King Lajos (Louis) II of Hungary and Bohemia (1506-1526)
King Lajos (Louis) II was King of Hungary, Croatia, and Bohemia from 1516 to 1526. He was killed during the Battle of Mohács, fighting the Ottomans, whose victory led to the Ottoman invasion of Hungary. Some say he was assassinated by his queen and killed by a three-edged dagger.
Louis was the only son of Vladislaus IIJagiellon who assured that the coronation of Louis as king of Hungary took place on 4 June 1508 in Székesfehérvár Basilica, and his coronation as king of Bohemia was held in 1509.
In 1515 Louis II was married to Mary of Austria, granddaughter of Emperor Maximilian I who was older than him with a few years. They loved each other dearly. Louis` sister, Anne was married to Mary’s brother Ferdinand, then a governor on behalf of his brother Charles V, and later Emperor Ferdinand I.
The old king, nicknamed as Vladislaus Dobže (or Very Well aka Dobzse László) died in 1516. The foster parents became the bloody handed and greedy István Báthory and the lewd George von Brandenburg. The latter introduced the young king into a very rollicking lifestyle. Sir Brandenburg was the cousin of Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I, by the way.
Louis` hair was said to have gone grey because of the incontinent debauchery. On the other hand, his queen`s huge spendings didn`t help his reputation, either. He was said to have been sobered only after 1525 when George von Brandenburg was removed from his court. The younf king tried to grew up to the size of the Turkish threat and desperately was making measures to stabize the financial chaos in his kingdom.
He took the mining and minting right back from the Fugger family in order to raise funds but it was in vain and just made things worse.
When General Pál Tomori and Voivode of Transylvania, János Szapolyai tried to persuade him to sign a truce with Sultan Suleiman, he refused it because he was listening to the Austrian supporters of his queen`s court. A true knight should defend Christendom by all means, after all.
As a result of this, Louis refused to pay annual tribute to Suleiman and had the Ottoman ambassador executed and sent the head to the Sultan. Louis believed that the Papal States and other Christian States including Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor would help him. This event hastened the fall of Hungary.
Hungary was in a state of near anarchy in 1520 under the rule of the magnates. The king’s finances were a shambles; he borrowed to meet his household expenses despite the fact that they totaled about one-third of the national income. The country’s defenses weakened as border guards went unpaid, fortresses fell into disrepair, and initiatives to increase taxes to reinforce defenses were stifled. In 1521 Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent was well aware of Hungary’s weakness.
The Ottoman Empire declared war on the Kingdom of Hungary. Nándorfehérvár (Belgrade) was defended by 700 unpaid warriors who held it for 66 days without getting any help. The nobles didn`t join the king who did set out to relieve the castle. The fall of this fort was blamed on the queen who had allegedly taken the money that was to be sent to the southern borders. The chaos grew.
Some say Louis made a tactical error when he tried to stop the Ottoman army in an open field battle with a medieval army, insufficient firearms, and obsolete tactics. Others say he could not have stayed in Buda because the nobles would not have followed him.
On 29 August 1526, Louis led his forces against Suleiman in the disastrous Battle of Mohács. The Hungarian army was surrounded by Ottoman cavalry in a pincer movement, and in the center, the Hungarian heavy knights and infantry were repulsed and suffered heavy casualties, especially from the well-positioned Ottoman cannons and well-armed and trained Janissary musketeers.
Nearly the entire Hungarian Royal Army was destroyed on the battlefield. During the retreat, the twenty-year-old king died when he fell backward off his horse while trying to ride up a steep ravine of Csele stream. He fell into the stream and, due to the weight of his armor, he was unable to stand up and drowned.
1506 július 1.-én született II. Lajos magyar és cseh király († 1526).
II. Ulászló várva várt fiú örököse nagy nehézségek és szenvedések árán született csak meg.
Már a királyné várandóssága sem volt olyan zökkenőmentes, mint a korábbi, hiszen gyakran kényszerült ágyban maradni, annyira gyenge volt testileg, melyet egykorú velencei leírások is megerősítenek.
Lajos koraszülötten jött a világra. Csak úgy tudták életben tartani, hogy disznók felhasított gyomrába helyezték, így tartva stabilan a hőmérsékletét.Ez volt Lajos herceg inkubátora, így a korabeli orvostudomány zseniális leleményének és II. Ulászló kiváló orvosainak köszönhető, hogy fia életben maradt.
Édesanyját, Candale-i Annát azonban nem tudták megmenteni: ő három héttel a szülés után gyermekágyi lázban meghalt.
Apja, hogy biztosítsa egyetlen fia számára a koronát már 1508. június 4-én Székesfehérvárott magyar királlyá és 1509. május 11-én, Prágában cseh királlyá koronáztatta. Így apja halálakor gond nélkül foglalhatta el a trónt az akkor 10 éves fiú.
Öröksége egy kiürült kincstár és egy pártküzdelmektől megosztott ország volt.
A koronázási esküt 1521. december 11-én tette le.
Nevelőjét Báthori Istvánt, a későbbi nádort, Brandenburgi György német őrgróf váltotta fel, aki erkölcsileg kifogásolható példát mutatott az uralkodónak.
Az ország urai a kamasz Lajos trónra lépése után is viszálykodtak, pedig erős központi hatalomra lett volna nagy szükség. Lajos tehetségesnek mutatkozott, a tanács és a törvényszék ülésein elnökölt, remekül vezette a tárgyalásokat. Az olasz humanista Girolamo Balbinak köszönhetően tanulni vágyó és tettrekész ifjúvá serdült.
A törökök 1521-ben bevették a legfontosabb magyar végvárat, Nándorfehérvárt, amelynek parancsnoka Enyingi Török Bálint gyakorlatilag megszökött. Nándorfehérvár eleste után 1523-ban Tomori Pál még győzelmet aratott a törökök felett, de mivel nem volt pénz a hadi kiadásokra, a határok tartós védelmét nem lehetett hatékonyan biztosítani.
Közben Székesfehérváron Mária megkoronázására készültek, ahol felvetődött a kérdés, hogy Lajos most tegye le az ország szabadságának megtartásáról szóló esküt, mert gyermekként azt nem tehette koronázása alkalmával. Egy rövid vita után Lajos belement ebbe és felesége megkoronázásával egy időben (december 8.) megtörtént eskütétele is.
1523. május 4-én országgyűlést hívott össze Budára, ahol leváltotta Báthorit nádori méltóságáról, és Szapolyaitól visszakövetelte a királyi zálogbirtokokat.
Tomori Pál már 1525 őszén értesült arról, hogy a következő évben a szultán seregeivel hadjáratot készít elő az ország ellen. Mégsem történt semmi a védelem megerősítésére.
Így 1526 tavaszán, amikor a törökök csakugyan megindultak, sebtében kellett a magyar hadat összeszednie. Tomori javasolta, hogy a Száva, majd ennek átlépése után a Dráva mocsarainál állítsák meg az ellenséget, de ezzel elkéstek.
Lajos király – mindössze 20 évesen, tehát komoly élettapasztalat nélküli uralkodóként – nagy bátorságról tett tanúbizonyságot, amikor felvállalta a csatát Mohácsnál a túlerőben lévő törökökkel szemben. A vesztes csata után a király menekülés közben a Csele-patakba fulladt.
King Louis II had purchased a manual for 8 ducats, according to his records.
As we are getting closer to the day of Mohács, one may wonder why Maria von Habsburg let her husband go to a certain death – although she wanted to accompany him because she loved him so much. Yet, she opposed the truce with the Turks and didn`t persuade his husband to wait for the Sultan behind the strong walls of Buda. It is true, that the king had to set out from Buda so as to be followed by anybody; besides, Tomori’s plan was to defeat the army of Suleiman while it was marching and was not united; beating them one by one.
Yet, we have to examine Maria von Habsburg a bit closer.
Who was her? She is also a very dividing person.
Joanna the Mad was the Mom and Philip of Castile (the “Handsome”) was the father of Maria Habsburg, the wife of Hungarian King Louis II.
Joanna’s other children were Charles and Ferdinand. Charles was responsible for the terrible Sack of Rome in 1527 and Ferdinand used his brother’s mercenaries to usurp the throne of Hungary in 1527, despite the national King Szapolyai had been properly crowned.
Da Burgio’s letters from Buda to the Pope – SECOND PART
“17 March 1526
…after this, I was thinking a lot about who could be appointed as the Treasurer of the king, one who could be useful to the king and the country. One, who would be respected enough and who would be brave enough to raise his word and get the king’s money back and could keep the king’s income in good order. But I must admit, there are not many persons in this country like this. Many lords recommend the appointment of Elek Thurzó who had already been a Treasurer once…and really, he would be the least worse choice. But he had been accused so much because of that scandal with the Fuggers that he has not been able to wash himself out from these accusations yet. He found shelter and protection by the Queen against these…but we can be afraid of his loyalty to the Queen…the Queen is spending money on such a spendthrifty way that the income of three countries would not be enough to cover her expenses. Thurzó depends on the Queen’s mercy to such an extent that he would not be able to deny even a penny from the king’s money and would give it to her. (Then, he was asking the Pope to support Tomori to become the Treasurer.)…The faith of Hungary is in the hands of three persons: these are the Chancellor, the Treasurer and the Palatine and it is me who can see it the best that nothing good can be done in Hungary without these officials, considering such a king like King Louis.”
It was Lord Báthori, the man of the Queen who, having escaped from Mohács, hurried to open the gates of Pozsony / Pressburg / Bratislava to Ferdinand`s troops; without him, they could not have even entered the kingdom. She had scattered the treasure of the Hungarian Kingdom while a queen fiercely attacked the idea of a Turkish-Hungarian peace treaty. (Similar truce to the treaties the Turks had with Venice and Poland at that time.) However, she had to know that Hungary could not withstand the Ottoman Onslaught. She had to know that in Hungary the king was obliged to lead the army in person to battle. She knew her husband was doomed.
Mária örök szerelmének és elkötelezettségének zálogaként egy szív alakú aranymedált ajándékozott Lajosnak, aki azt a mohácsi csatában bekövetkezett haláláig a nyakában viselte. Az ékszer viharos körülmények között jutott vissza Máriához, a királyné így írt róla végrendeletében: „Két ember útitársa volt ez a szív mindhalálig. Két emberé ki életében, szerelmében, érzéseiben egymástól el nem vált.“
She was preparing Hungary to become a battlefield, a “hinterland” for the long German-Turkish wars to come. As you will see in the next posts, some of the historical sources even accuse her of paying a man to assassin his husband during the battle.
As a gift for Maria`s deeds, later she was given the Netherlands where she ruled until she died.
Some more words must be told about the money, too.
Let us not forget that the Pope was robbed almost ten MILLION gold ducats in 1527 (that was worth 20 MILLION gold Forints) but he had refused to finance King Louis II when he was begging help against the Turks in 1526. Although Da Burgio could get some money from the Pope but the Pope was weirdly allied with the Turks because he had signed the League of Cognac which included the Turks against the Habsburgs. Fragments of that money the Pope possessed could have saved Hungary.
As for the economic war against the Fuggers, King Louis has lost it: when the news about the Ottoman attack reached Buda in April, the king had to give back everything to the Fuggers in exchange for a 50,000 gold Forint loan. Before, the Fuggers had blocked his efforts to find loans elsewhere in Europe. After the Battle of Mohács, the agents of the Fugger House were telling it quite openly that they had known that Hungary would have needed at least 150,000 gold Forints to be saved. (Baron Da Burgio estimated this sum 200,000 gold in his letter to the Pope.) The agents boasted: „If someone loses his credit at the Fuggers, should look at himself.” Sadly, this last minute loan was too late: the king wanted to mint new, good coins from this part of the loan, the second part was needed to pay the debts; Tomori was given 20,000 gold Forints and 5,000 gold Forint worth broadcloth in April to bring it to the Frontier. (Just to demonstrate it with an example, in 1517, the debt of the Treasury was 40,000 gold Forints to the soldiers of Nándorfehérvár / Belgrade alone.)
King Louis sent letters for help to England and King Henry VIII sent him some money (like before) and the Portuguese king also sent him 30,000 gold Forints but this sum got lost in France. One of the reasons for the bad financial situation was the overspending of the Queen; and the tight-fisted barons who declared in March 1526 that they would have no responsibility if the kingdom happened to fall…
I am trying to find out who was really responsible and to what extent, fighting the old stereotypes which say „the king was weak and the barons were bad, the Turks were too strong”.
György Szerémi (about 1490- after 1548) was born in the Szerémség (Sirmium), Southern Hungary, as a son of a peasant. Later he served Prince János Corvin, King Matthias’ natural son. As a priest, he served in Buda in 1520. After Mohács, 1526, he became the priest of King Szapolyai. Szerémi has been following his king to everywhere, faithfully. He wrote his “Epistola de perdicione regni Hungarorum” in Transylvania, in the court of Queen Isabella and it covers the history between 1456-1543.
Many historians criticize his facts; his version about the death of King Louis II is usually refused by them.
We had heard before about the “official version” of the king’s death which is the story of his Czecz bodyguard (actually the Queen’s): he said the king and his other guard died in a stream. This witness left them die alone and 6 weeks later guided the Queen’s men to retrieve the body from a shallow grave. People said the king’s body was recognized after his teeth; others say it was “fresh as the martyrs’ body”. Also, he was naked and his armor was somewhere nearby.
But let us see Szerémi’s version.
He writes:
“Now, dear reader lords, pay careful attention to my declaration about the death of King Louis. When we vere looking at his body, we found three thrusts on it; it was pierced by a Czech sword. (My remark: see my previous post about three-edged rondel daggers.) We, the priests, were exemining it only in secret and we were banned to tell this to anyone because of Voivode János (my remark: later King Szapolyai). This is how King Louis’ death happened. We are sure that we can reveal the truth after the death of King Szapolyai. (Why just then? János Szapolyai died in 1540. My remark.) There was a Hungarian warrior who heard of the death of King János (Szapolyai) and exclaimed: ‘Now the time has come and I can reveal the truth about the death of King Louis.’ – and he began to talk like this:
‘My beloved brothers, pay heed and learn about his death from me as it had happened to him. We, György Szepesi (my remark: the brother of János Szapolyai who disappeared in the battle), Pál Tomori, the Commander, have taken King Louis through the swamp, he was healthy and unhurt. Czetterich was with us, too. (My remark: he was the bodyguard of the queen, the creator of the other version of the king’s death.) And when we arrived to a village near to the agricultural town of Báta, György Szepesi said: ‘My lord and king, don’t you want to take some rest here, dismounting from the horse and getting out of your iron (armor) so as to let us make you some food. As the poor king has heard it, he liked this advice; likewise the Commander (Tomori) approved it. When the king did as it was told to him, Pál Tomori left for the lodgings with the king’s leave. Then, György remained with the king. György Szepesi said: ‘You king, you dancing whore, you lost Hungary and our right as well as the rightful verdict for the domains of Prince Lőrinc; indeed, you will die. György unsheated his Czech sword and thrusted him three times. The king fell to the ground; he was sitting in the room only in a shirt. When Pál Tomori came to know that he had killed him, rushed at György at once – Oh, you killer rouge – he said to György. Tomori was wearing armor because he was guarding the king so he hadn’t taken it off; he had just left the lodgings and went to his servants. Pál killed György immediately. György Szepesi had a vice-lieutenant with a big unit and when he heard that his lord, György was killed, attacked the Commander and his men at once and they killed Pál Tomori there. This way, three of them were lying dead. And – said the Hungarian warrior – it was already night, before Friday; the night was very dark.’ And they hurried to bury Pál and György into one grave in the church of the villagers. They took King Louis’ clothes off and this was how they carried him to the lake. There they didn’t put him into the lake but made a grave for the poor king on the bank and left him there.”
He added that Czetterich rushed to take the news to the Queen (Maria Habsburg) who arrested him and killed him with “evil death”. It is obvious that Czetterich had to perish: he may have known too much.
Why did Szerémi listen about the whole story until King Szapolyai’s death? Whether the Queen had a hand in killing King Louis or Szapolyai had one, this story would have not been good to the reputation of the new king whose brother allegedly had killed the previous ruler…
A thought is haunting me: what if King Louis II of Hungary had opposed his Queen and got allied with Sultan Suleiman against the Habsburgs? Say, Hungary would have been granted a similar sovereignty (or bigger) than the Principality of Transylvania enjoyed later…
