No serious attempt was made to follow up this victory, though Hunyadi boasted that it was now possible “to take possession of the whole kingdom of Turkey.” Anarchy prevailed in the motley crowd gathered in the crusading camps along the river; worse still, owing to the unhealthful surroundings in the low lands, a plague began, to which the great Hungarian champion soon fell a victim; not long after Capistrano also died. Soon after the death of Hunyadi the long career of the Servian Prince Brankovitch came to an end, and with it closed the history of Servia as a vassal state, for his death was followed by long and bloody quarrels over the succession. Finally, the claim of Brankovitch’s daughter-in-law, Helena, the widow of his son Lazaras, was acknowledged. Her accession gave Mohammed an excuse for appearing as the champion of an Ottoman pretender. The Sultan’s influence over the Servian nobility was increased by the fact that Helena was favorable to the Latin Church; she placed Servia under the protection of the Pope, and married her daughter to the heir of the Bosnian kingdom. But this foreign help availed nothing. Many of the strong places in Servia were captured, including the city of Semandria (1459). The Servian “woiwodes,” who preferred the domination of the Sultan to the acceptance of the religion of Rome, showed themselves disloyal to Helena the younger, who was obliged to withdraw, to Hungary first, and then to Rome, where she died as a nun in 1474. After the destruction of Servia, and its absorption by the Ottomans, came the turn of Bosnia, like Servia disturbed by disputes between vassal princes, which were taken advantage of by Mohammed. King Stephen’s pro-Roman policy made him unpopular among his nobles; therefore, when the Turk’s army appeared, there was no great difficulty in overrunning the country. The King retired in a panic from his strongly fortified capital, and while in flight was captured and afterwards executed (1464). Herzegovina, which still remained in Christian hands, could not resist the successful aggression of the Turks, and its occupation took place three years after the annexation of Bosnia. As Bosnia was a vassal state of Hungary, its King, Matthias, found himself obliged to look to the safety of his territories. Scanderbeg, who was alarmed at the taking of Herzegovina, and Venice, as the mistress of all the cities in the Morea, had just begun to realize the need of common action to protect their interests.