leader of the insurrection, the peasant Dosza, was one of the Szeklers of Transylvania. … Dosza was beaten in a battle near Temesvar, and fell into the hands of his enemies. Their vengeance was terrible. The king of the peasants was seated on a throne of fire, and crowned by the executioner with a red-hot crown. He bore his frightful sufferings with a courage that astonished his adversaries. … The feeble Wladyslaw died in 1515, and the reign of the child-king, Louis II., may be summed up in two catastrophes, the loss of Belgrade and the defeat at Mohacs. The young king, married in his cradle, was corrupt and dissolute, and quite incapable of governing, and his guardians could not rise to the height of the occasion. {1674} The finances of the kingdom were in great disorder, and the leading barons quarrelled continually over the shreds of sovereignty still left. … This state of things was of the greatest use to the Turks, for while Hungary was sinking ever deeper into anarchy, Turkey was ruled by the great sovereign who was called Soliman the Magnificent. It was not long before he found a pretext for war in the arrest of one of his subjects as a spy, and assembled his troops at Sophia, captured Shabats [Szabatch], laid siege to Belgrade and took it, making it thenceforward a Mussulman fortress (1521). The key of the Danube was now in the hands of the Turks. … King Louis begged for help on every side. … The Austrian princes were ready to help him from interested motives; but even when joined with Hungary they were too feeble to conquer the armies of 'the Magnificent.' On the 25th of April, 1526, Soliman quitted Constantinople, bringing with him 100,000 men and 300 cannon, taking up arms not only against Hungary, but against the empire. One of the pretexts for his expedition was the captivity of Francis I.; he wished, he said, to save 'the bey of France' from the hands of the Germans and their allies the Hungarians. He crossed the Save near Osiek (Essek), captured Petervardin, and came up with the Hungarians at Mohacs, on the right bank of the Danube (August 26, 1526). The Magyar army was commanded by the king in person, assisted by Paul Tomory, archbishop of Kalocsa, one of the warlike bishops of whom Hungary gives us so many examples; by George Szapolyai, and by Peter Perenyi, bishop of Nagy-Varad (Great Varadin). Perenyi wished to treat with the Turks, in order to gain time for help to reach them from Croatia and Transylvania, but the impetuosity of Tomory decided on immediate battle. … At first, it seemed as if the battle was in favour of the Magyars; but Soliman had commanded that the front ranks of his army should give way before the Hungarian cavalry, and that then the main body of his troops should close around them. When the Magyars were thus easily within reach, they were