János Hunyadi

“ J. de Chassin, Jean de Hunyad (Paris, 1859) ; A. Pér, Life of Hunyadi (Hung.) (Budapest, 1873) ; V. Fraknói, Cardinal Carjaval and his Missions to Hungary (Hung.) (Budapest, 1889) ; P. Frankl, Der Friede von Szegedin und die Geschichte seines Bruches (Leipzig, 1904) ; R. N. Bain, “The Siege of Belgrade, 1456,” (Eng. Hist. Rev., 1892) ; A. Bonfini, Rerum ungaricarum libri xlv, editio septima (Leipzig, 1771) .
(R. N. B.)
HUNYADI, LÁSZLÓ (1433-1457) , Hungarian statesman and warrior, was the eldest son of János Hunyadi and Elizabeth Szilágyi. ”

“ On the 14th of July 1456 Hunyadi with his flotilla destroyed the Turkish fleet; on the 21st Szilágyi beat off a fierce assault, and the same day Hunyadi, taking advantage of the confusion of the Turks, pursued them into their camp, which he captured after a desperate encounter. Mahommed thereupon raised the siege and returned to Constantinople, and the independence of Hungary was secured for another seventy years. ”

“ The next fourteen years form one of the most interesting and pregnant periods of Hungarian history. It marks the dawn of a public spirit as represented by the gentry, who, alarmed at the national peril and justly suspicious of the ruling magnates, unhesitatingly placed their destinies in the hands of Hunyadi, the one honest man who by sheer merit had risen within the last ten years from the humble position of a country squire to a leading position in the state. ”

“ More than a century of nearly constant conflict had to elapse before the Hungarian supremacy in the regions of the Balkan was put an end to, and the Turks were able to penetrate as far as Mohács, and there to inflict a mortal blow on the independence of Hungary. During this struggle of a century and a half the name and fame of Hungary were perpetuated by many a brilliant feat of war, and by many glorious victories, and when John Hunyadi, the most formidable foe of the Turks, died, all Europe mourned his death as the loss of the great champion of Christianity. ”

“ The more land a noble owned, and the greater the number of his bondmen, the larger the number of the soldiers he was able to equip, and the greater the military power wielded by him, the better his prospects of promotion to a higher position in the state, in society, and about the person of his king. The first games of childhood were martial games, and the first tasks of youth were military tasks.
Such, no doubt, had also been the early training of John Hunyadi; by such means he rose, acquired a large fortune, and was able to support a great army. ”

“ He was a mighty figure, that son of John Hunyadi, and I have not the slightest doubt that the blood of kings was in his veins. There is no man in Hungary, alas! fit to wear his mantle, not even at a fancy-dress ball. ”

“ On the 24th of January 1458, 40,000 Hungarian noblemen, assembled on the ice of the frozen Danube, unanimously elected Matthias Hunyadi king of Hungary, and on the 14th of February the new king made his state entry into Buda.
The realm at this time was environed by perils. The Turks and the Venetians threatened it from the south, the emperor Frederick III. from the west, and Casimir IV. of Poland from the north, both Frederick and Casimir claiming the throne. The Czech mercenaries under Giszkra held the northern counties and from thence plundered those in the centre. ”

“ The Poles (the Hungarian king Uladislaus being also their king) sent a tolerably large contingent; in Germany, France, and Bohemia, too, there were many ready to enlist in a holy war against the unbelieving Turks, as had been formerly done in the time of the crusaders, and these joined Hunyadi’s camp. The southern vassal states sent also some forces. The principal army, however, was still composed of Hunyadi’s Hungarians, which was joined by the king’s own troops. They may have numbered altogether forty thousand men. ”

“ Hungarian. Do! what no other man of his day could have done. He broke the power of the Turk when he was coming to overwhelm Europe. From the blows inflicted by Hunyadi, the Turk never thoroughly recovered; he has been frequently worsted in latter times, but none but Hunyadi could have routed the armies of Amurath and Mahomed the Second.
Myself. How was it that he had an opportunity of displaying his military genius?
Hungarian. I can hardly tell you, but his valour soon made him famous; King Albert made him Ban of Szorenyi. He became eventually waivode of Transylvania, and governor of Hungary. ”

“ To the Hungarians it seemed as if the god of war himself had descended to fight under197 their banners, and they were seized with wild enthusiasm. The Turkish general, with the remnant of his army, fled in dismay, and from this day forward the name of the raven knight continued to be the terror of Turkish warriors. This mysterious knight was John Hunyadi. To be sure, men like Pongrácz, Szentmiklóssy, Thalloczy, or Maróthy, had before this day proved themselves heroes in the many struggles against the Turks. ”

“ Hunyadi at first refused, but finally yielded to Kemény’s entreaties and handed him over his military equipments.
But he built his plan of battle upon this ruse: He ordered five hundred distinguished soldiers to be stationed near the person of the devoted officer, and he himself withdrew with his reserve and took up a position in a remoter spot. The following day the two armies engaged in battle. Every Turkish warrior sought the famous Hungarian hero; all were eager for the glory of capturing and killing him, and anxious to secure the prize set on his head. ”

“ At the diet which met in February 1445 a provisional government, consisting of five Magyar captain-generals, was formed, Hunyadi receiving Transylvania and the ultra-Theissian counties as his district; but the resulting anarchy became unendurable, and on the 5th of June 1446 Hunyadi was unanimously elected governor of Hungary in the name of Ladislaus V., with regal powers. ”

“ It is true that Hungary was divided from the Turkish empire by her vassal states, Bulgaria, Wallachia, Servia, and Bosnia, but the Turkish sultans already looked upon these territories as their own, and were constantly organizing inroads into Hungary from198 them. Hunyadi had passed his early life near the border; and, accustomed to the perpetual fighting going on there, he was also familiarized with the magnitude of the danger. With an iron will he determined to devote his whole strength to the struggle against the Turks. ”

“ Hungarian. By my God, I am glad of it; I thought our hammer of destruction, our thunderbolt, whom the Greeks called Achilles, must be known to the people of Horncastle. Well, Hunyadi and Corvinus are the same.
Myself. Corvinus means the man of the crow, or raven. I suppose that your John, when a boy, climbed up to a crow or a raven’s nest, and stole the young; a bold feat, well befitting a young hero.
Hungarian. By Isten, you are an acute guesser; a robbery there was, but it was not Hunyadi who robbed the raven, but the raven who robbed Hunyadi. ”

“ Hungarian. I cannot. One has described it well—Florentius of Buda. I can only repeat a few of his words:—“On the appointed day, Hunyadi, with two hundred vessels, attacked the Turkish flotilla in front, whilst Szilagy, with forty vessels, filled with the men of Belgrade, assailed it in the rear; striving for the same object, they sunk many of the Turkish vessels, captured seventy-four, burnt many, and utterly annihilated the whole fleet. After this victory, Hunyadi, with his army, entered Belgrade, to the great joy of the Magyars. ”

“ Seeing what interest I took in the ways of Hungarian life, she explained many of the customs I saw around me, which, deriving from a great antiquity, were doubtless soon destined to give way before the advance of a higher civilization. I asked what she knew of the English guests. It was nothing, or next to nothing,—Count Hunyadi had made their acquaintance at Baden that summer, and invited them to pass their Christmas with him. Countess Palfi had herself arrived since they came, and had not seen them ”

“ Later he was involved in long struggles with his neighbours, the Hungarians, on the northern boundaries of his Empire. The Ottomans were engaged in constant raids across the Danube, where vast districts were devastated, and thousands of their population were carried off as captives for sale as slaves. There arose about this time in Hungary a national hero, the celebrated Hunyadi, a natural son of the late King Sigismund. He was a born leader of men, not a great general, but a most valiant fighter. ”

“ Hunyadi was now in favor of peace; he felt that he must gather strength. Peace was therefore concluded, the king swearing by the Gospel and the sultan by the Koran. The ambassadors of the sultan had hardly left Hungary when Cardinal Julian, the pope’s nuncio, arrived in the country and declared, in the pontiff’s name, the oath of Uladislaus, the Hungarian king, to be null and void, adjuring him, at the same time, by all the saints, to hasten and make use of this opportunity to annihilate the Turks, and insisting that one so favorable would never206 occur again. ”

“ Such, oh young man of Horncastle! is the popular account of the birth of the great captain of Hungary, as related by Florentius of Buda. There are other accounts of his birth, which is, indeed, involved in much mystery, and of the reason of his being called Corvinus, but as this is the most pleasing, and is, upon the whole, founded on quite as good evidence as the others, I have selected it for recitation.
Myself. I heartily thank you; but you must tell me something more of Hunyadi. You call him your great captain; what did he do?
Hungarian. Do! what no other man of his day could have done. ”

“ When in 1448 the great Hungarian general, John Hunyadi, defeated by Sultan Amurath on the ill-omened field of Kóssovo, was seized in his flight by George, Despot of Serbia, and imprisoned in the fortress of Semendria, he owed his deliverance to another scion of the race, George Mergnjavić, perpetual Count of Zvornik and lord of Foinica, who hurried to his relief with a strong body of troops collected from his territories ”

“ But Hunyadi was warned betimes, and while admitting Ladislaus V. and Cillei, he excluded their army of mercenaries. On the following morning (9th of November 1456) Cillei, during a private interview, suddenly drew upon László, but was himself cut down by the commandant’s friends, who rushed in on hearing the clash of weapons. The terrified young king, who had been privy to the plot, thereupon pardoned Hunyadi, and at a subsequent interview with his mother at Temesvár swore that he would protect the whole family. ”

“ These prisoners had just been captured by the king near Shabatz, and they were to serve as an evidence of Hungarian prowess. At that time half Europe stood in awe of the powerful Turks, particularly the Italians, who, although excelling in art and science, were wretched and pusillanimous soldiers. Both Matthias and his father, John Hunyadi, were known to the Italians as the most powerful and successful foes of the dreaded Turks, and the prestige of the names of these two warriors won greater respect for the embassy than all the wealth and luxury displayed by it. ”

“ Fearful was the rage of the Turkish Sultan when he heard of the defeat and death of Mezid Bey, and he at once despatched another army against Hunyady, which like the first numbered eighty thousand men. This time, however, Hunyady did not let them enter Transylvania, but waited for them at the pass known as the Iron Gate, among the high mountains on the southern boundary of Hungary.
The Hungarian army was not more than fifteen thousand men, so that the Turks were at least five times as strong. But the military genius of Hunyady made up for the small number of his followers. ”

“ In a moment the blood rushed to my head, and I cried out, “I am ready.”
“Be calm, sir. A mere word, a gesture, may prove fatal to him,” whispered the doctor to me. “His life hangs on a thread.”
Count Hunyadi was kneeling beside my father, and evidently trying to catch some faint words he was saying, as I stole forward and knelt down by the bedside. ”

“ He led over 150,000 men under the walls of that famous fortress, and hastened to station his ships on the Danube, on which Belgrade lies, in order to cut off the communication between the Hungarian army and the garrison, and thus to isolate the latter. The Hungarian army itself did not number, even now, over 15,000 men, hardly more than those whom Hunyadi had been able to collect by his own exertions. ”

“ And yet, despite their danger, the people of Germany remained supine. Hungary had valiantly defended itself against the Turks ten years before, without aid from the German empire. It looked now as if Belgrade might be left to its fate. The brave John Hunyades and his faithful Hungarians were the only bulwarks of Europe against the foe, for the people seemed incapable of seeing a danger a thousand miles away. The pope and his legate John Capistrano, general of the Capuchins, were the only aids to the valiant Hunyades in his vigorous defence. They preached a crusade, but with little success. ”

“ Italy was then the centre of culture, so King Matthias endeavoured to create a channel through which that culture might make its way to Hungary. In view of that effort we may call King Matthias the first modern Hungarian. All that was most eminent and characteristic in his father, John Hunyadi, is suggestive of the Middle Ages, white Matthias is a new type—the Renaissance ruler ”