foreign enemies. His election had not been unanimous; and the friends of the Cillys, with all other adversaries of the Hunyadis, now tendered their allegiance to the Emperor Frederic, who had the crown of St. Stephen in his possession. The mediation of the Pope and of King George Podiebrad of Bohemia, aided by the growing reputation of Mathias, and the equally growing danger from the Turks, induced Frederic in the end to abandon his pretensions. The king first quelled the insurgents by arms, and then turned his attention to the Turks. His first campaign against them is thus described.

"Mathias Corvinus now drew the sword. To the frontier commandants was enjoined the utmost vigilance during the time that he was assembling his troops. Whilst the king proceeded to the Save much fighting occurred upon the frontiers. The inroads of the Turks extended as far as Futak, which with difficulty resisted these marauders. Michael and Peter Zucholi fell upon them; Ali Beg, who frantically defended himself, was constrained to fly. Near Temeswar 4000 Turks, driven back on all sides, were slain. Mathias crossed the frontiers and marched straight upon Jaiesa (the capital of Bosnia just conquered by Mohammed), which was garrisoned by 7000 Turks. The commandant, Haram Beg, held out for a month and a half. The king's perseverance triumphed over the obstinacy of the enemy and the severity of the season. The young monarch entered Buda as the conqueror of a kingdom and deliverer of 15,000 Christian prisoners. Haram Beg and the captive Turks enhanced the splendour of his triumph.

"Mohamed, incensed at the fall of Jaiesa, resolved to recover it. With immense numbers he appeared before the walls; the cannon thundered unceasingly; and when the fortifications were deemed sufficiently shaken, the Sultan divided his host into three parts, assigning to each a day for storming. The garrison resisted the three days' fury. The Turks were discouraged; and when Emerich Szekheli approached to relieve the town, the report that Mathias in person led the advancing army, multiplied its numbers. The Sultan raised the siege; and so precipitate was the retreat that many guns with a great quantity of baggage was left before the town and fell into the hands of the Hungarians.

Whether Mathias ever entertained his father's projects for expelling the Turks from Europe, does not appear. In fact he himself, like the other princes of Europe and even the then spiritual head of Christendom, the Pope, though regarding the Osmanli with hatred, seems to have been scarcely sensible of the magnitude of their danger from the warlike and enterprising temper of these new intruders into Europe; otherwise they would not have suffered every petty private interest to divert them from the common object. This, to Mathias in particular, should have been a paramount consideration; yet the pursuit of

a second kingdom was preferred by him to the defence of that in his possession.

Papal intolerance induced the revocation of the indulgences previously granted by the Roman See to the Utraquist heretics of Bohemia. George Podiebrad, though himself an orthodox Catholic, interfered on behalf of his subjects; and the Pope, Paul II. in consequence deposed him, offering his crown to his son-in-law Mathias. His beautiful and beloved young queen, the daughter of George, was no more; she had died childless: and although his attachment to her memory long prevented the widower from marrying again, it had not the power to restrain his ambition. He accepted the Pope's offer and invaded Bohemia. The commencement of hostilities is thus described.

"Mathias encamped near Laa on the March. He was received with rejoicings by the citizens, as the Emperor's ally; the arsenal was opened to him, and provisions were abundantly supplied. On the opposite bank of the March encamped Podiebrad. Thus they remained for a whole month, without striking a decisive blow. Alike in talent for war, courage, prudence, and military equipment, they were unlike in age, and the qualities of their armies. Podiebrad was sixty, Mathias hardly twenty-five. The Bohemians were the most renowned infantry in the whole world, the Hungarians were formidable from their numbers and the boldness of their cavalry. The resources of the two princes were equally various. The king of Hungary had the Pope and the Emperor for allies, and was supported by the Catholic Bohemians: but mighty foes were rising behind him, and his own subjects reluctantly saw themselves involved in an expensive and destructive war. Podiebrad had no adherents except the Utraquist Bohemians, but these were fired with the wild fanaticism of religious enthusiasts.

"The two princes frequently saw each other on the banks of the river, and conversed, sometimes in wrath, oftener in recollection of past friendly times. At length the principal men on either side endeavoured to mediate a peace; but the Cardinal Legate Lorenzo, in Corvinus's camp, interposed; the Prince of Peace became the Apostle of Discord, and the negotiations were broken off."

The war was hard fought on both sides. Mathias made great progress in Moravia and Silesia, but none in Bohemia, which however he invaded with increased forces, laying all waste with fire and sword.

"Podiebrad now proposed peace. The two kings met; they conversed alone, and the Cardinal Legate, who accompanied Mathias everywhere, dreaded the conclusion of peace. This however was not accomplished, but a truce only settled. The kings parted, and Podiebrad's sons, Victorin and Henry, accompanied Mathias to Olmütz. There the Cardinal Legate suggested to the king that he might end the war at a stroke by making George's two sons prisoners; but Mathias indig

nantly rejected the advice. At the end of the truce Mathias held a diet at Olmütz at which he was proclaimed king by the Bohemian Catholics; whether he was likewise crowned, is doubtful. Whilst Mathias visited the chief Silesian towns to receive homage, Podiebrad held a diet at Prague, for the election of a king. It was generally expected that he would propose one of his own gallant sons; but he passed them by, and recommended Wladislaus, the eldest son of the Polish King Casimir, to the Bohemians. The proposal pleased them, and they offered Wladislaus the succession to the crown, but upon conditions."

These conditions were, their own and their king's reconciliation, through him, with the Roman See, the ratification of their privileges, ample princely provision for Podiebrad's family, and Wladislaus's marriage with the daughter of the latter. Podiebrad's death shortly followed; Mathias and Wladislaus were severally proclaimed King of Bohemia by their respective partisans, and the war continued.

"Whilst Mathias was striving to conquer a new kingdom, he was on the point of losing his own. The Hungarians, dissatisfied with his arbitrary government, disliking the Bohemian war, which exhausted the strength of the country and left it on the other side exposed to the incursions of the Turks, turned to Casimir King of Poland, and asked his second son, Prince Casimir, for their king. The oldest friends of the house of Hunyadi, even Vitéz, Archbishop of Gran, fell off from Mathias; of the seventy-five counties into which Hungary was then divided, only nine, of the grandees only the Archbishop of Kolocza, and the Palatine, remained true to the king. Mathias, informed by the Chapter of Gran of the danger menacing him, hastened back to Hungary, and held a diet at Buda, by which he regained most of those who had fallen off from him. * * * Casimir vainly expected to be joined by the Hungarian grandees who had visited him, for the Buda diet had borne good fruit. Casimir feared to be besieged by Mathias in Neutra; he left 4000 men to defend the castle and fled, unpursued, yet with such hurry that sixty waggons fell into the hands of the peasants."

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Mathias now sought to conciliate the Archbishop who had been the chief promoter of the attempt to supplant him; but when he had completely cleared his realm of all the Polish invaders, he turned upon his ecclesiastical enemy, confined him in one of his own archiepiscopal castles, and transferred the management of his diocese to the Bishop of Erlan.

He then returned to the invasion of Bohemia; where his strategical abilities prevented his rival's deriving any advantage from his very superior numbers. A truce for a year and a half suspended hostilities, leaving each in possession of what he held.

Mathias had now leisure to attend to the incursions of the

Turks, who during his Bohemian wars had constantly infested Hungary, ravaging the country, and carrying away sometimes 10,000, sometimes 50,000 victims to slavery. He defeated them on their own ground, and took the fortress of Shabacz. Yet so far were the Turkish marauding expeditions from being ended, that we are told the king's new bride, the Neapolitan Princess Beatrice, whom he married in 1476, "saw everywhere upon her road the most recent traces of Turkish devastation, and often passed the night there, where the Turks had raged during the day."

Again was Mathias diverted from his task as champion of Christendom, by wars with his Christian neighbours, Wladislaus and the Emperor Frederic. A peace was however mediated with the last-named enemy, by the Pope, Venice, and Mathias's Queen Beatrice; and the Emperor confirmed to the King of Hungary the kingdom and electorate of Bohemia. In point of fact, however, the kingdom was divided between the rivals, both of whom bore the title, whilst Wladislaus held Bohemia Proper, Mathias Moravia, Silesia, and Lusatia.

In the last invasion of Hungary by the Turks during the reign of Mathias, two circumstances are worth noting. One of the leaders against the Moslim, Paul Kinizsy, Earl of Termes, was humbly born, and promoted by merit alone. He was the son of a miller, served as a common soldier in these wars, and having distinguished himself by headlong audacity and extraordinary bodily strength, was raised by the king to this high rank of nobility;a proof that even in the feudal times the barriers of birth were not actually insuperable to merit. The nature of the other circumstance is illustrative of the then state of civilization in Hungary.

"As the Turks broke in, Stephen Batori, Woywode of Transylvania, called upon Paul Kinizsy Earl of Termes, for assistance; whilst with the warriors whom he could hastily collect, he at once threw himself before the plundering bands. He engaged them on the Brotfelde (in Hungarian, Kenyérmezö). Such was the Ottoman superiority in numbers, that the Christian soldiers, like martyrs, prepared for death by receiving the encharist. Batori drew up his army in two lines, the Szeklers* formed the right wing in the first, the Saxons the left, and he himself with the heavy horse and the Bishop of Transylvania's people was in the centre. The Wallachians and Hungarians formed the second line. One of the most desperate of battles began: three thousand Saxons lay dead on the field or in the waters of the Maros; the Szeklers gave way, the Woy

The Szeklers, one of the races or tribes found in Hungary by the Magyars, occupy part of Transylvania, which in another part has been colonized with Saxons.

wode led to the combat all that remained able to fight; two horses were killed under him, his blood streamed from six wounds; when behold! at the highest, the utmost need, Kinizsy appeared! Like a maddened lion, in each hand a sword, the man of giant's strength dashed in amongst the enemy. He cut himself a path thither where Batori was fighting with dying exertions; the victory was won, thirty thousand Turks strewed the field of battle. The released captives mingled in exulting thankfulness with the victors, and revelled in the plenty of the hostile camp.

"Upon the corses of the slain Turks the conquerors spread their meal, whilst they sang extempore songs in praise of their generals. They danced amidst the dead bodies. Kinizsy was challenged to join in the round. With herculean strength he seized a dead man with his teeth, so lifted him from the ground unaided by his hands, and with the corse hanging freely, waltzed in the circle, to the astonishment of all the spectators.'

Perhaps few things are more remarkable in the life of this king than the splendour he maintained amidst all these incessant wars; which, with the exception of the Turkish, his subjects reprobated, and unwillingly sustained by personal service or pecuniary contributions. The dislike appears in various laws, calculated to restrain his ambition and somewhat arbitrary government, extorted from Mathias by different diets. Yet we have the following description of the magnificence he displayed at an interview with Wladislaus.

"The princes had a meeting at Olmütz, when Mathias exhibited oriental pomp. For a whole fortnight tournaments, comedies, and balls succeeded each other. In the square a pyramid was erected by way of buffet, thick set from the ground to the summit with drinking vessels of gold and silver. Upon ten tables placed round it the banquet was spread; but not a cup was removed from the pyramid for the use of the guests, such was the profusion of the king's service of gold and silver. Mathias had royally furnished the lodgings of the Bohemian nobles, and especially that of Wladislaus, the walls of which were covered with hangings of silk and gold. When the princes separated, Mathias bestowed gifts upon all the Bohemian grandees, and presented to King Wladislaus the whole furniture of the house in which he had resided."

In corroboration of the magnificence of Mathias, we give the following extract from a letter written by the legate, Bishop Castelli, to Pope Pius II., and which is part of the Papal Correspondence touching Hungary, inserted by Count Mailath in his third volume.

"I had imagined that this king must be impoverished by the long war, as was suggested to me at Gratz; and in enumerating the causes which should induce peace, this was not the last I mentioned; hence, I conceive, a friend of mine invited me on the 20th to inspect the palace,