Dracula, Prince of Many Faces

by Radu R Florescu

  Some extraordinary documents seemed to provide the king with the most damning justification for Dracula's arrest. These were three letters bearing Dracula's signature, written from a place called “Rothel” and dated November 7, 1462, only copies of which have survived, allegedly intercepted by spies of the king. One of these letters was addressed to Mehmed himself, another to the renegade Vizier Mahmud, and the third to Prince Stephen the Great of Moldavia. All three seem to reveal an unaccountable change of attitude and policy on Dracula's part. First, according to the document, Dracula addressed Sultan Mehmed in abject and servile terms such as “emperor of emperors” and “lord and master.” Dracula “humbly begged forgiveness for his crimes,” “offered his services to the ‘Turks’ to campaign alongside the sultan, to conquer Transylvania and Hungary, and “offered even to help in seizing the person of the Hungarian king.” Because of the style of writing, the rhetoric of meek submission (hardly compatible with what we know of Dracula's character), clumsy wording, and poor Latin, most historians consider these letters to be forgeries. It was hardly conceivable that Dracula would have been foolish enough to write letters of treason while he was on Hungarian territory, far removed from the Ottoman forces to whom he appealed. The clinching argument is that, in spite of various attempts at localizing “Rothel” (Turnu Rou, Cisndie, and Rucr have all been mentioned as possible substitutes), no satisfactory identification has thus far been made.

  We believe that the “Rothel” letters were clever forgeries (like the more famous “casket letters” manufactured a century later by Queen Elizabeth's partisans to indict her rival Mary Stuart in the eyes of Europe) aimed at blackening Dracula's reputation and making him appear a traitor to the Christian cause. The probable author of the forgery was one Johann Reudell, the Catholic chaplain of the famous Black Church at Braov, which had earlier been looted by Dracula during his terror raids. The church is now labeled “Black” since it had at one time been half burned down by the Turks. Because of its pure Gothic lines and its rich collection of priceless carpets, given by Turkish merchants to buy the goodwill of the city authorities, it is still one of the main cultural sites in the city. Knowing that the chancelleries of Venice, Milan, Rome, and Vienna, whom the letters were intended to influence, were totally ignorant of Transylvanian place names, Reudell, perhaps not very imaginatively, simply used an adaptation of his surname as a place name, “ex Rothel.” This mystery eluded all the Dracula sleuths until the Romanian historian Radu Constantinescu recently proved this startling subterfuge on the basis of material available at the Braov archives. In this respect, Reudell truly espoused the hostile sentiments of the German Saxons, who never forgave Dracula's atrocities during the period from 1457 to 1460. Apart from indicting Dracula as a traitor, Saxon documents also portrayed him as a demented killer and psychopath, as one of the worst tyrants of mankind, “who had killed many German men, women and children in Transylvania aimlessly and deserved execution for his crimes against humanity,” according to Chalcondyles. Materials such as these were too good to be ignored by the scribes and propagandists of the Hungarian chancellery, whose duties were to elevate their master in the eyes of Europe. It was in this manner that the first anti-Dracula tracts found their way into the foreign-affairs concerns at Venice, Milan, Vienna, and Rome. The “Rothel letters” and other damaging evidence against Dracula were later included in the Commentaries of Pope Pius II. It was one of the first eloquent demonstrations of the effectiveness of propaganda even in the fifteenth century.

  On the whole, European reactions to the official explanation stemming from Buda were cautious. Among the first powers to be informed of the reasons for Dracula's arrest were the doge of Venice, Cristoforo Moro, and the senate of the Venetian republic, through Moro's able spokesman at Buda, Pietro Tommasi, who blithely reported on the explanations of the Hungarian court in succeeding dispatches without even minimal comments. The senate, however, reading in between the lines of the ambassador's report, was not entirely satisfied by the official explanation and requested of Tommasi additional facts concerning the “precise circumstances of Dracula's arrest.” Unable to provide them, the ambassador, who was a skillful diplomat and had undoubtedly become aware of the Hungarian chancellery's sophisticated manipulation of the circumstances of Dracula's arrest, refused to convey deceitful information to his home government any longer and tendered his resignation—a request that was refused by the senate. But the Hungarian court, through its spies, who intercepted even diplomatic correspondence, decided that the Venetian diplomat simply knew too much and expelled him from Buda as persona non grata. This angered the Venetian republic, which instructed its new ambassador, Giovanni Aymo, “to find out the truth on the character of the negotiations between Dracula and Matthias” and whether Matthias had signed a secret truce with the Turks. In the light of these instructions, it is clear that Venice, at least, did not believe in the official explanations given by the Hungarian king.

  If there was skepticism on the side of Venice, there was even more open cynicism displayed in Rome at the papal court, though initially Pope Pius II thought it prudent to accept the explanations of the Hungarians at face value. However, the Roman curia, familiar with Dracula's heroic exploits on the Danube, also found it difficult to accept that this foremost crusader should suddenly decide to betray his Dragon oath and seek the support of the sultan. It was with the purpose of learning the truth that Pius II sent a new papal legate at Buda, Niccolò Modrussa, to learn what really occasioned Dracula's arrest by King Matthias. Modrussa was instructed to approach the king in person and if possible get to know Dracula. (It was largely as a result of these instructions that Modrussa, who obtained an audience with the detainee, was able to leave us a most detailed description of the Wallachian prince's physical traits, which corresponds closely to the brushstrokes of the unknown Renaissance artist who painted the prince at the Hungarian court.) Other contemporaries also expressed concern about Dracula's arrest, among them the Pole Jan Dlugosz, who dared accuse King Matthias of having acted in concert with the Turks—an obvious allusion to the truce which had been signed with Mehmed. Even the Hungarian court chronicler, Bonfini, vaguely alluded to the fact that concerning Dracula's arrest, “the king had acted in opposition to general opinion.” It was evident that Dracula's imprisonment had created an embarrassing “diplomatic problem” that it was in the king's interest to resolve. His explanations and rationalizations for his failure to embark on a crusade were simply rejected by the majority of European statesmen and diplomats.

  The problem of Dracula's imprisonment in Hungary for “some twelve years,” as the Russian ambassador, Kuritsyn, would have it, poses serious historical problems. New evidence seems to suggest that once safely out of the reach of the Germans of Transylvania, Dracula was placed under house arrest as a distinguished prisoner. He was initially confined at Buda in the fortress of Vác and later incarcerated in the beautiful summer palace at Visegrád, located on a hill above the scenic Danube bend, where King Matthias entertained his important guests. Dracula's unofficial prisoner status is confirmed by the fact that his name does not figure on the roster of political detainees listed in the high-security jail called Solomon's Tower, on the banks of the Danube, which has been beautifully restored. Within the large complex at Visegrád, which is today the site of careful archaeological investigation and partial reconstruction, was centered the flowering culture of the Hungarian Renaissance. Like the Medici of Florence, King Matthias evidently liked to think of himself as a true patron of learning and the arts. He used Visegrád to impress foreign visitors with the material splendors of his age, reflected in the countless artistic treasures in the main palace, recently rediscovered.

  At Visegrád Dracula was occasionally invited into the king's presence and became a subject of interest among courtiers and diplomats in view of his ambiguous reputation. Many of the anecdotes about Dracula that later circulated throughout Europe were written at the time of his so-called imprisonment. Well-k
nown portraitists were encouraged to come to Buda to capture his physical traits on canvas. It is likely that the original less-than-life-size portrait, a copy of which has survived in the so-called monster gallery at Castle Ambras in the Tyrol, was originally commissioned by King Matthias himself.

  When Matthias signed the armistice he had earlier concluded with the Turks, and a delegation from Sultan Mehmed finally made its appearance at the Hungarian summer court, the king received the Turkish diplomats in the presence of Dracula. He knew of the psychological impact that this confrontation would entail—the awesome “Impaler Prince,” even as a captive, had the power of sending shivers down the spines of the Turkish delegates. It was a way of signaling to the king's foes that Matthias would keep Dracula in reserve, just in case the sultan violated the provisions of that treaty. In essence, Dracula had become a living legend at the court of the Hungarian king.

  Two separate accounts of Dracula's activities in jail mention bizarre behavior. The narrative of the Russian ambassador, Fedor Kuritsyn, tells us, “It is said of him that even while in jail he could not cure himself of the evil habit of catching mice and having birds bought at the marketplace, so that he could punish them by impalement. He cut off the heads of some of the birds; others he had stripped of their feathers and then let loose.” This strange behavior is confirmed by a few suggestive details in a letter from Gabriele Rangoni, Bishop of Erlau, to Pope Sixtus IV in 1476. The bishop wrote, “Unable to forget his wickedness, he caught mice and, cutting them up into pieces, stuck them on small pieces of wood, just as he had stuck men on stakes.” It is unlikely that either of these accounts could have been copied from the other, so the historian must deem them at least possible, however strange the behavior may seem, suggesting that there may have been more than a streak of irrationality in Dracula's “impalement fetishism.”

  The shift in the fortunes of Frederick III after the Vienna uprising were probably in part responsible for King Matthias's softening of his attitude toward his fearsome political prisoner. By December 1462 the Viennese uprising against the Holy Roman Emperor had been brutally repressed through the intervention of King George Podbrady of Bohemia, Matthias's father-in-law and leader of the Bohemian Hussites. He had thus extricated Frederick III from a humiliating situation. Though Matthias now renounced all ambitions over the ancestral Habsburg estates of his rival, he was all the more intent upon securing the holy crown of St. Stephen of Hungary, which had been promised to him by the emperor in an earlier agreement at Graz. Frederick, however, had never made good his promise and continued to keep the crown, which alone conferred legitimacy, safely hidden in his imperial palace at Wiener Neustadt, just in case he might take the fancy of becoming king of Hungary. However, prodded by the papacy and by the promise of 80,000 gold crowns from King Matthias, Frederick III, in his characteristically unpredictable manner, finally agreed to implement the earlier accord and surrender the crown to King Matthias. This occurred in June of 1463, when Matthias sent a delegation of 3,000 formally attired knights from the best families of Hungary to bring back the precious jeweled crown in exchange for the promised sum. The formal investiture of King Matthias took place the following year in the ancient cathedral of Esztergom with the customary pomp and ceremony. It was the first formal coronation since the days of Ladislas V, and there followed weeks of feasting and merriment in the Hungarian capital. At last, the son of the great Hunyadi could be considered the legitimate king. One fact that had not escaped the attention of the gathered nobles of the Hungarian establishment was the presence of a little man with almond eyes, a feathered cap, and a severe countenance. Dracula had been invited to the ceremonies of inauguration; he sat in a choice seat reserved for the best families of the land. These were certainly auspicious omens.

  Matthias's triumphant coronation was offset by the tragic death of Pope Pius II in 1464, an event that saddened Dracula and those who still believed in the ideal of crusading. Knowing his end was near, the pope freely vented his disillusionment with the Christian states. He was particularly disappointed with the Hungarian king, who had pocketed over 40,000 ducats from the papal curia and from Venice, in part, it was suspected, to defray the costs of reclaiming the crown of St. Stephen. In a somber spirit, the pope addressed the college of cardinals, ready to sacrifice his own person and lead the new crusade that he had proclaimed five years before: “We know it is a serious matter for a man of our age and that we shall go to certain death in one way or another.… We must die one day and we do not mind where, provided we die well.” These were the prophetic words of a man who knew his days were numbered. Having assembled a ragtag army of some 2,000 ill-clad and poorly armed volunteers from every part of Europe (somewhat reminiscent of Capistrano's dedicated crusaders who had saved Belgrade in 1456), the pope managed to reach the marshes of Ancona, where he waited for the Venetian transport ships that were to carry his force across the Adriatic. He finally caught sight of the sails of the galleys in the distant horizon on the morning of August 14; then, racked by pain and exhausted by fevers induced by the insalubrious August sun, Pope Pius II expired on August 15, while his army was celebrating the Feast of the Assumption.

  Following his death, the crusaders simply melted away, almost as precipitously as they had gathered.

  Pius II's successor, the Venetian Pietro Barbo — Pope Paul II — openly reproved the Hungarian king for having used crusading subsidies for political ends (that is, the purchase of the Hungarian crown). Now that he was the legitimate successor of St. Stephen, Hungary's first Catholic king, who owed his crown to the papacy, it was increasingly embarrassing for Matthias to justify his continued lack of action against the Turks.

  Developments in both Wallachia and Moldavia were to provide the Hungarian king with a solid pretext for reconsidering his inaction. Having duly recognized Radu the Handsome as legitimate prince in November 1462, Matthias was willing to continue this relationship so long as Radu respected a policy of balance between his allegiance to Mehmed and his vassalage toward Hungary. Ironically enough, the first blow to disturb that balance occurred when Stephen the Great of Moldavia, Dracula's cousin, successfully attacked the fortress of Chilia on the Danube, held by the Wallachians in January of 1465. It had taken Stephen two years to avenge the humiliation he had suffered in 1462.

  Stephen's capture of Chilia, always considered a particularly important strategic outpost by the Hungarians, was indirectly responsible for the worsening of relations with King Matthias, who eventually attacked the Moldavian prince in the fall of 1467. The Hungarian king, however, was decisively beaten by the Moldavians at the battle of Baia-Mare in December of that year, being severely wounded in the course of battle. Radu the Handsome, still technically an ally of the Hungarians as well as the Turks, could hardly afford to accept the loss of that important fortress without a further challenge, and thus in 1470 began a campaign of attrition between himself and his cousin. Given the increasing dependency of Radu on the Turks, Stephen's intention was clearly to oust Radu from the Wallachian throne and replace him with a more energetic Dneti protégé of his own, Basarab III Laiot. Stephen's campaign against Radu began in earnest in the fall of 1473. The crucial encounter took place about thirty miles from Bucharest on the Vodnu River. Though he was supported by a Turkish contingent, Radu, never known for his courage in battle, abandoned his troops and took refuge in the fortress of Bucharest. The Moldavians captured the city of Bucharest on November 24, 1473, and proclaimed Basarab Laiot prince. Part of the considerable booty of war captured by Stephen included “all Radu's treasures, all his vestments, his standards, and flags.” Most humiliating was the capture of his wife, Maria Despina, and his beautiful daughter, Maria Voichia, whom Stephen later took as his second wife. Throughout the year 1474 the struggle for the Wallachian throne raged on. Radu, who had withdrawn to Giurgiu, had the support of the Turks, but the Hungarians were fast losing interest in his fate. Radu's forces were again beaten by Stephen's troops, and Basarab Laiot, who had made his peac
e with the Turks, retained the Wallachian throne. Dracula's brother Radu died in January, 1475, as the result of a long bout with syphilis. He was buried at the monastery of Tînganu near Bucharest, while his wife and daughter remained in Stephen's hands. Only Vintil Florescu, one of Radu's boyars, attempted to keep the princesses' spirits up by assuring Maria Despina that efforts were being made to obtain her release.

  The death of Radu the Handsome and the defection of Basarab Laiot to the Turks provided Matthias with a valid argument to set plans in motion for Dracula's rehabilitation and to launch his long-delayed crusade against the Turks. The Russian diplomat Kuritsyn records that following the death of Prince Radu, the king sent an emissary to Dracula with the question: Would he wish to become prince of Wallachia as he had been before? Would he be willing to convert to Catholicism? The stipulation was that if not, then he would be obliged to die in prison. In short, the king made a proposal that Dracula could ill afford to refuse. The prospects of complete freedom and reassuming a position of power were certainly worth a Catholic mass. So Dracula abandoned Orthodoxy and became a Roman Catholic. With this conversion, the Hungarian king could finally accept an offer that Dracula had made as early as 1462: namely, to marry within the extended family of the Hungarian king. The most likely choice was Ilona Szilágy, daughter of Mihály Szilágy, Matthias's uncle (hence a cousin of Matthias). It should also be recalled that Dracula had been closely allied to Mihály Szilágy in his early struggles in Transylvania and even later when the powerful voivode of Transylvania lost favor with the king himself. The marriage took place, and Dracula was able to add a new heraldic insignia to his coat of arms: the blackbird, symbol of the Corvinus family. (John Hunyadi's wife was a Szilágy.)