JOHN Zápolya, king of HUNGARY. — Son of the Palatine Count Stephen Zápolya, born in 1487. The family traditions and the great power of his ancestors enabled him to emerge while still young in the civil struggles of Hungary, especially after the death of King Ladislaus II in 1516.
After the battle of Mohács against the Turks, in which, for King Louis II, Zápolya was elected king and crowned (10 Nov. 1526) by a Diet loyal to him at Tokay, while another assembly at Ofen (Buda) acknowledged as king Ferdinand of Habsburg, brother of Emperor Charles V, who had married Anna, sister and heir of Louis II. War now broke out openly between the two rivals. Zápolya, repeatedly defeated, inaugurated the policy of the Hungarians of seeking protection from the Turkish sultan. These dealings brought upon him excommunication by the Church, without affording him any means of resisting the superior forces of his adversary. In 1538 he made peace with Ferdinand at Grosswardein (Varadino), but immediately violated it and died in 1540 amid the clash of arms. The Hungarians remember him as the last representative of the national tradition in opposition to the House of Habsburg.