Vlad II Dracul
- Born:
- c. 1395, Walachia [now in Romania]
- Died:
- c. 1447, Walachia
Vlad II Dracul (born c. 1395, Walachia [now in Romania]—died c. 1447, Walachia) was voivode (prince or military governor) of Walachia, a region in what is now Romania, from 1436 to 1442 and from 1443 to 1447. He lived during a tumultuous period of transition in eastern Europe, when the Byzantine Empire was in decline and the Ottoman Turks were advancing into the Continent. As a ruler, he sought to maintain Walachia’s independence from both his Hungarian and his Turkish neighbors.
Vlad II Dracul is remembered today primarily as the father of Vlad III Dracula, better known as Vlad the Impaler, who is thought to be the historical inspiration for the vampire Count Dracula in Bram Stoker’s Gothic novel Dracula (1897).
Family, early life, and marriage
Vlad II Dracul was the fourth son of Mircea I (the Old) of Walachia and possibly his wife, Mara, who was a member of the Toma family of powerful Hungarian landowners. (Some sources claim, however, that he was born out of wedlock.) Mircea governed the principality of Walachia from 1386 to 1394 and again from 1397 until his death in 1418. Walachia’s rule then passed to his eldest son, Mihail I, who had the support of Hungary. Mihail was defeated by, and presumably died fighting, the Ottoman Turks in 1420, and the Turks placed his brother, Mircea I’s second son, Radu II, on the throne. (Radu is also known as Prasnaglava, a Slavonic expression that literally means “empty head” but may also mean “the fool” or “the bald.”) The Hungarians responded by backing a nephew of Mircea, Dan II, who seized Walachia in 1422.
The next 10 years saw the two sides, led by Dan and Radu, challenge each other for control of Walachia. The Hungarian court is thought to have backed Dan over the claims of Vlad II, as it believed that Vlad lacked the political maturity he would later be known for. In 1431 Walachia passed into the hands of Mircea I’s third son, Alexandru Aldea, who was backed by the Ottoman sultan Murad II.
Vlad had spent part of his childhood as a hostage at the court of Sigismund, who was king of Hungary and, later, Holy Roman emperor. This was a common practice to ensure a vassal’s loyalty, and Vlad enjoyed all privileges due to someone of his title and stature. In 1425 he married Princess Cneajna from the house of Alexander the Good of Moldavia. They had three sons: Mircea (born 1428, later Mircea II), Vlad (born 1431, later Vlad III [the Impaler]), and Radu (born 1435, later Radu III [the Handsome]). In addition, Vlad II had at least one son born out of wedlock, who was also named Vlad (later Vlad IV [the Monk]).
Reign in Walachia and death
In February 1431 Sigismund invested Vlad II as voivode of Walachia, though Vlad had to wait more than five years to actually rule. Vlad was also inducted into the Order of the Dragon (Latin: Societatis Draconistarum), a chivalric order created by Sigismund in 1408 to defend Roman Catholicism against both heresy and Turkish invasions. The order also aimed to protect Sigismund’s crown from Hungarian nobles, in part by having inductees pledge loyalty to Sigismund and his heirs. After his investiture into the order, Vlad took the title Dracul, and his descendants would be known as the Draculesti.
Vlad II’s rule began in 1436, after the death of his brother Alexandru Aldea. Vlad took power in Walachia with Hungarian support. He worked to maintain Walachia’s independence through both formal and secret alliances, often playing his more powerful neighbors against each other. Initially, he renounced the treaty his brother had made with the Turks. However, the year after Sigismund’s death in 1437, Vlad made an alliance with the Turks, and he even accompanied Murad II on his pillaging attacks in Transylvania. In the early 1440s Vlad shifted his allegiance to the anti-Ottoman forces of the Transylvanian governor János Hunyadi. That resulted in a summons to the Ottoman court in 1442, and he was subsequently held at Gallipoli and then at the Ottoman capital, Adrianople (now Edirne). Vlad’s eldest son, Mircea, ruled Walachia in his stead until his release in 1444. He was forced to leave behind his sons Vlad and Radu, who had been held as hostages with their father, to ensure his continued loyalty to the Ottoman Empire.
After resuming his role as voivode of Walachia, Vlad II chose to stay neutral, declining to join Hunyadi’s new anti-Ottoman expeditions in 1443–44, but he joined a campaign organized the following year by Hunyadi and Władysław III Warneńczyk, the king of Hungary and Poland. Despite Vlad II’s support in that campaign, relations between Walachia and Hungary (and between Vlad and Hunyadi) remained strained, leading Vlad to make peace with the Ottoman Turks in 1446.
Consequently, Hunyadi backed Dan II’s son Vladislav in his claim to the Walachian throne and organized an attack on Vlad II, resulting in the latter’s death in 1447. That same year, Vlad’s eldest son, Mircea II, was buried alive by Hunyadi’s supporters, which left Vlad III to become voivode of Walachia in 1448. The location of Vlad II’s burial site remains unknown, though several sites have been suggested by historians.