his dependence on the Bosnian kingdom was formally cemented, Stephen Cosaccia began to think that, after all, more might be gained by fishing in the troubled waters of Puritan disaffection. He veered round once more and henceforth poses as the protector of the oppressed Bogomiles of Bosnia. When the persecutions of Stephen Tomašević drove 40,000 of these sectaries from the kingdom, they found a refuge in the duchy; and, neither for the first nor the last time in history, a tyrant and a libertine became the acknowledged patron of Puritans and levellers. Thus, when Mahomet turned his arms against Herzegovina, the Bogomiles showed their gratitude to their ducal benefactor, by rising _en masse_ in his defence. They occupied the mountain passes, and while the craven Stephen shut himself up in his capital Mostar, and drowned his anxieties in his usual dissipation, his brave Puritan adherents kept the Turks at bay on the frontier. One pass, however, had remained unoccupied. The Turks burst through it and beleagured the ducal city. The Bogomiles, however, still fought bravely, and made such successful sallies and flank attacks upon the enemy that the Turk saw himself obliged to raise the siege. The rest of the country, however, was overrun, many castles of the Count of Popovo and Trebinje[116] taken, and this great magnate of the duchy slain. The Duke saw himself forced to raise his tribute and send his son Stephen as a hostage to the Sultan. Two years later, in 1466, Stephen Cosaccia died, and his duchy was shared by his two sons, Ladislav, who inherited the ducal title, and Vlatko. But Herzegovina had only gained a respite from complete subjugation.[117] Twenty years after the overthrow of the Bosnian kingdom, in 1483, the Beglerbeg of Bosnia fell upon the Duchy of St. Sava, the two Christian princes were dispossessed, and the whole country incorporated in the Sandjakate of Bosnia. A renegade member of the ducal house, that Stephen whom the first duke had sent as a hostage to Mahomet, rose under the name of Ahmed Pashà to be grand vizier, and is known in Turkish annals as Herzekoglu.[118]