King Szapolyai János (1487-1540)
Today in Hungarian history: 17 July 1540 the death of King Szapolyai János of Hungary. Was he worse than Habsburg Ferdinand of Hungary who ruled the western part of the kingdom? Who was the usurper?
King Szapolyai János (1487-1540)
Szapolyai János (German: Johann Zápolya) was born in 1487 in Szepesváralja, and died in Szászsebes, 17/21 July 1540. His father, Szapolyai István, was a nobleman and Palatine of Hungary between 1492 and 1499. János’ mother was Princess Hedvig of Teschen, daughter of Prince Přemislav II of Teschen and Princess Anna of Mazovia, and grandson of Prince Boleslav IV of Mazovia. His sister was Queen Barbara of Poland. Also, he had a brother György who was commander of the Hungarian army in 1526 and was killed in the Battle of Mohács.
Szapolyai János came from the influential House of Szapolyai, and he was the Voivode of Transylvania from 1510 to 1526, and later king of Hungary as King János I, until his death. He was the son of Princess Hedvig of Teschen and Palatine Szapolyai István, the richest chieftain of early modern Hungary. Legend says, that Szapolyai István picked his child up into his arms when King Matthias died in Vienna in 1490, the oligarch said: “Were you ten years older, I would make you king of Hungary!” And indeed, they brought up János as it was befitting of a future king.
No wonder, he was also the main contender for the throne by decree of the Diet of Rákos in 1505 because the assembled noblemen decided that no foreign king would be elected after the Jagiellonian kings. Thus, Szapolyai János was the candidate for the throne, supported by the crowds of the party of the common and medium-sized nobility. However, Lajos (Louis II), son of King Ulászló II, was born in 1516 so the decision of the Diet of Rákos did not come into effect.
As Szapolyai was the Voivode of Transylvania, he was also responsible for the suppression of Dózsa György’s uprising, which he did in 1514 at the Battle of Temesvár with the army he had tried the previous year at the siege of the castle of Szendrő in the Lower Danube. The crushing of the rebellion strengthened his authority in several ways: on the one hand, he had opposed from the outset the crusade launched by Bakócz Tamás on 16 April 1514 which triggered Dózsa’s uprising, and on the other, the crushing of the rebellious peasants increased his influence among the middle nobility and the baronial class.
He executed the leaders of the uprising with particular cruelty and took part in the creation of punishing laws against the peasants, but later he regretted it. In the years that followed, during the Jagello era, he was involved in the turbulent state of the country and in the various party struggles, which he sought to use to his advantage to pave the way for his election as king.
In the 1520s, there were three separate military forces in Hungary, which in itself indicates feudal fragmentation. In addition to the king’s army, another army was commanded by Palatine Báthori István, and Szapolyai János, the Transylvanian Voivode had an army, too. In 1515, the Palatine and the Voivode were already raiding the southern Borderland of the kingdom. However, their aim was not to launch an anti-Turkish war (campaign) but to undermine the (third) Jagiello-Habsburg dynastic treaty of 1515.
In the event of their insignificant success in the war, the authority of the Habsburg party would have been severely undermined. The Fugger banking house’s representative in Hungary wrote to his boss: “if the Voivode had won at Zsarnó, the Hungarians would have reclaimed Anna and given her to the Voivode, and nothing would have come of the treaty… if he had succeeded in winning, he would have gained the glory of the throne and would have been given the king’s daughter as his wife.”
However, the siege failed, but it did draw the Ottomans’ attention to the country. After the death of King Ulászló II, the child Lajos (Louis) II came into power. His guardians were Bornemissza János and George of Brandenburg so the Habsburg orientation of the government was unbroken.
Yet, the rest of the country’s leadership (middle and lower nobility) was more in favor of Szapolyai, so the period 1514-1526 was unstable in terms of domestic politics, central power was weak, and everyone obeyed only what they thought was right from the decisions and laws of the Diet.
From 1521 onwards, a permanent Turkish force was stationed in the Szerém region. The southern Borderland castle system established by King Zsigmond (Sigismund) was destroyed in a few years; Szabács, Nándorfehérvár, and Zimony were lost. The territorial integrity of the country was already damaged since 1521, with the Turks occupying territories as big as some counties.
In 1522, Szapolyai helped Radu Afumați to the throne in the Wallachia, who swore allegiance to the Hungarian king through him. Szapolyai did not have good relations with the royal court of Buda, he did not even appear at the 1525 Diet (otherwise he had just lost a battle with the Turks on the border of the Temes Dukedom), and according to his contemporaries he lived in Transylvania as an “internal exile”.
His distress was growing by the fact that Palatine Werbőczy István decided against him in favor of the Habsburgs, and he could not get the inheritance (a huge domain and treasure) of the Újlaki family. At the same time, King Lajos II (Louis) demanded the return of his pledged royal estates.
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