This sad blow prostrated the aged king, who had already been ailing, throwing him on his bed, and from that moment up to the day of his death he was unable to recover either his bodily or mental strength. Bereft of all hope and left to himself with his great sorrow and harassing doubts, he looked about him irresolutely for one on whose shoulders the cares of royalty should rest after his departure. The descendants of his uncle Michael were still living, and his choice fell upon them, they being rightfully entitled to succeed to the throne. But he was foiled in his intention by the opposition of the court, where the foreigners rallying round Queen Gisella had obtained the mastery, and where they now resorted to every evil scheme to compel the decrepit king to designate as his successor Duke Peter, who resided at the court, and was the son of one of the king’s sisters, and Ottone Urseolo, the Doge of Venice. He finally yielded, and by this act the vessel of State which he had piloted for nearly half a century with a strong arm and great circumspection, was drawn into a most dangerous current. Stephen was the founder of the kingdom of Hungary; to others was left the inheritance of defending and strengthening it. He died in 1038 on Mary’s Ascension Day, the anniversary of the same day on which, thirty-eight years before, he had placed the crown on his head. On the day of his death Stephen gathered about him his courtiers and the magnates of the land, and commended the realm to their care, but, as if distrustful of them, he, in his last prayer, placed both the church and the kingdom founded by him under the patronage of the Holy Virgin Mary. Five centuries later Stephen was canonized and placed upon the calendar of saints by the Church of Rome, and the event of the exaltation of their first king and apostle was celebrated as a great national holiday by the people. Time has preserved St. Stephen’s right hand and the crown which his piety earned for him, but the brightest and noblest monument he erected to himself is the creation of a commonwealth whose free institutions, unimpaired strength and independence have survived the storms of nearly nine centuries. [Illustration] [Illustration] CHAPTER VII. THE KINGS OF THE HOUSE OF ÁRPÁD. The crown of St. Stephen remained in the dynastic family of Árpád for three centuries. The kings of this dynasty erected, upon the foundations laid by the first great king of that house, the proud and enduring structure of the Hungarian Church and State. The liberty of the nation and the independence of the country were maintained by these rulers against the ever-recurring attacks of both the Eastern and Western empires, and the paternal meddling of the popes, as well as against the barbarians invading Europe from the East, whose devastations menaced the complete destruction of every thing that lay in their path.