Ladislas the Posthumous

Ladislaus, king of Bohemia

Ladislaus the Posthumous (22 February 1440 – 23 November 1457), Archduke, king of Hungary as László V; king of Bohemia as Ladislav; duke of Austria, the only son of Albert II, Holy Roman Emperor, and of Elizabeth, daughter of Emperor Sigismund, was born at Komarom four months after his father's death, and was hence called Ladislaus Postumus (Ladislaus the Posthumous), Czech Ladislav Pohrobek, Hungarian Utószülött László. He became immediately ruler of the Archduchy of Austria and official head of the House of Habsburg, and succeeded as nominal King of Bohemia. However, his second cousin Frederick, the ruler of Inner Austria, was chosen as his father's successor as Holy Roman Emperor.

The estates of Hungary had already elected Władysław III of Poland as their king Ulászló I (Hungarian: I. Ulászló), but the infant Ladislaus' mother had the Hungarian crown stolen from its guardians at Visegrád and have it brought to Wiener Neustadt by a lady of the court, Helene Kottannerin. According to legend, the cross on the crown is askew, because it was damaged during the transport. Ladislaus' mother thus compelled the primate to crown the infant king at Székesfehérvár on 15 May 1440; whereupon, for safety's sake, she placed the child in the guardianship of his Habsburg relative, the emperor Frederick III (then ruler of Inner Austria), who held him as a virtual prisoner in Castle Orth and ruled Austria himself.

On the death of Ulászló I in the Battle of Varna (10 November 1444), the Hungarian estates, not without considerable opposition, elected Ladislaus Postumus as their king and sent a deputation to Vienna to induce the emperor to surrender the child and the holy crown, which Frederick first refused. In Bohemia Jiři (George) of Poděbrady acted as regent, and in Hungary János Hunyadi. From 1450 onwards, the pressure of the Austrian estates to free Ladislaus grew. In 1452, they entered into the Mailberg Confederation under the leadership of Ulrich of Eyczing and Ulrich of Celje and freed him by force. The Princely Count of Celje, a Slovenian magnate and heir to Bosnia, the cousin of Ladislaus' mother, prevailed against Eyczing and became the guardian of the child, and thus the effective ruler in his stead.

On 28 October 1453 Ladislaus Postumus, aged 13, was finally crowned king of Bohemia, and henceforth spent most of his time at Prague and Vienna. As Celje became increasingly inimical towards János Hunyadi, who bore the main burden of the battles against the Ottomans, Celje (and with him Ladislaus) remained supremely indifferent to the Turkish threat. After the death of Hunyadi, Ladislaus made Celje governor of Hungary at the Diet of Futtak (October 1456). When, after the Siege of Nándorfehérvár, Celje was murdered by László Hunyadi in revenge for his assassination attempt on him on November 9, 1456, Ladislaus procured the decapitation of young Hunyadi, who was executed on March 16, 1457. This raised such a storm in Hungary that Ladislaus had to flee to Prague, where he spent the last months of his life.

He died suddenly on November 23, 1457, while making preparations for his marriage with Magdalena, daughter of Charles VII of France. He was rumored to have been poisoned by his political opponents in Bohemia, though no actual evidence of this ever existed. As late as in the 20th century it was proven that Ladislaus died of leukemia, which was not a recognized disease in his time. In Austria, his cousin Frederick V succeeded him, Hungary elected Matthias Corvinus of the Hunyadi family, while Bohemia elected Jiři of Poděbrady, the only Hussite ruler of that kingdom.

References

* G. Vég, Magyarország királyai és királynői, Maecenas, 1990.

Note: There is one major error in the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica entry for Ladislaus. The entry states that Ladislaus' mother's father (i.e. his maternal grandfather) was Emperor Sigismund, and then states that he was placed under the guardianship of his maternal grandfather, Ulrich of Celje. Ulrich was in fact his mother's first cousin.

Names in other languages: Czech: Ladislav Pohrobek, Hungarian: V. (Utószülött) László, Slovak: Ladislav V Pohrobok