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HUNGARY 57 undertakings, conquering among other terri- tories Moldavia and Bulgaria. He also suc- ceeded his uncle Casimir the Great, the last of the Piasts, as king of Poland. He was chival- rous, luxurious, and higoted ; he promoted com- merce, but burdened the peasants, persecuted the Cuman pagans, and expelled the Jews, whom, however, his son-in-law Sigismund of Luxemburg brought back into the country. This prince having liberated his wife Mary, who had got rid of a rival, the Neapolitan Charles the Little, by assassination, but subsequently lost her throne and freedom, reigned together with her (1387-'95), and after her death alone (1395-1437), being also elected German em- peror, and succeeding to the throne of his house in Bohemia. His long reign was full of civil strife, including the Hussite war in Bo- hemia, a revolt in Hungary, which for a short time deprived him of his liberty, and a rising of the peasants in Transylvania, and of wars against Venice and the Turks, who under Ba- jazet routed him in the battle of Nicopolis ; but it was also marked by some salutary re- forms in favor of the lower classes. Sigismund was succeeded by his son-in-law the emperor Albert (II.) of Hapsburg (1437-'9). He died after an unsuccessful campaign against Sultan Amurath, leaving his thrones to his wife Eliza- beth, who offered her hand to Ladislas III. of Poland, a grandson of Louis the Great. The young Polish king after some struggle became also king of Hungary under the name of Ula- dislas I. (Hung. Uldszlo), but, after several vic- tories of his great general John Hunyady over the Turks, fell at Varna (1444), having broken his oath of peace to the infidels. Ladislas (V.), the posthumous child of Albert, whom his mother Elizabeth, shortly before her death, had carried together with the crown to her brother-in-law the emperor Frederick III., was now acknowledged as king (1445), Hunyady be- ing appointed governor or regent. Frederick of Hapsburg, however, had to be compelled to restore the prince ; powerful lords caused end- less disturbances, and the Turks menaced Hun- gary, while preparing to strike the last blow at the Byzantine empire. Hunyady himself was defeated, but made good his escape, and died victorious, having repulsed Mohammed II., the conqueror of Constantinople, from the walls of Belgrade (1456). Of his two sons, Ladislas was executed by command of the un- grateful king, but Matthias, surnamed Corvi- nus, ascended the throne after the death of the latter (1457) and a protracted election struggle. The ablest monarch of Hungary (1458-'90), he subdued the rebellious lords, and in numerous campaigns vanquished the emperor, Podiebrad of Bohemia, and the armies of Mohammed II. He restored order, law, and prosperity, pro- moted science and art more than any other prince of his age, and administered his king- dom with an impartiality the glory of which survived him in the popular adage, " King Mat- thias is dead, justice gone." But his works perished with him. The indolent Uladislas (II.) of Bohemia (1490-1516) was as poor as he was contemptible, and let his lords do as they chose. Of these John Zapolya, waywode of Transylvania, suppressed with dreadful blood- shed a great insurrection of the peasantry un- der Dozsa (1514). Under the young and weak son of Uladislas, Louis II. (1516-'26), the country gradually ripened for a catastrophe. While the nobles disputed, Belgrade fell, and finally the battle of Moh;ics was rashly fought against Sultan Solyman the Magnificent. The Hungarian army was destroyed, Louis perished on his flight, and his wife, the sister of Ferdi- nand of Austria, hastened to carry the crown to her brother. This prince inaugurated the still reigning dynasty of the Hapsburgs, being acknowledged as king (1527-'64) by the nobil- ity of the western counties, while the national party elected John Zapolya, who prevailed in Transylvania and the adjoining parts. The latter put himself under the protection of Soly- man, who took Buda and even besieged Vienna (1529). Long campaigns and negotiations and short-lived treaties now followed each other, the final result of which was that Hungary was for about 150 years divided into three parts with often changing limits, under the Haps- burgs as kings, the pashas of the sultans, and the princes of Transylvania. The greater part of Hungary proper, however, including the whole northwest, was in the hands of the royal or imperial armies, the monarchs holding also the crown of Germany after the abdication of Charles V., and finding many a hero among their Hungarian subjects. Maximilian (1564- '76) was saved by the self-sacrificing heroism of Zrinyi, who fell with his little fortress Szi- get and the last of his men only after the death of the besieger Solyman and the destruction of a part of his army (1566). All these ser- vices of the magnates, as well as of the nation, were ill repaid by the Austrian dynasty. The diets of Hungary, which for centuries remained the blood-covered bulwark of Christendom, more than once had to complain that the impe- rial soldiery did more to devastate the country and famish the people than the infidel con- querors. Rudolph I. (1576-1608) commenced the persecution of the Protestants. These, however, not only had a free home in Transyl- vania under the enlightened Stephen Bathori, afterward king of Poland (who had succeeded the younger Zapolya), but also a protector of their rights in Hungary in Bocskay, the Tran- sylvanian successor of Sigismund Bathori, who suddenly raised the banner of freedom, sweep- ing all over the north, crushing the generals of Rudolph, and finally compelling the latter to the humiliating peace of Vienna (1606). The old emperor finally resigned his Hungarian crown to his brother Matthias (II.), whose tol- erant reign, however, was too short for the pacification of the country (1608-'19). His successor Ferdinand II. (1619-'37), who com- menced his reign amid the first flames of tho