Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 12.djvu/382

368 368 HUNGARY [HISTORY. from which, assembly the subsequent diets originated. Stephen dying in 1038, and leaving no heir, the queen Gisela contrived to gain the throne for her nephew Peter, but a portion of the nobles declared for Aba, who was of Arpadian blood. In the wars which ensued both princes perished, when Andrew I., who was nearly related to Stephen I., succeeded to the throne in 1047, but he was ultimately forced to yield it to his brother Bela I. The next monarch s reign that offers anything worthy of notice is that of Ladislaus I., whose religious zeal gained him the appellation of &quot; Saint,&quot; and who was distinguished on account of his conquest of Croatia (1089) and part of Galicia (1093), and for his victories over the Cumans (1086-89), the invaders of Transylvania and the neighbour ing districts. His nephew Coloman, a brave and talented monarch, guarded the country against the depreciations of the hosts of crusaders who passed through it during his reign. He also wrested Dalmatia from the Venetians (1102), and annexed it to the Hungarian kingdom. Coloman died in 1114, leaving the throne to his youthful son Stephen II., who soon entangled himself in warfare with neighbouring princes. The reign of his successor B6la II. (1131-41), like that of the other kings of the 12th century, presents few features of interest. That of Andrew II. (1205-35) is celebrated on account of the &quot; Golden Bull,&quot; or Hungarian Magna Charta, ex torted from the king by the nobles in the year 1222, after his return from a crusade forced upon him by the pope. The Golden Bull guaranteed that the states should be convoked annually, that no noble was to be arrested without being first tried and legally condemned, that the property of the nobility should be exempt from dues, that foreign service was to be rewarded, that appointments to the highest offices should be under the control of the diet. It also contained numerous other clauses granting certain freedoms, privileges, and exemp tions to the nobility and the clergy, and included a proviso of the right of armed resistance to tyrannical measures on the part of the crown. This charter was duly sworn to by subsequent kings of Hungary, but the article relating to the right of appeal to arms was abrogated in 1687. A few years after the accession of Bela IV., son of Andrew IL, the Mongols invaded and devastated the whole country, massacring great numbers of the population (1241-42). B6la did all in his power, by the introduction of German colonists, to retrieve the disasters inflicted by the invasion ; but his wars with Austria and Styria, and the revolts of his son Stephen, were prejudicial to the restoration of order. He, however, successfully repelled a second Mongol invasion in 1261. The reigns of the next two monarchs, Stephen V. (1270-72) and Ladislaus IV. (1272-90), are noticeable chiefly for the wars on behalf of Rudolf of Austria against Ottokar of Bohemia. Ladislaus is said to have been murdered in 1290 amidst violent commo tions caused by his Cumanian amours. His successor Andrew III., the last king of the Arpad dynasty, after a short but disturbed reign, died in 1301, leaving no issue. On the death of Andrew III. the royal dignity became an object of competition. One party elected Wenceslaus, son of the king of Bohemia and Poland (1301-5), and after him Otho of Bavaria (1305-8), both connected with the Arpadian house. Pope Boniface VIII. and the bishops successfully espoused the cause of Charles Robert of Anjou, nephew of the king of Naples, and related to the extinct dynasty through his mother, a daughter of Stephen V. Under Charles and his son Louis, which latter in 1370 succeeded Casimir III. on the throne of Poland, Hungary made great progress both at home and abroad. During the reign of Louis it became the most formidable state in Europa Among many other territories he conquered Moldavia (1352) and Bulgaria (1365); he also greatly extended and developed the royal prerogatives in his own kingdom. Upon the death of Louis (1382), the states raised to the throne his daughter Maria, who, after the assassination of the pretender Charles II. (1386), reigned conjointly with her consort Sigismond of Brandenburg, son of the emperor Charles IV. In the early part of this reign the Turks under the sultan Bajazet infested some of the Hungarian provinces, and at length in 1396 utterly defeated Sigismond at Nicopolis, obliging him to fly the kingdom. During his absence a party headed by the palatine Gara raised the standard of rebellion, and upon his return deprived him of his liberty. Scarcely was he released when he met with a rival in Uladislaus, king of Poland, who had married Hedwig, second daughter of Louis. Elected emperor (1411), and afterwards king of Bohemia (1419), Sigismond, instead of providing for the safety of the country, employed his time in persecuting the Hussites. He ended his long and troublous reign 9th December 1437, and was succeeded by his son-in-law Albert, archduke of Austria. The year 1439 witnessed the sudden death of Albert; his widow, however, was soon delivered of a son, Ladislaus Posthumus. The states invited Uladislaus of Poland to the throne, and thus considerable dissensions existed until the death of the queen in 1442, when the party of Uladislaus secured his accession. At the commencement of his reign the Turks were several times defeated by John Hunyady (Corvinus), and they were at length forced to conclude a truce for ten years. The Hungarians, having almost immediately bioken faith with the Turks, and taken the field against them, were completely routed at Varna on the 10th November 1444. In this battle Uladislaus met his end, whilst Hunyady escaped with a few followers. Amid the troubles which ensued the states proclaimed Hunyady &quot;governor of Hungary&quot; pending the absence of Ladislaus Posthumus, whom the emperor Frederick III. refused to deliver to the Hungarians to be acknowledged king. After the release and recognition 1 of Ladislaus in 1452, Hunyady resigned the office of governor, and was nominated generalissimo by the king. After the fall of Constantinople in 1453, Mohammed II. made preparations for the conquest of Hungary, and in 1456 appeared before Belgrade with an army of 150,000 men. This force was, however, utterly routed on July 21. 1456, by the combined Hungarian, Italian, and Spanish troops, in all about 70,000 men, under the command of John Hunyady and the monk John Capistran. Soon after this victory, which resulted in the Turks raising the siege, Hunyady succumbed to dysentery aggravated by excessive fatigue, leaving behind him two sons, Ladislaus and Matthias. The former was executed by order of Ladislaus Posthumus, while the latter, after that monarch s death in November 1457, being supported by a strong party under the leadership of his uncle Michael Szilagyi, was elevated to the royal dignity on the 24th January 145S, under the title of Matthias I. The emperor Frederick, having disputed his right to the throne, and assumed the regal title himself, was forced by Matthias to surrender all claims to the Hungarian dominions, and to conclude a peace in July 1463. During the next few years Matthias was employed in reorganizing the military system and repelling the Turks. He after this turned his arms against Podiebrad, king of Bohemia (1468), ostensibly for the purpose of defending the Catholics against the Hussites. Being victorious in those campaigns, Matthias in May 1469 caused himself to be proclaimed king of Bohemia and Moravia at Olmiitz. Meanwhile the Turks, taking advan- 1 He took the oath in 14b3, but Frederick withheld the crown.