ia: the last King Vladislaus they
had; and the last King but one, of any kind, as we shall see anon.
Vladislaus was heir of Poland too, could he have managed to get it;
but he gave up that to his brother, to various younger brothers in
succession; having his hands full with the Hungarian and Bohemian
difficulty. He was very fond of Nephew George; well recognizing the
ingenuous, wise and loyal nature of the young man. He appointed George
tutor of his poor son Ludwig; whom he left at the early age of ten, in
an evil world, and evil position there. "Born without Skin," they say,
that is, born in the seventh month;--called Ludwig OHNE HAUT (Ludwig
NO-Skin), on that account. Born certainly, I can perceive, rather thin
of skin; and he would have needed one of a rhinoceros thickness!

George did his function honestly, and with success: Ludwig grew up
a gallant, airy, brisk young King, in spite of difficulties,
constitutional and other; got a Sister of the great Kaiser Karl V.
to wife;--determined (A.D. 1526) to have a stroke at the Turk dragon;
which, was coiling round his frontier, and spitting fire at an
intolerable rate. Ludwig, a fine young man of twenty, marched away
with much Hungarian chivalry, right for the Turk (Summer 1526); George
meanwhile going busily to Bohemia, and there with all his strength
levying troops for reinforcement. Ludwig fought and fenced, for some
time, with the Turk outskirts; came at last to a furious general battle
with the Turk (29th August, 1526), at a place called Mohacz, far east in
the flats of the Lower Donau; and was there tragically beaten and ended.
Seeing the Battle gone, and his chivalry all in flight, Ludwig too had
to fly; galloping for life, he came upon bog which proved bottomless,
as good as bottomless; and Ludwig, horse and man, vanished in it
straightway from this world. Hapless young man, like a flash of
lightning suddenly going down there--and the Hungarian Sovereignty
along with him. For Hungary is part of Austria ever since; having,
with Bohemia, fallen to Karl V.'s Brother Ferdinand, as now the nearest
convenient heir of Albert with his Three Crowns. Up to the lips in
difficulties to this day!--

George meanwhile, with finely appointed reinforcements, was in full
march to join Ludwig; but the sad news of Mohacz met him: he withdrew,
as soon as might be, to his own territory, and quitted Hungarian
politics. This, I think, was George's third and last trial of war. He
by no