HUNYADI

hunyadi, laszlo (1433-1457), hungarian statesman and warrior, was the eldest son of janos hunyadi and elizabeth szilagyi. at a very early age he accompanied his father in his campaigns. after the battle of kossovo (1448) he was left for a time, as a hostage for his father, in the hands of george brankovic, despot of servia. in 1452 he was a member of the deputation which went to vienna to receive back the hungarian king ladislaus v. in 1453 he was already ban of croatia-dalmatia. at the diet of buda (1455) he resigned all his dignities, because of the accusations of ulrich cillei and the other enemies of his house, but a reconciliation was ultimately patched up and he was betrothed to maria, the daughter of the palatine, laszlo garai. after his father's death in 1456, he was declared by his arch-enemy cillei (now governor of hungary with unlimited power), responsible for the debts alleged to be owing by the elder hunyadi to the state; but he defended himself so ably at the diet of futak (october 1456) that cillei feigned a reconciliation, promising to protect the hunyadis on condition that they first surrendered all the royal castles entrusted to them. a beginning was to be made with the fortress of belgrade, of which laszlo was commandant, cillei intending to take the king with him to belgrade and assassinate laszlo within its walls. but hunyadi was warned betimes, and while admitting ladislaus v. and cillei, he excluded their army of mercenaries. on the following morning (9th of november 1456) cillei, during a private interview, suddenly drew upon laszlo, but was himself cut down by the commandant's friends, who rushed in on hearing the clash of weapons. the terrified young king, who had been privy to the plot, thereupon pardoned hunyadi, and at a subsequent interview with his mother at temesvar swore that he would protect the whole family. as a pledge of his sincerity he appointed laszlo lord treasurer and captain-general of the kingdom. suspecting no evil, hunyadi accompanied the king to buda, but on arriving there was arrested on a charge of compassing ladislaus's ruin, condemned to death without the observance of any legal formalities, and beheaded on the 16th of march 1457. see i. acsady, _history of the hungarian realm_ (hung.), vol. i. (budapest, 1904). (r. n. b.) hunza (also known as kanjut) and nagar, two small states on the north-west frontier of kashmir, formerly under the administration of the gilgit agency. the two states, which are divided by a river which runs in a bed 600 ft. wide between cliffs 300 ft. high, are inhabited generally by people of the same stock, speaking the same language, professing the same form of the mahommedan religion, and ruled by princes sprung from the same family. nevertheless they have been for centuries persistent rivals, and frequently at war with each other. formerly hunza was the more prominent of the two, because it held possession of the passes leading to the pamirs, and could plunder the caravans on their way between turkestan and india. but they are both shut up in a recess of the mountains, and were of no importance until about 1889, when the advance of russia up to the frontiers of afghanistan, and the great development of her military sources in asia, increased the necessity for strengthening the british line of defence. this led to the establishment of the gilgit agency, the occupation of chitral, and the hunza expedition of 1891, which asserted british authority over hunza and nagar. the country is inhabited by a dard race of the yeshkun caste speaking burishki. for a description of the people see gilgit. the hunza-nagar expedition of 1891, under colonel a. durand, was due to the defiant attitude of the hunza and nagar chiefs towards the british agent at gilgit. the fort at nilt was stormed, and after a fortnight's delay the cliffs (1000 ft. high) beyond it were also carried by assault. hunza and nagar were occupied, the chief of nagar was reinstated on making his submission, and the half-brother of the raja of hunza was installed as chief in the place of his brother.