overwhelmed by the Turkish artillery and forced to retreat. They took refuge in some marshy land, in which many of them lost their lives. The king had disappeared; Tomory was slain; seven bishops, 22 barons, and 22,000 men were left upon the field. The road to Buda lay open before the invaders, and after having laid waste the whole country on their way, they reached the capital, where the treasures which Mathias Corvinus had collected in his palace and his library were either carried off or committed to the flames. … Then the tide of invasion gradually retired, leaving behind it a land covered with ruins. The independent existence of Hungary ended with Louis II." _L. Leger, History of Austro-Hungary, chapter 15._ ALSO IN: _L. Felbermann, Hungary and its People, chapter 3._ HUNGARY: A. D. 1526-1567. Election of John Zapolya to the throne. Rival candidacy and election of Ferdinand of Austria. Zapolya's appeal to the Turks. Great invasion by Soliman. Siege of Vienna. The sultan master of the greater part of the country. Progress of the Reformation. Soliman's last invasion. "No sooner was the corpse of Louis II. found lying in a marsh, under his mangled steed, than the necessity of speedily electing a new monarch was powerfully felt. Louis left no heir to the throne, while his wife Mary, archduchess of Austria, far from trying to possess herself of the helm of the state, was already on her way to Vienna, even before the results of the battle of Mohacs had become fully known. The vacant throne found thus an aspirant in John Zapolya, waivod of Transylvania and count of the Zips, who lay encamped with a mighty army at Szegedin, on his march to the plain of Mohacs. … The Diet, which met on the plain of Rakos (1526), proclaimed Zapolya king. … The day of coronation was soon fixed, the waivod receiving his royal unction at Weisenburg. Stephen Batory, the palatine, however, actuated by envy rather than ambition, first attempted to oppose to the new king the interests of the widow of Louis II. But the Austrian archduchess, unwilling to enter the field as a competitor for the crown, handed over her role to her brother Ferdinand I. of Austria, who was married to Anne, sister of the late Hungarian king. Ferdinand soon repaired to Presburg, a town beyond the reach of Zapolya's arms, where he was elected king of Hungary by an aristocratic party, headed by the palatine Batory, Francis Batthany, Ban of Croatia, and Nadasdy." After a fruitless conference between representatives of the rival kings, they proceeded to war. Zapolya was "master of the whole country, except some parts beyond the Danube," but he remained inactive at Buda until the Austrians surprised him there and forced him to evacuate the capital. "Not able to make head against the foreign