See _Rationes Collectorum Pontif. in Hungaria, 1281-1375_ (Budapest,
1887); Dano Gruber, _The Struggle of Louis I. with the Venetians for
Dalmatia_ (Croat.) (Agram, 1903); Antal Pór, _Life of Louis the Great_
(Hung.) (Budapest, 1892); and _History of the Hungarian Nation_
(Hung.) (vol. 3, Budapest, 1895). (R. N. B.)
LOUIS II. (1506-1526), king of Hungary and Bohemia, was the only son of
Wladislaus II., king of Hungary and Bohemia, and the French princess
Anne of Candale. Prematurely born at Buda on the 1st of July 1506, it
required all the resources of medical science to keep the sickly child
alive, yet he developed so precociously that at the age of thirteen he
was well bearded and moustached, while at eighteen his hair was silvery
white. His parts were good and he could speak and write six languages at
a very early age, but the zeal of his guardians and tutors to make a man
of him betimes nearly ruined his feeble constitution, while the riotous
life led by him and his young consort, Maria of Austria, whom he wedded
on the 13th of January 1522, speedily disqualified him for affairs, so
that at last he became an object of ridicule at his own court. He was
crowned king of Hungary on the 4th of June 1508, and king of Bohemia on
the 11th of May 1509, and was declared of age when he succeeded his
father on the 11th of December 1521. But during the greater part of his
reign he was the puppet of the magnates and kept in such penury that he
was often obliged to pawn his jewels to get proper food and clothing.
His guardians, Cardinal Bakócz and Count George of Brandenburg-Anspach,
shamefully neglected him, squandered the royal revenues and distracted
the whole kingdom with their endless dissensions. Matters grew even
worse on the death of Bakócz, when the magnates István Báthory, János
Zapolya and István Verböczy fought each other furiously, and used the
diets as their tools. Added to these troubles was the ever-present
Turkish peril, which became acute after the king, with insensate levity,
arrested the Ottoman envoy Berham in 1521 and refused to unite with
Suleiman in a league against the Habsburgs. Nevertheless in the last
extremity Louis showed more of manhood than any of his counsellors. It
was he who restored something like order by intervening between the
magnates and the gentry at the diet of 1525. It was he who collected in
his camp at Tolna the army of 25,000 men which perished utterly on the
fatal field of Mohács on the 29th of August 1526. He was drowned in the
swollen stream of Csele on his flight from the field, being the second
prince of the house of Jagiello who laid down his life for Hungary.
See _Rerum Hungaricarum libri_ (vol. 2, ed. Ferencz Toldy, Budapest,
1867); and József Podhradczky, _King Louis_ (Hung.) (Budapest, 1860).
(R. N. B.)
LOUIS, the name of three kings of Naples, members of the house of Anjou.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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