It has already been seen how in 1477, Matthias, after a successful war against Wladislav of Bohemia, obtained by the Treaty of Olmiitz the larger portion of the territory of the Bohemian Crown. In 1485 the great Corvinus was still more successful. On May 23 of that year, Vienna capitulated to him as victor over the Emperor Frederick III; and thus he added Lower Austria to his vast domain. Nor were his successes gained only by laborious fighting. His diplomatic activity was hardly less comprehensive and elaborate than were his numerous campaigns. Yet, with all his successes and triumphs, Matthias, like the Emperor Charles V at a later date, belongs to a class of rulers more interesting by their personality than important by reason of their work. Like Charles, Matthias triumphed over persons rather than over causes. He humbled nearly all his opponents, and his statue or image was set up at Bautzen as well as at Breslau, in Vienna, and in the border-fortress of Jajcza, far down in Bosnia. When on April 6, 1490, Matthias breathed his last, he left the interests of his only, but illegitimate son, John Corvinus, and those of his realm, in so insecure a condition that no less than four or five rival candidates were striving for the Crown which he had fondly hoped to secure for his amiable but weakly son.
The oligarchs decided to confer the Crown upon Wladislav of Bohemia, a prince of the Polish House of the Jagellos, whose indolent character promised well for their ardent desire of retrieving the ascendancy which they had long since lost under Matthias1 stern rule. The campaign of his competitor Maximilian, the Emperor’s son, broke down, while Wladislav’s other competitor, his brother Albert, since 1492 King of Poland, was persuaded by him to withdraw. Thus began the period of Wladislav IPs reign over Hungary (1490-1516) during which the country, both at home and abroad, was rapidly falling into ruin. The King, commonly called “Dobzse Ldszlo” from his habit of saying “dobzse” (“all right”) to everything, was a mere plaything in the hands of Thomas Bakdcz, the all-powerful Primate, of George Szakmary, the Bishop of Pecs, and of Emericus Perenyi, the Palatine. This Primate is the Hungarian Cardinal Wolsey. Like the great English prelate he commanded all the resources of clerical subtlety, and knew how to humiliate himself for a season. Like Wolsey, he aimed at the highest object of ecclesiastic ambition, the Papacy, and because of the same fatal conflict within him of two contradictory ambitions failed alike to render good service to his country, and to fulfil his hierarchical aspirations.
The Court-party centring in Bakdcz was opposed by the adherents of the powerful House of the Zapolyai, who after Stephen; Zapolyai’s death in 1499, put up his son John as the national candidate for the Crown. John’s friends, chiefly the childless and wealthy Lawrence Ujlaky, counted on the King’s imbecility in council and war; and finally John proposed to Wladislav repeatedly, and even in threatening fashion, a marriage between him and the King’s first child Anne. Wladislav, however, with the cunning which often accompanies dulness, contrived to obtain delay after delay, together with new treaty-assurances from the Emperor Maximilian, until his French wife, Anne de Candale, a kinswoman of Louis XII, King of France, bore him in 1506, a son, Louis, whose birth put an end to the intrigues of John Zapolyai. All through these years the achievements in arms of the kingdom, if not of the King, were by no means altogether unsatisfactory. In the early years of Wladislav’s reign, the old hero Paul Kinizsi still continued to inflict heavy losses on the ever aggressive Turk; and John Zapolyai, too, earned some military glory. Ujlaky’s rebellion was put down by the King’s general Dragfy in 1495. The internal dissensions, however, were sapping the very foundation of the kingdom; and in 1514 Hungary was afflicted with one of the terrible peasant revolts then not infrequent in Austria and Germany, which invariably led to the most inhuman as well as illegal treatment of the defeated peasants. A crusade against the infidel Turk, announced by Bakdcz as legate of the Pope, gave rise to vast gatherings of peasants and other poor people who, on finding that the nobles refrained from joining them, took umbrage at this refusal, and speedily turned their pikes on the nobility as their oppressors. A large number of noble families were cruelly and infamously murdered by the Hungarian Jacquerie led by George Udzsa. The untrained masses of the insurgents, however, fell an easy prey to John Zapolyars soldiers. Ddzsa was roasted alive, and the peasants were by a special statute degraded to everlasting serfdom.
After the death of Wladislav II (March, 1516) his son, a boy of ten years, became King, under the name of Louis II. He had been brought up under the baneful influence of his cousin Margrave George of Brandenburg (Prince of Jagerndorf), and knew only of untrammelled indulgence in pleasures and pastimes. Under such conditions there was no vigorous reform to be expected, and the new Sultan, Sulayman the Magnificent, occupied in 1521 the important border-fortresses of Szabacs and Nandorfehervar (Belgrade), after their Hungarian garrisons had exhausted every effort of the most exalted heroism. However, even the loss of these places, the two keys to Hungary, failed to produce a sensible change in the indolence and factiousness of the people. In vain was Verbckzy,—an able and truly patriotic statesman,—made Palatine in 1525; in vain good laws were passed to meet the imminent danger at the hands of the victorious Sultan. The disaster of Mohdcs, August 29, 1526, described in an earlier chapter of this volume, showed but too clearly that the Sultan’s destructive plans were prompted and aided rather by the fatal disorganisation of Hungary than by the number and valour of his troops. The Jagellos ceased to exist, and at the same time an integral portion of Hungary, soon to be increased to one-third of the whole country, fell into the hands of the Turk. Other nations before this had suffered their Cannae, Hastings, or Agnadello; but either the victor was equal if not superior in degree of civilisation to the vanquished, or the latter afterwards found means at home or abroad to shake off the torpor of defeat. Hungary, with the exception of Transylvania, was after Mohacs not only defeated but paralysed; and for three centuries she could not resume her historical mission, inasmuch as she was able to repel her foreign enemy only by the aid of her domestic oppressor, Austria, and of Austria’s allies. Cannae steeled Rome, and Hastings made England an organic part of Europe; Mohacs buried the greater part of Hungary for more than nine generations.
Passing now to events in Bohemia, we find them full of similar perturbations. Here, since 1476, the Vladyks were involved in interminable struggles with the towns. The common people, especially the German settlers, had suffered exceedingly at the hands of the Hussites who, by impoverishing or massacring the industrial population of their own country, paved the way for an uncontrolled oligarchy. Of these class-wars, the cruel, not to say inhuman, campaign waged by the Vladyk Kopidlansky of Kopidlno against the city of Prague, from 1507 onwards, is perhaps the most remarkable. It was not until October 24, 1517, that the higher gentry and the towns arrived at an arrangement in the so-called Treaty of St Venceslas. The leading politicians and generals of those internecine troubles were John Pashek of Wrat, William of Pernstein, Zdenko Lew of Rozmital, and Peter of Rosen-berg. After 1520 the old religious dissensions, now intensified by the introduction of Luther’s ideas, were resuscitated. The Kings, Wladislav and Louis, were quite unable, and it is doubtful whether they were willing, to stem the tide of internal strife. At any rate, they appear to have counted for nothing, and Bohemia as well as Moravia was practically handed over to a very limited number of aristocrats, uncontrolled either by the small gentry, as was the case in contemporary Hungary, or by the towns or peasants. Even without a battle of Mohacs Bohemia had reached the stage when any bold and able foreign prince might very well hope to possess himself of a country important alike by its situation and its resources. The Habsburgs were not slow to see and appreciate their opportunity.
The political and moral gloom weighing upon Hungary and Bohemia during the reign of the Jagello Kings is undeniable. At the same time it is easy to exaggerate its consequences. The historians of both countries, and more especially the Magyar authors writing on the reigns of Wladislav II and Louis II, seem at a loss for sufficient terms of reproach and recrimination