In the fall of 1462 Matthias chose to recognize the reign of Radu the Handsome and took Vlad with him to Hungary. There are several versions of what happened that made it possible for them to capture the Impaler, but the fact is that Vlad was taken to Buddha and was held in detention at Visegrad.
His “almost” release from imprisoned came after he accepted his new wife and there are several clues in the documents of Hungarian authors that suggest he was kept near the court of Corvinus at first.
As an interesting fact; Vlad had up to 5 children [girls] with his new wife though her exact identity remains a mystery to this day.
We do not know how Matt managed to subjugate the will, he did not desire to escape, because if he truly wished freedom it`s hard to believe that his attempts would fail due to his personality and knowing how skilled he was in the art of war.
To justify himself in front of Pope Pius II, who sent large sums of money to finance a crusade against the Sultan, Matthias took advantage of all the stories that were circulating at that time in Transylvania.
In addition to that, he produced a letter which he claimed his spies intercepted and used it to make the Europeans believe that Vlad the Impaler was preparing to betray Christianity and help the Sultan catch the Hungarian king in a trap.
Fragments of this letter are found in the autobiographical work of the Pope [it appeared in the summer of 1463].
If the Pope did not believe the lies presented to him [probably written by a Saxon merchant in Brasov] he at least pretended to do so and even painted Dracula using information from the letter.
To ensure that the European kings who already agreed to start a crusade against the turks won`t turn against him and endanger the crown he so hardly gained from the Habsburgs, Matthias used the pattern [discovered in Germany around that time] to release a compilation of the most terrible stories they had collected against Vlad.
Giving free hand to the Saxons so they could express their frustrations against Dracula, encouraging exaggerations and making sure to silence any talks about the great victory gained by Vlad [even if only half] – culminating with the withdrawal of the Sultan from Wallachia, Matthias manipulated the public opinion [this is what it was all about, even if at an elementary level] and to put himself in a better light.
When he was released 13 years later, Vlad was a general in the army of Corvinus for a long period [2-3 years], before taking back the throne of his father in 1476.
๑۞๑ Related:๑۞๑
† Vlad the Impaler
† Count Dracula
