238 THE REPUBLIC OF RAGUSA
to a land crusade, as the danger on that side was more pressing, rather than to a naval expedition. By the end of the year the whole of Servia was subjugated except Belgrad and the Danubian provinces. On the death of Ladislas, Matthew Corvinus, Hunyadi’s son, was elected by the Diet to succeed him (January 1458).
   Ragusa, which had been described by King Ladislas as the “ scutum confiniorum regni nostri Dalmatiae,” had been threatened by the Turks in 1455, but not seriously, as they were occupied elsewhere. In 1458 Mohammed again menaced the Republic, and sent Isak Beg into Bosnia to order the vassal princes to capture the city if she did not immediately make submission to him and increase her tribute.1 Hungarian aid was solicited, and the citizens prepared to defend themselves; but once more the danger was averted, as the Turks had other more pressing matters to attend to.
   In 1459 the final conquest of Bosnia was begun. King Stephen Thomas had paid tribute to the Sultan since 1449, and after the fall of Constantinople he had sent envoys to do homage to the victor,2 but at the same time he was imploring the help of the Pope; this caused much discontent among his Bogomil subjects, who had already shown themselves not unfriendly to the Turks. But after Hunyadi’s victory at Belgrad Stephen was encouraged to further resistance ; he refused to pay the tribute, and actually intended to lead a crusade in person.3 The Pope ordered his legate in Dalmatia to
               1	Dipl. Rag., 353.
2	John Sabota’s letter, quoted by Klaic, 398.
              3	Theiner, Mon. Hung., ii. 291-92, 297.