Wallachia
was founded in 1290 by Radu Negru (Rudolph the
Black). It was dominated by Hungary until 1330,
when it became independent. The first ruler of
the new country was Prince Basarab the Great, an
ancestor of Dracula. Dracula’s grandfather,
Prince Mircea the Old, reigned from 1386 to
1418. Eventually, the House of Basarab was split
into two factions—Mircea’s descendant’s,
and the descendants of another prince named Dan
(called the Danesti). Much of the struggles to
assume the throne during Dracula’s time were
between these two competing factions.
In 1431
King Sigismund made Vlad Dracul the military governor of
Transylvania, a region directly northwest of Wallachia.
(Vlad III was born during this time, in the latter part
of 1431.) Vlad was not content to serve as mere
governor, and so gathered supporters for his plan to
seize Wallachia from its current occupant, Alexandru I,
a Danesti prince. In 1436 he succeeded in his plan,
killing Alexandru and becoming Vlad II. (Presumably
there was an earlier prince also named Vlad.)
 For six years Vlad
Dracul attempted to follow a middle ground between his
two powerful neighbors. The prince of Wallachia was
officially a vassal of the King of Hungary and Vlad was
still a member of the Order of the Dragon and sworn to
fight the infidel. At the same time the power of the
Ottomans seemed unstoppable. Vlad was forced to pay
tribute to the Sultan, just as his father, Mircea the
Old, had been forced to do.
In 1442 Vlad attempted
to remain neutral when the Turks invaded Transylvania.
The Turks were defeated, and the vengeful Hungarians
under John Hunyadi—the White Knight of Hungary--forced
Vlad Dracul and his family to flee Wallachia. In 1443
Vlad regained the Wallachian throne with Turkish
support, but on the condition that Vlad send a yearly
contingent of Wallachian boys to join the Sultan’s
Janissaries. In 1444, to further assure to the Sultan
his good faith, Vlad sent his two younger sons--Vlad III
and Radu the Handsome--to Adrianople as hostages. Vlad
III remained a hostage in Adrianople until 1448.
In
1444 Hungary broke the peace and launched the Varna
Campaign, led by John Hunyadi, in an effort to drive the
Turks out of Europe. Hunyadi demanded that Vlad Dracul
fulfill his oath as a member of the Order of the Dragon
and a vassal of Hungary and join the crusade against the
Turks, yet the wily politician still attempted to steer
a middle course. Rather than join the Christian forces
himself, he sent his oldest son, Mircea. Perhaps he
hoped the Sultan would spare his younger sons if he
himself did not join the crusade.
The results of the
Varna Crusade are well known. The Christian army was
utterly destroyed in the Battle of Varna. John Hunyadi
managed to escape the battle under inglorious
conditions. From this moment forth John Hunyadi was
bitterly hostile toward Vlad Dracul and his eldest son.
In 1447 Vlad Dracul was assassinated along with his son
Mircea. Mircea was apparently buried alive by the boyars
and merchants of Tirgoviste. (Vlad III later exacted
revenge upon these boyars and merchants.) Hunyadi placed
his own candidate, a member of the Danesti clan, on the
throne of Wallachia.
On receiving news of
Vlad Dracul’s death the Turks released Vlad III and
supported him as their own candidate for the Wallachian
throne. In 1448, at the age of seventeen, Vlad III
managed to briefly seize the Wallachian throne. Yet
within two months Hunyadi forced him to surrender the
throne and flee to his cousin, the Prince of Moldavia.
Vlad III’s successor to the throne, however—Vladislov
II—unexpectedly instituted a pro-Turkish policy, which
Hunyadi found to be unacceptable. He then turned to Vlad
III, the son of his old enemy, as a more reliable
candidate for the throne, and forged an allegiance with
him to retake the throne by force. Vlad III received the
Transylvanian duchies formerly governed by his father
and remained there, under the protection of Hunyadi,
waitng for an opportunity to retake Wallachia from his
rival.
In 1453, however, the
Christian world was shocked by the final fall of
Constantinople to the Ottomans. Hunyadi thus broadened
the scope of his campaign against the insurgent Turks.
In 1456 Hunyadi invaded Turkish Serbia while Vlad III
simultaneously invaded Wallachia. In the Battle of
Belgrade Hunyadi was killed and his army defeated.
Meanwhile, Vlad III succeeded in killing Vladislav II
and taking the Wallachian throne.
Vlad III then began
his main reign of Wallachia, which stretched from
1456-1462. It was during this period that he instituted
his strict policies, stood up against the Turks and
began his reign of terror by impalement.
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