CHAPTER VII.

THE KINGS OF THE HOUSE OF ÁRPÁD.

The crown of St. Stephen remained in the dynastic family of Árpád

for three centuries. The kings of this dynasty erected, upon the

foundations laid by the first great king of that house, the proud and

enduring structure of the Hungarian Church and State. The liberty of

the nation and the independence of the country were maintained by

these rulers against the ever-recurring attacks of both the Eastern

and Western empires, and the paternal meddling of the popes, as

well as against the barbarians invading Europe from the East, whose

devastations menaced the complete destruction of every thing that lay

in their path.

But while they repulsed with an ever-ready and strong arm all hostile

attacks—from whatever quarter they might come—they willingly extended

the right hand of friendship and hospitality to those who came to

settle in the country with peaceful intentions, and brought with them

the valued seeds of Western culture. The Hungarians themselves could be

but with difficulty weaned from their ancient customs, and they still

continued to be the martial element of the country, inured to war and

laying down their lives on fields of battle; but the populations which

had emigrated from the West, protected by royal immunities, were the

fathers of a busy and prosperous city-life, and laid the foundations

of civilization in Hungary. A few monumental memorials, spared by the

hand of time, proclaim to this day the artistic taste and wealth of

those remote centuries, and the scant words to be found in ancient and

decayed parchments speak loudly, and with no uncertain sound, of the

cities of that time as busy marts of industrial activity and thriving

commerce. From the list of the annual revenues of one of the Árpáds,

Béla III., and those of the country in the twelfth century, which was

submitted by him when asking for the hand of the daughter of the French

king, the civilized West learned with amazement of the enormous wealth

of the king ruling near the eastern confines of the Western world. The

king’s wealth was but a reflex of the prosperity of the people. During

the era of the Árpáds Hungary surpassed many a Western country in power

and wealth, and in the work of civilization either kept pace with them

or faithfully followed in their footsteps. These three hundred years

produced great kings, who, distinguished by their abilities, character,

and achievements, made the country strong and flourishing; but this

era produced also weak and frivolous rulers, whose faults will forever

darken their memory. Posterity, however, cherishes the memory of all

with equal piety, and is accustomed to look at the entire period in

the light of the lustre of the great kings only. No wonder, therefore,

if the ancient chroniclers, in describing the events of that era, are

led by their piety to weave into the text gorgeous tales and legends

for the purpose of enhancing the glory of the great kings, and of

palliating the shortcomings of those kings who were weak and frail.

The history of those three centuries may be divided into three periods.

The first, comprising the first two centuries, may be called the

heroic period of the young kingdom, in the course of which both the

foreign and domestic foes were triumphantly resisted, the attacks of

the neighboring nations repulsed, and the risings of paganism quelled.

The second comprises the early part of the thirteenth century. During

this period the royal power entered upon a state of decay, and was no

longer able either to secure respect for the law or the execution of

its behests. At this time too the nobility extorted from royalty a

charter called the Golden Bull, confirming their immunities. During the

third period an oligarchy, recruited from the ranks of the nobility,

rose to power, and became the scourge of the nation, defying the royal

authority and trampling upon all law. The licentiousness of this class

ruined the country, which was then very near becoming a prey of the

Mongols, who made an unexpected invasion. The realm, however, was saved

from utter destruction by the devotion of one of her great kings and a

happy conjuncture of circumstances.

The misgivings which filled Stephen’s soul when he closed his eyes in

eternal sleep soon proved to have been well founded. Four years had

hardly elapsed after his death when the armies of the German emperor

were already marching on Hungary, and in another four years paganism

arose in a formidable rebellion, with the avowed purpose of destroying

the new church and kingdom.

Peter (1038-1046), Stephen’s successor, who was of foreign descent and

of a proud and frivolous nature, despised the rude and uncivilized

Hungarians. He surrounded himself with foreigners, German and Italian

immigrants, who divided amongst themselves the chief dignities of the

State, preyed upon the prosperity of the country, and ruined the morals

of the people. The nation did not tolerate his misrule very long. The

fierce hatred and exasperation with which they looked at every thing

foreign found its vent against Peter, whom they drove from the country

and then elected in his place one of their own nation, Samuel Aba

(1041-1044), the late king’s brother-in-law. Peter did not renounce

his lost power, but asked the help of the German emperor, which he

readily obtained. The Emperor Henry III. opened with his German troops

the way to the forfeited throne, and Samuel Aba, who marched against

him, having fallen on the battle-field, Peter for the second time had

the crown of St. Stephen placed on his brow, but this time he took the

oath of fealty to the German emperor. Thus did Hungary for the moment

become a vassal state of the German empire. But the vassalage was

short, for hardly had the emperor withdrawn from the country when the

passionate wrath of the nation rose higher than ever against Peter.

This time, however, the wrath was not alone against his person, but

menaced destruction to every thing opposed to the ancient order of

things, and produced a bitter contest against both Christianity and the

royal dignity. Peter would have fain escaped now from his persecutors,

but he was captured, thrown into prison, and deprived of his sight, and

then, from the depth of his misery, he vainly bewailed the giddiness

which had conjured up the storm of passions that had deprived him of

his throne, his eyesight, and liberty.

[Illustration: THE PEOPLE, SEDUCED BY VATHA, CLAIM THE RE-ESTABLISHMENT

OF PAGANISM.]

The leader of the pagan rebellion was Vatha. At his command firebrands

were thrown into the churches and monasteries, the crosses were

demolished, and every thing proclaiming the new faith was reduced

to ruins; and by his advice ambassadors were sent to the dukes of

the house of Árpád, who, after Stephen’s death, had sought refuge

in foreign countries, to summon them to return to the country and

restore there the old order. King Andrew I. (1046-1061), to whom the

supreme power had been offered, and who, during his exile in Russia,

had married the daughter of the Prince of Kiev, immediately obeyed the

summons, not, however to submit to the behests of paganism, but to rule

in accordance with the principles and in the spirit of his illustrious

kinsman, King Stephen. For a while, indeed, he was compelled to bear

with the outbreaks, massacres, and devastations of paganism, but as

soon as he felt secure in his new power, and especially after having

taken up his residence in Stuhlweissenburg, then the capital of

the country, where he was able to collect around him the Christian

inhabitants of the West, who lived there in large numbers, he at once

turned his arms against the pagan rebels. He dispersed their armies,

captured their leaders, and crushed the rebellion with merciless

severity.

The double cross shone out again triumphantly, but the crown was still

menaced by danger. After the defeat of paganism the Emperor Henry III.

sent envoys to Andrew, asking satisfaction for the cruelties inflicted

upon Peter and calling upon the king to renew the oath of fealty to

the emperor of Germany. Andrew felt that unless he maintained the

independence of the country, and the dignity of the crown, he incurred

the risk of losing the throne itself. He therefore rejected Henry’s

claims and prepared for the defence of the country. At the same time

he summoned home his brother Béla (Adalbert) who, during his exile

in Poland, had won high distinction as a soldier, and had obtained,

as a reward for his military services, the hand of a daughter of

Miecislas. Andrew himself was in ill-health, and he did not care to

face the brewing storm single-handed. He wanted to have at his side the

powerful arm of his brave and mighty brother, whose very appearance

was sufficient to inspire the distressed nation with confidence and

hope. He gave Béla one third of the realm, and, being childless,

promised him the crown after his decease. Neither Andrew nor the nation

were disappointed in Duke Béla, who was believed by the people to be

irresistible. It was in vain that Henry III. collected the entire

armed force of the empire, and three times in succession (1049-1052)

threw this force upon Hungary. In each campaign Duke Béla succeeded in

dealing deadly blows upon the invaders. His triumph was so complete

that the emperor was compelled to solemnly proclaim peace, again

acknowledging the independence of the kingdom.

The nation was not permitted long to enjoy the peace following her

almost miraculous escape. Domestic dissensions took the place of the

dangers threatening from abroad, and this time the feuds did not

originate with the people, but with the royal family itself. All the

glory of the important results of the German wars, of the driving the

enemy from the country, and of her happy escape from the besetting

dangers, centred in the person of Duke Béla. The nation looked with

love and admiration upon the knightly form of their favorite, and his

popularity was so great that it quite overshadowed that of Andrew,

notwithstanding all his kingly power. Andrew’s feelings were deeply

hurt by the popularity of his brother, nor could he help being

terrified by it. But it was not his brother’s popularity alone which

troubled him. During the war a son had been born to Andrew, who was

christened Solomon. Andrew now repented of his promise to Béla. He

wished his infant son to succeed to the throne, and in order to insure

it to him, he caused Solomon to be crowned in spite of his tender

age. Not satisfied with this, but fearing that Béla, aggrieved by

these proceedings, might rise against Solomon at some future time,

he betrothed his little son to the daughter of the recently humbled

emperor, in order to secure for Solomon the powerful aid of the German

empire against Béla’s attacks. Every movement of Andrew was dictated

by fear, and he saw cause for trembling in every thing. What troubled

him most was that Béla had never breathed a word about his griefs or

wrongs. Andrew would often ask himself whether Béla was candid in his

apparent indifference, or whether, under the cover of this calm repose,

he was not concocting dangerous schemes against him and young Solomon.

He determined to put Béla’s candor to the proof. He had been ailing,

and made his feeble condition a pretext for inviting his brother to

the court. He received Béla with kindly words, confided to him his

misgivings, appealed to his generosity, and repeatedly assured him that

he did not intend to defraud him of his rights by the acts done in

favor of his son Solomon. Andrew concluded by saying that he left it

to Béla to decide whether he would rather succeed to the throne after

his own death, or be satisfied to remain at the side of young Solomon

as the military chief of the nation and the protector of the realm. The

old chronicles relate that Andrew, having finished his sweet speech,

caused to be placed before Béla the royal crown and a sword, calling

upon him to choose between the two. “I take the sword,” exclaimed Béla,

unable to conceal his indignation, “for if I coveted the crown, I could

always obtain it with the sword.”

The feud between the two brothers became henceforth irreconcilable. The

nation sided with Béla. The emperor spoken of before was dead, and a

boy occupied the German throne. Andrew had sent his queen and young son

some time before to the German court, and now he marched against Béla,

who was prepared to meet him. The two brothers confronted each other

near the Theiss, and Andrew lost both the battle and his life, whilst

Béla was on the field of battle proclaimed king of the realm.

Béla and his family occupy a conspicuous place in the history of the

first century of the Hungarian kingdom. He himself, two of his sons,

and one of his grandsons were destined to successfully defend the

country, to pacify the nation, and, pursuing the work of Stephen,

to complete the creations of that great king. They were all endowed

with eminent qualities befitting the great task allotted to them.

The heroism, devotion, and wisdom of the father descended to the

children, in whose character the inherited virtues shone out with

even a brighter and purer light. They were zealous guardians of their

kingdom and devout Christians, and they were wedded, heart and soul, to

their nation, which beheld in its kings with feelings of delight the

embodiment of its own best qualities. The imagination of the people

soars towards them after the lapse of so many centuries, and loves to

make their lofty forms the heroes of fabulous legends. Hence it is that

the events recorded of them in the pages of the chronicles are nearly

choked up by the ever-gorgeous poetical creations of the imagination of

the people.

The reign of Béla I. was short (1061-1063), but even during this brief

period he succeeded in rendering important services to his country.

While he was king paganism once more reared its crest under the lead

of James, son of the Vatha who had been put to death during Andrew’s

reign. James stirred up the multitude against Christianity and royalty,

but Béla nipped the rising in the bud. This last attempt of paganism

having failed, its power was completely broken, and it finally lost

entirely its hold upon the imagination and passions of the people. Some

there were yet who continued to resort secretly to the sacred places in

the groves, but their persecutors traced them even to these hallowed

spots, until, at last, the sacred fire burning on the secretly elevated

and visited altars was completely extinguished by the laws enacted

under Kings Ladislaus and Coloman. The imperial court of Germany made

strenuous efforts to place Solomon, whom it had received under its

protection, upon the throne of St. Stephen. Armies were collected and

marched against Hungary in the hope of being able at last to assert

the imperial supremacy over the kingdom which had been hitherto so

unsuccessfully proclaimed. The nation shrank from young Solomon, who

was badly brought up and frivolous, and in whom they saw only the

tool of the German power. The voice of the people designated amongst

Béla’s chivalrous sons either the righteous Geyza or the brave and pure

Ladislaus, as the princes best fitted for the crown.

These generous princes, however, desiring to save their country from

the calamities of an attack by the Germans, abdicated their power

in favor of young Solomon, and gave him a friendly reception on

his ascending the throne, stipulating only this, that their cousin

should leave them undisturbed in the possession of their paternal

inheritance, which comprised about one third of the realm. Solomon

(1063-1074) promised every thing and kept nothing. He was distrustful

of his cousins, perceiving that the nation idolized them, and bowed

down before him only from compulsion. It was in vain that his royal

kinsmen supported him with an unselfishness almost touching, and strove

hard to lend him the lustre of their own popularity in order to obtain

favor for him in the eyes of the nation. Solomon persisted in seeing

in them his rivals, from whose grasp his crown was not safe, and not

his brothers, the upholders and guardians of his royal power. The

foreign advisers poisoned the mind of the wavering and fickle king

against his young kinsmen, not because they doubted the unselfishness

of their devotion, but because his civil counsellors well knew that

the two brothers were sworn enemies of German expansion and supremacy.

The chronicles of the country abound in praise of the heroic deeds

performed by Solomon in conjunction with his cousins while he lived in

harmony with them, and in accounts of the intrigues which disturbed

that harmony, and finally led to their utter estrangement from each

other. The foreign counsellors of Solomon succeeded in working upon

his fears and jealousy to such an extent that they finally prevailed

upon the king to hire assassins to do away with Duke Geyza. The trap

was laid but the victim for whom it was destined succeeded in making

his escape. The feud of the fathers revived in their sons, and King

Solomon and the dukes Geyza and Ladislaus confronted each other in the

same hostile spirit in which their fathers, Andrew and Béla, had once

stood face to face. The question which the sword was to decide was not

merely whose should be the crown, but as to whether the German power

should become the master of the Hungarian kingdom, or not. Fate decided

against Solomon. He lost the battle of Mogyoród, and with it his

throne, and with his defeat vanished all hopes of establishing German

supremacy over Hungary.

The vacant throne was filled first by Geyza (1074-1077), and, after his

short reign, by his brother Ladislaus. Solomon escaped, and turned now

to his imperial brother-in-law, Henry IV., now again to the adversary

of the latter, Pope Gregory VII., for help, moving heaven and earth

to regain his lost throne. It was all in vain, the mischief was done

and could be remedied no more. The chroniclers delight in adorning the

story of the erratic life and repentance of the unfortunate youth. They

relate of him that, perceiving the utter failure of all his attempts,

he was filled with loathing against himself and the blind passions

which had made him the enemy and scourge of his country, retired from

the world, and became a hermit in order to atone for the faults of his

brief youth by doing penance during the remaining years of his life. A

cave on the shores of the Adriatic, near Pola, is pointed out to this

day, in which Solomon is supposed to have led the life of a hermit. The

chronicle adds that he lived to a high old age, became the benefactor

of the inhabitants of the vicinity, prayed for his nation, and that the

last wish of his departing soul was the happiness of his country.

Ladislaus (1077-1095), who succeeded his older brother Geyza, was

one of the noblest, most noteworthy of the kings of the royal line

of the Árpáds. He was great not only in the light of the important

achievements of his reign, but by his eminent personal qualities. His

character was a happy combination of strength without violence, of

wisdom without vacillation, of piety without fanaticism, and of lofty

majesty without pride. He was the hero, the model, and the idol of his

nation, which had never clung to any of its kings with more boundless

affection, greater devotion, and more respect. He identified himself

with the nation, drew strength from her affection for him, and rendered

her powerful in return. He gave the kingdom, founded by his illustrious

ancestor, a permanent peace, restored the faith in its strength, and

insured its development. He put an end to the era of attacks from the

West, and even intervened in the troubles of Germany by siding with the

papal party against Henry IV. An ancient chronicler informs us that he

had been offered the crown of Germany but refused to accept it, because

“he wished to be nothing but a Hungarian.” Although he aided the popes

in their contest with Germany, he yet defended the interests of the

kingdom against papal pretensions. Pope Gregory VII. having reminded

him that the Hungarian kings had obtained their crown from one of his

predecessors, Sylvester II., and that it was fitting therefore that

they should submit to the supremacy of the Pope, Ladislaus replied,

in a letter sent to the Pope, that “he was ready to obey with filial

submission and with his whole heart the holy see, as an ecclesiastical

power, and his holiness the Pope, as his spiritual father, but that he

would not subordinate the independence of his realm to anybody or any

thing.” Nor did the king in his acts deviate from his professions, and

the popes prized his alliance too highly to find it advisable to turn

his friendship into enmity by forcing upon him their supremacy.

Ladislaus was not satisfied to merely defend his people and country

against hostile attacks; he exerted himself to increase the population

and to add to the territory. Under him Croatia was added to the

kingdom (1089), and, having founded a bishopric at Agram, he spread

the Christian faith amongst the Croatians and organized their church.

About the same time, the Kuns (Cumans), having invaded the country

from the East, Ladislaus routed them, and, making a great number of

captives amongst them, he colonized with these prisoners the lowlands

of the Theiss. Croatia is still a member of the realm of St. Stephen,

and the Kuns have been entirely absorbed by the Hungarian element,

sharing the weal and woe of the latter. History has preserved in the

fragments of the laws enacted by him clear proofs of the greatness of

Ladislaus in the affairs of peace; a severe judge and wise leader,

he defended with his sword the blessed seeds planted by him in time

of peace. He compelled the people to settle down permanently, and

taught them by severe penalties to respect the persons and property

of others. He visited with severe punishment the followers of ancient

paganism, and overwhelmed the Christian church with benefits. It was

at his request that Stephen, his son Emeric, and the martyred bishop

Gerhard, Duke Emeric’s tutor, were canonized and placed upon the list

of saints by the Church of Rome. We need not wonder, therefore, if,

confronted with such grandeur and majesty, posterity abstained from

applying to him human standards, and loved to see in his acts the

manifestations of a higher and a divine power. Thus the chronicler

speaking of him says with deep emotion: “He was rich in love, abounding

in patience, cheerful in his graciousness, overflowing in the gifts of

grace, the promoter of justice, the patron of modesty, the guardian

of the deserted, and the helper of the poor and distressed. Divine

mercy raised him in the gifts of nature above the common worth of man,

for he was brave, strong of arm, and pleasant to the sight; his whole

appearance was marked by leonine strength and majesty; he was so tall

of stature that his shoulders were visible above those about him, and,

blessed with the fulness of divine gifts, his aspect proclaimed him

to have been created to be a king.” His mortal remains lie enshrined

in the cathedral of Grosswardein (Nagyvárad), which was built by his

munificence, and the piety of the nation has made of the place of his

burial a miracle-working resort for devout pilgrims. A pious tradition

has lived for centuries amongst the people, that whenever danger

menaces the country the king leaves his bed of stone and, followed

by the invisible hosts of his departed braves, combats against the

assailants of his country.

[Illustration: DUEL BETWEEN ST. LADISLAUS AND AKUS.]

Ladislaus was still living when the religious movement which took

the form of a holy warfare began to agitate the west of Europe—a

movement which was destined to maintain its hold upon the minds of the

inhabitants of the western world for two hundred years. According to a

tradition of the nation, Ladislaus was offered, as the most chivalrous

king, the chief command over the western Knights and crusading armies,

but was prevented by death from assuming the leadership. Most of the

crusaders went eastward by the valley of the Danube, passing through

Hungary, and the waves of the first expedition reached the country

during the reign of Coloman (1095-1114), the successor of Ladislaus. It

was fortunate for the country that a king like Coloman kept guard at

this time over her frontiers; a king who, although he may have lacked

the ideal qualities of his predecessor, possessed both the strength

and the courage to protect and defend the realm. Although he was well

aware that his attitude would provoke the anger of the popes and place

him in opposition to the public opinion of the whole Christian world,

he was not deterred from mercilessly driving away from the borders

of the country the first motley host of unruly and lawless crusaders

that approached them. The only crusaders to whom he gave a friendly

reception, permitting them to pass through the country, were the troops

of Godfrey of Bouillon, but even as to these, he exacted the most

rigorous security for their good behaviour. Coloman’s firmness alone

saved the country from being engulfed by the movement, and prevented

its domestic peace, which was not as yet firmly established, from being

disturbed.

But while he was thus guarding the interests of the country with a

watchful eye, an unmoved heart, and a strong arm, he still found time

and opportunity for increasing the territory of the realm. He completed

in Croatia the conquests begun by Ladislaus, and added to the new

acquisition Dalmatia, which he wrested from the grasp of the Venetian

republic. Coloman was the first Hungarian king who styled himself King

of Croatia and Dalmatia.

Coloman won the admiration of his contemporaries and posterity, not

merely as a leader of armies, but as a ruler whose great erudition and

wise laws served to perpetuate his memory. These qualities obtained

for him the epithet “_Könyves_” (bookish) or learned King Coloman.

The chronicles extol him for putting a stop by process of law to

the prosecution of witches, and for declaring in one of his laws:

“Of witches who do not exist at all no mention shall be made.” He

bestowed great care upon the administration of justice, and among his

laws occurs the following admirable direction given to the judges:

“Every thing must be so cautiously and anxiously weighed on the scale

of justice, that innocence, on the one hand, shall not be condemned

from hatred, and, on the other, sin shall not be protected through

friendship.”

The last years of Coloman’s reign were embittered by the ambition of

his brother Álmos, who coveted the throne. The energetic and erudite

king, who had spent his whole life in consolidating the glorious work

begun by Stephen, saw with a sorrowing heart how the restless ambition

of single individuals was uprooting the plants he had so carefully

nursed. Duke Álmos rose three times in rebellion against his royal

brother, nor did he reject, on these occasions, foreign aid. Coloman

defeated him each time, and pardoned him each time. But seeing that

the incorrigible duke could not be restrained by either his power or

his magnanimity, and that he was again collecting an army against him,

Coloman caused Álmos and his young son Béla to be thrown into prison,

where both were deprived of their sight. This dark and cruel deed, the

ferocity of which can be palliated only by the rudeness of the age, was

Coloman’s last act, and, in thinking of the retribution of the life to

come, it could not fail to disturb his peaceful descent into the grave.

The risings of Álmos initiated that period of civil strife which

continued for two hundred years, until the house of the Árpáds became

extinct, and which, on the one hand, afforded the Greek emperors an

opportunity to meddle with the affairs of the country, and to attempt

the extension of their supremacy over the kingdom; and, on the other

hand, undermined the authority of royalty, lifted the oligarchs into

power, and sapped the foundations of the institutions established by

Stephen.

Álmos, the blinded duke, planned again a rising against Coloman’s

son and successor, Stephen II. (1114-1131), but the plot having been

discovered he fled to the Greek court for protection and aid. The

Hungarian and Greek armies were already confronting each other on the

banks of the lower Danube, but the shedding of blood was prevented on

this occasion by the sudden death of Duke Álmos.

His son Béla II. (1131-1141), who had also been made blind, ascended

the throne after the death of Stephen II., but he gave no thought to

pacifying the restlessness of the people or to restoring peace to the

country. One feeling alone held the mastery over his soul, shrouded

in darkness—that of vindictiveness against those who had robbed him

and his father of the light of day. His revengeful feelings were

still more fanned by his masculine queen, Ilona, the daughter of the

prince of Servia, by whose advice he summoned the diet to meet in

Arad, on the southern confines of the country, for the sole purpose

of avenging himself on this occasion. The lords, anticipating no

evil, assembled in large numbers, although there were many among them

who might have had good reasons for dreading the king’s wrath. They

came, however, confiding in the forgiveness of Béla, which had been

publicly proclaimed by him. According to the information gleaned from

the chronicles, the diet was opened by Queen Ilona herself, who,

after describing in a passionate strain the sad fate of her blinded

husband, and inveighing against the crime of those who were the

causers of his affliction, herself gave the signal for the awful work

of vengeance. A dreadful struggle ensued between the adherents of the

king and those who had been singled out by the court as victims. Many

remained dead in the hall of the diet which had thus been changed into

a battle-field, but many others, who succeeded in escaping, took away

with their wounds feelings of undying hatred against their king. These

bloody proceedings gave the disaffected a fresh cause for placing their

hopes in the Greek court, and expecting from that quarter relief from

the tyranny which oppressed them.

But when open hostilities finally broke out between the two nations,

Béla II. was no more among the living. When the war commenced, Geyza

II. (1141-1161), the son of Béla, sat on the Hungarian throne,

which the Emperor Manuel, the most powerful of the Comneni, ruled

in Constantinople. The war was a protracted one, and its scene was

chiefly on the southern frontier, along the course of the Danube and

the country near the Save, but Manuel, with all his power and wariness,

was unable to obtain an advantage over the younger and more energetic

neighbor. After the death of Geyza, his son Stephen III. succeeded to

the throne. The Greek emperor refused to recognize him as the king

of Hungary, and attempted to place upon the throne as his vassals,

successively, the two brothers of Geyza who had found a refuge at his

court, but he did not succeed with either of the pretenders. One of his

protégés died young, while the other was driven from the country by the

lawfully elected king, Stephen III.

Manuel, seeing all his schemes overthrown, and perceiving that, as an

enemy, he had utterly failed, pretended now to feelings of friendship,

and offered peace to the Hungarians. As a further pledge of peace he

requested King Stephen III. to permit his brother Béla to reside with

him at Constantinople, promising that he would adopt him as his son

and heir. Manuel, having no sons to whom he might leave the imperial

throne, in all probability secretly cherished the hope that his adopted

son would at some future day succeed to the Greek throne, and would

also inherit the crown of St. Stephen, and that by this means the two

neighboring countries, which he did not succeed in uniting by force

of arms, would, in the course of time, become one. Fate, however,

seemed to have conspired to frustrate the best laid plans of the Greek

emperor. He carried Duke Béla with him to Constantinople, adopted him

as his son, declared him his heir, and every thing appeared to point

to a happy realization of his ambitious dreams, when unexpectedly a

son was born to him, an event which completely upset his calculations.

It became now impossible for Manuel to continue to keep the young

Hungarian duke at his court, unless, indeed, he wanted to raise a rival

to his own son; he, therefore, deprived him of all the distinctions he

had heaped upon him, and sent him hurriedly back to his native country,

where the throne had just become vacant by the death of Stephen III.

Manuel, however, made the young duke take a solemn oath before he

allowed him to depart that he would never attack the Greek empire, and

this empty formality was all that he was able to achieve in furtherance

of his scheme to impose his supremacy upon Hungary. The same duke,

however, who had been nurtured in the culture of Greece, and became

King of Hungary as Béla III., completely banished Greek influence from

the country, and secured its independence for a long time to come.

Béla III. (1173-1196) was one of the most powerful and respected rulers

of Hungary. He possessed great kingly qualities, and his character

commanded universal respect. He had a great deal to contend with, after

his return from Constantinople, before he succeeded in being firmly

seated on his throne. He was received with feelings of suspicion by

the powerful nobility, the chief dignitaries of the church, and by

the queen-mother herself, who all looked upon him as a partisan of

the eastern despotism, and as an enemy to the Roman Catholic Church,

and who were anxious to place his brother Geyza upon the throne. Béla

triumphed before long over all his enemies. He had his brother thrown

into prison, sent his mother into exile, restrained and humiliated

the powerful oligarchs, and conciliated the friendship of the high

prelacy by his munificence and liberality towards the church of the

country. Having restored order at home, he devoted himself to the task

of obtaining again possession of the territory Manuel had seized. The

reconquering of the Dalmatian seashore involved him in a war with

Venice, the envious rival of the Hungarian kingdom, in the course of

which Béla had occasion to give proof of his military power on a new

scene of action, where the valor of his ancestors had never had an

opportunity of shining, by achieving over the proud republic a great

triumph on the sea. Béla had learned a great deal at the Greek court,

but all his valuable acquirements he employed for the advantage of his

country. He did not exactly open new avenues for the development of the

nation; his chief merit consisted rather in leading her back to the

road marked out by Stephen, and successfully pursued by King Ladislaus

and King Coloman. His every effort tended to bring the nation closer

to that western civilization which had fostered her tender beginnings,

and the rejection of which all this time would have amounted to a

stultification of her past, and a certain risk of her future. Two

things, however, were of paramount necessity to enable the people to

prosper by the king’s judicious exertions in this direction: to restore

to the country the needful rest she had not now enjoyed for half a

century, and to reëstablish order within the kingdom, torn by the

partisanship of the last fifty years. Béla resolutely set to the task

of establishing peace and order. He relentlessly pursued the thieves

and robbers who rendered life and property insecure and had increased

to a frightful extent since Coloman’s time, and, in order to do it more

effectually, he appointed special officers in every county for that

purpose, establishing, at the same time, a royal chancery at the court

with a view to giving greater effect to the government of the country

and the administration of justice. The proceedings in important affairs

of state or private law-suits taken before the king—which hitherto

had been oral—now had to be carried on in writing. The country, under

Béla’s well-ordered government, became more prosperous, and the nation

more polished. Béla’s first wife was a Greek princess, and his second

a French princess. Both the queens, with the retinues following them

to the court, introduced there the good taste, culture, and manners

of the Greeks and French, so that a German chronicler happening to

visit the court at that time, could not find adequate words to extol

its magnificent splendors. Culture was not confined to the court; it

spread to the nation itself, for we find that the university, recently

established in Paris, was attended by a number of Hungarian youths.

All the acts of Béla indicate that he had selected for his model in

government one of his most distinguished ancestors, Ladislaus, for

whom, as an expression of his own and the nation’s piety, he had also,

in 1192, secured a place on the list of saints recognized by the Church

of Rome.

Béla, while thus advancing the interests of the kingdom and the nation,

did not lose sight of the claims of the age upon kings and rulers

to support the holy wars waged by Christendom against the infidels.

He followed with sympathy the movements of the crusaders, and upon

Jerusalem’s falling into the hands of the infidels in 1187, he planned

himself to lead an army for the purpose of reconquering the holy city.

The third crusade was begun in 1189, and the German forces, under

the lead of the emperor, Frederic Barbarossa, passed on their way to

the Holy Land through Hungary. Béla received his distinguished guest

with royal pomp, abundantly provided the German troops with every

thing necessary, but he himself did not join the crusaders. What the

circumstances were that prevented the king from taking part in the

crusades it would be difficult now to determine, but that they must

have been weighty ones is amply proved by the fact that he had been

long preparing for a crusading campaign, and had for that purpose

collected a great deal of treasure. The idea was present before his

mind at the time of his death, for he directed that his elder son,

Emeric, should succeed him on the throne, and the younger, Duke Andrew,

should inherit the treasure collected for the pious object, and employ

it in the carrying out of the paternal intentions. Béla’s fate had that

in common with the fate of the most conspicuous kings of Hungary—that

posterity praised his grand achievements, while his own children failed

to respect and preserve the inheritance left to them by a distinguished

sire.

The feud between the two brothers broke out immediately after the

death of Béla III. Andrew collected troops for the pretended purpose

of executing the last will of his father, but in reality to employ

them against his own brother. He succeeded in defeating the army of

King Emeric, who was taken unawares, and was, besides, vacillating

and incapable, and, after occupying Croatia and Dalmatia, to which he

added fresh territory, he proclaimed himself, in 1198, Duke of Croatia,

Dalmatia, Rama, and Chulmia (Bosnia and Herzegovina). Emeric vainly

urged Innocent III., the most powerful pope since Gregory VII., to

compel the rebellious duke to carry out the pious vows of his father.

Andrew did not stir one step towards the Holy Land, but, persevering

in his sinful perverseness, continued to repeat his attacks against the

lawful king. At last, during one of his outbreaks, he was overtaken by

an avenging Nemesis.

The armies of the two brothers confronted each other on the banks of

the Drave. The camp of Andrew was stirring with a strong and numerous

army which, in anticipation of a certain victory, was loudly revelling

and making merry. King Emeric’s eyes sadly surveyed his own scant

following, whose devotion and determination, great as they were, did

not seem sufficient to make up for the deficiency in numbers. The

collision between the opposing armies was inevitable, and the king felt

that his utter discomfiture would be the result of the battle. His

desperate condition inspired him with a sudden resolution, and, without

communicating his intention to any one, he went into the enemy’s camp,

dressed in kingly state, and, sceptre in hand, made straight for his

brother’s tent. The revelling warriors, in surprise, were struck with

awe at the marvellous spectacle suddenly bursting in upon their dazed

eyes. “I wish to see the man who will dare to raise a sinful arm

against his king and master,” were the magic words which opened him the

way through the gaping multitude. Upon arriving in his brother’s tent

he seized the rebellious duke’s hands and led him captive to his own

camp. The above narrative of the event, as gleaned from the chronicles,

may not agree in every particular with the actual occurrence, but Duke

Andrew became the king’s prisoner, and remained captive until the

latter called him to his deathbed, generously confiding to his care

his infant son, Ladislaus, who had already been crowned king.

Andrew proved as faithless a guardian as he had been a false brother.

He could not restrain his ambition, but deprived Ladislaus of his

crown, and drove him and his mother from the court. Shortly afterwards,

the unhappy youth died, and Andrew could, at last, in 1205, ascend the

throne he had so long coveted, and whose possession he had attempted

to achieve by means in the choice of which he never consulted his

conscience.

The reign of Andrew II. (1205-1235) deserves a conspicuous place in

the history of Hungary, not for its beneficence, but for its weakness

and shortcomings. The never-ending civil wars of the last century,

especially the internecine struggle between the two brothers, had

the effect of weakening the kingdom, lowering the royal power and

authority, and, as a consequence of the decay of the latter, of

increasing the overbearing spirit of the oligarchs. Andrew II. could

not escape the condign punishment brought upon himself by his own acts.

His whole reign was a series of feeble attempts to free himself from

the entangling web caused by his own faults and the licentiousness of

the oligarchy. He presented the spectacle of a man whose ambition was

greater than his abilities, and whose levity equalled his ambition.

In the beginning of his reign he was completely under the influence

of his wife, Gertrude, who was of Tyrolese descent, and who suffered

the country to become a prey to her foreign relations and favorites.

Yet when the great and powerful lords rose against the plundering

foreigners, the licentious court, and the tyrannical and wicked queen,

killing the latter in her own palace, Andrew had neither the courage

nor the power to exert his royal authority against the rebels, but was

rather glad that the storm had passed over his head and had not singled

him out for its victim. Instead of resenting the injury done to him, he

conciliated his enemies by presents and gifts, and indulged in schemes

of a new matrimonial alliance. He was fond of pomp, splendor, generous

expenditure, and the ostentatious display of the court, but the royal

revenues soon proved inadequate to pay the sums thus squandered,

reduced as the royal domains had been by grants of entire counties. The

king, in order to raise the revenues, mortgaged the imposts and tolls,

and, by debasing the coinage, dishonestly added to his resources.

The din of the revels of the court prevented the loud complaints of

the people, who were oppressed and worried in a thousand ways by the

oligarchs and the tax-and toll-gatherers, from reaching the ears of

the king. At times his restlessness and ambition still involved him in

adventurous enterprises. Thus he wished to elevate his son, Duke Béla,

to the throne of Galicia, but lacked the strength to accomplish his

scheme. The campaign against Galicia only added to the expenditures

of the country, and, indeed, it happened that the king with his son

and the whole army were in the most imminent danger of destruction.

His mind was also disturbed by his failure to carry out the wishes of

his father, and, at last, he determined, in 1217, to march an army to

the Holy Land. In order to raise the money necessary for the campaign

he plundered the churches and monasteries, and sold to Venice the

city of Zara, the bulwark of the Dalmatian seashore. He finally left

the country with the army thus collected, but while he was roaming

about in the Holy Land without aim or purpose, the orphaned country

was reduced to the brink of misery. “When we returned home from our

expedition,” complained the king himself, in a letter addressed to the

holy see, “we found that both the clergy and the laymen had been guilty

of wickedness such as surpasses all imagination. All the treasure of

the country we found squandered, and fifteen years will not suffice

to restore our land to her former better condition.” The condition of

the country must have been sad, indeed, if the state the king had left

her in might be called good in comparison with it, and however heavily

the responsibility of the fresh calamities rested upon the king, his

truthfulness in this instance cannot be doubted.

The gloomy rule of Andrew II. was relieved by one cheering event which

contained the germ of a better future. The gentry, comprising in its

ranks the largest part of the freeholders of the country, unable to

bear longer the weak government of the king, the violence of the

oligarchy, and the scourge of the army of extortionate gatherers of

taxes and tolls, at last lifted their heads and asked the throne to

listen to their complaints and to remedy their wrongs. Béla himself,

the king’s son, whom Andrew II. had caused to be crowned before going

to the Holy Land, was the leader and spokesman of the nobility, who

had stood up in defence of the sacredness of the constitution, and who

now urged the return to the rule of law in the land.

Their wrongs, and the remedies exacted by the gentry were set forth

in the following strain: The king should not, at the expense of

the patriots, bestow favors upon foreigners, nor elevate them to

dignities, and distribute among them the domains of the country; entire

counties or dignities of state should not, as a practice, be granted

in perpetuity, and he should not suffer avaricious nobles to grasp

a greater number of offices than they could efficiently administer.

He should guard the ancient immunities of the nobles, so that they

might freely dispose of their property, and not be molested in their

persons without lawful judgment, and should not be burdened with taxes

or extortionate exactions of any kind. He should take care that the

tax-and toll-gatherers and other officials be taken from the ranks of

the gentry, and should remove from his service the Ishmaelites and

the Jews. Every thing opposed to these requirements he should at once

bring to an end. The county estates, granted away to the injury of the

land or dishonestly obtained, should be taken back by the king, and he

should, in pursuance of the ancient custom of the country, every year,

on St. Stephen’s day, convoke the diet, whose duty it was to act upon

the complaints of the nation and to defend her liberty when attacked.

The king, however, moved neither by the voice of truth, nor by the

misery of his people, refused to accede to these requests. In the

breast of Andrew II., who, during his whole reign, had utterly

neglected the duties coupled with his exalted station, awoke on the

present occasion a feeling of injured royal dignity. But the gentry

were determined to enforce their demands, and, gathering around the

heir to the throne, they took up arms in order to obtain by force the

concessions they deemed necessary for the good of the country. Father

and son with their armies were already confronting each other, when the

chief prelates interfered, and prevailed upon Andrew to listen to the

wishes of the gentry. The concessions were drawn up in form of a royal

letter and the king bound himself and his successors by oath to observe

the stipulations contained in it. Posterity has given this royal letter

the name of the _Golden Bull_, owing to the fact that the seal appended

to it by a silk string rests in a box made of gold.

This remarkable document, which terminated the internal strife

extending over a period of a hundred years, and to which for six

centuries the past generations of Hungary were in the habit of proudly

referring as the foundation of the constitution of the Hungarian

nobility, reads, omitting passages of minor importance, as follows:

“In the name of the Holy Trinity and of the indivisible Unity,

Andrew, by the grace of God, hereditary king of Hungary, Dalmatia,

Croatia, Rama, Servia, and Galicia: Whereas the nobles and others in

our realm have suffered detriment in many parts of their liberties,

as established by King St. Stephen, through the power of some

kings—who, either from anger revenged themselves, or listened to the

counsels of wicked advisers, or sought their own advantage,—and our

nobles have frequently appealed to our Majesty’s and our ancestors’

ears with petitions and complaints concerning the amelioration of

our land—we, therefore, as in duty bound, desirous of satisfying

their request, grant to them as well as to the other inhabitants of

our realm the liberty granted by the sacred king, and we further

ordain other matters pertaining to the improvement of the land in

this wise: We ordain that we are bound annually to celebrate the

day of the sacred king at Stuhlweissenburg and that, if we should

be prevented from being present, the palatine shall be there in our

place and shall hear the causes as our representative, and all the

nobles may freely assemble there according to their pleasure. It is

also our will, that neither we nor our successors shall detain or

oppress the nobles on account of any powerful person, unless they

be first summoned and sentenced by due process of law. Further we

shall not cause taxes to be collected on the estates of the nobles

or of the clergy of the Church. If a noble shall die without male

issue his daughter shall be entitled to one fourth of his property;

as to the rest he may dispose of it as he pleases, and if death

should intervene before his doing so it shall descend to his nearer

relatives, and if he is absolutely without kin then the inheritance

shall go to the king. If the king is desirous of taking troops out

of the country the nobles shall not be bound to go with him unless

at his expense; if, however, an army should invade the country all

the nobles are bound to go. The palatine shall be judge over all

the people of our realm without distinction; but in capital cases

and matters of property which concern the nobles the palatine shall

not decide without the king’s knowledge. If foreigners come to the

country they shall not be elevated to dignities without the consent

of the council of the realm; land shall not be given to those who

are strangers to the realm. The king shall not grant entire counties

or offices of any kind in perpetuity. Officers of the treasury, salt

bureaux, and customs must be nobles of our realm; Ishmaelites and

Jews shall be incapable of holding such offices. Excepting these four

great lords, the palatine, the banus, the court judges of the king

and queen, no one shall have two dignities at the same time. Should,

however, we, or any of our successors, at any time be disposed to

infringe upon any of these our orders, the bishops as well as the

other lords and the nobles of the realm, shall be at liberty, jointly

or singly, by virtue of this letter, to oppose and contradict us and

our successors, forever, without incurring the penalty of treason.

Given by the hand of Kletus, the chancellor of our court, in the year

of grace one thousand two hundred and twenty-two.”

King Andrew, who had to be compelled by force to issue the Golden Bull,

could, however, not be coerced by any power to observe the promises

he had made therein. The exertions of the heir presumptive and the

nobility as well as the wrath of the pope were of no avail. Nine years

later he confirmed its contents by a fresh oath, but hardly two years

elapsed when he incurred the curse of Rome for again disregarding his

oath. Struggles, extending over many centuries, were necessary to

realize the words of the Golden Bull. Time had then already effaced the

memory of Andrew’s follies and frailties, and posterity saw him only in

the reflected light of the great concessions made by his royal missive.

The estates of the diet which met at Rákos in 1505 spoke of him in

terms of extravagant praise as the king “who had made the Hungarians

great and glorious, and had raised their fame to the very stars.”

The struggles which resulted in the issuing of the Golden Bull were by

no means over. The nobility had obtained from royalty the concession

of their rights, but were lacking the power to maintain them, and to

secure their permanency. The very charter of their liberties furnished

matter for fresh disputes and dissensions. In these contests, however,

the nobility now seldom attacked royalty, the weakening of which

would have proved injurious to their own interests, but they usually

allied themselves with the kings against the oligarchs, who treated

with contempt both law and right, having no need of the protection of

either, and who indulged in tyrannical violence against the throne

as well as the nation. The licentiousness and increasing power of the

oligarchs were the sore spot in the body politic during the period of

the last Árpáds, and in a greater and lesser degree, now apparently

healed, now more envenomed than ever, it continued to be for centuries

a disturbing element in the public life of the country.

The struggle between royalty, supported by the nation, and the unruly

great lords had just commenced, when the storm of the Mongol invasion

broke loose upon the country, shaking it to its very foundations. When

the storm subsided only the weak ones were found to have suffered, the

strong ones came out of the nation’s calamity more powerful than ever.

The national misfortunes only served to advance the interests of the

oligarchs, who, about this time, began more frequently to surround

the crests of the mountains with stone walls, and, dwelling in their

rocky nests, defied royalty with increasing boldness, and oppressed the

people with greater impunity than ever. The chroniclers in recalling

this period mourn with bitter wailing the gloom which had settled upon

the country, the incapacity of the kings, the pride and violence of the

lords, and the miserable condition of the people. That the power of

the nation was not entirely gone, however, was shown by the cheering

fact, casting a ray of light into the gloom of those days, that at the

very time when the authority of royalty had sunk to the lowest ebb,

the Hungarian arms were able to cope with the powerful Slavic empire

ruled by Ottokar, king of Bohemia, and to assist in establishing the

power of the Hapsburgs. Unfortunately the national strength was for the

most part divided against itself, and the very triumph of the Hungarian

arms against Ottokar proved injurious to the nation at large, for it

redounded only to the glory of the oligarchy, and tended to confirm

their power.

After the death of Andrew II., his son, Béla IV. (1235-1270), devoted

himself with youthful energy to the task of restoring the ascendancy of

the royal power and authority, of insuring respect to the laws, and of

humbling the pride of the oligarchy. He removed the evil counsellors

of his father, sent the principal ringleaders to prison, surrounded

himself with good patriots, and where gentle words proved inefficacious

he resorted to arms in order to obtain possession of the royal domains

and county lands which single oligarchs had contrived to acquire by

grant during his father’s life or from his ancestors, or which had been

lawlessly appropriated by them. The efforts made by the youthful king

were, however, of no avail. The very successes which attended here and

there his policy served only to excite to a higher pitch the anger and

resentment of the great lords, and deepened the estrangement between

them and the throne. The disaffected oligarchs, whose selfishness

was not tempered by patriotism, and whose passions did not know the

bridle of the law, were so base as to elevate a foreign prince, Duke

Frederic of Austria, to the throne, in opposition to their lawful

king. The watchfulness of Béla alone prevented the royal inheritance

from passing, at that time already, from the Árpáds into foreign

hands. Béla succeeded in driving back Frederic, and in defeating the

treasonable schemes of the oligarchy, but he became, at the same time,

convinced that until he was able to present to the opposing lords a

more formidable front he would have to renounce the realization of the

fond hopes of his youth.

Béla looked about him for fresh resources to strengthen his authority

and to add to his power. Pious Dominican monks, just then returning to

the country from the regions of the Volga, told the tale that in the

far east, along the banks of that river, they met with that fraction

of the Hungarians who, during the period preceding the occupation of

Hungary, had parted from their brethren near the Black Sea, where the

latter continued their march westward. These accounts suggested to

Béla the scheme of inviting the distant Eastern brothers to settle

in his realm, hoping to augment the royal power by the aid of the

new settlers, and to be thus enabled to resume successfully his

contest with the proud lords. This scheme, however, failed, but the

same circumstances which frustrated his plans as to his countrymen

near the Volga, assisted him in obtaining aid from another quarter.

The Mongol hordes, which came rushing from Central Asia toward the

western world, swept in their impetuous onward march the Hungarians

near the Volga out of existence; but the same wild current drove

also the Kuns (Cumans) out of their habitations near the Black Sea,

and the latter, after having roamed about homeless for a time, and

then reached the frontiers of Hungary, begged of King Béla to allow

them to come into the country and to settle there. Forty thousand

families were in search of a new country, and forty thousand fierce

warriors offered their services to King Béla. The people of Hungary

were averse to receiving immigration on so large a scale, and the

great lords loudly protested against the reception of the new comers,

being convinced that the latter would only enhance the king’s power,

and become instrumental in humbling their order. The king, however,

considering the good of the country only, braved the opposition, and

admitting Kuthen, king of the Kuns, with his people, into the land,

assigned to them as their future abode the plain of the Theiss. Nor

did he forget to make their conversion to Christianity a condition of

their admission. The good effects Béla had anticipated from his new

colony were slow in showing themselves, but the evil consequences of

the recent settlement became manifest at once. The great numbers of

this rude and barbarous element, who were as little disposed to live

in fixed habitations as to embrace Christianity, soon disgusted the

people by their lawlessness, violence, unruliness, and the devastations

committed by them amongst the Hungarian population. The complaints of

all classes, without distinction, which reached the king’s ear, became

daily louder. Béla was unable to come to the relief of the people, for

to have turned against the Kuns, as he was asked to do, would have

shaken them in their fidelity to him. But by showing a preference for

the new comers he also forfeited the affection of his old adherents,

the good patriots who had firmly stood by him, hitherto, in all his

troubles. Dissensions arose between the king, who was animated by

the purest intentions, and his people, who were unable to fathom the

patriotic motives of his actions; and they were at their highest when

the hurricane which had swept away the Hungarians on the banks of the

Volga, and driven the Kuns to the plains of the Theiss, reached at last

the crests of the Carpathian mountains.

The successors of Jenghis Khan, wishing to extend the frontiers of

their vast Asiatic empire toward the west, crossed the Volga, overran

the Russian steppes, and reduced Moscow to ashes in 1238. Proud and

beautiful Kiev was soon after, in 1240, humbled by their victorious

arms. The Hungarians were aware of the approach of the formidable foe,

but their internal dissensions, and their troubles with the Kuns and

with their king, made them forget the imminence of the danger that

menaced them. They indulged, besides, in the hope that the mighty

Carpathian mountains would arrest the fierce current in its onward

course. But the nation was soon roused from its fancied security and

awoke to a dread sense of the true situation. The mournful fate of

Kiev, the sufferings of the Polish people, and the threatening language

of the embassy sent by Batu Khan, the general of Oktai, the Great Khan,

who had been the terror of the Russians, dispelled the illusions, of

the most sanguine.

The mind of King Béla was beset with anxious thoughts, but his courage

did not fail him. Although it was rather late for efficient military

preparations, he labored day and night to put the country into a state

of defence against the coming peril. He demolished the forests, and

barricaded with the timber thus obtained the Carpathian passes. He

invited his adherents to take counsel with him, and called to arms the

ecclesiastical and lay lords, the soldiery of the counties, and every

man in the country capable of bearing arms. According to ancient custom

he caused the bloody sword to be carried about throughout the land.

His active zeal was not confined to his realm alone, but, sending his

ambassadors to the western courts, he instructed them to beg, admonish,

and urge the rulers of the West, in the name of Christianity, to come

to his aid. It was all in vain. The foreign courts did not stir, and

the Hungarian lords, in their surprise and dismay, instead of devising

means to meet the danger, were wildly looking about them for some one

to be made responsible for the coming peril, and to serve as a victim

of their anger. They turned with passionate hatred upon the king and

the Kuns, saying that he with his Kuns should defend the country, and

that the king need not count upon them in this emergency. The spring

of 1241 was already nearing, and still the royal banner, floating

over Pesth, proclaimed to the world the absence of troops and the

defencelessness of the country. The Mongolian armies had, meanwhile,

already begun to press forward. Their right wing marched on Poland

and Silesia, in order to effect an entrance into the country from the

north-west; the left wing, passing through Moldavia, approached the

snowy mountains of Transylvania; whilst the army of the centre was led

by Batu Khan himself across the northwestern Carpathians to the pass

of Bereczke. Thus the two arms of the Mongol armies were preparing to

crush, in a deadly embrace, the doomed country.

Batu Khan crossed the Carpathians on the 12th of March, 1241, and,

having dispersed the troops of Palatine Héderváry, at the foot of

the mountains, the active Mongol cavalry troops overran with such

suddenness the plain watered by the Theiss, that four days later the

smoke of the burning villages, set on fire by the ruthless enemy, could

be discerned from the walls of Pesth. The Hungarian lords, even at this

critical moment, failed to arrive with their contingents, and those who

were under arms near Pesth nursed their wrath, not against the enemy,

but against the hated Kun immigrants whom they denounced as the spies

and allies of the Mongols, and as traitors to Hungary. They rushed upon

the unsuspecting Kuns with savage rage, massacring their king, Kuthen,

together with his household, at his quarters in Pesth. The Kuns,

incensed at this treachery, were not slow to retaliate. One portion of

them left the country, killing, burning, and devastating every thing

before them, whilst the other joined the Mongols in order to avenge

more thoroughly their unjust persecution.

Towards the latter end of March, Béla, inspired by despair rather than

by any hope of success, led the royal army which had gathered around

Pesth, and numbered altogether from 50,000 to 60,000 warriors, against

the Mongols. This scanty force was all that the Hungarian nation,

shorn of its valor and sadly wanting in public spirit, opposed to the

invading enemy. The Mongol army retreated before Béla as far as the

Theiss, and there Batu Khan, falling back with both wings of his army,

pitched his camp in the angle formed by the Sajó and the Theiss. King

Béla was intent upon reaching the same point, and placed his forces

on the plain extending along the right bank of the Sajó, opposite the

Mongol camp. Here on the plain of Muhi took place the dreadful conflict

between the two armies. From the dawn of day to late in the night

lasted the bloody engagement which ended with the complete annihilation

of the Hungarian army. On the fated battle-field perished the chief

prelates of the church, the highest dignitaries of the state taken from

the ranks of the best patriots, thousands of the gentry, and the hope

and last prop of the nation, her only army. Only few amongst those

who did not fall amidst the shock of battle could escape with their

lives. The pursuing enemy was everywhere close upon the track of the

fugitives. “During a march of two days,” says Rogerius, a contemporary

writer, who had been an eye-witness of these horrors, “thou couldst see

nothing along the roads but fallen warriors. Their dead bodies were

lying about like stones in a quarry.”

Yet, amidst all these misfortunes, there was one gleam of comfort in

store for the nation. Every thing, indeed, was lost, but her king was

saved, and whilst he lived the nation still kept up her hopes and

faith in a better future. A few devoted followers had rescued Béla from

the perils of the bloody engagement near the banks of the Sajó, and

the fugitive king, wandering for a while amidst the mountains of Upper

Hungary, finally arrived at the court of Frederic, Duke of Austria,

to whom he had previously sent his family and royal treasures. Here,

however, instead of meeting with hospitality, he was made prisoner,

and succeeded in regaining his freedom only by abandoning to his

avaricious neighbor, who turned Béla’s misfortunes to his profit, his

treasures, his crown, and the possession of three counties. Béla then

sent his family to the Dalmatian seashore, whilst he himself hurried

back to his unfortunate land, to the region near the Drave, in order

to save what could yet be saved. The Danube alone interfered with the

further advance of the Mongols. Two thirds of the realm had already

fallen a prey to the fierce rage, greed, and brutal passions of the

enemy. Whilst the Mongol Khan was dividing one half of the country, as

conquered territory, into hundredths and tenths, and the people, lured

from their hiding-places, lowered their necks, terror-stricken under

the new yoke, Béla collected anew an army in the western part of the

realm, and despatched ambassadors to the rulers of the western states.

But before he could yet see the results of his renewed exertions, the

severity of the winter, by covering the Danube with ice, afforded

the Mongols an opportunity to penetrate into the Western half of

the country. The places which guarded the most sacred memorials of

Hungarian royalty and Christianity, became a mass of smouldering

ruins. The waves of the Mongolian inundation closed now upon the

entire land. Béla was again compelled to seek safety in flight, and,

mistrusting the continent, he sought a refuge near the sea. He retired,

together with his family, first to Spalato, and subsequently to his

fortified castle Trau, which was defended on almost every side by the

sea. But his pursuers, who seemed to look upon their victories as

incomplete as long as the king was not in their power, were on his

track even there, and, devastating the seashore, as far as Ragusa,

they, at last, desperate with rage, laid siege to Trau.

The last hopes of the nation had centred upon the sea-fortress, and now

these hopes, too, seemed to vanish, when suddenly, as by a miracle, the

besiegers ceased their hostilities, folded up their tents, and departed

for the East. At the command of Batu Khan the whole Mongolian army,

with all their followers, left the razed country, the flood of the

invaders receding to the banks of the Volga, whence it had come. Oktai,

the Great Khan, was dead, and Batu Khan hurried back to be present at

the funeral feast, and to make his powerful voice, emphasized by the

arms of his entire army, felt in the election of the new ruler.

After the Mongols had withdrawn, King Béla returned, in company of a

few of his trusty followers, to his desolated land. He tottered under

the weight of the misfortunes and woes of his people. To use the

words of a contemporary writer and eye-witness describing the scene

of desolation which met Béla’s eyes: “Here and there a tower, half

burnt and blackened by smoke, and rearing its head towards the sky,

like a mourning flag over a funereal monument, indicated the direction

in which they were to advance. The highways were overgrown with grass,

the fields white with bleaching bones, and not a living soul came out

to meet them. And the deeper they penetrated into the land, the more

terrible became the sights they saw. When at last those who survived

crept forth from their hiding-places, half of them fell victims to wild

animals, starvation, and pestilence. The stores laid up by the tillers

of the soil, the year before, had been carried away by the Mongols, and

the little grain they could sow after the departure of the enemy had

hardly sprung up when it was devoured by locusts. The famine assumed

such frightful proportions that starving people, in their frenzy,

killed each other, and it happened that men would bring to market human

flesh for sale. Since the birth of Christ no country has ever been

overwhelmed by such misery.”

Great deeds spring up in noble souls harrowed by misfortune. Béla

showed himself greatest in the extreme misery of his nation. In order

to relieve the wants of the people and to enable them to till the

soil, he caused to be imported seed for sowing and draught cattle

from the neighboring countries. He colonized with new inhabitants the

depopulated regions, held out inducements to German artisans, miners,

and traders to settle in towns, and invited again the Kuns, who were

roaming in the regions of the Lower Danube, to return to their former

habitations on the rich lands of the Theiss. He bestowed especial

care upon the cities, founded new ones, and granted additional

privileges to the old ones. He was also the founder of Buda, which

stands to this day. He ordered the larger cities to be surrounded by

walls, caused forts, built of stone, to be erected in the neighborhood

of more important roads, and encouraged the great lords to build

similar forts. He was careful to guard the eastern frontiers, but

remembering that the durability of the internal order was as powerful a

support of the security of the land as well defended frontiers, he was

bent upon making the laws respected. Hardly five years had passed since

Béla engaged in his arduous task, and already the country recuperated

to such an extent that the nation could receive with composure the news

that the Mongols were making fresh preparations for a second attack,

and was even, for years, able to turn the weight of her whole power

against the Western states.

[Illustration: BELA IV. RETURNS TO HIS COUNTRY DEVASTATED BY THE

MONGOLS.]

The nation which stood in such great need of peace, was unfortunately

doomed never to enjoy its blessings. Béla himself, as soon as he

had gained sufficient strength, deemed it his first duty to punish

Frederic, the faithless Austrian duke, and to recover the treasures

retained by the latter’s treachery. The war between the two neighbors

began in 1246. The contest in itself was of no great significance but

its consequences were highly important. Béla achieved, with the help of

his Kun warriors, a complete triumph over Frederic, who lost his life

on the battle-field. Frederic was the last of the Babenberg line, and

the inheritance of the Babenbergs, the Austrian principalities, were,

through his death, left without a master. Béla coveted for himself the

masterless countries, but was opposed in his schemes in that direction

by Ottokar, the powerful king of Bohemia, who then already labored for

the realization of his ambitious dream, the founding of a great Slavic

empire. The Hungarian king could not expose his country to the dangers

involved in the erection of such a Slavic empire along the western

borders, and was therefore opposed, from the beginning, to Ottokar’s

aspirations. The contest between Hungary and Bohemia was at first waged

for the Babenberg possessions, but its original cause was lost sight

of, and the war continued for many years, to terminate only with the

overthrow of Ottokar and the ruin of his empire. Béla was engaged in

these wars during the last years of his reign, and they were continued

by his son Stephen V., and his grandson Ladislaus IV.

These wars brought into a community of interests the kings of the

house of Árpád and the Hapsburgs, whose first great ancestor, Rudolph,

ascended in 1273, the German imperial throne, the stability of which

was endangered by Ottokar. The latter had seceded from the German

empire, and was now building up at its expense his own great Slavic

kingdom. It was quite natural, therefore, that Ladislaus IV., King of

Hungary, and Rudolph of Hapsburg, should enter into an armed alliance

for the purpose of combating the common enemy, who, confident in

his power, threatened both his eastern and his western neighbor.

Twice they led their joint armies against Ottokar, and, at last, in

the course of the second campaign in 1278, they completely routed

the Czech armies near Stillfried and Diernkrut in the plain of the

Morava, or March. Side by side with Rudolph’s ten thousand men fought

forty thousand Kun warriors against Ottokar, the preponderance of the

Hungarian arms securing at last the triumph of the allies. Ottokar’s

power was overthrown and he himself fell, buried beneath the ruins of

his kingdom. Rudolph strengthened the German throne, whose fate the

events of subsequent centuries closely identified with that of his

family, and the Austrian principalities became the hereditary provinces

of the Hapsburgs. Hungary derived but an unequal benefit from this

triumph. To be sure the gratitude of the ally, freed from a formidable

enemy, was fervent, and his vows of friendship (not always respected

by his successors) most earnest. Thus Rudolph writes to Ladislaus IV.:

“Tongue cannot tell, nor pen describe, the immense joy we feel at your

having risen with so powerful a force to avenge our common injuries.

Wherefore, glorifying God, we express the greatest gratitude of which

we are capable to your Majesty, and loudly promise that no vicissitude

shall shake us in the indissoluble alliance which we have vowed to

you.” The booty, gratifying the avarice of a few and the vanity of

the nation, could also hardly be reckoned a solid advantage. One

important result accrued, undoubtedly by the triumph of the allies,

also to Hungary, in the destruction of Ottokar’s Slavic kingdom. In

other respects the victory proved rather a disadvantage, for, instead

of strengthening the power of the state, it relieved the minds of the

powerful lords in the land, who now, freed from anxiety, once more

indulged their self-seeking propensities, and labored to ruin the

country.

Ladislaus IV. (1272-1290) not only did not possess the qualities which

might have enabled him to oppose the corruption of his age, but, by his

levity, undermined even the last remnant of the royal authority which

had become more and more feeble in the course of the last century.

The king, unmindful of his crown, and indifferent to the interests of

the nation, deserted his ancestral court, and, pitching his residence

amongst the tents of the Kuns, passed there his life in the society of

his boon companions in riotous living and revels, destructive alike

of his dignity as a man and king, and detrimental to the hopes of the

nation. The great of the land imitated the example set by their king.

They were led exclusively by their insatiate self-indulgence, and

neither the law of the land nor the commands of the Church, the voice

of faith or morality, could prevail upon them to respect themselves,

and to have regard for the rights of others. The weak became the

victims of the strong, and the most powerful were making preparations

to divide amongst themselves the masterless and defenceless country.

The Brebiris along the sea-shore, the Németujváris beyond the

Danube, the Csák family in the regions of the Vág, and the Apors in

Transylvania, were in reality the little kings of the country. They

broke off a piece from the domain of St. Stephen whenever it suited

them, and of the size they wanted. They let their troops loose upon

the people, and carried on wars in their own way with one another,

and with the neighbors. And if any thing escaped the greed of the

oligarchs, it fell into the hands of the Kuns, who, trusting in the

protection and favor of the king, plundered and devastated the land

like marauding armies. “Then descended,” says the chronicler, “Hungary

from the grandeur of her glory. Owing to the domestic wars the cities

became deserted and the villages reduced to ashes, peace and harmony

were trampled upon, the wealthy became impoverished, and the nobles,

in their misery, turned peasants. It was at this period that the

two-wheeled cart got the name of St. Ladislaus’ wagon, for owing to the

universal plundering of the draught-cattle, the number of the latter

had decreased to such an extent that people were compelled to draw

these carts themselves.”

The country before long, however, was free from the misrule of

Ladislaus, but his death did not extricate it from the misery into

which he had plunged it. A number of Kun youths, apparently from

motives of private vengeance, assassinated him in his tent. The death

of Ladislaus became a new source of trouble to the country, for there

was now but one male descendant of the house of Árpád to ascend the

throne, Duke Andrew, the grandson of Andrew II., the king who had given

the Golden Bull to the Hungarians. Stephen, the father of Duke Andrew,

had left Hungary early in life, and, settling in Venice, married there

Tomasina Morozzoni, a lady descended from a distinguished patrician

family.

Andrew III. (1290-1301), the last king of Hungary of the Árpád line,

was born in Venice, where he received his education and remained until

he attained the age of manhood. Hitherto he had lived entirely a

stranger to the events which had plunged the country with rapid strides

into the uttermost misery. There were many within the land, and among

the neighbors abroad, who did not look upon him as a genuine Hungarian

and who refused to acknowledge his right to the inheritance of the

Árpáds. During his brief reign he gave, nevertheless, ample proofs

of possessing abilities befitting an eminent ruler, and no blame can

attach to him for having been unable with his inadequate strength and

power to contend against the difficulties of that period. To put down

the little kings in the country, and to keep away from the borders

those foreign powers who, under the pretence of kinship and led by

unblushing avariciousness, announced their claims to the inheritance

at this early date, was a task to which Andrew III. was not equal. But

he struggled bravely and manfully against the difficulties that beset

his royal path. He opposed to the oligarchs the gentry, whose ancient

immunities he confirmed, and whom he attached to his person by granting

them new ones. Duke Albert of Austria, the son of Rudolph of Hapsburg,

who was the first to claim the throne, was driven from the country,

but the diplomacy of Andrew turned him subsequently from an enemy into

a friend and ally. He entered upon the contest with the Neapolitan

Anjous, who, being the descendants in the female line of the Árpáds,

were the most pressing and determined claimants to the throne. But

at the very outset of the struggle, when the shock of the collision

of hostile interests is generally most severe, and just as Andrew was

preparing to enter upon the campaign against Charles Robert of Naples,

death suddenly took him in 1301. The chronicles contain traces of a

suspicion that he died by poison administered by his Italian cook, who

had been hired for that foul purpose by the Neapolitan party, and that

thus, the doom of the house of Árpád was sealed by the wiles of an

assassin. The sun of the Árpáds set amidst dark and storm-portending

clouds, and the new dynasty of Anjou inherited the great task of

reconciling the oligarchs with the gentry, and both classes with the

crown, and thus of restoring the ancient power and splendor of the

Hungarian kingdom.

[Illustration]

[Illustration]