been contracted when Dauphin. Maximilian, enraged at this conduct, invaded French Flanders, and took some towns; but the quarrel was terminated by the peace of Senlis in 1493. In that year, Maximilian, by the death of his father, succeeded to the imperial dignity. He immediately marched at the head of an army against the Turks who had invaded Croatia, but they retreated before he could reach them. In 1494, he married his second wife Blanche, the sister of John Galeazzo, duke of Milan, the meanness of whose origin was compensated by a large portion, of which he was in great want. This alliance engaged him in the affairs of Italy; and when Charles VIII., of France, in his rapid career, had made himself master of the kingdom of Naples, Maximilian joined in the confederacy of the Pope, the king of Spain, and several Italian powers, to oppose his arms. He also married his son Philip to the infanta Jane, daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella, by which the Low Countries eventually fell under the dominion of Spain. After the retreat of Charles from Italy, Maximilian in 1496, engaged in an expedition into that country, and laid siege to Leghorn; but through want of strength, and fluctuation in his counsels, he failed in his attempts, and retreated with disgrace. A war with the duke of Guelderland, in which he was next involved, was suddenly suspended on account of a quarrel with the Grisons, and their allies the Swiss, who made incursions upon his Austrian territories. He attempted to reduce this valiant ple, but did not succeed, and after being defeated seven times within six months, he terminated the war, in 1500, by a treaty and arbitration. Lewis XII., of France having conquered Milan, the emperor was induced by advantageous terms to grant him the investiture of it. After the death of his son Philip in 1507, he obtained the regency of the Low Countries, of which he constituted his daughter Margaret governante. The famous league of Cambray against the Venetians took place in 1509, to which Maximilian was one of the contracting parties. His troops took Friuli and Istra, and he himself, at the head of a great army, laid siege to Padua, but was obliged to abandon the enterprise. When in the sequel Pope Julius deserted the league, and declared war against the French, Maximilian conceived the extraordinary project of deposing him and succeeding to the papacy. He intended to bribe the cardinals with a large sum of borrowed money, for he had none of his own; but the scheme was only communicated to a few friends, and had no consequences. He continued for some time to act with the French, but in 1512 he was detached from their alliance by the kings of England and Arragon, and joined in a league against them. For a large subsidy he engaged to assist Henry VIII. with a body of Swiss in his invasion of France; but failing in his engagement, he came in person with a few German VOL. IV.

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troops, and flattered the vanity of the English king, as well as gratified his own avarice, by serving under him for the pay of a hundred crowns a day. On the accession of Francis I., he made peace with that monarch, who thereby gained the opportunity of recovering the Milanese. His rapid successes, however, alarmed Maximilian, who made an alliance with the pope, and laid siege to Milan, but with his usual ill success; and he soon after made an accommodation with Francis. The commencement of the Reformation under Luther seemed not greatly to interest him. The solicitations of the monks, however, induced him to apply to Pope Leo X., to terminate the religious disputes by his decision, and he summoned Luther to appear with a safe conduct before the diet of Augsburg. His own cares were chiefly employed to secure the succession to the imperial crown for his grandson Charles. To this there existed the obstacle, that as he himself had never been crowned by the pope, he was only regarded by the Roman see as king of the Romans, and therefore Charles could not be invested with that dignity. While he was taking measures to overcome this difficulty, he was attacked by an intermitting fever, which violent exercise and an imprudent indulgence in melons, rendered continual, and a dysentery supervening, he was carried off in January 1519, in the sixtieth year of his age. With some amiable and respectable qualities, Maximilian obtained little esteem among his contemporaries, on account of a radical inconstancy and indecision of character, and a profuseness that involved him in perpetual pecuniary embarrassments, and destroyed all dignity of character. He was beneficent and humane, and rendered an important service to Germany, by abolishing the famous secret tribunal of Westphalia. He was the author of some poems, and composed memoirs of his life.

MARGARET, daughter of Maximilian I., was betrothed to the dauphin, afterwards Charles VIII., but did not marry him. She was afterwards married to the infant of Spain, and took for her next husband, Philibert, duke of Savoy. She was governess of the Netherlands, and displayed her zeal against the Lutherans. She died 1530, aged 50.

SIGISMUND, BARON HERBESTIEN, born at Vippach, in Stirra, in 1486, entered into the imperial army in 1506, and distinguished himself by his valour against the Turks. In 1509 he was made commandant of all the Stirian cavalry, and was afterwards rewarded by the title of knight, and the dignity of court counsellor. He was ambassador to various countries, to Denmark, Poland, and Russia, and was created a privy counsellor, and president of the Austrian chamber. In 1541, he was sent as ambassador to the grand Seignior, who was at that time with his army near Buda. He had various other honourable employments entrusted to his management, and, after serving

four emperors, retired from public life. He died in 1566. He wrote a history of Muscovy, which appeared at Basil in 1561, under the title of "Commentarii Rerum Moscovitarum." He was author also of a history of his own life, and of the origin of his family.

CHARLES de LANNOY, or LAUNOY, an imperial general, who served under the emperor Charles V. He took Francis I., prisoner at the battle of Pavia, and conducted himself with great humanity towards the captive monarch. When Francis was restored to liberty, Lannoy conducted him back to his dominions, he died at Gazette, 1527.

PETER BASSET, a gentleman of a good family, was chamberlain, or gentleman of the privy chamber, to Charles V., a constant attendant on that brave prince and an eye-witness of his most glorious actions at home and abroad; all which he particularly described in a work entitled, The Acts of King Henry V., which remains in MS. in the college of Heralds.

HUNGARY.

JOHN CORVIN HUNNIADES, one of the greatest captains of his time, was Hungarian waivode of Transylvania, when the crown of Poland was contended for, in 1441, between Ladislaus, king of Poland, and the partisans of the infant Ladislaus son of Albert king of Hungary. Corvin espoused the party of the former, and assisted him in a civil war which terminated in an agreement that placed Uladislaus on the throne during the minority of Ladislaus. Both parties turned their arms against the Turks, who under Amurath II. were invading the country with a formidable army. Hunniades was made general, and defeated the Turks in 1442, before Belgrade and in Transylvania. In 1443, Amurath and Uladislaus opposed each other in person; and Hunniades having a separate body of cavalry under his command, attacked the Turkish camp, which he plundered and burnt, with great slaughter of the enemy. When the Hungarians violated the treaty which had been made, at the persuasion of cardinal Julian, Hunniades accompanied Uladislaus to the battle of Varna, in 1444, in which the Christians were defeated, and their king killed. Hunniades drew off the remainder of the forces, and by his vigour soon put himself in a condition to act offensively with success against the Turks. He was declared governor of Hungary, for the minor king Ladislaus, who was then receiving his education at the court of the emperor Frederic, who refused to give him up to the ambassadors of the nation. Hunniades then invaded the emperor's dominions, but could not bring him to compliance. He then prepared for a war against

the Turks, and crossed the Danube into Servia, with a view of engaging the despot of that country to join him. Upon his refusal, he was treated as an enemy by Hunniades, who passed on into Bulgaria, expecting assistance from Scanderbeg, prince of Albania. During the delay of its arrival, the Turks invested him in such a manner, that he was compelled to fight them. A most obstinate engagement of three days ensued, October 1448, in which after prodigious exertions, the Hungarians were finally routed, and Hunniades escaping from the field, fell into the hands of the despot of Scrvia, who detained him till he had given his son as a hostage. After his liberation he renewed the war with the Turks, and defeated them when invading Servia. The young Ladislaus was restored to his subjects in 1452, and Hunniades was continued in the government of Hungary, notwithstanding the attempts of a rival, the count of Cilley, to render the king suspicious of him. In 1456, the Turkish emperor, Mahomet II., flushed with the conquest of Constantinople, marched with a mighty army to besiege the bulwark of the Hungarian dominions, Belgrade. Ladislaus in alarm fled to Vienna, and the hostile torrent would have been irresistible, had not Hunniades, after defeating a Turkish fleet on the Danube, thrown himself into Belgrade. The monk Capistran, by his success in preaching a crusade, was instrumental in bringing him large reinforcements, with the help of which, Mahomet was repulsed with great slaughter in attacking the town, and obliged to raise the siege. Not long after this glorious success, Hunniades was seized with a fever which carried him off in September, 1456. He was regarded as the hero of Christendom, and not less esteemed by his enemies than regretted by his friends. He left two sons, the younger of whom, Matthias, was afterwards king of Hungary.

LADISLAUS V., king of Hungary, the posthumous son of Albert of Austria, and Elizabeth of Hungary, was born in 1440, and succeeded to the crown in 1444, when he was only in the fifth year of his age. He was, at this time, at the court of the emperor Frederic III.; and it was not till 1452 that he was restored to his country. It was agreed that, during his minority, Hungary should be governed by John Corvinus Hunniades; Bohemia by George Podzebraski; and Austria by Ulric count of Cilley, the king's uncle, who was appointed guardian of his person. The count endeavoured to supplant John Corvin, but in vain ; and he obtained great honour by the defeat of the Turks before Belgrade. At the death of John, the government was transferred to his son Ladislaus, to the great mortification of the count of Cilley, who endeavoured to proeure his assassination; but he was himself killed at Belgrade by the friends of that family. In 1457, Ladislaus went to Prague, in order to celebrate his nuptials with Magdalen of

France, daughter to Charles VII.; but in the midst of the festivities, he was taken suddenly ill, and died, not without suspicion of poison.

MATTHIAS CORVINUS, king of Hungary, son of the great Hunniades, was a prisoner at the death of his father, together with his elder brother, Ladislaus, on account of the share which the latter had in the assassination of the count de Cilley, for which he was afterwards executed. Matthias was kept a prisoner at Vienna, whence he was removed to Bohemia, through the contrivance of George Podzebraski, governor of that country. He was still kept in confinement at Prague, when upon the death of Ladislaus the Posthumous, in 1458, he was elected king of Hungary, being then eighteen years of age. He could not obtain his liberation from the hands of Podzebraski, till he had paid a ransom and married his daughter. The emperor Frederic had got possession of the ancient crown of Hungary, superstitiously regarded as conveying a right to, the kingdom, Matthias however recovered it by a treaty. He then marched into Bosni, and recovered Jayeza the capital from the Turks, which sultan Mahomet afterwards vainly attempted to reconquer. For some consequent years he was engaged in suppressing some insurrections in Transylvania and Moldavia, which had been excited by the Turks. At Bania in the latter province, while he was reposing after his fatigues, he was attacked in the night by the waivode, who set fire to the place, and having received three wounds, he escaped with difficulty. In 1468 he made a truce with the Turks; and being now at peace in his own dominions, he was induced to accept the crown of Bohemia, offered him by the pope, on condition of extirpating the heresy of the Hussites in that country, He carried on a sanguinary war against those harmless people, and George Podzebraski, his father-inlaw, the elected king of Bohemia, which was terminated by a treaty securing him the crown, after the death of George. When that event took place, however, two years afterwards, in 1470, the Bohemians elected Uladislaus son of the king of Poland. Incensed at this proceeding, Matthias marched an army into the country, in order to compel them to acknowledge him as sovereign, but he was soon recalled by a rebellion in Hungary. Some prelates and nobles of that country, discontented with the arbitrary government of Matthias, offered the crown to Casimir, second son of the king of Poland, who marched into Hungary with a Polish army, which was joined by a number of revolters. Matthias soon stopped his progress, and besieged him in Nitria, whence he escaped without an engagement, and returned to Poland. In resentment for this hostility, Matthias marched into Silesia, and took Breslaw. He was there invested by a great army of Poles, Lithuanians, Tartars,