The Rise and Fall of Austria or the Habsburg Empire. John S. C. Abbott

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СКАЧАТЬ them both to Buda, where he perfidiously beheaded the eldest, Ladislaus, for wounding Cilli, in defending himself from an attack which the implacable count had made upon him, and he also threw the younger son, Matthias, into a prison.

      The widow of Hunniades, the heroic mother of these children, with a spirit worthy of the wife of her renowned husband, called the nobles to her aid. They rallied in great numbers, roused to indignation. The inglorious king, terrified by the storm he had raised, released Matthias, and fled from Buda to Vienna, pursued by the execrations and menaces of the Hungarians.

      He soon after repaired to Prague, in Bohemia, to solemnize his marriage with Magdalen, daughter of Charles VII., King of France. He had just reached the city, and was making preparations for his marriage in unusual splendor, when he was attacked by a malignant disease, supposed to be the plague, and died after a sickness of but thirty-six hours. The unhappy king, who, through the stormy scenes of his short life, had developed no grandeur of soul, was oppressed with the awfulness of passing to the final judgment. In the ordinances of the Church he sought to find solace for a sinful and a troubled spirit. Having received the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, with dying lips he commenced repeating the Lord's prayer. He had just uttered the words "deliver us from evil," when his spirit took its flight to the judgment seat of Christ.

      Frederic, the emperor, Duke of Styria, was now the oldest lineal descendant of Rhodolph of Hapsburg, founder of the house of Austria. The imperial dignity had now degenerated into almost an empty title. The Germanic empire consisted of a few large sovereignties and a conglomeration of petty dukedoms, principalities, and States of various names, very loosely held together, in their heterogeneous and independent rulers and governments, by one nominal sovereign upon whom the jealous States were willing to confer but little real power. A writer at that time, Æneas Sylvius, addressing the Germans, says:

      "Although you acknowledge the emperor for your king and master, he possesses but a precarious sovereignty; he has no power; you only obey him when you choose; and you are seldom inclined to obey. You are all desirous to be free; neither the princes nor the States render to him what is due. He has no revenue, no treasure. Hence you are involved in endless contests and daily wars. Hence also rapine, murder, conflagrations, and a thousand evils which arise from divided authority."

      Upon the death of Ladislaus there was a great rush and grasping for the vacant thrones of Bohemia and Hungary, and for possession of the rich dukedoms of Austria. After a long conflict the Austrian estates were divided into three portions. Frederic, the emperor, took Upper Austria; his brother Albert, who had succeeded to the Swiss estates, took Lower Austria; Sigismond, Albert's nephew, a man of great energy of character, took Carinthia. The three occupied the palace in Vienna in joint residence.

      The energetic regent, George Podiebrad, by adroit diplomacy succeeded, after an arduous contest, in obtaining the election by the Bohemian nobles to the throne of Bohemia. The very day he was chosen he was inaugurated at Prague, and though rival candidates united with the pope to depose him, he maintained his position against them all.

      Frederic, the emperor, had been quite sanguine in the hopes of obtaining the crown of Bohemia. Bitterly disappointed there, he at first made a show of hostile resistance; but thinking better of the matter, he concluded to acquiesce in the elevation of Podiebrad, to secure amicable relations with him, and to seek his aid in promotion of his efforts to obtain the crown of Hungary. Here again the emperor failed. The nobles assembled in great strength at Buda, and elected unanimously Matthias, the only surviving son of the heroic Hunniades, whose memory was embalmed in the hearts of all the Hungarians. The boy then, for he was but a boy, and was styled contemptuously by the disappointed Frederic the boy king, entered into an alliance with Podiebrad for mutual protection, and engaged the hand of his daughter in marriage. Thus was the great kingdom of Austria, but recently so powerful in the union of all the Austrian States with Bohemia and Hungary, again divided and disintegrated. The emperor, in his vexation, foolishly sent an army of five thousand men into Hungary, insanely hoping to take the crown by force of arms, but he was soon compelled to relinquish the hopeless enterprise.

      And now Frederic and Albert began to quarrel at Vienna. The emperor was arrogant and domineering. Albert was irritable and jealous. First came angry words; then the enlisting of partisans, and then all the miseries of fierce and determined civil war. The capital was divided into hostile factions, and the whole country was ravaged by the sweep of armies. The populace of Vienna, espousing the cause of Albert, rose in insurrection, pillaged the houses of the adherents of Frederic, drove Frederic, with his wife and infant child, into the citadel, and invested the fortress. Albert placed himself at the head of the insurgents and conducted the siege. The emperor, though he had but two hundred men in the garrison, held out valiantly. But famine would soon have compelled him to capitulate, had not the King of Bohemia, with a force of thirteen thousand men, marched to his aid. Podiebrad relieved the emperor, and secured a verbal reconciliation between the two angry brothers, which lasted until the Bohemian forces had returned to their country, when the feud burst out anew and with increased violence. The emperor procured the ban of the empire against his brother, and the pope excommunicated him. Still Albert fought fiercely, and the strife raged without intermission until Albert suddenly died on the 4th of December, 1463.

      The Turks, who, during all these years, had been making predatory excursions along the frontiers of Hungary, now, in three strong bands of ten thousand each, overran Servia and Bosnia, and spread their devastations even into the heart of Illyria, as far as the metropolitan city of Laybach. The ravages of fire and sword marked their progress. They burnt every village, every solitary cottage, and the inhabitants were indiscriminately slain. Frederic, the emperor, a man of but little energy, was at his country residence at Lintz, apparently more anxious, writes a contemporary, "to shield his plants from frost, than to defend his domains against these barbarians."

      The bold barons of Carniola, however, rallied their vassals, raised an army of twenty thousand men, and drove the Turks back to the Bosphorus. But the invaders, during their unimpeded march, had slain six thousand Christians, and they carried back with them eight thousand captives.

      Again, a few years after, the Turks, with a still larger army, rushed through the defiles of the Illyrian mountains, upon the plains of Carinthia. Their march was like the flow of volcanic fire. They left behind them utter desolation, smouldering hearth-stones and fields crimsoned with blood. At length they retired of their own accord, dragging after them twenty thousand captives. During a period of twenty-seven years, under the imbecile reign of Frederic, the very heart of Europe was twelve times scourged by the inroads of these savages. No tongue can tell the woes which were inflicted upon humanity. Existence, to the masses of the people, in that day, must indeed have been a curse. Ground to the very lowest depths of poverty by the exactions of ecclesiastics and nobles, in rags, starving, with no social or intellectual joys, they might indeed have envied the beasts of the field.

      The conduct of Frederic seems to be marked with increasing treachery and perfidy. Jealous of the growing power of George Podiebrad, he instigated Matthias, King of Hungary, to make war upon Bohemia, promising Matthias the Bohemian crown. Infamously the King of Hungary accepted the bribe, and raising a powerful army, invaded Bohemia, to wrest the crown from his father-in-law. His armies were pressing on so victoriously, in conjunction with those of Frederic, that the emperor was now alarmed lest Matthias, uniting the crowns of Hungary and Bohemia, should become too powerful. He therefore not only abandoned him, but stirred up an insurrection among the Hungarian nobles, which compelled Matthias to abandon Bohemia and return home.

      Matthias, having quelled the insurrection, was so enraged with the emperor, that he declared war against him, and immediately invaded Austria. The emperor was now so distrusted that he could not find a single ally. Austria alone, was no match for Hungary. Matthias overran all Lower Austria, took all the fortresses upon the Danube, and invested Vienna. The emperor fled in dismay to Lintz, and was obliged to purchase an ignominious peace by an immense sum of money, all of which was of course to be extorted by taxes on the miserable and starving peasantry.

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