who was then king, then encamped at Mohacs
with no more than twenty thousand men.
Zapolya was on the way from Szegedin with
fourteen thousand, and Frangepani from Croati
with fifteen thousand more. The King was
urged to wait; but the Court, partly hating
Zapolya, would share no glory with him. The
Commander-in-Chief was eager to begin the
fight; and the old officers, who knew what
must ensue, disdained to counsel fear. The
Bishop of Grosswardein recommended that
one of their party should be detached to seek
the Pope, and beg that he would canonise the
twenty thousand Hungarian martyrs. The
battle of Mohacs was then fought, on the 29th
of August, 1526. The Hungarians were
mowed down; the King was drowned while
flying from the field, and scarcely a man
escaped, except three thousand of the Pope's
mercenaries, who had not a taste for martyrdom.
The Sultan marched on to the sack of
Buda, and returned home laden with plunder,
taking with him seventy thousand prisoners.

Louis's Queen, Maria, caring not much for
her husband's death, wrote coldly from
Presburg to her brother Ferdinand, Archduke of
Austria, acquainting him with the catastrophe,
and pointing out how he might now obtain the
throne of Hungary. Zapolya, on the other
hand, had views of his own, which he sought
to reconcile with those of her Majesty by an
offer of marriage. That honour she haughtily
declined. John Zapolya was now crowned by
consent of the lower nobles and the people,
but despised by the high oligarchs. The
magnates declared for Queen Maria's brother,
as soon as Ferdinand had given them a
written promise that he would preserve inviolate
the rights of Hungary. Civil war
followed, Zapolya was defeated, and Ferdinand,
in 1527, having sworn fealty to the constitution
of Hungary, was crowned. Zapolya
sought aid of the Sultan, offering to hold
Hungary as a fief from the Turks. Ferdinand,
presently in difficulty, made a like
promise of tribute. The upshot was, that Suleiman,
the Sultan, marched victorious through
Hungary, picking up by the way St. Stephen's
crown. He settled down before Vienna, but
was forced to raise that siege: therefore,
delivering Hungary to John Zapolya, he marched
back to his own dominions. Ferdinand
invaded Hungary to war against Zapolya; but
Ferdinand, a German, never put faith in the
Hungarians; his German troops oppressed
them, and he lost much of their aid. Suleiman
again came to Zapolya's aid, and would
have again poured down his forces into Austria,
had not seven hundred Hungarians, in the
little town of Güns, detained them long over a
vain siege. When the brave garrison was at
its last gasp, the Sultan nobly desisted from
the siege, upon condition that the garrison
would honour him, by suffering the Turkish
flag to wave for one hour on the walls. The
Turks laid waste a part of Austria and Styria,
and then went home. Soon afterwards Ferdinand
and Zapolya, in 1538, agreed to the
peace of Grosswardein. John was to be King
in the East, Ferdinand in the West. After
John's death Ferdinand was to bave the
whole; and if John left a son, he was to marry
an Archduchess, and be Duke of Zipsen.

John died in 1540, leaving an infant, Duke
John Sigismund, under the care of a monk,
best known by the name of Martinuzzi, and a
soldier, Petrovich. The monk and soldier
called upon the Sultan to create the little
Duke into a King. The conditions of peace
being violated, Ferdinand stormed Buda; but
the Sultan invaded Hungary now for the
fourth time, and left garrisons in the chief
towns, on the plea that John Sigismund, the
child under his patronage, was too weak to
defend himself.

The mother of the child, Isabella, found it
prudent to resign Transylvania and Eastern
Hungary to Ferdinand; and Martinuzzi, now
an archbishop and a cardinal, continued his
negotiations with the Turks. He was, among
other things, Woiwode of Transylvania, and
wished to be its independent prince. Ferdinand,
for this reason, caused his assassination.
Ferdinand himself died in 1564, resigning
Transylvania to John Sigismund.

By this time more than two-thirds of the
Hungarians had adopted the principles of the
Reformation, and religious troubles began.
The Princes of Transylvania were the
champions of religious freedom; the maxim of the
Kings of the House of Hapsburg was, "Let
Hungary be beggared first, then Germanized,
and then made Catholic."

During the sway of Rudolf of Hapsburg
the Protestant churches were closed, and
their clergy driven away. Finally, outraged
by the unconstitutional addition of a sovereign
law to articles submitted to Rudolf by the
Diet—this law in itself hostile to religious
iberty—Hungary rose under a soldier, Stephen
Bocksay, swept aside the Germans, and
obtained, in 1606, the Religious Peace of Vienna,
in which Rudolf promised to the Hungarians
full spiritual liberty, and the strict
maintenance of their Constitution. At length,
home troubles forced the Emperor Rudolf
to resign Hungary and Austria to his brother
Matthias, whom the Hungarian Diet
recognised; but not until he had solemnly confirmed
the Religious Peace of Vienna. Matthias, by
himself and by his counsellors, earnestly
promoted Catholicism; but he did so only by wise,
temperate, and honest measures. During his
reign, Gabriel Bethlen became Prince of
Transiylvania. Ferdinand the Second, who succeeded
Matthias, had vowed at Loretto to destroy
Protestantism, and restore the Romish Church.
With him began the terrible religious struggle,
called the Thirty Years' War. Gabriel Bethlen,
Prince of Transylvania, was the champion not
so much of Protestantism as of Toleration. He
protected all creeds; and throughout these
wars in Hungary, the national spirit of the
Catholics bound them to make common cause