Numb. 76.
[317]

I leave all Men, after the reading the last Paper, to judge of the Condition of the Emperor, and indeed of the whole House of Austria.

And if all these things turn’d the Scale of Affairs in Italy, and on the Rhine too, no Man will wonder; the Emperor being Embarrass’d to the last degree.

The Hungarians, to be sure, made their Market of all these things; and as they received Arms, Money, and Officers, from the French and the Swedes in the North, the King of Sweden all this while gaining upon the Pole, and Ravaging his Country; so they receiv’d repeated Assurances from the Duke of Bavaria, and from the French King, by means of the Mareschall Marsin, of a Powerful Diversion and Assistance form the Arms of France and Bavaria, and the Successes they assur’d themselves of in the Empire.

I cannot but think Count Teckely thought himself securer of being King of Hungary, at the beginning of the Siege of Vienna, than Prince Ragocksi and the Hungarians thought themselves of Suppressing and Deposing the Emperor, at the beginning of this last Campaign; and as nothing else could make the former refuse the Sovereignty of Upper Hungary, and all the Advantageous Conditions the Emperor offered him; so nothing else could now hinder the latter from entring on a Treaty with the Emperor, on the foot of a Mediation and Guarantee from England and Holland. [Read more →]

Numb.75.
[313]

NOw, I think, I am come to what, I confess, I have long’d for; were it only to satisfy the impatience of the World, who have given me no little Disturbance about this weighty Question, What’s all this to the Title of your Paper, a Review of the Affairs of France?

Now I am come to the Connexion of the Affairs of France, with those of Hungary, and to prove, that an influence from these, has all along too much affected those.

I content my self with Abridging the Hungarian part of the Story, as much as possible, because ’tis the Concern France has in Affairs there, is the Principal Design now; and the long Digression I have made hitherto, has been chiefly to make way for this; and by the way, to undeceive the Readers, in the point of the Protestants being the chief or only Instrument in the Hungarian Revolt.

The People of Hungary, weary of the Germans, as I Noted in my last, had been Meditating Liberty and Revenge, and only waited for a Head, and an Occasion¬ – The Imperialists, whether that they were sensible, more than Ordinary, of the just Reasons they had for it, or that they really had Intelligence among them, and Spies that gave Notice of all their Measures; made, or pretended to make a Discovery of a Plot in Hungary; and according to the Custom of that Court, immediately seiz’d Prince Ragocksi, Count Forgatz, and several others, as they call’d them, of the Principal Conspirators, and conveying them to several Prisons, proceeded against them with a severity usual in such Cases; several were Condemn’d, and some actually put to Death; as——– the Prince being among the former, and expecting every hour to come into the Number of the latter, found means to break Prison, and make his Escape, I think out of the Castle of Presburgh; and having form’d his design too well to be intercepted, got first into Poland, where I shall leave him for a time, and bring the Affairs of France into the Scene. [Read more →]

Numb. 74.
[309]

WE have brought the Story of the Malecontents in Hungary, on, to the conclusion of the late War.

The Emperor Compleated the Conquest of them, by causing his Son, the new King of the Romans, to be Crown’d at Presburgh, and acknowledg’d by the States Assembled there, in a General Diet, as Hereditary King of Hungary.

The States made several Hesitations at, and Remonstrances against giving up their Native Right of Election; but the Emperor told them it was but reasonable, that he having, out of his own Hereditary Dominions, disburst more to reduce Hungary to his Obedience, and to clear it of the Turks, than the whole Kingdom was worth; he thought he had an undoubted Right to it, as he had purchas’d it with the Blood and Treasure of the German Nation, and therefore expected it.

These Arguments, together with an entire Possession, for his Imperial Majesty had the whole Kingdom now in his hands, oblig’d the Hungarian Nobility, to yield to the Dissolution of their Antient Liberties, and Crown the young King, Hereditary K. of Hungaria, to him and the Heirs of the Imperial Branch of the House of Austria, and the default of such Heirs, to the Heirs of the Spanish Branch of Austria. [Read more →]

Numb. 73.
[305]

I Cannot but break out here into another Extasie at the Madness, Folly, and most Impolitick Blindness of immoderate Councils, with respect to the Affairs of Hungaria.

Had the Imperial Generals and Commissioners, appointed to settle the Kingdom of Hungary, after it was reduc’d to the Obedience of the Emperor, proceeded with Prudent and Moderate Measures; had they consider’d their Master’s Interest, and the Nature, Temper, and Numbers of the Hungarian Nation; had they Threatned them with Moderation and Humanity, Prince Ragocksi had been to this hour a faithful Subject, and the Hungarians, who are now in Arms for the Recovery of their Liberty, had been a useful Body to Defend their own Country against the Turks; and to have assisted their Brethren Protestants of Europe, against the French and Bavarian Encroachment. The Emperor and Empire might have ow’d their Safety and Establishment to the Valour and Fidelity of his Protestant Hungarian Subjects as he has been oblig’d to do, to the Power of his remote Protestant Confederates, the English and Dutch. They might, like the Vaudois in Savoy, have Merited their Liberty in meer Gratitude for their Services, and the Emperor must have shewn himself an unnatural Father of his Country, if he had not treated them with all that Tenderness and Courtesy, that Faithful and Zealous Subjects could have deserv’d, or in reason desired.

But as Count Carassa, the Imperial General, was imploy’d to reduce the Cities of Upper Hungary, in which the Chief Body of the Protestants of that Kingdom were found, it shall suffice, without entring into the dreadful Particulars, to say, That after the Reduction of that Country, no Pen can describe the Extortions, Oppressions, the Murthers, the Rapine and Injurious Treatment, which the poor Protestants receiv’d from the Barbarous, Insulting Soldiers, and more Bloody, Merciless Clergy in Hungary.

The whole weight of the War, the Blame, the Scandal, and the Punishment lay upon them; the Soldiers liv’d upon them at Discretion, and the Church-Tyranny proceeded to seize on their Religious Perquisites, with a Rapine peculiar to themselves; and I have heard of some English Gentlemen, who serv’d in the German Troops, and who were Quarter’d upon these poor unhappy People, say, it has mov’d them to Remorse, and they had not Hearts to Execute the Cruelties their Orders have contain’d. [Read more →]