For nearly a decade Hungary had no resident king. Negotiations with the Emperor Frederick III concerning the return of Ladislas (and of the Holy Crown) continued; finally, in 1453, after a joint action of the Austrian, Czech and Hungarian lords, they succeeded. In the meantime, however, the government of the realm was in the hands of the counties, the diet, its elected captains and — from 1446 to 1453 — Janos Hunyadi, as regent. Diets were now called virtually every year, many of them attended by the nobility, armed and in great numbers. From this time forward all nobles with more than ten tenants customarily came to the wide field across the Danube from Buda (where the barons met), the name of which, Rakos, became synonymous with the assembly. In the 1440s the cities were also regularly invited and participated in major decisions, such as the naming of four to six ‘captains’ for different regions to keep the peace and, in 1446, electing Hunyadi as regent. However, they soon found that their voice counted little among the masses of the nobles, and ceased to attend. The decrees passed in these years repeatedly affirm the concept according to which the assembled nobility — either in person (viritim) or through their delegates — constituted the ‘body of the Holy Crown of Hungary’. Indeed, the notion of ‘estates’ in Hungary should be used in the singular: the nobility virtually alone, legally equal from magnate to the poorest one-plot nobleman, constituted the political nation. The prelates belonged to it as aristocrats; the lower clergy and the towns were in fact left out. The counties, based on decrees of the diets, were able to curb atrocities by powerful barons, to raze illegally built castles and to force chief officials to hand over and receive their commission from the estates. Hunyadi, still somewhat of a homo novus, built a successful alliance with the middle-rank nobility active in the counties, many of whom were his retainers. Not only were they the only effective power in the realm, but the regent needed them, at any rate until he was able to gain the support of the magnates. However, since his reputation among the nobility rested on heroic deeds, his defeat at the second battle at Kosovo in 1448 seriously damaged his standing, while also demonstrating that the sultan had final control over the Balkans. The Ottomans could prohibit the co-operation of the Albanian and Hercegovinian centres of anti-Turkish resistance with the advancing troops of Hunyadi and his allies. As a consequence Serbia and Bosnia, once again, sued for peace from the stronger side.