Elizabeth of Hungary

“ It was thought safest for Elizabeth and the little Crown Prince to retire to Budapest, where she was received with an enthusiasm little short of Maria Theresa’s memorable reception. There is no doubt that the devotion of the people to the Queen was largely instrumental in bringing about a better feeling between Austria and Hungary, while still another proof of this devotion was their special request that she might be crowned together with the King, an event that had never before occurred in the history of the country. ”

“ Elizabeth of Hungary was not untried by adversity, and after her husband’s death suffered cruel persecutions from her brother-in-law Henry, with the undaunted fortitude which a good conscience ensures and which God’s grace strengthens. We are told of her that she spoke little and always with gravity, and especially shunned tattlers. Women are always being taxed on one side with ridiculous frivolity in speech, and urged, on the other, to a contradiction of the charge by the pedantic phraseology of surface science. ”

“ The evening before the ceremony was to take place Franz Joseph and his wife made a visit to the cathedral, which had been magnificently decorated for the occasion, and were greeted everywhere with the wildest enthusiasm. As they were about to leave the church an old man fell from a ladder on which he had perched himself in order to obtain a view of “the good Queen of Hungary.” Elizabeth, who saw him fall, hastened at once to his assistance,—an act that called forth renewed cheers when it reached the ears of those outside. ”

“ So cold-blooded and unprovoked an assault in broad daylight and in the public street of a large city was one of the most shocking crimes of modern times and aroused the horror and indignation of the whole civilized world. Elizabeth of Austro-Hungary had no enemies. She had exerted no influence in politics, directly or indirectly, nor was she interested in state affairs. As her grief-stricken husband said of her, “she had done much good and never harmed a human being.”
The Empress’ salon in the hotel was quickly transformed into a mortuary chapel. ”

“ In his death Hungary suffered an irreparable loss, and throughout the kingdom there was genuine grief over his tragic fate, while the depth of public sympathy for the afflicted parents was shown in the warmth of the reception they received in Budapest. In a conversation with Dr. Christomanos some years before her death Elizabeth declared: “In every human life there is a moment when one dies inwardly and that need not necessarily be the time when death actually takes place.” ”

“ This hostility and opposition that met the young Empress at every turn only made her retire the more within herself, and really inflicted an irreparable wrong, for it developed in her an inherited love of solitude that, once acquired, soon became too fixed ever to be renounced.
Meanwhile the outlying portions of the Empire—Bohemia, Moravia, Galicia, and Hungary—were waiting anxiously to welcome the imperial pair, and soon after the wedding they began a series of short journeys. ”

“ In the year 1439 died King Albert, who had been appointed King of Hungary in right of his wife, Queen Elizabeth. He left a little daughter only four years old, and as the Magyars had never been governed by a female hand, they proposed to send and offer their crown, and the hand of their young widowed queen, to Wladislas, the King of Poland. But Elizabeth had hopes of another child, and in case it should be a son, she had no mind to give away its rights to its father's throne. How, then, was she to help herself among the proud and determined nobles of her court? ”

“ Austro-Hungary is known to all of us as “the dual monarchy”; and Hungary—or a portion of it—is justly described as “a lovely land of mountains and forests.” Elizabeth bore only one son—the Crown Prince Rudolph. The date of Prince Rudolph’s birth was 1858; and, for a period of ten years, Elizabeth had no other child. Those indications given, we return to our Fairy Story. ”

“ The male line of the house of Árpád became extinct by the death of Andrew III. His only daughter, Elizabeth, retired to a convent, and the nation was once more called upon to exercise its ancient right of electing a king, and three candidates, a Czech, a German, and an Italian, at once came into the field. Each of these claimants had a party in the country, and not until the strength of the nation had been wasted by internal strife and warfare during a period of eight years did the Italian party succeed in placing on the throne Charles Robert, who became the founder of the Hungarian Anjous. ”

“ The reason for Elizabeth’s sudden and strong attachment to this hitherto unknown country could have been only a psychological one. When she first came to Vienna, she was impressed with the violent prejudice that existed at court against the Hungarians. Each attempt of that liberty-loving people to throw off their chains was regarded as a fresh crime by the Archduchess Sophie and her adherents, and the Empress heard much harsh criticism of her subjects beyond the Leytha. ”

“ It was even rumored that she intended to bestow all her Austrian possessions upon the Magyars, but this was a rank injustice to Elizabeth, for throughout the Empire, Austria as well as Hungary, there was scarcely a charitable institution or cause that she did not aid or support, nor a case of suffering and need that she did not attempt to relieve. When Austria took possession of Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1878, the Empress found a fresh field for her energies in caring for the wounded soldiers and providing for the families of those who were killed ”

“ Having no son, Sigismund tried to secure the throne for his daughter Elizabeth. She was affianced to Albert of Austria, and the king prevailed upon one hundred and ten lords to sign a document by which his daughter’s husband would,186 after the king’s demise, become entitled to wear the crown of St. Stephen. The Neapolitan party was roused into rebellion by this arrangement, and Ladislaus of Naples penetrated into the interior of the country. The primate of the realm, the archbishop of Gran, sided with the rebels and placed the crown of Hungary upon the head of the invading foreigner. ”

“ Misfortune had overtaken Austria: the war of 1866 had driven the Hapsburgs from Italy and Germany, and Elizabeth, roused to sympathy, turned her face homeward, feeling that her place was with the Emperor and his people. Though still young in years her sorrows and trials had robbed her of her youth, and she came back a woman strong and self-reliant, caring little for court life, but devoting herself to hospital work among the wounded soldiers with an energy and self-sacrifice that earned her the reverence of all. ”

“ There was greater danger threatening Hungary from the south. The nobles of Croatia were dissatisfied with female rule. There were some ambitious men who were incensed to see themselves excluded from the royal court, whilst a man of low descent, like Garay, the palatine, took the lead there. They were intent upon destroying the government in order to remove the queen. In Charles of Durazzo, who owed the throne of Naples to Louis the Great, they found a man who was willing to become a candidate for the throne of Hungary. ”

“ In a contest between the Russians and the Hungarians, the sympathy of all Germany, of all western Europe, would be with the Majjars. Half the Emperor of Austria's own heart would be on the side of the loyal nation to which his house owes so large a debt of gratitude; who, he must be aware, have been alienated only by the errors and the injustice of his advisers, and who, if they are sacrificed, will not, and cannot be sacrificed to his interests. Hungary was perfectly satisfied with her constitution and her government, as established by the laws of April 1848. ”

“ Guided by the instinct of a woman's heart, and yielding to its impulse, she set at naught the remonstrances of her Austrian counsellors, and relied on the loyalty of the Hungarians. Proceeding to Presburg, she appeared at the meeting of the diet, told the assembled nobles the difficulties and dangers by which she was surrounded, and threw herself, her child, and her cause, upon their generosity. At that appeal every sabre leapt from its scabbard, and the shout, "Moriamur pro rege nostro, Maria Theresâ!" called all Hungary to arms. ”

“ Had the government of Austria known how to win the hearts of the Hungarians for their sovereign—had they but preserved the good faith and the sanctity of the monarchy in Hungary, how secure and imposing might the position of the Emperor have now been, in the midst of all the troubles in Germany! Hungary desired no revolution ”

“ Queen Theresa, thus stripped of a large part of her dominions, fled into Hungary, and with all of a beautiful woman's art of persuasion appealed to her Hungarian subjects to avenge her wrongs. Her unmerited sufferings, her beauty, her tears, the little princess in her arms, stirred the resentment and kindled the ardent loyalty of the Hungarian nobles, and with one voice, as they rang their swords in their scabbards, they swore to support the cause of their queen with their estates and their lives. England and Sardinia also threw themselves into the contest on Maria Theresa's side. ”

“ As for the brave young Queen of Hungary, my admiration goes with that of all the world. Not in the language of flattery, but of evident fact, the royal qualities abound in that high young Lady; had they left the world, and grown to mere costume elsewhere, you might find certain of them again here. Most brave, high and pious-minded; beautiful too, and radiant with good-nature, though of temper that will easily catch fire: there is perhaps no nobler woman then living. ”

“ At all events, it is to our interest to give Herr von Este to understand that, if he is determined to make Sophie both Empress of Austria and Queen of Hungary, Germany will support his mad scheme."
"Your Majesty thinks Hungary will accept her as Queen?"
"She has to, for a morganatic marriage is a real marriage according to Hungarian law."
"Which suggests the possibility of grave internal dissensions," said the Chancellor.
"Quite so; to Pan-Germanism this little governess is worth five army corps. ”

“ Save the Magyars alone, the ruling race in the Hungarian kingdom, there is no case in those lands in which the whole continuous territory inhabited by speakers of the same tongue is placed under a separate national government of its own. And, even in this case, the identity between nation and government is imperfect in two ways. It is imperfect, because, after all, though Hungary has a separate national government in internal matters, yet it is not the Hungarian kingdom, but the Austro-Hungarian monarchy of which it forms a part, which counts as a power among the other powers of Europe. ”

“ With the year 1825, when that Diet met, began the modern struggle of Hungary to recover that home rule which one after another of her Hapsburg kings had solemnly sworn to respect, and had as perfidiously disregarded. Thus the seed of the Magyar revolution was sown, like that of so many others, in a demand for the restoration of acknowledged rights, and not in a demand for innovation. Home rule,—Hungary to govern herself, instead of being bullied by foreigners who happened to be also subjects of her Emperor-King,—that seemed an object as simple and definite as it was just. ”

“ All social and political prestige and power was with the Magyars-or, to speak more correctly, with the Magyar noblemen.
The political structure of either country was likewise analogous to that of the other. In both, the aristocracy was the paramount element, endowed with chartered or traditional privileges, to the practical exclusion from political power of certain classes of citizens endowed with rights in the modern sense of the term. In Hungary the ruling Order was, in general terms, the nobility. ”

“ Deeply grateful to the Magyars for their sacrifices and services during the War of the Austrian Succession, she dedicated her whole authority to the good of the nation, but she was very unwilling to share that Maria Theresa. authority with the people. Only in the first stormy years of her reign did she summon the diet; after 1764 she dispensed with it altogether. She did not fill up the dignity of palatine, vacant since the 26th of October 1765, and governed Hungary through her son-in-law, Albert of Saxe-Teschen. She did not attack the Hungarian constitution ”

“ They laid particular stress upon the fact that the nation, whilst adhering to the religion and customs of its ancestors, had been independent, strong, and mighty, and had even made the whole of Europe tremble; but that now, since it had adopted the religion and customs of the West, the nation was weakened by internal dissensions, strangers had become her masters, foreign armies had penetrated into the very heart of the country—nay, Hungary had lost her independence and had become the vassal of a foreign power. ”

“ 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 country371 upon which it could count as a trusty support in case of danger from without. ”

“ Sire, I repeat to you that Hungary is advancing either toward ruin or revolution. Like the Netherlanders, we will defend our constitution or die with it. Oh, your majesty, all can yet be remedied! Call a convention of the states—return the crown of St. Stephen, and come to Hungary to take the coronation oath. Then you will see how gladly we shall swear allegiance to our king, and how cheerfully we will die for him, as our fathers did before us, in defence of the empress-queen, his mother. ”