Albert placed himself at the head of the insurgents and conducted the
siege. The emperor, though he had but two hundred men in the garrison,
held out valiantly. But famine would soon have compelled him to
capitulate, had not the King of Bohemia, with a force of thirteen
thousand men, marched to his aid. Podiebrad relieved the emperor, and
secured a verbal reconciliation between the two angry brothers, which
lasted until the Bohemian forces had returned to their country, when the
feud burst out anew and with increased violence. The emperor procured
the ban of the empire against his brother, and the pope excommunicated
him. Still Albert fought fiercely, and the strife raged without
intermission until Albert suddenly died on the 4th of December, 1463.
The Turks, who, during all these years, had been making predatory
excursions along the frontiers of Hungary, now, in three strong bands of
ten thousand each, overran Servia and Bosnia, and spread their
devastations even into the heart of Illyria, as far as the metropolitan
city of Laybach. The ravages of fire and sword marked their progress.
They burnt every village, every solitary cottage, and the inhabitants
were indiscriminately slain.
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