312 THE SLAVIC CATHARL first pressure of persecution forty heads of the Catharan Church, with great numbers of the laity, sought refuge with Stephen Yuk- cic, who proceeded to attack the CathoHcs of Kagusa, while many others fled to Servia and to the Turks, and appealed to them for help. Those who remained prepared for resistance, and a bloody religious war broke out, of which George Brankovic of Servia took advantage to renew the war suspended in 1449. This was more than Stephen Thomas could endure ; he was forced to aban- don persecution and to call for help. John Hunyady was enraged at his weakness, and ordered him to make peace Avith Servia. He appealed to Nicholas Y., who remonstrated with Hunyady, when the latter retorted that Stephen Thomas was false to his promises, and, in place of exterminating the heretics, was protecting them, to the scandal of all Christendom.-^ On the fall of Constantinople, in May, 1453, Stephen Thomas promptly sent envoys to Mahomet II. to tender his allegiance. In the ever -deepening menace of the Turks persecution could hardly be resumed with activity, but the popes occasionally gave him a portion of the moneys raised for the crusade, and the Cath- ari were humiUated and proscribed as far as could be ventured upon, and constituted a discontented and dangerous element of the population. In 1459 we find the king protesting to Pius II. that he persecuted the Cathari roundly, and asking for more bish- ops; and one of his latest acts was to send the Bishop of Nona to the pope with three Catharan magnates— George Kucinic, Stojsav Tvrtkovic, and Eadovan Yiencinic— that they might be converted. It seems incredible that any one should covet a throne so precari- ous, and yet, in 1461, while Stephen Thomas was battling with the Croatian magnates, he was murdered by his son, Stephen Thomas- evic, and his brother Kadivoj. The crown which Stephen Tho- masevic thus won by a parricide was a crown of thorns. To the north Matthias Corvinus of Hungary was estranged and unforgiv- ino- ; to the west was Croatia, with which he was at war ; in the south Stephen Yukcic was his enemy ; while on the east lay Ser- via, now a Turkish pashahc, from which Mahomet II. only awaited the fitting moment to reduce Bosnia to a hke condition. Thus surrounded by foes, the internal condition of the land was
- Theiner, op. cit. I. 408.— Klaic, pp. 380-2.
