At this period the famous name of John Hunnyades appears in history. This chivalrous soldier was a Wallachian, surnamed Corvinus, from the place of his birth. Having rendered Hungary essential service in the defense of the borders against the Turks, he acquired high reputation and influence in the nation. The Turks again ravaged Hungary and alarmed Christendom. Through the inflnence of Hunnyades, Wladislas, king of Poland, was raised to the throne, and Hunnyades was made Vayvóde of Transylvania and chief leader of the army. A solemn truce, concluded between Wladislas and the Sultan, for ten years, having been broken at the instigation of Julian, the papal legate, and on the papal morality that "no faith is to be kept with heretics," the fatal battle of Warnau, in Moldavia, was fought in 1444, in which the Polish and Hungarian host were completely worsted, and Wladislas perished. Hunnyades was elected captain-general and governor of the kingdom, which he ruled gloriously for ten years. In the mean time, the emperor Frederic III., to whom the guardianship of the young Ladislas, son of King Albert, had been committed, delaying to restore his ward to the Hungarian nation, Hannyades marched against the emperor at Neustad, and compelled him to come to terms of accommodation; by which the prince was placed under the guardianship of his maternal uncle, the Count Ulric of Cilley; but Ladislas tasted little of the sweets or bitters of power, for he died at Prague in his 18th year. Hungary was again ravaged by the Turks, under Mahomet I., the successor of Amurath. Then it was that Hunnyades marched to the relief of Belgrade, and gained his celebrated victory; and the "joyful nations," to quote the words of Gibbon, "celebrated Hunnyades and Belgrade as the bulwarks of Christendom." But a month after that event Hunnyades died, in 1456; and two years later the nation elected his son, Matthias Corvinus, to the throne.* The char acter of Matthew has been painted in glowing colors by the historians of his court. Learning was patronized, and flourished; the country enjoyed much prosperity; Matthew

*This occurred on the death of Ladislas, in the preceding year. Matthew was not a complete constitutional king for some years, inasmuch as the Emperor Frederic, a pretender to the Hungarian throne, held the insignia of royalty, which he had obtained from Ladislas.

+ See Bonfinius III, 1, and Galeotti, (librarian to King Matthew,) "De Jocose dictis ac factis regis Matt. Corvini."

gained new dominions, and regained several provinces lost by his predecessors; and one of his achievements was the expulsion of the Turks from Bosnia. Matthew died in 1490; and Wladislas, of Bohemia, grandson of Albert and Elizabeth, was elected king by the States. His reign was unfortunate, and the country was sorely troubled by internal dissensions and Turkish invasion. An attempt was made in 1505, by Count Zapoyla, a powerful magnate, to pass an act in the assembly of the States to revive an ancient law, to the effect, that in the event of the failure of the royal line, the choice of a sovereign should be limited to natives of Hungary. The opposition of the royal party led to an insurrection, which was not quelled till 1512, nor without the aid of the emperor. Wladislas was succeeded by his son Louis, a youth who fell at the battle of Mohacs, in 1526, when Solyman defeated and drove the elite of the Magyar chivalry into the fatal swamp of Czetze. On this event, the party which had supported Zapoyla now declared for his succession to the throne. This nobleman had previously persecuted the Protestants, who had become a numerous denomination in the State; and they now threw their influence into the scale in favor of Ferdinand of Austria, brother to the emperor Charles V., who had acquired a family connection with Hungary, through marriage with the Princess Anna, daughter of Wladislas.* A civil war ensued, in which Ferdinand was the victor, and at an assembly of the States, in 1547, he was placed on the throne, which ever since has been occupied by his descendants, the emperors of Germany or Austria, &c., and Kings of Hungary.

The history of the Hungarian monarchy is, from this point, included in that of Austria. On the history of the Hungarian nation it is not necessary that we should here dwell. It presents a long series of invasions by their active enemies, the Turks, and of bold encroachments on the national liberties on the

*The marital fortunes of this lucky house were celebrated in a popular Latin couplet

Bella gerant alii, tu fælix Austria nube; Quæ dat Mars aliis; hæc tibi regna Venus. On the abdication of Charles V., in 1556, Ferdinand was raised to the imperial throne.

The gender is not, perhaps, historically correct; but it is so constitutionally. The "moriamur pro rege nostro Maria Theresa" of the enthusiastic nobility has been laughed at as a Hungarian bull; but it was in reality a legal or constitutional expression, which probably had its origin in the tradition of the preference given to the male line, in the compact made with Arpad.

part of the sovereigns; but there are some points of political importance which it will be convenient to detail.

From the accession of Ferdinand I., till the Hungarian throne was made hereditary in the house of Hapsburg in 1687, seven princes had ruled over the country in the following succession: Ferdinand I., 1526virtually (or by formal recognition, in 1547) to 1564; Maximilian, 1564-1572; Rodolph, 1572-1611, all in succession of primogeniture. Matthias II., his brother, 1607 to 1618, when he relinquished the crown in favor of his cousin-german, Ferdinand II., 1618-1625. Ferdinand III., his son, 16251655; Leopold, from 1655-1687, when he abdicated in favor of his son Joseph.*

Shortly after the accession of Maximilian, he was compelled to take arms against John Sigismund, Prince of Transylvania, vassal to the Sultan, who aspired to the Hungarian throne. After the capture of Tokay and some other places, a peace was concluded, and John transferred his feudality from the Turks to the emperor. That prince died shortly afterwards; and Stephen Bathori, elected as his successor by the States of Transylvania, renewed the treaty. A war with the Turks succeeded, who laid siege to the city of Sigath, on the Sclavonian frontier, bravely defended by Count Zerini, who with 300 men of Spartan valor, made a sally, and died with glory. The town fell in 1566, although Maximilian was close by with a large army. The king ingloriously abandoned the war, and concluded a truce for eight years. Amurath III., successor to Solyman, the party to the truce, following the Christian example set his ancestors in the previous century, broke the truce, and invaded Croatia in 1592. Rodolph beat one army, killing or drowning 12,000 men. Amurath, however, entered Hungary with another large force, and committed great ravages. Rodolph advanced toward Belgrade and gave battle to the infidels, signally defeated them, and killed 12,000 of their most warlike Janizaries. The Imperial forces captured many places of great strength, which had long remained in the hands of the Turks; and in the pitched battle of Hatvan, in 1594, they were again victorious. The war was conducted with great spirit by the Archduke Matthias, till 1606, when an advantageous

*The regnal years of Hungary and the Empire do not correspond; for in almost every instance, as before stated in the text, the heir-apparent was elected and crowned in the lifetime of the king.

peace was concluded. In 1604 an arrangement was concluded with Stephen Botschay, a Hungarian noble of the Calvinistic faith, by which the Catholics, Lutherans, and Calvinists, were to have equally the free privilege of religious worship in Hungary. The reign of Matthias was tranquil and prosperous; but his policy toward the Protestants, in the end, involved Hungary in the troubles of the Thirty Years' war. While the Protestants of the empire composing the evangelical union, were supporting the Palatin Frederic against Ferdinand II., Bethlem Gabor, Prince of Transylvania, on the invocation of the Hungarian Protestants, who offered to support him for the crown, entered the country in 1620, at the head of 60,000 troops, composed of Turks, Tartars, and men of other nations; but his efforts were badly seconded, and after an army had been sent against him, he concluded a truce, in which he resigned all pretension to the crown, and received very advantageous terms. He died in 1629. After the base assassination of Wallenstein, the King of Hungary took command of the Imperial troops up to the pacification of Prague.

In 1663 Hungary was again invaded by the Grand Vizier Kupruli, at the head of 100,000 Turks, and defeated by Montecuculi, at the great battle of St. Godard on the Raab, in the following year. As Hungary was then threatened with serious internal troubles, the king was fain to conclude a peace as speedily as possible. The policy of Leopold was most despotic; his aim was to subvert the national institutions of Hungary, and bring the country completely under imperial sway. Under pretense that a conspiracy had been formed against the life of the emperor, several of the leading magnates of the kingdom were put to death. The brave and high-spirited people, unable to bear the oppression of this despot, flew to arms. The king sent General Sporth with a large force against the insurgents. mander, aided by the Marquis of Baden and Prince Charles of Lorraine, treated the Hungarians with great rigor. After a brief but brave struggle, the patriots were compelled to succumb to the fortune of war. But, though conquered, they were not won; their affections were alienated, and the house of Austria never permanently regained the love of the Hungarian people. So intolerable was the German rule of Leopold, that the struggle was renewed in 1679. The leaders of the national party assembled secretly, drew up a plan of action, and engaged in their in

That com

terest the Prince Abassi of Transylvania, who | aided them with a large body of troops, under the command of the famous Count Emerik Tekeli. When the emperor-king heard the news, he sent a numerous army against the insurgents, who were defeated in several engagements. In their extremity they applied to and obtained aid from the Sultan Mahomet VI., stipulated in a treaty by which Tekeli was to become King of Hungary, and pay tribute to the Sultan. Tekeli, in the mean time, was elected king by his party. In the spring of 1683, the Grand Vizier Kara Mustapha entered Hungary with a magnificent army of 280,000 men, with the design of marching on and besieging the Imperial capital itself. In his terror, Leopold sought and obtained the military alliance of John Sobieski, King of Poland. The Turks advanced in their conquering progress on the right bank of the Danube, and Tekeli on the left. The Duke of Lorraine was sent, at the head of the Imperialists, to prevent a junction of the invading armies, in which he was successful. About the middle of July the Turks invested the city of Vienna, defended by a force of 65,000 men and armed citizens. Sobieski with his own troops and those of Saxony, Bavaria, and the Circles, to the number of 64,000, attacked the besiegers with great fury, who simultaneously with a defensive movement assaulted the city with 20,000 soldiers. The Ottomans, seized by one of those unaccountable panics which at times prostrate the moral and physical powers of armed hosts, fled, and Vienna was saved. Sobieski followed them to the plain of Barkan, where they were again signally defeated. But the noble Poles, when they had vanquished "the enemies of Christendom," had done enough for duty and for glory; they would not fight against men who were in arms for the defense of their national liberties. Sobieski, therefore, persuaded the Duke of Lorraine, the Imperial commander, to listen to proposals for peace; and in the tent of the Polish Lion, the following demands were made by the Vice-Chancellor of Hungary: The confirmation of the ancient liberties and institutions of the Hungarians; liberty of conscience; the restitution of confiscated property; the convocation of a free Diet; winter quarters, and a suspension of arms pending the negotiations; and, lastly, a confirmation of the lordship of Tekeli in the territorial possession which he had acquired in the preceding year. The Duke of Lorraine replied that he had not the power to grant the terms, and Sobieski quitted the

field. The Hungarian war, and successive incursions of the Turks, engaged the Imperial arms, until the peace of Carlowitz, concluded on the 26th of January, 1699, freed the emperor from the attacks of the latter.

Down to 1687, the throne, although practically confined to the house of Lorraine, was elective by the States of the kingdom, and to ensure the succession to that house, it had been the practice with the emperor to secure the Hungarian throne by the election and coronation of his heir during his lifetime. By his later victories over the Turks, and by the capture of all the principal strongholds of the kingdom, Leopold acquired great power and legislative influence in the country, which was in fact under the domination of a German army. He convoked a Diet at Presburg, composed of men nearly all devoted to his interests. A number of Hungarian magnates, who had come up to the capital to plead the cause of their country, were seized by Leopold on the pretext that they had been engaged in correspondence with the Count Tekeli, then living in the Turkish dominions. Many of them were dragged from the churches, and some even from their bed-chambers. No tittle of the charge was proved against them, and they died without one word of confession extorted from their lips. The Diet was kept under the most rigid constraint, and was compelled to assent to whatever the court dictated. Nevertheless, some of the members had the courage to refuse to exercise their suffrages; and Leopold, in the full license of despotism, with a stroke of his pen repealed the electoral formalities of seven centuries. On a pretended resolution of the Diet, he founded and issued an edict, declaring that the choice of the kingdom had fallen on the Archduke Joseph as their legitimate sovereign. The hand that dared to strike this blow against the primal privileges of the Hungarian nation, was not scrupulous in cutting down other ancient laws to suit his despotic purposes. The patriots remonstrated earnestly, and fought and died bravely; but the Imperial troops carried out the imperious will of their master, and the crown became hereditary in the house of Austria.

The popular struggle for national independence was continued, in the beginning of the next century, with the same zeal of purpose, but uncertainty of process, which had previously characterized the military efforts of the insurgents. Under the leadership of Prince Rakoczy, they baffled all the efforts of the Imperial court to subdue them. Proposals of peace were made on these, the prin