Andrew II of Hungary
Andrew II (
Hungarian:
András or
Endre,
Slovak:
Ondrej) (c.
1175–
October 26,
1235), king of
Hungary from
1205 until
1235, member of
Arpad dynasty.
Andrew was a son of King
Bela III. Even if he unsuccesfully rebelled against his brother he was named
regent by his older brother
Emericfor the minority of Ladislaus III. He succeeded his nephew, the infant
Ladislaus III after his death, as King of Hungary in 1205.Few other royal reigns were as detrimental to the Hungarian realm as Andrew's. Valiant, enterprising, pious as he was, all these fine qualities were ruined by a reckless good nature which never thought of the future. He declared in a decree that the generosity of a king should be limitless, and he followed this principle throughout his reign. He gave away everything - money, villages, domains, whole counties - to the utter impoverishment of the treasury, thereby rendering the crown, for the first time in Hungarian history, dependent upon the great
nobility eager for personal gain.
In all matters of government, Andrew was equally reckless and haphazard. He was directly responsible for the beginnings of the feudal anarchy which led to the extinction of the Árpáds
dynasty at the end of the
13th century. The great nobles did not even respect the lives of the royal family, for Andrew was recalled from a futile attempt to reconquer
Galicia through the murder of his first wife
Gertrude of Merania in
1213 by rebellious nobles jealous of the influence of her relatives.
In
1215 he married Iolanthe (
Yolande de Courtenay) of
France, but in
1217 was compelled by
Pope Honorius III to lead the
Fifth Crusade to the
Holy Land, which he undertook in hopes of being elected
Latin emperor of
Constantinople. The crusade was not popular in Hungary, but Andrew contrived to collect 15,000 men together, whom he led to
Venice. In order to finance his crusade he had to appoint
muslim businessmen to important economic positions. He was accused of giving his kingdom to the hands of muslims in order to free a far away land from them. After the surrender of Hungarian claims on Zara (
Zadar), about two-thirds of the crusaders were conveyed to
Acre. Nevertheless the whole expedition was a forlorn hope. The
Kingdom of Jerusalem was by this time reduced to a strip of coast about 440 mi² in extent, and after a drawn battle with the
Turks on the
Jordan River on
November 10 1217 and fruitless assaults on the fortresses of the
Lebanon and on
Mount Tabor, Andrew started home (
January 18,
1218) through Antioch (
Antakya), Iconium (
Konya), Constantinople, and
Bulgaria. On his return he found the feudal barons in the ascendant, and they extorted from him the
Golden Bull.
Andrew's last exploit was to defeat an invasion of
Frederick II of
Austria in
1234. That same year he married his third wife, Beatrice of
Este.
Andrew had five children by his first wife,
Gertrude of Merania:# Maria of Hungary (1203-1221), married Tsar
Ivan Asen II of Bulgaria#
Bela IV of Hungary (1206-1270)#
Saint Elizabeth of Hungary (1207-1231)# Kálmán, Duke of
Croatia (1208-1241)# András, King of Galicia (1210-1234)
From his second marriage to
Yolande de Courtenay, he had one daughter:# Jolán (Yolande) of Hungary (1215-1251), married
James I of AragonAndrew's third marriage to Beatrice d'Este produced one posthumous son:# István (1236-1271), who was himself father of King
Andrew III of Hungary*
