The circumstances of the succession to the throne of Hungary were well calculated to invite and facilitate that return. Upon the death of Louis without issue, in virtue of his double connexion by marriage with the Archduke Ferdinand of Austria (afterwards Emperor), and of a treaty concluded between his father Ladislaus and the House of Austria, the right to the throne devolved upon the latter, of which the Archduke was the representative. The royal widow, Mary, sister to Ferdinand, convoked, for the purpose of ratifying this arrangement, a diet at Presburgh, whither she had been compelled to fly when Pesth surrendered. Her intention, however, was frustrated by the counter measures of John Zapolya, who, after solemnizing the obsequies of Louis at Stuhlweissenburg, had, with the assent of many of the magnates, proclaimed himself king, and had caused himself to be crowned on the 11th November, 1526. He appealed to an ancient law by which no one but a born Hungarian could occupy the throne, although it had never been universally acknowledged, and had been set aside by the recent arrangements. Ferdinand now sent against him an army under the command of a brave man, Nicholas, Count of Salm, who defeated him near Tokay. By the exertions of the faithful Palatine Bathory, a considerable party was created in favour of Ferdinand, and his coronation was celebrated at Pesth on the 21st August, 1527. After two successive defeats at Erlau and Szinye, Zapolya was compelled to abandon Transylvania and to take refuge in Poland. The magnates of Hungary now came over in great numbers to the party of Ferdinand, and he rejoiced in the prospect of an undisturbed possession of his newly acquired sovereignty. Zapolya, however, though on all sides deserted, and destitute of troops and money, persevered in his designs, and made every exertion to gain over to his cause the nobility of Poland and their king, Sigismund, his brother-in-law by marriage with his sister Barbara. These attempts were in most instances fruitless; but he succeeded with Jerome Laski, Wayvode of Siradia, a man of resource and enterprise, who showed hospitality to the fugitive, and promised him every possible support. Laski, however, conscious of the inadequacy of his own means to effect his friend’s restoration in opposition to the House of Austria, gave him the deplorable advice to betake himself to the Sultan. We are assured by several contemporary writers that Zapolya long hesitated to follow this fatal counsel; and it is not incredible that he felt some compunction in throwing himself into the arms of the arch enemy of Christianity, and in possibly exposing half Europe to Mahometan invasion. The condition, however, of his affairs, and his ambition, urged him to the desperate step, which was somewhat reconciled to his conscience by the knowledge that Ferdinand himself had despatched an embassy to Constantinople to conciliate the good will of the Sultan.