After the death of Andrew II., his son, Béla IV. (1235-1270), devoted himself with youthful energy to the task of restoring the ascendancy of the royal power and authority, of insuring respect to the laws, and of humbling the pride of the oligarchy. He removed the evil counsellors of his father, sent the principal ringleaders to prison, surrounded himself with good patriots, and where gentle words proved inefficacious he resorted to arms in order to obtain possession of the royal domains and county lands which single oligarchs had contrived to acquire by grant during his father’s life or from his ancestors, or which had been lawlessly appropriated by them. The efforts made by the youthful king were, however, of no avail. The very successes which attended here and there his policy served only to excite to a higher pitch the anger and resentment of the great lords, and deepened the estrangement between them and the throne. The disaffected oligarchs, whose selfishness was not tempered by patriotism, and whose passions did not know the bridle of the law, were so base as to elevate a foreign prince, Duke Frederic of Austria, to the throne, in opposition to their lawful king. The watchfulness of Béla alone prevented the royal inheritance from passing, at that time already, from the Árpáds into foreign hands. Béla succeeded in driving back Frederic, and in defeating the treasonable schemes of the oligarchy, but he became, at the same time, convinced that until he was able to present to the opposing lords a more formidable front he would have to renounce the realization of the fond hopes of his youth.