LADISLAUS V. (1440–1457), king of Hungary and Bohemia, the only son of Albert, king of Hungary, and Elizabeth, daughter of the emperor Sigismund, was born at Komárom on the 22nd of February 1440, four months after his father’s death, and was hence called Ladislaus Posthumus. The estates of Hungary had already elected Wladislaus III. of Poland their king, but Ladislaus’s mother caused the holy crown to be stolen from its guardians at Visegrad, and compelled the primate to crown the infant king at Székesfejérvár on the 15th of May 1440; whereupon, for safety’s sake, she placed the child beneath the guardianship of his uncle the emperor Frederick III. On the death of Wladislaus III. (Nov. 10th, 1444), Ladislaus V. was elected king by the Hungarian estates, though not without considerable opposition, and a deputation was sent to Vienna to induce the emperor to surrender the child and the holy crown; but it was not till 1452 that Frederick was compelled to relinquish both. The child was then transferred to the pernicious guardianship of his maternal grandfather Ulrich Cillei, who corrupted him soul and body and inspired him with a jealous hatred of the Hunyadis. On the 28th of October 1453 he was crowned king of Bohemia, and henceforth spent most of his time at Prague and Vienna. He remained supinely indifferent to the Turkish peril; at the instigation of Cillei did his best to hinder the defensive preparations of the great Hunyadi, and fled from the country on the tidings of the siege of Belgrade. On the death of Hunyadi he made Cillei governor of Hungary at the diet of Futtak (October 1456), and when that traitor paid with his life for his murderous attempt on Laszló Hunyadi at Belgrade, Ladislaus procured the decapitation of young Hunyadi (16th of March 1457), after a mock trial which raised such a storm in Hungary that the king fled to Prague, where he died suddenly (Nov. 23rd, 1457), while making preparations for his marriage with Magdalena, daughter of Charles VII. of France. He is supposed to have been poisoned by his political opponents in Bohemia.
See F. Palacky, Zeugenverhör über den Tod König Ladislaus von Ungarn u. Böhmen (Prague, 1856); Ignacz Acsády, History of the Hungarian State (Hung.), vol. i. (Budapest, 1903).