page_title: Henry II Kőszegi
section_title: Rebellions against the monarchs
hierarchical_section_title: Henry II Kőszegi / Rebellions against the monarchs
context_page_description: Henry (II) Kőszegi was a Hungarian influential lord at the turn of the 13th and 14th centuries. He was a member of the powerful Kőszegi family. He extended his influence over Upper Slavonia since the 1280s, becoming one of the so-called "oligarchs", who ruled their dominion de facto independently of the monarch. After the extinction of the House of Árpád, he participated in the dynastic struggles. He drew Southern Transdanubia under his suzerainty by then.
  He served as Ban of Slavonia three times and Master of the treasury. After his death, Charles I of Hungary defeated his sons and eliminated their province in 1316. Through his two sons, Henry Kőszegi was the progenitor of the Tamási and Herceg de Szekcső noble families.
context_section_description: Henry I Kőszegi, a significant figure of the era of so-called "feudal anarchy", was killed in the Battle of Föveny in September 1274. His power and wealth in Western Transdanubia were largely inherited by his two elder sons, Nicholas and Ivan, who divided their heirdom and the most valuable domains among themselves in 1279. Henry was excluded from the contract, only his wine growers were mentioned, to whom they were assigned certain vineyards in Moson and Pozsony counties. Historians János Karácsonyi and Attila Zsoldos considered Henry was granted lands in Slavonia from his brothers sometime before 1279, during an unequal sharing; his first lands laid in Varaždin County, the northwestern part of the province. There, it is presumable, he owned the castles of the late "Farkas of Zagorje" from the beginning, including Krapina (Korpona). Subsequently, the forts of Belec, Kostel, Vrbovec (Orbolc) and Oštrc (Oszterc) also belonged to his branch's property, but the time and circumstances of their acquisition are unknown. From these lands and castles on the southwestern corner of the kingdom, Henry expanded his influence over the territory, which was ruled by Joachim Gutkeled prior to that, between the rivers Drava and Sava (called Slavonia superior, "Upper Slavonia"), in the upcoming decades, and was considered the most powerful lord in the region by the extinction of the Árpád dynasty in 1301. For instance, he acquired the castles of Susica (later Szentgyörgy, present-day Đurđevac in Croatia) and Koprivnica (Kapronca) in Križevci County. During their family contract, Nicholas and Ivan did not renounce the possibility of their expansion into Slavonia, they both possessed landholdings and castles in the province too. In their agreement at Dubica on 20 April 1278, the Kőszegis and the Babonići divided the spheres of interest in Slavonia between each other. Henry and his brothers renounced territorial claims from all areas south of the river Sava (Slavonia inferior, "Lower Slavonia") in favor of Stephen Babonić and his clan, who acknowledged the Kőszegis' power north of the river at the same time.
  Since the 1280s, Henry assisted his elder brothers' political orientation and goals, in order to establish a coherent territorial province in Western Hungary, independently of the monarch, the young Ladislaus IV of Hungary. Taking advantage of the chaotic situation, which characterized Ladislaus' reign, the three Kőszegi brothers plundered the estates of the Diocese of Zagreb at various times in early 1281. As a result, Timothy, Bishop of Zagreb excommunicated them in March 1281. During the royal campaign against Ivan Kőszegi at the turn of 1283 and 1284, Henry provided help to his brother. Having Ladislaus failed, Nicholas, Henry and Bishop Peter stormed into Southern Transdanubia and jointly invaded and besieged the episcopal town of Pécs in March 1284. In the next year, when Albert I, Duke of Austria led his forces against Ivan's province after his series of looting and pillaging raids, and intended to besiege Borostyánkő Castle (today Bernstein, Austria), Ivan sought assistance from Nicholas, Peter and Henry, who recruited an army of 1,000 people.
  After the assassination of Ladislaus IV in July 1290, the Kőszegi brothers initially supported the new monarch, Andrew III in his external efforts due to their short-term interests in order to recover those castles and estates, which had lost following Duke Albert's war against the family in 1289 (the so-called "Güssing Feud"; German: Güssinger Fehde). But the Kőszegis acknowledged Andrew as their king only nominally. When the diet in the autumn of 1290 ordered the restoration of estates that had been unlawfully seized to their rightful owners, Andrew urged Henry to return some certain lands to local nobles in Slavonia, but he refused to do that. Replacing his brother Ivan, Henry was made Ban of Slavonia around July/October 1290. He held the dignity until the next year, when the Kőszegis participated in the king's military campaign against Austria in the summer of 1291, forcing Duke Albert 
caption: The coat-of-arms of Slavonia