terms of great friendship with his youthful sovereign, the country enjoyed comparative quiet. Poděbrad succeeded in inducing the young king to learn the Bohemian language, but he seems to have retained a dislike to the people, which was probably founded on the religious teaching which he had received from his earliest preceptors. In January (1456) Ladislas proceeded to Hungary. The danger menacing Eastern Europe from the Turks, who in 1453 had taken Constantinople, and the wish to assert his authority in a country which—though he was nominally king—was in fact subject to the absolute control of John Hunyady, were the probable motives of Ladislas. The king returned to Bohemia in September of the following year, and was enthusiastically received by the people. "Archbishop Rokycan, at the head of his clergy, also met the king, who received him with a stern countenance and only returned his salute on Poděbrad's admonition; this conduct enraged many, but they suppressed their indignation."
It had at this time been arranged to marry Ladislas to Magdalen, daughter of Charles VII, King of France, and a sumptuous Bohemian embassy set out for Paris to demand the hand of the princess for their sovereign.[1] Only a few weeks after their departure the king was attacked by a singular illness, similar to, if not identical with, the Asiatic plague, which in consequence of the war with Turkey had at that time spread through Hungary to Bohemia, and even further west. The king desired to see George of Poděbrad, of whom he took leave in touching words. He thanked him
- ↑ Barante (Histoire des Ducs de Bourgogne, vol. v, pp. 92–95) gives a detailed and very curious account, founded on contemporary French records, of this embassy. Want of space unfortunately prevents me from quoting largely from it. This writer enlarges on the curiosity which the Bohemians aroused: "Ce qu'il y avait d'étrange dans leurs coutumes etait un grand sujet de curiosité. C'etait dans le fort de I'hiver, et ils allaient dans les rues en traineaux, ce qu'on n'avait jamais vu; ils avaient laissé déhors leurs chariots de bagage attaches par des grosses chaines fermant à cadenas et chaque nuit ils faisaient coucher dessus quelques-uns de leurs serviteurs malgré la rudesse du froid qui etait extrême. Cela sembla singulier aux Parisiens." Barante speaks of the quite unfounded accusation against Poděbrad mentioned above, which proves that it was soon and widely circulated. Ladislas, he tells us, died suddenly, "empoisonné, disait on, par un seigneur nommé Pozdziebracki, ou comme on disait en France Podiegrad qui fut élu roi après lui."
