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60 father entrusted the children to the care of Archbishop Pázmány.

If the veil which hides the future could have been lifted for one moment, and he could have seen the fate which awaited his two sons, and his grandchildren, a series of the saddest pictures would have been presented to the closing eyes of the dying father. He would have seen one of his sons, Peter, in a vast hall, kneeling on a platform draped in black, with an awe-stricken crowd around him, while the German headsman severed the neck of the condemned hero with his heavy sword. He would have seen his other son, Nicholas, to whom the laurel wreath both of poet and hero had been awarded, lying dead on the bloodstained grass, in the depths of the forest of Kruzsedol. Another picture would have shown George Zrinyi his great granddaughter, Ilona Zrinyi, defending for years the fortress of Munkács, the last bulwark of Hungarian independence, against the Austrian army, and at last dying in exile, far from the fatherland, in a town of Asia Minor. And the last member of the family would have appeared to his dying ancestor, with his heart pierced by Turkish lances.

The sons of Count George were brought up by the Arch­bishop. (1618-I664), the elder, soon proved to be the more talented of the two. He became the greatest epic poet of the century, and at the same time an eminent statesman, and one of the best strategists in Europe. His whole life was remarkable. At an age when other children merely play at warfare with toy swords and tin soldiers, little Zrinyi was introduced to real war by his father, who was fighting the Turks. The warlike spirit was soon awakened in the child, the more so as he lived in a border fortress where they had to be