The Wedding of Matthias and the Death of Dracula The war was raging across various countries. Initially, these were battles with the Turks who had invaded Transylvania, and later, King Matthias kept his promise and helped Dracula regain the Wallachian (Romanian) throne. The king himself did not go on the campaign, as he was preparing for his wedding with Princess Beatrice. The bride, who was on her way from Naples, was already halfway to Hungary, so the Hungarian army that assisted Dracula was led by the king's trusted commander, István Báthory. In November 1476, Dracula took the throne with the support of Hungarian troops and his long-time friend, Moldavian prince Stephen. On November 8, 1476, the old Wallachian (Romanian) capital, Târgoviște, was captured. On November 16, the new capital, Bucharest, was taken. On November 26, the general assembly of Wallachian nobility elected Dracula as their prince. In December, the Hungarian and Moldavian troops left the territory of Wallachia. Dracula, with only a small number of warriors at his disposal, was left alone. For this reason, he did not invite his wife, as the situation was too unstable. Meanwhile, Matthias was lavishly celebrating his wedding to Princess Beatrice. Ilona attended the wedding as she was a close relative of the king. On December 6, 1476, Beatrice reached the border of the Kingdom of Hungary, where she was met by the king's mother and Hungarian magnates. On December 10, Matthias himself met the bride on the next leg of her journey. On December 12, Beatrice was crowned in the ancient city of Székesfehérvár. On December 13, everyone arrived in the Hungarian capital, and the grand celebrations began. One ball and knightly tournament followed another, and on December 22, the wedding took place. Around the same time, at the end of December, Dracula died in battle with the Turks. This might not have happened if Matthias had taken the war more seriously. The royal wedding cost so much money that it could have financed another campaign, but Matthias chose to finance the wedding instead. Dracula's Widow Ilona's life after Dracula's death was not very fortunate. A few years later, her child was taken away from her. This was done according to a custom known as avunculate. In Europe, the custom of avunculate has its roots in Roman law, according to which a widow cannot raise her son alone. If a woman becomes widowed, she must give her son to her brother to be raised as a "real man." Ilona had no brothers—only a cousin, King Matthias. Thus, the child was taken by the king, and this is why the old Russian "Tale of Voivode Dracula" mentions that one of Dracula's sons, the youngest, "lives with the king." It is likely that Ilona tried to circumvent this custom, which is why she remarried twice. She hoped that by no longer being a widow, she could keep her child. Ilona's new marriage ended quickly—her husband died after just over a year. She remarried again, but her child was still taken away. In 1485, Ilona faced another tragedy. Her stepson, Vlad the Younger, whom she continued to care for and even secured an estate for him from Matthias in Transylvania, passed away. This estate was called Sântimbru. The village of Sântimbru still exists today and is located halfway between the cities of Alba Iulia and Timișoara. The Russian ambassador Feodor Kuritsyn, who would later become the author of the "Tale of Voivode Dracula," was a witness to Ilona's grief. He was in the Hungarian capital in 1485 and concluded that such deep sorrow could only be caused by the death of a biological son, not a stepson. This is why the "Tale" says that the Hungarian king's cousin bore Dracula "two sons," not one. This mistake by Kuritsyn leads to another. The "Tale" claims that Dracula and Ilona's marriage lasted about 10 years, although it was actually less than 2 years. Kuritsyn settled on the number 10 because he compared the ages of Dracula's two sons and assumed they had the same mother. Kuritsyn knew that Vlad the Younger had died as an adult and married man, while Dracula's other son, who "lived with the king," was then a boy of 9 years old. Kuritsyn reasoned that sons with such an age gap could not have been born in a short period, so he concluded that the marriage had been long. In Ilona's subsequent marriages, she did not have any more children, which allows us to assert that her marriage to Dracula was one of the most significant events of her life. Ilona died around 1500, which means that although she was separated from her son, she was able to hold her grandchildren.