Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 12.djvu/384

370 370 HUNGARY [HISTORY. and Bethlen s claim to the principality of Transylvania and seven counties of Hungary Proper was established. The infriugemeut of this treaty on the part of Ferdinand brought about a renewal of hostilities, which resulted in a second peace, concluded at Pozsony (Pressburg) in 1626. After the death of Bethlen in 1629, the Jesuits succeeded in gaining over several powerful families to the Roman Church, and the religious persecutions were renewed by Ferdinand III., who succeeded his father in 1637. The Transylvanians had elected George Rakoczy as their prince, who proclaimed himself the protector of Protestantism and of Hungarian liberty. Having drawn up a statement of grievances those of the Protestants in particular he laid the document before Ferdinand, who, however, paid no attention to it. Rak6czy thereupon collected troops and gained several successes over the imperialists (1644), and in the next year formed a league with the Swedes. This coalition brought Ferdinand into desperate straits, and he therefore soon entered into a treaty of peace with Rak6czy at Linz (16th December 1645). By this treaty, confirmed at the diet held in 1647, Rak6czy was formally recognized as the legitimate prince of Transylvania. He died the year afterwards (1648), and was succeeded by his son George II. Rakoczy. The year 1657 witnessed the death of Ferdinand ill., who was succeeded by his second son Leopold I. 1 During the long reign of this monarch, so injurious to the cause of Hungarian liberty, Hungary was the theatre of intestine wars, insurrections, and the most tragic events. Shortly after his accession, Leopold becams involved in war with the Turks, who had created Michael Apaffi prince of Transylvania in the place of his own partisan John Kemeny. The Turks, although at first successful, were ultimately defeated by the imperialists at St Gotthard, 1st August 1664. This victory enabled Leopold to conclude a hasty and disadvantageous peace at Vasvar (10th August) with the infidels, and to direct his whole energies against the Protestants. The irritation consequent upon this harsh treatment resulted in a conspiracy, 2 which was organized by the Croatian ban Peter Zrinyi, Count Frangepan, Francis Rakoczy, and the chief justice Nadasdi, and had for its object the separation of Hungary from the house of Hapsburg. The plot having been discovered, the leaders were surprised, conveyed to Vienna, and, with the excep tion of Rako&quot;czy, executed (30th April 1671). Although an amnesty was proclaimed on the 6th of June of the same year, Leopold in February 1673 appointed a bigoted Catholic, John Caspar Ambringen, governor-general of the kingdom, and made every effort to extirpate the Protestant religion. The oppression becoming at last intolerable, the Protestants again rose in arms under Michael Teleki and Emeric Tokolyi (1678), and were subsequently supported by the grand vizier Kara Mustapha, who in 1683 marched straight to Vienna with a large force. The valour of Sobieski, king of Poland, delivered the city (12th Septem ber 1683), and saved Austria from the threatened destruc tion. In 1686 Buda was taken from the Turks by Charles of Lorraine, and these troublesome foes were at length driven out of most of the provinces and towns of Hungary where they had been settled for about a century and a half. The glory of these achievements was, however, tarnished by the emperor s revengeful treatment of the Hungarians, hundreds of whom, on suspicion of com plicity with the enemy, were put to death upon the scaffold erected in the market-place of Eperies by order of General Carxffa, which remained standing from March 1 The elder son of Ferdinand III., who in 1647 had been designated Ferdinand IV., died in 1654. 2 Known as &quot; Palatine Wesselenyi s Plot.&quot; The palatine, however, die I in 1667, prior to the failure of the movement. 1687 till the end of the year. Leopold at length granted a general amnesty, but obliged the diet to declare the throne hereditary in the house of Austria, and to abrogate the clause of the Golden Bull which allowed the right of armed resistance to tyranny (31st October 1687). The victories of Prince Eugene, which completed the conquests over the Turks, resulted in the peace of Carlowitz, January 26, 1699, by which the Porte abandoned Hungary and Transylvania to the emperor. On the 5th May 1705 Leopold died, and was succeeded by his eldest son Joseph I. In the year 1703 Francis Rak6czy II. headed a new revolution, which lasted till May 1711, when peace was concluded at Szatmar by Karoly, the chief of the Hungarian generals. The emperor Joseph I. died on the 17th April of the same year, and was succeeded by his brother the archduke Charles. From this time until 1848 no open rupture occurred between Hungary and her Hapsburg rulers. By the treaty of Passarowitz, concluded 21st July 1718, Temesvar, the last of the Turkish possessions, reverted to Hungary. In 1722 Charles received the adhesion of the diet to the Pragmatic Sanction, which secured the right of succession to the throne in the female line. At the insti gation of Russia hostilities were renewed against the Turks, but Prince Eugene being now dead, and no other leader of equal ability appearing in his place, the Austrians were subjected to a series of disgraceful defeats. These misfor tunes were consummated by the humiliating treaty of Belgrade (18th September 1739), in accordance with which the emperor was forced to cede the fortress of Belgrade, with Servia and Austrian Wallachia. On the 20th October of the following year Charles died, leaving the throne to his daughter Maria Theresa. Her claims to the imperial dignity were almost immediately called in question by Prussia, Saxony, France, and Bavaria, and her hereditary dominions were invaded by hostile troops. Maria in despair fled to Pozsony (Pressburg), and summoned the Hungarian diet. Appearing before that assembly on the llth September 1741, with her infant son Joseph in her arms, she appealed in Latin to the magnanimity and loyal spirit of the nobles. The result of her address was the unani mous declaration on their part : &quot; Moriamur pro rege nostro Maria Theresa.&quot; Nor was this an empty burst of enthusiasm, for the &quot; insurrectio &quot; or general rise of the nation was proclaimed, and a large army collected, and Hungarian blood was profusely shed in support of her cause. Maria repaid the devotion of her subjects by the zeal which she showed for their welfare, and the salutary changes which she effected in the country. Transylvania was raised into a grand principality (1765), and the town and district of Fiume declared a corpus separatum of the Hungarian crown (23d April 1779). Maria Theresa also created an Hungarian guard, established several schools, and enlarged the university at Nagyszombat (Tyrnau), which in 1777 was transferred to Buda, and seven years later to Pest. But her efforts to ameliorate the condition of the peasantry, and the reforms which she introduced under the name of the Urbarium (1765), which deter mined the rights of the tenant serfs in relation to the landowners, are among the chief merits of her reign. She died on the 29th November 1780, and was succeeded by her son Joseph II. This philosophic monarch was wholly carried away by his zeal for reforms, which were both subversive of the constitution and opposed to the will of the nation. He refused to be crowned in Hungary, and thus avoided the obligations of the usual coronation oath. In defiance of ancient custom he carried the crown of St Stephen to Vienna, dispensed altogether with the use of diets, and governed the country autocratically by decrees. He issued