Note 36 — Chapter VII

It was arranged by a secret treaty between Ferdinand and Zapolya that the latter should retain the crown till his death, when the whole of the kingdom should revert to Austria, Zapolya’s son retaining only his hereditary dignity of countship of Zips. But at Zapolya’s death his widow asserted the rights of her son as king of Hungary, and called in the sultan to her aid. Solyman turned the country into a Turkish province, professing all the time to be merely holding it until the child had attained his majority. War with Austria continued for many years, until, in 1547, a truce for five years was concluded, which left the sultan in possession of nearly the whole of Hungary and Transylvania, and which bound Ferdinand to the humiliating condition of paying a tribute of 30,000 ducats a-year. Hostilities were resumed on the very day the armistice expired.