Page:A history of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, volume 2.djvu/330

 o^^ THE SLAVIC CATHARI. turning with this welcome news, were followed, after an interval of four days, by the Turkish host. The land was found defence- less, and no resistance was offered till the invaders reached the royal castle of Bobovac, a stronghold capable of prolonged de- fence Its commandant, however, was Count Eadak, a Catharan who had been forced to conversion, and on the third day he sur- rendered on a promise of reward. When he claimed this Ma- homet, reproaching him with his treason, had him promp ly be- headed, and tradition still points out on the road to Sutiska the rock Radakovica, where the traitor met his end. The capitulation of Bobovac cast terror throughout the land. Resistance was no lon<.er thought of, and the only alternatives were flight or submis- sion The king hurried towards the Croatian frontier, with Ma- homet Pasha at his heels, and was compelled at Kljuc to surrender on promise of Ufe and freedom, but, in spite of this, he was put to death, after being utilized to order all commandants of cities and castles to surrender them. Within eight days more than seventy towns fell into the hands of the Turks, and by the middle of June all Bosnia was in their possession. Then Mahomet turned south- ward to overrun the territories of Stephen Vukcic, but the moun- tains of Herzegovina were bravely defended by the Cathari, and bv the end of June the Turkish host took its way homeward, car- rying with it one hundred thousand prisoners and thirty thousand vouths to be converted into Janissaries.* " Thus abandoned by Christendom, except to hasten the end through perpetually inflaming reUgious strife, Bosma was con- quered without a struggle, while Herzegovina held out for twenty years longer. How easily the catastrophe might have been averted is seen in the fact that before the year 1463 was out Matthias Corvinus had reconquered a large portion of the territory so easi- ly won, which was held until the Hungarian power was broken on the disastrous field of Mohacs in 1526. In the Turkish lands the Cathari for the most part embraced Mahometanism, and the sect which had so stubbornly endured the vicissitudes of more than a thousand years disappeared in obscurity. The Christians had the resource of flight, which they embraced, commencing an emigration which continued until the middle of the eighteenth
 * Klaic, pp. 427-8, 432-6.— Wadding, ann. 1462, No. 82.