinus . . . . . . . . . . .12.3 XIII. Ladislaus IV. and Louis II. Peasant War and Turkish Conquests 134 XIV. Ferdinand I. and John Szapolyai . . . . . . 144 XV. John Sigismond and Stephen Bathori . . . . . . . . 175 XVI. Wars of Gabriel Bethlem and Ferdinand II. and III. . . ;97 XVII. The Reign of Leopold . . 205 XVIII. Rebellion of Francis Rakotski . . . . . . . . 246 XIX. Charles III. and Maria Theresa . . . . .263 XX. Troubles in the Reign of Joseph II., and Leopold II., and Francis I. 284 XXI. Conflicts between the Diet and the Government Progress of Reform 293 XXIL War of Independence .. ..324 XXIII. The Horrors of the Peace . . 352 XXIV. The Hungarian Constitution Variety of Races . . . . 370 HISTORY OF HUNGARY. CHAPTER I. ROMAN PERIOD. IF the reader will look at a map of the Roman Empire, as it was in the third and fourth centuries of the Christian era, he will find that large tract of country now surrounded by the modern empires of Austria, Turkey, and Russia, set down as Pannonia and Dacia. This formed the north-western frontier, and was the scene of the fiercest struggles recorded in history. As it lay right in the course of all the hordes of various races who poured from the forests of the north and the plains of the east, during the earlier part of the Christian era, hurried on, as if by an irresistible impulse, to precipitate themselves upon the declining empire, it was seized and ravaged now by one and now by another belonging to all of them by turns, but to none of them long. The Romans were the first to lift up the veil which shrouded all that region in ancient times. The Greeks, who knew more of everything than they did of geography, had a vague notion that it was peopled by a simple pastoral race whom they called Peones. The face of the country was covered by vast forests, with here and there a swampy meadow, intersected by great rivers rolling on darkly to the ocean, with no sound on their banks but the howl of the wolf or the cry of the heron. The Gauls, it is said, invaded this district about the year 587 B.C., one detachment settling in the part now known as Western Hungary, and the other pushing on into Greece, where, amongst other outrages, they pillaged the temple at Delphi. The Romans themselves for a long time peopled northern and western Europe with ogres, until Caesar's victories in Gaul helped to dissipate their delu- sions. The legions under Drusus, Germanicus, and Tiberius, were engaged in the subjugation of Dalmatia, when they were suddenly assailed by wild hordes from the banks of the Danube and the Teyss, whom it required all the strength of the i) 2 HISTORY OF HUNGARY. empire to beat back. But Tiberius did not rest satisfied with repulsing them; he followed them to their fastnesses, and, after a tremendous struggle, Pannonia and Dacia became provinces of the empire. It was part of the wise policy of the Romans never to rest content with sub- duing ; they always endeavoured to assimilate as well. No sooner was resistance at an end, than the work of civilization commenced. Scholars, lawyers, artists, merchants, artizaiis, nobles, even, settled in the newly-conquered territory, and soon made it reflect back the image of the mother country. In this way, Pannonia and Dacia were soon numbered amongst the most flourishing and civilized of the provinces. The frequent visits of the lieutenants of the emperors, or of the emperors themselves, for the purpose of repelling the incursions of the barbarians who hung about the north-west boundary of their dominions, brought, every year, fresh hands of colonists, who mixed freely with the natives, and soon inspired them with the tastes as well as the wants of civilized life, taught them their language, the rich and sonorous Latin, made them sensible of the advantages of a well-administered system of law. The face of the country soon became changed. Cultivated fields and smiling meadows took the place of the waving sedge of the marshes and the half- scorched reeds of the steppe. The axe of the Roman backwoodsman soon opened fields and roads in the heart of the thick oak forests, wherein the Avolves had howled, and the Druids sacrificed for centuries before ; and the ploughman, with his goad and his rudely-yoked oxen, following in the track of the pioneer, soon presented to the astonished gaze of the natives a smiling garden, on the ground where previously stood the thick fastnesses through which their forefathers had hunted the wild boar. The labours of the legionaries soon covered the pro- vince with a net-work of great roads, built as if to last for ever, and private enterprise lined them all along with inns, and post-houses, and farms, and gorgeous villas ; and on all the sunny slopes, the vine, the present of the Emperor Probus, flourished under the watchful eye of the husbandman. Wherever a military fort had been built, splendid mansions of the rich provincials sprang up around it, furnished with all the luxury that distinguished the voluptuous retreats at Tiburnum or Tusculam. Cities soon rose, which received their priests and magistrates from Rome, and were decorated with magnificent temples, and statues of Greek workmanship instead of the rude images of the Celtic divinities. The Roman polytheism supplanted the Gallic pantheism ; and the transition was the easier, as many of the divinities differed only in name. Phoran was another Jupiter, Hesus another Mars, and Baal an Apollo. But this period of glory and prosperity did not last long. Even when Dacia and Punnonia were conquered Rome was in her decline. While her hands were stretched forth to grasp the uttermost ends of the earth, a cancer the cancer of corruption and vice was preying at her vitals. Slowly, and not without many a struggle, did she succumb to the assanlts of her enemies. But the crisis, so long averted, ROMAN PERIOD. 6 came at last ; the legions slowly retired, and the barbarians of the north swept like an avalanche across these scenes of luxury, art, and wealth, leaving naught behind but a howling waste, in which children, amidst blackened ruins, sought nourishment from the slaughtered bodies of their mothers. Of all the great works executed during the period of Roman domination, a few remains only are to be seen at the present day, and these can give but a faint idea of the splendour they have outlived. Below Columbacz the Danube rushes rapidly between high walls of rock, which give an air of grandeur to its course. In this neighbourhood traces of the Roman occupation become more numerous, and at last the most remarkable of any is seen after having passed Rogacs. This is known as Trajan's Tablet, and is an elegant piece of sculpture graven in the solid rock, and containing the inscription IMP. C^SAH DIVI, XEHVAK V. TRAJANUS. AUG. (il'.HM. POXTIFEX MAXIMUS. TRIE. P. O. XXX. The tablet is supported by two wings, and is surmounted by a Roman eagle. It is supposed that this was intended to commemorate the piercing of the rocks by the legions when making the great road called after the emperor Via Trajanct. Another of his mighty works is seen in the remains of the bridge which he threw across the Danube, near trie modern town of Orsova, in his expedition against the King of Dacia. It was erected over a formidable rapid that no boat could pass without imminent danger. Upon each side of the river there still stand two enormous piles of masonry, about twenty feet in height, which Avere no doubt used as supports for the two arches at the extremities, spanning the bed of the river ; the piles upon which the others rested still remain, until the debris has formed a small island around them. Dion Cassius, who was governor of part of Pannonia in the reign of Adrian, Trajan's successor, has left some few details of the construction of this gigantic work. According to him, every buttress was sixty feet in circumference, and the distance from one to another 170 feet. The passage was defended by two towers of solid marble, one at each end. The erection of the whole was superintended by Apollodorus, the architect of the Forum, and of Trajan's Column at Rome. The bridge was destroyed seventeen years after its erection, by Adrian, in the year 120, upon pretence of securing the frontiers against the incursions of the barbarians, or, as some soy, through mere jealousy. The last relic of this period which we shall notice is one in some respects more interesting than any. About two leagues from Karansebes, upon a hill in the midst of a charming- landscape, stands a small square tower of great antiquity. This is known as Ovid's Tower, and popular tradition asserts that in it the poet was confined, when he was banished by Augustus, professedly because of the immorality of Ins B2 HISTORY OF HUNGARY. treatise <: De Arte Amandi," but in reality for some crime which history has not recorded. Classical scholars and commentators assert that his real place of - -'r-rv OYIT) S TOWKK TRAJAN'S TABLET ox THE DANUBE. banishment was Tomi, in Thrace ; but the popular tradition which transfers it to this romantic spot will, without doubt, in the case of most people, outweigh ROMAN PERIOD. O the soberer testimony of history. An English toixrist, * who has given a good deal of attention to the subject, sides with the Transylvanians, and in support of his arguments, asks, and not without plausibility, where could Ovid with more of truth than in this country have exclaimed, " Lassus in extremis, jacio, populisque locisque Heu (juara vicina est ultima terra mihi ! " It scarcely falls within our province to balance the arguments on either side. RUINS OF THE GOTHIC CHURCH OF ZAMBEK. It is at least certain that the memory of Trajan and Ovid still lives amongst the Wallacks; and the peasant of the valley of Temes still tells, with an air of authority, that when the Roman army passed that way, the soldiers crowded eagerly to visit the prison in which their great countryman had been confined. * Paget's " Hungary and Transylvania," London, 1839. 6 HISTORY OF HUXGAKY. After the Roman power had been overthrown, and the crowd of unknown races rushed across the Danube and laid waste Pannonia, Dacia, and Dalmatia, no people, of all those who from time to time occupied Hungary, left any permanent records of their stay except the Goths. These were converted to Christianity, at a very early period of their occupation, by a bishop named Ulphus, and in the ruins of their religious edifices which still remain, we have ample testimony to the ardour of their faith, and the rapid progress in the arts which they had made through contact with the people whom they had vanquished in arms. One of the most beautiful of these relics is the ruins of the Gothic church of Zanibek. It is supposed to have been built by the Visigoths, who, when dominant in Hungary, sent forth armies to the conquest of Italy, Sicily, Gaul, and Spain. It is a splendid specimen of the first attempt at a style of architecture which has since covered Europe with some of the grandest monuments which have ever been raised in honour of religion. CHAPTER II. THE HUJfS ATTILA. A.D. 337-453, THE vast plains to the north of China, from time immemorial, were peopled, or rather possessed, by a number of hardy nomade tribes, who were known to the Greeks and Romans under the general appellation of Scythians, and who bid defiance to the mightiest conquerors of the ancient world. The skill and discipline of the armies of Cyrus and Alexander were useless against a foe whose valour exhausted itself in a single onset, or in distant discharges of arrows, and whose retreats were so rapid that pursuit was out of the question. Their whole wealth lay in their horses, flocks, and herds. They were bound by no tie to any one spot on the vast expanse of their native steppes more than to another. Removal caused them no regret, for they left behind neither houses nor the fruits of labour. The worst that an invader could do was to drive them prematurely from a luxuriant pasturage, but without reaping any reward for his pains. Wherever he turned he found himself assailed in flank and rear by an active and vigilant enemy, who continually attacked, but never gave battle. Dis- comfiture and disaster were the unvarying result of all the attempts we read of that were made to subjugate them. But in those early times in no instance were they the oifenders. If unmolested, they were content to roam peaceably from one grassy plateau to another ; and they were known to the western nations only as a distant and barbarous people, of exceeding fierceness, who skirmished on horseback, and whose subjugation was the topmost point in the ambition of their great military leaders. But to the old and civilised empire of China they proved troublesome neighbours. When chance brought them to the borders of the celestial dominions, they could not help looking with greedy eyes upon the wealth and magnificence which the skill and industry of the inhabitants had created, and the Great Wall remains to our day a gigantic testimony to the fierceness of their marauding- attacks and the terror with which they inspired the Chinese. The latter, with rare condescension, ascribe to these Tartars an origin as remote as their own. Their historians relate that previous to the year 200 B.C., many dynasties had reigned over them, and that they had had chiefs and legislators, renowned for their valour and wisdom, who ruled an extent of territory wider than that of the Roman empire in its palmiest days. The same authority informs us that under the reign of an emperor rejoicing in the euphonic appellation of Pou-nou-Tanjou, g HISTORY OF HUN OAKY. a great nation amongst these Tartars or Scythians, the Huns became greatly enfeebled by a devastating famine, and that their old enemies, taking advantage of their forlorn condition, proceeded to wreak vengeance upon them for all their former outrages. So heavily did the weight of their misfortunes press upon them, that they determined to separate into two tribes or divisions, one of which was subjugated, and remained in bondage on their native soil for a long period. The other, called the northern tribe, set off in search of a new country and better fortune. This was about the year 87 of the Christian era. After having wandered about Asia for more than two centuries, this tribe had the hardihood once more to attack the Chinese, who, however, inflicted upon them so signal a defeat, that they turned their faces towards Europe, and bid adieu to Asia for ever. This was the commencement of that series of inroads upon the Roman empire which ended in its fall. The southern Huns, some centuries afterwards, followed the example of their brethren, and appeared in Europe under the name of Turks, and established their head-quarters in Constantinople. It is from the former, however, that the modern Hungarians claim descent, and to them, therefore, our attention must be confined. But if we omitted to mention that a great deal of what we have been here stating rests upon no better foundation than vague tradition, which national, and certainly pardonable, vanity puts forward as history, we should be concealing a part of the truth. Very little of what the Chinese tell us of their own origin is credible, and the temptation to give exaggerated accounts of the power and numbers of the Huns was increased by the fact, that the greater their strength could be made to appear, the greater would be the glory of having defeated and expelled them from their territory. Gibbon is of opinion lhat the connexion between the modern Hungarians and the ancient Huns, in point of descent, is feeble and remote in the extreme, but he acknowledges the identity in origin of the Turks and Magyars. Recent philological researches have, however, gone far to show that the Fins, the Turks, Magyars, as well as the Mogols, and the less civilised Tartars of central Asia, all belong to the same stock, just as the different nations of modern Germany ; but in the vast political changes which they have undergone, have lost their similitude of language. This question of origin, how- ever, is one which, with regard to nations as with regard to great men, it is almost always difficult to settle satisfactorily. It is, therefore, gratifying to know, that in neither case is it of much moment, and in ceasing to trouble its head about it the world shows that it is making some advance in good sense. When the Huns precipitated themselves upon Europe, they found that the Goths and Vandals had preceded them, had done their share in the work of devas- tation, and were already enfeebled by luxury and success. They drove them before them triumphantly, and abandoned themselves without restraint to plunder and rapine. But they, too, soon exhausted their strength in intestine quarrels and petty predatory excursions, so that their power seemed on the point of disso- THE HUNS ATTILA. 9 lution, when a leader arose in the person of Attila, whose valour, ferocity, and ability restored to their name its ancient terror. His uncle and predecessor, Rugilas, was a man of great power and ability, and was distinguished by his warlike exploits. In his time, beyond all doubt, the Huns did encamp in the country now called Hungary, and thus placed, as it were, midway between the eastern and the western empires, were enabled to keep both in a continual state of alarm. At the solicitation of the celebrated consul Aetius, on behalf of the usurper John, Rugilas, upon one occasion, inarched 60,000 men ATTILA. to the very borders of Italy ; but nothing short of the total cession of the province of Pannonia was sufficient to induce them to return. He also threatened Con- stantinople itself, and with such appearance of sincerity, that Theodosius, the Greek emperor, was obliged to ward off his displeasure by the payment of an annual tribute of 3001bs. of gold. So open an acknowledgment of the greatness of their power was not the way, however, to pacify the rude barbarians, whose impatience occasionally broke through all bounds ; cind war was impending, and only prevented by tedious negotiations, when Rugilas died. (A.D. 434). His nephews, Attila and Bleda, succeeded him, and by them a treaty was concluded, 10 HISTORY OF HUNGARY. by which the unfortunate Greeks underwent still greater humiliation. Bleda was soon deposed and executed, and Attila became the sole sovereign of the Hunnic nation: This extraordinary man is claimed by the Magyar historians as one of their kings, and this, independently of the wonderful part he played in the history of his time, entitles him to a full share of our attention. The modern Hungarians trace his descent till, in the thirty-fifth degree, it reaches Ham, the son of Noah ; but, unfortunately, they are not acquainted with the real name of his father. He himself, with less ambition, was content to deduce it from a noble or royal house amongst the old Huns who had battled with the Chinese along the Great Wall. The only descriptions of him that have come down to us have been traced by the hands of enemies, who had every reason for hating him, and very little scruple about doing him injustice. His portrait, however, presents all the features which characterise a Calmuck Tartar at the present day a large head, swarthy com- plexion, deep-seated eyes, a flat nose, a few hairs in place of a beard, and a short square body possessing great muscular strength. But. whatever might be the disadvantages of his personal appearance, he had the soul of a hero. In his walk, in his look, almost in every act of his life, he gave evidence of conscious superiority to the rest of mankind. He had a custom of rolling his eyes in a peculiarly fierce fashion, and seemed highly to enjoy the terror which his very looks inspired. He Avas fond of war, and was undoubtedly in possession of great personal courage ; but it was not his mere valour which gained him sway over his countrymen, so much as his skill in working upon their passions and credulity. The latter is a prominent characteristic in all barbaroxxs nations. The more won- derful an affair is, and the less support it receives in the shape of evidence derived from experience, the greater is their disposition to believe it. Craft, therefore, is the quality which amongst them is the surest guarantee of power and influence. In Attila this was united with great military talent, an iron will, and a command- ing presence. By making a good use of the national superstition, he gained an ascendancy over his countrymen which no amount of warlike success could ever have bestowed upon him. The Huns, like all other nations of antiquity, wor- shipped the god of war with more than ordinary devotion ; but too rude to mould a statue, they adored him under the form of an iron scimitar. One of their shep- herds having perceived a wound in the foot of a heifer, followed the track of the blood, till it led to an old sword sticking up out of the ground. He dug it up and presented it to Attila, who received it with a devout air, declared that it was the sword of Mars, and that he, as its possessor, had a divine right to the dominion of the earth. He henceforth assumed, in the eyes of his subjects, the character of a deity, in whose service it was as honourable to fight as it was glorious and fortunate to die. He may be said from this time to have divided the empire of the world with the Romans. They possessed the civilised portion of it he the barbarian. Kot only did he hold undisputed sway over the Scythian tribes, but over the German also. THE HUNS ATTILA. 11 The Franks and Burgundians trembled at his nod ; he received a tribute of furs from the cold regions of northern Europe, which more civilised potentates had assailed in vain ; his power was felt on the banks of the Volga ; the Geugens thought him a magician, who, by means of the enchanted stone gezi, could excite storms of wind and rain. He made an alliance upon equal terms with the Emperor of China, and the great and powerful tribe of the Ostrogoths were amongst the most submissive of his supporters. All the kings and chiefs and their name was legion who acknowledged his supremacy, took it in turn to attend on his person as guards and domestics ; and when he took the field, he could muster an army of five, or as some say seven, hundred thousand men. When Attila ascended the throne, he was by no means disposed to continue the negotiations which his uncle had been carrying on with the Greek emperor Theodosius, and only wanted a pretext for commencing hostilities. This was a thing which no barbarian ever wanted long, and particularly a Hun in the fifth century. A free market was at that time held on the northern, or Hunnic, side of the Danube, under the protection of a Roman fort called Constantia. The Huns one day made a foray into the market-place, killed the traders, and levelled the fortress with the ground, and justified the outrage by asserting that it was committed by way of reprisal for the trespass of the Bishop of Margus, who entered their territory with the design of discovering and concealing a secret treasure belonging to their king, and they demanded the extradition of the prelate, and of those who aided and abetted him. But the Byzantine court had not yet reached so low a pitch of degradation as to surrender a Christian into the hands of pagans, and refused to comply. The people of Margus were amongst the first to applaud the emperor's firmness. When the Huns, however, crossed the frontier with fire and sword, and destroyed two towns in their immediate vicinity, the citizens changed their minds, and began to think of surrendering the bishop themselves. But that worthy individual, however, was not of opinion that a bishop should be sacrificed to save a town, but, on the contrary, that a town ought to be, by all means, sacrificed to save a bishop. He, therefore, sent a secret message to Attila, secured his pardon by a solemn oath of allegiance, and testified the sincerity of his submission by opening with his own hand, at an appointed hour, the gates of the city to a chosen band of the barbarian army. The career of the invader was after this but a series of successes. Town after town fell before him, and the whole extent of Europe, from the Euxine to the Adriatic, was laid waste and desolate. The Roman armies, hastily collected from various quarters of the empire, wanted both the courage and the skill to make an effectual resistance. They were defeated in three successive battles, and the ravages of Attila were extended to the very walls of Constantinople itself. Seventy cities of the eastern empire, rich in all that the art, industry, and commerce of the time could achieve or collect, and crowded by a busy, civilised, 12 HISTORY OF HUNGARY. and luxurious population, were totally destroyed and up-rooted, so that nothing save charred and blackened ruins marked their sites. From this one fact alone some idea may be formed of the ferocity of the invader, and the terrible calamities the unfortunate inhabitants had to undergo. Gibbon * endeavours, in the absence of all positive testimony upon the subject, to form some idea of the treatment of the vanquished by the Huns, by supposing an analogy between their practice and that of the Moguls, men of the same race and same manners. The mode of procedure followed by the latter upon the capture of a town has been accurately recorded. The inhabitants, if they had surrendered at discretion, were assembled in some open space near the city, and divided into three classes. The first, consisting of the young men able to bear arms, were either enlisted in the ranks of their conquerors, or slaughtered on the spot. The second, consisting of young and beautiful women, artificers, professional men, or merchants, from whom a ransom might be expected, Avere distributed in equal shares. The remainder, consisting of the old, and decrepid, and poor, were dismissed, with contemptuous pity, and obliged to pay a tax for being permitted to live amidst the ruins of their homes. But all this took place only when the conquerors had been received with abject submission. The smallest amount of resistance, a smile, a look, which could be construed into a token of defiance, were sufficient to cause the massacre of the population of a whole province. Acts like these caused a hermit in some cave in Gaul to apply to Attila the epithet of The Scourge of God, and the tradition runs, that on its reaching his ears it so pleased the haughty conqueror, that he adopted and inserted it amongst the titles of royal dignity ; and so great was the terror that his very name inspired, that in the far-off provinces of the empiie, it was commonly believed by the people that the grass never grew on the spot where his horse had once trod. In this war great numbers of the Romans were carried off captive to the Huns, and employed as domestic slaves. Those who could exercise some useful handicraft, such as masons, smiths, armourers, were highly valued and well treated. The clergy were respected ; lawyers were despised or abhorred ; physi- cians, naturally enough, held the highest rank in their estimation ; but the lowest of all in the scale were the Greek sophists or philosophers. All these, however, notwithstanding their servile condition, must have been the means of diffusing amongst their masters a taste for the arts, and love for the luxuries of civilised life. The conditions of peace which Attila imposed upon the Greek emperor were humiliating enough. Theodosius was compelled to surrender a fertile tract of country lying along the southern bank of the Danube, fifteen days' journey in breadth, or according to others only five ; f to promise an annual subsidy of * Vol. III. p. 233. Milman's Edition. f Niebuhr's Byz. Hist., p. 147. THE HUNS ATTILA. 16 2,100lbs. of gold, and to pay without delay 6,COOlbs, of gold to defray the expenses of the war. The treasury was exhausted at this period by the cost of military preparation and the shameless extravagance of the court, so that the latter demand had to be met by a personal contribution imposed upon the members of the senatorial order, and rigorously exacted. Attila was so impatient, or the nobles were so poor, that they had to raise the amount by the public sale of their wives' jewels and the heir-looms of their palaces. Among the latter, according to Chrysostom, every wealthy house possessed a semicircular table of massive silver, such as two men could scarcely lift : a vase of solid gold weighing forty pounds, and cups and dishes of the same metal. FLASK, CUP, AND CAMEO BEARING A MINIATURE OF ATTILA. The third and last condition was more humiliating than all ; it stipulated that all Huns, who had been taken prisoners in war, should be restored without ransom ; that all Roman prisoners, who had effected their escape, should pay twelve ounces of gold each, and that all barbarian deserters from the standard of the conqueror should be delivered up without promise or condition. The performance of this part of the agreement occupied a considerable length of time. It was an easy matter to restore the .captured Huns, but it was by no means easy to oblige the Romans, who had made their escape from captivity, to pay a ransom, or to oblige the deserters, who had fought under the imperial standard, to return to a certain and cruel death. Almost every week embassies arrived from Attila to reproach the Roman 14 HISTORY OF HUNGARY. emperor in haughty terms with the delay in carrying out the treaty, and to declare that he could with difficulty restrain the impatience of his followers. Theodosius did the best he could to appease the anger of the barbarian, by making rich presents to the envoys ; and the private secretary of the king of the Huns having demanded a wealthy and noble Roman wife, his master supported his request with such zeal as to make it an affair of state. After a good deal of hesitation, a rich widow, a woman of great beauty, and renowned amongst the aristocratic matrons of the day for her virtues, was selected as the victim, for so her friends considered her. When this had been resolved upon, Attila demanded that the Romans should send an embassy to him in return for the many that he had sent to them. His request was complied with it, and it is to this that we owe most of our knowledge of the manners and customs of the Huns, and of the usages in force at the court of their king. The chief of the embassy was a certain Maximin, a courtier of considerable talents, both civil and military, and he invited his friend, Priscus, the historian, to accompany him. The latter has recorded every circumstance of their journey and reception, as Lord Macartney his progress to the court of the celestial empire ; and his relation gives us a curious insight into the manners of the time, as well as places in ominous contrast, along every step of the way, the haughty insolence of the Huns and the fallen pride of the Romans, courtly and magnificent even in their degradation. They ma.de their first halt at Sardica, where the Romans gave a banquet to the barbarian envoys, who were returning with them from Constantinople ; and Priscus, with quaint minuteness, tells us what one said to another at the table, of the quarrel which arose between the representatives of the two nations, and of the presents that were made to heal the breach. Proceeding thence upon their way, the Romans soon saw enough to make them tremble for the fall of the empire and the imperial city, and convince them that the existence both of one and the other depended on the nod of Attila. They found Naissus which had been a mighty city in its time, and had given birth to the great Constantine, whose name, in his day, had made barbarians tremble a heap of blackened ruins, amongst which a few sick and cripples,, whom the conquerors thought beneath their vengeance, found a precarious shelterj'and all along, for many a mile beyond, the bones of the slain lay thick on the ground, like the track of a plague-stricken caravan in the Arabian deserts. Upon entering Hungary, they passed rapidly through the forests and over the rivers in small canoes, until they arrived in the neighbourhood of the royal camp. Attila haughtily forbad them to pitch their tents upon an eminence, because his were below upon the plain ; and sent messengers to them, to whose keeping they were requested to commit their business and instructions. Upon their making the well-founded objection, that this would not only be disrespectful to their own sovereign but in direct contravention of the established law of nations, they received no decisive answer, but were compelled to undertake a long and toilsome journey to the north, so that Attila might have the satisfaction of receiving, THE HUNS ATTILA. 15 at one and the same time in his camp, envoys from both the eastern and western empires. During this long circuit they were supplied plentifully with provisions from the neighbouring villages ; mead indeed instead of wine, millet in place of bread, and a certain liquor, called comus, distilled from barley rough fare certainly when compared with the dainties of Constantinople, but under the circumstances very acceptable. Upon one occasion they were overtaken, when encamped upon the edge of a morass, by a violent storm, which overturned their tents, drenched themselves and their baggage, and sent them wandering in the darkness along unknown roads. They at last reached a village, the property of the widow of Bleda, Attila's murdered brother. The good lady roused her people, prepared a blazing fire of reeds, before which the travellers dried their garments ; and she appears to have embarassed them by her singular politeness, in placing at their disposal a number of beautiful and obliging maidens. In return for all these kindnesses, they presented her with silver cups, red fleeces, dried fruits, and Indian pepper. After this they fell in with Attila's march, and at last reached his capital. About its precise situation there has been an immense deal of disputation. Gibbon only guesses at it ; the description of Priscus is too vague to enable us to come to any positive conclusion ; so that we are at last compelled to fall back upon the popular tradition, which, in the matter of places, is seldom far from the truth. According to this, it was on the spot where the modern village of Jasbereny now stands, in the midst of the district inhabited by the Jasyges, between the Danube, the Teyss, and the Carpathian Hills, in the plains of Upper Hungary. These Jasyges, though now mingled with the Magyar population, had inhabited the country from a very early period ; and it is even said, that when the Emperor Trajan marched against the Dacians, they followed his standard as auxiliaries. They were distinguished by the rapidity of their evolutions, by their courage, and by their armour. Both horse and man were clothed in mail of very stout texture, which rendered them almost invulnerable. They were extremely dexterous in the use of the bow and arrows, and were able to launch javelins both in front and towards the rear at the same moment. Their descendants may still be distinguished by the pure orientalism of their accent and intonation, and by their daring feats of horsemanship, which caused them, during the last war, to be numbered amongst the ablest defenders of the national liberty. In the midst of these, according to the most probable accounts, Attila fixed his camp. It was at best but a huge village, composed of rows of tents, which the king's long residence here had rendered permanent ; it afforded ample accommodation, however, for the host of servants, retainers, and tributaries, who followed the march of the barbarian conqueror. The habitations of the common soldiers were merely huts of mud and straw, but those of higher rank dwelt in wooden houses, in which there was some attempt at a display of rude magnificence, and the nearer the palace of the king the more honourable the posi- }t> HISTORY OF 1IUKGA11Y. tion. The palace itself was built entirely of wood, and covered an immense space of ground ; it was surrounded by a lofty wall, also of wood, flanked by high towers. Inside this enclosure lay the houses of all who were attached to the royal person. Each of the king's wives had separate apartments. The mansion of Cerca, the queen, was supported on lofty round columns, and the wood was curiously carved and turned. When the ambassadors paid her a visit, not only were they graciously received, but, such was the charming simplicity of her manners, were all permitted to kiss her. When they first saw her, she was reclining on a carpet, and her maids around her engaged in some sort of embroidery, just as we may suppose any of the ladies in the days of chivalry, or even in later times, passed the long hours in their husbands' gloomy castles. The interior of the houses of the nobles was profusely decorated with gold and silver plate and ornaments : their swords, and shoes, and bucklers, were set with jewels ; and they dined off plates and vases of the precious metals which the Greek captives had made. But in the palaces of the monarch the severe simplicity of the ancient Scythians still reigned. He and his household eat off wooden platters ; flesh was their only food, for bread was a luxury that the great chief never tasted. Other curious details of Attila's domestic life have been handed down to us, and they all display the same mixture of severe simplicity and barbaric pomp. Amongst those who accompanied the Romans from Constantinople was an ambassador of the Huns named Edecon, who, during his stay at the imperial court, had been induced by a large reward to enter into an engagement to murder his master upon reaching home. This had been effected through the instrumentality of a eunuch named Chrystaphius, and with the full cognizance and approbation of Theodosius. At the eleventh hour Edecon repented, and revealed the plot to Attila. The latter, with a high-minded heroism which in a Pagan contrasted favourably with the baseness of the Christian emperor, sent a message full of stern rebuke to Constantinople, and contemptuously pardoned the delin- quents. Theodosius did not long survive this humiliation : his horse fell when out hunting, and, by breaking his rider's neck, ridded the world of a base and effeminate tyrant. His sister Pulcheria succeeded to the imperial throne, and soon after married a senator of high standing named Marcia. This man had ideas of Roman dignity which would have been better suited to the days of Julius Caesar than his own, and upon Attila pressing for the payment of the tribute, he returned a haughty and disdainful answer. The barbarian king instantly prepared to invade the empire. But he affected to despise the eastern empire, and determined to postpone the conquest of it until he had overthrown the western. This was not, however, so easy a matter as he imagined. The leader of the Roman armies at this time, a lieutenant of the emperor Valentinian, was Aetius, " the thrice- appointed consul," to whom " the wretched Britons" vainly sent " their groans and tears," when fiercely attacked by the wild hordes of the northern highlands THE PRINCESS HONORIA. 17 a man of great military talents, who for twenty years was the stay and support of the declining majesty of Rome. Through his tact and dexterity, an alliance was entered into with the powerful nation of the Visigoths, the ancestors of the modern Spaniards, who at that time possessed the southern part of the province of Gaul, and he was thus enabled to present a formidable front to the invader. But Attila was not easily daunted, and with such a host as he could muster he should have been a mighty warrior who could have stayed his progress. But even in that rvide age the still small voice of right and justice was heard, though in faint accents, above the din of arms, and the loud clamour of the camp ; and it reached even the ears of Attila, fierce fighting-man though he was, who had marched to power and fame across hundreds of thousands of corpses. He had the men, the horses, the armour, the courage, the skill, and prestige, necessary to assure him of success in his enterprise. There was but one thing wanting, a reasonable excuse that would satisfy his own conscience, and do homage to the public opinion of the world. The emperor of the east had refused to pay him the tribute his predecessor had agreed upon, and had accompanied his refusal with insult. But from Valentinian he had received no wrong. The pretext came at last in a way that he little expected, by an affair which might well be considered a piece of incredible romance?- if it were not verified by the unanimous testimony of contemporary historians. Valentinian, the Roman emperor of the west, had a sister named Honoria, to whose beauty not written descriptions merely, but medals still extant, testify. Her brother feared that if married, her husband might prove a dangerous rival, and in order to elevate her above the hopes of any of his subjects, he bestowed upon her the title of Augusta. Honoria felt but little pride in her new greatness, and never ceased to deplore the unhappy fate which had placed a bar between her and the gratification of the fondest wish of a woman's heart. At the age of sixteen, in a moment of weakness or folly, she so far forgot herself as to favour the advances of her chamberlain Eugenius. Her shame soon became apparent, and was made more widely known by her banishment from the imperial court, after a long term of imprisonment. The unhappy princess fixed her residence at Constantinople, and passed her time in retirement, brooding over her sorrows and misfortunes. While here, she daily heard the name of Attila on every lip. His ambassadors passed frequently in barbaric pomp before her window, and many were the wild stories that were told of their master's power, and valour, and ferocity. Whether it was that she wished to revenge her disgrace upon her relatives at Ravenna, or that her imagination, nursed and strengthened by suffering and solitude, was dazzled by the splendour of success always so powerful in iis influence on weak minds and pictured the barbarian conqueror as the ideal of her dreams, the soul of poetry and love, will never be known ; but, at all events, she cast aside not only the prejudices by which Roman women had been bound for more than a thousand years, and which in their eyes rendered the daughter of the humblest citizen too good for a foreign king, but all the restraints which nature, as well as c 18 HISTORY OF HUNGARY. custom, has in every age imposed upon her sex, and wrote to Attila, offering him her hand, and sending him a ring as the gage of her love. Her proposal was at first received with cold and silent contempt ; hut when he came to perceive the vantage ground upon which it would place him in a quarrel with Valentinian, it was eagerly accepted, and her hand formally demanded of her brother. In all his weakness and danger, the emperor still retained some spark of thp family pride of the old Roman patrician, and the demand was peremptorily refused, and Ilonoria shut up in a prison, from which she never issued in life. Attila instantly invaded Gaul at the head of a numerous host. All the nations of Germany and Scythia, from the Danuhe to the Volga, thronged to his standard ; and when he poured his myriads across the frontier, city after city fell before him, notwithstanding the performance of divers miracles by the patron saints of the various localities, Avhich our space will not permit us to record an omission the less to be regretted, however, as they do not seem to have had the smallest influence upon the general results of the invasion. At last the Huns laid siege to Orleans, but all their attacks were baffled by the courage of the inhabitants, until the arrival of the combined army of the Visigoths and Romans compelled them to raise the siege. Attila then retreated into the great plain around Chalons, then known as the "atalonian Fields," and there offered battle (A.D. 451). For the first time in his life he seems to have been doubtful of the issue, and sought to animate the courage of his followers by a martial address, when on all other occasions his presence alone had been considered sufficient to ensure a triumph. The conflict which followed was one of the bloodiest on record. The magnitude of the interests at stake, the skill and fame of the opposing leaders, the difference of race, language, and religion, the hopelessness of safety or escape in case of defeat all combined to add fresh fuel to the ardour and animosity of the combat- ants.. There was but little attempt at mano2uvring. The total want of discipline, the wide dissimilarity in the arms, mode of fighting, manners, and language of the barbarians, precluded the possibility of any display of tactics on the part of the leaders, so that the result was left entirely to the isolated efforts of individual valour. The battle began by a discharge of arrows and javelins, in which the superior dexterity of the Huns gave them, the advantage, but these weapons were soon cast aside, and the cavalry and infantry, on both sides, closed in a frightful melee. Theodoric, the king of the Visigoths, was knocked off his horse by the stroke of a spear, and was trampled to death under the feet of the combatants ; and Attila, who exposed his person in the thick of the carnage, was exulting in the confidence of victory, when the rashness of the Huns gave an unexpected turn to the fortune of the day. They had broken through the Roman centre, but rushing forward with too great impetuosity, they were surrounded, attacked in the flank, arid the darkness alone saved them from total destruction. They passed the night behind entrenchments formed of their waggons, in disheartened mood KAVAGES IN ITALY. 19 enough, and Attila himself, with a ferocious desperation worthy of his past career and exploits, ordered the rich furniture of the cavalry to be collected into a funeral pile, ready to be fired, and on which, in case the enemy forced his position, he was prepared to end his life, rather than fall into their hands. But the Romans and Visigoths had purchased their victory too dearly to think of following it up by any such attempt. Between 160,000 and 200,000 men lay dead upon the field, nearly one-half of whom had belonged to the allied forces, and in those that remained were placed the hopes of the Western Empire. Aetius and Torismond, the son and successor of Theodoric, assembled their scattered forces and retreated, leaving Attila at liberty to pursue his march. The latter, after remaining -for several days in his entrenchments, through fear of some trap or ambuscade, at last sallied forth and directed his course once more to Hungary, the Franks all the way hanging on his rear. His course was marked by the horrid cruelties perpetrated upon the inhabitants of the adjacent districts by the Thuringians, one of the tributary nations who served tinder his standard. They massacred hostages as well as captives ; and one is led to excuse the ferocity of the North- American Indians in the early border wars, when we read, that on one occasion during this retreat two hundred young maidens were first tortured with exquisitely ingenious cruelty, were then torn asunder by wild horses, or crushed piecemeal beneath the wheels of baggage-waggons, and their remains abandoned to the dogs and the wolves. In the following spring (A.D. 452) Attila collected his forces afresh, and set out with the intention of invading Italy, and on reaching Aquileia laid siege to it as well as he was able. A siege in that age was a slow process, and the barbarians had neither the skill nor the patience which Roman armies would have brought to the work. But the town was at last carried by storm, after a breach had been effected by the aid of battering-rams, and though Aquileia was one of the most populous and wealthiest cities of the western world, after this the site was scarce marked even by ruins. All modern Lombardy fell before the resistless arms of the conqueror. Vicenza, Verona, Milan, and Pavia were, sooner or later, obliged to open their gates and admit him, and the treatment received by the inhabitants was good or bad in exact proportion to the amount of resistance they had offered. In Milan, Attila saw in the royal palace a picture which represented the Roman emperor seated in awful state upon a throne, and some Scythian princes prostrated in submission at his feet. He called for an artist, and with a ferocious smile ordered him to reverse the figures and attitudes place the Scythians on the throne, and the Ctesars as suppliants. The King of the Huns was in the habit of boasting, that the grass never grew where his horse had once trod ; but it must for ever remain a striking monument of the vanity of earthly wisdom, and the weakness of human valour, that the ferocious conqueror of the western empire should have laid the founda- c 2 20 HISTORY OF HUNGARY. tion of one of the mightiest states of modern Europe : and that the fierce bands, who gave form and consistency to feudalism, should also have provided a nursing- mother for commerce and art. The province of Venetia, or Henetia, included, in ancient times, a large fertile tract of Italy, and was the seat of many flourishing and populous towns. Two of them, Aquileia and Padua, were the chosen residence of opulent knights and senators, and were renowned for the vast extent of their agricultural and manufac- turing industry. But when the barbarians for the first time entered Italy, and effaced whatever traces yet remained of the prestige of ancient power, this fertile garden was turned into a howling wilderness. Those of the population who, bereft of property and liberty, were still left in the enjoyment of a precarious and degraded existence, looked around for some refuge in which they might dwell, it might be in hardship, or perhaps in want, but at least in security. Within half an hour's sail of their coast, a hundred muddy islands rose feebly from the sluggish waters of the Adriatic. These sand-banks for they were little else were the deposits carried down, during the course of many centuries, by the thirty rivers which discharge their waters into this part of the gulf. The narrow channels which separated them could only be navigated by skilful and experienced pilots, and were a sure defence against the approach of a foreign invader. To these the terrified Venetians fled in crowds from the mainland ; and here, for many a year, noble families, who had been accustomed to revel in luxury, were content to earn a scanty subsistence by fishing, and the extraction of salt from the waters of the sea. Cassiodorus compares them to water-fowl which had fixed their nests on the bosom of the waves, and expresses his earnest sympathy with their poverty and misfortune. Nothing tends so much to the growth and formation of energy and determination of character as a struggle against adverse circumstances and unpro- pitious fortune. Devotion and heroism, which slumber in the lap of prosperity, spring into life and action when prosperity has deserted us and fled. The first efforts of the Venetians were directed towards the supply of the necessaries of a coarse and hard existence ; but when the continued exercise of self-reliance had proved more than sufficient to satisfy these demands, the desire for wealth and its concomitant power rapidly succeeded. The far-famed Rialto a sort of port to Padua was already in existence, and other buildings began to spring up. Ships were built, an commerce and navigation extended. The foundation of some of the principal buildings was laid on the 25th of March, early in the fifth century : " the day," says the old historian, " on which Christ was conceived in the womb of the Virgin, and Adam, the parent of mankind, was formed by God.'' The neighbouring sands were soon peopled by other fugitives, and, with a feeling of devout thankfulness for the refuge they had found, the townsmen of Altino gave to their adopted asylum the name of the " Port of the Deserted City." The barbarian conqueror was now encamped amidst the scenes which the THE RETREAT FROM ITALY. 21 22 HISTOKY OF HUXGARY. genius and glory of the Augustan age had consecrated ; and groves and valleys, in which poets had mused and senators sauntered in luxurious indolence, rang with the loud laughter and coarse revelry of the northern soldiers ; and Attila at last declared his intention of marching upon the imperial city itself. The emperor and the nobles sent him a deputation, headed by the wealthiest and proudest of the senators, humbly imploring him to spare the last relics of imperial greatness. Their request was granted upon condition that they paid him over Honoria's dowry as a ransom. This was done, and the army of the Huns once more turned homewards, as much surprised as the Romans at their master's moderation. But tradition says that it was not due altogether to a feeling of pity for the mis- fortunes of the vanquished, but to a superstitious fear of the consequences of laying sacrilegious hands upon the majesty of the eternal city. The old men of the camp whispered to him mysteriously that Alaric had not long survived his assault upon Rome ; and his imagination was still further impressed by the venerable aspect of Leo, the aged Christian bishop, who was one of the ambassadors sent to solicit his clemency. We suppose it was with the view of rendering the whole story more effective that the monks have related, that the blessed Apostles Peter and Paul appeared to Attila in the dead of the night, and threatened him with death if he did not desist from his enterprise. Whatever merit the legend may possess, it has been immortalised by Raphael, whose picture of the apparition still hangs in the Vatican. The conqueror, at all events (A.D. 453), turned his face once more towards home, threatening, however, to return in the following year, more wrathful than ever if Honoria were not in the meantime delivered up to him. To solace himself in the interval, he added to the number of his wives a beautiful girl named Ildico, and the wedding was celebrated with great pomp in one of his wooden palaces, close to the Danube. He and his bride retired to bed early, and at a late hour in the morn- ing they had not re-appeared. The attendants at last became alarmed, and entered the chamber. Ildico was weeping by the bedside, and on it Attila, the terror of the world, lay dead. A blood-vessel had burst in the night, and he was suffocated by internal hemorrhage. It was reported by the Romans that his wife had slain him ; but, we believe, without any good foundation. His funeral rites were celebrated with great pomp. His body, covered by a silken pavilion, was placed in the midst of a plain, and the Huns rode round it in squadrons, singing his glory and exploits in measured strains, and lamenting him as a hero " glorious in his life, invincible in his death, the father of his people, the scourge of his enemies, and the terror of a world." To show their grief, they cut short their flowing hair, and, as so great a chieftain should be mourned, not with women's tears, but the blood of warriors, they gashed their faces with frightful wounds. The body was then enclosed in three coffins the first of gold, the second of silver, and the third of iron ; and thus he was buried, silently and in the dead of night; and, that the prisoners who dug his grave might never insult the hero's THE AVARS. 23 memory by engaging in any less sacred employment, they were all slaughtered on the spot. He was no sooner dead than the Hunnic empire went to pieces. It was built up by conquest, and it existed only as long as the conqueror was living to give it support and glory. The nations who had been bound together by admiration of his military genius or the terror of his arms,, were once more left free to follow the dictates of their avarice or love of adventure. The Huns themselves dispersed or fell back upon Asia ; and from this time their primitive name no longer appears in history. Other tribes of the same family succeeded them upon the political arena, and the history of Pannonia for a long period presents only the spectacle of incessant struggles. Before the entrance of the Huns into Europe, the country which is denominated Hungary at the present day, and which was the centre of their empire, had been peopled from remote ages by the Pannonians and Illyrians, races of Greek origin, with some mixture of Celtic blood. In the northern part, on the borders of the Danube, dwelt the Quadi and Marcomanni, two tribes often mentioned by Csesar in his Commentaries, who were Germanic in their origin. To the east, in modern Transylvania, Moldavia, and Wallachia, the great nation of the Dacians, belonging to the Thraco-Greek family, had established itself. Last of all, in a corner at the foot of the Carpathian Mountains, between the Quadi and the Dacians, were the Jazyges, a people belonging to the Sclavonic stock. The Huns found all these people in subjection to the Romans, or Goths. Their invasion had set in motion many other tribes of the same race as themselves, who were then encamped near the shores of the Black Sea, in the way of the Asiatic races in their march towards Europe. The Avars, a branch of the Huns of the south, arrived upon the confines of Europe about the year 558. They resembled the Magyars of the present day, in their physiognomy and general appearance. The lightness of their complexion, and the regularity of their features, attracted the attention of the Greeks and Ilomans. They wore their hair in flowing tresses, tied with gaily-coloured ribbons, a custom which still prevails among the Magyar peasantry, but in other respects they were dressed as the Huns. This people precipitated themselves upon the Roman empire with the same violence as their predecessors, and established themselves in Pannonia. Their sway extended in 582, under their Khan Bayan, from Thuringia to Italy. In 646, having lost Dalmatia, and some other provinces in succession, they retained possession of Pannonia alone, and the countries bordering on the east. Charle- magne, who had extended his empire as far as the Ebro in Spain, resolved to drive them beyond the eastern frontiers of Europe. It took four campaigns, however, when he was in the zenith of his power, to accomplish this. Having obtained possession of Upper Pannonia, he formed it into a margravate. One division of the Avars then returned to Asia, and the remainder became blended with the rest of the population, so that their famous name entirely disappeared 24 HISTORY OF HUNGARY. from history. Their ruin was achieved by the same people who had overthrown the Hunnic empire. The Franks and Germans put an end to their domination after it had lasted for three centuries. Then came the Croats, from the foot of the Carpathian Mountains, to occupy the countries now known as Croatia and Dalmatia. Swatopluk founded in the north-west the kingdom of Great Moravia ; and the Bulgarians, who were another branch of the Hunnic race, established themselves in the countries lying to the east. It was about this time, also, that some other tribes of the Sclavonic family com- menced to settle in some parts of those districts, now known as Hungary and Transylvania. CHAPTER III. A.r>. 884954. THE MAGYARS ORIGIN MANNERS FIRST APPEARANCE IN EUROPE THEIR RAVAGES IN GERMANY AND ITALY FINAL OVERTHROW BY O1HO THE GREAT. THE Magyar historians, anxious as they are to trace the descent of their country- men from so renowned a race as the soldiers of Attila, are still compelled to acknowledge that the connexion between them is so faint as to admit of no better proof or support than conjecture. That there was an affinity of origin and a striking resemblance of manners and customs between the Huns and the immediate ancestors of the modern Hungarians is a fact that hardly admits of dispute, but all evidence of any nearer relation was lost in the whirlwind of war, change and devastation, which for three centuries after the death of Attila swept the plains of Pannonia. The Hungarians first made their appearance in Europe about the year 884 of the Christrian era. Their national and oriental appellation was Magyar, but they were known to the Greeks as a tribe of Scythians, called Turks, from the same region as that from which the Huns had issued. They were undoubtedly the brothers of the fierce Mahometan hordes who afterwards overthrew the imperial city ; and it is said that they for a long time kept up a correspondence with their countrymen on the confines of Persia, and that when some of their missionaries, after their conversion to Christianity, visited the ancient seats of their ancestors, they were welcomed as kinsmen by the rude tribes which still lingered there, spoke the old language and bore the name of Hungarians. The Magyars were first looked upon by the inhabitants of the western world as the Gog and Magog of the Scriptures,* and their appearance as a warning that the end of all things was at hand. The clergy took the matter into their most serious consideration, but, unfortunately, could not come to any decision that would either allay or confirm the fears of their flocks, until their response, what- ever it might have been, woiild have assumed the form of a prophecy after the event. And in truth there was good reason for alarm, and excuse enough for those freaks of imagination in which superstition and fanaticism are ever prone Milman's Gibbon, vol. v. p. 294. 26 HISTORY OF HUNGARY. to indulge. The new comers fell by no means beloAV the standard of the Huns in ugliness or ferocity. Men usually disfigure what they fear and hate, but after making all due allowance for the exaggerations of terror, we may presume there was enough in the manners and appearance of the invaders and in the wide- spread devastation which they committed, to enable the inhabitants of western Europe, whose condition already presented some resemblance to the peace and luxury of the empire, to connect them without difficulty with the bloodshed and ruin Avhich the prediction had taught them should precede the second coming of the Lord. The Magyars were a people of Fennic origin, as is clearly proved by the affinity between the idioms of their language and those of the language of the Fennic race, a barbarous people who once occupied the northern parts of Europe and Asia. The name Ugri or Igours is still found in the countries bordering on the west of China, and a similar one has been discovered in the southern quarters of Siberia. The remains of these Finnish tribes are now scattered thinly through northern Russia and Lapland. But how great the difference between Laplanders and Hungarians of the present day! the one a hardy, athletic, warlike, and intellectual race, jealous of their independence and fond of oriental pomp, not in language only, bftt costume and style of living, the very types of life in its highest material development ; the other grovelling savages, wresting a scanty subsistence from an inhospitable climate and a barren soil, small in stature, animal in their appetites, and possessing few marks of intelligence which can be classed much higher than instinct. In comparing the two peoples, we are presented with an impressive lesson of the folly of associating peculiar traits of character with particular races, without reference to the circumstances by which they have been surrounded through a long course of years. Oppression would make slaves and liars of Spartans just as a polar climate has made Laplanders of Magyars. The tents of the Hungarians were of leather, and their garments of fur. They shaved their hair and scarified their faces. They were slow in speech and prompt in action. They possessed most of the vices as well as most of the virtues of barbarous nomade tribes. Pardonable national vanity has induced some Magyar historians to describe the social life of their forefathers as one of charming simplicity, in which the crimes, follies, and meannesses of civilisation were unknown. In this they are not alone. Shepherd hordes, from whatever cause. have in all ages been objects of admiration to those whom a more advanced stage of culture has fixed to one spot, and employed in the soberer pursuits of commerce or the tillage of the soil. Arcadia has always been the chosen seat of simplicity and contentment. But in reality there is no connexion between herding flocks and roaming from place to place, and the practice of virtue, save in the imagination of poets and enthusiasts. The Magyars, like other nations in a state of barbarism, were content with what they had, only because they saw nothing better ; when they saw it, they coveted it, and used force to gain pos- MANNERS. 27 session of it. Rude warriors, whose proudest boast was their valour, and to whom fighting was an exciting pleasure, they seldom lied, because lying is a sign of fear and weakness ; but where force could not avail them, they had no hesitation in calling in the aid of fraud. Engagements and treaties, however solemn, were readily broken, when they could be broken with impunity. They supported themselves partly by fishing and hunting, and partly by keeping immense herds of sheep and oxen. Accompanied by the latter, they moved from place to place, abandoning each as soon as the pasturage became scanty. At the close of a day's march their tents were pitched, without order, and without defensive precaution, save what was afforded by their troops of light cavalry, which scoured the country for miles round, and soon detected the approach of an enemy. When they first entered Europe, their only arms were the bow and arrow, in the use of which they possessed wonderful dexterity. From his earliest boyhood every warrior was practised in horsemanship and archery. To vide boldly and aim surely were the two great accomplishments, to the acquisition of which his life was devoted. In the most rapid charge or most hasty retreat, he could discharge his arrows in any direction with equal force and precision, before, behind, or into the air. Onsets were made with disordered ranks, loosened reins, and wild cries, and the army fled without hesitation, if it were not at the first moment successful, but woe to the enemy that ventured too far in pursuit. He was soon taught that when the Magyars turned their backs it was no sign of fear, but part of a system of tactics. When successful, they made a terrible use of the victory _ As they never asked for mercy, so they never gave any. Their dreadful ferocity astonished and horrified those who remembered the attacks of the Saracen and the Dane, and whose grandfathers had handed down to them traditions of the devas- tating vengeance of Attila. They not only sacked and pillaged the towns, but slaughtered the inhabitants of every age and sex. This barbarian cruelty was relieved by one trait of honour and humanity. In their wildest ravages they never inflicted upon women any worse injury than death and this shows the existence, even then, of a spark of nobility, which has since kindled into the chi- valrous gallantry by which modern Hungarians are distinguished. In the laws they enacted for their own internal government, they evinced good sense and discern- ment, and a strong spirit of justice. Theft, as the commonest and most disgraceful offence in a camp, where all property was exposed, was punished with death, and all other crimes with less, but proportionate severity. Their manners in domestic life were simple as possible, The ceremony of marriage was unknown. A man lived with one, or two, or three women, as iriclmation prompted or his means allowed, and some traces of this easy arrange- ment are to be ftmnd in some of the Magyar idioms at the present day. A man is not said to marry, but ' : make a house or a household."* A Magyar virgin still calls * Ildsassuy, huSasodds. I) 2 28 HISTORY OF HUNGARY. herself hajadon, or " girl with uncovered hair; '' the married women wear bonnets. There is still another phrase, meaning " a girl for sale !" which, perhaps, implies the existence of a custom in those primitive times, on the part of the bold warriors, of purchasing with money or cattle the partners of their domestic joys and sorrows. Some of their proverbs give evidence of a knowledge of higher and better princi- ples than their manners indicated : " The three things most conducive to happi- ness are, labour, sobriety, and moderation in pleasure." " Man's life is but a TIIK PANNOXIAX MOVXT. migration," &c. They measured time by the changes of the moon. Sunday received the name of ras, or rasarnap, from the circumstance that on that day was held a great iron-market, when they were settled in the vicinity of Mount Altai, in Asia.* Of their religious belief previous to their conversion to Christianity little is known. That they were monotheists is certain, for the word Isten. God, is the only word in the language, even to the present day, which expresses the idea of a supreme being ; but they sacrificed white horses, on some occasions, to demons of subordinate position, but whether good or evil cannot be ascertained. Their first conquests and final settlement in Europe extended beyond the Roman province of Pannonia, or the modern kingdom of Hungary. Up to that period it had been thinly occupied by the Moravians, a tribe of Sclavonian origin, * La Hongric Historiquc. FIRST APPEARANCE IN EUROPE. 2.9 which Charlemagne had partially subdued. Their dukes, however, refused to obey his successors, and Arnulph invoked the aid of the Magyars to subdue them. The latter joyously answered to the call ; but, having once entered the confines of the civilised world, they made up their minds never to return. During Arnulph's lifetime they remained peaceable ; but, during the minority of his son Lewis, they made such good use of their opportunities, that, in a single day, in the year 900, they laid waste a tract of country fifty miles in circumference. At the battle of ANCIENT MAGYARS. Augsburg, the Christian army was totally routed, and the Hungarians carried fire and sword through Bavaria, S wabia, and Franconia. To the terror they inspired the feudal castles and walled towns owe their origin ;* for both barons and burghers had to take precautions against the attacks of a foe who swept over the country with the rapidity and destructiveness of a simoom of the desert. The German empire was for thirty years compelled to pay tribute, through the fear of seeing put * Milman's Gibbon, vol. v. p. 300. 30 IIIMOKY (U into execution ft threat to carry all the women and children into captivity, and slaughter all the males above the age of ten years. At last they approached the confines of Italy, and pitched their camp on the Brenta. But they were surprised and alarmed at beholding the apparent strength and populousness of the country which lay beyond, and asked leave to retire. The Italian king, in the first flush of exultation, rashly refused it In the battle which followed, 20,000 of his soldiers were slain, and his army totally defeated. The invaders now poured over the country like an avalanche. Pavia, the first city of the west in wealth and splendour, was burnt and plundered, forty-three churches being consumed in one day, and of the population only two hundred were spared, who bought their Ihes by a quantity of gold and silver collected from amongst the smoking ruins. The churches that escaped during the inroads of which this was but the commencement, embodied in their litany the fearful prayer, " Oh, save and deliver us, thine unworthy servants, we beseech Thee, from the arrows of the Hungarians !" " Nunc te rogamus, licet servi pessimi, Ab TJngerorura, nos defendas jaculis '." The sum of ten bushels of silver Avas paid as a ransom for Italian subjects who had fallen into the invaders' hands, and were threatened with death ; but it is said the latter were cheated in the settling of the account. The Hungarians next turned their attention to the eastern empire, routed the Bulgarians, and presented themselves before Constantinople. The Greeks were protected by their walls ; but one of the Magyar warriors, in a spirit of haughty defiance, rode up, and struck his battle-axe into the Golden Gate. They were at last, by the united influence of tribute, expostulation, and entreaty, induced to retrace their steps, and leave the imperial city to be sacked two or three centuries later by another horde of the same race. At last, in the year 934, the power of the Hungarians was broken, and a stop put to their ravages by Henry the Fowler, and his son Otho the Great, two Saxon princes. The former rose from a sick bed to take the command of his army when he heard of their approach. He advised his countrymen to receive the first discharge of the Magyar arrows upon their bucklers, and prevent a second by closing with their lances. They obeyed his injunctions and Avon a complete victory, Avhich Henry commemorated by having it painted upon the Avails of the great hall in his castle of Merseburgh. Twenty years afterwards (954), Avhen Henry was dead, they again invaded the dominions of his son Otho the Great, Avith 100,000 horse, and passing the Rhine and the Meuse, penetrated to the heart of Flanders. The vigour and energy of Otho stayed the torrent, The German princes united against the common foe, and passed their combined forces in solemn revieAv upon the plains of Augsburg. They consisted of eight legions, composed of various tribes from the different pnmnces. All the aid which religious devotion in a superstitious age could give DEFEAT BY OTHO THE GREAT. 31 to support the courage of the troops, was called into requisition. They were purified by a fast, and the camp was blessed by the relics of the saints and martyrs. Otho girded on the sword of Constantino, the first that had ever conquered under the banner of the cross, grasped the spear of Charlemagne, and waved the banner of St. Maurice. lie carried with him likewise, as his surest ground of hope, the holy lance, the point of which was made from the nails of the true cross, and which had been purchased from the Duke of Burgundy by the gift of a province. Thus fortified, the Christian warriors awaited the pagan onslaught. The Hunga- rians crossed the Lech secretly, and followed on the rear of the German army, plundered the baggage, and carried confusion into the ranks of the Swabian and Bohemian legions. The Franconians came to the rescue, and restored the fortune of the day, and the Saxons, incited by the example, and inspired by the voice of their leader, performed prodigies of valour, and achieved a victory surpassing in magnitude and importance any that had been won for three centuries before. The Hungarians were totally routed, and their jretreat being cut off by the rivers of Bavaria, they were slaughtered without mercy, their past cruelties having deprived them of all claim on the pity of their conquerors. Three of their princes were hanged at Ratisbon, and the fugitives who escaped were but too glad to settle down in weakness and disgrace upon the plains from which they had so often issued to spread terror and dismay throughout Europe. There the Magyars mingled with the Jazyges, the Moravians, and the Szeklers, and derived fresh energy from intermarriage with the thousands of robust captives whom they had carried from all parts of Europe in their forrays. They ndw began to adopt the customs of civilised life, and established a regular form of government, under the most iamous of their chiefs or dukes, Arpad. The country was divided into a number of districts or counties, each governed by an electoral chief. Cities somewhat resem- bling those of the Romans, but ruder and less solid, began to spring up. All great state affairs were decided by a mounted assemblage of the warriors in the plains bordering on the river Teyss. The colonies of foreign races and the western captives were suffered to pursue their occupations in peace, and enjoyed the pro- tection of the law ; but the men of pure Magyar blood retained a supremacy, which in later days ripened into thejmodern Hungarian nobility. CHAPTER IV. A.D. 8941095. THE DYNASTY OF ARPAD. ABPAD reigned, in 894, over a million of Magyars, over whom 215,000 composed the armed force of the nation, and with wisdom in advance of his age, he devoted his attention to the consolidation of his power, as the surest means of securing it; and for this purpose he convoked an assemblage in a large plain, under the open sky, to consult upon the. measures to be adopted. In this we find the origin of the Hungarian Diet, and of the privileges which the Magyars reserved to themselves alone, to the exclusion of the conquered tribes, and which at that time were necessary for the preservation of their conquests. The Magyars were all equal, and those of them who have not preserved their nobility down to the present day, have lost it in consequence of their long refusal to become converts to Christianity. Arpad's memory is still held in veneration amongst the Hun- garians, as he is considered the real founder of the nation. Of his immediate successors little is known. The Magyars were separated from the rest of Europe as well by language and religion as by the memory of their past cruelties and the dread of future inroads. The last instance upon record in which they revived the ancient terror of their name, was an attack upon Venice in the reign of Duke Zoltan, Arpad's successor. Under him the Magyar hordes once more abandoned the plains on which they had settled, and, forcing the passes of the Alps, penetrated to the shore of the Adriatic (A.D. 900). Excited by rumours of the wealth and magnificence of Venice, which even at that early period was renowned for the enterprise of her merchants and the extent of her commerce, they deter- mined to cross over and attack her. They hastily embarked in the first boats that came in their way, and Citta Nuovo, Equilo, Capo-d'Argere, and Chiozza speedily fell victims to their fury. The chain of islands forming a sort of pier or jetty, the two extremities of which touch the mainland, was now invaded, and they had but to cross the narrow arm of the sea which separates Venice from Malamocco. Terror and disorder reigned in the capital. The Doge, Pietro Tribuno, hastily equipped the fleet, and rousing the courage of the Venetians by reminding them of their victory over Pepin in the same place and in as great an extremity, led them against the enemy. We can hardly suppose that the Magyars, unacquainted as they must have been with the art of navigation, and provided only with such DEFEAT BY THE VENETIANS. 33 vessels as they happened to find in the ports on their route, were in a position to offer a vigorous resistance to the hardy and experienced sailors of the " city of the sea." There was little to sustain their courage save the thirst for plunder, and fury at being opposed when they had all but grasped it. The doge, profiting by his knowledge of the locality, and the dexterity and skill of his crews, speedily routed them. The majority made a hasty escape to the mainland, but the sea AKPAD. remained covered with the arms, clothing, and dead bodies of a great multitude of the slain.* The successor of the three terrible dukes, Arpad, Zoltan, and Zoxis, Geysa, married a Bavarian princess, and caused himself to be baptised into the Christian faith. During the reign of Charlemagne in Germany, missionaries had, under his auspices, made strenuous efforts to introduce the Christian religion into Hungary, and had been partially successful ; but no sooner was he dead than most of the * Daru's Histoirc (k- la Tiepublique dc Veil inc. 34 HISTORY OF HUNGARY. converts relapsed into paganism, and the few who remained faithful to then- principles were compelled to worship in secret, in order to escape the violence and persecution of their countrymen, who looked upon them as innovators and impious contemners of the religion of their forefathers. The Christians met by night, as the Roman churches had done eight centuries before, to celebrate the rites of baptism and the Lord's supper, and sought to keep alive the fire of faith by frequent intercourse with the people and clergy of the neighbouring nations. After Geysa had ascended the throne, his inclination towards the new faith was soon made manifest. Making due allowance for exaggeration in the eulogies which the church and the national historians have heaped upon him, he appears to have been a man superior in intellect, and perhaps in cultivation, to the mass of the people whom he was called upon to govern, and to have seen with regret that robbery and murder were looked upon by them as the only occupation worthy of Magyars. He perceived also the vast superiority possessed by the neigh- bouring nations in the arts and sciences and the comforts of life, and ascribed the whole, or at least the greater part of it to the religion they professed. He resolved to act the part of Numa, and become the reformer of the creed as well as of the manners of his countrymen. He therefore collected great numbers of Christian missionaries from various parts of Europe to instruct them in the rudiments of the true faith. All the national prejudices were at once roused against him. The old Magyars, who recounted with pride the exploits of Zoltan and Zoxis, the dangers and glory of which they themselves had shared, and told how Italian mothers soothed their perverse children by the mere mention of the terrible warriors of Pannonia, were enraged at his departure from the faith in which their fathers and brothers had conquered and died ; and the young men, and even the women, mocked at the effeminacy of a chief who was more intent upon empty ceremonial and the idle jargon of foreign priests than the exercises of the camp and preparation for war. The duke was, however, supported by the adjacent nations, particularly the Saxons, who were not a little pleased to see their troublesome neighbours about to undergo the softening ^influences of the Christian faith, and was thus enabled to bring his reign to a peaceful close without any open demonstration of discontent on the part of his subjects. He founded a considerable number of schools and colleges for the education of the clergy, and made some attempts to put down robbery and murder then but trifling offences in the eyes of the people, to whom it seemed almost natural that the warriors, who had inflicted so many evils upon foreigners, should now and then, by way of relaxation, turn their arms against their own countrymen. He died without seeing the darling object of his life the conversion of the nation m reality much nearer its accomplishment than when he commenced his reign ; but he had at least sown the seeds of Christianity. Upon his death, his son Stephen ascended the throne, of whose birth a curious REIGN OF ST. STEPHEN. 35 story is told as to the means taken by the saints to announce to his parents the great destinies that were in store for their offspring. Its truth to us seems more than doubtful ; but as at the present day there are almost as many degrees in faith as varieties in physiognomy, we leave our readers to judge. The name of Geysa's wife was Saroltha, to whom, while pregnant, the proto- martyr Stephen appeared in a dream, and thus addressed her : " Woman, be of good courage, and put thy faith in Christ ; know that thou shalt bring forth a fortunate son, unto whom this kingdom shall be given. Such a wonderful man as he shall be Pannonia has never seen, nor after his death shall ever see again ; and after his departure he shall be numbered amongst the saints. I am Stephen, the protomartyr ; give him my name." Upon awakening, Saroltha returned thanks to God, and ordered masses to be said in honour of the saint upon all the Christian altars in the kingdom ; and after her son's birth, he received in baptism the name of Stephen. The boy was care- fully educated, and his father, shortly before his death, presented him to the people in a solemn assemblage, expressing his belief that it Avas reserved for him to win them to civilisation and Christianity, as the Lord had appeared to him in a dream, and informed him that the part he had taken in war and rapine in his youth had unfitted him for succeeding in so holy a work. Stephen was immediately saluted duke by the assembled warriors, and after his father's decease entered upon the government under the most favourable auspices. Geysa's work of evangelisation was steadily carried out ; and though the earlier part of his reign was disturbed by conspiracy and rebellion, his efforts were completely successful. Churches were built in all parts of the country, parishes marked out, and priests appointed to their cure, and the ancient Scythian rites finally abandoned. The altars were decorated with sumptuous magnificence, and everything that eccle- siastical ingenuity could devise was displayed in profusion to impress the untutored imaginations of the people. Having accomplished to his satisfaction this change in the religion of the country, Stephen turned his attention to the chastisement and subjugation of the various tribes surrounding his dominions, who under his father's peaceful rule had grown insolent with impunity. His arms were in every case successful, and, with a propagandist zeal quite in keeping with the character of the man and the spirit of the times, the adoption of Christianity was made an essential condition in every treaty made with the vanquished. * For all these pious labours he received from Pope Sylvester II. a royal crown, and the title of " Apostolic King," which the emperors of Austria bear at the present day. His political reforms were scarcely less important than his religious ones. The influence of the Catholic clergy, and daily contact with the neighbouring states, whose government was rather feudal than democratic, induced Stephen to substi- tute a constitutional monarchy for the rude and loosely organised military repiiblic, * Bonfinius Her. Hung. Dec. ii. p. 215. E 2 36 HISTORY OF HUNGARY. of which his ancestors had simply been the chieftains. He established three different orders in the state prelates, magnates (senior es domini}, and the inferior nobility (nobilcs servientes regales]. Each of these orders had an actual share in the administration of the government, but in the diets they could come to no decision unless they were unanimous.* The palatine (Nagy-ur] was, next the king, the most important personage, and filled the monarch's place during his absence r illness. Stephen afterwards appointed a supreme judge (orsz&gl&rtf 1 )', a treasurer, and other superior officers and magnates, who constituted the order of barons of the empire. Under this head were included the chiefs of the ancient Magyar class or tribe. It will be seen that the republican government was thus entirely destroyed. In the new order of things the church, as usual, came in for the lion's share of power and profit. The clergy, by working on the religious disposition of the king, managed to secure a high political position and the first rank in the three orders. Stephen, also, was the first to establish the districts called counties, which exist down to the present day ; and each of these retained the right of administering its internal affairs independent of all others. The members of the nobility generally occupied seats in the council, and the king himself was freqiiently present at the meetings. The counties were, in almost every respect, minor republics, and, besides, had the right of convoking periodically assemblies which exercised a direct influence upon the general administration of the central government. This whole arrangement has always been so highly prized by the Magyars, that tradition says that Stephen made it under the inspiration of the Deity. The military organisation differed in some respects from the civil, but was found to be extremely well adapted for the defence of the country. The military division consisted of sixty-two or seventy-two citadel counties, the commanders of which resided in the fortresses hence their title of Comites Castri. For purposes of defence simply there was a sort of militia upon a scale suited to the habits and traditions of the people. The magnates formed the " king's army" (Kiruly Sereg\ and the nobles in general the national army at present called the insur- rection, and it was obliged to be always in readiness to repel any attempt at foreign invasion. As a natural consequence of this, the possession of land in Hungary was even more intimately connected with the rights of the nobles than elsewhere. Two general principles regulated -the privileges of the nobles, or, in other words, of the conquerors. First, that ever after Stephen's reign, the crown was the proprietor of all the land in the kingdom. In strict law, the nobles were only the possessors or occupiers of their estates ; what we call the right of property being known amongst the Magyars as the right of possession (jus possessionarum}. Secondly, all persons not noble, could not possess land, and were, consequently, not called * This is the statement of the national historian Michael Horvath. Other writers assert that at this period there existed merely a senate with a consultative voice. DEATH AND CANONIZATION OF ST. STEPHEN. 37 upon to defend the kingdom. The entire soil was thus divided amongst the warriors, the companions of the first dukes or chieftains, just as in England after the Norman conquest. The original inhabitants met with the same fate as the Saxons, but, unhappily, the same good fortune was not in store for them. The usual condition attaching to a gift of land in Hungary was the ordinary feudal one of a military service. In every case the sovereign stipulated that in ST. STEPHEN. case of failure of heirs male of the grantee, who alone could fulfil the duties attaching to the tenure, the estate should revert to the grantor, or his heirs, or successors. Stephen wishing, a short time previous to his death, to appoint a successor to his kingdom in some way related to himself, now that his son Emerik was dead, sent hastily for Vazul, the son of his cousin, a young man who, for his licentiousness, had been shut up in prison, and ordered him to be liberated and brought to him forthwith. But upon Gysla, the queen, hearing of this, she entered into a 38 HISTORY OF HUNGARY. conspiracy with Buda, the messenger, to frustrate the king's intentions, in order that a favourite of her own might succeed to the throne. She, therefore, gave orders to Sebus, Buda's son, to precede his father to Vazul's prison, and there put out the eyes of the latter, and fill up his ears with molten lead. Sebus literally carried out his instructions, and then fled into Bohemia. On the following day Buda arrived and led the unfortunate Vazul, thus mutilated, into the presence of the old king, who, on seeing him, gave way to the loudest demonstrations of grief and indignation. But his advanced age, and increasing infirmities, had so far detracted from the vigour of his earlier years, that he was unable to take any steps either for the discovery or the punishment of the perpetrators of this foul crime, and after a feeble attempt to secure the safety of the sons of his cousin Ladislaus, by advising them to fly into Poland, he resigned himself to die, about the year 1034, after a long and glorious reign of nearly forty years. The changes he had wrought in the religion, manners, and government of the kingdom, having won a barbarous and cruel people from habits of rapine and violence, and having taught them to cultivate the arts of civilised life, and dwell in peace with their neighbours, would have been sufficient, in the infancy of the world, to procure his translation to Olympus, without the pain or humiliation of death, and would have caused ten thousand altars to smoke with incense for ages after- wards in honour of his memory. In the eleventh century they were quite sufficient to admit him to the goodly company of the saints and martyrs. For forty years his body lay unnoticed in the tomb, until, in the reign of Ladislaus, a missive was received from the Pope, according the honours of canonization to those who con- verted Hungary to Christianity. Chief among these was the deceased king. Upon the receipt of the authorisation, Ladislaus ordained a fast of three days' duration, and directed all persons of every class to implore, by prayers and suppli- cation, the Divine blessing upon the ceremonial they were about to perform. A solemn procession marched to the tomb, but, on reaching it, it was found that no efforts could remove the stone from the entrance. After several attempts had failed, the popular voice began to ascribe the difficulty to a miraculous manifesta- tion of Divine displeasure, and the king looked around in sore perplexity for the explanation of the mystery. A certain virgin named Cliaris came to the rescue, by informing Ladislaus that the reluctance of the stone to quit its position was due to his having imprisoned his brother Soloman a short time previously, in consequence of a quarrel; and prophesied that until he had been released all efforts to remove it would prove futile. Her advice and rebuke were attended to : Soloman was released, the stone thrown aside, the body carried forth, and a volume would not suffice to enumerate all the blind who on that day received their sight, all the deaf who heard, the lame who walked, the lepers who were cleansed, and all the doubting who were confirmed, or blasphemers who were confounded. So runs the chronicle or tradition. Peter, the grandnephew of Stephen, having obtained the crown through the DETHRONEMENT OF PETER. ^9 machinations of Gysla, the old king's wife, had no sooner ascended the throne than he disgusted all parties by his tyranny. Not only did he refuse to tread in the footsteps of his uncle, whom the Magyars loved to call the Charlemagne and Clovis of Hungary, but he did not even fill the kingly office with ordinary show of outward dignity and decorum. From the very first he insulted and professed to despise the nobility; evinced marked partiality for the Germans and other foreigners, invited them to his court, and acted in everything in accordance with their advice. German garrisons, contrary to the express laws of the kingdom, were placed in the towns and fortresses, and Germans were appointed to fill some of the highest offices in the state. The courtiers affected to contemn the natives of the country as untutored barbarians, and were encouraged in their insolence by Peter himself. In addition to this, he outraged the feelings of the people by an open licentiousness foreign to the national manners, and hitherto unknown in Hungary. The wives and daughters of some of the first families in the kingdom were sub- jected to the most cruel insults from himself and his satellites. The magnates at last sent a deputation to lay before him in detail the various grievances of which they complained, and to implore him to restore the high offices of the state to men of his own nation, to drive the foreign favourites from his court, and last of all to reform his own manners. Their prayers were listened to in contemptuous silence, and rejected with insult. Peter declared that not only would he not expel the Germans, but that he would load them with still greater honours ; that these complaints were dictated by the native turbulence of the Magyars, and that he would show them right speedily that he was sole ruler in his own dominions. The result was such as might have been expected. The deputation retired in indignation, and the nobles instantly met in council, and solemnly entered into a league to dethrone the tyrant, and fixed upon Aba, a man of royal blood, as his successor. Aba was forthwith led before a public assemblage of the armed warriors of the nation, and by them unanimously saluted king with loud acclama- tions, and instant preparations were made to march against Peter. When the latter heard of what had occurred he was seized with consternation, and finding himself deserted by all those who in the days of his prosperity had been loudest in their protestations of fidelity, he fled precipitately into Bavaria. Aba then called together a grand council of the nobles, explained the cause of the rebellion, defended the part he had himself taken in it, and after enumerating Peter's crimes and outrages, solemnly declared his intention of restoring and upholding the ancient order of things, and of governing in accordance with the laws and constitution of the kingdom as established by Stephen of blessed memory. All the illegal decrees of the late king were forthwith revoked, the civil and military officials who had been dismissed to make way for the foreigners were restored, and all Germans expelled from the country. Aba had scarce reigned for three years, when (1042) Peter suddenly prepared to invade the kingdom at 40 H1STOKY OF HUNGARY. the head of a large German army, sent to his aid by the emperor, Henry III., who himself accompanied the expedition. Ambassadors were forthwith despatched to learn from Henry the cause of this sudden attack. The reply which that monarch gave proves that even at that early period, and amongst a people whose history and manners were a standing protest against irresponsible power, the doctrine of divine right, in these latter days productive of so much evil to mankind, was beginning to gain ground. He declared that he could never lightly pass over injuries done to his friends, and in particular the outrage upon Peter, as kings should, from the very nature of their office, be held sacred amongst all nations. Aba replied, that amongst them, the persons of their kings were held sacred, but to tyrants they could never submit. Henry was, however, inex- orable, and Aba resolved to anticipate him by suddenly raising an army, and, entering Austria and Bavaria, laid waste the country on both banks of the Danube, and slaughtered the inhabitants, and re-entered Hungary with a vast amount of plunder and a great number of captives. Henry was celebrating the feast of Easter when he heard of the occurrence, and instantly enumerated, in a full assemblage of the German princes, all the atrocities that had been committed by the Magyars, and announced his intention of marching instantly to inflict summary vengeance upon the perpetrators. Scarcely had he finished, when ambassadors from Hungary presented themselves, who, on learning the intention of the Germans, declared that Aba was quite ready to return the captives and the booty, but as to the restora- tion of Peter, it was a thing not to be thought of, and which they would rather die than submit to. But Henry had already pledged himself to Albert, Duke of Austria, \yhose sister Peter had married, that the restoration of the exiled king should be accomplished at all hazards, and therefore dismissed the ambassadors without any answer. Internal troubles in his own dominions, however, caused the postponement of the intended expedition, and Aba, in the meantime, endea- voured to amuse him by fair words and fine promises which he neither intended nor had the ability to fulfil. In the interval dissensions and discontents arose in the kingdom, the exact origin of which we have now no means of ascertaining. By his attempt to improve the condition of the peasants, or serfs, Aba appears to have excited the hostility of the nobles, but what measures he adopted for that purpose, or in w r hat manner he attempted to carry them out, we know not. The descendants of the ancient Dacians, and the debris of all the tribes who from time to time had settled in Pannonia in the earlier centuries of Christianity, and been obliged to submit to more powerful invaders, had, as we have already said, under the Magyar domi- nation sunk into the abject condition of tillers of the soil for their conquerors' benefit, and came at last to be numbered amongst the chattels on the farm. The condition of these people, as in all other countries of Europe where a conquest had taken place, was deplorable. They were not allowed to change their place of residence, except by consent of their owners ; were incapable of acquiring DEATH OF ABA. 41 property ; and were daily subject to all the outrages which unbridled power in a rude and barbarous age could inflict. It is more than probable that Aba was a man of philosophic mind, and humane disposition, that he pitied these unfortunate men, and risked his crown in the attempt to liberate or elevate them ; but as all the accounts of his quarrel with the nobles and its consequences which have come down to us are not only meagre in the extreme, but are from the pen of chroniclers whose prejudices were in favour of the conquering party, they must be received with great sus- picion. His attempts at innovation and intrenchment on their rights and privileges excited the ire of the nobility to such a degree, that they considered the offences of Peter small in comparison,* 4 and forthwith began to conspire to bring about his restoration. The plot was discovered before it was ripe : some of the conspirators were arrested, tried, and put to death ; some fled to Henry's camp ; and others, being induced to appear at court for the purpose of discussing their grievances openly with the king, were secretly despatched by his guards. The fugitives implored the German emperor to rid the kingdom of this cruel monster, who would never fulfil his engagements, who had insulted the nobility, and degraded the kingly office by frequent and familiar intercourse with serfs and ploughmen, and whose crimes called loudly for vengeance. Henry listened to their supplica- tions with a willing ear, and began his march, under the guidance of the refugees, and coming up with the Hungarian army, instantly offered battle. The contest was long and bloody ; but while the issue was still doubtful, the defection of a large body of his forces threw Aba's army into confusion, and led to his total defeat. The Germans ascribed their victory partly, of course, to their own valour, and partly to the timely appearance of a sign in the heavens, upon which a great Avind arose, and blew into the faces of their antagonists a thick cloud of dust which blinded and disheartened them. Whatever we may think of the miracle, there is no doubt about the result of the engagement. Aba fled precipitately across the Danube, until, on arriving at a village on the Teyss, he was slain by some of his own followers, and buried in a neighbouring church (1044). Peter was now restored to the throne which he had lost by his folly, but he appeared to have learnt nothing and forgotten nothing in adversity. He again surrounded himself by foreigners, repaid the services of the nobles who had joined Henry's army by insult and neglect, and soon convinced them that the exchange they had made was by no means for the better. A spirit of discontent spread through the whole nation, and when the three princes, Andrew, Bela, and Leventa, whom Stephen had sent into Poland for safety after the mutilation of Vazul, appeared once * " Usque adeo insolens effectus est, ut competitore perniciosior esse videretur, quippe qui et fovere humiles agrestesque, et in nobiles immaniter saevire, coeperat." Bonfin. Dec. ii. lib. ii. p. 219. 42 HISTORY OF HUNGARY. more on the scene, their advent was hailed with acclamation. They had been received by Misco, the king of Poland, with great kindness and cordiality, and one of them, Bela, had distinguished himself during his stay in his dominions by an act of romantic valour, which in that age powerfully impressed the imaginations of the people. A dispute had arisen between the Poles and the Pomeranians as to the payment of tribute, which the former claimed from the latter. The contending parties were about to decide it by an appeal to arms, when it was proposed that, instead of a general engagement of the two armies, a champion should be chosen on each side, to whose strength and valour should be confided the assertion of the rights of his countrymen. If the Pole proved victorious, the Pomeranians should pay the tribute ; if not, not. Bela came forward, and volunteered his services as the champion of Poland. They were accepted, and in the first onset he unhorsed his antagonist, and then despatched him with a single blow of his sword ; for which exploit Misco loaded him with favours, bestowed on him large estates in Pome- rania, and gave him his daughter Gysla in marriage, by whom he had two sons, Geysa and Ladislaus. The other two brothers, Andrew and Leventa, after various wanderings amongst the Cumans and the Russians, returned at last to Hungary, upon hearing of the feeling of discontent which pervaded the minds of the people. Here they were presented to large assemblages of the Magyars, who unanimously saluted them kings, and called loudly for the destruction of all foreigners and priests, the overthrow of the Christian religion and the churches built for its worship, and the restoration of the ancient Scythian rites a striking proof of the superficial nature of the conversions effected at that period amongst the barbarians of northern Europe. Putting themselves at the head of the multitude, the two princes marched rapidly towards Buda, the chief city of the kingdom. Some priests, and most of the bishops, were slaughtered on the way. Peter attempted once more to find safety in flight, but found himself encom- passed on every side by enemies, and was at last captured in the village of Zamur ; and his eyes having been put out, he died of grief and vexation three days afterwards, in the third year from his restoration to the throne. The foreigners having been everywhere expelled, Andrew and Leventa marched to Alba Regia, the royal residence, where the former was solemnly crowned king, with the consent and approbation of the magnates, but only three bishops could be found to assist at the coronation, the others having been slain or having taken flight (1047). Andrew had no sooner ascended the throne, than he issued an ordinance, com- manding all Hungarians, upon pain of death, to abandon all pagan rites and ceremonies, and return to the worship of the true God, and of his son Jesus Christ ; and ordering all towns and villages in which any church or chapel had been destroyed, to repair or rebuild it forthwith. As far as we can learn, these injunctions were obeyed without a murmur, the more readily, as Leventa, who was a firm adherent of the pagan faith, died a few days after his brother's WAR WITH THE EMPEROR OF GERMANY. 43 coronation. It seems as if the people disliked Christianity simply because, during Peter's reign, it had come to be associated in their minds with foreign influence and domination, and they returned to paganism because it was the religion of nationality. Our ow-n history contains a similar instance of the antipathy of a people to a creed, because it was the creed of alien oppressors. If England had not been Protestant, in all likelihood Ireland would not now have been Catholic. Andrew's attention for the next few years Avas occupied with the settlement of differences, either by the sword or negotiation, with the surrounding nations. To enter into the details of these squabbles would be tedious and uninteresting, even if it were instructive. Amongst the semi-civilised people of northern Europe, at that time, they were perpetually arising, and exhibit the same monotonous features of treachery, violence, and rapine, redeemed by no better trait than physical courage. When Andrew found himself childless, and in the decline of life, he sent a message to Bela, his brother, who, as we have said, was settled in Poland, requesting him to come into Hungary with his wife and children, that he might assist in calming the contentions and disorders by which the nation was agitated, and that they might divide the kingdom between them (1051). Bela, immediately upon the receipt of this, laid aside the dukedom with which Misco had invested him, and started for his brother's dominions. He was received with the utmost joy, not only by Andrew, but by the whole population ; and an assembly having been held, the kingdom was divided into three parts, two-thirds being reserved for the king, and the remainder being assigned to Bela. The two monarchs ruled over their respective dominions for some years in perfeet harmony, but the calm was rudely broken by another vigorous attack from Henry III., of Germany, who had collected a large force with the avowed intention of avenging the injuries sustained by Peter, and the perfidy and inconstancy of the Hungarians. He entered Hungary at the head of a powerful army, and laid vigorous siege to Presburg, a town on the Danube. He launched floating towers upon the river, and attacked the walls by the aid of every machine in use at that period, at the same time maintaining a strict blockade on every side, so as to starve the garrison into submission. Upon the latter the attack had come unexpectedly, and being totally unprepared for a lengthened defence, they were obliged to resort to stratagem to open up the passage of the river. A skilful swimmer, named Zoth- mund, dropped silently from the walls into the water in the dead of the night, and swimming round the enemy's vessels, bored holes in their sides below the water- mark, and before morning the majority were sunk, in spite of all the efforts of the crews ; and the emperor was compelled to raise the siege in haste. The news having animated the courage of the Hungarians, the Germans were attacked upon every side, and compelled to retreat precipitately into their own country. In the following year, Henry, chagrined by his failure, fitted out another 44 HISTORY OF HUNGARY. expedition, and again invaded Hungary. Andrew and Bela hastily collected their forces, laid waste the frontier districts, so as to deprive the enemy of all supplies on his march, and then awaited the issue. The Germans, after enduring terrible sufferings, were impatiently expecting their fleet by the Danube, when a letter from the admiral to the emperor having fallen into Andrew's hands, a forged answer was returned, commanding him to sink his vessels and join the army at Ratisbon, as the expedition was abandoned. The order was obeyed, and Henry was still in uncertainty, when his camp was suddenly attacked in the night by a large force of Hungarian archers and slingers, who, in the darkness and confusion, slaughtered a vast number of the Germans. He was now fain to solicit peace. Some years previous to this, Andrew, haunted by the fear of dying childless, had married Agmunda, the daughter of the Duke of the Muscovites, and by her had two sons, Soloman and David. To the elder of these, Soloman, the emperor offered to betroth his daughter Sophia, as a pledge of the peace and amity which he wished henceforth to maintain with the king of Hungary. His offers were accepted ; a treaty was made, provisions were sent in abundance to the German camp, and a short time afterwards the nuptial rites were celebrated with great pomp. The former had not yet emerged from boyhood, and was thus but too soon made acquainted with the cares and anxieties of the world. Andrew was now seized with paralysis, and believing his end to be approaching, declared Soloman his heir, before an assembly of the prelates and magnates, by whom he was solemnly crowned. At the ceremony, according to custom, the words of Isaac to Jacob were chanted or recited : " Let the people serve thee, and nations bow down to thee. Be lord over thy brethren, and let thy mother's sons bow down to thee ; " * and although this was interpreted to Bela as signifying Andrew's intention that he and his two sons, Geysa and Ladislaus, should be subject to the sway of Soloman, it does not appear that he made an objection to the claims of the young prince to what was certainly his lawful inheritance. But in a very short time some of the nobles, who bore no good will to Bela, made it appear to Andrew, that as long as his brother lived, his son would never enjoy the kingdom in peace, and they advised him to employ stratagem to learn Bela's intentions. The latter was accordingly invited to court, and Andrew received him reclining on a couch in the open air, having a sword and a crown placed on the ground at his side, The former symbolized the dukedom, the latter the kingdom. Bela was to be offered his choice of the two as a present ; if he chose the crown, it was to be taken as a proof that his intentions were sinister, and he was to be slain on the spot, if he chose the sword, that he was content with his position, and would never attempt aught against his nephew's supremacy. The plot was revealed to Bela by the treachery of a servant, and he prudently chose the sword. > * Gen. xxvii. 29. BETA'S REFORMS. 45 Transported with delight, the old king sent him away laden with presents, and being convinced of the sincerity of his attachment, solemnly committed the interests of his son to his keeping. But Bela was so alarmed by the dangerous position in which his brother's suspicions had placed him, that in three months afterwards he fled with all his family to the court of Misco, his father-in-law, told him of all the injuries and insults he had received from Andrew, and besought him to aid him in taking "possession of the Hungarian crown, supporting his prayer by drawing a glowing picture of the advantages that would result from the close alliance of the two kingdoms. Misco complied with his request, and placed a strong force at his disposal, with which he invaded his brother's dominions. Andrew, on his side, Avas not idle ; he sent an embassy to Henry representing the dangers of his situation, and asking for an auxiliary force. The emperor instantly sent him 12,000 men, and a similar contingent was furnished by Bratis- laus, King of Bohemia. The two armies met on the banks of the Teyss ; the German troops crossed the river, and fiercely attacked the combined Polish and Hungarian forces of Bela. The battle which ensued was long and bloody, and ended in the total defeat of Andrew, who was taken prisoner, and died on the following day, leaving Bela in undisturbed possession of the kingdom (1C62). Bela, immediately after his coronation, turned his whole attention to internal reforms. He established a regular system of coinage, appointed places and times for the holding of markets, and even took upon himself to fix the prices of com- modities, and admitted the use of Byzantine coins. He secured to all Soloman's family and relatives the full and undisturbed enjoyment of their property. The exercise of pagan worship throughout the whole of his dominions was strictly forbidden upon pain of death. To* him also belongs the honour of organising the two legislative chambers. His energy, impartiality, and pure administration of justice, tended greatly to the development of the national resources, and it was not without unfeigned sorrow that his subjects received the news of his death, which was caused by the falling of a ruined wall, which broke his limbs in such a manner as to baffle the skill of the physicians of the time (1065). Soloman, Andrew's son, immediately called upon Henry IV. of Germany, the son and successor of the late emperor, to restore him to his father's throne, and by his aid, Geysa and Ladislaus were compelled to fly into Poland, and Soloman was put in undisturbed possession of the kingdom. In a short time the two brothers again made their appearance upon the frontier with a Polish army, and there appeared every probability of another civil war. By the mediation of the clergy, however, a reconciliation was effected, by which the kingdom was ceded to Soloman, and to Geysa was reserved his father's dukedom. This was a period of new conquests. Between the years 602 and 641 great hordes of Serbs and Croats, quitting the countries in which they dwelt beyond the Carpathian mountains, settled in the northern part of the Greek Illyria, that is 4g HISTORY OF HUNGARY. to say, in the south of modern Hungary. Those who took up their abode in the extremity of the district adopted the name of the town of Delminium, in order to distinguish themselves from the others, and called themselves Dalmatians ; the Croats, at present established in the countries to the south-west of Hungary, pre- served their original appellation, as did also the Serbs, who retired further towards the east. The name of Sclaves (Schiavoni) was given by the Venetians to a tribe dwelling between the Croats and the Serbs. Crecimir, the first Croat prince, attained to a very high degree of power, which was the means of securing to his son, Dirsizlaw, the title of King of Croatia, about the year 970. In the time of Soloman, Peter Crecimir, a descendant of the great Crecimir, an able and courageous monarch, occupied the throne, and enlarged his dominions by wrest- ing Dalmatia from the Venetians, and subduing a part of Sclavonia. Having been attacked by Berthold, the Duke of Carinthia, Crecimir invoked the aid of the Magyars, which Soloman cheerfully rendered; by his help, Berthold was totally defeated (1089). Soloman and his two cousins did not long continue to exhibit an example of fraternal unity and concord. Urged on by evil counsellors, Soloman began to long for the expulsion and destruction of his rivals ; and after laying a variety of snares for them, all of which they escaped, he at last openly took up arms against them. After several battles, he was at length totally defeated, and was driven out of the kingdom. In his reign the incursions of the Cumans and Bohemians had been checked by a long series of wars, into the details of which it would be impos- sible to enter. When Geysa and Ladisla.us found themselves victorious, they marched forthwith to Alba Regia, the state residence of the Hungarian kings, where the former, as the elder brother, was formally crowned and proclaimed king, with the approbation of the majority of the nobles, and Ladislaus was by him appointed duke or palatine of the kingdom. Soloman immediately sought the aid of his brother-in-law, Henry IV. of Ger- many, who led a large army, well provided with stores of every description, into Hungary, while a well-equipped fleet followed his march down the Danube. The two brothers were not slow in making defensive preparations, and marched reso- lutely to meet the invaders. While besieging the town of Nitria, the garrison made a sally, and engaged hand to hand with the Germans ; but the conflict was like some of the battles between the rival states in Italy in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, in which, after the combat had lasted from early morn until eve, none were slain and but few hurt. One of the Hungarian officers, Opus Bathor, being at last disgusted with what he considered child's play, rode straight into the ranks of the enemy and killed a man before the eyes of the citizens. His horse immediately fell, pierced by a hundred javelins, but Bathor, nothing daunted, valiantly maintained his ground on foot, and fought his way out uninjured. The German emperor beheld the feat with astonishment, and asked Soloman how many ELECTION OP LADISLAUS. 47 soldiers of equal strength Ladislaus and Geysa had in their army. Soloman, more considerate of the fame of his country than of his own success, replied that the Hungarian forces contained not only many that were equal, but thousands that were superior. " Then believe me," was Henry's rejoinder, " you will never recover your kingdom." It was not the intention of Geysa, however, to decide the quarrel by force of arms, as long as other means remained open to him ; and he diligently set about bribing the German'nobles and military leaders to dissuade Henry from following up his enterprise, and by the same instrumentality a serious mutiny was excited amongst the soldiery. The emperor was persuaded that he was unwisely risking the safety of his own army in a quarrel in which he had no sort of interest ; and, overcome by his fears, he struck his camp, and returned precipitately into his dominions. Soloman, in the meantime, took refuge in Presburg, and, by means of the intrigues which he carried on, gave great uneasiness to the two princes. They then commenced negotiations with him for peace and reconciliation, in the midst of which Geysa died, after a reign of three years. After the funeral ceremony was over, the question of a successor began to be agitated. Legitimacy was undoubtedly upon the side of Soloman, but the people found it impossible to forget the splendid services which Ladislaus had rendered to the state, and his piety, wisdom, fortitude, and prudence ; and he was, in consequence, unanimously elected by the prelates, magnates, and nobles. Shortly after he had ascended the throne, Zelomir, the king of Croatia and Dalmatia, his sister's husband, died childless, leaving his kingdom to his wife. The widow was soon attacked by her enemies abroad, and assailed by sedition at home, and in her perplexity appealed to her brother for protection and assistance. He immediately marched with a powerful army to her aid, and soon restored peace ; but as she had no children, and was wearied by the cares of state, she resigned her dominions to Ladislaus, and Croatia and Dalmatia were henceforth subject to the Hungarian crown. Soloman, in the meantime, did not desist from his intrigues for the recovery of his father's kingdom ; but a treaty was at length concluded by which he aban- doned his claims, and consented to retire into Germany, upon condition that he received a yearly stipend sufficient to support him in princely style. He soon became tired of his forced exile, and sent to request an interview with Ladislaus, for the purpose, as he pretended, of more cordially confirming their reconciliation, but in reality in order to seize him and carry him off. Ladislaus received timely warning of the snare, and placed a powerful body of troops in ambush in the vicinity of the place of meeting. Everything turned out as he expected. The attendants of Soloman arrested him, but, as they were marching away, the captors were surrounded and led captive, and Ladislaus released. Soloman, chagrined and humiliated by the want of success attendant upon his treachery, was led prisoner to Visegrad, and there kept. In a very short time he managed to 48 HISTORY OF HUNGARY. enter into a conspiracy with a tribe called the Chuni, and induced them to attack Hungary ; but on hearing of their utter defeat by Ladislaus, fearing that proofs of his complicity might have been discovered, he effected his escape, and sought refuge amongst his discomfited allies, whom he once more stirred up to invade Bulgaria, where they laid waste the country and slaughtered many of the inhabitants. Nicephorus, the Greek emperor, forthwith led an army against them, and routed them with great slaughter. Soloman, with a few hundreds of his followers, rode off the field towards the Ister. On the way they stopped in a small deserted town, where, to their surprise, they suddenly found themselves surrounded by a body of Greek troops, who closely invested the place, and seemed determined to starve them into subjection. The unfortunate Soloman, with a courage worthy of a better reward, resolved to die in a manner becoming his descent, and, calling around him the most devoted of his adherents, boldly charged the besiegers, and, to his own surprise, succeeded in cutting his way through them unhurt, and, pursuing his course with such of his companions as had survived the fray, found the Ister frozen over, and crossed it in safety. Upon reaching the other side they took refuge in a wood, in order to rest themselves and their horses. Soloman, after giving them a few directions, laid aside his arms, and, disappearing through the trees, was never afterwards seen. It was long believed that, wearied of the strife and turmoil of the world, and despairing of recovering his inheritance, he had taken up his abode in some remote fastness, and was expiating by a life of prayer and penitence the crimes and follies of his early years. Not very long after his disappearance from the scene, the Chuni once more, taking advantage of the absence of Ladislaus in his newly acquired dominion of Croatia and Sclavonia, entered Hungary, laid waste the country with fire and sword, and carried great multitudes away captive. Ladislaus, upon hearing of the outrage, returned by forced marches, and coming up with the enemy on the banks of the Temes, roused the fury of his soldiers by pointing out the probability that their own wives and children were amongst the number of the captives whom they saw winding down the side of the hill in a long line, and falling upon the barbarians, who, laden with booty and intoxicated with success, were incapable of making an effectual resistance, he committed so great havoc among them, that in all probability but few of the tribe would have survived to tell of their defeat, had not the king stayed the impetuosity of the Hungarians, by reminding them that the conversion of these pagans to Christianity would cover a multitude of sins. The Chuni, upon hearing of the loss of their bravest warriors, and of their chief Kopulk, who had been slain in the combat, ordered a general mourning through- out their territory, and seeking the alliance of the various tribes in their neighbourhood, prepared once more to march against Hungary, to avenge their defeat and recover the captives. Previous to setting out, however, they sent ambassadors to Ladislaus to demand satisfaction, with an air of insolent DEATH OF LADISLAUS. 49 haughtiness that would have comported the victor much better than the vanquished. He sternly refused to comply with their requests, and anticipating their attack, advanced to the frontier to meet them, and fell in with them once more upon the banks of the Ister, upon a Sunday morning. He rode forward in front of his forces and challenged the bravest of the enemy to single combat. All remained silent. He then loudly called their leader by name, who could not when thus addressed, decline the contest. He came forth, but in a few minutes Ladislaus ran him through the body and killed him on the spot. Upon seeing their general fall the Chuni fled, and thus ended the last attack they ever made upon Hungary, Invasions made by the Russians and Poles were repulsed with equal vigour, and it is said that for the purpose of chastising the latter he pushed his victorious arms to the very walls of Cracow, which surrendered to him after a vigorous resistance, but that after receiving an humble submission from the inhabitants, he, with rare moderation, restored them their city without condition and without injury. He then turned his arms against the Bohemians, and soon made that turbulent people sensible that they could not offend him with impunity. With peace abroad and tranquillity at home, he had now an opportunity of gratifying his inclination and soothing his conscience by the performance of works of piety and devotion. Churches and chapels, dedicated to the Virgin and various saints arose at his command in all parts of the kingdom, as tokens of gratitude for the uniform good fortune that had attended all his enterprises, for the victories which had shed lustre on his name, and for the care which had covered his head in the day of battle, and sheltered him from the snares of his enemies. There was still, however, one duty which he longed to fulfil, ere he rested from his labours, to aid in rescuing the Holy Land from the infidels. Peter the Hermit was at this time horrifying all Europe by his account of the terrible indignities which the Christians who sought to worship at the tomb of Christ were receiving at the hands of the infidels. Ambassadors were sent to Ladislaus from the Crusaders, solemnly invoking his aid in their enterprise, for the defence of the religion of which he had all his life shown himself so devout a professor. He listened to their tale with tears and lamentations, and dismissed them with the promise that during that very year he would set out for Palestine with as large a force as he could collect. He therefore apprized his nephew, the king of Bohe- mia, of his intention, and desired him to prepare to join him with all the troops at his command. Conrad had no sooner commenced to carry out his instructions, than he was obliged to defend his crown against a competitor of his own blood, who seized Prague in the night, and with the consent of the archbishop, pro- claimed himself king. Ladislaus instantly marched to his assistance, but on the way, sickened and died, bequeathing his kingdom to his nephew Almos. He was buried in the church of Varadin (1095), which he himself had founded, with extraordinary pomg and solemnity, and so great was his reputation for 50 HISTORY OF HUNGARY. sanctity of life, that for a long period miracles were believed by the common people to have been performed at his tomb, as at the tomb of a saint. Almos did not retain the crown more than a few days. His elder brother, Coloman, whom Ladislaus had compelled to enter the church, but who had fled into Poland to avoid performing the duties of his office, returned to claim his birthright, and it was surrendered to him without a murmur. Up to this period Hungary had been almost isolated from the rest of Europe. She was the youngest of the nations which had risen upon the ruins of the Roman Empire, and the difference of language and manners, and the reminiscences which the more civilised states of the south and west retained of the ferocity of the inhabitants, combined to cut off all communication between them and the Magyars. The Crusades were now about to break down this barrier, and, by the diffusion of geographical information, to place her among the great family of Christian nation?. CHAPTER V. DYNASTY OF ARPAD CONTINUED. A.D. 10951301. IT was in the reign of Coloman that the army of the Crusaders first appeared upon the frontiers of Hungary. The preachings of Peter the Hermit, and of the Pope, had done their work, and throughout the whole of Europe, an eager desire pervaded all classes of men to march against the Saracens, for the rescue of the Holy Sepulchre. The serfs hoped by these means to escape from bondage ; the debtor to avoid the claims of his creditor ; the supersti- tious and fanatical (and who was not ?) to atone for a multitude of sins ; the warrior to crown himself with military glory in a conflict which religion sanctified; and the licentious luxuriated in the marvellous stories which pilgrims had told of the passing splendour of Saracen palaces, the gold, and silver, and silk brocade which adorned them, the flavour of the Greek wines, and the beauty of the eastern women. None was to fear danger, for the might of the foe would be feeble before him who fought for the Lord ; none was to fear want, for he who won the Lord was abundantly rich ; no one was to be kept at home by the tears of those he was leaving behind, for the grace of the Lord would abundantly protect them. During the whole winter of 1095-6, Europe resounded with the bustle of prepara- tion. The demand for horses, arms, and accoutrements was so great, that the prices of these articles rose enormously, while so numerous were the sales of houses, lands, and goods, that their value was depreciated in an equal degree. Those who were prevented from joining the expedition by age, or infirmity, or any other cause, contributed money towards paying the expenses. The 15th of August, 1096, had been fixed by the Council of Clermont as the day on which the army should commence its march ; but so great AVas the enthusiasm, that when spring arrived, the great bulk of the lower orders could be restrained no longer, but prepared to set out forthwith. " The husbandman," says the old chronicle, " let the plough stand, the herds- man the cattle, the wife ran with the cradle, the monk out of the cloister, the nuns too were among the rest." The people abandoned their towns and villages, and encamped in tents and booths, awaiting the signal to march. And in these assemblies, vice, disorder and profligacy were mingled with piety and sanctity and military ardour in strange confusion. The runaway debtor was seen side-by- side with the armed gentleman, who had fought in fifty tournays ; the chaste and devout virgin, with the unholy prostitute, but both in male attire. i' 2 52 HISTORY OF HUNGARY. In the month of May, thousands assembled in the province of Lorraine of those who had assumed the cross, for the most part rabble, whom the princes had rejected, or those whose impatient zeal could abide no longer delay. So "great was their ignorance, that when they got out of the immediate neighbourhood in which they lived, every castle or town they saw, they cried, " Is that Jerusalem ?" Eight knights only appeared amongst them, one of whom, Walter the Penniless, led fifteen thousand footmen from France. At Cologne he and his followers abandoned the Hermit and pushed on for Hungary. Neither Coloman nor his subjects had ever shown any great enthusiasm for the holy war, but nevertheless, when Walter and his horde presented themselves on the frontier, and craved a free passage and market, their requests were readily granted, and they passed on unmolested until they reached Bulgaria, a province at that time in subjection to the Greek emperor. Their misery and distress increasing at every mile of the journey their turbulence and licentiousness increased at the same time, and the governor of Belgrade, having refused to furnish them with a provision market, they spread themselves over the surrounding country, burnt the houses, carried off the sheep and cattle, and slaughtered such of the inhabitants as offered any resistance. The Bulgarian peasantry instantly rose in arms on every side, * and falling upon Walter's soldiery in the midst of their revelry, and when laden with booty, slew great numbers of them. Sixty Crusaders perished in the midst of the flames in a church in which they had sought an asylum, and the others found safety only in flight. Walter made his escape with a chosen few, and pursued his march through trackless forests, suffering incredible hardships, till he arrived at Nissa, the governor of which afforded him and his followers food and clothing, and guides to lead them on to Constantinople, where quarters were given them outside the walls, to await the arrival of Peter the Hermit, f The latter, having traversed Bavaria and Austria, arrived in safety at the gates of a city called Sempronia by the Romans, and Soprony by the Hungarians, and, at the present day, Oedenburg. From this he sent ambassadors to Coloman, to ask a free passage through his dominions, which was granted him upon condition that the Crusaders kept to the road, and paid for their provisions. Peter then led his forces towards the western point of the great lake Balaton, descended into the valley of the Drave, and then, marching along the banks of the Danube, arrived without obstacle at Semlin, to which the pilgrims gave the name of Mala Villa, on account of the misfortunes which there befel them. Coloman appears to have taken some very natural precautions against the excesses of the Crusaders, which Peter, instead of endeavouring to preserve discipline, magnified into a plot against him and against his followers. The report got abroad that the Hungarians had determined to attack them upon one side of the river and the Bulgarians upon the other, and wlrile in a state of alarm, their * Keightley's " Crusaders," vol. i. p. 41. t Midland's ' ' Histoire des Croisades," torn. i. p. 100. THE FIltST CRUSADE. 53 fears were confirmed and their anger roused by the sight of the arms and clothes of sixteen Crusaders, whom they supposed to have been murdered, suspended outside the walls of Semlin. The trumpets were instantly sounded, the pilgrims seized their arms and flew to the assault ; the garrison, taken by surprise, abandoned their post and fled, and the inhabitants, having quitted the town and taken refuge upon a height, defended upon one side by rocks and woods, and on the other by the Danube, were pursued to their retreat, and more than 4,000 COLOMAN. barbarously slaughtered, and the dead bodies, floating down the river, brought the first news of the massacre to Belgrade. The victors remained in the town for five days, feasting on the provisions and plundering the houses. At last a monk, settled in Hungary, brought them the alarming tidings that Coloman was approaching, with an army of 100,000 men, to avenge the slaughter of his subjects. The Crusaders, who fought under the influence of blind fury, were totally wanting in real courage, and their leader possessed ' a far greater amount of enthusiasm than of military skill. They, 54 HISTORY OF HUNGARY. therefore, immediately collected boats, formed rafts of timber, and reached the other side of the lake, not, however, without loss, as the Bulgarians, moving about in lio-ht canoes, shot many of them with their arrows. After suffering great misery and loss, they at last reached Constantinople, where Alexis, the Greek emperor, strongly advised them to await the approach of the arrival of the princes and commanders, who were to lead the most effective and best organized of the sol- diers of the cross. This was salutary counsel, and the Hermit afterwards had reason to regret that he did not take it ; but the great chiefs were not yet ready to set out, and other bands were still to precede them on their march, with the same want of discipline, and the same blind zeal. A priest, named Gotschalk, had preached the crusade in many of the German provinces. Incited by his harangues, about 20,000 men assembled in arms and took an oath to fight against the infidels. Gotschalk, who, like Peter the Hermit, was looked upon as a man inspired by God, was chosen to lead them. Towards the end of the summer they reached Hungary, and as the vintage had been plentiful, they found abundant temptation to excess. In the midst of their debauchery, they forgot alike the cause to which they were engaged, the motives that had induced them to leave their homes, and the object they had in view ; and plunder, rape, and murder marked every step of their march. Coloman, in whom a courageous spirit was concealed beneath a feeble and deformed body, assembled a large body of troops to restrain their violence and outrages. But the soldiers of Gotschalk were not wanting in valour, and defended themselves so vigorously that the Hungarians began to fear that, if driven to desperation, they might prove more than a match for them, and therefore resolved to have recourse to stratagem to subdue them. Coloman's general therefore pretended to desire a cessation of hostilities, and the Hungarian chiefs entered the camp of the Crusaders as friends. The Germans laid aside their arms in perfect confidence, but no sooner had they done so, than, on a signal being given, the Hungarians fell upon them and slaughtered them without mercy. We should feel some surprise in reading of these excesses of the first Crusaders, if we failed to remember that they belonged to the lowest and most degraded class of the people. The civil wars, which at that time were of daily occxirrence in every country on the continent, had created great numbers of vagabonds and adventurers, who wandered from place to place, subsisting upon whatever chance or robbery threw in their way. Germany was the scene of more troubles than any part of western Europe, and was consequently full of men brought up in brigandage the very scum of society and almost all these enrolled themselves under the banner of the cross, and carried with them into the holy war the licentious and mutinous spirit which had animated them in their native land.* The notion which at first possessed the Crusaders was that they were bound only to war against the Saracens, for the delivery of the Holy Sepulchre ; but they * Keightley's " Crusaders," vol. i, p. 54. COUNT EMICO AND WILLIAM THE CARPENTER. 55 soon began to believe, that, as soldiers of Christ, it was their duty to commence hostilities against His enemies wherever they met with them. " What !" they cried, " what ! are we going to seek the enemies of God beyond the seas, when the Jews, His most cruel enemies, are close at hand ?" And upon the poor Jews fell all the weight of their fanaticism. In many of the chief towns of Germany Worms, Treves, Mentz, and Spires they were massacred en masse; from the child unborn to the toothless old man none were spared. When this pious duty had been performed, the scattered bands who had been engaged in it united under the command of a certain Count Emico, and a man named William the Carpenter, so called from the weight of his blows, and some other knights of evil fame, noted for deeds of violence and cruelty. At their head were carried a goose and a he- goat, which they believed to be filled with the Holy Ghost, and on whose aid they relied for safety and success. On they went, burning, plundering, robbing, massacring, until they arrived at Merscburgh, a town on the confines of Hungary. They threw a bridge across the Danube, and attacked the town. Coloman was within, and, hearing that the Crusaders had mounted the walls, he was preparing for flight, when a panic seized them, and they fled precipitately, leaving their baggage behind. The Hungarians pursued them, and slaughtered great numbers ; those who escaped returned home, or joined other armies of pilgrims in Germany or Apulia. Count Emico died in Germany ; and the old traditions of the country related that long afterwards the ghosts of himself and many of his companions might be seen at night in the neighbourhood of Worms, cased in red-hot armour, uttering the most fearful groans, and imploring the prayers and alms of the faithful to deliver them from their torments. The main body of the Crusaders at last prepared to march. The misfortunes which had befallen the forces which had preceded them furnished a useful warning of the dangers of neglect of discipline. Consequently, when Godfrey of Bouillon and the other distinguished leaders began their journey, they maintained the strictest order, and inflicted instant punishment upon all who were found guilty of any misdemeanour in the countries through which they passed. When they arrived upon the confines of Hungary, Godfrey sent forward to Coloman twelve knights, who were instructed to say that they had heard that several pilgrims had lost their lives in his dominions ; and that they were come to avenge them, if they had perished unjustly, but if otherwise they would exercise no hostilities. Coloman, in reply, gave a faithful account of the atrocities which the pilgrims had com- mitted, and in the following letter expressed his desire for an interview with the duke : * " King Coloman sends greeting to the Duke of Bouillon and to all the Christians. Thy reputation, my dear duke, hath assured me that thou art a powerful and just man in thine own country, and pious and honourable wherever thou goest, esteemed and praised by all who know thee. I, also, have always * Michaud's "Hist, cles Croisades," vol. i. p. 109, 56 HISTORY OF HUNGARY. loved thee, and my chief desire at present is to see thee, and to know thee."* Godfrey consented to the interview, and on the appointed day repaired to the Castle of Leperon with three hundred nobles, where the king advanced to meet him. All difficulties were speedily arranged ; Coloman granted a free passage and a market, but required that Godfrey's brother, Baldwin, and his wife and attendants, should be given as hostages for the fulfilment of their agreement. Baldwin, either suspicious of danger, or scorning to become a pledge, positively refused to consent, " Then," said the duke, " I will be the hostage myself, in reliance upon the honour of the king and the good conduct of the pilgrims." Baldwin was thus shamed into compliance. The Hungarians were commanded to furnish a market, and to sell the provisions with good weight and measure, and the pilgrims were strictly enjoined by their chiefs to abstain from plunder on pain of death. The stipulations were strictly observed upon both sides. The Crusaders pursued their march in peace to the frontier, where the Hungarian king took an affectionate leave of the duke, and offered up prayers for the success of his enterprise. Coloman, who, from his love of learning, was surnamed Bibliophilus, or the book-lover, had his attention speedily called away from the Crusaders to affairs of no less importance in Croatia. That kingdom, it may be remembered, had been secured to Helena, the widow of Peter Crecimir, a daughter of Bela, king of Hungary, by the arms of Ladislaus. When she found herself firmly esta- blished upon the throne, she chose, as her principal adviser, Almos, the nephew of Ladislaus. On the death of the queen, Ladislaus took possession of her dominions by the right of succession and of conquest ; but, in place of incorporating them with Hungary, bestowed them upon Almos, as a kingdom dependent upon the Hungarian crown. In Coloman's reign, a noble named Peter laid claim to the supreme power, and the former took up arms for his subjugation. In a battle lost by the Croats, Peter was slain, and the Hungarian king finally abolished royalty in that country, and annexed it to his own dominions. Dalmatia, which had been bought back by Alexis, the Grecian emperor, and placed under the protectorate of the Doge of Venice, Vitale Fallieri, had been invaded by the Normans. The Venetians, whose land forces were but feeble, sought aid from Coloman, who after having expelled the Normans, carried his arms as far as Apulia, where Duke Roger wa.s forced to agree to a treaty, the terms of which were dictated by his enemies. From that time (1096), Dalmatia became a part of Hungary, and Coloman, having been crowned king of Croatia and Dalmatia, re-organised the ancient rights of the Dalmatian people. Quarrels with the Venetians and Eussians, which, neither in their details nor in their results, possess much historical interest, save that in one of the battles with the Venetians, (ouching the territory of Dalmatia, the Doge Ordalafa Fallieri * " La Hongrie Historique," p. 28. ACCESSION OF STEPHEN II. 57 was slain occupied the remainder of Coloman's life. After long wars and intrigues with Almos, his youngest brother, the latter fell into his hands, and with barbarous cruelty he deprived both him and his son Bela of sight. The king died soon after, in 1114, in the twenty-fifth year of his reign, which, by his warlike exploits abroad and diligent and wise attention to the arts of peace at home, would have been dignified and glorified, if it had not been stained by this domestic tragedy. He left his crown to his son Stephen II When Stephen ascended the throne he was but a beardless boy,and a council of magnates was appointed to advise him, and under their auspices the affairs of government were administered for .nearly eight years with great wisdom and discretion. No sooner had the king attained his majority, however, than he asserted all his prerogative with an impetuosity that alarmed and astonished his subjects, and procured for him, the surname of the Lightning. In pride, caprice, and cruelty, he was fully equal to his father, and in promptness for war he was in nowise his inferior. The Venetians had began to ravage Dalmatia, and he instantly resolved to chastise them for their insolence, and in the ninth year of his reign marched an army into that province, where he was received by the inhabit- ants with joyful acclamations, and having sent reinforcements to the garrisons of all the towns, he assured the people of his watchful care and protection, and returned into Hungary. He then turned his arms against the Poles, whom he accused of offering many insults to his father in times of difficulty and danger, and of having encroached upon the frontier, wreaked vengeance upon them by laying waste the country for many miles with fire and sword, and carried off a great number of captives. Disputes next arose with the king or duke of Bohemia, whom Stephen invited to an interview, at which their mutual differences might, if possible, be amicably settled. A Hungarian refugee in Bohemia, wishing, if possible, to prolong the discord between the two courts, wrote to each of the monarchs, informing him that the other had formed a plot to carry him off by force from the place of meeting, and warned him against coming without a guard. The con- sequence was, that each appeared attended by a large armed force, and incensed by the other's treachery,* their followers were not long in coming to blows. The Hungarians, seized with a panic, speedily took to flight, and rode furiously into the camp. The king and his officers, taken by surprise, mounted their horses and galloped off the field in dismay. The palatine at this moment came up with a reserve, and staying the fugitives, restored the fortune of the day. After a sharp and murderous encounter the Bohemians gave way and fled, and the palatine and his companions had the satisfaction of hearing from the lips of Stephen a warm eulogium upon their valour and watchfulness. The mistake was afterwards dis- covered, but too late to inflict upon Soltha, the cause of all the disturbance and loss of life, the punishment which his deceit merited, as he had secured his safety by timely flight. 58 HISTORY OF HUNGARY. The king, by this time as impetuous in his passions as in his policy, was exciting great and general indignation by the notorious licentiousness of his manners, by which the ladies of some of the highest families in the land were daily subjected to insult and outrage. The magnates urged him strongly to marry, and to their great surprise, he, without much hesitation, signified his intention of complying with their request, and shortly after espoused the daughter of Robert of Guiscard, the Norman duke of Sicily and Apulia, a woman famous for her beauty and virtue. The nuptials were celebrated with great pomp ; but scarcely had they been concluded, when he prepared to interfere in a quarrel between two rival claimants of the ducal throne in Russia, one of whom claimed his aid. But so opposed were the magnates to any intervention in a dispute which in nowise concerned Hungary, and which, however it might be decided, could bring her no advantage, that he was compelled to abandon the enterprise, even after he had entered the Russian territory. He next turned his army against the Greek empire, his indignation being roused by a domestic broil, which, if had not given rise to a bloody war, history might well have passed over in silence. Ladislaus had given his daughter Prisca in marriage to Kalo (John), the son and colleague of the Greek emperor Alexis Commenus. This monarch thought fit upon one occasion to apply to Stephen the epithets " inhuman" and " cruel," which his wife, jealous of her kinsman's honour, instantly repelled and retorted, whereupon her lord, forgetful of his dignity, inflicted upon her a severe beating. She appears to have taken the chastisement greatly to heart, as she immediately laid her grievance before the Hungarian king, who resolved to avenge the insult by force of arms, and invaded the emperor's dominions, laying them waste with fire and sword. The Hungarians, after sustaining several severe reverses from the disciplined phalanxes of the Greek infantry, were fain to sue for peace, which was at last made, when each party had done the other vast injury without obtaining any real advantage for itself. During the campaign, Stephen distinguished himself by his merciless cruelty to the captives, upon whom he heaped every indignity that ingenuity could devise or hatred prompt. His blind old uncle, Almos, he banished into Macedonia, where he was cordially received by the Greeks, and lived many years in dignified retirement, affording shelter and hospitality to all those of his countrymen, whom the intrigues of faction or the displeasure of the monarch had driven from their native land. When Stephen found his end approaching, and that he would, in all probability, die childless, he sent for his cousin Bela, whom his father had cruelly blinded, adopted him as his son, and named him his heir. This was his last public act of importance. He died in the eighteenth year of his reign, in 1131. Bela II., though blind, proved himself a man of signal ability. He incorporated Bosnia with Hungary, and expelled the Venetians from many seaports on the DEFEAT OF HENRY OF AUSTRIA, 59 Adriatic, of which, during the closing years of the late king's reign, they had taken possession! He also successfully suppressed a combination formed against him by the Poles and Russians by the machinations of Borick, an illegitimate son of the late king. He left four sons, Geysa, Ladislaus, Stephen, and Almos, the eldest of whom, Geysa II., succeeded him, in 1141. Geysa had not attained the age of manhood when he ascended the throne, but he already gave evidences of great ability, combined with great gentleness and humanity. He was crowned with great pomp at Alba, on St. Cecilia's day, and immediately chose for his ministers some of the ablest men in the kingdom. In the very first year of his reign, a war broke out with Germany, of which Austria, then as now, restless and grasping, was said to be the cause. Henry, duke of Austria, learning that a mere boy had succeeded to the crown of Hungary, thought this would be a favourable opportunity for making a descent upon his territory and appropriating to himself whatever fortune might throw in his way. He was at that period enabled to bring a large auxiliary force into the field, as he was guardian of Henry the Lion, a minor, who ruled over Saxony and Bavaria, and Avhose troops he could employ in the furtherance of his designs. His first step was to surprise and capture Presburg, a town on the frontier, which was con- sidered the key of Hungary. When the news reached the court, the consternation was great. The diet was instantly summoned, and by their advice the king ordered a general levy of all the forces of the country for its defence against the invaders. The insurrection and the Kiraly Sereg instantly rose in arms in answer to the appeal, and called upon the young king with the utmost enthusiasm to lead them against the enemy. Upon reaching the frontier, they found the. Germans drawn up in order of battle to receive them. Geysa instantly gave the signal for action, though his own army was inferior in number. The engagement was long and bloody, and for a great length of time it seemed doubtful to which side fortune would assign the victory. The Germans fought under the eye of their leader, who was himself present in the heat of the encounter, encouraging them by his voice and example ; and their heavy cavalry seemed several times on the point of over- whelming the light squadrons of the Magyars. But the fate of Hungary depended on the issue ; and the hussars, returning again and again to the charge, flung themselves on the enemy with a reckless hardihood which at last began to take effect, and Henry's veteran legions many of them grown grey in the western wars turned and fled, and a general route followed, in which the duke had great difficulty in escaping. Seven thousand Germans were left dead upon the field, and of the Hungarians not more than three thousand. The spoils of the van- quished were appropriated by Geysa to the endowment of churches, and the offering of masses for the repose of the souls of the slain. A short time after this battle, the preaching of St. Bernard aroused in the minds of the people of France and Germany the desire for another crusade. It was represented to them that Godfrey and Tancred, and their small bands of followers, 60 HISTORY OF liU.NC.AUY. who held the holy places in Palestine against hosts of infidels, were in danger of being overwhelmed by their adversaries, if they did not receive speedy succour. Great excitement was soon raised, and the scenes which occurred in 1096 were now enacted over again. The principal leaders of the second expedition were Louis VII. of France, and Conrad, emperor of Germany. The latter led his forces through Hungary ; and notwithstanding the sacred character of the mission upon which he was engaged, he could ill conceal his lurking enmity to the Magyars. Although Geysa had cheerfully granted him a free passage, the German troops extorted money from the monasteries and churches upon their way, and committed various outrages upon the peasantry. Louis of France soon after passed along the same route, but he carefully restrained the pilgrims from outraging the hospitality which had been granted them. The fate that awaited them was terrible : wasted by pestilence, famine, thirst, and the arrows of the enemy, they led back their shattered forces in 1102, without having attained one object for which they had set out. The Crusaders had hardly passed on their way, when more troubles arose on the side of the Russians, who ever seemed weary of their frozen wastes, and longing to precipitate themselves upon their neighbours. They were, as usual, defeated. Under the reign of Geysa II., emigrants from Germany and Flanders settled in Sepuczain the north of Hungary, where they formed a distinct people, and were governed by their own counts. This was another addition to the evils of divided races, so detrimental to Hungarian nationality. When Stephen III. ascended the throne, his younger brother, Bela, was named by the emperor of the East heir presumptive to the Byzantine empire, and received in possession the duchies of Sirmia, Sclavonia, and Croatia. But afterwards, in consequence of the empress giving birth to a son, his claim was destroyed, and he became simply king of Hungary. Some time afterwards, troubles began to break out in Gallicia, now known as Poland; and the country was put under the protection of the king of Hungary. In 1188, Bela III. asserted this claim against Casmir, the old duke of Gallicia, and for some time the Hungarian king bore also the title of king of Poland. It was in virtue of this right (if right it may be called) that Austria took part in the dismemberment of that unfortunate country. Bela III. married, as his second wife, Margaret, daughter of Louis VII., king of France. This lady was the means of introducing into Hungary a great deal of the refinement and elegance which, even at that early period, distinguished the French court. The Magyar youth began to repair to Paris to complete their education and study foreign manners ; and a university, upon the model of that of Paris, Avas established in Vesprim, a central town of Hungary. After the death of Bela, Henry VI., emperor of Germany, determined upon sending an army to aid the Crusaders in Palestine. At the head of the quota furnished by Hungary, Margaret, the youthful widow, set out in person. What was her motive for this strange under- WARS WITH THE GREEK EMPEROR. 61 62 HISTORY OF HUNGARY. taking we know not, unless it were that weary longing for rest and consola- tion in another world, which finely-wrought natures then thought purchase- able only by privation and toil in this. But this picture of female youth and beauty setting out upon a distant and perilous expedition, surrounded by the fierce warriors of the cross, is one of those pleasing gleams of light which now and then shoot across the heavy darkness of the middle ages. Margaret died in Palestine. Enieric, who succeeded Bela III., followed up the conquests of his predecessor, and subdued Bulgaria and Servia. Andrew, a brother of the king, governed Croatia, as a vassal of the Hungarian crown. We have now arrived at one of the most memorable periods in the history of Hungary, that which witnessed the reform of the constitution. The close resemblance existing between this important event and the grant of our own Magna Charta by King John, must possess the deepest interest for every English reader. Notwithstanding the foreign wars and intestine broils to which Hungary had for centuries been a prey, the real power of the government rested entirely in the hands of the king. The great dignitaries of the state did not hold their offices in hereditary succession, or even for life. They could be at any moment deprived of them for no better reason than the sovereign's pleasure ; but the very fact of their meeting together in the diet, or great council of the nation, secured to them influence, which was becoming every day more and more powerful, and promised at no distant day the right, and perhaps the power, of taking exception to the arbilary acts of the monarch. On the other hand the organisation of the counties was going to decay, though it formed the best bulwark against domestic tyranny or foreign, invasion. Things were in this position, when Andrew II., surnamed Hierosolymi- tanus, a feeble and vain prince, ascended the throne. He carried on war for a con- siderable length of time against the Russians and the Saracens in the Holy Land, without reflecting upon the evils caused by his absence from his dominions, and the lavish expenditure of blood and treasure which his long contests entailed upon the kingdom. Upon his return he found the affections of the people entirely alienated, and was astonished by the loud and general outcry raised on every side against his extravagance. His quarrels with his son Bela still further increased the number of his enemies. His queen, Gertrude, a woman of very masculine disposition, but who had acquired this manly vigour at the expense of her woman's tenderness and truth, sought to allay the storm by seizing upon the reins of government in her own name. Her unfaithfulness to the instincts of her sex, and to the commonest dictates of honour and religion, wrought her own and her husband's ruin. She encouraged and aided her brother in an attempt to seduce the wife of a proud and haughty noble, Benedict Bor (the famous Bank Ban) the palatine of the kingdom. Enraged at the insult and dishonour, Benedict rushed into the palace, followed by some friends, and struck the queen dead on the spot, The assassins were executed, but this only irritated the malcontents still more. Andrew lost all authority, and with characteristic imbecility, applied to the Pope THE BULIA AUREA. 63 to re-establish tranquillity. After a long struggle, the prince Bela undertook to act as mediator between the contending parties ; and through his instrumentality, important concessions were obtained from the king, and ratified by him at a diet held in 1231. He acknowledged the legislative assemblies to have the same rights as himself, and he confessed that those privileges of the nobility, which Saint Stephen had established upon a firm basis, but which his successors had failed to recognise fully, had been violated by him also. He solemnly confirmed in their fullest extent all the political privileges claimed by the nobles and the free inhabitants of the country, with the addition of the following clause : " That every time that the king or his descendants should violate the privileges of the Magyar nation, the nobles should be at liberty to rise up, sword in hand, to oppose this breach of the law, without being liable to the charge of high treason." This was a concession at the same time just and dangerous. The right of resistance should be ever present to the eyes of the government ; but the people should never look upon it, save as the closing scene in a long vista of unavailing remonstrance and entreaty. In addition to the confirmation of their old privileges, the Magyar aristocracy obtained some new ones. They were declared free of taxes, and none of its members could be placed under arrest except for clearly proved violations of law. They were obliged to arm at their own expense, and attend the king in warlike array as far as the frontiers of their own country ; but, if farther, the sovereign should bear the cost. The latter was forbidden to make any office or employment hereditary, or to commit the administration of the finances to Jews or Mahometans ; and it was strictly stipulated that a diet should every year be convoked upon St. Stephen's day. All these articles, thirty-one in number, were united in a code, and became the basis of the aristo-democratic constitution, which prevailed in Hungary, with slight modifications, up to the close of the late war, commonly called Sulla Aurea, or the " Golden Bull." Andrew was the first Magyar king who was obliged to take an oath, at his coronation, to be faithful to the constitution. Hungary was thus one of the first countries in Europe to obtain effectual guarantees for her liberty ; and although her Bulla Aurea, like our Magna Charta, bears unmistakable marks of its feudal origin, it has, never- theless, every claim to be considered a reform of true and lasting value. It must not be forgotten that the term " Magyar nobles," or " free men,'' at that time included the whole of the conquering nation. Bela IV. succeeded to his father, Andrew II. After he had ascended the throne, he showed great force of character, but, at the same time, a great leaning to arbitrary measures. A calamity fell upon Hungary during his reign, from the effects of which she did not recover for many generations. A tribe of the Hunnic race arose about this time, and rendered itself powerful by its conquests under the leadership of its chief, Mogol, or Mogul, whose name it assumed. Under one of his successors, Zengis Khan, it spread terror through the whole of Asia ; but that quarter of the world not proving enough to satisfy its ambition, it precipitated 64 HISTORY OF HUNGARY. itself upon Europe. Poland and Russia bore the first shock of the invasion, but it soon spread to the plains of Hungary, and left them waste and silent as a pathless desert. After having massacred great numbers of the population, the Moguls retreated, carrying Avith them thousands of captives. THE COUNTY ASSEMBLIES. 65 Under this terrible calamity, Bela sought in vain for assistance from the duke of Austria. Hungary was covered with dead bodies and ruined houses, but the king was not discouraged. He introduced a number of German colonists for the cultivation of the soil, and appealed to the people to support him in the execution of the measures designed to ensure their own safety. Amongst a number of other useful measures, he provided for the regular meeting of the county assemblies. These assemblies were one of the most important of the privileges of the Hungarian people. Their rights, their duties, and their con- nexion with the supreme power of the state, bore, as we have already said, a close resemblance to those of the states of the American Union. The sovereign autho- rity was vested in the king and the diet with regard to questions of general interest only. If the student, leading of the thousand perils and disasters through which the Magyar nation has passed, unparalleled for their number and magni- tude in the history of the world, should ask what was the safeguard of Hungarian liberty while undergoing an ordeal so trying, we can give hirn no other answer than refer him to the county assemblies. The sittings were all ii? public, and the eyes of the country were upon all the proceedings. There wab 1 the highest of all motives for a man's doing his duty fearlessly. The king or tlT e minister might sway or corrupt the diet, but his labour was in vain whilst the freely elected representatives of the people were meeting in every county to watch over the public liberty, and whose interests and sympathies 'coinciding with those of their constituencies, in the midst of whom they lived and deliberated, were the most effectual guarantees against any betrayal of the confidence reposed in them. Individuals may be traitors, but no treacherous representative body, save the Irish parliament, has ever been heard of in history. It was in these assemblies that the Hungarians received that political education which has rendered them so much superior to all the nations of eastern Europe. The happy distinction between the legislative and executive powers, the best safeguard of freedom, was recognised by them before any other people in the world. Bela, when he had in some measure repaired the disasters inflicted by the famine and the invasion, proceeded to chastise Austria for her refusal to assist him in his time of need. Frederic, the archduke, was killed in the campaign, and by a treaty entered into at its close, Hungary obtained the whole of Styria, and an extension of the frontiers of Dalmatia. Bulgaria was also incorporated with the Magyar kingdom as a dependent province. A short time afterwards the Moguls again appeared, but were this time defeated with tremendous slaughter, 30,000 men being killed in one battle. It is at this epoch that the house of Hapsburgh, which was destined to exercise so baneful an influence upon the future of the Hungarian nation, first appears upon the scene. There was an implacable rivalry going on between Rodolph of Hapsburgh and Ottochar, the rightful king of Bohemia, and the duke of Austria. The former sought the aid of the Magyar king, and by means of it expelled his G 66 HISTORY OF HUNGARY. antagonist from his dominions, and laid the foundation of his own dynasty. It was the eagle lending his plume- to wing the arrow that was to drink his own life- blood. The history of the relations of the Hapsburgh family with the Magyars, Kossuth has well designated, " a continued perjury." All the national writers agree in their opinion of the great merits of Bela IV. During his long reign he surrounded himself and his kingdom with glory. No other prince has ever encountered greater difficulties, and none ever surmounted them with so much courage and ability. Before his death he gave his grand- daughter, Mary, in marriage to Charles Martel, prince of Salerno, a scion of the house of .Austria an alliance which paved the way for the accession of a branch of this French family to tne Hungarian throne. There is nothing wo.rthy of remark in the reigns of his successors, until we come to Andrew III., th; d last of the dynasty of Arpad. The Pope, who considered Hungary a fief -jf the Holy See, opposed his election, and claimed the crown for Charles Marvel, to whom we have just been referring. Rodolph of Hapsburgh, on the ot^er hand, wished to place his son Albert upon the throne. Andrew III. espoused Agnes of Austria, and it is upon this marriage that Austria afterwards ba.^ed her pretensions to the Magyar crown. With a view of bringing about a reconciliation between the contending parties in these disputes, the king convened a grand diet of the nation upon the plain of Rakos. This was the first time the great assembly of the Magyars was held in the open air. It is curious to find this singular custom equally prevalent amongst the Poles and Hungarians. The nobles of both countries met on horseback, to elect a king, upon a vast meadow, clothed in their most splendid garments, a single gentleman often carrying his whole fortune in his own accoutrements, and the rich housings of his steed. There are a number of interesting circumstances, however, in connexion with the Polish Diet, into which at present it is not our province to enter. Andrew III. died in 1301 without any heir, and with him ended the dynasty of Arpad. At this period the Hungarian people had made no inconsiderable amount of progress, not in political knowledge only, but in science and the industrial arts. St. Stephen had declared the inviolability of private property, and decreed its transmission from one generation to another by hereditary descent. The Magyars did not reserve to themselves alone the enjoyment of these political rights and liberties. Amongst the free inhabitants of their country were comprised all those stranger populations who had voluntarily submitted to their rule, and even the immigrants who had more recently entered their territory, and claimed to be con- sidered as their guests. Those only who were taken with arms in their hands, and those of the Hungarians who were convicted of theft or adultery, who sought to escape from military service, or who remained obstinately attached to paganism, after the rest of the nation had embraced Christianity, were condemned to a state PROGRESS IN CIVILISATION. 67 of slavery or serfdom. The laws against. stealing, and against the illicit intercourse of the sexes, were more than ordinarily severe ; and any freeman who was detected in an amorous intrigue with the domestic of another was sentenced to have his head shaved. Although the sale of women was strictly forbidden after the introduction of Christianity, these rigorous measures were indispensably necessary to root out the old custom of polygamy. The military superintendents (eivreok} formed a police service, and travellers were obliged to be provided with a passport or safe conduct. Royal messengers kept up postal communication between all parts of the kingdom, and each county was obliged to furnish them with relays of horses. This was the origin of those post-houses (vorspann) which are seen in every part of the country and of which the tourist is obliged to avail himself at the present day. The expenses of the government were defrayed by the revenues of the royal domains, that is, by the cultivation of the crown lands, and the produce of the salt and gold mines, and by the imposition of a small duty upon certain articles sold in the markets. The administration of the finances was conducted with great prudence and ability. As in western Europe, the towns arose, in nearly every case, in the neighbourhood of the great fortresses or castles, and became enlarged and enriched by the extension of industrial employment, and the influx of foreign colonists ; the Hungarians, in general, preferring living in the open country. Many of these towns became in process of time independent of the chatelain, or lord of the castle, and were then called free or royal. All strangers paid a tax, by way of compensation for the protection afforded them, and their share in the political privileges, and thus greatly augmented the revenue. The consequence of this fixed internal organisation, and the security afforded to labour and property, was a rapid increase in the commerce and manufactures of the kingdom. The agricultural produce was every year more than sufficient for home consumption, and the utmost attention was given by the government to the promo- tion of industrial employment. St. Stephen sent shoemakers, carpenters, wheel- wrights, &c., at his own expense, through most of the towns in his dominions, for the purpose of imparting a knowledge of the manual arts to those desirous of acquiring them. The Magyars were celebrated at an early period for their skill in tanning, and Hungarian leather was in great demand all over Europe ; they excelled also in dressing the furs, which formed part of their rich national costume. Their foreign commerce was also extensive. Their merchants had large counting and Warehouses at Constantinople for carrying on their trade with the East. They supplied the northern countries with linen, woollen cloth, and arms, and the Germans with corn, cattle, and ale. They received their spices and other foreign products from Venice and Dalmatia, and supported a powerful and well-manned navy for the protection of their commerce. The foregoing chapters have shown us a barbarous, nomadic people, from the central plains of Asia, possessing all the coarseness and unbridled passion of the savage state, but full of courage, energy, and self-confidence, precipitating itself G 2 (38 HISTORY OF HUNGARY. upon the worn-out civilisation of the Roman empire, and conquering new seats in the heart of another hemisphere. From the chaos which succeeded the breaking up of the old order of things, it arose a young and hardy nation, girding its loins to run the race of civilisation and progress with the other races of modern Europe. We have seen its conversion to the mild doctrines of Christianity ; and have watched with interest its growth and improvement in the arts of peace, and its close adherence to the older and sterner virtues of the warrior. We have seen it every day coming out stronger and more self-reliant from the rude shocks and rough turmoils of the middle ages, and gradually building up a constitutional monarchy like our own, an undertaking the more difficult, because there was then no model to guide in the formation of free institutions. The progress has been hitherto slow, and it may be, at times painful, but always successful. We have now arrived at the era of power, influence, and glory, in which Hungary was the bulwark of Europe against the terrible assaults of the Turks, and its leader in arts, and law, and commerce. When the Magyars placed Almos, the son of Arpad, upon the throne, it was not so much a recognition of his hereditary right to the succession, as an acknow- ledgment of the great services of his father, and an expression of their veneration for his talents and virtue. From the same motives they gave up entirely their undoubted right to elect their monarchs, as long as there remained a scion of the house of Arpad to wear the crown ; but when, at the death of Andrew III., the dynasty became extinct, they resumed the exercise of their prerogative, and four candidates immediately appeared to claim their suffrages. Two of them, Venceslas and Otho, obtained it one after the other, not so much from their intrinsic merits, as because the remaining candidate, Charles Robert of Anjou, was the favourite of the Pope, who endeavoured to procure his election by lavish threats of excommunica- tion and anathema. The two former, however, having been successively driven from the kingdom, the Magyars succeeded in overcoming their repugnance towards Charles as the nominee of the Holy See, and chose him as their king. Their dislike to him arose from the obnoxious interference with their constitu- tional privileges made on his behalf by the Pope, whose sympathies and interests have in all ages so often run counter to those of the people. CHAPTER VI. ACCESSION OF THE HOUSE OF ANJOIT. CHAKI/ES ROBERT. CHARLES was the son of Charles Martel, and nephew of Charles II. of Naples, who was nephew of the celebrated St. Louis, king of France ; and, notwithstanding the inauspicious circumstances under which he ascended the throne, the Hun- garians had afterwards reason to remember him with pleasure, as one of the wisest and ablest of their monarchs. Notwithstanding his legitimate election, some of the great nobles refused to acknowledge him, and one of their number, Mathew Csak, perhaps better known as Count Trencin, who possessed immense estates at the foot of the Carpathian Mountains, refused to do him homage, and shutting himself up in his castle, bid him defiance. The king immediately put himself at the head of an armed force, and proceeded to enforce submission to the national will ; but so powerful was the rebel lord, that it was only after a tedious war, and great loss, that he was compelled to surrender. At the siege of the fortress of Saros, which was commanded by Demetrius on behalf of Count Trencin, and was carried by storm after a gallant defence, the sons of Elias Goergey, the count of the German colony of Sepucza, fought with unshaken courage at the side of the king in defence of the law and the constitution. Little did they think that a man of their race would afterwards make their very name a synonyme through all Europe for whatever is traitorous and base. Arthur Goergey, the recreant of 1848, is the lineal descendant of one of them. As soon as peace was restored, Charles, who was now for the second time a widower, married the Polish princess Elizabeth, and fixed his residence in the fortress of Visegrad, upon the Danube. Crowning the summit of a lofty hill, it delighted the eye by its picturesque situa- tion, and astonished the visitor upon a nearer approach by its grandeur and extent, In the hands of Charles, it became one of the most magnificent royal residences in Europe. He carried to its embellishment all the French taste for what is showy and imposing, chastened and refined by a diligent study and high appreciation of the classic models of antiquity. Nor was his attention diverted from the work by the premature and lamented death of his two sons, or the constant anxiety caused by the ambitious designs of Paul Subies, who claimed the title of Ban of Croatia and Bosnia. An outrage, disgusting for its coarseness, and rendered terrible by its sanguinary results, at length disturbed the course of this prosperous and happy reign. Casimir of Poland, afterwards surnamed the Great, the brother of the queen, a. 70 HISTORY OF HUNGARY. man of dissolute habits and violent temper, paid a visit to the Hungarian court, for the purpose of regulating the affairs of the Order of Teutonic knights under the immediate superintendence of Charles Robert. Falling violently in love with one of the queen's maids of honour, Casimir brought to bear all the tactics acquired in a long course of dissipation, declarations of the warmest love, prayers, entreaties, and splendid offers, without making any impression upon the cold virtue of the Magyar lady. This unsuccessful wooing inflamed his passion still more, and, seizing a favourable opportunity, he obtained by brutal force what purity and innocence had steadily denied him. The unfortunate girl, overwhelmed with grief and shame, fled from the palace, and sought relief in pouring out her sorrows to her father, Felix Zacs, a Hun- garian noble. Roused to fury by the injury and insult, Zacs rushed .to the apartments of Casimir, swearing to wash out the disgrace in the heart's blood of the offender. But the ravisher had fled immediately upon the perpetration of his crime, and the disappointment of not finding him still further increased the rage of the unhappy father. Losing all command over himself, he entered the room at which the royal family were seated at dinner, and struck the queen with his sabre, cutting off the four fingers from her right hand. In vain the king attempted to defend his wife. Zacs wounded him also, and was about to attack his two sons, when three noblemen, with their attendants, entering the apartment ; they all fell upon him at once, and cut him to pieces. The royal vengeance did not rest satisfied with the summary punishment thus inflicted upon Zacs. The gentlemen of the court went armed to his house, and seizing his son, dragged him through the town tied to the tail of a horse, until he died from sheer exhaustion. We may excuse this outrage, committed in the first moments of rage ; but nothing can palliate the after cruelties ordered by the king in a calmer mood. Clara Zacs, the unfortunate lady whose injuries had been the cause of all, was compelled to walk through the town, having her nose, lips, and fingers cut off; while the crier proclaimed, "This is the punishment of traitors t" The king's vengeance extended itself to the second generation, and even further. The grandson of Felix Zacs was banished, and the collateral members of his family were obliged to save themselves by flight from torture or mutilation. This terrible event occurred in 1336. Charles Robert's attention was soon turned from this dreadful tragedy to other and more honourable employments. In the year 1285, the Tartar JNoguis, the inhabitants of Moldavia, united with the Wallacks, the remains of the Daco- Roman colonies, and commenced to devastate Hungary. Having been defeated in some sanguinary engagements, they at length settled peaceably between the Danube and the right bank of the Aluta. The two tribes into which they were divided, uniting under one chieftain, they began to cross the river, and whethet it was that Charles Robert was alarmed at their progress, or wished to reduce BETROTHAL OF ANDREW TO GIOVANNA OF NAPLES. 71 them to a state of complete subjection, he declared war against them, although Bessarab, the waywode, paid him homage as his suzerain. Despairing of being able to contend against the king in the open field, Bessarab resorted to stratagem. Decoying the Magyar army into a mountain pass l>y feigning a retreat, he suddenly surrounded them on every side, so that, to avoid the destruc- tion of his forces, Charles was compelled to sue for peace. The wily waywode feigned the most friendly disposition, and protracting the negotiations to as great a length as possible, he in the meantime fortified the entrances to the defile, and crowned the heights with men-at-arms and archers, ready to pour down showers of arrows, and roll heavy rocks upon the Hungarian army at the word of their leader. When the Magyars became aware of the full danger of their position, their consternation was great. They saw every odds that can encourage a soldier, on the side of their enemies numbers, position, and the certainty of a safe retreat. Their only hope lay in forcing the entrance of the gorge without delay ; but long ere they reached it, three-fourths of their number were buried beneath the missiles of their assailants, and the king only, and a few nobles, succeeded, after a desperate combat, in fighting their way out, sword in hand. Charles Robert had naturally but little taste for war, and this catastrophe com- pletely convinced him that he would meet with greater success in the smoother field of diplomacy. Upon the death of his grandfather, as the heir of Charles Martel, he preferred his claim to the Neapolitan crown before the papal court at Avignon. Clement V., the Pope, pronounced, however, in favour of Robert, the uncle of the Hungarian king, a brave and experienced warrior, who was very popular amongst the Italians. At the death of the latter, so disgusted was he at the corrupting in- fluence exercised over his own heirs by the French ladies of .his court, that he determined to leave the crown to one of his nephew's children. He therefore sent an embassy to Hungary, inviting Charles Robert to Naples, and requesting him to bring with him his second son Andrew. No sooner had the message arrived, than the king set out, accompanied by a numerous and brilliant suite. Upon their arrival at Naples, Robert betrothed his daughter Giovanna, aged only six years, to Andrew, the son of Charles Robert, and declared them his heirs. Andrew henceforth remained in Italy with his tutors, and a suite of Magyar gentlemen. When Charles Robert regained his kingdom, he found a splendid field for the exercise of his diplomatic talents suddenly opened up to him. Vladislas Loketek, the king of Poland, had died during his absence, and his son Casimir, who com- mitted the outrage already mentioned at Visegrad, had succeeded to the throne. The latter was undoubtedly a man of great personal bravery, and possessed some celebrity as a warrior and patron of the fine arts ; but he was given to indulgence in sensual pleasures, indolent, and averse to the transaction of serious business. Charles rightly judged that such a monarch would be continually placed in 72 HISTORY OF HUNGARY. difficulties, from which the resources of his own uncultivated intellect would be entirely insufficient to extricate him; and that he would naturally look to him as a man of ability, and a near relative, for advice and assistance. The event answered his expectations. He was constantly referred to as an arbitrator in the troubles which at that time distracted Poland, and his great tact, the gentle and winning courtesy of his manners, and his great superiority when thus placed in comparison with their own monarch, gradually won for him the esteem of the Polish nobles, and caused them to listen with a ready ear to repre- sentations which the Magyar king caused to be made to them, of the importance of a change in the order of the succession. FORTRESS OF V1SEGRAD. At a meeting held at Visegrad, in 1335, Charles, in the character of a mediator, finally succeeded in smoothing away the differences which existed between Casimir and the order of Teutonic knights. In many similar cases he rendered like services, always acting the part of a disinterested arbitrator, but at the same time, gaining over the noblesse by his smooth flattery and the splendour of his presents. He had, nevertheless, a dangerous rival in John, king of Bohemia. Having rendered him important services, however, so dexterously did Charles Robert manage, that the margrave of Moravia, who was the rightful heir of the Bohemian crown, promised his daughter Margaret in marriage to Louis, eldest son of the Magyar king, at the same time engaging to guarantee to him the succession, in DEATH OF CHARLES ROBERT. 73 case Casimir died without issue. The wife of the latter died childless in May, 1339, and the Diet of Cracow proclaimed Louis of Hungary heir presumptive. Casimir himself came to Visegrad, with^ a magnificent retinue, to announce the good tidings. He was received with the splendour in which Charles delighted, and never was the exquisite taste and lofty dignity of the Magyar king displayed to better advantage than in this celebration of this consummation of his hopes and labours. His days were now in the " sere and yellow leaf," and in 1342 he died, after a long and brilliant reign of thirty-two years, in which he had done more for the promotion of the arts, commerce, and manufactures of his kingdom, and the extension of its influence, than any monarch who had gone before him. The Hungarians before his death had learned to love him with an ardour which more than Batoned for their former dislike. In the greatness of his talents, and the splendour of his services, they forgot that he owed his elevation, in some measure at least, to the support of a bigoted foreign priest, and remembered only his devotion to the Magyar nation, and the proud position to which his exertions had raised it. This forms a splendid trait in their character. This willingness to abandon prejudices, this homage to talent, to magnanimity, to personal worth, without reference to their antecedents, are the surest evidences of a high and generous spirit. Vast crowds, amongst whom were Casimir of Poland and the margrave of Moravia, followed the remains of Charles Robert to the tomb ; and by their sorrowing aspect, and lowly-muttered lamentations, furnished the last testimony to his valour and wisdom. CHAPTER VII. LOUIS THE GREAT. BUT the public grief was hushed or forgotten when Louis I. ascended the throne, amidst universal acclamations ; in possession of a genius and aptness for affairs which gave early promise that his career would, by its greater brightness, obscure his father's glory. In the commencement of his reign he showed more than usual activity, and in an expedition which he directed against the Saxons, his arms achieved the most splendid triumphs. This people inhabited many towns of Transylvania, to which some of them had come at an early period to submit them- selves to the dominion of Charlemagne ; others had been settled in different parts of the country at various times as colonists, after the devastations which had been committed by the Asiatic barbarians. Presuming upon the youth and gentleness of Louis, immediately after the death of his father, they refused to pay the public taxes, and the customary tribute exacted from all foreigners. The king, however, entered their territory at the head of a large army, and quickly reduced them to submission. The Wallacks, also, who had so successfully resisted his father, acknowledged his sway, and ever after remained firmly attached to him. An event occurred in Naples about this time which occupied the attention not of Hungary'only, but of all Europe, and which, from its interest and importance, demands as large a share of ours as we can well bestow. Our readers may remem- ber the almost premature engagement which was concluded by Charles Robert between his son Andrew and Giovanna, the heiress of Robert, king of Naples. The young prince, as we have already mentioned, was left at the Neapolitan court at the age of six years, to be brought up under the eye of his intended father-in- law, who, in order to remove all cause of dispute or division, promised that his daughter should succeed him in the kingdom in case she married Andrew. The latter, as he grew in years, prepossessed every one in his favour save his future bride. It is rarely that the human heart will bend its likings or dislikings to accord with the dictates of policy or ambition, and the hatred of Giovanna towards the youth whom she was expected to love and honour, but had not been permitted to choose, grew every day more violent. She and her younger sister Mary were endowed with all the charms of figure and face which poets love to paint as the birthright of the women of the south ; but they had also the hot temperament, and longing after forbidden pleasure, which destroys domestic peace in the lands of sunny skies and starry nights, though comparatively unknown amongst the TKOTIBLES AT NAPLES. 75 denizens of less favoured climes. Giovanna's beauty won the attachment of the bishop of Cavaillon, a jolly priest and gallant gentleman ; called forth the melodious praises of Petrarch, the ardent, but dreaming and sentimental scholar, and secured for her the flattering notice of Pope Clement VI., who plumed himself almost as much upon being an excellent connoisseur in female beauty, as upon wearing the triple crown. All this might flatter the vanity of the young prin- cesses, but the bad example of their mother, Margaret of Valois, corrupted their morals ; and Filippa, a depraved woman, who, by her influence over Yoland, a half-brother of Giovanna, obtained the situation of governess in the royal family, finished the work of evil which Margaret had begun. Giovanna's dislike to Andrew manifested itself clearly upon the death of the king, her father. Acting upon evil counsel, she declared, that though, her marriage gave him a right to share her bed, she certainly would not permit him to share her throne, and therefore would not concede to him the title of king or allow his coronation. The Pope was the universal referee at that time in all disputes relating to crowns and sceptres, and Clement VI., who was residing at Avignon, was called upon to decide between the husband and wife. In this instance, at least, the successor of St. Peter would ten thousand times rather have waived the exercise of his pre- rogative. On the one side he feared the great power of Louis, the king of Hungary ; on the other, the loss of Giovanna's favour, to whose beauty his vows and her marriage did not by any means prevent his paying court. In this dilemma he resolved upon sending Petrarch to Naples, to make diligent inquiry into the cause of the quarrel. A worse emissary he could not have selected. Petrarch's disposition was amorous in the extreme, and he was conse- quently prepared to pardon all faults committed under the influence of the tender passion, and besides all this, was naturally prejudiced in favour of his old benefactor Robert, her father. Louis, hoping to save his brother's rights and Giovanna's reputation before matters came to an extremity, sent on his side his mother, Eliza- beth, a high-minded and amiable woman. She therefore set out for Naples, attended by a brilliant escort, but had no sooner arrived than she found it would be impossible that she could exercise any influence at such a court, where all the worst vices were covered over with a show of refinement which increased their allurements at the same time that it deepened their depravity, and where the frank and open manners of the Magyars were stigmatised as gross and barbarous. Nevertheless she endeavoured to bring about a reconciliation, which would in all probability have been lasting, if her efforts had not been frustrated by the harsh sternness of a Franciscan monk, Robert, Andrew's tutor, who placed himself in opposition to the sentimentalism of Petrarch. Robert governed the kingdom in Andrew's name with great vigour and inflexibility, but having no taste for poetry himself, looked upon all poets with profound contempt. He therefore received Petrarch with studied indifference, and paid no attention to the Pope's instructions. The former, though he generally employed his pen in pouring out mournful complaints of the 76 HISTORY OF HUNGARY. coldness of his mistress, flew to arms, and revenged himself by writing a satirical poem, in which he heaped bitter reproaches upon Robert ; a work which he had already amply performed in a letter to Cardinal Colonna, giving an account of his journey to Naples. " Religion, justice, and truth," said he, " are banished. I think I am at Memphis, or Babylon, or Mecca. Instead of a king so just, and so pious (Robert), a little monk, fat, rosy, barefooted, with a shorn head, and half covered with a dirty mantle, bent by hypocrisy more than by age, lost in debauchery while proud of his affected poverty, and still more of the real wealth he has amassed; this man holds the reins of the staggering empire. In vice and cruelty he rivals a Dionysius, or an Agathocles, or a Phalaris ! "* Elizabeth was still at Naples, when the titular empress of Constantinople, Catharine of Valois, provided a lover for Giovanna in the person of her son Louis of Tarento, who, in anticipating her husband in the enjoyment of the conjugal rights, rendered him still more odious in the eyes of his wife. The maternal affection of the Hungarian queen now made her alive to the dangers which threatened Andrew, and she wished to take him back with her from an atmosphere so tainted with treachery and corruption. The Greek empress, however, entreated her to change her determination ; the chancellor of the kingdom, Count of Monte Scaglioso, an honest and powerful man, and devoted to the Hungarian cause, expressed his conviction, that if Andrew remained, matters might still be arranged ; and Giovanna herself besought her, with tears in her eyes, not to deprive her of her husband. She therefore yielded to their soli- citations, and took her departure. At last the Magyar ambassadors purchased from Clement VI., with a sum of 44,000 marks of silver, some concessions in favour of Andrew. The amount was not sufficient to obtain all. The Pope consented to confer upon him the title of king, and crown him as such, but without any stipulation as to the succession after his death. The Hungarians rested satisfied with this, but did not perceive, till too late, that all their efforts would be rendered unavailing by the intrigues of the ladies of the Neapolitan court. Agnes de Perigord, duchess of Durazzo, another member of the royal family, jealous of the success of the Empress Catharine on behalf of Louis of Tarento, determined to counterbalance the influence thus obtained. Supported by the Cardinal de Talleyrand, she obtained from the Pope permission for her son, Charles of Durazzo, to marry Mary, the younger sister of the queen. Prompted by Catharine, however, Giovanna refused her consent, and they therefore determined upon carrying off the princess in the night. In this there was a fresh insult offered to Andrew, as Mary had been previously affianced * Campbell's " Life of Petrarch," vol. i. p. 248. The tone of this description is no more exaggerated than that of Campbell's own account of the whole transaction, which betrays a manifest prejudice against the Hungarians. MURDER OF ANDREW. 77 to his brother Stephen ; and in case Giovanna died without issue, the succession remained to her sister. In this instance he again gave proof of his gentleness and humanity, or, as some may think, his feebleness and incapacity, by pardoning the ravisher. At last a new scandal precipitated the closing scene of this hideous drama. The queen's figure began to afford evidence, every day more unmistake- able, of her infidelity to her husband, and the insult and dishonour were rendered deeper by her own indifference to her disgrace. Some mentioned Bertrand LOUIS J, d'Artus, the son of the grand chamberlain, and the sworn enemy of Andrew, others Louis, duke of Tarento, as the cause of it ; but Andrew was too proud to exhibit any outward signs of the mortification he felt. Soon after, some courtiers made a banner, with the figures of a block and an axe displayed upon it, and paraded it at a tournament in Andrew's presence, to signify the determination of the court to get rid of him, since they could no longer delay his coronation. On the 18th of September, 1344, he accompanied the queen to a party of pleastire at a country house, near Aversa, and riding out in the country, they stopped to dine 78 HISTORY OF HUNGARY. at the convent of St. Peter of Morono. some distance from the town. In the evening a messenger came to the royal apartment to summon Andrew, as if for the purpose of delivering to him some important despatches. He had no sooner left the room than the door was closed behind him, and a hand placed on his mouth to stifle his cries. Andrew shook himself loose hy a tremendous effort, and ran toward the hall for his arms ; but he found all the doors shut, and Giovanna lay quietly in her bed, paralysed by fear or anxiety. At length the noise aroused his attendant, who cried for help ; but Bertrand d'Artus, the favourite of the queen, again seized his victim, and urged the assassins to attack him. After a fierce struggle, they hung him from the balcony of the great hall, with a rope which the queen herself was said to have provided. The disfigured and bleeding body was thrown into the garden, and the monks, when aroused, had to search for it during the greater part of the bright summer night before they found it. When the news reached the town of Aversa, the tumult was great. The women rushed into the streets bewailing the murdered king, and the men went in arms to the convent, and .forcing the gates, in blind fury slaughtered every one whom they met, without inquiring as to his innocence or guilt. All, in the bitterness of their grief, thought only of avenging the murder, and forgot to bury the body, which lay for many days before it obtained the rites of sepulture. The queen, after the first flood of hypocritical tears, set out for Naples, and immediately abandoned herself to indulgence in every sort of licentious pleasure. The birth of an infant son awakened the memory of her past delin- quencies, and filled the minds of the people with horror and disgust. Louis of Hungary instantly demanded an inquiry of the Pope, with a view to the discovery and punishment of the authors of this lamentable outrage. It accorded neither with the interests nor the inclination, however, of the papal court to throw any light upon the matter, as the chief offender was the near relative of his holiness. Cutting short the negotiations, Louis required the Cardinal de Talleyrand, and his nephew, the queen herself, Catharine of Yalois and her two sons, to be delivered up to him, that they might suffer capital punishment. Being anxious, however, to save his brother's honour, he consented that Charles Mattel, Giovanna's illegitimate son, should be educated by Elizabeth at the Hungarian court, and that during his minority, his brother Stephen, duke of Sclavonia, should govern the kingdom of Naples. But he was resolved in any case to punish the queen, and deprive her of the crown, and for that purpose levied an army and marched upon Italy. This dispute has been rendered one of the most famous in modern history, by the means which were now taken to decide between the contending parties. A man at this time sat at Rome in the chair of the ancient tribunes, who united the austerity and the severe and inflexible justice of the ancient Brutus with the fire of the Gracchi, and the brilliant eloquence of Cicero. Raised from the body of the people, he was their idol ; and when he banished from the gates of his native city the lawless nobles, the descendants of their barbarian conquerors, and re-esta- THE JUDGMENT OF RIENZI. 79 blished the reign of pure justice and equal rights, his fellows hailed him as their deliverer. He had humbled the power of the great and ^they looked upon him with a jealous eye ; but the multitude clung to him as a father. He had become renowned for the largeness of his intellect, and the far-sighted justice of his decisions ; and more fortunate than Mazzini, he had gained the confidence of most of the princes of Europe. This plebeian saw crowned heads submit their disputes to his arbitration, and upon him Louis and Giovanna called to decide between them. Giovanna tried him with gold, but found him incor- ruptible, and then addressed herself to work upon his affections, flattering the vanity of his wife by rich presents, whilst she assured the tribune that she sought only an impartial sentence. At last the day came on which this great trial, wonderful for the demonstration which it affords of the might of moral power and the force of great traditions, was to take place. Taking his seat upon a throne beneath the mighty dome of the Capitol, with the tribunitial crown upon his head, and the silver ball, the ensign of power, in his hand, he summoned before him the advocates of the rival monarchs, and bid them plead their clients' cause. The Tribune heard but did not decide. He feared on the one hand the consequences that might result to himself, in case he declared innocent a woman whom the populace generally believed to be guilty of her husband's murder"; and on the other, the enmity of a powerful neighbour in case he condemned her. He had, however, more elevated views, which he kept strictly secret. He postponed his judgment, on the ground that the affair was of too important a nature to be decided hastily ; asked for time to deliberate with the principal citizens, and in the meanwhile ordered the various documents and memoranda connected with the case, to be deposited in his chancery. He knew well what a noise the affair would make abroad, and he feared the jealousy of the papal court at Avignon. He resolved, therefore, to write to the Pope, and therein represent himself as a mediator between the contending parties. " I have received," said he, " the ambassadors sent by Giovanna, and the envoys of the king of Hungary, and I have sent back a solemn embassy to endeavour to restore peace between them." In reality, how- ever, the project he had at heart was the dethronement of the queen of Naples, and the formation of a league between Louis of Bavaria, Louis of Hungary, and the Roman people, for the purpose of wresting from the Holy See the disposal of the crown of the Two Sicilies, and vesting it in the Roman Chamber of Representa- tives, which he had established.* Louis could not brook the delay, and he consequently refused any longer to leave the matter in Rienzi's hands, but determined forthwith to right himself by force. Sending forward the main body of his army, under the command of Nicolas Henrici, * " Histoire de Rienzi," par M. de Boispreux, pp. 165 et seq. 80 HISTORY OF HUNGARY. a pious bishop (according to the notions of the times) and a brave soldier, he fol- lowed himself at the head of one thousand men, as an avenging corps, in the midst of which floated a black banner, carrying a portrait of his murdered brother. Town after town fell before him ; the petty princes of the peninsula sent embassies to seek his alliance, and the Pope alone attempted to arrest his triumphant progress. A legate met him, and threatened him with the anathemas of the church, unless he consented to desist from hostilities, and make peace with the queen. Louis' reply was characteristic of the man and of the nation to which he belonged. " The Pope," said he, "has no right to place bounds to my vengeance. He promised to punish the murderers of my brother, and his blood still cries against them from the ground. The criminals still survive, and are sheltered and protected by the Holy See, while I, who have taken arms only for their chastisement, am threatened with excommunication. The holy father reserves his curses for innocence and his favours for crime. Let him excommunicate me. I make no objection. I fear not his empty thunders. There is a higher judge than he, who knows the justice of my cause, and will one day review the decisions of Popes." He continued his course, and the Neapolitans began speedily to flock to him. The queen was deserted on every side, even by her husband, Andrew's murderer, whom she married in less than a month after his death. She escaped in the night, and landed safely on the coast of Provence. Upon taking possession of Naples, Louis guaranteed to all the free enjoyment of their liberty and property, except those who had taken part in the assassination of his brother. This promise seems to have re-assured Charles 'de Durazzo, who rested under the gravest suspicions. The Magyar head-quarters were then at Aversa, and thither the Neapolitan nobles flocked to pay homage to their new sovereign. Durazzo followed their example. This man was a strange compound of bravery and ambition, carelessness of his own interests, and great perseverance. He was constantly mixed up in low and vile intrigues, and was consequently looked upon with "great suspicion by the nobles, although his conduct appeared less equivocal in the eyes of the people. He had drawn upon himself the hatred of the archbishop of Naples, who appeared before the Hungarian king as his principal accuser. A grand council of the Magyar barons was summoned by Louis to deliberate upon the guilt of the culprit and the punishment of his crime. The sentence of death was unanimously pronounced. According to the custom of the time, the king was seated at a solemn banquet in the midst of his lords, when the unfortu- nate Charles was called before him. " Duke," said the king, regarding him with a stern aspect, " your lot is cast you die within an hour. But you must first listen to the recital of your crimes. You hindered the coronation of my brother by your machinations ; you ravished Mary, the sister of the queen, who was promised in marriage by her father, first to me and then to my brother Stephen. You have, it is true, pursued the assassins CONQUEST OF NAPLES. 81 of Andrew, but only that you might further your own ambitious projects. You were the first to invite me to this country, and the first to desert my standard when I had arrived. You shall now expiate your guilt by an ignominous death." It was in vain that Charles begged and prayed for life on any terms ; the king spurned him. from his feet in disgust. He was beheaded on the same balcony from which the unfortunate Andrew had been hanged. It would seem as if a curse has for centuries hung over the kingdom of Naples. When Louis conquered it, it was as corrupt,,, as degraded, as void of honour, humanity, and good faith, as now, when the finest intellects in the kingdom are buried in dungeons thirty feet below the level of the Adriatic. He set to work immediately to introduce some sort of order into the hideous chaos, and afford security to the unfortunate people who had been so long plundered by the nobles and the court. The task was difficult but it was one worthy the am- bition of a great man. He protected personal liberty, private property, and the fruits of honest labour against the open violence of the robber, and the more silent, but no less dangerous attacks of fraud and chicane. " Activity, honour, justice, replaced sloth, jobbing, and corruption, assassination, and dissoluteness of manners, and the people began to revive."* Louis entertained a feeling of deep disgust at the low state of morality which he found prevailing amongst the mass of the people, and the total want of prin- ciple of the nobility. When, upon making his triumphant entry into the capital, the great lords presented him with a magnificent throne, he declined it with evident marks of contempt ; and when the orators appeared with their panegyrics, and the poets came to recite their complimentary odes, he refused to hear them. He had to steer clear of two evils. He had on one hand to avoid offending the pride of the nobles by too great severity, and, on the other hand, to see that the authors of a great crime should not escape with impunity. Under the stern severity of the Magyar rule, however, the Neapolitan barons soon began to regret the gay licentiousness of the old regime, and to long for its return. A deplorable calamity soon occurred, which hastened the outbreak of their discontents, and enabled them to give form and consistency to their hatred of Hungarian domination. A terrible earthquake shook the whole of Italy, burying towns and villages by the shock, and close upon it followed a pestilence which spread, with greater or less degree of virulence, over the whole of Europe. Hungary escaped with little injury, but Naples was the veiy centre of the wide- spread desolation. Louis travelled through the whole kingdom, exposing himself to imminent personal danger, in the attempt to alleviate the sufferings of the wretched inhabitants. His labour was, however, in vain ; and, after fortifying the garrisons and distributing troops through the country, at the earnest solicitation of his ministers, he returned to Hungary. No sooner had he disappeared than the * Mathaeus Villani, 1, i, c. 16. H gO HISTORY OF HUNGARY. nobles threw off the mask, and sent deputies to Avignon, where Giovanna had aken refuge, beseeching her to return with her husband, and resume possession of her throne. But she had no money ; and, in order to raise supplies, she sold the town of Avignon, and the territory attached to it, to the Pope for a sum of 80.000 florins, and even pledged her jewels to fit out an expedition. She arrived at Naples, and was received into the town, although the Hungarian garrison occupied the castle, and Louis of Tarento, her husband, put himself at the head of the army. Charles Martel, Giovanna's son, fceing at this time dead, Louis wished to marry his brother Stephen to Mary, the widow of Charles de Durazzo, and place them on the throne ; but the Pope steadfastly refused his consent, and succeeded in inducing the German levies to desert the Hungarian standard. This defection obliged Louis to suspend his operations for some time ; but in the spring of 1350 he again appeared with large reinforcements, and earned everything before him. He was twice wounded at the sieges of two towns, but still persisted in exposing himself in the thick of every fray. At the siege of .Melfi, he received a challenge to mortal combat from Louis of Tarento, to which he sarcastically replied, telling him that if they met face to face in a general engagement he should not decline the conflict. Marching upon Naples, it surrendered to him without striking a blow. Upon taking possession of the town, he informed the inhabitants that he would levy a contribution on their goods as a punishment for their treason. This was the signal of a general outbreak, and, after a murderous conflict in the street, the Magyars, harassed and worn out by the overwhelming numbers of their assailants, were compelled to retreat to the citadel. The Pope seized this opportunity of renewing his offers of peace on behalf of the queen, at the same time declaring his intention of delivering judgment upon the differences existing between the two parties. It was impossible to exculpate Giovanna from the charges alhged against her ; but at the same time Clement was by no means willing to have a powerful king as his neighbour, instead of a beautiful woman. To end the matter, he forthwith formed a tribunal of his own creatures, before whom Giovanna was arraigned with a mockery of legal procedure : and, in accordance with the advice of her ecclesiastical counsellors, she declared that, instigated by diabolical witchcraft, by an excess of folly, of which she could not divine the cause, she had, against her will, ordered the murder of her husband, whereupon the Pope declared her innocent of the " witchcraft and its consequences !" The moment the judgment was pronounced, a letter signed " Lucifer, Prince of Darkness," and addressed to " His Holiness the Pope, his representative upon Earth," fell in the midst of the astonished consistory. In the epistle, his satanic majesty informed them of the satisfaction with which the accounts of the manifold vices, misdeeds, and injustice of the Pope and his cardinals were received by the damned spirits in the infernal regions. The absurdity of this judgment was apparent to every one ; but Louis, ACCESSION OF LOUTS TO THE THRONE OF POLAND. 83 perceiving that the kingdom of Naples was as difficult to keep as it was easy to acquire, and being disgusted with the shameless immorality of the papal court, at once acquiesced in it. The queen sent him 300,000 florins to meet the expenses of the war ; but it was returned with the cold reply, that he fought to avenge his brother, not to accumulate wealth. He immediately evacuated Naples, after having occupied it for six years. Such was the negative result of a conquest achieved by the expenditure of so much blood and treasure. New successes compensated Louis for the loss of Naples. He was shortly afterwards called by Casimir, the king of Poland, to his assistance against the Bohemians and the Russians. He thus became acquainted beforehand with the genius of the people over whom he was one day to be called to reign. Although the two nations had attained almost to the same stage of culture and civilisation, the straightforwardness, frankness, and magnanimity of the Magyars were more in accordance with the king's tastes and disposition, than the uneasy, restless spirit of the Poles. His partiality for the former was still further increased by the efforts made by the Polish nobles to impose new restrictions upon him, in case he came to rule over them. They stipulated that he should be content with the revenues which accrued to the crown in the time of Vladislaus Loketek, and engage never to attempt to found a right upon the voluntary offerings with which any of his subjects might present him ; and, lastly, that he should never visit his new kingdom without the permission of the Diet, who would not, at the same time, bear any part of the expenses of his journey. These conditions well exemplify the jealous hauteur of this proud nobility ; but, in imposing them, they committed a fatal error. By prohibiting Louis' residence in his newly-acquired dominions, they taught him to look on them as a distant and dependent province, in whose welfare and prosperity he could feel only a secondary interest. He, therefore, yielded with indifference to their demand that, in case he or his son Stephen died without having male issue, they should possess, without interference, the right of choosing their own kings. From that moment Poland occupied but little of Louis' attention. Passing over a successful war against the Venetians, concerning the possession of Dalmatia, and a partially successful attempt to act as mediator in the contentions of the petty princes of Italy, we arrive at the death of Casimir, the last of the race of the Piasts, which had given so many great men and great kings to Poland. He was, in many respects, an able and efficient monarch ; and, though often faulty, he had that desire to act well which so frequently forms a redeeming trait in listless, decisionle'ss characters. He possessed great personal bravery, and, amidst all his indulgence in the grosser vices, a tender and feeling heart. He did not die without leaving behind him some memorials of his zeal for the welfare of the country. Before his time, there were scarcely any fortified towns in Poland ; but during his reign, towns, villages, and castles, built with elegance and solidity, arose upon every side. He had great tact in the discovery of merit, and, when H 2 84 HISTORY OF HUNGARY. found, he never failed to appreciate and reward it. He created a third estate, composed of the bourgeoisie, or middle class ; and if his successors had taken care to foster the new element thus introduced into the constitution, Poland would have made far more rapid progress. But even Casimir himself did only half the work, or rather neutralized the good effects of what he did do, by signing the fatal measure, at the Diet of Wiszliza, in 1347, which constituted a powerful and idle oligarchy to crush the middle and lower classes. * Upon the death of Casimir, a deputation of Polish nobles repaired t*o Visegrad, to request Louis to take possession of the throne, according to the treaties already entered into. He received them in state, surrounded by the barons of his empire ; but heard their offer with seeming doubt and hesitation. " You know not what you ask," said he to them ; " and you," turning to his barons, " know not what you advise. It is difficult to watch over two distinct flocks ; and, for this reason, no bishop is allowed to preside over two dioceses. When the Roman empire only counted a few huts as its possessions, two kings were too many to govern it ; so, I fear, one king would be insufficient to reign over two great empires." At last, however, he yielded to their solicitations, and consented to go to Poland to be crowned. The ceremony took place at Cracow ; and, after it was over, the chancellor presented him the conditions laid down in the treaty, by which the succession was secured to him. He pledged himself to restore, at his own expense, all the countries wrested from Poland ; to bestow no dignity or public office upon any foreigner ; to make good to knights and men-at-arms all losses sustained by them in carrying on war out* of the kingdom ; and, lastly, to impose no new tax upon the property of the church, or of the nobility. This sort of constitutional charter was accepted by the king of Hungary, 1355, and is considered the first of the " Pacta Conventa," or covenant between the nobles and the candidate they wished to propose ; covenants exclusively formed for their own benefit, and to the detriment alike of king and peasantry. Louis felt, however, that he and the Polish aristocracy could never work toge- ther in harmony. They were too restless, proud, and discontented ever to submit quietly to the rule of any one ; and they were too powerful to be coerced into subjection. He had scarcely arrived at Cracow, when his unpopularity com- menced. One of his first acts was a direct violation of his agreement, namely, the bestowal of two valuable fiefs of the crown upon two strangers, who had no claim upon them, except their relationship with him ; and he added fuel to the indignation which was roused on this score, by removing Casimir's two daughters into Hungary, lest they should contract royal alliances. He committed the government to his mother, Elizabeth; but she, though herself a Pole, found herself unable to carry it on. After the occurrence of numerous scenes of violence, turbulence and anarchy, into the particulars of which we cannot here enter, he * Hist, of Poland. Laidner'e Encycl., p. 92. DISTURBANCES IX POLAND. 8-5 convened a Polish Diet at Buda, in March, 1381, and invested Zavicza, bishop of Cracow, and two other noblemen, with the government of the kingdom. The Poles were filled with rage and consternation upon hearing of this measure. They now found themselves placed under the domination of a haughty and irascible priest, instead of the gentle rule of Elizabeth, and Yladislaus, the viceroy, who succeeded her. The bishop, however, did not long continue to give them cause for complaint. Tho hoary debauchee fell from a ladder, and broke his neck, as he was pursuing a young girl, who, to escape from his brutal violence, had taken refuge in a hay-loft. HUNGARIAN FLEET IN THE FOURTF.ENTH CENTURY. Constantly disappointed in his expectations with regard to Poland, the king of Hungary at length determined to abandon her finally, and leave her to her fate. He assembled another Diet at O-Zolyom (Altsohl), in 1382, and presented to it his daughter Mary, the future queen, and her betrothed lover, Sigismond, son of the emperor of Germany, Charles IV. He had given up the hope of any lasting union between the two countries, and he therefore wished to evidence his desire for the welfare of the Polish people, by offering them as their king the man whom, of all the princes of Europe, he deemed worthy of his daughter's hand. But in doing this he severed the bond that seemed so likely to unite Poland and Hungary 86 HISTORY OF HUNGARY. for ever. Each nation thenceforth pursued its own course, to meet at last as companions in misfortune, crushed under the same iron yoke. In the following year a great plague of locusts desolated the greater part of Hungary, utterly destroying the crops, and leaving but little sustenance for either man or beast, so that it was in no very satisfied spirit that the Hungarians received the news of the king's intention to commence hostilities with the Venetians, who had made encroachments upon the Hungarian territories on the Adriatic, He marched against them with 40,000 men, in conjunction with Leopold, duke of Austria, and Francesca Carrara, and most of the towns of Dalmatia speedily fell before his arms. Peace was at length restored by a division of the territory, in which Louis had the lion's share. The Tartar tribes, who had not yet lost their taste for plunder, made new attempts upon the kingdom during this reign, and several times made invasions into Transylvania. Louis, at last, succeeded in overtaking them, and inflicted upon them so signal a defeat, that they fled to the shores of the Euxine. The Lithuanians, also, who were still idolaters, harassed their neighbours by a succes- sion of inroads, and in particular the province of Russia, which at this period was tributary to Hungary, carrying off from time to time great quantities of booty, and multitudes of captives. They were at length completely subdued, either by force or persuasion, for the Hungarian monarch was an adept in the use of both. During these conflicts the Hungarian fleet increased rapidly, and practice gave the Magyar sailors an amount of self-confidence and dexterity which could then be rarely found except amongst the Venetians. Their navy was at this period one of the finest in Europe. Louis died, without leaving any male issue, in 1382, after a reign of forty years, universally regretted by his subjects. The magnates and nobles, to show their admiration of his character and sorrow for his loss, wore mourning for three years after his death. His body was interred in the church of St. Stephen, at Alba, with great pomp and magnificence. The Magyar historians love to dwell upon the glories of his reign, and above all upon the splendour of his palace of Visegrad, in which he fixed his residence during the greater part of his life. They tell, with pardonable pride, of its vast extent, which could afford ample accommodation for two kings and many minor princes, with all their suite ; of its 350 chambers, furnished in a style of dazzling splendour ; of its gardens stocked with the rarest exotics, and cooled by the rush of flowing water : of the soft and voluptuous music which every evening, from one of the highest towers, soothed or delighted the courtly guests, and, floating on the breeze, cheered the peasant as he " plodded his weary way " homeward ; of the neighbouring mountains, crowned with wood, and studded with pleasant villas or rustic churches ; of the pleasant and shady valleys that sloped away to the Danube's edge, and afforded calm and retirement to him who chose to escape for a season from the gaieties of the palace. INTERNAL ADMINISTRATION OF lAJUIS THE GREAT. 87 It is a subject of more importance to us to consider the changes or improvements Louis wrought in the Hungarian constitution. He had more respect for the rights of the people and nobles than his father, Charles Robert, because he was less wily, more straightforward in his dealings, and had a great dislike to the tricks of diplomacy. In a Diet, held at Buda in 1351, he confirmed the Bulla Aurea, and added twenty-five new articles. After the happy issue of his first campaign in Naples, he established perfect equality amongst the nobles, as an acknowledgment of their services. The distinction between the great seigneurs and the simple nobles was thus effaced, and the name bey-ones, proceres, and noblles were applied equally to all. At the Diet of Rakos, under one of the last kings of the race of Arpad, the peasants and the jobbagy (domestic servants) obtained the right of leaving their lords, and taking up their residence on the estates of another. This was one step towards their emancipation, and it possesses greater weight from the circumstance, that, in all other countries of Europe at this date, the serfs were inseparable from the soil on which they were born. Louis gave full force to this law, and those who fought bravely under his banners not only became free, but in every respect equal to the ancient nobles. The authority and duty of the palatine, of the judge of the kingdom, of the treasurer, underwent no alteration of import- ance. The palatine, Count de Trencin, already claimed the right of governing the kingdom, whenever the throne became vacant just as the Lord Mayor of London does under similar circumstances in England. Charles Robert struck an injurious blow at the independence of the counties by placing a number of them in groups under one count, instead of each under its own. These supreme counts took rank among the first barons of the empire, and gave place only to the wayioodes or bans. These great nobles received, their emoluments, as did all other officials, in kind, and had besides the right of purchasing a certain quantity of salt. Each county, divided into four districts, had a certain number of puisne or deputy judges, pre- sided over by a superior judge (feobiro]. Their assessors, a sort of jury composed of nobles, took part in the deliberations, and returned their verdict upon the case. These were elected by the nobles of the district, and none were qualified who had not real property within the jurisdiction of the court. The king himself named the superior courts, and sometimes even the viscounts, who opened the assemblies, under Charles Robert with the royal permission, and under Louis, when the public safety required it. In these were discussed the legislative and legal affairs of the district, matters of police, and other subjects of local interest, riot within the province of the general diet. The military force of Hungary at first consisted, as we have already seen, entirely of the barons arid their immediate followers, who ranged themselves under the banner of the king : and afterwards of the sixty-two bands furnished by the same number of counties or military districts, who were compelled by law to defend the country at their own expense. The Magyars, however bravely they might fight at home, were never disposed to carry the war beyond their own 88 HISTORY OF HUNGARY. frontiers, even when the king bore the cost ; and this was doubtless the cause of the many invasions to which Hungary has been exposed. The old military organi- sation began, however, in course of time, to fall into abeyance, and Charles Robert endeavoured to introduce a number of useful reforms. He ordained that the inhabitants living in the neighbourhood of the citadels, and every landed pro- prietor who was not a noble, should furnish his contingent to the general arma- ment. This plan did not, however, answer his expectations, and a sort of militia was therefore created, called banderies (from the monkish Latin, banderium), upon the plan of the Italian bands or mercenary troops. This was maintained at the expense of the prelates and magnates, who, in their fondness for display, often TATTLE or O/OT.YOM. appeared in the field at the head of a greater number of levies than they were called upon to furnish. Charles Robert permitted them to keep their respective troops distinct, and to bring them into battle under their own orders and their own banner. Besides these, there were the Szeklers, who fought as irregular troops, under no orders, where and in what manner pleased them. These were divided into two corps, archers and slingers. The revenues of the crown lands, it may readily be imagined, were by no means equal to the outlay of princes so enterprising as those of the house of Anjou. They were accustomed to a more lavish and less scrupu- lous system of finance than they found prevailing in Hungary, and in order to meet the expenses of their long wars, they placed heavy imposts upon all INTERNAL ADMINISTRATION OF LOUIS THE GREAT. 89 persons not ennobled. Thus, for every load of hay or of straw that entered a farmer's gate, he was obliged to pay a tax of eighteen deniers, and hence the name porta was given to it. The ninth part of the produce of their labour and industry was a tax which pressed with tremendous weight upon the poorer classes, and acted with a very injurious influence upon the commerce and agriculture of the country. This was not abolished till 1848. The landed property of the nobles could never be sold or aliened in any way, but was strictly entailed upon the male line, upon failure of which it reverted to the crown. It was, therefore, almost SXEKLERS. impossible for any one, who had not a claim to nobility, to. become possessor of any land, except as a tenant farmer. The administration of justice was generally pure, and the forms of procedure simple and direct. The ordeal by fire or boiling water fell into disuse under Bela III. and Andrew IV., and was finally abolished by Lucas Banfi. These princes also introduced advocates into the courts, appointed mayors for the villages, and magistrates for the government of the towns. The nobles had tribunals sitting in every county for the trial of those of their own order. The court of the palatine, 90 HISTORY OF HUNGARY, the tribunal of final resort in all cases, changed the place in which its sittings were held four times in every year, for the convenience of those residing in the more remote parts of the kingdom. All legal proceedings took place publicly in open court. The labours of the strangers who were introduced to fill the place of those massacred by the Moguls, gave a prodigious impulse to the commerce and industry of the nation. The vines of Tokay, the juice of which the Hungarians assert to have been the nectar of the gods of antiquity, and which not only ministered to the delicate taste of the epicures of the day, but crowned the splendid feasts of the Magyar monarchs, owed their origin to an Italian colony placed at Olaszi. The immense wealth of the great lords, the splendour of their feasts and entertain- ments, and the gorgeous magnificence of their dress and equipages, were not without their effect upon trade, whatever might be their ultimate influence upon the manners of the people. In the midst of this manufacturing and commercial prosperity, the arts and sciences, and polite literature, were not forgotten. Many of the Hungarians repaired, to complete their education, to the universities of Paris and Bologna, then famed for the learning and ability of their professors. An academy, known as the Studium Generate, was founded at Vesprim during the thirteenth century. Ladislaus IV. bestowed upon it an extensive library, and distinguished professors gave instruction in theology, jurisprudence, and belles lettres. But as literature was at that time peculiarly the province of the clergy, the national language was, for a considerable period unhonoured by the notice of the learned. Though Louis the Great spoke the Magyar with ease and fluency, as his mother tongue, still Latin continued to be the language of the refined and the noble. Amongst the learned men of the earlier part of Hungarian history, the names of Rogerius, archbishop of Spalatro ; of Calanus, the historian, bishop of the Five Churches ; Simon Keza, the chronicler ; and the German astronomer Klingsohr, are mentioned with honour. In 1367, an academy was established in the town of Pecs, and in a short time attained to such a height of celebrity, that 4,000 students are said to have yearly filled its halls. Michas Madius, the Dalmatian chronicler, John Kukeolleo, the secretary of the king, and many others, of equal note, owed the eminence to which they afterwards attained, to the instruction they received here. Following up the course upon which St. Stephen entered, the dynasty of Arpad, at all times, displayed the utmost zeal for the honour of religion ; and as Catho- licism was the only form under which it was then known in Europe, the popes soon obtained immense influence in Hungary. They established a crowd of religious orders, and as the clergy entirely monopolised the teaching of the young, they secured an ascendancy and an amount of wealth, which remains almost unimpaired to the present day. After the conversion to Christianity, there was but one archbishop and six bishops in the whole kingdom. When Louis the Great died, there were thirty archbishops and eight hundred bishops. CHAPTER VIII. MARIA AND SIGISMOND. THE IUKKS. 13821439. WHILE Louis the Great was in the zenith of his splendour, the storm was brewing which was to put the chivalry of Europe on its mettle, and involve her frontier nations in the most serious and momentous contest of modern times. Amongst the tribes which composed the army of Gellaleddin, the sultan of Persia, in his able defence of his kingdom against the desolating inroads of Zengis Khan, was the small obscure clan which gave origin to the Turks, which had formerly dwelt near the southern banks of the Oxus, in the plains of Mohun and Neza. After the defeat and death of Gellaleddin, they entered the service of Aladin, sultan of Iconium ; and in subjection to his sway, and under the rule of one of their own chiefs, Orthogrul, they formed a camp of four hundred families or tents at Surgut, on the banks of the Sangar. Orthogrul was the father of the caliph Othman, under whom the Turks first assumed an independent position, and began to commit ravages upon their own account, by making descents upon the Greek empire, through the passes of Mount Olympus, which the weakness of the empe- rors had left without protection. The first of these inroads was made on the 27th of July, 1299, and was the commencement of a series of attacks under which the imperial city itself was at last destined to fall. Instead of retreating to the hills, with his booty and captives, whenever he succeeded in taking a town or castle, he held it and fortified it, and endeavoured to wean his followers from the roving, pastoral life which they had hitherto followed, and attach them to the arts and luxuries of civilization. . Under the domination of his son Orchan, the Turks increased in power and ambition, fixed their head-quarters in the the city of Prusa, which they had taken, built in it a mosque and college, struck new coins, and by the fame of the pro- fessors whom Orchan endowed, attracted crowds of students from all parts of Asia. The office of vizier was established, and bestowed upon Aladin, Orchan's brother. A regular body of infantry was enrolled and trained, and instead of the mutinous peasants who followed the standard of Othman in loose and undici- plined squadrons, a powerful and well-organized army was formed of the Christian captives, who, taken in their youth, were instructed in the principles of the Moslem faith, and, with the usual zeal of proselytes, proved themselves its most ardent and enthusiastic propagators and defenders. The Turkish power was in this 92 HISTORY OF IirNGAKY. position when its aid was invoked by one of the parties in a civil war which was at that time desolating Greece. The ruin of the empire was from that moment sealed ; and soon after we find that their but too efficient allies had wrested from the feeble hands of the emperor, without open violence, but by mere occupation, some of the most valuable portions of his dominions. Amurath, the successor of Orchan, subdued the whole province of Thrace or Romania, from the Hellespont to Mount Haemus, and chose Adrianople for the seat of his government and religion in Europe. The Greeks were in despair, and thought the hour of their clown fal had at last come ; but it was still delayed by the pride or generosity of the sultan. The emperor John Palaeologus and his four sons had, however, to undergo the terrible humiliation of following the march of the conqueror, and witnessing the power of his arms in his expeditions against the Bulgarians, Ser- vians, Bosnians, and Albanians. It was out of the captives that were taken from these hardy and courageous tribes that the formidable corps of janizaries, which long was both the defence and terror of the Turkish empire, was first formed. The youngest and most beautiful of the prisoners were selected, educated in reli- gion and arms, and then consecrated by a celebrated dervish. He stood in front of their ranks, and stretched the sleeve of his gown over the head of the foremost soldier and delivered his blessing in these words : " Let them be called Janizaries ( Yengi Cheri, or new soldiers) ; may their countenance be ever bright! their hand ever victorious ! their sword keen ! May their spear always hang over the heads of their enemies ! and wheresoever they go, may they return with a white face ! " * When first embodied, the new troops fought against their countrymen with determined valour and fidelity ; and, at length, in the bloody battle of Cossova, the Sclavonian tribes were utterly routed, and their league destroyed. Amurath was walking across the field, in company with his vizier, when a Servian soldier, starting up from amongst the crowd of the slain, mortally wounded him in the belly. He was succeeded in 1389 by Bajazet, surnamed Ilderim, or the lightning, who, by his fiery impetuosity, spread the terror of the Turkish arms far and wide through eastern Europe. He reduced the northern provinces of Anatolia to subjection, conquered tg|^um, imposed a regular form of servitude upon the Servians and Bulgarians, and then crossed the Danube to seek new enemies in Moldavia. The Greek emperors, surrounded on every side by this terrible foe, had sought the aid of Louis the Great, who promised to march to his assistance, in case he were joined by the other European sovereigns. But the fervour of Christian hatred for infidels had already cooled. The age of chivalry was gone. The pope refused to preach a crusade in favour of obstinate schismatics, who ( Gibbon, TO! xi., p. 432. In latter years the discipline of the Janizaries became relaxed, and their insolence and turbulence made them the terror of their sovereign. They were- all massacred in 1826, by the late Sultan Mahmoud. MURDEll OF CllAllLKS THE LITTLE. 93 scouted his pretensions to spiritual supremacy over the Christian church, and the eastern empire was left to its fate. Louis does not appear to have had an adequate idea of the danger to be apprehended from the Ottomans, and at all events his attention was too much engrossed by the affairs of Italy, to allow of his taking proper measures for the defence of his kingdom. His successor had to bsar the brunt of the contest. He left his kingdom to his daughter Mary, to whom the Poles swore allegiance, but speedily threw it off, and elevated Hedwig, a grand daughter of Casimir, to the throne. The Hungarians, though hitherto, owing perhaps to the military character of the people, a female ruler was a thing unknown in their history, saluted Mary queen out of respect for her father ; but, as if to mark the exceptional character of the arrangement, they insisted that she should assume the title of king, and affix to all public documents the signature Maria Hex. She had been betrothed by her father to Sigismond, of Brandenburgh, king of Bohemia, who was still very young, and of course incapable of holding the reins of government in conjunction with her. Elizabeth, the young queen's mother, consequently assumed the administration of the affairs of the kingdom, but was wholly under the influence of Gasa, .the palatine, a prudent and faithful man, but ambitious and plotting. His advice led to the adoption of several measures militating severely against the nobles, and some portion of the obloquy which this drew down upon him, of course, reached the queen and her mother also. A conspiracy was at last formed for the modification or even total change of the government, which was joined by many persons of high rank, and they decided upon offering the crown to Charles the Little, king cf Naples, son of the unfortu- nate Andrew, and grandson of Louis. This prince, acting without advice upon the dictates of his own ambition, and without heeding the salutary counsels of his wife, agreed to their proposals, and having put the affairs of his own kingdom in order, repaired to Hungary. The conspirators immediately crowned him king, but the coldness of the populace, who beheld the ceremony, was an omen of what was to follow. Mary and her mother were at first seized with despair, on hearing of the success of their rival, but on recovering from their surprise, the first moments of calmness were spent in planning a heinous crime. Amongst the most zealous of their adherents was a brave but unscrupulous noble, named Forgatz, and it was determined in a council, at which the palatine Gasa was present, to commit to him the task of assassinating Charles, as the readiest way of putting a stop to his pretensions. When the necessary arrangements had been made, and the day fixed, Elizabeth and the palatine, accompanied by Forgatz, repaired to the palace, the former under pretence of showing him some letters she had received from Sigismond, the latter of requesting a safe conduct, to enable him to attend at his daughter's marriage, which was to take place at a distance of some leagues. Charles was walking up and down the room, with the conspirators on either side of him, when, at a signal from Gasa, Forgatz drew his sword, and split the king's 94 HISTORY OF HUNGARY. skull to the very teeth. The doors were at the same time thrown open, and the partisans of Mary rushed in and took possession of the castle, drove out Charles's attendants, who were for the most part Italians, and put a garrison in the place, and then rushing through the streets of Buda in arms, called upon the people to declare for Mary. The populace, instead of manifesting any indignation at the horrid crime which had just been committed, cut the rest of the Italians to pieces, and hailed Mary queen, with loud acclamations. But the perpetrators of the murder did not long enjoy in quiet the fruits of it. Within a short time after Charles's assassination, they determined to pay a visit to the provinces of Lower Hungary, and for this purpose Mary and her mother, accompanied by Gasa and Forgatz, and attended by a slender escort, set out for Croatia. John Horvat, the ban, a zealous adherent of the late king, no sooner heard of their arrival in his government, than he hastily collected a body of troops, and furiously attacked the royal party. Forgatz and Gasa ably supported their reputation for courage, and defended themselves to the last extremity, till, overpowered by numbers, they were slaughtered before the queen's eyes. Mary and Elizabeth were dragged from their carriage by the hair, and brought before the ban. Elizabeth dropped on her knees at his feet, and implored him, for the sake of her departed husband, from whom he had received so many favours, to spare her life and set her at liberty. But neither her tears nor her prayers had the slightest effect upon Horvat. He ordered her to be drowned in the night, and her daughter to be shut up in a castle.*' Sigismond, upon hearing of the fate of his mother-in-law, and the imprisonment of his bride, marched with a large army into Hungary, and called upon the ban to set the captive at liberty. Horvat, whether moved by fear or pity, did not hesitate to comply with his request ; and having exacted from Mary a solemn oath not to take vengeance upon him or his for the injuries she had sustained, sent her Avith a large escort to Buda, where Sigismond received her in the midst of great rejoicings. Their delight on meeting once more was great in the extreme ; but we grieve to add that their nuptials were stained by Mary's perfidy. Notwithstanding her oath, she caused Sigismond to put Horvat to a barbarous and cruel death. He was seized and placed in a cart naked, with his hands tied behind his back, and in this way carried through all the towns and villages in the neighbourhood, the executioners all the while searing his body with red-hot tongs ; and at last he was cut into four quarters, one of which was placed over each gate of the city. Sigismond and Mary now ascended the throne as joint sovereigns (1386). The first year of their reign was disturbed by a revolt of the Wallacks, who, indig- nant at seeing a woman wearing the crown, rose in insurrection. Sigismond marched against them, and speedily subdued them ; but no sooner had he returne to the capital, than they again took up arms, and this time invited the Turks to * Bonfinius, lib. i., decad. 3, p. 393. BATTLE OF NECOPOLIS. 95 their aid, who eagerly complied with their request. The king again took the field, and coming up with the allied armies, the Hungarian cavalry, in complete armour, charged with such fury, that the Turks, unable to stand the onset, broke and fled, and vast numbers were cut down in the pursuit. Emboldened by his success, Sigismond proceeded to lay siege to Necopolis, a town on the Ister, garrisoned partly by Turks and partly by Hungarians. In the meantime Mary died childless, and her sister, Hedwig, had married Ladislaus, king of Poland, the latter deter- mined to assert his claims to the Hungarian throne, and was proceeding to do so, had not the archbishop of Strigonia set his face against it, and obliged Ladislaus to defer his enterprise to a more favourable season. At home the eagerness of Sigismond to avenge himself upon those who, in Mary's reign, or in his own, had seemed opposed to him, caused new troubles. He caused thirty-two of the principal nobles of the Neapolitan party to be executed, and amongst them was Stephen Conthy, who, as well as the others, disdained to apply for mercy. This outrageous severity produced a strong feeling of hostility in the minds of the magnates, which, however, did not show itself openly until after the disastrous battle of Necopolis. While he was besieging this town, great numbers of foreign soldiers, attracted by the importance of the struggle, repaired to his standard, French, Germans, and Bohemians. Bajazet advanced at the head of a large army to raise the siege, and offered battle to the Hungarians under the city walls. The French auxiliaries besought Sigismond to yield to them the post of honour, and allow them to combat in the front rank of the Christian forces. Their request was granted, but before the Hungarian army had been drawn up in array, the French, excited by seeing the Turks coolly awaiting the conflict, issued from their quarters, and rode full gallop against the enemy. Upon approaching their ranks, they dismounted and advanced on foot. Their horses being turned loose, galloped wildly back to the camp, where their arrival caused the utmost confusion, from a belief that their riders had fallen, and that the Turks were advancing flushed with victory, and a panic seizing upon the Hungarians, they fled precipitately. The unfortunate French, surrounded on all sides, fought bra'vely against overwhelming odds for some time, and supported their courage by the hope of succour. But the succour never came, and they were cut off to a man. The Turks then pursued the Hungarians for many miles, slaughtering immense numbers, and returned, laden with booty, and carrying with them a great number of captives. On this disastrous day, twenty thousand Hungarians were left dead on the field, or in the pursuit ; and Sigismond escaped with difficulty in a small boat across the Danube to Constantinople, and only reached his kingdom after a long absence and a still longer circuit. The count cle Nevers, and seventy-four of the French lords of the highest rank, were reserved for ransom, and the remainder of the prisoners, on refusing to change their creed, were beheaded in the conqueror's presence. The survivors were for a long time carried in triumph from one part of the Turkish 96 HISTORY OF HUNGARY. territory to the other, and at last were released upon the payment of an enormous ransom. In the pride of victory, Bajazet threatened to besiege Buda and subdue Germany and Italy, and declared that he would feed his horse with a bushel of oats upon the altar of St. Peter's. His progress was stayed, however, by a severe attack of gout. During Sigistnond's absence, the terrible catastrophe which had befallen the kingdom gave the malcontents an opportunity of carrying their designs into execution, by the formation of another plot, the elevation of Ladislaus,' king of Naples, and son of the unfortunate Charles the Little, to the Hungarian throne. Charles, however, had too vivid a recollection of his father's fate to be seduced into compliance, and Sigismond was allowed to enter his kingdom in peace. In a very short time a considerable number of the magnates, with the two sons of Gar a at their head, went to the palace, as if for the purpose of paying their respects, and seized the king's person, loaded him with chains, and shut him up in the castle of Szicklos. Ladislaus now was once more invited to take possession of the kingdom, but his fears overcame his ambition, and he paused at the frontiers of Dalmatia. In the meantime, the widow of Gara, touched by the king's misfortunes, persuaded her sons, into whose custody he had been committed, to connive at his escape. He instantly betook himself to Bohemia, raised there a large army, at the head of which he re-entered Hungary, took possession of the kingdom, obliged Ladislaus to desist from his pretensions, and, by an unusually judicious mixture of severity and conciliation, restored order and tranquillity. Having become in succession king of Bohemia and emperor of Germany, his new dignity gave him an opportunity of moving from place to place, gratifying his taste by weaving intricate webs of diplomacy. The rise of the sect known as the Hussites caused great troubles in his Bohemian dominions, and proved the cause of casting a stain upon his memory, and upon the church which he served, which no apology can ever efface. When the celebrated Council of Constance, for the regulation of ecclesiastical affairs, summoned before them John Huss and Jerome of Prague, the two celebrated reformers, whose preaching had inflicted such grievous wounds upon Catholicism, they refused to appear, unless they received some guarantee that wovdd insure their personal safety, Sigismond granted them a safe conduct, signed by his own hand ; but upon their arrival, joined in sentencing them to be burnt alive. This odious act of perfidy entailed upon Germany many a year of suffering and disaster. In the meantime, Naples and Venice seized upon various strongholds upon the Adriatic, without any attempt at resistance upon the part of Sigismond ; and it was only at the pressing instance of Nicholas Szentpole, that he at lejigth made preparations to avenge the defeat sustained by his army at JXecopolis. The war was commenced by the taking of Bosnia by the Hungarian general, Peterfi, who pushed on as far as Nissa, where the grand vizier occupied a strong position, with BATTLE OF NISSA. 97 JOFN HTOYADI,- 98 HISTORY OF HUNGARY. an army of 24,000 men. The battle was fought on the fourteenth of October, 1419, and ended in the total defeat of the Turks. It was in this battle that John Hollos, the adopted son of Butho, a Wallack boyard, or nobleman, first made himself conspicuous by his valour. He had served in succession under the banners of Francis Csanadi, and the bishop of Zagrab ; and in this battle, where he a commanded troop, his daring attracted the notice of the king, who bestowed upon him the domain of Hunyad, in which he had been brought up. There is a great deal of uncertainty about the origin of this illus- trious man ; and even in the accounts of those national historians, who ought to have found little difficulty in accuracy, there is a strange mixture of statements that are probably true, with those that are certainly fictitious. We are told that his father was a Wallack, and this we can readily believe; but when it is added that his appellative of Corvinus, derived from the Latinized name of the village in which he was born, joined with the fact that his father was possibly descended from one of the Roman colonists of the province of Dacia, renders it probable that he was a scion of the famous Roman family on whom chance had conferred the same epithet; and that from the mere circumstance of his mother being a Greek, it was likely that the blood of the Caesars ran in his veins, we cannot help smiling at the absurdities that hero-worship will induce men to believe and to publish. His valour and wisdom made in his day so powerful an impression upon the minds of the Hungarians, that in a country where birth confers so many great advantages, popular tradition could not do less than make him the son of a king. The story of his origin, as the peasantry tell it, is worth notice for its naivett, and in the absence of clear and decided testimony against it, it would hardly become us to impugn its truth. Sigismond, after the death of his first wife, had married Barbara de Cilly, a perverse and cunning woman, who poisoned her husband's existence, and disgraced her sex by her gross licentiousness. He, therefore, very soon began to abandon her society for that of other females. In 1392, he led his army into Wallachia, and when encamped on the banks of the Sztrigy, he met, in one of his evening walks, a girl named Elizabeth Morsiani, the daughter of a neighbouring boyard, and was captivated by her beauty. The admiration and attention of the king dazzled the simple maiden, and she yielded her honour without even a coy refusal. Sigismond then passed on to the scene of the war, where, also, he was equally successful, and upon his return, the beautiful Morsiani again presented herself at his tent, and asked what reward he would bestow upon her for presenting him with a child. "I will load the child with honours," he replied, delighted with the result of his amour ; and handing her a gold ring, told her to come to the palace, and the ring should remind him of his promise. Some months after his departure, Elizabeth married a boyard named Volk Butho, who took her with him into Wallachia, where she soon after gave birth to a son, whom she named John. When Sigismond again arrived in the neighbourhood, and she repaired to the camp, and presented him with the child and the ring. He received her graciously, and DEATH OF SIGTSMOND AND ACCESSION OF ALBERT. 99 renewed his promises of favour and protection, and told her to come to Buda. Shortly afterwards her husband died, and she was making preparations for the journey, Avhen a crow snatched the ring from her son's hand, and flew with it to a neighbouring tree, whereupon her brother, running to her assistance, shot the bird, and restored the bijou. She appeared before the king in his palace at Buda, and he loaded her with favours. When John had grown up, he bestowed upon him the domain of Hunyad, and sixty villages, and gave him as his coat-of-arms, a crow carrying a ring in its bill, and the young man ever after bore the name of his estate, Hunyadi Janos, or John of Hunyad. At the battle of Sendrecz, Sigismond was again successful, and again Hunyadi made the Turks feel the weight of his prowess. The king was now well stricken in years, and in 1437 he died, and was buried in the cathedral of Great Varadin, leaving the three crowns of which he was in possession at his death to his daughter Elizabeth and her husband, Albert, duke of Austria. He possessed many great virtues, and in reviewing his faults we must take into account the factions, intrigues, and invasions against which he had to contend. He was a man of commanding appearance, profuse in hospitality, and, when not driven into cruelty by real or fancied danger, he was humane and merciful ; and, on the whole, was worthy of a happier reign. He left a daughter, Elizabeth, who had married Albert, archduke of Austria; and by Sigismond's express desire, the latter succeeded him in the dignities he had himself held as emperor of Germany, king of Bohemia and of Hungary. He ascended the throne of the latter kingdom in 1438, but his reign was short. The Hungarians did not much relish the government of their country by a foreign sovereign, and the mixture Avhich then began to take place between them and the Germans was the cause of continued quarrels and discontent. Albert introduced a practice of appointing a Hungarian or a German, alternately each year, to the governorship of Buda. The Germans, pluming themselves on the fact that the king was a man of their nation, endeavoured, by a series of intrigues, to secure this office entirely to themselves. Amongst the Hungarians none were more opposed to their machinations than a magnate named John Euthues, a man of very high spirit, who had distinguished himself on several occasions by his impetuous resentment of slights thrown upon the Hungarians. The Germans were, there- fore, anxious, above all things, to procure his removal. After vainly trying several expedients, they at last entered his house by force, manacled him, and, after immuring him in a dungeon, inflicted upon him excruciating tortures ; and, at length, having cut his throat, threw his body into the Danube. Within a week afterwards, the body rose to the surface, and, drifting ashore, was speedily recognised, though greatly mutilated and pierced with numerous wounds. A great concourse of nobles, from various parts of the country, was at this time assembled in Buda, for the purpose of paying their respects to the new king; and the rumour having gone abroad that Euthues had been murdered by the Germans, the whole Hungarian population of the city sallied out, sword in 100 HISTORY OF HUNGARY. hand, and slaughtered, without discrimination of age or sex, not the Germans only, but all foreigners within the walls, and plundered and wrecked their houses. TUKKISH IMVASIOK. 101 The Turks, immediately upon hearing of the death of Sigismond, prepared for a new inroad ; and George, prince of Servia, believing himself unable to make head against the infidels single-handed, took refuge in Hungary, with the bishops and many of the nobility, leaving his son to hold Sendrecx against the invaders. AVhen the Hungarians learnt that their frontier was thus laid open to the enemy, messengers were sent off in great haste to Albert, who was then in Poland, im- ploring him to march to the defence of the kingdom. On arriving at Buda, he 102 HISTORY OF HUNGARY. was informefl of tlic death of George Palocs, one of the highest dignitaries of the state, to whose keeping the regalia had been committed. After taking possession of them, he handed them to his wife Elizabeth, who, in her turn, gave them to an old woman, and then returned to Buda from Strigonia, where the treasure was kept. The king then advanced, without any auxiliaries, against the Turks, and encamped between the Danube and the Teyss. In the meantime, however, Avhile Availing for reinforcements, Sendrecz was taken by 'assault, and the inhabitants put to the sword, Stephen and Gregory, the prince's sons, were taken prisoners, and eome time afterwards, on Amurath's hearing that they kept up a correspondence with their father^ they were blinded by being compelled to endure the glare of red-hot plates of brass, although their sister had been for some time his principal wife.* Great consternation prevailed amongst the Hungarians upon the receipt of this intelligence, and it was increased by the breaking out of dysentery in the Christian army, owing to the bad quality of the water they were obliged to drink, the springs hating been dried up by the extreme heat of the weather. Large number's were thus carried off; but the survivors were in some measure relieved from their fears by hearing that the Turks had retreated, leaving merely a garrison in the Sendrecz. Albert was preparing to return to Buda, when he found him- self stricken with the prevailing epidemic, and wishing to end his days in his native country, he set out for Vienna, but on arriving at Nesmel he died, in November, 1439. Whether from a spirit of equity and moderation, or through the need he felt of the Hungarians to defend himself against the Turks, Albert spent nearly the whole of his reign in soothing and conciliating them. When the electors of the German empire offered him the imperial crown, he refused to accept of it, until he had obtained the consent of his Hungarian subjects, and the question under- went a lotig^fcseussion in the diet. It was represented, and with some founda- tion, that theTRmber of crowns which Sigismond wore simultaneously distracted his attention and prevented his uniting his forces for the defence of Hungary against the Ottomans ; but they nevertheless declared that they had no wish to deprive Albert of the honour which the Germans had offered him. He, in return, gave them a proof of his regard by issuing a decree confirming the oath he had taken at his coronation. In it he declared, among other things, " that there was nothing he liad more at heart than the preservation of their rights and privi- leges ; that he would never bestow upon any foreigner any beriefice, government, commission, land, or lordship ; that he would never intrust them with the keep- ing of any fortress, and that he would never alien or pledge the revenues of the crown."f His reign only lasted three years, and, although just and moderate, he was the cause of many calamities and divisions, as we shall see hereafter. * Bonfin. Decad. iii. lib. iii. p. 439. t "The Decree of King Albert," of the year 1436, in the Prol. Art. v., xvi., &c. CHAPTER X. I/ADISLATJS II. A.D. 14391444. WHEN" Albert died, he left his wife pregnant, and the Hungarians appeared, out of respect for her father's memory, to be very well-disposed to live under her government, and that of Ladislaus, her son. But the power of the Turks had now reached such a pitch of magnitude, and they were making such formid- able preparations for the subjugation of western Europe, that it was feared by John Hunyadi that it would be in the highest degree imprudent to leave a woman and child at the head of affairs at such a critical period; and in accordance with the established rights of the diet in such cases, the crown was offered to Ladislaus, king of Poland, a young prince of great valour and ability, upon condition that he should marry Albert's widow, and that Austria and Bohemia should be the inheritance of Albert's son, and Hungary and Poland, of those children whom she might bear to her second husband. The latter was, therefore, formally declared king, and ambassadors were despatched to fetch him. After much discussion and hesitation, he accepted the proffered kingdom, and set out for Hungary. The queen, upon hearing what had occurred, was loud in her complaints and lamentations, accusing herself of folly in suffering her son to be thus defrauded of his inheritance, and the nobles of treachery and ingratitude. Many, whom other weapons could not pierce, were moved by her prayers and tears, and determined to stand by her at all hazards ; and one of the archbishops, the Cardinal Zechi, placed himself at the head of her party. Acting under his advice, the royal infant was carried in his cradle to Alba Regia, and placed on a sort of throne or raised dais, where the cardinal crowned him, but without calling the diet together, or going through any of the other formalities Avhich the laws of the kingdom prescribed. The child's cries and his mother's tears which fell fast throughout the ceremony, filled the spectators with evil foreboding, which subsequent events too fully justified. The queen, immediately after the coronation, fled into Austria, carrying with her the crown, which had been confided to her husband Albert's care. Ladislaus soon after arrived in Buda, and was met by the palatine, who con- ducted him to the citadel, and there crowned and proclaimed him 'king, with all the ordinary solemnities ; for want of the royal diadem, making use of a 104 HISTORY OF HUNGARY. wooden crown, taken off a statue of St. Stephen which stood in the hall. During the ceremony, a conspiracy to poison the new monarch was discovered just as the emissary was on the point of executing his detestable commission. He was instantly tried, and condemned to be drawn asunder by four horses, and the sentence was rigidly executed. The kingdom was now divided into two great parties, that of the queen and her eon, and that of Ladislaus. They soon came to an open rupture, which was of course attended with the violence and calamities which civil war usually produces. The conflict was carried on with varied fortune, but without any intermission of suffering on the part of the unfortunate peasantry, who saw their villages burnt, their property carried off, and their farms laid waste, in a quarrel in which they had no interest whatever. The success, however, was generally on the side of the king, who had strengthened his party, both in the field and in the diet, by attaching to his interests John Hunyadi, whom he created waywode of Transylvania. The queen struggled gallantly to -the last, but finding she was playing a losing game, she at last gave in, and committing her son and the crown to the care of Frederick III., emperor of Germany, she desisted from open hostilities, but never ceased to cause Ladislaus all the trouble and uneasiness in her power, by continually stirring up intrigues against him, both at home and abroad. The sultan, Amurath, thought that these internal dissensions would afford him a fair opportunity of attempting another invasion of Hungary, and assembling a large army, he marched along the Danube, till he reached Belgrade, a strongly fortified city, washed on both sides by the Save and the Danube, and considered by the Hungarians the key of their kingdom. On arriving before it, the Turks attempted to carry it by assault, but were vigorously repulsed. They then raised wooden towers and battering rams, to annoy the besieged by missiles, and, if pos- sible, effect a breach in the walls ; and at the same time, launched vessels on the Danube, to cut off all succours from Hungary. Bat owing to the valiant defence of the governor, a Florentine, of distinguished military abilities, all his efforts were defeated. He, nevertheless, continued the siege, in the hope that the garrison would capitulate, before Ladislaus could bring his undivided forces to their aid. The latter, as soon as he had subdued the queen's party, sent an embassy to Amurath, offering to enter into a treaty with him, in case he abandoned hostilities and withdrew his forces. The sultan craved time to consider his proposal, but employed the interval in making preparations for another vigorous assault. A breach had been made in the walls on the previous evening, and in the morning the soldiers, headed by the janissaries, advanced to the assault with great ardour, and succeeded in entering the breach. But no sooner had they done so, than the garrison, aided by the inhabitants, attacked them with such fury, that they were driven back with terrible slaughter. Great numbers were killed in the streets, and Christians having thrown Greek fire into the ditch, by which the faggots and stakes with which it was filled were set in a blaze, many more were burnt or SIEGE OF BELGRADE BY THE TUKKS. 105 smothered by the smoke when taking to flight. The forces embarked on the Danube fared no better ; and it was with no small discouragement and chagrin that Amurath recalled his troops, after having lost, in this single onset, nearly 15,000 of his best men; and being greatly pressed for want of provisions, he at last determined to break up his camp and return home. At his departure, however, he left behind him his nephew, Isa-beg, with a large body of cavalry, who, fixing his head-quarters in Rascia, began to make frequent inroads into Transylvania, burning the houses and carrying away the men and cattle. Hunyadi raised a strong body of horse and foot to defend his viceroyalty, and combining his forces with those of Nicholas Vilach, his most intimate friend and companion, he awaited the Turks at a place about midway between Belgrade and Sendrecz. Isa-beg immediately prepared to attack him. In the first onset the Turks compelled the Hungarian light-horse, which composed the wings of Hunyadi's army, to give way, and then turning, fell upon his centre with great fury. But there meeting with the men at arms, whose cuirasses gave them the advantage, the Ottomans were overthrown after a fierce struggle, and fled precipitately, leaving the flower of their troops dead upon the field. The Hungarians, headed by Hunyadi himself, pursued the fugitives for ten miles, and cut them down without mercy, and returned to Belgrade with a large number of prisoners, and laden with booty. When the news of this victory reached Buda, the joy of the court and of the people was great. Public thanksgivings were offered up in all the churches, and Ladislaus wrote a congratulatory letter to Hunyadi, thanking him for the great service he had rendered to Hungary and to Christendom, and encouraging him to follow up his successes, not only that he might secure fame and wealth in this world, but in the world to come life everlasting. But Amurath was not yet disheartened. He collected his broken forces, and putting them under the command of one of his pachas, Mezet Bey, a soldier of great valour and experience, he gave him instructions to invade Transylvania, and avenge the losses which the Turkish armies had sustained. He carried out his orders to the letter. He suddenly entered Hunyadi's province, leaving not a soul alive in the track of his soldiers, and turning the entire country into a wilderness. Hunyadi was taken by surprise, and having no force prepared to oppose the Turks, was compelled to take to flight. But he did not neglect his duty : he rode about through all the border towns and villages, particularly those inhabited by the Szeklers, calling on the men to take up arms in defence of their wives and children, and soon found himself at the head of a large force of irregular troops, with whom he pursued the invader by forced marches, and offered him battle. The engagement which followed was one of the most bloody of the campaign. Information was brought early in the day to Hunyadi that the Turkish general had given strict orders that every effort should be made to capture him or kill him, as the main support of the war. Upon hearing this, a Magyar gentleman, 106 HISTOIIY OF HUNGARY. Simon Kemene, exchanged armour with Hunyadi, and rode into action with a strong body of cavalry. The battle began by slight skirmishes ; but at length the Turks perceiving Kemene, and taking him for the Christian general, directed the whole force of their onslaught against the troops which he commanded. The Hungarian soldiers defended their leader to the last, but at length, having fallen one by one, Kemene himself was at last overpowered and slain. The Turks now thought the victory achieved, as their loss had been prodigious ; but to their astonishment they now perceived a second Hunyadi advancing against them with fresh troops, and to add to their confusion, the Transylvanian prisoners broke loose in the camp, and snatching up the first weapons they could meet with, fell upon the rear of the Ottomans, who were now utterly routed, and fled in terrible confusion, leaving four or five thousand men, and their general, Mezet Bey, dead upon the field. Their tents and baggage, and all the prisoners they had taken during the invasion, fell into the hands of the victors. The women and children crowded around Hunyadi; and fell weeping at his feet, calling him their saviour and deliverer, and invoking blessings on his head. A waggon-load of the spoil, drawn by ten horses, was sent to Ladislaus and the prince of Servia, who was then with him, containing, amongst other things, a goodly pile of Turks' heads, surmounted by that of the general. Amurath, enraged beyond measure at hearing of the overthrow of his army and the death of his general, raised a still greater force of 80,000 men in the spring of the following year, and sent it into Wallachia under the command of Sciabedin Bey. This army followed the example of its predecessors, slaughtering the inhabitants and laying waste the country through which it passed. Hunyadi awaited their approach in an entrenched camp in Transylvania with 15,000 men. The Turkish general was astonished when he heard of the smallness of the Christian army, and determined to surround it on all sides, and overwhelm it by numbers. Hunyadi drew out his forces in the form of a wedge, and kept his flanks protected by the waggons, and after a long and fierce conflict, the Turks once more took to flight, leaving great numbers dead upon the field, and 5,000 prisoners, and 100 ensigns in the hands of the enemy. This was the famous battle of Vas- cape the greatest that Hunyadi ever gained. He returned to Buda in triumph, and presented the captured standards to the king. After this victory, Ladislaus fearing that the whole power of the Turkish empire might now be turned against him, and that his own forces, however favoured by fortune hitherto, might be unequal to the contest, called together a council of the two legislative assemblies, at which the pope's legate also attended, and consulted them as to the best course to be pursued in future. The legate gave his voice for war, and he was supported by George, the despot of Servia, who recounted to the assembly, with tears in his eyes, the terrible ravages which the Turks had committed in his dominions, declaring that he had been driven into exile by them, and his children separated from him ; and imploring them not to abandon him without aid or protection to the wrath of a cruel and relentless enemy, and that enemy an infidel. His prayers BATTLE OF MORAVIA. 107 seemed to have more effect than the legate's harangue ; for the diet, as 'soon as he had concluded, passed the resolutions necessary for carrying on the war. Ambas- sadors were despatched to the emperor of Germany, and other European sove- reigns, seeking aid against the common enemy. Most of them, however, excused themselves upon one pretence or another ; but great numbers of private individuals, both in France and Germany, being prompted by religious motives, took up arms and repaired to Hungary as volunteers. When the spring arrived, prayers having been offered up in all the churches for the success of the enterprise, Ladislaus started from Buda on the 1st of May, and marching along the Danube, crossed the frontiers of Bulgaria, and laid seige to the city of Sophia, Avhich, being badly fortified, surrendered after a slight resistance, and was burned to the ground, as well as all the villages in the neigh- bourhood. After leaving this, he arrived on the banks of the Moravia, where his scouts fell in, towards evening, with the advanced guard of the Turks. A council of war was then held in the king's tent, at which it was resolved that Hunyadi, with ten thousand horse, should attack the Ottomans by surprise in the night. The latter, accordingly, set forward, and, shortly before midnight, found himself close upon the enemy's camp; and the moon just then breaking out so as to show him the nature of the ground in the vicinity, the Hungarians charged with loud cries. The Turks, in the first moments of surprise, scarce knew whether to fly or to remain ; but true, even in darkness and confusion, to the valorous instincts of the nation, they soon rallied, and stood on the defensive. Hunyadi, in the meantime, urged on his soldiers by the promise of a glorious victory and a heap of plunder ; and the report of his presence having gone abroad among the enemy, so great was the terror inspired by his name, that they instantly turned and fled, they knew not whither. The Hungarian cavalry pursued them in the moonlight, cutting them down for miles, without mercy ; and the Turks themselves, confused, panic-stricken, and seeing a foe in every one Avho approached them, in many instances turned their swords against one another, and completed whatever, in the work of destruction, the weakness or fatigue of the Christian army compelled them to leave unfinished. Thirty thousand of the Turks are said to have been slain, and their camp and baggage fell into the hands of the victors.* It was now determined, by the advice of the legate Julian, to follow up this success, to overrun Bulgaria, and, if possible, to force the passes of Mount Haemus, and attack Adrianople itself. The army, therefore, pushed forward with- out delay, taking possession of all the towns which lay in the line of their march ; a task which, in the majority of instances, was easily accomplished, as the inha- bitants were generally Christians, or at least of Sclavonic origin, and bore but a very unwilling allegiance to the sultan. When they approached the mountains, however, they, for the first time, began to perceive the difficulties of the enter- * Knolles's History of the Turks, p. 278. The number seems to be greatly exaggerated. 108 HISTOltY OF HUNGARY. prise in which they had engaged. It was now midwinter, and, in addition to the piercing cold of the weather and the hardships and discomfort of a march across a rugged country, through snow and ice, they underwent dreadful sufferings from the great scarcity of food. There were but two passes on the hills, both of which the Turks had strongly fortified ; and they had rendered the heights in the vicinity inaccessible to the surest foot and steadiest eye, by pouring doAvn great quantities of water, which the frost soon converted into a sheet of ice.* After several ineffectual attempts, the troops began to lose heart, and it required all the energy and popularity of Hunyadi to prevent their rising into open mutiny. Things were in this position when the leaders were relieved from their perplexity by the news that the Turks had left their strongholds, and were descending into the low ground to offer battle, under the command of Carambey, the pasha of Romania ; who, in this, however, was departing from his instructions, as he had received express orders from the sultan to confine himself to the defence of the passes. The Hungarians halted and awaited his approach at the foot of the mountain called Konovics, Nov. 28, 1443. After beating off several irregular onsets of the Turkish cavalry, Hunyadi drew out his forces in battle array, and put himself at their head. " To die once," said he, " is a debt we owe to nature ; but to die in battle for faith and fatherland is a favour which the Almighty bestows upon his chosen people only. Follow me! God is with us !" The Hungarians instantly charged, and the Turks meeting them with equal gallantry, a desperate conflict followed. The Christian forces had suffered so much from cold and hunger, that they gladly embraced death in preference to defeat and its attendant miseries in a savage and desolate country at a great distance from home ; and the Ottomans were burning with the desire of avenging their recent defeats and retrieving their losses. The Hungarian light horse flung themselves, again and again, upon the enemy with reckless bravery ; and though on each onset they left the ground strewed with their dead and dying, they returned, nothing daunted, to the fray. The Tuiks, at last, began to give ground, Avhen Carambey led down fresh troops from the mountain, and renewed the contest. Hunyadi then sent out some light infantry, armed with pikes and boar spears, who, lying down among the bushes, stabbed the horses of the Turkish cavalry as they rode past, and spread confusion through the whole body. Carambey did every- thing that valour or skill could suggest, rallying his forces in every quarter of the field, and encouraging them by his voice and example. The fate of the day was thus for a long time kept trembling in the balance, until an unexpected accident, at length, turned the scale. The Turkish general, in riding hurriedly across the field, got entangled in a morass, which the snow, lying thickly on the ground, concealed from his view ; and before he could extricate himself, was taken prisoner. The Turks, immediately on seeing their leader in the enemy's hands, fled in confusion. * Knolles's Hist, of the Turks, p. 279. REVOLT OF SCAJsDEllBIG. 109 After this victory, prince George and Hunyadi were anxious once more to attempt the forcing of the pass, and the king, though at first deterred by the remembrance of their former failure, at length gave a reluctant consent. The expedition was unfortunate from first to last. Encompassed by woods, and bogs, and craggy heights, and exposed to the incessant attacks of the Turks, who sallied from their fortresses, fought while successful, and retreated in safety when worsted, the sufferings of the Hungarian army at last became intolerable, and a retreat was determined upon. After long and toilsome marches they reached Buda, and entered amidst the acclamations of the citizens, who filled the windows and covered the housetops. The procession partook of the character of a Roman triumph in the palmiest days of the republic, but it will for ever remain a stain on Ladislaus and Hunyadi, that, in imitating Roman pomp, they imitated Roman cruelty and pride as -well. We should consider it a curious feature in the Christianity of the middle ages, that its charity, and beneficence, and fair dealing were exercised only towards such as embraced and held its tenets, if we did not know that, even in the present day, a still narrower, and in many respects a more hateful intolerance, anathematises men merely for a difference of sect ; but it may well excite our surprise that, in an age when chivalry was not yet dead, the champion knight of Christendom should have suffered a brave enemy, whose misfortunes were his only fault, to walk humiliated and degraded through hostile crowds, at his horse's head. Carambey, we are told, walked through the streets of Buda, bound in chains, followed by thirteen bashaws and 4,000 captives of lesser rank, while Hunyadi, clothed in a triumphal robe, rode at the king's right hand.* Ladislaus and all the chiefs of the army repaired on foot to the church of Our Lady, where the captured standards were hung up over the altar, and a solemn Te Deum was chanted by the prelates and priests. Another formidable opponent now rose up against the Turks in an unexpected quarter, in the person of George Castriot, by the Turks called Scanderbeg. His father was hereditary prince of Epirus, or Albania; a small district lying between the mountains and the Adriatic sea. Unable to contend against the sultan's power, Castriot was compelled to accept such conditions as he chose to impose ; he agreed to pay an annual tribute, and delivered his four sons as hostages for his fidelity. The youths, after undergoing circumcision, were instructed in the Mahometan religion, and trained in the arms -and arts of Turkish policy. The three elder brothers were confounded in the crowd of slaves ; and rumour said they were poisoned, but for the truth of this there is no positive evidence. The fourth brother, George, was however treated with favour and attention, and from his youth displayed the spirit and bravery of a soldier. He overthrew successively, in single combat, a Tartar, and two Persians who had carried defiance to the Turkish court, and thus commended himself to the notice of Amurath, and he received the appellation of Scanderbeg (Iskenderbey, the lord Alexander), from the * Knollcs's History of the Turks, p. 382. 110 HISTORY OF HUNGARY. Turks. His father's dominions were reduced to a province of the Turkish empire, but to compensate George for the loss of his inheritance, he received the rank and title of Sanjiak, and the command of 5,000 horse, and the prospect was held out to him of still further promotion. He served for a long time with honour in the wars of Europe and Asia ; but appears to have had the desire of avenging upon the Turks, whom he secretly hated, his father's wrongs, the fate of his three brothers, and the slavery of his country.* Whether he was ever a sincere Mahometan is hard to determine. The old historians stoutly affirm that he was not ; but we find it difficult to believe them, when we know that, from the age of nine, he was instructed in the doctrines of the Koran, and that up to forty, he was a faithful and devoted follower of the sultan. However this may be, we can hardly acquit him of the charge of inexcusable dissimulation protracted through so long a period, and however lightly pious people in that age may have looked on his deceit and treachery, in consideration of the end they served, few at the present day will acquiesce in their apology. At the battle in which Carambey was taken, in the confusion of the rout, Scanderbeg suddenly rushed up to the reis effendi, or principal secretary, and with a dagger at his breast, extorted a firman, or patent for the government of Albania, and immediately on obtaining it, murdered the writer and his train, to prevent the speedy discovery of the plot. Surrounded by a few bold followers, he escaped in the night from the field of battle, reached his paternal mountains, and on pre- senting the firman at Croya, the gates were at [once opened to him, and he assumed the command of the garrison. He now threw off the mask, abjured the Mahometan religion and his allegiance to the sultan, and declared himself the avenger of his family and country. In an assembly of the states of Epirus, he was unanimously elected general of the Turkish war. He organized an army, adjusted the finances, and without waiting to be attacked, forthwith advanced against the Turkish posts. Petrella, Petra Alba, and Stellusa fell before him, and then passing into the Turkish territories, he laid waste the whole country. Ali Bey was at last sent against him with an army of 40,000 men, but his strength rendering him careless, Scanderbeg attacked and totally defeated him with great slaughter. Amurath was thunderstruck by his losses, and not knowing Avhere the successes of the Hungarians and Albanians might end, he, at last, sent ambassadors to Ladislaus to crave for peace, offering to restore Servia to its prince, to ransom the captives, and to evacuate the Hungarian frontier, making no claim to Moldavia nor to that part of Bulgaria which he had lost during the war.f A diet was summoned at Szeguedin to consider his proposals, which were power- fully supported by George Brankovitz, the despot of Servia, whose interests would have been greatly benefited by the cessation of hostilities. After a long discussion they were agreed to, and a truce of ten years was concluded, Ladislaus swearing * Milman's Gibbon, vol. xii. p. 163-4. f Milman's Gibbon, vol. xiii. p. 163. Knolles's History of the Turks, p. 289. TREATY WITH THE TURKS. Ill on the holy evangelists, and the Turkish ambassadors upon the Koran, well and faithfully to fulfil and keep it.* The cardinal Julian Caesarini was present at the discussion and signing of the treaty, but gave no sign of approval. He was secretly opposed to the peace, but being unable to give any valid cause for dissension, he remained silent ; before the diet was dissolved, however, he received the welcome news that Anatolia had been invaded by the Caramanian, and Thrace by the Greek emperor, and that the fleets of Genoa, Venice and Burgundy were masters of the Hellespont, and that the allies were impatiently awaiting the return of the victorious army of Ladislaus. Furnished with these materials, the cardinal addressed the diet in a long and artful harangue, reproaching them with deserting their fellow Christians in the hour of need, and when everything promised success ; declaring that there existed between them and God prior engagements, which made void the sacrilegious treaty into which they had just entered ; that the vicar of Christ on earth was the Roman pontiff, in whose name he absolved them from their oaths and called upon them to renew the war against the infidels. Strange to say, his proposition was adopted on the spot, and preparations were forthwith made for recommencing hostilities. Hunyadi vehemently opposed this gross breach of faith, assuring the king that all the bulls that were ever written could not release him from subjection to the laws of honour ; but we regret to add that his scruples were silenced, and his aid secured by the promise of the kingdom of Bulgaria, in case the campaign were brought to a prosperous issue. f Ladislaus could not have been in a much worse position for entering upon the conflict. Upon the proclamation of the peace, the German' and French volunteers had departed homeward in disgust ; the Poles were exhausted by distant warfare, and perhaps tired of foreign command, and their palatines accepted the first license and hastily retired to their provinces and castles. Even Hungary itself was divided by faction, or restrained by just and laudable scruples. More than one ill omen warned the king against the enterprise upon which he was entering. Drakul, the waywode of Wallachia, whom he called upon to accompany him, with his vassals, on seeing the royal forces, which did not amount to more than 20,000 men, presumed to remark that their numbers did not exceed the hunting retinue that sometimes attended the sultan, and presented Ladislaus with two horses of matchless speed, as if to mark his evil foreboding of the event. But the king- felt such implicit confidence in the skill and valour of Hunyadi, and the prayers and protection of the church, that he scarce felt a pang of doubt or of remorse. The Turks on their side literally fulfilled the treaty. They surrendered their strongholds in Servia and Rascia ; they restored the captives and hostages * A recent French writer states that Hunyadi was bribed by Brankovitz to promote the treaty by the gift of a magnificent estate at Vilagosvur, and that at the diet, as if ashamed of his weakness, he preserved an ambiguous silence. As no authority is cited, however, it would be hardly fair to adopt the story. t Knolles's History of the Turks, p. 292. Bonfin. Dec. Hi. lib. vi. p. 485. HISTORY OF HirNGARY. which they held, and ransomed Carambey by a payment 40,000 ducats, and sent home to the despot George his two blind sons. BATTLE OF VARNA. 113 Ladislaus now sent off notice to the Greek emperor, and Francis the Florentine cardinal, who was then lying in the straits of the Hellespont with a fleet of seventy galleys, that he had resolved upon breaking the treaty, lest they, on hearing of the peace, should desist from hostilities and return home. He also wrote to Scanderbeg, apprising him of his intention, and asking his aid against the infidels. 'Jhe latter joyfully acceded, and set forward with a considerable force ; but on arriving on the frontiers of Servia, the despot, piqued by the retention of some of his fortresses by Ladislaus, refused him a passage. The Hungarian army in the meantime advanced towards the Turkish frontier, capturing all the towns and castles on their way, until at last, on arriving before Sumium and Pezechium, the Turkish garrisons, trusting to the strength of the fortifications, offered a strenuous resistance. Both places were, however, carried by assault, and above five thousand of the Turks put to the sword.* After the passage of the Danube, two roads might lead to Constantinople and the Hellespont ; the one difficult and rugged, but direct ; the other more tedious and secure over a level country and along the shores of the Euxine, in which their flanks, according to Scythian discipline, might always be covered by a moveable fortification of wag- gons. The latter was wisely preferred, and the army marched through the plains of Bulgaria, burning with wanton cruelty the churches and villages of the Chris- tian natives, simply because they happened to be within the Turkish territory, and at last arrived at Varna, a city pleasantly situated upon the sea coast. In the year 1442, Amurath, tired of the fatigues of government and the toils of war, had abdicated the throne in favour of his son Mahomet, and retired at the early age of forty to a pleasant and secluded residence at Magnesia, where he passed his time in a round of epicurean delights in the society of dancing girls and of tenestrial houris more remarkable for their beauty than their virtue. f He was wakened from his inglorious repose by hasty messages from the bashaws of the European provinces, apprising him of the breach of the truce and the advance of the Hungarian army, and imploring him to take the command of the Ottoman forces, as the extreme youth of the reigning sultan rendered him unequal to so great an emergency. Amurath forthwith left the cloister, and collecting a large army, reached the Hellespont by forced marches, but to his surprize found the passage stopped by the Venetians and the pope's galleys. He was now at his wit's end, but marching along the shore to the straits of the Bosphorus, he there, according to some, awed or seduced the Greek emperor into granting him a passage, and induced the Genoese merchant vessels to transport his soldiers and their baggage to the European shore at the charge of a ducat a head, with the mer- cenary connivance of the Catholic admiral. He then advanced towards Varna by- hasty marches at the head of sixty thousand men. When the Cardinal Julian and * Knolles's Hist, of the Turks, p. 296. t Gibbon has here fallen into a curious mistake, which. Milman has corrected. He sup- poses the sultan to have led in his retirement the life of an ascetic, watching, praying, and fasting. See vol. xii. p. 148, note. K 114 H1STOEY OF HUNGARY. Hunyadi obtained accurate intelligence as to the extent of his forces, they pro- posed the tardy and impracticable measure of a retreat. But the king refused to listen to them. He was resolved to trust to the valour of his army and the for- tune of war, and had made up his mind to conquer or die. The arrangement of his forces was committed to the skill and experience of Hunyadi. In order to prevent the Christian army from being surrounded by the mighty hosts of the infidels, their rear was protected by steep hills, one of their flanks by a marsh, and the other by a pile of waggons, and in this position they waited the onslaught of the Turks. The centres were commanded by the two princes, and the beglerbegs or generals of Anatolia and Homania commanded on the right and left against the adverse divisions of Hunyadi and the despot of Servia. The battle began by a series of skirmishes, by which great numbers were slain on both sides, but without any important result. At last Hunyadi charged with the Transylvanian and Wallack cavalry, and overwhelmed the Turkish wing commanded by Karasi Bey, who was slain in the attempt to rally his flying troops. Similar success attended the despot, and confusion speedily spread throughout the whole Turkish army. Amurath, on seeing the flight of his squadrons, despaired of his kingdom and his life, and was turning his horse's head to quit the field, when a veteran janissary seized his bridle rein, and had the courage to reproach him with his cowardice. A copy of the treaty to which the Hungarian king had sworn, had been displayed in the front of the battle, as a monument of Christian perfidy, and the sultan pointing to it in his distress, exclaimed, " Behold, thou crucified Christ, the league which thy followers have made with me, and have, without any cause, violated. Now, if thou be a God, as they say thou art, and as we dream, revenge the wrong now done unto thy name and me, and show thy power upon thy per- jured people, who in their deeds deny thee, their God!" Whether owing to the prayer or not we cannot take upon ourselves to decide, but certain it is, that at this moment the crisis of the day had arrived, and fortune was about to desert the Christian standards. Ladislaus had been placed by Hunyadi in an impregnable position, and the prudent soldier earnestly requested him not to leave it until he received a signal from, him which should show him that the proper time for action had arrived. But, unfortunately, the former was surrounded by a knot of soldier bishops, whose martial ardour and hatred of infidels had induced them to abandon the cloister and gird on the sword ; and on seeing the Turkish hosts flying before Hunyadi, their zeal began to get the better of their discretion, and they represented to the king that it would be inglorious for him not to share in the honour of the victory which was now all but achieved, and urged him to sally out and take part in the overthrow of the sultan's army, and, it might be, of his empire. The advice but too well accorded with Ladislaus's own desire. He left his position, and charged furiously across the field, and bursting through the disordered ranks of the enemy, speedily found his progress stayed by the impenetrable phalanx of the janissaries, who had not as yet taken part in the engagement. Overwhelmed by a cloud of ROUT OF THE HUNGARIANS AND DEATH OF THE KING. 115 javelins, he fell at the feet of the infantry, and a Turkish soldier cutting off his head with a scimitar, held it up to the gaze of the Hungarians on the point of a spear. The latter, on seeing their king fall, immediately fled, and all the valour and skill of Hunyadi were not sufficient to restore the fortune of the day. He made several desperate efforts to rescue the body of Ladislaus, but, overwhelmed by numbers, he escaped with difficulty from the melee, and rode off the field at the head of the remnant of the Wallack cavalry. Ten thousand Christians fell on this disastrous day ; and though the loss of the Turks did not by any means bear so large a proportion to their total strength, the sultan was not ashamed to confess that another such victory would be as bad as a defeat. By his command, a column was erected upon the spot where Ladislaus fell, bearing an inscription which paid a well-merited tribute to his valour and bewailed his misfortune. The cardinal Julian Caesarini, a man of noble Roman family, learned and accomplished, a good soldier and a bad priest, who had distinguished himself in the wars of his age, and had attempted to extinguish Bohemian heresy in the blood of Bohemian heretics, met on the field of Varna the fate he merited by counselling the king and the diet to commit the perjury which had led to the defeat. He fled from the battle mortally wounded, and was a short time after found half-naked and in the agonies of death by the edge of a neighbouring forest. It was said that his avarice was so powerful, even in. death, that he retarded his flight by loading himself with booty, which tempted the cupidity of some Christian fugitives, and induced them to strip and abandon him. The great mass of the Hungarian soldiers who escaped the sword of the enemy scarce met with a better fate, but were either lost in the adjoining fens, perished of cold and hunger in the woods, or, after wandering about for some days, fell at length into the hands of the Turkish cavalry, and were sent as slaves to distant provinces of the empire. The battle was fought on the 10th of November, 1444, K 2 CHAPTER XI. LADISLATTS III. REGENCY OF HUNYADI. A.D. 14441457. WHEN the news of the battle of Varna reached Hungary, the lamentation was loud and great, but as soon as the first moments of surprise and grief had passed away, the attention of the diet was turned to the necessity of providing a successor for Ladislaus. Their choice fell upon Ladislaus III., then only nine years old, the posthumous son of Albert, whom his mother had committed to the care of Frederick, emperor of Germany, though more out of respect for his grandfather, Sigismond, than from any bud of promise which could as yet be found in him. But, in any case a regency would be necessary for some years, and as in the present emergency it was desirable that the office should be filled by a man of acknowledged J energy and courage, John Hunyadi was unanimously chosen governor of the kingdom during the king's minority. During the ensuing four years, the attention of the Turks being called off by Scanderbeg, the new governor was enabled to devote his whole attention to the internal administration of the country, the allaying of the feuds and quarrels of the nobility, the reform of the courts of justice, and the adjustment of the finances, which had fallen into disorder during the late troubles. His affability, moderation and prudence secured for him the respect and confidence of all classes of men, and enabled him to place the kingdom in an admirable state of defence against the next storm which might arise in the east. He made strenuous efforts to induce Frederick to surrender the person of the young king and the Hungarian crown, which he had in his keeping ; but the latter, hoping, no doubt, that their possession would somehow or other at some period advance his own interests, refused to comply, and he was supported in his refusal by a small section of the Hungarian nobility, headed by Ulric de Cilly, the uncle of Ladislaus, who himself claimed the regency. In 1448, Hunyadi received intelligence that the Turks were again making preparations for another invasion of Hungary, by raising a large army both in Europe and in Asia. Nothing daunted by the disaster at Varna, he called upon the nobility once more to range themselves under his standard, and having joined his forces with those of the waywode of Wallachia, he began his march against the enemy with an army of 22,000 men. Having passed the Teyss, he crossed the frontiers of Servia, and called upon the despot to contribute his quota of aid to the BATTLE OF COSSOVA. 117 expedition ; but the wily George, being jealous of Hunyadi' s elevation to the regency, and too proud to serve under his banner, upon one pretence or another refused to comply. This excited the ire of Hunyadi, who punished his lukewarm- ness in the Christian cause by laying waste the country on the line of his march ; and the despot, on the other hand, to be revenged for his losses, sent accurate information to Amurath of the strength and destination of the Hungarian army. The sultan availing -himself of the intelligence, suffered Hunyadi to advance a considerable distance into Bulgaria without offering any opposition, and then by a sudden movement, got between him and the Danube, and having thus cut off his retreat, left him no alternative but to fight or surrender. Both armies found themselves in the great plain of Cossova, three sides of which are bounded by moun- tains,, and the fourth by the river Schichniza. Hunyadi encamped on a small hill in the centre, there to await reinforcements from Scanderbeg, as he feared with his small force to encounter the mighty host of the Turks, who numbered full 80,000 strong. Amurath, however, determined to force him to give battle, and for this purpose took every means to cut off his supplies of forage and provisions. At length, no other resource being left, the Hungarian general drew out his little army, divided it into thirty-two battalions, and having communicated his plans to the leaders, delivered a short and stirring address to the men, telling them that their own safety and the safety of their country now depended on their valour ; that the Turks to be sure were numerous, but strength did not lie in numbers, but in courage, discipline, and, above all, in the justice and sacredness of the cause for which they fought ; and bade them remember that God and the saints were on their side, and would aid in avenging the death of their king and countrymen at Varna, if they but behaved like men. The battle soon after commenced by distant skirmishing, but the Turks, confident in their numbers, soon advanced to close quarters, and in a hand-to-hand encounter of three hours duration, the Hungarians again and again repulsed the bravest of the Ottomans. Hunyadi had planted a battery on the hill which committed great havoc in the Turkish ranks, and he himself was constantly moving from one point to the other, animating the soldiers by his presence, and whenever he saw the troops in any part of the field giving way, he hastened to restore their confidence by the example of his own prowess. The conflict continued with varied success till dark, and the armies on both sides lay on the field all night " The weary to sleep and the wounded to die." At sunrise on the morrow the combat was resumed ; but the Trks now sent into action forty thousand fresh troops, who had not struck a blow on the previous day ; while most of the Hungarians were either wounded or worn out by fatigue and watching. 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