148

EXILE OF TÖKÖLI.

a Sidney that he owed his own elevation. Instead of becoming the head of a free people, Tököli now reposed his dusty brow under the cypresses of exile, dwelling first at Constantinople, then in his country-seat in Nicomedia, and living long enough to hear the echo of the clash of arms of his unfortunate countrymen, who, after a short pause, again felt strength enough to rise for the assertion of their rights. As was the case, very recently in the year 1849, many a report was also then clandestinely spread as to the poverty in which Tököli and his followers lived, and the sufferings they sustained at the hands of the Turks. The whole, however, as related by Cantemir, who speaks as eye-witness, seems to dwindle down to a few plaintive words, uttered by the exiled leader, a thing very natural in such a condition.1

1 Cantemir, in his History of the Ottomans, p. 295, in softly alluding to the provisions of the peace of Carlowitz, says of Toköli, "he was sent away by the sultan to Nicomedia, where he was presented with a country-house, and being very much afflicted with the gout he died soon after in that place. He ordered himself to be buried in the suburbs of Pera, without the Greeks' church-yard, where the Christian ambassadors and their domestics are usually buried. Whilst I was at Constantinople I frequently used to converse with him, and have often heard him say, What can we do, my brother? It has pleased God to make us subject to a master, who, by his actions, does very well answer his shield, that is the crescent. I have found their false prophet mistaken in almost every point; yet in this, I believe, he spoke with a prophetic spirit when he gave his followers a crescent for their arms; for that very well denotes their inconstancy."

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CHAPTER V.

JOSEPH I.-FRANCIS RAKOCZY-NEW WAR-MEDIATION OF ENGLAND AND HOLLAND-PEACE OF

SZUTHMAR-( 1699-1711. )

THE peace of Carlowitz, which disposed of the Hungarian territory, without the will or knowledge of the Hungarian States, in utter contempt of repeatedly confirmed laws, was in itself a deep source of new discontent, which was considerably increased by the general policy continuedly pursued by the Court of Vienna. Even after the coronation of Joseph I., a prince who, if left to himself, might have perhaps followed a less provoking line of conduct, Leopold, the real master of Hungary, did not relinquish his designs of entirely demolishing its institutions. Now the opportunity for so doing seemed most favourable; the most prominent of the national party being either beheaded or in exile, while the high clergy were ready to second any measure of the government, provided they were allowed full scope in their persecutions of the Protestants.

The most willing instrument of the emperor was the primate Kollonics, the descendant of a family

150 DISCOURAGING STATE OF THE COUNTRY.

which, along with the Lichtensteins, was arbitrarily raised by Rudolph II. to the peerage of the Hungarian realm, and which constituted a special point in the grievances preferred by the Bocskay-party against that emperor. This ecclesiastic, more fit for the sword than the gospel, and aided in his efforts by Paul Esterhazy the palatine, also a tool of the council of Vienna, took upon him as primate, and chancellor of Hungary, to explain, as follows, the wishes of the emperor to the Hungarian States:-" His imperial majesty could not better show us his paternal love, than by the resolution to treat Hungary like Austria and the rest of his hereditary dominions. The reforms Hungary needs are very numerous, let us therefore abandon our ancient laws (leges consuetudine) and accept of the new laws which able men are preparing for us. It is intended, and with right, that the nobles should renounce their exorbitant privileges, and begin to bear the burdens of the State. But let them remember that they will have the prospect of being honoured with many titles common in the rest of the empire." In concluding, his eminence dwelt on the inconvenience of continually voting new taxes and subsidies, and strongly recommended the advantage of a fixed tax (contributio continua); expressing, moreover, his hopes, that the States would be happy to bear the third part of the total expenses of the Austrian empire. These manifestations would in themselves have been sufficient to rouse the spirit of the nobles; though the persecutions newly commenced against the Protestants were the immediate causes of fresh, bloody, and protracted conflicts.

In the assembly of the Hungarian bishops, held at Vienna, they all pledged themselves to use all the means in their power for the so-called conversion of

BISHOPS ASSEMBLE AT VIENNA.

151

In

the Protestants, each of them vowing not to suffer a single heretic in their dioceses. Pursuant to this decision, the primate Kollonics issued epistles to the Spiritual and Temporal Lords, strongly admonishing them to begin with energy the work proposed. His example was soon followed by several other dignitaries. and especially the bishop of Five Churches (Sopron), who caused the Protestant ministers to be thrown into prison, their churches and schools to be wrested from their hands, confiscating besides the properties of the lay Protestants. The palatine Paul Esterhazy, one of the largest landed proprietors, soon imitated the example set, depopulating many of his villages by the persecution and expulsion of his Protestant serfs. short, the Protestants in particular had all the foreign armies quartered upon them, and were in addition subjected to the heaviest taxes; while the privileged districts, inhabited by the Cumans and Jasiges (oppida Haidonicalia), were most flagrantly given in pledge to the Teutonic order of Germany. The better to ensure the general subjection of the country, large levies were made and sent out of the country; while some of the fortresses, from an apprehension of their being eventually surprised by the disaffected, were razed to the ground. The rapacity of the foreign commissioners, in the meantime, however, was also deeply felt by the Catholics, who saw many of their schools and public buildings converted into bureaux of different purposes. But though the despair which seized on the whole population, (many of whom, in order to escape the cruel extortions, left their homes

I See Literæ Principis Pauli Esterhasi, in Historia Diplomatica, p. 148.

152

FORTUNES OF PRINCE RAKOCZY.

to flee to Turkey), was of a kind which precluded the probability of a rise, yet only a single spark was wanted to throw Hungary into a blaze. And scarcely had three years passed since the peace of Carlowitz was signed, when Leopold, just embarking in the war of the Spanish succession, saw the Hungarians suddenly rise up as one man in arms. This emperor, however, as is well-known, lived only to see the commencement of these two wars.

The head and soul of this new struggle in Hungary was Francis Rakoczy II., the son of Helen Zriny, by her first husband, after the death of whom she became the wife of Tököli. Having surrendered the fortress of Munkacs in 1687, this heroine and her two children, Julia and Francis, were carried to Vienna. By the arbitrary orders of the emperor, the young boy was sent to Prague, and entrusted to the tuition of the Jesuits. After five years of his Jesuitical education, the young prince got the imperial permission to make a journey into Germany, where he married the princess Hesse of Rheinfels. Having returned to Vienna, Rakoczy procured a second permission to repair to his country seat of Saros, in Upper Hungary, 1701. After a short stay on his estate, he was all at once surprised in his castle by a detachment of Austrian soldiers, and carried prisoner to Vienna. raigned before a foreign tribunal, on the plea of having engaged in a plot, Rakoczy protested against this illegal procedure, appealing to the laws of his country, by which no Hungarian nobleman could legally be tried before a foreign court. The Austrian judges, however, continued their proceedings, based on the evidence of an Austrian officer named Longueval, whom Rakoczy favoured with his friendship when on

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