Bethlen, perceiving, with his wonted judgment, that the dissensions among the Protestants of Germany augured nothing favorable for the future, endeavored to enter into amicable relations with the court of Vienna. He used every means to prevail upon it to abandon the persecution of the Protestants, and to unite with him in a common war against the Turks, in order to drive them from Hungary. But the court was not disposed to listen to his overtures, and seemed to consider it a matter of greater importance to accomplish the destruction of Protestantism than to free the country from the Turks. Bethlen, seeing that all attempts in this direction were doomed to failure, returned to the old policy of the Transylvania princes. His political connections reached as far as France, England, and Sweden, and, upon the breaking out of the Danish war (1625), he again began armed hostilities, which, however, although crowned with victory, gave way to a new treaty of peace, owing to the defeat of Bethlen’s allies in Germany. When Gustavus Adolphus made his appearance in the West, achieving victories for Protestantism, the great Transylvanian prince was no more amongst the living; he died in 1629. Bethlen was, no doubt, one of the most conspicuous figures in the history of Hungary. Through his exertions little Transylvania moved, in politics, abreast of the most powerful European nations, and under him she became rich, powerful, and greatly advanced in culture, and a strong prop to the rest of the Hungarian nation. His premature death deprived the country of the advantages which he certainly would have drawn from the triumphs of Gustavus Adolphus.
Toward the close of the Thirty Years’ War, the prince of Transylvania, George Rákóczy I., took advantage of the distressed position of Ferdinand III. of Hapsburg (who had succeeded his father, Ferdinand II., on his thrones in 1637) to strike a successful blow for the liberties of Hungary. The beginning of the reign of the successor of Ferdinand III., Leopold I. (1657-1705), witnessed the downfall of Transylvania’s power.
This event disturbed the balance of power between the Turks and Germans, and alone was sufficient to bring about the great changes which soon took place in the affairs of Hungary. In order to account for the overthrow of the power of Transylvania, it must be remembered that both the Turks and Germans had for a long time back looked askance at the strength and influence of this little principality. They were filled with apprehensions of having their Hungarian territories gradually absorbed by Transylvania, and there was an agreement between these two powers, to the effect that she should not be allowed to add to her territory. It is impossible to suppose that the then ruler of Transylvania, George Rákóczy II., had no information of this secret treaty, but he apparently paid no heed to it, or entertained no fears as to its effects. He quietly continued to extend his power, and for that purpose entered into an alliance with the Swedish king for the partition of Poland. In vain did the Viennese court oppose this aggressive course, in vain did the Turks command him to desist from it; the Transylvanian prince crossed the Carpathians, with a gallant army, in 1657. The allied forces of Sweden and Transylvania were everywhere victorious, and the power of Transylvania stood higher than ever. It was at this conjuncture that Leopold I., who had succeeded Ferdinand III., inaugurated, at once, a warlike policy, parting with the peaceable traditions of his predecessors. Leopold divided the attention of Rákóczy’s Swedish ally by setting on him his ancient enemies, the Danes, and sent his own armies into those Hungarian domains belonging to Rákóczy, which the Transylvanian princes had extorted from the Hapsburgs, in the treaties of Vienna and Nikolsburg, and on other similar occasions. Nor were the Turks behindhand in co-operating with the Hapsburgs. A Tartar army was sent into Poland against Rákóczy, and he himself was deposed from his princely office as a punishment for his disobedience. Rákóczy, thus left to fight his own battles, without an ally, and hemmed in by Turks, Germans, and Tartars, suffered defeat on every side, the flower of his army fell into the hands of the Tartars, and it was only by paying a large sum that he obtained peace from Poland. When he returned to Transylvania in August, 1657, with the wreck of his army, the principality was involved in utter financial and military ruin.
The Turks, however, did not pause here; they wished to get the whole of Transylvania into their possession. Twice the unhappy country was devastated by Tartar hordes, and the inhabitants repeatedly carried away into slavery by thousands; a prince was given to her at the dictation of the Turks, and part of her territory actually passed under direct Turkish rule (1662). The hearts of the patriotic Hungarians bled at this cruel sight, and they appealed to and incessantly urged their king to interfere, and not to allow the principality to perish. Leopold I. turned a deaf ear to these appeals; he was not inclined to venture on a war with Turkey, on behalf of Transylvania, and was, at best, careful to get his share of the common plunder. It was a gloomy outlook for the Hungarian nation; the Turks, on the one hand, oppressing her with their formidable forces, and their own king languidly looking on.
The Turkish successes in Transylvania only served to whet the Moslem appetite for further conquests. In 1663 the Turks attacked Leopold without any warning, and obtained possession of the region of the Upper Danube, and of the lower valley of the Vág. This was a great blow to Hungary, for the conquered territory was thrust like a wedge into the semicircular national territory, dividing it again into two new parts. Although an imperial army was sent to meet the Turkish forces, no efforts were made to stay the continual advances of the latter as long as they were on Hungarian territory, but as soon as they neared the Austrian frontier they were opposed by the imperial forces. This imperial army achieved at St. Gotthard, near the Raab, a brilliant victory over the Turks.
This victory gave fresh courage to the despondent Hungarians. They now hoped that the war would be successfully pushed forward, and would end only with the liberation of their country, and the less sanguine expected at least a peace which would restore to the possession of the king of Hungary, Transylvania, and all the other territories obtained by the Turks since 1657. A sad disappointment, however, fell upon the country. The peace concluded by the victorious government left in the possession of the Turks all the territory they had previously taken, thus virtually leaving the country in her former maimed condition.
This disgraceful peace which had been concluded by the court of Vienna without consulting the Hungarians, at last shook even the faith of those Catholic Hungarians who, until now, had been the unconditional adherents of the Hapsburgs. They had, heretofore, acquiesced in the forlorn condition of their country, being persuaded that the Viennese government lacked the ability of rescuing her, but recent events showed them that it was lack of good will on the part of the government which was precipitating the ruin of the country. It became the universal conviction that the Hapsburgs would gladly see the country in the hands of the foreign invader, in order to enable them, by reconquering her anew, to do away with the uncomfortable trammels of the national constitution. Leopold did not heed the general discontent; he pursued the great aim he had proposed to himself, of uniting, after the illustrious example of Louis XIV., all the dependencies of his dynasty into one homogeneous empire. Things had come to such a pass in Hungary that the most inveterate enemies of Turkey openly counselled amity with the Turks, declaring that they preferred paying a tribute to the latter rather than to see the country go to ruin by the Germanizing machinations of the Viennese court.
The general discontent soon budded into a conspiracy in which, this time, not only the Protestants, but chiefly the Catholic population took part, who were now quite as eager to rid themselves of the Germans. The heads of the conspiracy were all Catholics. Their leader was Wesselényi, the palatine of the realm and the king’s representative, and affiliated with him in the leadership were the largest landlords in the country: Peter Zrinyi, Nádasdy, Francis Rákóczy, and Frangepán. Their aim was to rid the country of the Germans by the aid of the Turks, or, if possible, of the French. The conspiracy, however, failed. Wesselényi died, and the plot was betrayed to the government before it had ripened into the intended rising. Leopold, without loss of time, swooped down upon the principal conspirators. Zrinyi, Nádasdy, and Frangepán were seized, and without being given the benefit of the laws of their country, were decapitated. Their immense estates were confiscated, and Rákóczy himself could only save his life and obtain mercy by paying a ruinous ransom (1671). The government, however, was not satisfied with the cruel punishment of the ringleaders alone; it deemed this a propitious time for the introduction of various oppressive measures. Without convoking the Diet, a land and corn tax was imposed upon the country, excise duties were introduced, and a poll tax levied on every inhabitant, including the nobles. The land was swarming with a foreign soldiery brought there to restrain the rebellious Hungarians. The government added injury to insult; not satisfied with insulting the nation by entirely ignoring its constitution, and keeping down the national aspirations by quartering foreign garrisons in national territory, it raised illegal taxes wherewith to pay the armed oppressors. The government at Vienna threw off its mask at last; the Hungarian constitution was abolished, and Hungary reduced to the condition of a province of Austria (1673).
Whilst the government thus succeeded in subverting the constitution of the country, it showed no less activity and success in the prosecution of its other aim, the Romanizing of the people. There was no law to protect those professing the new faith; they could be oppressed with impunity; their churches were taken away from them; hundreds of their ministers and teachers were sentenced by the tribunal to slavery on the galleys, or were sent adrift by private persecutions. It was an open secret that the king himself was eager to exterminate the last heretic, and just as the oath of the king to protect the constitution had been forgotten, so were the various treaties of peace, guaranteeing the freedom of worship, doomed to oblivion, as soon as there was no Transylvanian prince to recall them to royal memory by force of arms.
And yet it was Transylvania, in her weakened condition, that now came to the assistance of Hungary, which had become a prey to Austrian rapacity. Many of those who were compelled to fly from the persecutions of the sanguinary policy of the government sought and found a refuge in Transylvania, and they were continually urging Apaffy, the prince of Transylvania, and the Turks to intercede with arms in behalf of the Hungarian cause. The Viennese government assailed Stambul with letters requesting the sultan not to allow Transylvania to be the place of refuge of certain “thieves,” but to no purpose. The Porte, indeed, so far from favorably receiving these epistles, secretly promised aid against the Austrians. A fresh insurrection broke out in 1672. The refugees flocked into the Upper Country and inaugurated a warfare which, for cruelty and mercilessness, stands alone in the history of Hungary. The era of this contest, commencing in 1672, and covering a period of nearly ten years, is called the Kurucz-Labancz era. This aimless and purposeless struggle was kept up between the Kuruczes (insurgents) and Labanczes (Austrians), within the limits of the territory lying between Komárom and Transylvania, and there was no end of the horrors the contestants were guilty of in the course of their hostilities against each other. To cut tobacco on the enemy’s bare back, or to cut strips from his quivering skin, to drive thorns or iron spikes under the finger-nails, to bury him in the ground up to his head and then fire at him, to skin him alive, to put a stake through him,—in a word, to perpetrate tortures at which humanity shudders, these were the every-day courtesies exchanged between the two belligerents. The combatants of that day respected neither God nor man; they acknowledged only one guide for their actions: a bitter and undying hatred of all that called itself Labancz. They were the misguided creatures of a period during which the insane policy of the government had robbed the people both of their religion and their teachers.
The ruling powers had thus conjured up days of terror, but were utterly inadequate to the task of terminating them. Indeed after several years of this schemeless struggle, the rebellion became at last organized and conscious of a fixed object. The rebels received aid from the French and from the Porte, and Transylvania, as a state, was ready to make common cause with her countrymen. Tökölyi, a magnate of the Upper Country, a youth only twenty-one years old, but of eminent abilities, placed himself at the head of the rebels, and, now in 1678, began the war in good earnest. The rebels soon became masters of the Upper Country, and the government which had been unable to cope with the headless Kuruczes, proved quite helpless against the organized rebellion, led by an able chief. Austria was, besides, continually harassed by Louis XIV. in the west, and, to add to her difficulties, it was rumored that the Turks were preparing to invade Hungary with an immense army, which, uniting with the forces of Tökölyi, should drive the Austrians from the country.
The government, thus driven to the wall, surrendered. Negotiations soon began, the Diet was convoked in 1681, and constitutional government and freedom of worship were restored with a show of great alacrity. The concessions came too late. The rebels had no faith in the government after the cruel deceptions of which it had been guilty, and placed no trust in promises wrung from its necessitous condition. They refused to submit, and Tökölyi was proclaimed by the Porte king of Hungary. The threatened Turkish invasion became also in 1683 a fact. At this moment Hungary seemed to be lost forever to the Hapsburgs; the whole country sided with the Turks, the territory beyond the Danube also acknowledging the authority of Tökölyi.
The destinies of Hungary, nay of all Eastern Europe, hung upon the fate of besieged Vienna. The siege of Vienna was raised through the victory of Sobieski the Polish king; and the rapidly succeeding victories of the Christian armies, already referred to in the preceding chapter, awakened the hopes of the Hungarian nation, and showed that, at last, the emperor-king concerned himself in the liberation from Turkish rule of Hungarian territory. The decisive victories of Prince Eugene of Savoy finally accomplished this, and the Turks henceforth gave up all hopes of reconquering Hungary.
The liberation of the Hungarian soil, however important in itself, proved no immediate panacea for the ills of which the country had to complain. Even while the struggle was going on, many things happened which pointed to troubles in the future. The Hungarian inhabitants along the course of the Danube were rudely interrogated by the soldiers of the imperial army of liberation as to what faith they professed, and if they were found to adhere to the new tenets they were mercilessly set adrift. In the Upper Country a certain Caraffa, the military commandant of that district, committed acts of the most cruel atrocity. This bloody monster pretended to have discovered a conspiracy, and obtained from the government, which was disposed to suspect the loyalty of the Hungarians, full powers to deal with it and to put it down. Caraffa made a terrible use of his commission. He made wholesale arrests of the suspected and loyal alike, threw into prison men of high standing against whom he had a personal grudge, and rich people whose property he coveted, and extorted from them by dreadful tortures the confession of crimes they had never committed. These unfortunates were then executed upon the strength of their confessions. This bloody tribunal of Eperjes, of ill-fame, which inspired horror all over the land, continued its malevolent functions until the first months of 1687, when it was abolished, through the intercession of the Diet which had just been convoked. This Diet, however, was in most of its work not at all anxious to hamper the government. On the contrary, it displayed a pliability which made it forget the true interests of the country. Thus it substituted for the ancient right of the nation to elect their kings, the hereditary right of succession in the male branch of the Hapsburg dynasty, and it was this Diet that relinquished the time-honored right of the people, guaranteed by the Golden Bull, to resist with arms any illegal acts of the king, without incurring the penalty of treason for so doing. There were some malicious critics who pretended that this unpatriotic legislation was due to the pressure of imperial guns pointed at the place in which the Diet met. At all events the servile spirit exhibited by the Diet gave color to the apprehensions of those Hungarians who were of one mind with Tökölyi, that Hungary must be irretrievably ruined if she passed under the authority of the Austrians.
As the Turkish wars were drawing to an end, more melancholy portents began to darken the horizon. Hungary was reorganized by the government at Vienna without the Hungarians being consulted. Transylvania remained a separate “grand duchy,” and the district beyond the Drave was formed into a separate province, and all this was done from the fear lest united Hungary might become too strong to suit Austria’s schemes. A large portion of the recovered territory was distributed amongst German landowners, the southern portion of the Alföld was colonized by Servians, and in other parts of the land, especially in the cities, the settlement of German-speaking people was encouraged, for the purpose of tempering the hot blood of the rebellious Hungarians. The fortified castles scattered throughout the whole country, the property of private owners, were blown up by the hundred, without the consent of their proprietors, lest in case of a fresh rising these strongholds should be used as centres of a factious spirit.
The Protestants were not allowed to settle in the reconquered districts. In other places the freedom of their worship was interfered with, the churches were taken from them, their ministers driven away, and if any one, appealing to his constitutional rights, had the courage to resist these illegalities, he was thrown into prison. In a word, regular dragonnades, as they flourished in France under Louis XIV., now became the order of the day.
The government imposed upon the people such oppressive and burdensome taxes that it almost seemed as if it dreaded the prosperity of the country. If the people complained of the heavy burdens, they were instigated against the nobles, whose exemption from taxation was pointed out as the only cause of the heavy burdens. The country was again flooded by a foreign soldiery, whose chief business consisted in robbing and plundering, the common soldiers oppressing the common people, and the officers the nobility. The honor and the property of the people were at the mercy of these brutal troops, and those who complained of such outrages found themselves always in the wrong. This forlorn condition is reflected in many of the plaintive popular songs of that period, but there was no means of remedying these evils crying throughout the land, for no Diet had been convoked since 1687. The aim of the Viennese government became daily more evident, to put the Austrian rule in the place of the Turkish, and to ignore altogether the Hungarian national aspirations. The nation herself seemed to the government too much enfeebled and trodden down to give any ground for apprehending any resistance in defence of her rights, but to make assurance doubly sure every effort was made to crush the national spirit.
Yet the nation could not brook oppression, she could not be kept quiet, deprived of constitutional government, and as soon as she had found again a leader in Francis Rákóczy II., she rose in arms. The new leader was the bearer of a great name. His ancestors had been princes of Transylvania. He himself was the grandson of that George Rákóczy II., who in 1657 invaded Poland, and subsequently lost his life fighting against the Turks in defence of his country and his throne. His father Francis had taken part in the Wesselényi conspiracy, and escaped the scaffold only at the cost of an immense ransom. His maternal grandfather, Peter Zrinyi, met with his death on the scaffold, and his only great-uncle perished in prison in spite of his innocence. His stepfather, Tökölyi, together with his own mother, Ilona Zrinyi, ate the bitter bread of exile in Turkey. He and his sister were, in their early youth, torn from their parents, and their education entrusted to Germans. In Vienna he was subjected to many humiliations, and as he grew up he left that city and retired to one of his estates, intending to pass his life peacefully near his wife. He was averse to action, and the bloody shades of his family seemed vainly to beckon to him, who alone bore yet the famous name and was the master of immense possessions, to follow in their footsteps.
But all this was changed as soon as he came to Hungary. He could not bear to witness the wrongs perpetrated about him, and he could not move a step without becoming aware that the nation expected from him, the descendant of a line of heroes, their salvation. Meanwhile the Spanish war of succession had broken out in 1701, and very soon all Europe was involved in it. This appeared to Rákóczy to be a propitious time for the reconquering of the liberties of the people, and, aided by the French king, he hoisted in 1703 the flag of the rebellion, bearing the inscription “pro patria et libertate,” for the fatherland and liberty.
The sages at Vienna would not at first credit the news of the rising of the people; they had long ago made up their minds that such an event was impossible. But when the movement spread like wildfire throughout the Upper Country, Transylvania, and ultimately all Hungary, and the great majority of the nation unsheathed the sword, they became frightened, and resorted to—negotiations and fresh promises. The rebels were inclined to cease hostilities provided their liberties were secured. But mere words did not satisfy them now, having been taught by sad experience the futility of royal words, oaths, and solemn treaties of peace, and they therefore endeavored to obtain more substantial guaranties from the government. They exacted the independence of Transylvania, under a Hungarian prince and the guaranty of the European powers. To these propositions the government neither would nor could accede, while the rebels insisted upon their first proposals, declaring that it was impossible for them to have any faith in Austrian or—as it was popularly termed—in German promises. This universal sentiment of distrust, pervading the nation, is admirably reflected in a popular song, to which that period gave birth, and of which we subjoin a translation:
These overtures failed to lead to peace, and the struggle continued throughout the land, giving up to ruin what had been left intact by the Turkish slavery of a century and a half and the sixteen years’ war of liberation. The government was unable either to quell or to crush the rebellion, standing in need of all its strength for the struggle in the west. At this conjuncture Leopold I. descended into his grave in 1705, and his well-intentioned son, Joseph I., succeeded to the throne (1705-1711).
Joseph sincerely wished for peace, and, convinced of the mistakes of the policy of his father, he did all in his power to allay the apprehensions of the rebels, but his constitutional sentiment failed to efface the baneful effects of his predecessor’s misgovernment and duplicity. Nor was it possible for him, either, to accept the terms of the rebels, and thus it came to pass that the dynasty of Hapsburg was dethroned in Hungary, during the reign of this upright monarch, in 1707. This was a great mistake on the part of the rebels, but Joseph had now the advantage of being able to show his respect for the liberties of the nation, under the most adverse circumstances, and he thus, by slow degrees, won the confidence of the people. The French had, meanwhile, been thoroughly defeated, and Joseph was thus enabled to oppose larger forces to the rebels, while the latter could not secure aid from any quarter. The rebels, exhausted with the protracted struggle, met with repeated defeats, and, to add to their distress, the black plague made its appearance and fearfully thinned the ranks of their troops. The king, however, did not abuse his increasing power. He granted an amnesty to all, without exception, who were willing to return to their allegiance; he governed constitutionally, remedied the ills inflicted upon the country by his predecessors, and finally placed a Hungarian commander-in-chief at the head of the army. His earnest and sincere endeavors were at last rewarded by peace. The issue of the various negotiations was the compact of Szatmár, concluded in 1711, by the terms of which a general amnesty was granted, and constitutional and religious liberty secured.
This peace was a grateful conclusion to the sad days which had been weighing down Hungary for two hundred years, a period during which both Turks and Austrians were compassing the ruin of the country. The former were perpetually threatening her territorial integrity; the latter, her political liberties, and the nationality to which those liberties were closely wedded. By dint of rare courage, an undying love of liberty, and acute statesmanship, they succeeded in preserving both their territory and their liberties. The sad events of those two centuries had put the endurance and energies of the nation to the severest test, but, in the end, she triumphantly passed through the cruel ordeal.
A new era now dawned in the history of Hungary. Wars no more threatened the territory of the country, and her liberties and nationality were no longer exposed to stubborn violence. Yet the dangers to her national life were not yet quite removed, for what the sword and brute force had been unable to accomplish during the preceding centuries, the eighteenth century attempted to achieve peaceably by means of the Western civilization.
Charles III. (Charles VI. as Emperor of Germany), the brother and successor of Joseph, inaugurated this new policy, and his daughter, Maria Theresa (1740-1780), continued to pursue, during her long reign, with great success, the course traced by her royal father. The protracted wars, whilst laying waste the country and reducing her population, had also retarded her culture, and it became now necessary to find means to remedy both evils. Attempts were made to supply the lack of population by colonizing. The Alföld, the special home of the Hungarian race, was particularly depopulated, and there we see the work of establishing new settlements most zealously carried on during the whole century. The Slavs from the Upper Country, the Servians from the South, and multitudes of German-speaking peoples from the West, soon spread over the great plain, and the numerous villages of the last could be met with at every step. The government was especially solicitous in promoting German colonization, partly because these settlers were industrious, and partly because this course favored the Germanization of the country. But soon the Hungarians, who had been crowded back into the hilly regions of the country, returned to their beloved Alföld, and for a while a regular hand-to-hand fight ensued between them and the strangers for the possession of the broad acres of the fertile plain. Hardly one generation passed and all those motley populations became Magyarized, and proudly proclaimed themselves to be members of the Hungarian community. Only there where the foreign element had settled in compact masses, they remained strangers still, but the national encroachment on their borders went constantly on. In connection with the colonization was also carried on the work of draining the swamps and improving the soil, and we see the population day by day increasing in numbers and wealth.
Great changes, too, were effected in the country by means of legislation. Successive Diets endeavored to remedy the many palpable defects, and it may be said that the tribunals existing up to 1848 originated in the time of Charles III. At this period, also, was introduced the system of a standing army and with it that of permanent taxation. Both soldiers and taxes are still granted by the Diet, yet, not for special emergencies only, as they arise, but until the next Diet is convoked. About this time the relations between Hungary and the Austrian provinces were more clearly defined by the Pragmatic Sanction of 1723. By it Hungary and the Austrian provinces were declared inseparable, and the ruler of both was always to be one and the same person from the Hapsburg dynasty, in the regular order of succession in the male and female lines; but, otherwise, Hungary was to remain perfectly independent, and was to be governed by her own laws.
The nation was offered an opportunity to prove by her alacrity in complying with the wishes of Charles in regard to a change in the order of the dynastic succession, that his kind feelings towards the country were fully reciprocated by the trustfulness of the people. The right of succession was thus extended to the female line too of those very Hapsburgs, whose dynasty the nation, not many years before, had declared to have altogether forfeited their right to the throne. The country was soon called upon at Maria Theresa’s accession to the throne to prove by deeds its attachment and gratitude. The young queen was attacked by all Europe, the enemy being eager to rob her of the fairest portions of her Austrian possessions. In this extreme danger she appealed to chivalrous Hungary for protection, and the nation, forgetting the old quarrels, exclaimed with one voice: “Vitam et sanguinem! moriamur pro rege nostro Maria Theresia!” Eighty thousand soldiers went into the war to meet the queen’s enemies, who were anxious to divide the spoils of the empire, and during a combat of eight years the Hungarians, whilst defending their Pragmatic Sanction, upheld, at the same time, the integrity of the Austrian possessions. The dynasty had thus won in Hungary, by a spirit of conciliation, a country upon which it could count as a trusty support in case of danger from without.
Maria Theresa showed herself grateful for the sacrifices and devotion of the nation. The district of Temes, which had been retaken from the Turks by her father, was re-annexed to the kingdom of Hungary, and it was Maria Theresa who gave Hungary the city of Fiume, in order that the country might have a seaport town to promote her commerce and industry. A great deal, too, was done by her, in many ways, to improve the material condition of the country, and still more for the advancement of higher culture through the erection of churches and the foundation and organization of schools. In a word, she always remained, to her end, the “gracious queen” of the nation.
A great social revolution had also taken place during the reigns of Charles and Maria Theresa. The magnates of the country deserted in the piping times of peace their eagle’s nests on the rocky crests of the hills and descended into the smiling valleys below, building there palaces for themselves after foreign patterns. Life in those rural abodes, owing to the lack of pastimes and refinement, soon became dull to the great lords, and, as there was no national capital to offer distraction, they went abroad, and soon came to like the foreign mode of life better than the lawlessness of their country homes. The Viennese court bade them welcome, overwhelmed them with distinctions, and Maria Theresa, especially, understood the art of fascinating them. Gradually they became foreigners in their dress and manners, and all the Hungarian that was still preserved by these absentees was their names and the estates they possessed in Hungary, the revenues of which they spent abroad. The atmosphere and the graces of court life succeeded in doing what the sword and violence had failed to accomplish. The great lords became estranged from their country and thoroughly Germanized.
If the great noblemen alone had still the exclusive charge of defending the independence and nationality of Hungary as they had done in days of old, then indeed these blessed days of peace would have brought ruin on both. It was fortunate, however, for the country that there was still left the gentry, numbering hundreds of thousands, who, after the peace of 1711, went on in their lives as before, and concerned themselves, in their old way, with the national affairs; the counties, where self-government reigned supreme, being the scene of their action. This class of nobles did not go abroad, nor was it possible to subject any large numbers of them to the fascinations of Viennese court life. They remained at home, retained their Hungarian customs and manners, their national language and dress, and with these it was impossible to make them part. Their counties were so many bulwarks of their nationality and the independence of Hungary, and these numerous seats of self-government furnished the counterpoise to the Germanizing influences of the court, which were thus destined, as far as the nation as a whole was concerned, to come to naught in times of peace, as they had failed before when coercion was employed.
The royal crown of Hungary has ever been, from the time it encircled the brow of St. Stephen, an object of jealous solicitude and almost superstitious veneration with the nation. It continued to loom up as a luminous and rallying point in the midst of the vicissitudes and stirring events of the history of the country, during all the centuries that followed the coronation of the first king. The people looked upon it as a hallowed relic, the glorious bequest of a long line of generations past and gone, and as the symbol and embodiment of the unity of the state. The different countries composing Hungary were known under the collective name of the Lands of the Sacred Crown, and, at the period when the privileged nobility was still enjoying exceptional immunities, each noble styled himself membrum sacræ coronæ, a member of the sacred crown. In the estimation of the people it had ceased to be a religious symbol, and had become a cherished national and political memorial, to which the followers of every creed and all the classes without distinction might equally do homage. Nor was the crown an every-day ornament to be displayed by royalty on solemn occasions of pageant. The king wore it only once in his life, on the day of his coronation, when he was bound solemnly to swear fidelity to the constitution, before the high dignitaries of the state, first in church, and to repeat afterwards in the open air his vow to govern the country within the limits of the law. Thus in Hungary it has ever been the ancient custom, prevailing to this day, that, on the king’s accession to the throne, it is he who, on his coronation, takes the oath of fidelity to his people, instead of the latter swearing fealty to the king. The right of succession to the throne is hereditary, but the lawful rule of the king begins with the ceremony of coronation only. It requires this ceremonial, which to this day is characterized by the attributes of mediæval pomp and splendor, to render the acts of the ruler valid and binding upon the people; without it every public act of such ruler is a usurpation.
During eight centuries all the kings and queens, without exception, had been eager to place the crown on their heads, in order to come into the full possession of their regal privileges. Joseph II., Maria Theresa’s son, who succeeded his mother in 1780, was the first king who refused to be crowned. He felt a reluctance to swear fidelity to the constitution, and to promise, by a solemn oath, to govern the country in accordance with its ancient usages and laws. The people, therefore, never called him their crowned king; he was either styled emperor by them, or nicknamed the “kalapos” (hatted) king. His reign was but a series of illegal and unconstitutional acts, and a succession of bitter and envenomed struggles between the nation and her ruler. The contest finally ended with Joseph’s defeat. He retracted on his deathbed all his arbitrary measures, and conceded to the people the tardy restoration of their ancient constitution. The conflict, however, had left deep traces in the minds of his Hungarian subjects. It roused them from the dormant state into which they had been lulled by the gentle and maternal absolutism of Maria Theresa. Thus Joseph’s schemes not only failed, but, in their effects, they were destined to bring about the triumph of ideas, fraught with important consequences, such as he had hardly anticipated. The nation, waking from her lethargy, gave more prominence than ever to the idea of nationality, an idea which, as time advanced, increased in potency and intensity.
Yet this ruler, who on ascending the throne disregarded all constitutional obligations and waged a relentless war against the Hungarian nationality, must be, nevertheless, ranked amongst the noblest characters of his century. Thoroughly imbued with the enlightened views of the eighteenth century, and those new ideas which had triumphed in the war of independence across the ocean, he was ever in pursuit of generous and exalted aims. He sincerely desired the welfare of the people, and in engaging in this fruitless conflict he was by no means actuated by sinister intentions or by a despotic disposition. To introduce reforms, called for by the spirit of the age, into the Church, the schools, and every department of his government, was the lofty task he had imposed upon himself. A champion of the oppressed, he freed the human conscience from its mediæval fetters, granted equal rights to the persecuted creeds, protected the enslaved peasantry against their arbitrary masters, and enlarged the liberty of the press. He endeavored to establish order and honesty in every branch of the public service, being mindful, at the same time, of all the agencies affecting the prosperity of the people. In a word, his remarkable genius embraced every province of human action where progress, reforms, and ameliorations were desirable.
Unhappily for his own peace of mind and for the destinies of the nation he was called upon to rule, he committed a fatal error in the selection of the methods for accomplishing his humane and philanthropic objects. He desired to render Hungary happy, yet he excluded the nation from the direction of her own affairs. He wished to enact salutary laws, yet he reigned as an absolute monarch, unwilling to call the Diet to his aid in the great work of reformation, ignoring and disdaining the constitution and laws of the country. He was impolitic enough to attack a constitution which, thanks to the devotion of the people, had withstood the shock of seven centuries. He was unwise enough to suppose that the people, in whose hearts the love of their ancient constitution had taken deep root, for the defence of which rivers of blood had been shed, could be prevailed upon to relinquish it to satisfy a theory of royalty. The old political organization was eminently an outgrowth of the Hungarian nationality, and all classes of the people, including the very peasantry to whom the ancient constitution meant only oppression, clung to it with devoted fervor. The people were as anxious for reforms as Joseph himself, but they wanted them by lawful methods, and with the co-operation of the nation and their Diet. Joseph might have become the regenerator and benefactor of Hungary if he had availed himself, for the realization of his grand objects, of the national and lawful channels which lay ready to his hand. But he, unfortunately, preferred attempting to achieve his purpose out of the plenitude of his own power, by imperial edicts and arbitrary measures, thus conjuring up a storm against himself which well-nigh shook his throne, and plunging the nation into a wild ferment of passion bordering on revolution.
The people presented a solid phalanx against Joseph’s attacks upon their nationality and language, which to them were objects dearer than every thing else. They little cared for the emperor’s well-intentioned endeavors to make them prosperous and happy as long as he asked, in exchange, for the relinquishment of their nationality. And this, above all, was his most ardent wish. He wanted Hungary to be Hungarian no more, and wished its people to cast off the distinctive marks of their individuality, and to adopt the German language, instead of their own, in the schools, the public administration, and in judicial proceedings. In a word, he made German the official language of the country, and was bent on forcing it upon the people.
Henceforth every reform coming from Joseph became hateful to the people. The oppressed classes themselves spurned relief which involved the sacrifice of their sweet mother-tongue. By proclaiming equal rights and equal subjection to the burdens of the state, he arrayed the privileged classes against his person. The Protestants and the peasantry, who had hailed him in the beginning as their new Messiah, and fondly saw in his innovations the dawn of brighter days, also turned from him as soon as he attacked them in what they prized even more than liberty and justice. It was not long before the whole country, without distinction of class, social standing, or creed, combined to set at naught the Germanizing efforts of Joseph. The hard-fought struggle roused the people, hitherto divided by antagonisms of class and creed, to a sense of national solidarity. It was during the critical days of these constitutional conflicts that the foundations of the modern homogeneousness of the Hungarian nation and society were laid down.
The privileged classes looked upon Joseph, on his advent to the throne, with distrust. They foresaw that he would not allow himself to be crowned, in order to avoid taking the oath of fidelity to the constitution of Hungary. The first measures of his reign concerned the organization of the various churches of the country. He extended the religious freedom of the Protestant Church. By virtue of the apostolic rights of the Hungarian kings, he introduced signal reforms into the Catholic Church, especially regarding the education of the clergy, which proved, in part, exceedingly salutary. He abolished numerous religious orders, especially those which were not engaged either in teaching or nursing the sick. One hundred and forty monasteries and nunneries were closed by him in Hungary. The ample property of these convents he employed for ecclesiastical and public purposes and for the advancement of instruction. He exerted himself strenuously and successfully in the establishment of public schools and in the interest of popular education. He removed the only university of which the country could then boast from Buda to Pesth, a city which was rapidly increasing, and added a theological department to that seat of learning. All these innovations met with the approval of the enlightened elements of the nation, whilst the privileged classes and the clergy opposed them with sullen discontent. The opposition was all the more successful, as the emperor had contrived to insult the moral susceptibilities of the common people by some of his measures. Thus, with a view to economizing the boards required for coffins, he ordered the dead to be sewed up in sacks, and to be buried in this apparel. This uncalled-for meddling with the prejudices of the lower classes had the effect of creating a great indignation among them, and of driving them into the camp of the opposition. Trifling and thoughtless measures of a similar nature impaired the credit of the most salutary innovations. The people looked with suspicion at every change, and, heedless of the lofty endeavors of the emperor, everybody, including the officials themselves, rejected the entire governmental system of Joseph.
The emperor also wounded the national feeling of piety by his action concerning the crown he had spurned. According to ancient custom and law the sacred crown was kept in safety in Presburg, in a building provided for that purpose. In 1784 the emperor ordered the crown to be removed to Vienna, in order to be placed there in the royal treasury side by side with the crowns of his other lands. The nation revolted at this profanation of their hallowed relic, and the highest official authorities, throughout the land, protested against a measure which, while it created such widespread ill feeling, was not justified by any necessity. A dreadful storm, accompanied by thunder and lightning, was raging when the crown was removed to Vienna, and the people saw in this a sign that nature herself rebelled against the sacrilege committed by the emperor. The counties continued to urge the return of the crown in addresses which were sometimes humbly suppliant in their tone and sometimes threatening, but Joseph did not yield either to supplications or menaces.