When Vlad Dracul grew apart from John Hunyadi and started to pay tribute to the Sultan he gained an additional foe in the person of his former brother in arms.
The sultan never trusted him, but Vlad realized the futility of the war and decided to retire as not to endanger the economy of Wallachia more than it had already been.
Knowing that the wallachian would betray him at any moment if Hunyadi rebuild his forces, the sultan set a trap and demanded that the tribute from 1442 be paid in person. Vlad Dracul was captured and not allowed to return to Wallachia until two of his sons were brought to Adrianople [Edinet]: Vlad and Radu.
Unfortunately Vlad Dracul returned home only to be killed at the command of John Hunyadi.
Young Vlad was sent with his younger brother in a city from Minor Asia [near Bursa], where he spent several years not in prison as historians previously thought but in a manor. They were treated as princes and had the opportunity to learn the Turkish language and customs.
While Vlad developed a deep hatred for the Turks and studied their military organization [knowledge that was to be extremely useful in developing future strategies in the war], Radu became an intimate of the sultan Mehmet and converted to Islam.
Although after his father died Vlad managed to reclaim the throne in Targoviste [helped by some landowners] he was banished shortly afterwards. This first rule in 1448 lasted at least 2 weeks within a maximum of 3 months.
Over the next eight years would be a ranger, taking refuge first in Moldova with his uncle Bogdan and then in Transylvania taking his cousin Stephen with him [he would later become Stephen the Great].
In the three years spent in Moldova [before Bogdan was overthrown and killed], Vlad reunited with his father`s widow and his step-sister. There are many documents attesting that Alexandra returned to Wallachia at one point after her brother took the throne in his second reign and we find some of her descendants in the following centuries in important families from the areas around Targoviste.
Vlad the Impaler was received in Transylvania for a very short period – Vlad and Hunyadi were not as close as we’d imagined … at least at the beginning, perhaps because Vlad knew that his father died at the command of the Transylvanian governor.
More than likely Hunyadi received him in one of his cities [Brasov or Sighisoara] for fear that he would otherwise resort to using help from the new Turkish sultan, Mehmed the 2nd, who remained recorded in history as the Conqueror of Constantinople.
Just because they were focusing on the siege of the imperial city, in November 1451 an armistice was signed on a minimum of three years, which included Wallahia. Hungary couldn`t intervene in Wallachia in any way, and Vladislav the 2nd was protected from any actions that would remove him from the throne.
Authorities in Brasov had to remove Vlad from the city because of this treaty, after receiving a letter from John Hunyadi, dated February 6, 1452.
The next four years remain a mystery.
We can not know exactly where Vlad Dracula fled, but in 1456 he was already among the protégées of John Hunyadi, and the latter was planning to put him on the wallachian throne.
๑۞๑ Related:๑۞๑
† Vlad the Impaler
† Count Dracula
