Page:Great Men and Famous Women Volume 1.djvu/224

U6 SOLDIERS AND SAILORS a short time the whole body was a sea of fire. Every one sought to fly. Then it was that Huniades sallied out with his picked band, while Capistran with a tall cross in his hand and the cry of "Jesus " on his lips followed with his crowd of fanatics, the cannon of the fortress played upon the Turkish camp, the Sultan himself was wounded and swept along by the stream of fugitives. Forty thou- sand Turks were left dead upon the field, four thousand were taken prisoners, and three thousand cannon were captured. According to the opinion of Huniades himself the Turks had never suffered such a severe defeat. Its value as far as the Hungarians were concerned was heightened by the fact that the ambitious Sultan was personally humiliated. There was now great joy in Europe. At the news of the brilliant victory Te dcum was sung in all the more important cities throughout Europe, and the Pope wished to compliment Huniades with a crown. Alas ! a crown of another character awaited him that of his Redeemer, in whose name he lived, fought, and fell. The exhalations from the vast number of unburied or imperfectly buried bodies, festering in the heat of summer, gave rise to an epidemic in the Christian camp, and to this the great leader fell a .victim. Huniades died August 11, 1456, in the sixty-eighth year of his age. He died amid the intoxication of his greatest victory, idolized by his followers, having once more preserved his country from imminent ruin. Could he have desired a more glorious death ? He went to his last rest with the consciousness that he had fulfilled his mis- sion, having designed great things and having accomplished them. And the result of his lifelong efforts survived him. His great enemy the Turk for half a century after his death could only harass the frontier of his native land ; and his country, a few years after his death placed on the royal throne his son Matthias. X WARWICK, THE KING-MAKER (1420-1471) RICHARD NEVILLE, Earl of Warwick, called the king-maker, eldest son of Richard, Earl of Salisbury and Alice Montacute, was born November 22, 1428. The history of this mighty peer is that of the whole of the contest between the two houses of York and Lancaster. The house of Neville had been built up by a series of wealthy mar- riages, and Richard made no exception to the rule. While yet a boy he was married to Anne, daughter of the Earl of Warwick, and through her, after the