King of Hungary

“ 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. ”

“ And even the making of a will saves but one-third of them. On the other hand, the king of Hungary is watched and restrained in the exercise of his prerogatives, not only by a parliament, jealous of its privileges, but by officers appointed for that purpose. The palatine is a strange compound of king's lieutenant and guardian of the liberties of the nation. He is chosen for life out of four personages proposed to the states by the sovereign ”

“ Finally, to reap the fruit of so much perfidy, the Emperor Francis Joseph dared to call himself King of Hungary, in the manifesto of the 9th of March [1849] , wherein he openly declares that he erases the Hungarian nation from the list of the independent nations of Europe, and that he divides its territory into five parts, cutting off Transylvania, Croatia, Slavonia, and Fiume from Hungary, creating at the same time a principality (vayvodeschaft) for the Servian rebels, and, having paralyzed the political existence of the country, declares it incorporated into the Austrian monarchy. ”

“ On the 7th the Hungarian diet formally refused to acknowledge the title of the new king, “as without the knowledge and consent of the diet no one could sit on the Hungarian throne,” and called the nation to arms. Constitutionally, in the Magyar opinion, Ferdinand was still king of Hungary, and this gave to the revolt an excuse of legality. Actually, from this time until the collapse of the rising, Louis Kossuth was the ruler of Hungary. ”

“ The kings of this dynasty erected, upon the foundations laid by the first great king of that house, the proud and enduring structure of the Hungarian Church and State. The liberty of the nation and the independence of the country were maintained by these rulers against the ever-recurring attacks of both the Eastern and Western empires, and the paternal meddling of the popes, as well as against the barbarians invading Europe from the East, whose devastations menaced the complete destruction of every thing that lay in their path. ”

“ In their opinion a native dynasty and peaceful relations with the invincible Turks were the means of rescuing the country from her pitiable plight. These patriots, therefore, elected as king of Hungary, John Szapolyai, the vayvode of Transylvania, and the most powerful lord in the country, and thus the nation had now two kings in the place of the one who had fallen at Mohács. ”

“ Here’s the first gun: ‘The majestic words will find an echo in all parts of Hungary, which will ever remain in the debt of the great Hohenzollern, who has forever conquered the soul of every Hungarian; ... the love and gratitude of the Hungarian nation will follow the guest of our King wherever he goes.’ But that is mere rhetoric. Listen to this: ‘In every line there is so much heart and so much sympathy with the Hungarian nation, its glorious past as well as its promising future, that it seems not the language of politics only, but of a loving friend, on whose well-meaning we may ever rely! ”

“ But Pozsony is Pressburg, though there is nothing but your guide-book to let you know it. At one time in Hungary names of streets, etc., were put up in the two languages; now the German is all taken down and Magyar reigns supreme.
No national movement in Europe has of late years made such tremendous strides as Magyarism. The Hungarians have Home Rule, and mean to stick to it. The Emperor of Austria reigns only as King of Hungary. Hungary has its own Parliament, makes its own laws, and has its own postage-stamps. ”

“ But what about Austria-Hungary? In Hungary, it is true, King Charles is a constitutional monarch; that is to say, he is obliged to comply to a great extent with the wishes of the Magyar feudal aristocracy which controls elections to the Budapest parliament. Autocracy in Hungary is carried on in the name of the king by a small minority of the Magyar people, who in their turn are a minority of the people of Hungary. The people of Hungary have far less to say about the way they are governed than the people of Germany. ”

“ Their main function consisted in voting considerable supplies in money and soldiers for the war against the French. The Hungarian nation sacrificed a great deal for her king during the Napoleonic wars, and, when the hostile armies were approaching the border of the country, every noble personally took up arms to defend the throne of his crowned king with his life and blood. The gentry distinguished themselves by their devotion, especially in 1809. Napoleon made the Hungarians the most enticing offers in order to seduce them from their allegiance to King Francis. ”

“ We, indeed, in the ceremony of our coronation, retain so much of the spirit which animated our Saxon forefathers, that the question is still put to the people,—"Will ye have this prince to reign over you?" and the prince is bound by solemn oath to govern according to law; but the ceremony of a coronation is not so vital among us, as that it might not be passed over with impunity. In Hungary, so tenacious are the magnates on the one hand, and so sensitive the emperor on the other, that he never omits, in his own life-time, to have the heir to the imperial diadem, crowned king in Hungary. ”

“ Duke Charles marched to the southern parts of Hungary and destroyed the Turkish army near Mohács, there, where 161 years before the Hungarian army had been annihilated by the Moslems. Soon after, Transylvania, too, passed under the supremacy of the king of Hungary. All the principal fortresses and towns were successively occupied by the royal troops, and when, in 1691, a Turkish army numbering 100,000 men was sent again to Hungary by the Sublime Porte, they were completely routed near Szalánkemén. ”

“ If a few battles are lost, if Russian troops pour through the passes of the Carpathians and the Cossacks come within sight of Buda-Pesth? After all, Hungary is an independent kingdom, and a part of the Austrian empire only of her own free will. Her army is her own, and she has her own parliament and her own ministers. There is no reason why she should not have a king of her own again when she chooses. We may see the rise of another Kossuth, who would force Hungary to make peace with Russia and with Servia. ”

“ Thus in Hungary it has ever been the ancient custom, prevailing to this day, that, on the king’s accession to the throne, it is he who, on his coronation, takes the oath of fidelity to his people, instead of the latter swearing fealty to the king. The right of succession to the throne is hereditary, but the lawful rule of the king begins with the ceremony of coronation only. It requires this ceremonial, which to this day is characterized by the attributes of mediæval pomp and splendor, to render the acts of the ruler valid and binding upon the people ”

“ The person who has found out the puzzle is the son of a poor woman, who, if he lives, will become King of Hungary. Therefore, if you want the crown yourself, you must get him here and kill him.”
After this conversation another letter was written to the Court of Hungary, saying that if the youth, now in the palace, was not sent to Turkey within three days, a large army would cross the border. The king’s heart was sorrowful as he read, for he was grateful to the lad for what he had done to help him ”

“ The peace of 1815 restored to Europe the repose she had long desired, and to Hungary many of her sons who had long been absent. In the midst of war, her diet had never ceased to attend to the internal administration of the country, to the improvement of her resources, and the advancement of her population in material prosperity and intelligence. All the comprehensive measures prepared with this view had been postponed or neglected by the king, acting by the advice of his Austrian cabinet, and supported by a powerful party of the magnates of Hungary. ”

“ Béla and his family occupy a conspicuous place in the history of the first century of the Hungarian kingdom. He himself, two of his sons, and one of his grandsons were destined to successfully defend the country, to pacify the nation, and, pursuing the work of Stephen, to complete the creations of that great king. They were all endowed with eminent qualities befitting the great task allotted to them. The heroism, devotion, and wisdom of the father descended to the children, in whose character the inherited virtues shone out with even a brighter and purer light. ”

“ The spirit of the Hungarian constitution requires that the estates should assemble at least once in every five years; the practice of the same constitution leaves the king at liberty to call together, and to dissolve the chambers at pleasure. I have already stated, that to the higher order of nobility, the privilege appertains of meeting, in their own persons, to deliberate on questions affecting the public weal. These,—the princes and magnates,—occupy the same chamber with the prelates and barons of the kingdom. ”

“ A Hungarian noble is a very great man. A Hungarian eidelman is inferior to him, only if he be less wealthy. A Hungarian peasant is a serf. There is an excellent preparation made, doubtless, for better things in the future, but in its immediate working, the constitution which so orders matters, is to the people a thousand-fold more oppressive than the most absolute despotism.
I have spoken of the solemnity of the king's coronation as taking place at Presburg ”

“ An agreement was made by which the emperor was to be crowned at Pest and take the ancient oath to the Golden Bull; Hungary (including Transylvania and Croatia) was to have its own parliament and its own ministry; Magyar was to be the official language; the emperor was to rule as king; there was to be complete separation of the finances; not even a common nationality was recognized between the Hungarians and the other subjects of the emperor; a Hungarian was to be a foreigner in Vienna, an Austrian a foreigner in Budapest. ”

“ But the Hungarian nation remained unshaken in their devotion to the king, and rallied round him and the ancient dynasty. The French, failing in their scheme, entered Hungary. The398 Hungarians gallantly defended their native soil, but were defeated near Raab, owing to the incapacity of their Austrian generals. During the whole Napoleonic contest, to its termination, in 1815, Hungary made immense sacrifices for the royal throne, and thousands of her sons shed their blood in its defence, on the most distant battlefields of Europe. ”

“ But the triumph of the reactionary spirit under the reign of King Francis made them conspirators. Those of their friends who joined them were all honest and enthusiastic patriots, who saw in the success of democratic ideas the welfare of Hungary. But they did not look to a revolution for the realization of their fond hopes. They entered the society for the sole purpose of preparing the minds of their countrymen for reforms to be obtained by constitutional means. Almost every Hungarian writer, who was not in some dependent position, belonged to the society. ”

“ At the sound of those few words, "In the King's name," the door of the Assembly House was immediately opened; the formula acted like magic.
There are two words which are often written down together, "Emperor" and "King," wherein the outer world sees little difference, but for Hungarians there is all the difference in the world. For the Magyar, the first means only the foreign yoke, and all that it stands for; but the second represents that rightful regal authority which in Hungary never fails to win the loyalty and love of those to whom it appeals. ”

“ The Hungarian nation was eager to testify their gratitude to their great king by a concession made to his dynasty—notwithstanding its foreign origin,—which they had refused to make to the glorious dynasty of the native Árpád family. After the king’s death his daughter Mary was proclaimed queen and the crown conferred upon her. But the crown brought little joy to Mary, for the festivities of the coronation were hardly finished when she was menaced by dangers coming from two sides. The Poles hated Sigismund, to whom Mary was affianced, and insisted also that their ruler should live amongst them. ”

“ Rusins of Hungary have played a considerable role in the history of Hungary ever since the Arpad dynasty. Magyar writers pretend that Rusins are comparatively recent immigrants. That is true only as regards part of the race. The oldest Hungarian chronicler, known as Anonymus, a notary of King Bela, states that a large number of Russians joined the Magyar prince, Almos, when he arrived in Hungary, and settled on his lands. He relates that the Russian duke of Galicia ordered two thousand archers and three thousand peasants to guide the Magyars to Hungary across the Carpathian forests. ”

“ The Turks were decidedly averse to any augmentation of the power of the Hapsburgs by the acquisition of the Hungarian throne. They desired to see Hungary under a separate king of her own, and to accomplish this the Turks shrank from no sacrifices, and succeeded in embroiling the unfortunate country in continual wars. Unhappy Hungary was placed between the hammer and the anvil. The Turks were unwilling to yield, and the Hapsburgs, quite as reluctant to give up the country, were, nevertheless, unable to defend it. ”