Stephen Thomas succeeded Tvartko ‘the Just’ on the throne of Bosnia in 1443. He was an illegitimate son of Ostoja and a Ragusan lady, Voiacchia, and was raised to the throne by the Bogomiles to whose communion he belonged. True to the policy which prompted the Puritan population of Bosnia to seek a counterpoise against Catholic Hungary in their fellow Puritans, the champions of Islâm, King Stephen Thomas began his reign by promising a yearly tribute to the Sultan. But the Papal party had rightly reckoned on the weakness of Thomas’s character; and the subtle genius of the Apostolic legate, Thomasini, whom the Pope had sent to effect his conversion, knew only too well how to play upon his fears and cupidity. Stephen Thomas was illegitimate; the lawful son of Ostoja, Radivoj (or Gaudenzo) had returned from Turkish exile and put in a claim on the Bosnian crown; the Papal party had powerful weapons at their command in the Duke of St. Sava, then a staunch Catholic, who refused allegiance and invaded Thomas’s territory, and in the King of Hungary, who as suzerain, declined to recognize the title of a heretic prince. Thomasini offered to legitimate Thomas and his heirs, to obtain for him a consecrated crown, to reconcile his rivals and his suzerain. The King of Bosnia yielded, abjured his Bogomilian heresy, and was baptized into the Catholic fold. Thomas, who had hitherto hesitated to take the style of King in his official acts,[101] was formally crowned in 1444. His homage was accepted by the Hungarian King Ladislaus, and his rival Radivoj was pacified with the grant of the Banat of Jaycze.
In Bosnia itself this abjuration of the national faith produced the most deplorable effects. The Inquisition raised its head, the Franciscans were again rampant. The Bogomiles saw themselves betrayed by the King of their own creation. The great vassal of the Bosnian crown, Stephen Cosaccia, Duke of St. Sava, who in the first blush of Thomas’s conversion had been induced to return to his allegiance, and whose goodwill had been further courted by Thomas taking his daughter Catharine to wife, now began to find it politic to cut himself adrift from the Papal party, and to bid for complete independence of the Bosnian Crown by posing as the protector of the Bogomiles. Meanwhile, beyond the border, the great battle of Varna had been fought, the Hungarians routed, and their King slain. As the danger of Turkish conquest drew nearer and nearer, the most bigoted champions of the Roman Church might see the danger of throwing the Protestant population into the arms of the invader; and the most sanguine of the Christian Puritans, viewing the fate of their brothers in Bulgaria, might shrink from accepting the dominion of their Mahometan counterparts. In the Diet, or Great Council of the Realm, which King Stephen Thomas assembled at Coinica, we may see a last effort to check the growing anarchy, and unite the discordant elements of the realm. I have given an account of the great charter of King Stephen Thomas while describing the scene of the ‘Conventus’ of Coinica.[102] In it the constitutional relation of the Duke of St. Sava will be found defined, and the clause which enacts ‘that the Manichæans build no new church nor restore the old,’ but which omits to prescribe any further penalties or to fulminate any of the usual anathemas against them, seems to me to imply that even the Bogomiles were to be accorded comparative toleration.[103] But passions ran too high, anarchy was too inveterate in Bosnia, for this attempt at internal pacification to succeed. In the Papal legate, Thomasini, King Stephen Thomas had ever at his side an evil genius, who inclined him more and more towards the path of persecution. With the Turk at the door King Thomas, who was known to the Roman Catholics as the ‘pious,’ once more lent the support of the civil arm to the Inquisition. The Bogomiles turned for protection to the Turks, their only possible ally, and, four years after the ‘Conventus’ of Coinica, invited them into the country. Stephen Thomas, a tyrant towards his own subjects, showed himself a craven before the foe, and purchased an ignominious peace from Amurath by agreeing to pay him 25,000 ducats a year. But the Turkish suzerainty became more and more galling, and the fall of Constantinople in 1453 finally roused him from his lethargy. Four years after that event he issued from his Palace of Sutisca, near the Castle of Bobovac, an appeal to the whole Christian world for help against the Infidel.[104] This was addressed to the Pope, the King of Arragon, the Doge of Venice, the Duke of Burgundy, and other Christian princes. But the days of the Crusades were gone by, and the appeal of the King of Bosnia met with no response, save that the Pope sent him a consecrated standard and a cross.
Meanwhile the death of the brave John Hunyadi, and the paralysing civil war in Hungary, left the Bosnian King without his one ally. The Turkish ravages now extended to the heart of Bosnia. Already, in 1449, Turks were settled in the country between the Drina and Ukrina stream,[105] on the main line of communication between Bosnia and Hungary; now, the neighbouring Pashàs and Agas begin to drive a regular traffic in Bosnian slaves. A half mythical atmosphere surrounds the last days of the Bosnian kingdom. It is said that the craven Thomas, fearing to resist the Turks, entered into a secret league with them. We are told by contemporary writers that Mahomet himself, disguised as a Morabite, made his way in company with two real members of that order, into the royal palace of Sutiska,[106] that King Thomas showed him all honour, and solemnly entered with him into that sworn brothership so hallowed amongst the Southern Sclaves, the Pobratimstvo. Whether such a meeting actually occurred, or whether the whole story was the invention of domestic enemies, there can be no doubt that the poltroonery and tergiversation of Thomas had alienated even that Catholic faction on which since his abjuration of Bogomilism he had relied. Signs of defection already appeared, and the King turned the arms that he should have employed against the national enemy, to reduce a refractory Croatian vassal. It was while besieging his castle, encamped on the field of Bielaj, that King Stephen Thomas was assassinated, if report spoke truly, by his step-brother Radivoj and his illegitimate son Stephen.
The parricide Stephen Tomašević at once usurped the throne, though Stephen Thomas is often regarded by Bosnians as their last king. The Catholic and anti-Turkish party were now triumphant, and the new King began his reign by an appeal to the feudal nobility of Bosnia to meet him with their retainers equipped for battle against the Infidel, on the field of Kóssovo. This summons is dated Pristina, June 3, 1459, and is one of the last records of feudal Bosnia. The Barons, Prelates, Nobles, Voivodes, and magnates of the realm,[107] are summoned by name. The Župans[108] of Rascia and of Serbia, with their banners and retainers, the Ban of Jaycze, the Ban of Ussora, the Duke of St. Sava, and the lesser nobles, are marshalled before us on parchment. The King appeals to their orthodox bigotry, and seems to take an illustration from the fire-drakes of Sclavonic folk-lore. ‘What faithful Christian,’ he asks, ‘and zealous lover of the orthodox faith can restrain his tears when considering the capture of Constantinople?’ He calls on the Barons aforesaid ‘to meet us on the field of Kóssovo in June, for we ought in a body to advance against the dragon, lest he spit forth over us his venom.’[109] But King Stephen Tomašević inherited his father’s poltroonery, with more than his father’s bigotry. We do not know that he ever met the Turks at Kóssovo; but we know that this same year he turned the arms of his orthodox Magnates against his unoffending Bogomile subjects, and hounded 40,000 of them from the realm. His brave generals, Paul Kubretić and Tomko Mergnjavić, defended severally the line of the Drina and the Rascian frontier with success, but the surrender of Semendria which the Hungarians had intrusted to his safe-keeping, to the Turks, had irritated Mathias Corvinus and the powerful Hungarian faction among the Magnates, and this dissatisfaction was intensified by Tomašević throwing himself and his kingdom at the feet of the Papacy, which, however, wisely refused to accept it. Meanwhile it was no secret that Mahomet was preparing for his great invasion of Bosnia.
The King of Bosnia who had already secured the alliance of the Venetians and Scanderbeg, turned once more to the Pope, if not to gain him fresh allies, at least to sanctify his efforts, and to breathe into his followers the enthusiasm of a new crusade. The ambassadors of Tomašević appeared at Rome in 1463, and were received in solemn conclave by the Pope. They read to him and the spiritual senators assembled an appeal drawn up by the Bosnian King’s own hand. The speech, for it is nothing less, has been preserved, and is the last monument of Christian Bosnia. In turns it is argumentative, insinuating, and solemn; selfish personal ambition is blended in a remarkable way with a real appreciation of the gravity of the situation, and the far-reaching consequences of a Turkish conquest of Bosnia to Hungary and Christendom; and the King as he warms with his harangue forgets the official plural of a royal style and lapses into the impressive individuality of a prophet.
‘Most Holy Father, we, Stephen Tomašević, King of Bosnia, send this embassy unto thee, for that Mahomet hath conceived this summer to fall upon our realm. Already hath he gathered together his array of war; nor is our strength sufficient that we should stand against him. In our grievous necessity we have turned to the Hungarians and the Venetians for succour; and George, the Prince of Albania, hath promised us his help. Now, therefore, have we also turned to thee, O most Holy Father. No mountains of gold do we ask of thee, but this alone, that our enemies and our true friends should know that we have thy protection. If so be that the Bosnians know that they fight not alone, then will their courage be the keener; whereas the Barbarian will fear to attack our land, the passes wherein are difficult, and the fenced cities well nigh impregnable. Eugenius, thy predecessor, promised our father the throne, and that he would establish some bishoprics in Bosnia; but our father refused to accept this treaty, lest peradventure he should magnify the hatred of the Turks against him; for that he himself was newly converted, and the Manichæans were not yet pursued the realm. But I was christened in the true faith, I learned Latin in my childhood, and have remained steadfast in my Christian belief. I fear not therefore what my father feared, and therefore do I entreat thee that thou wouldest send me a crown and the holy bishops. Let this be for a monument that thou wilt not forsake me or my realm. If the enemy breaks in, a crown received from thy hands will be unto my friends as an earnest of victory, and for a terror to my foes. In my father’s lifetime, thou didst issue thy commands that the Crusaders, assembled in Dalmatia under the overseeing of the Venetians, should help him, but this pleased not the Venetian Senate. Bid them now that they come to my aid, if haply thou shalt find more obedience, forasmuch as they have turned from their former designs, and they shall make war against the Turks. This moreover do I pray, that thou send thy legate unto Hungary, that so he may set before the King my grievous necessity, and may spur him on to join his arms with mine.
‘By such means the realm of Bosnia may yet be preserved; otherwise it falls to pieces: for insatiable ambition knows no bounds. But if so be that I am subjugated, the hereditary foe will fall upon the Hungarians, and having subdued the Dalmatians, Istrians, and Carinthians, will turn his arms also against Italy. The first fury of the storm threatens me, after me the Hungarians and Venetians and other peoples must bend before it, nor will Italy remain secure. Such are the foe’s designs. I have learnt them, and therefore do I communicate to thee this intelligence that thou mayest not lay drowsiness to my charge, nor say that these things were not foretold. My father too had foretold to thy predecessor and to the Venetians the fall of Constantinople. He was not believed, and Christendom lost one city of the Cæsars, the Patriarch’s seat and the pride of Greece. Of myself only do I now prophesy. Believest thou me? then succour me, and I am delivered; otherwise I perish. O thou who art the father of Christendom, give counsel and help!’
The Pope in reply recognised the truth of King Stephen’s warnings, and promised to place the arms in Dalmatia at his disposal, to build the desired cathedrals in Bosnia, and send the bishops. The consecrated crown he held in readiness, but would not send it without the consent of Mathias, Stephen’s suzerain, with whom he recommended him to make friends. Let Stephen prevent Mahomet’s invasion by occupying the passes; Hungary and Venice would fly to his assistance.
But while King Stephen Tomašević was pleading for new bishops from the Pope, another negociation was being transacted between his oppressed subjects and the Sultan. While the infatuated king was boasting that he had purged his realm of the Manichæan heretics; these very sectaries who, in spite of the expulsion of 40,000 three years before, still formed apparently the large majority of the population, though forced to dissemble their opinions, seeing themselves threatened on the one hand by a new Romish influx, on the other by invaders indeed, but Puritans at least like themselves, turned to the Turks. By the mouth of their spiritual chiefs the negociation with Mahomet was successfully completed. The Bogomiles promised to transfer their allegiance from their Romish sovereign to the Sultan, Mahomet on the other hand engaging to insure them free toleration for their religion, freedom from taxation, and other privileges.[110]