in the year 1240, the Mongols, after desolat- excepted from the coronation oath, and is ing the east under Gengiskhan, turned probably unique; it being more extraordina'

. westward under his successors; and, led by ry for the sovereign lo concede the right of his grandson Batou, overwhelmed, devastat- insurrection, than for the subjects to assume ing and destroying almost without resistance it; as did the Aragonese nobles by the cele. Russia, Poland, Moravia, Silesia, and Hun- brated “Si no,-no,” (if not,-noi,) of their gary. The first check they experienced was oath of allegiance. in Silesia : Henry the Pious, Duke of Bres- This period likewise produced monarchs lau, gave them battle with very inferior num distinguished by other qualities than their bers, and although he was defeated and slain, courage and military proficiency. We have his gallant example encouraged his country. already mentioned St. Stephen ; we may add men; the towns closed their gates and man. Bela I., who, in a three years' reign, did ned their walls; the Mongols besieged them much for the internal prosperity of the king. unsuccessfully as unskilfully, and penetrated dom; his son, St. Ladislaus, a conqueror no further westward upon this line. In and legislator, the benefactor of the church Hungary they overspread the country, while and restorer of its discipline ; Koloman, who internal dissensions paralysed the efforts of in those early and superstitious times prohib. Bela to oppose them. He was defeated, ited the persecution of witches, “because and, escaping death only by the self-devotion witchcraft has no existence ;” and Bela IV., of a few of his followers, sought shelter with who, in addition to his other merits, began his family in the furthest Hungarian province, the improvement of the judicial system, and Dalmatia. There and in Hungary some restricted the use of the ordeal and judicial fortified towns successfully defied the awk. combat in legal proceedings. We cannot ward attacks of the Mongols. The death of forbear extracting the noble historian's chaKhan Oktay and the affairs of their own racter of this Magyar monarch. empire, rather than the resistance they en. countered, appear to have determined the “ Bela was certainly one of the greatest of Mongols to return to Asia.

Mailáth thus rulers.

His measures, equally energetic, describes the state in which they left Hun. comprehensive, and appropriate, saved the

Magyar realm when upon the point of disso. gary

lution by the Mongol invasion. The rise of " In how horrible a condition did Bela, the towns, the repeopling of the country, a upon his return, find his kingdom ! -For more regulated course of business, a fresh whole days' journeys not a human being; impulse given to the working of the mines; the wild beasts so increased in numbers and the ratification of popular liberties, in unison were so audacious, that by broad daylight

the with corroboration of the regal dignity; securwolves ventured into inhabited villages of the revenue,* such are the unforgotten

of the frontiers by alliances, augmentation tearing children from their mothers, and effects of his wisdom. A man full of virtue, even attacking armed men. Nowhere a field tilled ; famine, with all its terrors, im- whose memory, like sweet honey, lives in the pending; sickness predominant. But great mouths of Hungarians and of foreign na. as was the need, commensurate was the en- tions,' says the old chronicler Turocz.", ergy of his counteractive measures.”

In 1301 died Andreas III., the last male Another remarkable event of this period heir of the Arpad dynasty ; and the historian was the wringing from the feeble Andreas II. remarks that of the three-and-twenty kings a charter, bearing much analogy to our from A. D. 1000, only Bela IV. lived to the Magna Charta, to which it is little inferior, age of sixty; these premature deaths, com. and subsequent but by a very few years. It bining with attachment to the hereditary is entitled the Golden Bull

, and is, to this principle, render the accession of minors day, the law of the land; the constitution more frequent in the annals of half-elective which, with the exception of one clause, ev. Hungary, than perhaps of any purely hered. ery monarch at his accession still swears 10 itary monarchy. observe. Count Mailáth considers the Gold- Upon the extinction of the male line, an en Bull as superior to Magna Charta; and heir was sought in the female branch. Even without entering into comparison, some when Andreas III., a collateral heir of the points of the Hungarian document certainly kings his immediate predecessors, was electdeserve mention. The Golden Bull authored, Maria, the queen of Charles II. of Na. ized the assembling of the estates of the ples and grand-daughter to Bela IV., had kingdom, afforded security of person and property, ameliorated the condition of the * It should perhaps have been earlier stated, that lower orders, and sanctioned the forcible re- taxes, the nature of which seems to be quite un

the public revenue of Hungary was derived from sistance of the subjects to misgovernment on known, from customs and tolls, as well as from the part of the king. This last is the clause crown lands. VOL. XXIV.

3

ity

claimed the crown for her son Charles Margary under the Imperial House of Austria, tel; and the Pope had, somewhat precipi. than as a single, unassisted kingdom. They tately, conferred it upon him. Death pre. now reduced three-fourths of the country so vented Charles Martel from enforcing his completely, that the national division into pretensions against Andreas; but when the counties was changed for a Turkish division throne was actually vacant, his son, Charles into Sangiacks, all placed under the supreme Robert, protected by the Pope, repaired to authority of the Pasha of Buda. It was only Hungary, and though not fifteen, contended under the Emperor Charles VI., in the early with his rivals for the crown so strenuously part of the eighteenth century, that the whole and successfully, that after several years of Hungary was finally and completely re. struggle, he carried his election, and in 1310 covered from Ottoman domination; and it is was crowned at Buda.

with the accession of Charles's daughter, Charles Robert's reign was for Hungary Maria Theresa, whose wise and maternal uncommonly long, being thirty years from government conciliated even the most turbu. his coronation; and his posterity continued, lent of the Magyars, that Count Mailáth with a short interruption, to rule for upwards considers the separate history of Hungary as of 200 years, in fact as long as Hungary re. terminated. He concludes his narrative of mained independent. In 1526 the unfortu. heroism, chivalry, and romance, we must say nate battle of Mohaes against the Turks de unpleasantly to our feelings, by calling in stroyed the forces of Hungary; and by the question the celebrated, generally believed, death of the young king, Lewis II., without and heart-stirring burst of Magyar enthusichildren, made way for the election of his astic loyalty, “ Moriamur pro rege nostro, sister's husband, the Archduke, afterwards Maria Theresa !” the Emperor Ferdinand I., who incorporated During the early part of this period it may Hungary with the other dominions of the perhaps be thought that the character of Hun. House of Austria.

gary as the bulwark of Christendom, was This period like the former is full of wars, merged in that of the victim ; but still, at foreign and civil. The foreign were occa. least negatively, it served in the former ca. sioned first by schemes of conquest and in- pacity. "It formed the boundary line beyond volvement in the affairs of Naples; after which the stormiest tide of Ottoman conquest wards also by the necessity of opposing the advanced no further westward ; once only a progressive preponderance of the Ottoman vigorous effort at such advance was made, arms : when Hungary appeared as the bul- and it ended in the memorabie siege of Vi. ward of Christendom. The civil wars origi- enna, raised by the gallant King of Poland, nated chiefly in contests for the crown. Like John Sobieski, with the utter discomfiture of the former, this period produced some great the Osmanlis. Nor was this the only memmen ; of whom may be mentioned Charles orable siege, the only heroic exploit achiev. Robert himself, an able, and generally speak- ed in the continuous war against the intrusive ing a prosperous ruler, although he greatly Turk. The desperate resistance of several augmented the power of his patrons, the Hungarian towns, though seldom successful, popes, in Hungary; his son, Lewis I., called still affords the mind of the reader some re. one of Hungary's greatest kings, who added lief from the sense of depression that steals Poland, Red Russia, Moldavia, and part of over it, whilst dwelling upon the details of Servia to his hereditary dominions; John misgovernment of paltry and ill-advised am. Hunyadi and his son Mathias Corvinus. bition, and the disastrous results.

Hungary was now no longer an indepen- But perhaps the most remarkable incident dent kingdom ; but its history, in some mea- belonging to these two centuries of struggle sure independent, does not ccase simultane. between Austria and Turkey for Hungary, ously with its separate existence. Although relates to the religious vicissitudes that ocFerdinand was twice elected King of Hunga- curred there. The Reformation had struck ry, the whole nation did not acknowledge root so firmly amongst the people, was so him ; rebellions and civil wars, envenomed rapidly and so widely spreading, that Magby religious dissensions, followed ; Transyl- Syar-Orszag, as the Magyars denominate vania, under the ambitious John Zapolya, Hungary, secmed upon the point of becoming aimed at independence ; he and his succes a completely Protestant state, when the sheer sors even preferring vassalage to the Porte intellectual energy and eloquence of one when the alternative was submission to Aus- man, the Jesuit, Pazman, reconverted almost tria.

all the higher orders to Catholicism. Favoured by these internal feuds that This period likewise produced some realized resistance to the common enemy of markable men, whose names well deserve Christendom, the Turks pursued their victo. to be recorded. Pazman was born of a rious career more successfully against Hun. Inoble, though not wealthy family, was edu.

cated in Calvinistic principles, and became tures cannot be more attractively given, than
a Catholic at thirteen, a Jesuit at seventeen as told by himself in the ingenious preface
years of age : his success as a missionary to his Description of the Turks. After brief-
preacher has been told. But this is not the y mentioning their invasion of Transylvania,

he thus proceeds: 'At this time I was a lad
only Hungarian name entitled to a better of fifteen or sixteen, a native of this province.
fate than oblivion. Stephen Bocskai and and had a year previously quitted the town
Bethlon Gabor were endowed with the qua- in which I was born; repairing, for the pur-
lities which should have made men as good pose of study, to a small town called in Hun-
as they were great and real benefactors of garian Schebesch, in German Mühlenbach,
their country, had they not suffered them. which was then populous enough but not as
selves to be impelled by an ambitious, a fac. well fortified. Therefore when the Turk
tious and sectarian spirit to attempt an im- to storm. The Duke of the Wallachoben

came, and encamped, he at once prepared possibility, namely, the independence of a (Wallachians ?), who had accompanied the mere province ;-and in the prosecution of Turks, on account of an old friendship bethe attempt to throw themselves into the tween him and the inhabitants and citizens of arms, or more properly speaking, under the this town, drew nigh to the walls, makes feet of the enemy of their faith, instead of peace, calls upon the citizens, and persuades using their ascendency to procure fair terms

them to follow his advice, which is, not to of union for Hungary and Transylvania with were too weak and too few to resist, but to

contend with the Turks whose might they Austria, including toleration for their various surrender peaceably; in which case he would sects and shades of Protestantism. The obtain leave of the Turk to take the higher later insurgents, the Rakocskis and Tököly classes, unharmed in property, home with in Transylvania, and Zrinyi, &c. in Hunga- him to his own country, leaving it to their ry, were in comparison with these men little free choice to stay with him or return to more than romantic adventurers. They all Hungary; The rest of the people the Turk offer rich matter to the historic novelist, and would take with him to Turkey, without inas such have been used by Bronikowski,* them a country to possess and remain in at

jury to person or property, and there give and made known to our readers.

their pleasure, or allow them to go away in
We now offer some specimens of Magyar peace undeceived and undetained. All this
history, as also of Magyar historians. The was done according to engagement. Thus
early account of these Magyars, their hea- was the war appointed for the morrow,* that
then religion and customs, contained in the each might prepare his property and family,
first volume of the work before us, has been

to depart in peace with the morrow.
noticed on a former occasion,t slightly in- been commandant of a castle, with his equal-

"One high-minded nobleman, who had
deed, yet sufficiently to prevent our now at- ly high-minded brother, who had fought
tempting a more detailed analysis. We much against the Turks, would by no means
therefore proceed to a later period, and se- follow this advice, but a hundred times rather
lect the portion of the Turkish wars which die than surrender himself, his wife and
embraces the lives of the two Hunyadis. children, to the Turks, and he persuaded
We begin with an extract which Majláth many to adopt his opinion. They made
gives from a contemporary narration, illus- long they carried provisions, arms, and all

a
trative of the state of the country, of the requisites for defence, fortifying it' as they
individual misery resulting from Turkish best could; with them I entered the tower,
aggression, and of the singular adventures awaiting with earnest desire rather death
to which it gave birth. In one Turkish than life.
inroad, about 1438, 70,000 Transylvanian "'In the morning the Grand Turk came
captives were dragged away to slavery ; and in person to the town gate, and commanded
our author thus proceeds,

that every one who came forth with wife
and children should be registered by name,

and kept under guard, to be conducted to
“From amidst the mass of these unfortu-
nates one figure stands forward, claiming * We confess to being perplexed by some senten.
our attention, our sympathy. It is a youth ces, here and further on, but whether the puzzle
who was made prisoner at Mühlenbach, and rests with the old Transylvanian or his German
who, returning home two-and-twenty years translator, if indeed the original be not German,
afterwards, faithfully and intelligently de- we know not.
scribed the manners and customs of the + We must state, in vindication of the course
Turks. His name is unknown; he calls adopted by this high.minded nobleman, that the
himself only the Teacher of the Transylva- capitulation here detailed is pretty nearly a solitary
nians; and in the writings of the day is often instance in Mailáth's volumes of a capitulation
referred to as the Mühlenbacher, from the surrender is so generally followed by that of the

honourably observed by the Turks. The tale of
place where he was captured. His adven- murder of the disarmed garrison, that the reader

begins to wonder what circumstances could tempt See vol. xiv. + See vol. iii.

any one to treat of submission.

an oven.

Turkey, without damage of person or mov-, their Mahumed. So should I go back, and able property. He recommended it to the with my imperial letter of liberty, I came Duke of Wallachia in the above-mentioned away over the sea, God be praised ! manner to guard the citizens and authorities of the town and take them into his own We are now to explain the circumstances country.

under which the Hunyadis first appear in "The whole army, getting no booty from history. The emperor Sigismund who had these people, now turned with unanimous married Maria, eldest daughter of Lewis I. frenzy against the town in which we were, and ran at it to storm it, in the hope of finding and heiress of Hungary, and who had latmuch to plunder amongst us. What an as. terly governed in her name, upon her dying sault, what a tempest there was, no tongue without issue, was elected king; he be. can sufficiently say ; such a thickness of ar- queathed the crown to Elizabeth, his daugh. rows and stones that it was thicker than rain ter by a second wife; and her husband Al. or snow to look at; such a shouting of war, bert, Archduke of Austria, was elected king riors, clashing and clanging of arms, and in acknowledgment of her right. Albert crackling and rushing of assailants, as died in 1439, leaving two infant daughters though heaven and earth were breaking at one instant. Now as the town was not very

and the prospect of a third child. The high, they easily crushed and destroyed the widow, unambitious by nature, and depressed roof work and upper rooms, so that nowhere by the loss of her husband, shrank from the (niederl-in this an obsolete word, a provin- troubles of the times. She assembled the cialism, or a misprint ?) could we stand safe Estates, informed them that she felt herself for the arrows and stones; but they could make nothing of the walls on account of their unequal to wield the sceptre though hers by strength. When now the afternoon sun

right, and was convinced that her unborn tended towards setting, and nothing was yet

babe would prove another girl; wherefore accomplished, they took counsel that some she advised them to elect a king. The should not neglect the storming the tower, crown was accordingly offered to Wladiswhilst others should bring wood, with which laus, King of Poland, the son of Maria's they built up such a bastion as well nigh equal- younger sister, Hedwig, and consequently led the tower in height. This they enkin. the right heir of the Angevine-Arpad line, dled, baking and scorching us like bread in When now almost all were melted

Elizabeth, being delivered of a son, revoked and dead with the fire, and they perceived her precipitate abdication, and caused her that nobody stirred in the tower, they tore infant boy to be immediately christened Laaway the fire, and broke in at the door, to dislaus and crowned; but she could not see if there were any half dead whom, re- wrest from Wladislaus the power she had freshed and revived, to drag away. Thus rashly surrendered. She fled to Vienna with half dead they found me; recovered, and sold her son and the crown of Hungary; comme to a trader, who chained me to other mitting both to the guardianship of his nearprisoners, soldered on my fetters, and so drove me across the Danube to Adrianople, where est kinsman, the Emperor Frederic III. the great king then made his residence. The Emperor made no exertion on behalf Now from the above-mentioned year 1436 of his ward; and though the realm was even to the year 1458, I bore the heavy distracted with civil war until 1442, when burthen and intolerable anguish of this most Elizabeth's death left her party without a hard and miserable captivity, not without head, Wladislaus was from the first actudanger and detriment to body and soul. In ally king, and with him rested the defence this time I was seven times sold, I ran away of the country against the Turks. John seven times, was seven times retaken, and purchased with money; accordingly I be. Hunyadi was his general. came so accustomed to their barbarous

The services of Hunyadi were early re. speech that, forgetting my mother tongue, 1 warded by Wladislaus with the appointlearned their observances and their writing, ment of Woiwode of Transylvania ; but the so that they would have given me a post in care of this large province interfered nor their Church of no small consequence and with his military duties. He twice defeated income. I have also known more of their the Osmanlis upon Hungarian ground; creed, by writing and in my head, and known better to speak of it than themselves, so that then, leading across the frontiers an army, not only my neighbours, but deputations sent to the assembling and equipping of which from distant lands, and much people came he bad largely contributed from his own to hear me, also many priests. To my last resources, he gained five pitched battles and master I was as dear as his own child, as he took several fortresses in the provinces aloften acknowledged and also proved. When ready subject to the Crescent. A letter I was already free, be would fain have kept written by the victorious general in the me with him as a free man; his whole family midst of his successes to his friend Niklas prayed me; I was at last obliged to excuse myself craftily, making as though I would Ujlak has been preserved, and is thus given visit an university and return, which they by our historian in its native devout simpliconjured me to do in the name of God and I city.

God is to be praised and glorified for fruitlessly assaulted the town; for a regular his great mercies bestowed upon his Chris- siege they had neither artillery nor time, and tian people: and so, after the battle, we gave thus was the reduction of this, in a military thanks to God, and we brought to the king's point of view, important place, omitted. majesty the banner of the enemy, and our Whilst the king was encamped before Nicoprisoners. He received both piously, and polis, Drakul Prince of Wallachia appeared gave God thanks. But the Emperor Amu- with 4,000 auxiliaries, but earnestly dis. rath himself is now only three days' march suaded further advance. The Sultan's huntdistant from us, so that it is no wise possible ing-train was larger he said than the king's but that we must fight with him, and what whole army.

When his advice to return must befall God knows already, for we are with all dispatch to Hungary was rejected, in God's hand. What God wills, be the he pressed upon the king, against his time event; once we must die, and especially for of need, two swift horses, and two Wallathe faith.”

chians of tried fidelity, whom he prayed him

always to have near his person.
The Turks now proposed to treat ; and
the victorious Hunyadi, disappointed by the

For awhile the king with his 24,000
lukewarmness of the great Christian powers men, advanced prosperously, took towns,
in his plans for expelling the Moslem from slaughtered Turks and delivered Christian
Europe, strongly recommended the measure. slaves. But the Ottoman government was
A truce for ten years was accordingly con- not idle. Amurath or Murad, whom Mai.
cluded in July, 1444, the Turks agreeing to láth terms “the greatest and most humane
restore all the Servian fortresses within a of Ottoman sovereigns," at the age of forty
given time. And now we have to relate had abdicated in reliance on the peace, and
one of those disgraceful acts of sanctioned had retired to Magnesia to enjoy himself.
perfidy which but too often disgraced the
Church of Rome in the darker ages, and reached Asia

through the despot of Servia,

"When tidings of the breach of treaty still traditionally bring down upon her the the viziers and beys of the sixteen-year old reproaches of her enemies. But with the Sultan thought him unequal to the impendcrime, we have to relate its signal punishing storm, and implored their old master ment. Soon after the signature of the truce, with his secure hand to resume the comcircumstances peculiarly favourable for at-mand. Murad rapidly assembled the army, tacking the Turks occurred; and Count and advanced to the Hellespont ;—the sea Mailáth, himself a professed Catholic, thus swarmed with Christianships, amongst narrates the result.

which an hundred and twenty-eight galleys

majestically and formidably towered. The "Cardinal Julian advanced the doubly passage could be neither forced nor stolen ; erroneous principle that a promise to un

it was purchased. The Christian fleet rebelievers was not to be kept, and that Hun- tired, compelled, as the

leaders asserted, by
gary was not authorised to make peace with storms and want of provisions ; and the
out the consent of the Holy See and the the cause of Christendom for gold. Murad

merchants of Venice and Genoa betrayed
other allied Powers. He determined the
king to break the treaty just ratified by paid a ducat a head; and in one night 40,000
oath ; and made him swear by his royal

Turks were transported from Asia to Eu

*** word and honour, by the Christian faith and

rope. holy baptism, by the hope of immortality, by

* The Hungarians encamped near Varna, the most holy Trinity and the most glorious and in the evening saw the whole northern Virgin Mary, and by the sainted kings of sky reddened;

it was the

glare of the watch.
Hungary, Stephen and Ladislaus, that he, fires of the Turkish host, [of whose approach
the king, would begin hostilities on the 1st of they knew nothing,) encamped upon a range
September.

of hills not far distant."
The same oath was taken by most of
the grandees of the realm ; amongst others

The details of the battle of Varna, in
by John Hunyadi. To him the supreme which the great hero, John Hunyadi, was
command of the army was intrusted, and defeated, and the king lost his life, do not
Bulgaria promised in writing as a kingdom. add anything important to the narratives of
The commencement of the war was deferred historians regarding that event.
till the 1st of September, because in the Ladislaus Posthumous was now, upon
interim the Turks were bound to restore the the death of his successful rival, universally
Servian fortresses. *** With 10,000 Hun. acknowledged king, but as he was still a
garians, 5,000 Poles and Crusaders, little
artillery and much baggage, (2,000 waggons child, John Hunyadi, upon effecting his es.
were counted following the army,) the king cape from his Wallachian confinement, was
marched from Szegedin. He crossed the named Gubernator, or administrator, by
Danube at Orsowa and turned towards the estates of the kingdom. Mailáth says,
Widdin, where he was joined by Hunyadi

es of
with 5,000 men from Transylvania. *** “The land needed a powerful ruler; for

"Arriving before Nicopolis the Hungarians I during the long contest for the crown, and

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