Prince Charles related to Impaler Vlad – Surprised?
How Prince Charles is linked to Indian gunpowder ingredients that reached Roma Gypsies in early 15th century, giving them victory over the armies of royal Europe and the Church.
Where is the home of Count Dracula? Map showing Transylvania, home of Count Dracula. | Image source and courtesy - dailymail.co.uk | Click for larger image.
Central European newspapers yesterday were alight with speculation that the Prince of Wales could be anointed the next King of Romania if the country’s monarchy is restored.
The last royal ruler, King Michael was forced to abdicate by the country’s new Communist leaders.
Romania went on (for) decades of communist government, most notably under dictatorial party leader Nicolae Ceausescu who ruled the country with an iron fist from 1965 until 1989.
The deposed King, Prince Michael, is still alive – albeit rather elderly at 90 – and has family of his own.
Despite the reintroduction of democracy, in recent years there have been increasing calls for the monarchy to be restored. (via Prince Charles could become king… of ROMANIA after revealing he is related to Vlad the Impaler | Mail Online, parts excised for brevity).
But … naturellement
Prince Charles claims descent from Vlad the Impaler (1431–1476); popularly and more famously known as Dracula was intermittently the ruler (between 1456-1462) of Wallachia.
Coming from a dynasty that has spilled the most blood in the history of the world, it is not surprising if Prince Charles is related to Impaler Vlad, the Dracula. Responsible for two world wars, many wars in Europe, genocides in Australia and America, millions of deaths in colonies (like India, Kenya, Malaysia), it is no surprise that House of Windsor (Prince Charles’ family) is related to Vlad the Impaler. Can it be forgotten that a little more than a decade ago, Prince Phillip (father of Prince Charles), contested the number of people dead at the Jallianwala Bagh firing?
After years of academic suppression and Hollywood misdirection, the story of the true Dracula is obscured. So, why did Vlad, the Impaler, give such gruesome deaths, impaling tens of thousands of people? Who were these ‘victims’ and how many such people died?
Impaler Vlad is being rehabilitated as an sworn enemy and ruthless killer of of Islamic Turks. Modern medal featuring Vlad Tepes "The Impaler." Metal plated with 24-karat gold | Image source, courtesy - ancientresource.com | Click for larger image.
Dark Ages – that never went away
For answers, we need to go back a hundred years (1409) before Vlad the Impaler.
After centuries of persecution by the Vatican, people in Eastern Europe, proposed changes in Church and its systems.
The mass-movement for Church reform was led by a University rector, Jan Hus (1369 – 6 July 1415), from Bohemia. Between the King and the Church, Jan Huss was tricked into ‘peace-talks’ with the Church, where he was captured and burnt at the stake (1415).
Large parts of Czechoslovakia, Romania, Eastern Germany rose in revolt against the killing of Jan Hus – till war broke out.
Time for War
Led by a brilliant military commander and diplomat, Jan Zizka.
Zizka was able to ensure an alliance between the two main reform factions – the Calyxtenes and the Taborites. This alliance defeated the combined armies of royal Europe and the Church, in many battles, and waged war for nearly 15 years (Hussite Wars-1419-1434). These battles, collectively known as Hussite Wars cracked open the authority of the Church.
The role of the Taborites in the Hussite Wars was of great importance. Taborites were migratory camp-people, who moved their camps in wagons and roamed Europe. The Taborites turned their wagons into armoured vehicles – and fought behind massed wagons. These Wagonbergs, made of armoured wagons, had one major element that gave them superiority. The Taborites using gunpowder, pounded the Church forces with fire.
Gunpowder it was
Gunpowder was a rare and mostly unknown element in the poor and backward Europe of 15th century.
India was the largest manufactory of gunpowder elements. And a major element of the commercial chain were the Banjaras. In 1656 British traders based at Surat, ‘inquired from Anthony Smith at Ahmedabad about the possibility of getting saltpetre from the Banjaras’. While the governor of Gujarat, Prince Murad Baksh, ‘oppressed the Banjaras so much that they gave up their trade in saltpetre’.
Banjaras are known as Roma Gypsies in Europe. The Roma Gypsies brought gunpowder to battle – and with their wagonbergs, ensured defeat of the combined Church and royal forces of Europe.
It was the the Hussite Wars that started Europe’s lurching movement over 400 years to end Church persecution and limit Church authority. From the death of Jan Hus in 1415 to the end of Napoleonic Wars (at Waterloo, in 1815), who had earlier enforced ‘secularization’of Europe.
Jan Hus being burnt at the stake | Image via Wikipedia
Taborites defeated
The Taborites were finally defeated after they were sold out by their allies, the Calyxtenes.
With Jan Zizka dead (October 11, 1424), the Calyxtenes stuck a ‘secret’ deal with the Church, and betrayed the Taborites.
The unsuspecting Taborites, were slayed by the thousands in a surprise raid, by the combined forces of the Clayxtenes, royal armies and the ‘soldiers’ of the Church.
Soon after this massacre of the Taborites, the persecution of the Roma Gypsies started in full earnest across Europe.
Laws were passed, legalizing slavery of the Roma Gypsy, capture of Roma Gypsy children (which was allowed in Switzerland till early 1970s).
Vlad’s killing spree
Vlad the Impaler, killed thousands of people, foremost being the Roma Gypsy, who opposed the Church and its appointed rulers. The others that Vlad The Impaler killed were the Turkic captives (partly Roma Gypsies serving in Ottoman armies) of the Ottoman Empire. Europe has expunged this history from their books – and the Roma Gypsy contribution to the building of ‘modern’ Europe.
But is this ‘censorship’ by a State-supported academia, surprising?
Gold … and silver
Bohemia, a small kingdom, (now a part of Czechoslovakia) discovered major silver deposits. The King Of Bohemia, Charles-I, invited Germans from nearby areas to expand trade and commerce. In 1419 King Wenceslas of Bohemia died. Emperor Sigismund, of Germany, a staunch Catholic of the Holy Roman Empire, inherited the Kingdom.
The first major successful revolt against the Church were the Hussite wars – a 100 years before the Martin Luther’s Ninety Five Theses (in 1517). Led by Jan Zizka. A small Czech Army, repeatedly defeated the Catholic Army from Germany. After 20 years of defeats, the Church was forced to negotiate.
The trigger for this war was a University rector.
The Rector Of Prague
At the Charles University of Prague. The rector went by the name of Jan Hus. Pope Alexander V issued orders on 20 December 1409, instructing Archbishop Zajic (also spelt Zbynek, with diacritics), his representative to proceed against reformers – led by John Hus. A supporter of Church Reform, John Hus opposed many practices of the Roman Church.
Hus was persuaded to attend the Council Of Konstanz (Constance) under the protection of the Emperor Sigismund. The Emperor refused to honour his promise of safe conduct and allowed Hus to be tried and then executed as a heretic. In 1415 John Hus was arrested and condemned to death by the members of the Council of Konstanz (Constance).
Bohemia was in uproar. Supporters of Hus made their displeasure plain. The protestors organised themselves , took the Chalice (Calyx) as their symbol and came to be known as Calyxtines.
More than 500,000 died in the following unrest.
Woodcut from the title page of a 1499 pamphlet published by Markus Ayrer in Nuremberg. It depicts Vlad III "the Impaler" (identified as Dracole wyade = Draculea voivode) dining among the impaled corpses of his victims. | Image fi.wikipedia
Jan Zizka
In 1420, a 60 year old man, blind in one eye took charge – and took on the might of the Roman Church and Roman Emperors.
Jan Zizka.
Over the next 12 months, he became completely blind. In the next 15 years, Zizka (and other Czech generals) defeated, many times, the combined armies of Germany, The Roman Church and others. His military strategy was studied for the next 500 years. Thereafter, the myth of military might of the Church was broken forever.
Jan Zizka allied himself with the Taborites (the radical Hussite wing). Zizka made Tábor in Bohemia into an armored and mobile fortress – the Wagenburgs.
Sigismund tasted defeat at Visehrad (now a part of Prague) at the hands of Zizka (July, 1420) and the Taborite troops. Many anti-Hussite crusades were launched unsuccessfully against Zizka. One Catholic stronghold after another, fell. Zizka continued to command in person, though he had become totally blind in 1421.
In 1423 Zizka formed his own Hussite wing, while remaining in close alliance with the Taborites. In 1424, Zizka used his army, to lower tensions between the radical Taborites and the moderate Utraquists, whose stronghold was at Prague. He sent his armies to Prague to force the city to adhere to the anti-Rome /German policy.
A negotiated armistice averted a civil war between the two Hussite factions. The outcome – a united attack on Moravia. The commander – Jan Zizka. On his death bed, Zizka, asked that his skin be used to make a drum that would lead his armies into battle.
Military success
Zizka’s army, made up of untrained soldiers, (peasants and burghers-townspeople) using gunpowder, defeated trained and well-paid armies of Royal Europe and the Church. He did not have the time or resources to train these fighters in armament and tactics of the time. Instead they used weapons like iron-tipped pikes and flails, armored farm wagons, mounted with small, howitzer type cannons.
His armored wagons, led by the Taborites, in offensive movements, broke through the enemy lines, firing as they rolled, cutting superior forces into pieces. For defense, the wagons were arranged into a tight, impregnable barrier surrounding the foot soldiers – the Wagonberg (the wagon fort), as they came to be known. The wagons also served to transport his men – forerunner of modern tank warfare. Zizka’s experience under various commanders was useful. At the battle of Tannenberg (1410), Zizka fought on the Polish side , in which the famed German Teutonic Knights were defeated.
The Gypsy secret weapon
And gunpowder was the secret weapon that the Taborite Gypsy armies of Jan Zizka used, mounted on top of the wagons that cut enemy troops to size?
Gunpowder. And Gypsies?
At the end of the 19th century, this was still known. And an extract from that books goes onto trace the introduction of gunpowder to Europe.
Now, Mons is the capital of Hainault ; and the first people known to have used firearms in England were the Hainaulters. “In 1327 the English employed some Hainaulters, who used cannon for King Edward III against the Scotch.” Do these facts not suggest very strongly that the artillerymen among the Hainaulters were procured from one or other of the ” quartiers des Sarrazins ” of that province ? The connection between Edward III and Hainault was very close, for in the year following the arrival of the gunpowder-using Hainaulters, he married Philippa of Hainault. And, since he imported artillerymen from Hainault, it is quite likely that those “foreign traders,” who came to St. Giles’ Fair. Winchester, during his reign, selling ” brazen vessels of all kinds,” were really from Dinant, near Namur, as has been suggested. These people are cited by Mr. Groome {Gypsy Lore Journal, i. 50), as possible Gypsies ; if one grants that there were Gypsies in Belgium in the fourteenth century. For, of course, both of these suggestions are based upon that assumption. (from Journal of the Gypsy Lore Society by FRANZ VON MIKLOSICH).
But do Gypsies and war ever mix?
They have often been employed in military expeditions, but never as regular soldiers. In the Thirty Years’ War the Swedes had a body of them in the army ; and the Danes had three companies of them at the siege of Hamburg, in 1686. They were chiefly employed in flying parties, to burn, plunder, or lay waste the enemy’s country. In two Hungarian regiments nearly every eighth man is a Gypsy. (from Journal of the Gypsy Lore Society by FRANZ VON MIKLOSICH).
Post Hussite Wars and the ‘Reformation’, establishing the CRER-principle (cuius regio, eius religio, meaning whose land, his religion) to settle Germany, giving rise to the logic of ‘ubi unus dominus, ibi una sit religio’ (One ruler, one religion). Just in case someone had religious disagreement, the logic was they could well emigrate – (ius emigrandi).
In 1887, Bram Stoker, an Irish writer published his Dracula. The character of Dracula is based on the descendants of Emperor Sigismund and his Order of the Dragon, who waged war against the Hussites – led by Jan Zizka. Infamous for his betrayal of Jan Hus, Emperor Sigismund sparked of the Hussite Wars, in which the Taborites (the Roma Gypsies) used wagons and gun powder for the first time in Europe. He founded a secret sect, the “Dracul” called the Order of the Dragon.
A very interesting play by Calderon was La vida es sueño (Life is a dream). It tells the story of Segismundo, the Prince Of Poland, who was destined to be a monster. To forestall the prophecy, Segismundo was imprisoned by his father from the time of his birth. John Hunyadi’s son, Matthias Corvinus, the voevod or warlord of Transylvania region actually kept Vlad, The Impaler, another candidate for Dracula imprisoned, dates vary, but seemingly, from 1462-1474. In adulthood, released from prison to test the prediction, Segismundo fulfills the prophecy. As a analyst of Calderon’s work summarizes,
Affirming a “better reality,” Segismundo’s message speaks as well to all of Europe: the “new European man” is the real monster. (from The subject in question By C. Christopher Soufas).
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- Vlad the Impaler: Prince Charles a descendant of Dracula? (csmonitor.com)
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2ndlook 
As usual, excellent post anurag..
i have a question.. if gun powder was used only in india, how come europeans developed guns and canons and sold to india? It is said, that the turks also produced canons, but not the indians?
And an excellent question. I have been waiting for this question for the last 12 months.
Now between gunpowder and cannons is a huge chasm. India’s gunpowder production system was decentralized and needed low-capital investments.
But cannons was a different game altogether.
Forging cannons was capital intensive exercize. Since Indic kings were restrained by Bharattantra, their treasuries were always small.
On the other hand Desert Bloc rulers always had huge treasuries and fiat money with which they fund wars and war material purchases.
In one battle between Vijaynagar kingdom and one small Bahmani kingdom, (I think it was Bijapur, at Raichur), the Bahmani loser abandoned 850 cannons. Now this is what made a difference.
Against Napoleon, the British Empire produced and supplied guns, cannons to the allies – and with gunpowder from India, they were in a position to fight Napoleon to the last gun shot. It is creditable that Napoleon and France stood up for as long as they did.
So, the big issue was capital in the hands of the rulers. Trust this explains the mechanics.
A small correction.
Indians were the largest producers of gunpowder elements – and Indians were NOT the only users of gunpowder.
And therefore also the largest exporter also. People from all over the world came to India to buy gunpowder ingredients from India.
In 1462 November, Vlad Dracula was captured by Jan Jiskra under the direction of Mathias Corvinus near Konigstein. Was this Jiskra (spelling) related to Jan Zizka. Obviously would have to be a son or such considering the man Zizka mentioned in your article passed in 1424.
Dracula was arrested with forged documents (the Rothel Letters) he did not write. Those letters were used by historians as facts for many years. Now, those historians realize their mistake, but do not apologize for what they have done to Vlad Dracula’s reputation or even have tried to correct it. Dracula was not the monster those documents insinuate him to be. If only using facts, the world will find a much different man. The famous woodcut you show was also a form of ‘political propoganda’ such as the National Enquirer is for telling us all about aliens landing in California and living happily. My point is the woodcut is impossible. Under this woodcut, It stated Dracula killed 30,000 outside the walls of Brasov. First, the population was roughly 13,000 in Brasov during the fifteenth century (30,000 was always by historians considered highly exaggerated and even in the City museum of Brasov states Dracula killed 40 merchants…how does one get 30,000?). Secondly, the walls of Brasov had armament holes. Brasov had highly triained archers who could have killed easily Dracula if he was sitting still….which he would never have sat and ate right where he could have been an easy target. Thirdly, meals did not get prepared as fast as this picture states. There was no take out or a table to quickly set up in front of a fortified city as Brasov. I could go on, but for this article, lastly, Mathias was king of Hungary and ruled over Brasov. Dracula did not start a fight with Brasov or tried to begin a war with Hungary. In letters of FACT, the king, Mathias Corvinus stated in a letter to Brasov to return the property or money stolen from Wallachian (Vlad’s merchants) people. If they did not, the king stated that Brasov deserved what they get from Dracula. These FACTS are easily looked up….in older historical books. Wikipedia if you keep in mind, can be changed by any individual who has a computer. Not all info on wiki is the absolute truth. Please keep an open mind and read with facts when Dracula’s name is heard.
You have many errors in your article, but I will go with the most obvious……. THe pamphlet shown, is actually the 1499 pamphlet by Ambrosius Huber, Nurnberg. The pamphlet of Marcus Ayrer,i Nurnberg is from 1488 and has only the portrait of Vlad Dracula on the front. Obviously you have chosen to listen to those Historians who have not searched the Pamphlets and realized that the episode of the Gypsies actually occured in Vlad Dracul’s (Vlad Dracula’s father’s TIme) the Peasant revolt was in 1438-1439 where they culprits of the uprising were boiled and the followers were forced to eat them. THis was not in Vlad Dracula’s time. THere were many more “PURE exaggerations in these pamphlets” as many historians can tell you. YOu have more than likely not met the right Historian that will show you proof, Vlad stopped payments to the turks because of the Congress of Mantua… and the Pope Piccolomini’s high praise of Vlad. THe pamphlets were spread at the hands of the Hungarian King, for the legitimacy of Vlad’s arrest…. the pamphlets were PUre propaganda. The city of AMlash had less than 2000 inhabitants, the claim was inthose pamphlets was that VLad killed 30000. Populations were lower than 10000 in the Bigger cities (Amlash was a small village) and impalment was a process that took hours with preparation of the tree took hours for just one person using 5-6 people ( Vlad’s raids were also with Mihail Szilagyi, but he is never mentioned). Then you have the walls of BRasov if you have ever been there, the walls are very fortified. This pamphlet is a complete exaggeration due to Vlad would NEVER have been able to sit (the archers would have taken him out). SOo much more errors in this article, of which you must seek Better resources.