The Empire of Austria - John S. C. Abbott (best books to read now TXT) 📗

by earnest proclamation, to abstain from all tumult. For some time the procession, displaying all the hated pomp of papal worship, paraded the streets undisturbed. But at length the populace became ungovernable, attacked the monks, demolished their pageants and pelted them with mire back into the convent.

This was enough. The emperor published the ban of the empire, and sent the Duke of Bavaria with an army to execute the decree. Resistance was hopeless. The troops took possession of the town, abolished the Protestant religion, and delivered the churches to the Catholics.

The Protestants now saw that there was no hope for them but in union. Thus driven together by an outward pressure which was every day growing more menacing and severe, the chiefs of the Protestant party met at Aschhausen and established a confederacy to continue for ten years. Thus united, they drew up a list of grievances, and sent an embassy to present their demands to the emperor. And now came a very serious turn in the fortunes of Rhodolph. Notwithstanding the armistice which had been concluded with the Turks by Rhodolph, a predatory warfare continued to rage along the borders. Neither the emperor nor the sultan, had they wished it, could prevent fiery spirits, garrisoned in fortresses frowning at each other, from meeting occasionally in hostile encounter. And both parties were willing that their soldiers should have enough to do to keep up their courage and their warlike spirit. Aggression succeeding aggression, sometimes on one side and sometimes on the other, the sultan at last, in a moment of exasperation, resolved to break the truce.

A large army of Turks invaded Croatia, took several fortresses, and marching up the valley of the Save, were opening before them a route into the heart of the Austrian States. The emperor hastily gathered an army to oppose them. They met before Siseck, at the confluence of the Kulpa and the Save. The Turks were totally defeated, with the loss of twelve thousand men. Exasperated by the defeat, the sultan roused his energies anew, and war again raged in all its horrors. The advantage was with the Turks, and they gradually forced their way up the valley of the Danube, taking fortress after fortress, till they were in possession of the important town of Raab, within a hundred miles of Vienna.

Sigismond, the waivode or governor of Transylvania, an energetic, high-spirited man, had, by his arms, brought the provinces of Wallachia and Moldavia under subjection to him. Having attained such power, he was galled at the idea of holding his government under the protection of the Turks. He accordingly abandoned the sultan, and entered into a coalition with the emperor. The united armies fell furiously upon the Turks, and drove them back to Constantinople.

The sultan, himself a man of exceedingly ferocious character, was thoroughly aroused by this disgrace. He raised an immense army, placed himself at its head, and in 1596 again invaded Hungary. He drove the Austrians everywhere before him, and but for the lateness of the season would have bombarded Vienna. Sigismond, in the hour of victory, sold Transylvania to Rhodolph for the governorship of some provinces in Silesia, and a large annual pension. There was some fighting before the question was fully settled in favor of the emperor, and then he placed the purchased and the conquered province under the government of the imperial general Basta.

The rule of Basta was so despotic that the Transylvanians rose in revolt, and under an intrepid chief, Moses Tzekeli, appealed to the Turks for aid. The Turks were rejoiced again to find the Christians divided, and hastened to avail themselves of the coöperation of the disaffected. The Austrians were driven from Transylvania, and the Turks aided in crowning Tzekeli Prince of Transylvania, under the protection of the Porte. The Austrians, however, soon returned in greater force, killed Tzekeli in the confusion of battle, and reconquered the country. During all this time wretched Hungary was ravaged with incessant wars between the Turks and Austrians. Army after army swept to and fro over the smoldering cities and desolated plains. Neither party gained any decisive advantage, while Hungary was exposed to misery which no pen can describe. Cities were bombarded, now by the Austrians and now by the Turks, villages were burned, harvests trodden down, every thing eatable was consumed. Outrages were perpetrated upon the helpless population by the ferocious Turks which can not be told.

The Hungarians lost all confidence in Rhodolph. The bigoted emperor was so much engaged in the attempt to extirpate what he called heresy from his realms, that he neglected to send armies sufficiently strong to protect Hungary from these ravages. He could have done this without much difficulty; but absorbed in his hostility to Protestantism, he merely sent sufficient troops to Hungary to keep the country in a constant state of warfare. He filled every important governmental post in Hungary with Catholics and foreigners. To all the complaints of the Hungarians he turned a deaf ear; and his own Austrian troops frequently rivaled the Turks in devastation and pillage. At the same time he issued the most intolerant edicts, depriving the Protestants of all their rights, and endeavoring to force the Roman Catholic religion upon the community.

He allowed, and even encouraged, his rapacious generals to insult and defraud the Protestant Hungarian nobles, seizing their castles, confiscating their estates and driving them into exile. This oppression at last became unendurable. The people were driven to despair. One of the most illustrious nobles of Hungary, a magnate of great wealth and distinction, Stephen Botskoi, repaired to Prague to inform the emperor of the deplorable state of Hungary and to seek redress. He was treated with the utmost indignity; was detained for hours in the ante-chamber of the emperor, where he encountered the most cutting insults from the minions of the court. The indignation of the high-spirited noble was roused to the highest pitch. And when, on his return to Hungary, he found his estates plundered and devastated by order of the imperial governor, he was all ready to head an insurrection.


CHAPTER XIII.

RHODOLPH III. AND MATTHIAS.

From 1604 to 1609.

Botskoi's Manifesto. - Horrible Suffering in Transylvania. - Character of Botskoi. - Confidence of the Protestants. - Superstition of Rhodolph. - His Mystic Studies. - Acquirements of Matthias. - Schemes of Matthias. - His Increasing Power. - Treaty with the Turks. - Demands on Rhodolph. - The Compromise. - Perfidy of Matthias. - The Margravite. - Filibustering. - The People's Diet. - A Hint to Royalty. - The Bloodless Triumph. - Demands of the Germans. - Address of the Prince of Anhalt to the King.


Stephen Botskoi issued a spirited manifesto to his countrymen, urging them to seek by force of arms that redress which they could obtain in no other way. The Hungarians flocked in crowds to his standard. Many soldiers deserted from the service of the emperor and joined the insurrection. Botskoi soon found himself in possession of a force sufficiently powerful to meet the Austrian troops in the field. The two hostile armies soon met in the vicinity of Cassau. The imperial troops were defeated with great slaughter, and the city of Cassau fell into the hands of Botskoi; soon his victorious troops took several other important fortresses. The inhabitants of Transylvania, encouraged by the success of Botskoi, and detesting the imperial rule, also in great numbers crowded his ranks and intreated him to march into Transylvania. He promptly obeyed their summons. The misery of the Transylvanians was, if possible, still greater than that of the Hungarians. Their country presented but a wide expanse of ruin and starvation. Every aspect of comfort and industry was obliterated. The famishing inhabitants were compelled to use the most disgusting animals for food; and when these were gone, in many cases they went to the grave-yard, in the frenzied torments of hunger, and devoured the decaying bodies of the dead. Pestilence followed in the train of these woes, and the land was filled with the dying and the dead.

The Turks marched to the aid of Botskoi to expel the Austrians. Even the sway of the Mussulman was preferable to that of the bigoted Rhodolph. Hungary, Transylvania and Turkey united, and the detested Austrians were driven out of Transylvania, and Botskoi, at the head of his victorious army, and hailed by thousands as the deliverer of Transylvania, was inaugurated prince of the province. He then returned to Hungary, where an immense Turkish army received him, in the plains of Rahoz, with regal honors. Here a throne was erected. The banners of the majestic host fluttered in the breeze, and musical bands filled the air with their triumphal strains as the regal diadem was placed upon the brow of Botskoi, and he was proclaimed King of Hungary. The Sultan Achment sent, with his congratulations to the victorious noble, a saber of exquisite temper and finish, and a gorgeous standard. The grand vizier himself placed the royal diadem upon his brow.

Botskoi was a nobleman in every sense of the word. He thought it best publicly to accept these honors in gratitude to the sultan for his friendship and aid, and also to encourage and embolden the Hungarians to retain what they had already acquired. He knew that there were bloody battles still before them, for the emperor would doubtless redouble his efforts to regain his Hungarian possessions. At the same time Botskoi, in the spirit of true patriotism, was not willing even to appear to have usurped the government through the energies of the sword. He therefore declared that he should not claim the crown unless he should be freely elected by the nobles; and that he accepted these honors simply as tokens of the confidence of the allied army, and as a means of strengthening their power to resist the emperor.

The campaign was now urged with great vigor, and nearly all of Hungary was conquered. Such was the first great disaster which the intolerance and folly of Rhodolph brought upon him. The Turks and the Hungarians were now good friends, cordially coöperating. A few more battles would place them in possession of the whole of Hungary, and then, in their alliance they could defy all the power of the emperor, and penetrate even the very heart of his hereditary dominions of Austria. Rhodolph, in this sudden peril, knew not where to look for aid. The Protestants, who constituted one half of the physical force, not only of Bohemia and of the Austrian States, but of all Germany, had been insulted and oppressed beyond all hope of reconciliation. They dreaded the papal emperor more than the Mohammedan sultan. They were ready to hail Botskoi as their deliverer from intolerable despotism, and to swell the ranks of his army. Botskoi was a Protestant, and the sympathies of the Protestants all over Germany were with him. Elated by his advance, the Protestants withheld all contributions from the emperor, and began to form combinations in favor of the Protestant chief. Rhodolph was astonished at this sudden reverse, and quite in dismay. He had no resource but to implore the aid of the Spanish court.

Rhodolph was as superstitious as he was bigoted and cruel. Through the mysteries of alchymy he had been taught to believe that his life would be endangered by one of his own blood. The idea haunted him by night and by day; he was to be assassinated, and by a near relative. He was afraid to marry lest his own child might prove his destined murderer. He was afraid to have his brothers marry lest it might be a nephew who was to perpetrate the deed. He did not dare to attend church, or to appear any where in public without taking the greatest precautions against any possibility