31. Securing Power
According to Hungarian royal custom, whereby the crown passed from brother to brother by seniority, Bela was made a duke and named heir. However, while away from Hungary, Bela’s brother changed the rules by naming his four-year-old son heir. Bela responded by raising an army in Poland, and marched into Hungary to reassert his rights. During the ensuing struggle, the brother on the throne was killed, and Bela was crowned in his place.
Soon after becoming king, an uprising erupted, demanding a return to paganism, and an end to Christianity, which had become the official state religion a few decades earlier. Bela responded by mobilizing an army and crushing the pagans. In 1063, he successfully fought off a German invasion under the auspices of the Holy Roman Emperor, and asserted Hungarian independence from foreign domination.