Sigismund may be said to have reached the goal of all his wishes. He united on his head the crowns of imperial Germany, Hungary, and Bohemia. Yet, on the whole, he was not a happy man. His wife Barbara had regained her freedom and was embittering the last days of the sickly monarch. This ambitious woman coveted the crown of Hungary, and in order to obtain it she was scheming, first of all, to hinder the succession of Albert, the son-in-law of the emperor-king. With this view she entered into negotiations with Ladislaus III., the king of Poland, the purport of which was that he should marry her after Sigismund’s demise, and thus unite the dominions of the king of Hungary with Poland. The arrangement was nearly concluded when these intrigues were discovered by Sigismund. He deprived his wife once more of her liberty, and hastened from Bohemia to Hungary to prevail upon the Estates to accept Albert’s succession, and then to turn his steps towards Transylvania to put down the rebellion that had broken out there. The peasantry of Transylvania, having a leaning towards the teachings of Huss, were exposed to constant persecutions. They were also oppressed by burdensome taxes, and finally, goaded on by their unhappy condition, they rose in arms against their tyrants. The massacred nobility and burning villages bore witness to the exasperation of the peasantry. Fate prevented Sigismund from either meeting the estates or quelling the Transylvanian rising. He was overtaken by death at Znaym, in Moravia, in December, 1437. His dead body and the captive queen arrived in Hungary one week later. His remains were conveyed from Presburg to Grosswardein to be placed there by the side of his first wife, Mary, and at the feet of St. Ladislaus. It is rather saddening to reflect that, after a reign of fifty years, his funeral procession should have been lighted by the glare from the burning villages of Transylvania, set on fire by her own peasantry. [Illustration] CHAPTER IX. JOHN HUNYADI (HUNIADES), THE GREAT CHAMPION OF CHRISTIANITY. 1456. Very little, if any thing, is known of the father of John Hunyadi, or of the pedigree of his family; indeed, the very circumstances of his birth are shrouded in dim legendary light, and yet he looms up all at once in the proud position of governor of Hungary, the adored idol of his country, and the admiration of all Christian Europe. It was owing to his exertions that his family became great, rich, and powerful, but, at the same time, he guarded Hungary against the evils of domestic war, and saved her from Moslem rule. He served his country in the capacity of a brave soldier, an eminent general, and a cautious and energetic statesman, lending her the aid of his strong arm, his undaunted courage, and his clear understanding. [Illustration: HUNYAD CASTLE.]