The death of the ruler,
toghether with his oldest son, Mircea, took place at the end of 1447, because
on the 4-th of December Iancu of Hunedoara emitted a document from Targoviste,
"our citadel" as he named it, in which he entitled himself "voivode
of the transalpine territories". The event marked the entering of Wallachia
under the strict suzerainty of Hungary.
A few months later, Iancu of Hunedoara, governor of Hungary and voivode of
Transylvania, proceeded in the same manner with Moldavia, installing a ruler
faithful to his cause. The Romanian Countries were, in this way, united into
a powerful front against the Ottomans. In the battle of Kosovopolje (17-th
- 19-th of October 1448), the reunited armies of the Romanians from Transylvania,
Wallachia and Moldavia, side by side with the armies of the Hungarian kingdom
and of the Serbian despot Gheorghe Brancovici were fighting their last great
offensive battle from the long succession of the Romanian-Ottoman confrontations
in the XV-th century.
Probably, under these circumstances, connected to the preliminaries of the
battle of Kossovopolje, while the ruler of Wallachia was drawn into the battles
with the Turks, the sultan decided to help Vlad the Impeller to take over
the throne. This act was fulfilled by the beys that ruled fortresses near
the Danube among the boyars that were partisans of the Draculesti family.
Taking advantage of the fact that Wallachia's army and ruler were far away
from home and the weak internal forces couldn't oppose a powerful resistance,
the Ottomans and the partisans of Draculesti family installed Vlad the Impeller
as ruler.
So, the young ruler, aged only 18, was signing his first documents from Targoviste,
the capital.
Returned in the van of the armies on the battlefield and having the support
of the Moldavian horsemen, Vladislav-Dan took back his throne. The young prince
Vlad begun his exile journey, accompanied by the Draculesti boyars and settled
down in Brasov, the refuge of any claimant to the Wallachian throne.
