Here again the emperor failed. The nobles
assembled in great strength at Buda, and elected unanimously Matthias,
the only surviving son of the heroic Hunniades, whose memory was
embalmed in the hearts of all the Hungarians. The boy then, for he was
but a boy, and was styled contemptuously by the disappointed Frederic
the boy king, entered into an alliance with Podiebrad for mutual
protection, and engaged the hand of his daughter in marriage. Thus was
the great kingdom of Austria, but recently so powerful in the union of
all the Austrian States with Bohemia and Hungary, again divided and
disintegrated. The emperor, in his vexation, foolishly sent an army of
five thousand men into Hungary, insanely hoping to take the crown by
force of arms, but he was soon compelled to relinquish the hopeless
enterprise.
And now Frederic and Albert began to quarrel at Vienna. The emperor was
arrogant and domineering. Albert was irritable and jealous. First came
angry words; then the enlisting of partisans, and then all the miseries
of fierce and determined civil war. The capital was divided into hostile
factions, and the whole country was ravaged by the sweep of armies. The
populace of Vienna, espousing the cause of Albert, rose in insurrection,
pillaged the houses of the adherents of Frederic, drove Frederic, with
his wife and infant child, into the citadel, and invested the fortress.
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