ALBERT, LADISLAUS AND FREDERIC.
From 1440 to 1489.
Increasing Honors of Albert V.--Encroachments of the Turks.--The
Christians Routed.--Terror of the Hungarians.--Death of
Albert.--Magnanimous Conduct of Albert of Bavaria.--Internal
Troubles.--Precocity of Ladislaus.--Fortifications raised by the
Turks.--John Capistrun.--Rescue of Belgrade.--The Turks
dispersed.--Exultation over the Victory.--Death of Hunniades.--Jealousy
of Ladislaus.--His Death.--Brotherly Quarrels.--Devastations by the
Turks.--Invasion of Austria.--Repeal of the Compromise.--The Emperor a
Fugitive.
The kingdom of Bohemia thus attached to the duchies of Austria contained
a population of some three millions, and embraced twenty thousand square
miles of territory, being about three times as large as the State of
Massachusetts. Hungary was a still more magnificent realm in extent of
territory, being nearly five times as large as Bohemia, but inhabited by
about the same number of people, widely dispersed. In addition to this
sudden and vast accession of power, Albert was chosen Emperor of
Germany. This distinguished sovereign displayed as much wisdom and
address in administering the affairs of the empire, as in governing his
own kingdoms.
The Turks were at this time becoming the terror of Christendom.
Originating in a small tribe between the Caspian Sea and the Euxine,
they had with bloody cimeters overrun all Asia Minor, and, crossing the
Hellespont, had intrenched themselves firmly on the shores of Europe.
Crowding on in victorious hosts, armed with the most terrible
fanaticism, they had already obtained possession of Bulgaria, Servia,
and Bosnia, eastern dependencies of Hungary, and all Europe was
trembling in view of their prowess, their ferocity and their apparently
exhaustless legions.
Sigismond, beholding the crescent of the Moslem floating over the
castles of eastern Hungary, became alarmed for the kingdom, and sent
ambassadors from court to court to form a crusade against the invaders.
He was eminently successful, and an army of one hundred thousand men was
soon collected, composed of the flower of the European nobility. The
republics of Venice and Genoa united to supply a fleet. With this
powerful armament Sigismond, in person, commenced his march to
Constantinople, which city the Turks were besieging, to meet the fleet
there. The Turkish sultan himself gathered his troops and advanced to
meet Sigismond. The Christian troops were utterly routed, and nearly all
put to the sword. The emperor with difficulty escaped. In the confusion
of the awful scene of carnage he threw himself unperceived into a small
boat, and paddling down the Danube, as its flood swept through an almost
uninhabited wilderness, he reached the Black Sea, where he was so
fortunate as to find a portion of the fleet, and thus, by a long
circuit, he eventually reached his home.
Bajazet, the sultan, returned exultant from this great victory, and
resumed the siege of Constantinople, which ere long fell into the hands
of the Turks. Amurath, who was sultan at the time of the death of
Sigismond, thought the moment propitious for extending his conquests. He
immediately, with his legions, overran Servia, a principality nearly the
size of the State of Virginia, and containing a million of inhabitants.
George, Prince of Servia, retreating before the merciless followers of
the false prophet, threw himself with a strong garrison into the
fortress of Semendria, and sent an imploring message to Albert for
assistance. Servia was separated from Hungary only by the Danube, and it
was a matter of infinite moment to Albert that the Turk should not get
possession of that province, from which he could make constant forays
into Hungary.
Albert hastily collected an army and marched to the banks of the Danube
just in time to witness the capture of Semendria and the massacre of its
garrison. All Hungary was now in terror. The Turks in overwhelming
numbers were firmly intrenched upon the banks of the Danube, and were
preparing to cross the river and to supplant the cross with the crescent
on all the plains of Hungary. The Hungarian nobles, in crowds, flocked
to the standard of Albert, who made herculean exertions to meet and roll
back the threatened tide of invasion. Exhausted by unremitting toil, he
was taken sick and suddenly died, on a small island of the Danube, on
the 17th of October, 1439, in the forty-third year of his age. The death
of such a prince, heroic and magnanimous, loving the arts of peace, and
yet capable of wielding the energies of war, was an apparent calamity to
Europe.
Albert left two daughters, but his queen Elizabeth was expecting, in a
few months, to give birth to another child. Every thing was thus
involved in confusion, and for a time intrigue and violence ran riot.
There were many diverse parties, the rush of armed bands, skirmishes and
battles, and all the great matters of state were involved in an
inextricable labyrinth of confusion. The queen gave birth to a son, who
was baptized by the name of Ladislaus. Elizabeth, anxious to secure the
crown of Hungary for her infant, had him solemnly crowned at Alba Regia,
by the Archbishop of Gran when the child was but four months old.
But a powerful party arose, opposed to the claims of the infant, and
strove by force of arms to place upon the throne Uladislaus, King of
Poland and Lithuania, and son of the pagan Jaghellon and the unhappy
Hedwige. For two years war between the rival parties desolated the
kingdom, when Elizabeth died. Uladislaus now redoubled his endeavors,
and finally succeeded in driving the unconscious infant from his
hereditary domain, and established himself firmly on the throne of
Hungary.
The infant prince was taken to Bohemia. There also he encountered
violent opposition. "A child," said his opponents, "can not govern. It
will be long before Ladislaus will be capable of assuming the reins of
government. Let us choose another sovereign, and when Ladislaus has
attained the age of twenty-four we shall see whether he deserves the
crown."
This very sensible advice was adopted, and thirteen electors were
appointed to choose a sovereign. Their choice fell upon Albert of
Bavaria. But he, with a spirit of magnanimity very rare in that age,
declared that the crown, of right, belonged to Ladislaus, and that he
would not take it from him. They then chose Frederic, Duke of Styria,
who, upon the death of Albert, had been chosen emperor. Frederic,
incited by the example of Albert, also declined, saying, "I will not rob
my relation of his right." But anxious for the peace of the empire, he
recommended that they should choose some illustrious Bohemian, to whom
they should intrust the regency until Ladislaus became of age, offering
himself to assume the guardianship of the young prince.
This judicious advice was accepted, and the Bohemian nobles chose the
infant Ladislaus their king. They, however, appointed two regents
instead of one. The regents quarreled and headed two hostile parties.
Anarchy and civil war desolated the kingdom, with fluctuations of
success and discomfiture attending the movements of either party. Thus
several years of violence and blood passed on. One of the regents,
George Podiebrad, drove his opponent from the realm and assumed regal
authority. To legitimate its usurped power he summoned a diet at
Pilgram, in 1447, and submitted the following question:
"Is it advantageous to the kingdom that Ladislaus should retain the
crown, or would it not be more beneficial to choose a monarch acquainted
with our language and customs, and inspired with love of our country?"
Warm opposition to this measure arose, and the nobles voted themselves
loyal to Ladislaus. While these events were passing in Bohemia, scenes
of similar violence were transpiring in Hungary. After a long series of
convulsions, and Uladislaus, the Polish king, who had attained the crown
of Hungary, having been slain in a battle with the Turks, a diet of
Hungarian nobles was assembled and they also declared the young
Ladislaus to be their king. They consequently wrote to the Emperor
Frederic, Duke of Styria, who had assumed the guardianship of the
prince, requesting that he might be sent to Hungary. Ladislaus
Posthumous, so-called in consequence of his birth after the death of his
father, was then but six years of age.
The Austrian States were also in a condition of similar confusion, rival
aspirants grasping at power, feuds agitating every province, and all
moderate men anxious for that repose which could only be found by
uniting in the claims of Ladislaus for the crown. Thus Austria, Bohemia
and Hungary, so singularly and harmoniously united under Albert V., so
suddenly dissevered and scattered by the death of Albert, were now,
after years of turmoil, all reuniting under the child Ladislaus.
Frederic, however, the faithful guardian of the young prince, was
devoting the utmost care to his education, and refused to accede to the
urgent and reiterated requests to send the young monarch to his realms.
When Ladislaus was about ten years of age the Emperor Frederic visited
the pope at Rome, and took Ladislaus in his glittering suite. The
precocious child here astonished the learned men of the court, by
delivering an oration in Latin before the consistory, and by giving many
other indications of originality and vigor of mind far above his years.
The pope became much attached to the youthful sovereign of three such
important realms, and as Frederic was about to visit Naples, Ladislaus
remained a guest in the imperial palace.
Deputies from the three nations repaired to Rome to urge the pope to
restore to them their young sovereign. Failing in this, they endeavored
to induce Ladislaus to escape with them. This plan also was discovered
and foiled. The nobles were much irritated by these disappointments, and
they resolved to rescue him by force of arms. All over Hungary, Bohemia
and Austria there was a general rising of the nobles, nationalities
being merged in the common cause, and all hearts united and throbbing
with a common desire. An army of sixteen thousand men was raised.
Frederic, alarmed by these formidable preparations for war, surrendered
Ladislaus and he was conveyed in triumph to Vienna. A numerous
assemblage of the nobles of the three nations was convened, and it was
settled that the young king, during his minority, should remain at
Vienna, under the care of his maternal uncle, Count Cilli, who, in the
meantime, was to administer the government of Austria. George Podiebrad
was intrusted with the regency of Bohemia; and John Hunniades was
appointed regent of Hungary.
Ladislaus was now thirteen years of age. The most learned men of the age
were appointed as his teachers, and he pursued his studies with great
vigor. Count Cilli, however, an ambitious and able man, soon gained
almost unlimited control over the mind of his young ward, and became so
arrogant and dictatorial, filling every important office with his own
especial friends, and removing those who displeased him, that general
discontent was excited and conspiracy was formed against him. Cilli was
driven from Vienna with insults and threats, and the conspirators placed
the regency in the hands of a select number of their adherents.
While affairs were in this condition, John Hunniades, as regent, was
administering the government of Hungary with great vigor and sagacity.
He was acquiring so much renown that Count Cilli regarded him with a
very jealous eye, and excited the suspicions of the young king that
Hunniades was seeking for himself the sovereignty of Hungary. Cilli
endeavored to lure Hunniades to Vienna, that he might seize his person,
but the sagacious warrior was too wily to be thus entrapped.
The Turks were now in the full tide of victory. They had conquered
Constantinople, fortified both sides of the Bosporus and the Hellespont,
overrun Greece and planted themselves firmly and impregnably on the
shores of Europe. Mahomet II. was sultan, succeeding his father Amurath.
He raised an army of two hundred thousand men, who were all inspired
with that intense fanatic ferocity with which the Moslem then regarded
the Christian. Marching resistlessly through Bulgaria and Servia, he
contemplated the immediate conquest of Hungary, the bulwark of Europe.
He advanced to the banks of the Danube and laid siege to Belgrade, a
very important and strongly fortified town at the point where the Save
enters the great central river of eastern Europe.
Such an army, flushed with victory and inspired with all the energies of
fanaticism, appalled the European powers. Ladislaus was but a boy,
studious and scholarly in his tastes, having developed but little
physical energy and no executive vigor. He was very handsome, very
refined in his tastes and courteous in his address, and he cultivated
with great care the golden ringlets which clustered around his
shoulders. At the time of this fearful invasion Ladislaus was on a visit
to Buda, one of the capitals of Hungary, on the Danube, but about three
hundred miles above Belgrade. The young monarch, with his favorite,
Cilli, fled ingloriously to Vienna, leaving Hunniades to breast as he
could the Turkish hosts. But Hunniades was, fortunately, equal to the
emergence.
A Franciscan monk, John Capistrun, endowed with the eloquence of Peter
the Hermit, traversed Germany, displaying the cross and rousing
Christians to defend Europe from the infidels. He soon collected a
motley mass of forty thousand men, rustics, priests, students, soldiers,
unarmed, undisciplined, a rabble rout, who followed him to the
rendezvous where Hunniades had succeeded in collecting a large force of
the bold barons and steel-clad warriors of Hungary. The experienced
chief gladly received this heterogeneous mass, and soon armed them,
brought them into the ranks and subjected them to the severe discipline
of military drill.
At the head of this band, which was inspired with zeal equal to that of
the Turk, the brave Hunniades, in a fleet of boats, descended the
Danube. The river in front of Belgrade was covered with the flotilla of
the Turks. The wall in many places was broken down, and at other points
in the wall they had obtained a foothold, and the crescent was proudly
unfurled to the breeze. The feeble garrison, worn out with toil and
perishing with famine, were in the last stages of despair. Hunniades
came down upon the Turkish flotilla like an inundation; both parties
fought with almost unprecedented ferocity, but the Christians drove
every thing before them, sinking, dispersing, and capturing the boats,
which were by no means prepared for so sudden and terrible an assault.
The immense reinforcement, with arms and provisions, thus entered the
city, and securing the navigation of the Danube and the Save, opened the
way for continued supplies. The immense hosts of the Mohammedans now
girdled the city in a semicircle on the land side. Their tents,
gorgeously embellished and surmounted with the crescent, glittered in
the rays of the sun as far as the eye could extend. Squadrons of
steel-clad horsemen swept the field, while bands of the besiegers
pressed the city without intermission, night and day.
Mohammed, irritated by this unexpected accession of strength to the
besieged, in his passion ordered an immediate and simultaneous attack
upon the town by his whole force. The battle was long and bloody, both
parties struggling with utter desperation. The Turks were repulsed.
After one of the longest continuous conflicts recorded in history,
lasting all one night, and all the following day until the going down of
the sun, the Turks, leaving thirty thousand of their dead beneath the
ramparts of the city, and taking with them the sultan desperately
wounded, struck their tents in the darkness of the night and retreated.
Great was the exultation in Hungary, in Germany and all over Europe. But
this joy was speedily clouded by the intelligence that Hunniades, the
deliverer of Europe from Moslem invasion, exhausted with toil, had been
seized by a fever and had died. It is said that the young King Ladislaus
rejoiced in his death, for he was greatly annoyed in having a subject
attain such a degree of splendor as to cast his own name into
insignificance. Hunniades left two sons, Ladislaus and Matthias. The
king and Cilli manifested the meanest jealousy in reference to these
young men, and fearful that the renown of their father, which had
inspired pride and gratitude in every Hungarian heart, might give them
power, they did every thing they could to humiliate and depress them.
The king lured them both to Buda, where he perfidiously beheaded the
eldest, Ladislaus, for wounding Cilli, in defending himself from an
attack which the implacable count had made upon him, and he also threw
the younger son, Matthias, into a prison.
The widow of Hunniades, the heroic mother of these children, with a
spirit worthy of the wife of her renowned husband, called the nobles to
her aid. They rallied in great numbers, roused to indignation. The
inglorious king, terrified by the storm he had raised, released
Matthias, and fled from Buda to Vienna, pursued by the execrations and
menaces of the Hungarians.
He soon after repaired to Prague, in Bohemia, to solemnize his marriage
with Magdalen, daughter of Charles VII., King of France. He had just
reached the city, and was making preparations for his marriage in
unusual splendor, when he was attacked by a malignant disease, supposed
to be the plague, and died after a sickness of but thirty-six hours. The
unhappy king, who, through the stormy scenes of his short life, had
developed no grandeur of soul, was oppressed with the awfulness of
passing to the final judgment. In the ordinances of the Church he sought
to find solace for a sinful and a troubled spirit. Having received the
sacrament of the Lord's Supper, with dying lips he commenced repeating
the Lord's prayer. He had just uttered the words "deliver us from evil,"
when his spirit took its flight to the judgment seat of Christ.
Frederic, the emperor, Duke of Styria, was now the oldest lineal
descendant of Rhodolph of Hapsburg, founder of the house of Austria. The
imperial dignity had now degenerated into almost an empty title. The
Germanic empire consisted of a few large sovereignties and a
conglomeration of petty dukedoms, principalities, and States of various
names, very loosely held together, in their heterogeneous and
independent rulers and governments, by one nominal sovereign upon whom
the jealous States were willing to confer but little real power. A
writer at that time, Æneas Sylvius, addressing the Germans, says:
"Although you acknowledge the emperor for your king and master, he
possesses but a precarious sovereignty; he has no power; you only obey
him when you choose; and you are seldom inclined to obey. You are all
desirous to be free; neither the princes nor the States render to him
what is due. He has no revenue, no treasure. Hence you are involved in
endless contests and daily wars. Hence also rapine, murder,
conflagrations, and a thousand evils which arise from divided
authority."
Upon the death of Ladislaus there was a great rush and grasping for the
vacant thrones of Bohemia and Hungary, and for possession of the rich
dukedoms of Austria. After a long conflict the Austrian estates were
divided into three portions. Frederic, the emperor, took Upper Austria;
his brother Albert, who had succeeded to the Swiss estates, took Lower
Austria; Sigismond, Albert's nephew, a man of great energy of character,
took Carinthia. The three occupied the palace in Vienna in joint
residence.
The energetic regent, George Podiebrad, by adroit diplomacy succeeded,
after an arduous contest, in obtaining the election by the Bohemian
nobles to the throne of Bohemia. The very day he was chosen he was
inaugurated at Prague, and though rival candidates united with the pope
to depose him, he maintained his position against them all.
Frederic, the emperor, had been quite sanguine in the hopes of obtaining
the crown of Bohemia. Bitterly disappointed there, he at first made a
show of hostile resistance; but thinking better of the matter, he
concluded to acquiesce in the elevation of Podiebrad, to secure amicable
relations with him, and to seek his aid in promotion of his efforts to
obtain the crown of Hungary. Here again the emperor failed. The nobles
assembled in great strength at Buda, and elected unanimously Matthias,
the only surviving son of the heroic Hunniades, whose memory was
embalmed in the hearts of all the Hungarians. The boy then, for he was
but a boy, and was styled contemptuously by the disappointed Frederic
the boy king, entered into an alliance with Podiebrad for mutual
protection, and engaged the hand of his daughter in marriage. Thus was
the great kingdom of Austria, but recently so powerful in the union of
all the Austrian States with Bohemia and Hungary, again divided and
disintegrated. The emperor, in his vexation, foolishly sent an army of
five thousand men into Hungary, insanely hoping to take the crown by
force of arms, but he was soon compelled to relinquish the hopeless
enterprise.
And now Frederic and Albert began to quarrel at Vienna. The emperor was
arrogant and domineering. Albert was irritable and jealous. First came
angry words; then the enlisting of partisans, and then all the miseries
of fierce and determined civil war. The capital was divided into hostile
factions, and the whole country was ravaged by the sweep of armies. The
populace of Vienna, espousing the cause of Albert, rose in insurrection,
pillaged the houses of the adherents of Frederic, drove Frederic, with
his wife and infant child, into the citadel, and invested the fortress.
Albert placed himself at the head of the insurgents and conducted the
siege. The emperor, though he had but two hundred men in the garrison,
held out valiantly. But famine would soon have compelled him to
capitulate, had not the King of Bohemia, with a force of thirteen
thousand men, marched to his aid. Podiebrad relieved the emperor, and
secured a verbal reconciliation between the two angry brothers, which
lasted until the Bohemian forces had returned to their country, when the
feud burst out anew and with increased violence. The emperor procured
the ban of the empire against his brother, and the pope excommunicated
him. Still Albert fought fiercely, and the strife raged without
intermission until Albert suddenly died on the 4th of December, 1463.
The Turks, who, during all these years, had been making predatory
excursions along the frontiers of Hungary, now, in three strong bands of
ten thousand each, overran Servia and Bosnia, and spread their
devastations even into the heart of Illyria, as far as the metropolitan
city of Laybach. The ravages of fire and sword marked their progress.
They burnt every village, every solitary cottage, and the inhabitants
were indiscriminately slain. Frederic, the emperor, a man of but little
energy, was at his country residence at Lintz, apparently more anxious,
writes a contemporary, "to shield his plants from frost, than to defend
his domains against these barbarians."
The bold barons of Carniola, however, rallied their vassals, raised an
army of twenty thousand men, and drove the Turks back to the Bosphorus.
But the invaders, during their unimpeded march, had slain six thousand
Christians, and they carried back with them eight thousand captives.
Again, a few years after, the Turks, with a still larger army, rushed
through the defiles of the Illyrian mountains, upon the plains of
Carinthia. Their march was like the flow of volcanic fire. They left
behind them utter desolation, smouldering hearth-stones and fields
crimsoned with blood. At length they retired of their own accord,
dragging after them twenty thousand captives. During a period of
twenty-seven years, under the imbecile reign of Frederic, the very heart
of Europe was twelve times scourged by the inroads of these savages. No
tongue can tell the woes which were inflicted upon humanity. Existence,
to the masses of the people, in that day, must indeed have been a curse.
Ground to the very lowest depths of poverty by the exactions of
ecclesiastics and nobles, in rags, starving, with no social or
intellectual joys, they might indeed have envied the beasts of the
field.
The conduct of Frederic seems to be marked with increasing treachery and
perfidy. Jealous of the growing power of George Podiebrad, he instigated
Matthias, King of Hungary, to make war upon Bohemia, promising Matthias
the Bohemian crown. Infamously the King of Hungary accepted the bribe,
and raising a powerful army, invaded Bohemia, to wrest the crown from
his father-in-law. His armies were pressing on so victoriously, in
conjunction with those of Frederic, that the emperor was now alarmed
lest Matthias, uniting the crowns of Hungary and Bohemia, should become
too powerful. He therefore not only abandoned him, but stirred up an
insurrection among the Hungarian nobles, which compelled Matthias to
abandon Bohemia and return home.
Matthias, having quelled the insurrection, was so enraged with the
emperor, that he declared war against him, and immediately invaded
Austria. The emperor was now so distrusted that he could not find a
single ally. Austria alone, was no match for Hungary. Matthias overran
all Lower Austria, took all the fortresses upon the Danube, and invested
Vienna. The emperor fled in dismay to Lintz, and was obliged to purchase
an ignominious peace by an immense sum of money, all of which was of
course to be extorted by taxes on the miserable and starving peasantry.
Poland, Bohemia and the Turks, now all pounced upon Hungary, and
Frederic, deeming this a providential indication that Hungary could not
enforce the fulfillment of the treaty, refused to pay the money.
Matthias, greatly exasperated, made the best terms he could with Poland,
and again led his armies in Austria. For four years the warfare raged
fiercely, when all Lower Austria, including the capital, was in the
hands of Matthias, and the emperor was driven from his hereditary
domains; and, accompanied by a few followers, he wandered a fugitive
from city to city, from convent to convent, seeking aid from all, but
finding none.