cularly anxious to ingratiate himself with the Papal See. He had just requested financial aid from Rome for the purpose of defending Hungary against the Turks. Lev of Rožmital was therefore reinstated as burgrave, but he did not forgive the king for his former dismissal. Shortly after he had resumed office, Rožmital became involved in a feud with the powerful Rosenberg family, as he claimed the inheritance of Lord Peter of Rosenberg. All the Bohemian nobles and towns took sides in this feud, and the whole country was divided into the Rosenberg and the Rožmital factions.
It was at this unpropitious moment that the unfortunate King Louis, then again residing in Hungary, sent an urgent demand for aid against the Turks. When the Diet, before which the matter was brought, met, no agreement could be arrived at. Rožmital in particular showed little zeal for the cause of the king. The heads of the Rosenberg party at last resolved, at their own expense, to equip a force in aid of King Louis. Rožmital thereupon also decided to send a small army to Hungary. The Bohemians had been so tardy in their preparations that only a few of their troops—those sent by the lords of the Rosenberg Confederacy—had arrived when the battle of Moháč took place (August 29, 1526). That fatal battle, in consequence of which the greater part of Hungary became a Turkish province for more than two centuries, belongs to Hungarian rather than to Bohemian history. It is sufficient to say that King Louis foolhardily attacked the Turkish army of 300,000 men with a force of only 25,000, and was totally defeated. "When leaving the battle-field the king—who was then only twenty years of age—was drowned while trying to ford a marshy stream.
CHAPTER VII
"After the unfortunate battle and the death of King Louis at Moháč, the lands of the Bohemian crown became subject to an interregnum. This was the more unfortunate, as under the feeble rule of the two last kings anarchy and
