Catherine of Poděbrady

The marriage of Matthias to Poděbrady's daughter takes place in Buda on May 1, 1463.

Matthias is twenty, his bride thirteen.

Soon after the marriage, Catherine leaves her family and goes to live in Hungary with her new husband.

The poet Janus Pannonius helps teach Catherine Latin.

The queen is very young, so she plays little part in the politics of her husband's two kingdoms.

Matthias, on returning home, is crowned with the Holy Crown on March 29, 1464.

Twenty-one days after, on April 8, the fourteen-year-old Queen Catherine dies in childbirth.

The child, a son, is stillborn.

The event causes Matthias to lose hope of siring a legitimate heir.

After driving the Czechs out of his northern counties, he turns southwards again, this time recovering all the parts of Bosnia which still remain in Ottoman hands.

Matthias has gained independence of and power over the barons by dividing them, and by raising a large royal army, fekete sereg (the King's Black Army of Hungary of mercenaries), whose main force includes the remnants of the Hussites from Bohemia.

At this time Hungary reaches its greatest territorial extent of the age (present-day southeastern Germany to the west, Dalmatia to the south, Eastern Carpathians to the east, and southwestern Poland to the north).

Soon after his coronation, Matthias, no longer bound to the family of George of Poděbrady, again turns his attention upon Bohemia.