Nicholas I Garai

Nicholas I Garai
Palatine; Ban of Macsó; Ban of Croatia and Dalmatia
Nicholas I Garai defending Elizabeth and Mary from the Horvats
Palatine of Hungary
Reign	October 1375 – August 1385
Predecessor	Emeric Lackfi
Successor	Nicholas Szécsi
Spouse(s)	Unknown
Issue Nicholas II John
Noble family	House of Garai
Father	Andrew Garai
Mother	Unknown daughter of Ladislaus Nevnai
Born	c. 1325
Died	25 July 1386 Đakovo (Diakovár), Kingdom of Hungary-Croatia

Nicholas I Garai (Hungarian: Garai I Miklós, Croatian: Nikola I Gorjanski) (c. 1325 – 25 July 1386) was a most influential officeholder under king Louis I and queen Mary of Hungary. He was ban of Macsó between 1359 and 1375, and palatine from 1375 until his death. He was also ispán or head of a number of counties over his lifetime.

Son of András Garai and his wife (an unknown daughter of László Nevnai), Nicholas Garai was born around 1325. His uncle, Pál Garai (ban of Macsó between 1320 and 1328) was a leading baron under kings Charles I and Louis I of Hungary. Nicholas's career in politics started under Louis I who appointed him to administer the Banate of Macsó in 1359. As ban of Macsó, Nicholas also became the head of Bács, Baranya, Szerém, Valkó and Veszprém counties.

Garai launched, in 1369, a punitive expedition against Vladislav I of Wallachia who had rebelled against King Louis I and defeated a royal army led by Nicholas Lackfi, voivode of Transylvania. The 17th-century historian, Mavro Orbin relates that Garai supported Lazar Hrebeljanović of Serbia and Tvrtko I of Bosnia against their opponents, Nikola Altomanović. Around the same time, he arranged a marriage between his namesake son and a daughter of Lazar Hrebeljanović. Garai participated in the first Hungarian expedition against the Ottomans in 1375.