Groschen - Louis II

Louis II ruled Hungary during one of the most precarious stretches in the kingdom's history, squeezed between Ottoman military pressure from the south and Habsburgs maneuvering for dynastic control from the west. These groschen were struck in the years immediately preceding the Battle of Mohács in 1526, where Louis himself died — drowned in a marsh while fleeing the field — and the medieval Kingdom of Hungary effectively ceased to exist as an independent state. The royal treasury was already badly strained during the minting period, and silver content in Hungarian coinage of the early 1520s varied noticeably as fiscal pressure mounted.