In 1453, the young king was able to take up government in Hungary and Bohemia. Ladislas affirmed the nobles’ privileges: the ideas of corporate autonomy were forgotten, the ‘annulled’ coronation of 1440 was accepted, the acts of both Queen Elizabeth and King Wladislas were cancelled. The central royal courts and the chancelleries were revitalised after many years of virtual legal vacuum. The trusted counsellor of Hunyadi, a champion of the lesser nobility, John Vitez of Sredna, became secret chancellor; Hunyadi was made chief captain and perpetual count in charge of royal revenues. About the finances of the country around 1454 we have a unique and valuable document. Designed as a proposal for reform, it records that the main revenues came from the salt and mining monopolies (100,000 to 150,000 gold florins) and the direct taxes on tenant peasants (the so-called portal dues, 40,000 florins); much less from customs duties (12,000 florins), urban taxes and payments from the Jews (11,000 florins), from other groups in royal service (such as the Saxon townsmen, the free Cuman and Szekely warriors, who still paid partly in kind, 30,000 florins in coin) and lesser items (such as the profit from sturgeon caught in the Danube). The losses of income from the southern and Transylvanian regions, the result of Ottoman devastation, were significant enough to be noted as reasons for reducing demands on these previously lucrative areas. The treasury’s total income amounted probably to half the hoped-for sum, leaving for the king’s use hardly more than 2 5,000 florins. The crown’s poverty seriously hampered the kingdom’s defence capabilities. Considerable funds for the upkeep of castles and the payment of professional soldiers were needed even in so-called peacetime, when minor skirmishes were still everyday occurrences along the long southern border. The relatively low customs and urban income suggests a lag in commercial development. The preponderance of direct taxes on the peasantry, much of which finally came into the coffers of their landlords, theoretically in return for hiring soldiers, points to a still overwhelmingly seignorial, agrarian economy.
Hunyadi, in charge of the finances for defence, seems to have been able to make good use of the limited resources, but was, apparently, unable to muster sufficient forces, when, in 1453, Constantinople was facing the final Ottoman onslaught. Minor victories were still scored, but the Ottoman-controlled regions kept growing to the detriment of Hungary. Three years later, Sultan Mehemmed II, the Conqueror, challenged Hungary at the siege of Belgrade, defended by Hunyadi’s brother-in-law, Michael Szilagyi. The crusade called by the pope, this time propagated by the charismatic preacher and inquisitor, John of Capistrano, mobilised thousands of peasants and townsmen in Hungary and the neighbouring countries. On 22 July 1456, Hunyadi, with the help of the crusaders, raised the siege. The relief of the fortress, the strategic key to the Hungarian Plain, became a legend in its own time and in fact secured peace for the kingdom for decades. However, unrest among the crusading poor, raising their voice against the lords’ reaping the fruits of the victory, prohibited the pursuit of the enemy. The troops were sent home, and Hunyadi died a few weeks later in the epidemic that broke out in the camp. Capistrano, soon to be revered as a saint, followed him in October.
With the hero’s death the latent conflicts between his followers and the king’s party broke open. Hunyadi’s elder son, Ladislas, was first inclined to hand over the supreme command his father had held, but when the king and his uncle, Ulrich von Cilli, the new captain in chief, came to Belgrade, Hunyadi’s men killed Ulrich. As soon as the king regained his freedom of action, he had the Hunyadi sons arrested and Ladislas executed for treason. In response, their family, supported by its followers, openly rebelled. King Ladislas left for Prague, taking the younger son Matyas with him, but died there a year later. Hungary was left without a ruler.