The cruelties then perpetrated by the blood-thirsty peasantry beggar all description. They overran the whole country, burning one castle after another, and massacred, by the light of the flames, all the noblemen with their families who were so unfortunate as to fall into their hands. Stephen Telegdy, who had so vehemently opposed the crusade, himself lost his life in this shocking manner, and Nicholas Csáky was captured on the battle-field, and was, to the delight of the whole camp, killed with torture. Dózsa now proceeded to lay siege to Temesvár. He had singled out this fortified place as the point from which he would conquer the country for his peasants, but at this very spot he had to learn by painful experience that it was not an easy task to cope with the established power, no matter how demoralized for the time it be. The factions, admonished by the common peril, ceased for the time their party strife, and the chief Comes of Temes, a partisan of the king, did not hesitate to invoke the support of John Szapolyai, the vayvode of Transylvania, who was the leader of the national party. The vayvode, together with a strong force of the yeomanry of Transylvania, came to his assistance, and the struggle soon approached its termination. At the first engagement the army of Dózsa was utterly defeated, those who survived were scattered, and the leader with a few of his companions was taken captive. The savage work of retaliation now followed. The vayvode Szapolyai was the president of the tribunal. The victory he had achieved raised his authority with the nobility, who looked upon the late struggle as a war waged for their extermination, and he thought it would add to his glory if he presented to the excited nobles a harrowing spectacle. Mercy was shown only to Gregory, the brother of George Dózsa, inasmuch as he was merely beheaded. The remaining rebel leaders, including Dózsa, were thrown into prison, and were not permitted to taste any food for a fortnight. Nine of them still remained amongst the living. Dózsa was seated on a red hot iron throne, a red hot crown was placed on his forehead, and a red hot sceptre forced into his hand. Not a murmur of pain escaped him during this dreadful torture. Only when his famished companions in arms rushed upon him and tore the charred flesh from his body to appease their craving for food, he exclaimed: “These hounds are of my own training.” This was the end of one of the episodes of this sanguinary domestic war. Four months of civil strife had cost the country the lives of 50,000 men. At a future period, not very distant, the nation might have made a much better use of these lives, but there seemed to be a fatality impelling the people to become their own destroyers. The Hungarian popular feeling has always sympathized with the peasantry in this bloody rebellion. Thus the story is, to this day, current amongst the people, that, as often as the Lord’s body was raised, during mass, Szapolyai