Ilona Szilágyi

Ilona Szilágyi
Princess Consort of Wallachia, Countess de Szilágyi
Szilágyi Coat Of Arms
Spouse	Vlad III Dracula
Issue	Vlad IV Dracula, Mircea (disputed name) [1][2]
House	House of Szilágyi (by birth) House of Drăculești (branch of the House of Basarab) (by marriage)
Father	Count Osvát Szilágyi[3]
Mother	Countess Ágota Pósa de Szer[4]

Princess Consort Ilona Szilágyi of Wallachia, Countess de Szilágyi, was the second wife of Vlad III the Impaler and the cousin of King Matthias Corvinus of Hungary.

In 1462, Vlad III the Impaler, Voivode of Wallachia, had been imprisoned by his former ally, Matthias Corvinus, King of Hungary. He gradually won back the king's favour and married the king's cousin, Ilona. She was the daughter of Count Osvát Szilágyi and Countess Ágota Pósa de Szer. Her uncle was Michael Szilágyi, regent of the Kingdom of Hungary, Voivode of Transylvania, Vlad's ally, and a maternal uncle of the king.^[5]

Following Vlad's release around 1466, he lived with Ilona in a house in the Hungarian capital, gifted to them by the King for their marriage.^[6][7]

Ilona bore him two sons in 1465: the elder, Vlad IV Dracula, spent most of his time in the king's retinue and later was an unsuccessful claimant to the Wallachian throne. The younger, whose name was Mircea, lived with the Bishop of Oradea (Nagyvárad) in Transylvania until 1482, when he fell ill. He returned to Buda, where he died in his mother's presence.^[8]

The descendants of Vlad and Ilona married into the Hungarian nobility.

Ancestry

Ancestors of Ilona Szilágyi

16. Lóránd Szilágyi de Garázda               8. Miklós, Count de Szilágyi                       4. László, Count de Szilágyi                             2. Osvát, Count de Szilágyi                                   5. Countess Katalin Bellyéni                             1. Ilona Szilágyi, Princess Consort of Wallachia                                         24. Count István Pósa de Szer               12. Count Miklós Pósa de Szer                       25. Klára Omori               6. Count Gáborkó Pósa de Szer                             13. N Cibak                       3. Countess Ágota Pósa de Szer                                   7. Margit Telegdi

References

1. Miller, Elizabeth. Vlad The Impaler: Brief History. Dracula's Homepage. 2005
2. Bos, Joan. Biography of Vlad III. 'Vlad the Impaler'. 2008
3. http://genealogy.euweb.cz/hung/szilagyi.html
4. http://genealogy.euweb.cz/hung/posa.html#V2, access 2015.07.12
5. Raymond T. Mcnally, Radu Florescu (1990). Dracula, Prince of Many Faces: His Life and His Times. Back Bay Books. ISBN 0316286567.
6. Porter, Ray. The Historical Dracula. 1992
7. Geringer, Joseph. Vlad the Impaler. 2008
8. Raymond T. McNally, Radu Florescu (1994). In search of Dracula: the history of Dracula and vampires. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. ISBN 0-395-65783-0.