27. The Raven King Who Fought the Ottomans
The Raven King and his mercenary Black Army sound like something straight out of George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire. However, it refers to a real-life monarch and military unit, who became Europe’s greatest warriors in the second half of the fifteenth century. To wit, King Matthias Corvinus of Hungary (1443 – 1490), whose name translates as “Matthew the Raven”, and a mercenary army he assembled to hold back the Ottoman Turks.
When Hungary’s King Ladislaus V died childless in 1457, the Diet of Hungary convened in January of 1458 to elect a new king. It eventually chose fourteen-year-old Matthias Corvinus as a compromise candidate to avert a civil war between rival factions. The plan was for Matthias’ uncle to rule as regent until the new king came of age. Instead, the teenager surprised everybody by administering state affairs independently from the outset. He ended up being a thorn in the side of the expansionist Ottoman Empire.