Solyman, the greatest Sovereign of the House of Othman, was born in 1494, and succeeded his father, Selim I., in September 1520. The first year of his reign was marked by a campaign against Hungary, and the fall of Belgrade,[271] the bulwark of that kingdom. Louis, the King of Hungary and Bohemia, was then a minor, and, in the party strife of the different factions of the nobility, the defence of the country was neglected. For several years Solyman’s attention was diverted to other enterprises, of which the most famous was the siege and capture of Rhodes in 1522, but in 1526 he again invaded Hungary. On August 29, the anniversary of the capture of Belgrade, he defeated King Louis with great slaughter at Mohacz,[272] the King himself perishing in the flight, and then advanced on Buda, which surrendered on September 10. Thence he crossed to Pesth, where he received the Hungarian nobles, and, after promising them to make John Zapolya, Count of Zips and Voivode or Viceroy of Transylvania, King of Hungary, returned laden with booty to Constantinople. Ferdinand, the brother of Charles V. and his successor as Emperor, and Zapolya were rivals for the crown of St. Stephen. The first relied upon family compacts, and upon his connection by marriage with King Louis.[273] Zapolya, on the other hand, was supported by a strong party among the nobles, who disliked Ferdinand as a foreigner. Zapolya’s partisans took the initiative, and convened a diet at Tokay, at which he was elected King, and he was duly crowned at Stuhlweissenburg by the Archbishop of Gran. Mary, however, the widowed Queen, with the Palatine Bathory, assembled another diet at Presburg, which declared Zapolya’s election void on the ground that the diet of Tokay had not been summoned by the Palatine, and elected Ferdinand King, who, after defeating his rival at Tokay in 1527, and near Kaschau in the following year, drove him out of the country. Zapolya then threw himself on Solyman’s protection, offering to hold Hungary and Transylvania as his tributary, and a treaty of alliance was signed between them in February 1528. In the following year Solyman invaded Hungary for the third time, and took Buda on September 9. A few days afterwards Zapolya was again installed on the throne by the first lieutenant of the Aga of the Janissaries, and did homage for his kingdom. Leaving a Turkish governor in Buda, the Sultan then marched on Vienna, and besieged it on the 27th, but was obliged to abandon the siege on October 16, in consequence of the lateness of the season and the gallant resistance of the garrison and inhabitants.[274]