Revolution in Hungary

But previous to entering into any further detail concerning Maurice's operations, some account must be given of a new revolution in Hungary, which contributed not a little towards their producing such extraordinary effects.

When Solyman, in the year 1541, by a stratagem, which suited the base and insidious policy of a petty usurper, rather than the magnanimity of a mighty conqueror, deprived the young king of Hungary of the dominions which his father had left him, he had granted that unfortunate prince the country of Transylvania, a province of his paternal kingdom. The government of this, together with the care of educating the young king, for he still allowed him to retain that title, though he had rendered it only an empty name, he committed to the queen and Martinuzzi bishop of Waradin, whom the late king had appointed joint guardians of his son, and regents of his dominions, at a time when those offices were of greater importance. This co-ordinate jurisdiction occasioned the same dissensions in a small principality as it would have excited in a great kingdom; an ambitious young queen, possessed with a high opinion of her own capacity for governing; and a high-spirited prelate, fond of power, contending who should engross the greatest share in the administration. Each had their partizans among the nobles; but as Martinuzzi, by his great talents, began to acquire the ascendant, Isabella turned his own arts against him, and courted the protection of the Turks.

The neighboring bashas, jealous of the bishop’s power as well as abilities, readily promised her the aid which she demanded, and would soon have obliged Martinuzzi to have given up to her the sole direction of affairs, if his ambition, fertile in expedients, had not suggested to him a new measure, and one that tended not only to preserve but to enlarge his authority. Having concluded an agreement with the queen, by the mediation of some of the nobles, who were solicitous to save their country from the calamities of a civil war, he secretly despatched one of his confidants to Vienna, and entered into a negotiation with Ferdinand. As it was no difficult matter to persuade Ferdinand, that the same man whose enmity and intrigues had driven him out of a great part of his Hungarian dominions, might, upon a reconciliation, become equally instrumental in recovering them, he listened eagerly to the first overtures of a union with that prelate. Martinuzzi allured him by such prospects of advantage, and engaged, with so much confidence, that he would prevail on the most powerful of the Hungarian nobles to take arms in his favor, that Ferdinand, notwithstanding his truce with Solyman, agreed to invade Transylvania.

The command of the troops destined for that service, consisting of veteran Spanish and German soldiers, was given to Castaldo marquis de Piadena, an officer formed by the famous marquis de Pescara, whom he strongly resembled both in his enterprising genius for civil business, and in his great knowledge in the art of war. This army, more formidable by the discipline of the soldiers, and the abilities of the general, than by its numbers, was powerfully seconded by Martinuzzi and his faction among the Hungarians. As the Turkish bashas, the sultan himself being at the head of his army on the frontiers of Persia, could not afford the queen such immediate or effectual assistance as the exigency of her affairs required, she quickly lost all hopes of being able to retain any longer the authority which she possessed as regent, and even began to despair of her son a safety. Martinuzzi did not suffer this favorable opportunity of accomplishing his own designs to pass unimproved, and ventured, while she was in this state of dejection, to lay before her a proposal, which at any other time she would have rejected with disdain.

He represented how impossible it was for her to resist Ferdinand's victorious arms; that even if the Turks should enable her to make head against them, she would be far from changing her condition to the better, and could not consider them as deliverers, but as masters, to whose commands she must submit; he conjured her, therefore, as she regarded her own dignity, the safety of her son, or the security of Christendom, rather to give up Transylvania to Ferdinand, and to make over to him her son's title to the crown of Hungary, than to allow both to be usurped by the inveterate enemy of the Christian faith. At the same time he promised her, in Ferdinand's name, a compensation for herself, as well as for her son, suitable to their rank, and proportional to the value of what they were to sacrifice. Isabella, deserted by some of her adherents, distrusting others, destitute of friends, and surrounded by Castaldo's and Martinuzzi's troops, subscribed these hard conditions, though with a reluctant hand.

Upon this, she surrendered such places of strength as were still in her possession, she gave up all the ensigns of royalty, particularly a crown of gold which, as the Hungarians believed, had descended from heaven, and conferred on him who wore it an undoubted right to the throne. As she could not bear to remain a private person in a country where she had once enjoyed sovereign power, she instantly set out with her son for Silesia, in order to take possession of the principalities of Oppelen and Ratibor, the investiture of which Ferdinand had engaged to grant her son, and likewise to bestow one of his daughters upon him in marriage.

Upon the resignation of the young king, Martinuzzi, and after his example the rest of the Transylvanian grandees, swore allegiance to Ferdinand, who, in order to testify his grateful sense of the zeal as well as success with which that prelate had served him, affected to distinguish him by every possible mark of favor and confidence. He appointed him governor of Transylvania, with almost unlimited authority  he publicly ordered Castaldo to pay the greatest deference to his opinion and commands; he increased his revenues, which were already very great, by new appointments; he nominated him archbishop of Gran, and prevailed on the pope to raise him to the dignity of a cardinal.

All this ostentation of good-will, however, was void of sincerity, and calculated to conceal sentiments the most perfectly its reverse. Ferdinand dreaded Martinuzzi’s abilities; distrusted his fidelity; and foresaw, that as his extensive authority enabled him to check any attempt towards circumscribing or abolishing the extensive privileges which the Hungarian nobility possessed, he would stand forth on every occasion, the guardian of the liberties of his country, rather than act the part of a viceroy devoted to the will of his sovereign.

For this reason, he secretly gave it in charge to Castaldo to watch his motions, to guard against his designs, and to thwart his measures. But Martinuzzi, either because he did not perceive that Castaldo was placed as a spy on his actions, or because he despised Ferdinand’s insidious arts, assumed the direction of the war against the Turks with his usual tone of authority, and conducted it with great magnanimity, and no less success. He recovered some places of which the infidels had taken possession; he rendered their attempts to reduce others abortive; and established Ferdinand’s authority not only in Transylvania, but in the Bannat of Temeswar, and several of the countries adjacent. In carrying on these operations, he often differed in sentiment from Castaldo and his officers, and treated the Turkish prisoners with a degree not only of humanity, but even of generosity, which Castaldo loudly condemned.

This was represented at Vienna as an artful method of courting the friendship of the infidels, that, by securing their protection, he might shake off all dependence upon the sovereign whom he now acknowledged. Though Martinuzzi, in justification of his own conduct, contended that it was impolitic by unnecessary severities to exasperate an enemy prone to revenge, Castaldo’s accusations gained credit with Ferdinand, prepossessed already against Martinuzzi, and jealous of everything that could endanger his own authority in Hungary, in proportion as he knew it to be precarious and ill-established.

These suspicions Castaldo confirmed and strengthened, by the intelligence which he transmitted continually to his confidants at Vienna. By misrepresenting what was innocent, and putting the worst construction on what seemed dubious in Martinuzzi’s conduct; by imputing to him designs which he never formed, and charging him with actions of which he was not guilty; he at last convinced Ferdinand, that, in order to preserve his Hungarian crown, he must cut off that ambitious prelate. But Ferdinand, foreseeing that it would be dangerous to proceed in the regular course of law against a subject of such exorbitant power as might enable him to set his sovereign at defiance, determined to employ violence in order to obtain that satisfaction which the laws were too feeble to afford him.

He issued his orders accordingly to Castaldo, who willingly undertook that infamous service. Having communicated the design to some Italian and Spanish officers whom he could trust, and concerted with them the plan of executing it, they entered Martinuzzi's apartment, early one morning [Dec. 18] under pretence of presenting to him some dispatches which were to be sent off immediately to Vienna; and while he perused a paper with attention, one of their number struck him with a poniard in the throat. The blow was not mortal. Martinuzzi started up with the intrepidity natural to him, and grappling the assassin, threw him to the ground. But the other conspirators rushing in, an old man, unarmed, and alone, was unable long to sustain such an unequal conflict, and sunk under the wounds which he received from so many hands. The Transylvanians were restrained by dread of the foreign troops stationed in their country, from rising in arms in order to take vengeance on the murderers of a prelate who had long been the object of their love as well as veneration. They spoke of the deed, however, with horror and execration; and exclaimed against Ferdinand, whom neither gratitude for recent and important services, nor reverence for a character considered as sacred and inviolable among Christians, could restrain from shedding the blood of a man, whose only crime was attachment to his native country. The nobles detesting the jealous as well as cruel policy of a court, which, upon uncertain and improbable surmises, had given up a poison, no less conspicuous for his merit than his rank, to be butchered by assassins, either retired to their own estates, or if they continued with the Austrian army, grew cold to the service. The Turks, encouraged by the death of an enemy whose abilities they knew and dreaded, prepared to renew hostilities early in the spring; and instead of the security which Ferdinand bad expected from the removal of Martinuzzi, it was evident that his territories in Hungary were about to be attacked with greater vigour, and defended with less zeal than ever.

New League against Charles