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László Hunyadi (1433 – 1457) was a Hungarian statesman and warrior.
László Hunyadi was the eldest son of János Hunyadi and Elizabeth Szilágyi. At a very early age he accompanied his father in his campaigns. After the battle of Kosovo (1448) he was left for a time, as a hostage for his father, in the hands of George Brankovic, despot of Serbia. In 1452 he was a member of the deputation which went to Vienna to receive back the Hungarian king Ladislaus V. In 1453 he was already ban of Croatia-Dalmatia. At the diet of Buda (1455) he resigned all his dignities, because of the accusations of Ulrich Cillei and the other enemies of his house, but a reconciliation was ultimately patched up and he was betrothed to Mária, the daughter of the palatine, László Garai.
After his father's death in 1456, he was declared by his arch-enemy Cillei (now governor of Hungary with unlimited power), responsible for the debts alleged to be owing by the elder Hunyadi to the state; but he defended himself so ably at the diet of Futak (October 1456) that Cillei feigned a reconciliation, promising to protect the Hunyadis on condition that they first surrendered all the royal castles entrusted to them. A beginning was to be made with the fortress of Belgrade, of which László was commandant, Cillei intending to take the king with him to Belgrade and assassinate László within its walls. 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. As a pledge of his sincerity he appointed László lord treasurer and captain-general of the kingdom. Suspecting no evil, Hunyadi accompanied the king to Buda, but on arriving there was arrested on a charge of compassing Ladislaus's ruin, condemned to death without the observance of any legal formalities, and beheaded on the 16th of March 1457.
See I. Acsády, History of the Hungarian Realm (Hung.), vol. i. (Budapest, 1904). (R. N. 13.)
This article incorporates text from the public domain 1911 Encyclopĉdia Britannica. |
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