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Some ten or fifteen years ago, the late King Vladislaus, our Uncle of blessed memory, loving George, and not having royal moneys at command, permitted him to redeem with his own cash certain Hungarian Domains, pledged at a ruinously cheap rate, but unredeemable by Vladislaus. George did so; years ago, guess ten or fifteen.
From this time the invasions of the Turks begin. There had been a party in favor of raising to the throne Vladislaus, king of Poland; and after the death of Sigismund's successor, Albert II. of Austria , and the death of the queen, he gained the crown . He was slain at Varna, in the great battle in which the Hungarians were vanquished by the Turks . John Hunyady, who had several times defeated the Turks, and who escaped on the field of Varna, was made for the time "governor;" but on the release of the son of Albert, Ladislaus Posthumus, who had been kept from the throne by the Emperor Frederick III., he was recognized as king . Hun-yady was made general-in-chief.
When Murād I. wished to cross from Asia to Europe to meet the invading army of Vladislaus and Hunyady, the Genoese skippers were happy to carry over his men for a ducat a head, just to spite their immemorial foes the Venetians, who were enlisted on the other side.
George did not like the Hungarian Domains, with their Turk and other inconveniences; he proposed to exchange them with King Vladislaus for the Bohemian-Silesian Duchy of Jagerndorf; which had just then, by failure of heirs, lapsed to the King. This also Vladislaus, the beneficent cashless Uncle, liking George more and more, permitted to be done.
Who could be always successful against the early Turk? He was defeated in the battle in which King Vladislaus lost his life, but his victories outnumbered his defeats three-fold.
The Sultan's army had, however, suffered so much in the battle of Varna that for the time he left the Hungarians unmolested. The nation was disposed to choose for its king the child, Ladislaus, son of King Albert, the predecessor of Vladislaus.
Thus Time rolls on in its many-colored manner, edacious and feracious. It is in this way that George's Uncle, Vladislaus, Albert's daughter's son, is now King of Hungary and Bohemia: the last King Vladislaus they had; and the last King but one, of any kind, as we shall see anon.
A few hours after the battle had begun both the Turkish wings had been broken, and even the Sultan and the brave janissaries were thinking of flight, when the young king, the Pole Vladislaus, whom Huniades had adjured by God to remain in a place of safety, until the combat should be decided, was persuaded by his Polish suite to fling himself with the small band in immediate attendance upon him right on the centre of the janissaries, so that he too might have a share in the victory and not leave it all to Huniades.
Vladislaus was heir of Poland too, could he have managed to get it; but he gave up that to his brother, to various younger brothers in succession; having his hands full with the Hungarian and Bohemian difficulty. He was very fond of Nephew George; well recognizing the ingenuous, wise and loyal nature of the young man.
The history of this Castle of Křivoklát dates yet farther back than that of Karlov Týn, for we read of its restoration in the twelfth century by Prince Vladislaus I, a scion of the House of Přemysl. Charles IV loved to live here, and restored the place for the first of his four wives, Blanche of Valois.
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