CILLI, ULRICH, COUNT OF (1406-1456), of Frederick II., count of Cilli, and Elizabeth Frangepan. About 1432 he mar ried Catherine, daughter of George Brankovich, despot of Serbia.
His influence in the troubled affairs of Hungary and the Em pire, of which he was made a prince by the emperor Sigismund (1436) led to feuds with the Habsburgs, the overlords of Cilli. Finally he made an alliance with the Habsburg king Albert II., and after his death (1439) Alrich took up the cause of his widow, Elizabeth, and presided at the coronation of her infant son Ladislaus V. Posthumus (144o) . A feud with the Hunyadis f ol lowed, embittered by John Hunyadi's attack on George Branko vich of Serbia (1444) on his refusal to recognize Ulrich's claim to Bosnia on the death of Stephen Tvrtko . In 1446 Hunyadi, then governor of Hungary, harried the Cilli territories in Croatia Slavonia; but his power was broken at Kosovo (1448), and Count Ulrich was able to lead a successful crusade, nominally in the Habsburg interest, into Hungary (1450). In 1452 he forced the emperor Frederick III. to hand over the boy king Ladislaus V. to his keeping, and became thus virtual ruler of Hungary, of which he was named lieutenant by Ladislaus in 1456. The Hunyadis now conspired to destroy him. On Nov. 8, in spite of warnings, he entered Belgrade with the king; the next day he was attacked by Laszlo Hunyadi and his friends, and put to death. With him died the male line of the counts of Cilli.