After the Hungarian army was destroyed at Mohács in 1526 the middle of the kingdom fell to the Ottomans, and what is now Slovakia became the rump state's front room. Trnava took in the chapter of the archbishop of Esztergom in 1543 and turned into the church capital of what was left of Hungary — the town this castle looks down on. Smolenice went to the Országh family early in the sixteenth century and then, for nearly two hundred years, to the Erdődys, who kept it as a fortified residence rather than a front-line fortress; the war frontier itself ran far to the south-east. That is worth remembering when somebody tells you the Turks destroyed this castle. They never got here.Po zničení uhorského vojska pri Moháči roku 1526 pripadol stred kráľovstva Osmanom a z územia dnešného Slovenska sa stala predsieň zvyšku Uhorska. Trnava prijala roku 1543 ostrihomskú kapitulu a zmenila sa na cirkevnú metropolu toho, čo z Uhorska ostalo — na mesto, na ktoré tento hrad zhora hľadí. Smolenice získali začiatkom 16. storočia Országhovci a potom ich takmer dvesto rokov držali Erdődyovci, ktorí si z hradu urobili opevnené sídlo, nie pevnosť prvej línie; vojnová hranica viedla ďaleko na juhovýchode. Oplatí sa to pamätať, keď vám ktosi povie, že tento hrad zničili Turci. Sem sa nikdy nedostali.
