The life of Sigismund waa interwoven with
financial difficulties. So great was his
extravagance, that, when on one occasion there was
a surplus in the treasury of forty thousand
gold florins, he went to bed unable to sleep
under the sense of holding unspent money.
He rose, therefore, and distributed the gold
among his courtiers, to insure to himself
untroubled rest. When he had no money to
fling about, he scattered patents of nobility,
which not being endowed, were not
particularly welcome.

Under Uladislas the Turks broke into
Transylvania, and were defeated at Szent Imre,
by John Hunyady; but they sent a second
army to avenge their defeat, and that also
Hunyady crushed. Hunyady, marching now with
forty thousand men, defeated in five months
five Turkish armies, took five fortresses, and
returned to Buda. The Sultan offered terms;
and an armistice for ten years was sworn
between King Uladislas and Sultan Murat.
Murat soon after being called from Europe,
Cardinal Cesarini urged the King of Hungary
to rise in arms, and seize the opportunity to
drive the Turks away. He sanctified the
broken oath with solemn dispensations. John
Hunyady stoutly admonished his king to
preserve his honour, but in vain. Sultan Murat,
warned in time, returned and met the treacherous
invader, carrying before his host the
violated treaty, lifted on high in the manner of
a standard. The battle was fought at Varna;
and the head of the King of Hungary was
lifted near the treaty on a Turkish lance.
Cardinal Cesarini, too, was killed. Hunyady
escaped to be taken prisoner by the Voivoda
of the Wallachs; who, however, thought it
wise immediately to release him, when
summoned peremptorily no to do.

Ladislas Posthumus was now elected King;
Hungary was divided into seven districts
under seven captains; and, in 1446, John
Hunyady was elected Governor of Hungary,
with royal power during the king's minority.
For ten years Hunyady, brave and virtuous,
protected Hungary against the Turks, and
against European plotters. He was the idol
of his countrymen, but he was hated by the
young king's courtiers. In 1456, Hunyady,
being besieged in Belgrade, by Mahomed II.,
the king delayed sending an army to his
rescue, willing to see the hero fall; but
Hunyady raised an army at his own expense;
the country-people flocked to him, and rude
as their force was, it defeated the trained
army of the Sultan, and took three hundred
pieces of artillery, together with enormous
treasure. Twenty days after this victory,
Hunyady died, in the year 1456. His sons
were called to court, and one of them was
treacherously executed; the other, committed
to gaol, would have shared his fate, had not
the king's death placed him, by the
acclamations of a grateful people, as successor on
the throne.

Matthias Corvinus, second son of Hunyady,
reigned for thirty-one years, as one of the
most illustrious of the Hungarian kings. He
governed the country like a statesman, and
protected liberty. He was a good soldier;
and dispensing with-many feudal practices,
established, for the first time, a defensive
standing army, "The Black Legion." He
regulated the finances justly, even obtaining,
in the shape of voluntary votes, a contribution
to the taxes from the clergy and nobility.
He was an enlightened man; though a good
Catholic, he repelled the spiritual encroachments
of the Holy See.

Among the wars of Matthias was one of
resistance against Austria. The Emperor,
Frederic III., on the election of Matthias,
had put forward his own claim to the throne
of Hungary. That being disregarded, he
fostered all the mischief in his power against
King Matthias. For a long time the Pope
preserved peace, but at last a war broke out.
Matthias defeated the Emperor, and, having
conquered most of the Austrian cities, made
a peace in 1472. As soon as he saw
opportunity, the Emperor resumed hostilities.
Matthias then again attacked him, and in
1485 besieged and took Vienna.

Matthias Corvinus was a friend to literature.
He had a library of fifty thousand
books, handsomely adorned with gold and
velvet; he founded a university at Presburg,
and established colleges in other towns.
Matthias died in 1480, leaving only an
illegitimate son, John Corvinus, who would have
deserved, but did not seek, his father's crown.

The Hungarian magnates, weary of a
master, elected now, for his easiness of
temper, Uladislas II. Austria and Poland
put in armed pretension, and were defeated
by John Corvin and Zapolya. John Corvin
continued to repel them and the Turks till he
died. Great confusion followed. The Black
Legion was disbanded when the men became
mutinous for want of pay. The magnates were
divided into parties. Diets following each
other quickly, refused often the most necessary
taxes. King Uladislas, especially after
his wife's death, became a pitiable king, not
always knowing whence he could obtain a
dinner. He endeavoured to connect his
daughter, by marriage, with the court of
Germany. But, in 1505, the magnates, on
the proposition of Zapolya, swore that they
would not elect a foreigner for king. A
crusade against the Turks having been preached
in this reign among the peasants, the wild
army, when raised, was turned, for party
purposes, against the nobles; and a dreadful
struggle followed between landholders and
peasants, resembling that of the Jacquerie,
which took place near this time in France.
It ended with the same result of atrocious
cruelties committed against the subdued
peasant population. At the head of the
nobles was Zapolya.

In 1526, Sultan Suleiman had crossed the
Danube and the Drave. Louis the Second,