that the better sort of people succeeded in having them abolished and Hunyady established as sole governor.  For all that, however, Hunyady had a good deal of trouble with the chief aristocrats, Garay, Czillei, Ujlaki, who, envying the parvenu his sudden promotion and despising his obscure origin, took up arms to resist his authority.  Thus Hunyady, instead of blunting the edge of his sword upon foreign foes, had to bridle the insubordination of his own countrymen.  Luckily it did not take long to force the discontented to own the weight of his arm and his superiority as a military leader.

Order being thus to some extent reestablished at home, Hunyady was again able to turn his attention to the Turks.  He felt that he had in fact gained the battle of Varna, which was only lost through the jealous humor of a youthful king; that it behooved him not to stop half way; that it was his duty to continue offensive operations.  But in so doing he had to rely upon his own proper forces.  It is true that he was governor of the country, but for the purpose of offensive warfare beyond the frontier he could not gain the consent of the great nobles.

Luckily his private property had enormously increased by this time.  The Hungarian constitution required the King to bestow the estates of such noblemen as died without male heirs, or had been condemned for any offence, on such noblemen as had approved themselves valiant defenders of the country.  Now where could be found a more worthy recipient of such estates than Hunyady, to whom the public treasury was besides a debtor on account of the sums he disbursed for the constant warfare he maintained against the Turks?  Especially in the south of Hungary a whole series of lordly estates, many of them belonging to the crown, had come into Hunyady’s hands, either as pledges for the repayment of the money he had paid his soldiers, or as his own private property.

The yearly revenue arising from these vast estates was employed by Hunyady, not in personal expenditure, but in the defence of his country.  He himself lived as simply as any of his soldiers, and recognized no other use of money than as a weapon for the defence of Christendom against Islam.  In the early morning, while all his suite slept, he passed hours in prayer before the altar in the dimly lighted church, imploring the help of the Almighty for the attainment of his sole object in life—­the destruction of the Turkish power.  At last, 1448, he set out against the Sultan with an army of twenty-four thousand of his most trusty soldiers.

This time it was on the frontier of Servia, on the “Field of Blackbirds,” that Hunyady encountered Sultan Amurath, who had an army of one hundred and fifty thousand men—­again more than five times the number of the Christians.  Hunyady at first withdrew himself into his intrenched camp, but in a few days felt himself strong enough to engage with the enemy on the open field.  The battle