A DISCOURSE HISTORICAL AND POLITICAL OF the War of Hungary AND Of the causes of the Peace between Leopold the first Emperor of the Romans and Mahomet the fourth Sultan of Turky By LOUIS DE MAY of Sallettes Knight and Counsellor of his Highness the Duke of Wirtemberg Translated in English GLASGOW Printed by ROBERT SANDERS Printer to the Town M. DC LXIX EDENBURGH 18. February 1669. ORdered by the Lords of His Majesties Privy Councel that a Book entituled A Discourse Historical and Political of the War of Hungary c. Translated in English shal be printed And discharges all other persons after the first Impression to print or import any Copies thereof for the space of ten years without licence of the Translator under the pain of two hundreth pounds Scots Ext. per me THOMAS HAY. TO THE READER THIS Book which was written for the satisfaction of a particular person hath been esteemed worthy of the publick view neither had the intention been good to have kept it from the sight of the world These who have seen it say when it sees the light it will be well received In this conjuncture of affairs every man talks of the Peace the Emperor hath made with the Turk according to his own fantasie without enquiring what moved that great Prince to come to an accommodation with the Infidells Many do importunatly desire to hear the Relation of the late war of Hungary with all its circumstances and yet are ignorant of the original of the troubles the cause of the Hungarians misfortunes the pretentions of the Ottomans the designs of the Transilvanian and the rights the House of Austria hath to that Kingdom This Book doth exactly clear all those things It gives us a short abridgement of the Turks wars with the Hungarians It mixeth Policy with History It descrives succinctly the Ottoman exploits in that Countrey how they have afflicted it three hundreth years since Bajazet was invited to come to it And it gives us a pretty Relation of the late troubles till the Peace was concluded And upon that Peace hath a particular Discourse which showes what moved the Emperor to imbrace it and of the interest the greatest part of the Princes of Europe hath in it And still the Author with a polished politick style speaks like a faithful and uninteressed Historian And though he be not a French-man yet there is nothing of rudeness to be seen in his discourse His expressions are not strained or affected And his language on this subject is no other then what would have becomd a native of France If you will be at the trouble Reader to peruse the Book you will be the better able to judge of it And if you reflect upon the Dialogue of which it is composed you will cry up the dexterity of the Author who assumes the more liberty to speak because he is to answer the demands of a Prince who interrogates him THE TRANSLATOR I Have seen Florus Hungaricus and another piece entituled The History of the Turkish Wars in Hungary Transilvany c. The Authors of both which acquits themselves very well but if their intelligence especially of the late troubles in Hungary and Pole be not so exact as that of this Counsellor of the Duke of Wirtemberg it is no wonder for he might more easily draw clearer water then they as being nearer the head of the fountain They do not determine the causes of the last war between the Christian and Turkish Emperors so well as he seems to do neither doth any of them speak of the Peace or the motives to it both which he doth If it be said that the late rupture between the King of France of whose praises and some other French-men this Writer is profusedly liberal and Spain doth show that his conjecture of the continuance of Peace between them proved not right it may be answered First that he could but guess with probability of future contingencies And next if the Emperor did forsee that breach he had the more reason to accept the Peace was offered him by the Grand Visier A little time perhaps will tell us that the Author hath not taken up his measures right in his discourse of the election of a King of Pole yet it cannot be denyed that he hath written very rationally on that subject And who knowes but the result of the Polonian consultations at this time may be such as may make it appear he hath not far over-shot his mark For these reasons I thought that they who understand English best would not think it unworthy of their labor to hear him speak in that language Errata Page 5. line 3. for all read it p. 8. l. 6. for with read by p. 12. l. 28. for banded read bandied p. 13. l. 19. for adress read address p. 15. l. 22. for number read numbers p. 16. l. 4. for specoius read specious ibid. l. 8. for spake read spoke ibid. last line for Sciticum read Scithicum p. 17. l. 6. for fatihless read faithless p. 23. l. 1. for was read were p. 26. l. 9. for successors read successor ibid. l. 15. for vigorus read vigorous p. 27. l. 2. for they are read he is p. 29. l. 18. for excluded read exclude p. 35. l. 12. for he conjured read he had conjured p. 51. l. 15. for forces read forceth p. 55. l. 8. Rodolp read Rodolph p. 72. l. 2. for never read neither p. 83. l. 9. for maring read marching p. 86. l. 3. for amuniton read amunition p. 94. l. 14. for ever read every p. 95. l. 23. for Cossaks read Cassacks p. 103. l. 13. for settling read setting p. 106. l. 29. the cōma should be at Burgundy and no cōma at Austria p. 110. l. 14. for it as easie read it is as easie A DISCOURSE HISTORICAL AND POLITICAL OF THE causes of the Turkish War Or an Abridgment of the History of Hungary By which may be seen how injuriously the Great Sultan hath attaked us And all that is passed since the year 1350. to the end of the year 1664. By way of Dialogue P. THE Spaniards whose words ordinairly weigh much say There is no good which doth not arrive nor evil which is not accomplished I am of the contrary opinion for we enjoy no sweets in this life which are not mixed with bitterness and we find the end of one evil to be but the beginning of another These persons whom we account happy have often more reason to lament then rejoyce And the misfortunate who far exceed the other in number fall continually from a less disaster in a greater I remember that George Ragotchy Prince of Transilvany entered Pole not long ago as victorious and came out of it with broken wings At that time you discoursed with me of the inconstancy of Fortune and shew me that these alterations were no new emergencies in regard many have been seen led in triumph who triumphed but a little before G. What ever I have said to
not hinder a man but of an indifferent quality to be preferred to the whole family of Austria in the year 1458. P. These effects of the Divine Providence are admirable But reigned he gloriously G. Hungary hath had but few Kings like to Matthias He was ignorant of nothing that belonged to the knowledge of a great Prince his reign was glorious both in the time of peace and war Many great Hungarian Lords opposed his election and after it they importuned the Emperor Frederick the third to set the Crown which he had a keeping on his own head which some say he did Once certain it is he did not restore it till six years after he got in exchange of it three score thousand dukats at Newstadt a town in Austria A little before its restoration some of the factious offered the Kingdom to Casimir the son of another Casimir King of Polen who sent his son to receive it with a powerful army but Matthias made haste to the frontiers from which he forced the Polonian to return These intestine broils gave both the courage and the opportunity to the Turk to make himself Master of Bosnia Rascia and a part of Servia But King Matthias after his Coronation valiantly regained all was lost and reduced Transilvania and Valachia to their duty This happy progress prompted Matthias to undertake an irreconciliable war with the Grand Seigneur and without all peradventure he had given him work enough if his heroical design had not been obstructed by the Emperor and the Pope And this doth evidently appear by the letters which he wrote on that subject to the Electors of the Empire and to the Cardinal of Arragon To the first he remonstrats that when he was on the river of Savus going to fight with the Infidels he received certain intelligence that in a Dyet at Vienne they had resolved to invade him To the second he wrote that the Pope favored the Venetians who had taken from him the I le of Valga without any occasion given by him and not satisfied with that his Holiness endeavored to take from him the power to confer Ecclesiastical Benefices within his own Kingdom of purpose to disgrace him with his own subjects P. But I think there is little appearance that these two Princes whom it most concerns to chase the Turk out of Europe should endeavor to keep the swords of those in their sheaths who would gladly draw them against that common enemy G. I should also be of your opinion if Peter de Reva had not told us that he copied these things out of the original and adds that which seems more incredible In his fifth Century of his Monarchy of Hungary he tells us that the Emperor seased on all the moneys which the Spiritual and Temporal Lords of Hungary had contributed for the war which Matthias intended against the Turk and that the Pope helped to drain the Kingdom of moneys by ordering Collections to be made for the Knights of the Rhodes Yet all these blocks that were laid in his way did not hinder Matthias by his Generals Paul Canisi and Steven Battori to defeat and chase Ali Beg out of the field with the loss of threescore thousand Turks and thereafter in person to regain Jaitsa and reduce Bosnia to his obedience Yet these traverses at home necessitated him to make a truce with Mahomet And the Tyrant dying in the year 1481. Matthias with all his force resolves to renew the war and for that purpose desired a Safe-conduct from the Emperor for his Embassadors to come and treat of an accommodation but could not obtain it He intreated also the Pope to give him Zemini the son of Mahomet that he might make use of him against his brother Bajazet who a little before had taken upon him the government of the Turkish Empire But this was refused him by his Holiness which spited Matthias the more that it was done not to loose a piece of money which was yearly payed to the Pope by Bajazet for the detention or as it was called the maintenance of his brother Zemini Besides this Pope by his Spiritual Authority obliged Matthias to confirm the Truce with Bajazet which he had made with his father Mahomet Shortly after this brave King looking upon all the indignities he had received from the Emperor as insupportable for any generous soul declared open war against him which proved so fortunate on his side as having brought the greatest part of Austria under his obedience at length he over-masters Vienne and Newstadt the two great bulwarks of that Arch-Dukedom From thence he marched to the Kingdom of Bohemia and made himself Master of Silesia and Moravia But Casimir King of Polen would have a share of the booty and therefore entered Silesia with a mighty army but by the mediation of the Princes of the Empire these two Kings agreed that both Matthias and Vladislaus the son of Casimir should bear the tittle of Kings of Bohemia but Vladislaus should alone enjoy the Electoral dignity and the Kingdom Matthias keeping in his possession the Provinces of Silesia Moravia and Lusatia redeemable after his death for four hundred thousand Crowns While Matthias was busied in these wars the Turk breaks the Truce and seaseth on Killen and Nester-Alba which at that time were accounted strong holds on the river Danube At length this valiant King having reigned five years at Vienne and while there was a Treaty on foot for the restoration of it to the Emperor he dieth on the tuesday before Easter in the moneth of March 1490. His corps was carried to Alba Royal and interred with his Predecessors the Kings of Hungary P. It was fitting this martial Prince should die on Mars his day and in the moneth which hath its name from Mars But it is pitty his valor was not still employed against the common enemy and I am sory that these who should have exhorted him to it should have diverted him from so glorious an undertaking But I pray who succeeded him G. Matthias Corvin having no lawful issue wished that his natural son John Hunniades might have been elected to be his successor But after his death the spirit of division possessed the Hungarians Four Princes pretended to this divided Kingdom and the Nobility being divided in four Cabales favored him with their votes whom they conceived most worthy of so great an honor John the son of the late King had the suffrages of these who reverenced the vertues of his Grand father and father which eminently appeared in him and of such also who would more gladly obey a born Hungarian then a stranger The second party stood for Albert Jagellon the second son of Casimir King of Polen whom his father furnished with forces to fight against Vladislaus his elder brother who made the third party Casimir thinking his son Vladislaus might well enough be satisfied with the Crown of Bohemia The fourth Cabale inclined to elect Maximilian son of the Emperor
sickness which at Sassebs sent him to his grave a few days after his sons birth and in the fifty and third year of his own age His death was kept quyet as much as possibly might be done but at length it was published with the tenor of his testament by which he declared his son the universel heir of all his goods and George Martenusias or Frier George Tutor of the pupil Prince Some days before he died he exhorted the Nobility to have a regard to the honor of the Hungarian Nation and to prefer his son to any stranger whatsoever if they should fall upon the election of a new King assuring them that the grand Seignior would protect him if they had their recourse to him The desire of a dying King and the jealousie the Hungarians had of a strangers domination moved many of the great ones to set the Crown upon the head of the Infant the very day of his Baptism and to send to the Port to beg Solimans protection P. Hungary is most misfortunate yet little or no mischief hath come upon it which it hath not deserved What an eternal shame was it for a Christian King on his death bed to exhort his Subjects to have recourse to a Turk to free his posterity from that obligation himself had put upon it by a solemn Treaty What inexcusable folly was it in them to crown a Child and thereby render him the object of the indignation of a powerful neighbor Prince What insupportable impiety was it to run to an Infidel for shelter before they knew if he whom they feared would exceed the bounds of Reason Certainly the Hungarians had lived more happily and quietly if they had religiously observed the Treaties and Promises of their Kings and the faithless Turk would have found stronger bars to his Ambition if the House of Austria had not been so much traversed and crossed in its just pretensions G. When the ruine of great Estates approacheth all things contributes to their destruction Kingdoms that have changed Masters have been the principal framers of their own misfortune The condition of Hungary was so depraved that almost every one gloried to be inconstant and perfidious But let us follow the threed of our story that we may come near our own times King Ferdinand having heard of his Competitors death sent Nicolas Count of Salms to the Queen Douager to dispose her to the observation of the Treaty which had been made between him and her husband and willingly to grant that to reason which she would be constrained to yeeld to force That she and her son would find it a greater advantage to them to acquiesce to what the late King had concluded with mature deliberation then to draw upon Hungary the mischiefs and evils of an obstinatly sought for war That himself was ready to perform all he had promised and to use her with favor more then ordinary The Queens answer to the Earl was that her sexe her age and her grief rendred her incapable to fall upon any resolution in a business of so great importance till she had the advice of the King her Father and therefore intreated Ferdinand to allow her some few months for that effect That the Emperor Charles his Brother and Himself would reap but little honor to make war on a woman drowned in tears and a Child swadled in his Craddle This answer did not at all please Ferdinand who immediatly sent Leonard Baron of Velts with an army to bring her to reason The Queen in this extremity sends Embassadors to the Port who were well received by Soliman and graciously dispatched They returned with an embroidered scarlet robe a Mace of Iron the Pommel of which was of Gold a Shable the sheath whereof was set with precious stones as tokens of his Amity and Protection And at the same time ordered all the Governors of the neighbor places to draw to the field without delay to succour the Queen While these things are a doing Lasco who had changed his Master and taken himself to Ferdinands service and was then his Embassador at Constantinople demanded of the Sultan the Kingdom of Hungary upon the same conditions which were granted before to John Zapoliha which proposition did displease the Turk so much that he clapped the Embassador in prison and said he deserved to die for offering to mock him Soliman having absolutely refused Ferdinands demands and sending strong supplys to Queen Isabel Hungary became the Theatre of most horrible confusions and was dyed with the promiscuous blood of Germans Turks and Hungarians Rogendorff a new General of Ferdinands beseegeth Buda This siege put Soliman on his way to raise it But he might have saved himself the labor for his forces had done the work before his arrival Rogendorff having lost twenty thousand men saved himself by flight The Turk notwithstanding keeps on his Journey and being come near the City sends Presents to the young King But afterward desiring to have satisfaction for the great charge and trouble he and his forces had been at he desired the Queen to send her son to him assuring her he demanded it for no other reason then to oblige his children to love the young King more tenderly At the same time his messengers had order to tell her the cause why the Grand Seigneur did not give her self a visit was that he would not do any thing that might bring a blemish upon her reputation The Queen returned her humble thanks to the Sultan for his civility but wavered in her resolution whether she would send her son to him or not George Martinusias told her that she neither might or could refuse it Overcome by invincible necessity she puts him in a craddle worthy such a child and having commanded his Nurse and some other Matrones and a great many Lords to accompany him she sends him to the Turkish camp Soliman to do him honor caused meet him with a gallant troop of horse he looked upon him embraced him courted and dandled him and caused his children do so also And in the mean time caused seize one of the ports of the Town by which his troops entered and secured all the streets of the city Then were the Citizens commanded to deliver up all their arms if they desired to save their lives which was instantly done without any noise This being past Soliman sent back the young King to his mother but keeped the Lords who had convoyed him The Queen seeing her Town and Officers of State in the Turks power laments weeps and prays but her lamentations tears and prayers availed not nor did hinder the Infidel to put it to the debate in his Divan whether he should keep the Kingdom of Hungary for himself or restore it to the young King P. The great Turk is so absolute and formidable to his subjects that I presume in his Councels all speak according to his humor and inclination G. It was not so here for all the opinions which
season were farr spent that in the mean time they might beseege and take Canisia which already they had blocked by the taking of Buzats Ziguet and by the garrison they had in Serinswar They demanded all these things that were necessare for the siege of so important a place and undoubtedly believing they should be sent to them they vigorously begun it at the opening of the spring This siege proved a Murtherer for it hugely diminished the number of the beseegers and endured longer then they at first did imagine the enemy approaching for Canisias relief the siege is raised and before the Christian forces could draw together the Turk takes Serinswar and little Comorre These successes were followed with greater For after our Army was assembled he continued his victories by the taking of Vesprin But fortune weary of following the wrong party turned on our side after which time the Visier and his Turks were not so successful Lewis Count of Souches Governorof Comorre defeats the Infidels at Sernevits and pursues them so vigorously that he made them abandon Barcan and ruined a bridge of boats which they had upon the Danube Raimund Count of Montecuculi made them repent that they offered to pass the river of Raab and the Earls of Coligni and Fueillade cut in pieces all those that had passed the same river near to Saint Godard P. They say indeed that the Count of Coligni and Fueillade did great things and therefore I should be glad before this discourse be at an end to know something of the assistance the Emperor desired of forreign Potentates for I suppose it hath been one of the great members of our Armies and one of the great motives that obliged the Grand Visier to hearken so soon to a peace G. There is no doubt to be made of that for the Emperor being very careful to make himself strong against so powerful an enemy sent his Embassadors to implore assistance from all these who were able to give it These he sent found good words in all places and in some good deeds all Germany was alarmed Italy Sweden Lorrain Spain and France took the preservation of Hungary to heart Spain and Italy promised to furnish great sums of money Sweden Lorrain and France offered to send troops entertained at their own charges I cannot tell precisely what the rest did But it may be said truly that the zeal of the French surpassed that of all other Christians The King who hath as much piety as Saint Lewis as much valor as Philip August as must wisdom as Charles the fifth and as much courage as Henry the Great and more zeal for Religion then all his Predecessors did hear with much grief that the Turk had begun the war and with much joy that the Emperor sought his help The mischiefs the Tartars had done upon our frontiers and the numbers of poor Christians that were every day brought in slavery and put in fetters moved him to so much compassion that when Count Strozzi limited the succours which he sought in name of his Imperial Majesty to four thousand foot and two thousand horse he wished they had not offered to set bounds to his liberality Then the words Christian Royal which came from his mouth did make it appear that all that can be said of his piety towards God and his pitty towards Hungary is far below his merite He exhorted his Nobility to this glorious Voyage and told even those whom he loved best that they would make their Court as advantageously in Hungary as at the Louver He protested in presence of many Princes and Lords That if his son the Daulphin were ten years of age he would send him in this expedition And which is more strange he assured his Audience that if it should be Gods pleasure to afflict Christendom so much as to suffer the Emperor to be worsted in this Campagn he would go in person the next to repair his losses repulse his enemy These Discourses full of martial heat and Christian zeal did put such an edge upon the French Nobility that instantly hundreths were seen who preferred the satisfaction of their consciences and generosities to all the pleasures and contents they could expect either in the Court or in this life Prince Philip Knight of Lorrain knowing his Predecessors had reigned in Jerusalem after they had expelled the Sarasens and that the Count of Harcourt his father was grieved that his age would not suffer him to put on armor nobly supplyed his place and gave in this occasion so many proofs of his courage that it may be said he hath revived the memory of these Princes of Lorrain who in former times conquered the East and of the Duke of Mercoeur who in the beginning of this last age made himself be admired at the retreat of Canisia and the taking of Alba Royal. The Princes of Rohan and Soubize having a thousand of their Predecessors to imitate did make it appear at this time that if the Dukes of whom they carry the tittle knew how to defend these of the Reformed Religion they knew as well to expose their lives for the defence of Christians The Duke of Brisac remembring the reputation which the Mareshalls of Cossé and Brisac his Ancesters acquired did neither spare his body nor his spirit to follow their trace and to win glory to himself The Count of Sault and the Marquess of Ragny and Canaples shew a burning desire they had to equalize the merit of the Constable of France the Duke of Lesdiguieres the Mareshalls of Crequi the Lords of Pontdormi and an infinit number more of their illustrious Predecessors who went before them in the road of Military vertue The Duke of Boüillon and the Count of Auvergn his brother led by the example of their brother and their Uncle and by that of the glorious Godfrey who filled all Europe with admiration in the year 1096. did so signalize themselves that if they did not reign in Jerusalem as their Ancestors did at least they will reign in the hearts of those who were spectators of their valors and who knows the laudable ambition they have to equalize the ancient Earles of Bologne of Nassaw of Berg and the Princes of Orange The Count of Selle the Knight of Saint Aignan the Marquess of Castelnaw and all the other French Lords Gentle-men who were about two thousand horse remembring they had Lewis the Victorious both for their King and their Pattern made the world see some by their glorious deaths and the rest by their heroical exploits that they were resolved either to pluck the palm out of the Visiers hand or die honorably in the quarrel In a word the Auxiliaries which the King sent us under the conduct of the Count of Coligni and the Lieutenant Generals Bodewels and Gassion did contribute much to the Victories which we gained and we may say that there was not amongst them a simple soldier who had not been an Officer nor Captain
Frederick but he was excluded because Vladislaus his party prevailed During this interraign the Emperor recovered all that Matthias had taken from him in Austria and at length Vladislaus maugre all the Competitors mounts the throne The beginning of his reign was troublesom for his brother Albert assisted with his Uncles the brothers of Casimir King of Polen beseegeth Cassovia the capital City of the higher Hungary and so gave him work on that side Blaise Magger a dependent of John Corvin being offended that his Master was rejected refused to deliver the Crown which was in his keeping to the new King upon which he was beseeged at Vissegrad which he held bravely out and would neither deliver Town nor Crown till he had command so to do from his Master Maximilian having recovered his losses in Austria advanced towards Hungary and being assisted by these who had favored his election in the interreign made a successful progress Vladislaus fainting under the burden of so many troubles came to an agreement with Maximilian the tenor whereof was so hateful to the Hungarians that the Palatine Emeric Prini caused proclaim through all the streets of Presburg that he neither did nor ever would consent to it But this generosity of his lasted not long for being gained by presents he signed the articles of Peace by which the Crown and Kingdom of Hungary is entailed to the House of Austria if Vladislaus died without issue You may see here a disease cured by the application of a remedy odious to the whole Nation This tempest not yet well allaid ushered in another conjured up by Albert another Polonian pretender whose heart could not brook it to see his brother King of Hungary he takes armes and beseegeth Cassovia the second time But while he endeavors to take it he is taken himself and forced to give surety to suffer Vladislaus to live in quyet Shortly after Vladislaus married and within three or four years had a son and a daughter Anne and Lewis both of them famous in the Hungarian History Anne was married to Ferdinand of Austria Grand-child to the Emperor Maximilian who by her had a numerous issue whose posterity reigns yet in Germany and Hungary The accidents of the birth life and death of Lewis were extraordinare He was born without a skin which made his subjects fear he should be spoiled of his Kingdom He wore a beard when he was but fifteen years old and was gray haird of eighteen which made most men conclud his life to be short He died in a marish at Mohats when he was but twenty years of age at which time the greatest part of his Kingdom fell in the hands of the Mahometans Which makes us see that these preter-natural accidents proved truly ominous as we shal find hereafter Vladislaus making no more account of what had passed between him Maximilian of Austria caused crown his son Lewis at Alba Royal by the hands of Thomas Cardinal of Strigonium in the year 1508. And the year after he got him to be crowned King of Bohemia at Prague when he was but three years old The Emperor Maximilian was hugely dissatisfied with these things but Vladislaus entertaining peace with the Turk on the one side and supported by Polen on the other he was forced to dissemble his ressentment P. Ordinarly a great calm is followed by a great tempest and if it fell not out so with Vladislaus he hath been fortunate beyond his merite G. Towards the end of his life and after the death of Bajazeth a civil war began in Hungary which was like to ruine it entirely upon this occasion The King had a great desire to invade Selim Emperor of Turky who was kept busie at home disputing the Crown with his brother Achmet which design he communicates to Pope Julius the first The Pope approves of it and promiseth his assistance but prevēted by death left the management of it to his Successors Mean while Vladislaus bethinks himself better and renews with Selim the Peace he had made with his father Bajazet This Peace exceedingly displeased those who loved war and a little after Cardinal Thomas Legat for the Holy See came to Hungary with a Croisade to joyn the Nobility and Commons in a vigorus pursuit of a war against the Infidels The common people who had been ever till then used with much rigor thinking the time to recover their liberty was now come turned their armes against the Nobles Their numbers made them insolent and they elect one George Sekell first for their General and then for their King He and his rable having cōmitted a world of mischiefs laid siege to Themisware where his army is defeated and himself and brother Lucatius taken prisoners by John Zapoliha Vayvod of Transilvany This action put Zapoliha in so high credit with the better sort that Vladislaus was contemned and nothing more spoken of then degrading the King and mounting the Vayvod in the throne But Vladislaus prevented the disgrace by his death which fell out in the year 1516. P. By what you tell me I am perswaded the Hungarians are hugely loyal and affectionate unto their King when they are gallant and that they are easily moved to change him for another when he is not so G. A warlike people desires ever to see their King a horse-back when the preservation of his Estate requires him so to be And though experience ofteu teach us that the preservations of the persons of Kings preserves Kingdoms yet a people is ever desirous to see their King on the head of their army But for all that the Hungarians have reason to be of another opinion and their History will let them see what a misfortune it is to loose a King with loosing a battel Lewis in his tender years succeeding his father Vladislaus was vilipended by Sultan Soliman who knowing his weakness and the divisions that then were amongst Christian Princes thought this time convenient to bring Hungary under his subjection To this effect he makes peace with the Persian and rusheth upon Lewis with all his forces This young King knowing how unable he was alone to grapple with so mighty an enemy prayed other Christian Potentats to send him succours and not to permit the Bulwark of Christendom to fall into the hands of the common enemy of believers His prayers prevailed not for Christendom then was tearing it self in pieces so Lewis was forced to take the field yea even before these troopes were brought together of which his army was to be composed The Turk had already passed the Save and the Drave and meeting with the Hungarians both few in number and evil provided of a General did without any difficulty obtain the victory and that so compleatly that the King and the most part of these that followed him were lost one way or other either in battel or the flight P. I have heard say that two and twenty thousand Christians died at this fatal field and that besides horses
were several were well debated and considered neither did Soliman fall upon the election of the most unreasonable result Mahomet and Ustrofi were of opinion that the Sultan should carry the King to Constantinople and with him the principal Hungarians That he should place a Governor in Buda who using the people which loved liberty with moderation and sweetness might bring them piece and piece and by degrees to receive the Ottoman yoak and in the mean time permit them to enjoy their goods Rustan Solimans son in law gave a more honorable advice perswading him to keep his promise wherein he was so deeply engaged that the violation of it could not but bring with it the irrecoverable loss of his honor and reputation But Iahaoglis Basha of Belgrade void both of honesty and humanity advised his Master to rid himself once for all of the necessity to come so often and so far to relieve a woman and a child He represented to him the impossibility the mother and her son would meet with to resist the Germans without the forces of his Highness and consequently his troubles should be endless He desired him to remember that within these twenty years he had marched into Hungary five several times to his infinite charges and hazard of his person The first time to reduce Belgrade to his obedience which before was a den of thieves The second to revenge an affront done to his Embassadors to which he sacrificed King Lewis and that then he had given with a prodigious prodigality the Kingdom to a person who was considerable for nothing but for the mischief he had done to the Ottoman armies The third to succour the said King against Ferdinand of Austria and at the said time he had shaken and wasted Germany by the siege of Vienne and by his roads and cavalcades which brought threescore thousand Christians to chains and fetters The fourth in regard his Highness retreat had encouraged the same Ferdinand to attack King John with hopes to wrest his Kingdom from him he was forced to return and relieve him And the fifth time for these affairs concerning which the present question was This Basha who had been present at all these expeditions did exaggerate the evils that his master had endured the great and vast waste of treasure the great and many persons he had lost and the obligation he had laid upon himself to neglect all his other affairs for this alone And concluded that war being only made to procure the means to live in peace the Sultan should reduce into a Province a Kingdom which he had so often taken and defended He should send the Queen to her father Sigismond King of Pole He should carry the child to Constantinople to be bred in the Mahometan Law He should put the whole Nobility to the sword and raze all their forts and strong holds transport a number of families to Asia and keep the rest in subjection with sufficient guarrisons P. This last spoke like a true Turk for they are all cruel and merciless and sworn enemies to Christians G. Jahaoglis advised nothing but what Soliman might have done and what many of his predecessors would have done in the like occasion But he resolved for all that to use greater moderation He left a strong guarrison in Buda intreating the Queen to be satisfied with what he did and to retire her self with her son to Lippa and reign over Transilvany in the neighborhood of her father the King of Poles Dominions And gave her assurance of the affection he would ever keep for her son He ordered some troops of his own guards to convoy her and caused furnish her with waggons chariots and beasts for carriage to transport all the moveables she had The Queen perceiving the necessity of her departure endeavored to seem willing to go from a place where it was not in her power to stay longer Some noblemen of the Countrey followed her joyfully as if they had been delivered out of prison The Transilvanians swore fealty to their young Prince with the Turks consent And remembring that his father John had governed them mildly and with much moderation the space of thirty years they promised to the son a perfect obedience without constraint The affairs of Hungary being in this condition King Ferdinand would gladly have appeased the Turk whom he much apprehended and for that purpose he directed Presents to him worthy of him who sent them and of him who was to receive them There was besides other things a great cup of pure gold enriched with precious stones and an horologe of silver of an admirable workmanship It was a globe which before had honored the Cabinet of Maximilian Ferdinands grand-father It shew besides the hours the course of the Planetes with the distance of the Sun and Moon imitating the fabrick of the world as far as art could reach And the motion of all did not terminate till a whole year went about P. Did these Presents produce any good effects or did they acquire to Ferdinand the tranquillity he hoped for G. Soliman was extreamly well pleased with the globe and looked upon it with much delight as one who had some skill in Astronomy but it did not oblige him to repay any civility Ferdinands Embassadors demanded the Kingdom of Hungary upon these conditions which were granted formerly to John Zapoliha Which being very honorable for Soliman and advantageous to his Estates there were strong appearances he should have granted them But the contrare appeared by the answer delivered to them out of Rustan Basha's own mouth which was this That his Highness would grant peace to their Master upon these termes that he should deliver up all these places which appertained to Lewis the second That henceforward he should not come near the Frontiers of Hungary That the House of Austria should be obliged to pay Soliman such a tribute as he should be pleased to impose to preserve the honor of the Ottoman Majesty which notwithstanding should be but a small one in comparison of the great pains and travel the Grand Seigneur had taken and the immense charges he had been at in the war And if these conditions seemed heavy to Ferdinand then Soliman would make use of his power to force him to that accommodation After this final answer the Turk returned to Constantinople having first wasted and spoiled some Provinces This proud and imperious procedure of Soliman was looked upon at Vienne as a Declaration of the war And therefore Ferdinand appoints three Generals to oppose so formidable an enemy and made application to George Martinusias who refused not to serve him This Monk whom King John had chosen to be Tutor to his son prime Minister of Estate and Director of all his revenues intending to tyrannize over his Master and the Queen his Mother had constantly more strings to his bow then one And whatever he promised either to the Queen to the Turk or the King of the Romans it was only
from slavery Mean time Queen Isabel seeing she could not obtain the performance of the promises were made to her prayed the Grand Seigneur once more to have pitty of her son Soliman either moved with compassion of the widow Queen or touched with his own interests assists her powerfully and reduceth the Transilvanians to that necessity that they implored Ferdinand to permit them to treat with Soliman in favor of John Sigismund Ferdinand though much against his will gave his consent And they obtained for their Prince that same favor that was granted to John Zapoliha his father for these submissions duties and tribute that it should please Soliman to impose on him This fell out in the year 1551. The Queen having entred in repossession of her Estates her brother Sigismund August mediated another treaty between Ferdinand and her By it she obtained more advantagious conditions then by the former one Her son should espouse Joanne the daughter of Ferdinand and enjoy for ever in Soveraignty for himself and his heirs Transilvany the County of Abavivar Muran Huzth Marmet and a part of the revenue of the territories of Ceregh and of Ugocha P. I am of the opinion few Countreys are to be found which have changed their Masters so oft as Transilvany And I know not if I be obliged to believe that a King of the Romans brother to one of the puissantest Emperors that ever reigned in Germany and father of so many children should put on a resolution to part with a Principality which he had acquired partly by consent partly by right and partly by force G. I know that Potentats do not give away willingly that which they have gained It is notwithstanding true that Ferdinand gave up that Soveraignty whereof we speak and that he permitted John Sigismund to do what he pleased in Transilvany except the assuming the tittle of King Yea the business was carried on a greater length for this Transilvanian supported by the Turks forces demanded that the Danube should divide Hungary and Transilvany and that the Kingdom of Hungary should be entailled to him and his successors in case the masculine line of the Austrain family should chance to be extinct This insolent demand vexed Ferdinand he takes armes and constrained the Transilvanian Prince to be contented that the river Tebiscus should be the utmost bound of his Estates This agreement displeased either Sigismund or the Great Turk who prompted him to act because he might not enter publickly on the stage himself in regard of a truce he had made with Ferdinand for eight years Hereupon John Sigismund denounceth war against Maximilian the second who succeeded his father Ferdinand and took Zackwar Hudad and Corazzo and had taken Cassovia also if the rigor of the Winter season had not hindered him But these victories were short lived Maximilian grievously offended with these insolencies takes armes and attacks him vigorously regains what he had lost and forces his enemy to a Peace Soliman being returned from Malta where fortune had not favored him begins a new war in Hungary where he dies at the siege of Zigeth which was surrendered to Basha Mustafa his Lieutenant General the 7 of September 1566. Selimus who succeeded to his father made a truce with the Hungarians for eight years and in it comprehended the Transilvanian who by the recommendation of his Uncle Sigismund August King of Pole got an addition to his Dominions of some Territories which the Emperor yeelded to him and the town of Guila which he bought from the Turk in the year 1568. John Sigismund perceiving the dy of war run favorably for him offered to corrupt some Hungarians to carry on his designs with more advantage in that Kingdom But his endeavors and practises dyed with himself in the year 1570. and in the thirty and third year of his age And in him and with him ended the race of Zapoliha He had chosen Gaspar Bekez for his successor but he was rejected by the Grandees who put in his place Stephen Battori on the 14. of May 1571. This Prince acknowledged the Grand Seigneur for his Soveraign as his Predecessor had done And being elected King of Pole after the retreat of Henry of Valois he made it appear that vertue and fortune are not incompatible in one and the same subject This brave Gentle-man was within a very few years a Baron a Prince and a King and eminently worthy of the highest of these degrees Being chosen King of Polen he delivered up Transilvany to his brother Christopher Battori who not finding the House of Austria favorable to him because his brother Stephen in the election of Pole was preferred to Maximilian the second was forced to seek support at Constantinople This was a most vertuous Prince who having suppressed the boldness of Bekez who endeavored to supplant him reigned gloriously till his death which put him in his grave 1581. To him succeeded his son Sigismund being yet a child Stephen Battori his Uncle King of Pole having appointed him three Tutors sowed jealousie amongst them which gave him shortly occasion to thrust them all three out and to put the person and affairs of his Nephew in the hands of John Geczi Governor of Varadin This was a gallant and an orderly Gentle man who quickly made himself known to be a man of courage as well as conduct Scarce had he laid his hands on the reins of the Government of his pupils Estate when King Stephen dyes in the year 1586. The powerful factions which bandied one against another in Pole for the election of a new King gave Geczi an opportunity to show what worth was in him He joyned his forces with these of Samoisky who favoured Sigismund of Sweden against Maximilian of Austria his Competitor who was beaten taken and forced to quite his pretensions to the Swed In the mean time the Turk made a fierce war in Hungary against the Emperor Rodolp the second And though the Officers and Commanders of his Imperial Majesties forces were men of sufficient worth and gallantery who sold to the Sultan all the victories he obtained at a very dear rate yet in the year 1595. Sinan Basha Lieutenant General to Selimus reduced to his obedience the admirable fort of Javarin at that time deemed impregnable P. I have heard say that Sinan vaunted that he had brought the Emperor Rodolph to the necessity to beg Peace by the loss of that wonderful strength But Sansovia saith that Sinan lost there fifty thousand men and that a little after the war began again hotter then ever G. The Emperor had too much courage to seek Peace after so considerable a loss He knew he could obtain none but that which would have been exceeding disadvantageous and for that reason he resolved to continue the war and so sought the help of all those who were able to give it and got Sigismund Battori Prince of Transilvany to be of his party This Prince was easily moved to be pertaker of so
noble a design because he was a person of a great spirit and courage as also because he thought it a shameful thing for a Christian to joyn with these who aimed at nothing so much as the entire subversion of Christianity He concluded therefore a Treaty with the Emperor whereof these were the principal Articles That Sigismund taking arms against the Turk it should not be permitted to the Emperor to make Peace without him And if the matter should come to an accommodation the Principalities of Valachia Moldavia and Transilvania should be comprehended in the Treaty That Sigismund should enjoy the name the honors and prerogatives of a Prince of the Empire That an honorable rank amongst them should be assigned to him That the Emperor should give him a Princess of the House of Austria for his Consort That as long as the war lasted the Emperor should furnish him every year one hundred thousand florins of the Rhine which will amount to thirty and three thousand pounds sterlin And should entertain to him a good Body of Germane horse and foot That all these places that Sigismond should take in the war should remain in propriety to him and these that should be of his issue of both sexes That if the mischance should fall out that the Turk should by force of arms expell him his Dominions of Transilvany the Emperor should be obliged to assign him as many Lands within the Empire as should be sufficient to entertain him like a Prince That there should a general act of oblivion pass for him and all those who had served under the Turks Banner against his Imperial Majesty That the Prince should enter in possession of all these Lands which he enjoyed before in Illyria and Hungary That the Emperor should provide him with canon powder other munitions of war That the Transilvanian should take the field with fourscore thousand fighting men Valachians Moldavians and Transilvanians This agreement was sealed with the marriage of Prince Sigismund with Mary Christine daughter of Charles Arch-Duke of Grats with the Order of the Golden Fleece which Philip the second of Spain sent to him By Pope Clement the eight's present of a Hallowed Hat and sword and by a great mass of moneys which was sent to him from several places of Christendom This League did much satisfie many great Potentats but did so displease and exasperate Sultan Amurath the Princes of Sigismunds own family and the greatest part of the Transilvanians that presently followed terrible invasions troubles and murthers Upon which the Prince called these Nobles to him who he knew to be affectionate to his person and interests and having all his thoughts taken up with the meditation of horrible revenges against his kinsmen and the Great Men of Transilvany he summoned his Estates to meet at Claudiopolis There it was that he put to death Balthasar Battori his Uncle and many other Lords and declared them guilty of rebellion and leze Majesty and amongst the first Stephen and Andro Battori his cousin germans the sons of Balthasar At the same time Sigismund thinking he had extinguished the fire of the Rebellion caused publish thorow all his Territories the League which he had made with the Emperor against the Ottoman family and exhorted and commanded all his subjects to take arms to deliver themselves from the tyranny and slavery under which they had so long groaned A few days after he brought fifty thousand men in arms and having provided them with sufficient and able Officers he advanced with them towards the Danube to act the first part of the Tragedy Now he is in the fields Fortune sides with him he takes seven ships loaden with silver and other rich merchandises which Sinan Basha was to employ to corrupt the Officers of Vienne to betray it to his Master the Grand Seigneur This good luck put Sigismund in a capacity to beseege Themiswar But he had scarce begun to attack it when he receives intelligence that the Tartars were wasting and making havock of his Territories and subjects which called to him for their defence Having raised his siege he marcheth against them but finding them lodged in an inaccessible place where valor could not avail him he hath recours to policy he fires theirs quarters and having smoaked them out gives them a total overthrow without any difficulty and with no considerable loss on his side P. Thus far Prince Sigismund Battori was fortunate and gallant and if it were not that the death of his Uncle and some other Transilvanian Lords seem to argue him of some cruelty I see not wherein his conduct can be blamed I would gladly know if fortune accompanied him to his grave and if he left any children behind him to inherite his vertue and Estates G. I come softly to that ye desire to know The Valachians and Moldavians admiring the Transilvanians victories would gladly share with them and therefore make a conjunction of their forces Sultan Amurath seeing that his losses occasioned this revolt endeavored to set his affairs in better order and to that effect commands the Basha of Themiswar to attack the rebells and make them feel the rigor of fire and sword The Basha takes the field but is defeated by Prince Sigismund towards the latter end of the year 1594. This victory of the Prince was seconded by another which he obtained by the overthrow of twenty thousand Tartars who were returning home loaden with spoil and booty About that time died Amurath the second leaving Mahomet the third to succeed him who coming to the Crown about thirty years of age gave great largesses to his Janizaries and made huge preparations for the war against the Christians And understanding that the Cossacks and Podolians had entered in League with the Transilvanians he sent an Army of one hundred thousand Turks under the command of Sinan whom he commanded to chastise these rebels exemplarly Sinan prepares himself to give a full obedience to the commands of his impersous Master and while he studies to gain friends in Moldavia he gathers a formidable Army for the execution of his design But all his preparations came to nought by the industrious vigilance of Sigismund who brought up Sinans rear so close that as he repassed the Danube the bridge overcharged with numbers of flying Turks broke and Sinan falling himself in the river was in danger to have born company with an infinite number of his Army who were there drowned This great action joyned to many more in all which the prudence valor conduct and good fortune of Prince Sigismund appeared to admiration acquired him the name of Invincible And forced Sultan Mahomet to take upon himself the conduct of his Army You might see him then in the field in person with two hundred thousand fighting men and these dreadful forces gave him the confidence to advance as far as Agria There it was that the Arch-Duke Maximilian and Prince Sigismund by the custom they had gotten to overcome contemning
foot and one of horse with these and his own troops he routed five and twenty thousand Turks near Szabuta At length Bethlem returning to his duty was received in favor and Ragoski confirmed in his Principality by the Sultan While these things are a doing Ferdinand the second dies and left his son Ferdinand the third his successor to the Kingdom of Hungary and all his other Estates This Prince having a most dangerous war to mannage in Germany was exceeding desirous to preserve peace in Hungary yet it was broke by the advice of these who counselled him to discharge the Lutherans the use of a Church they had at Presburg and to revoke all he had promised in their favors This stroke of State relished not well with these Polititians who thinks good actions lose their price when they are done unseasonably There is nothing that more exasperates mens minds then the violence that is offered to their consciences and there are few things in the world which need more circumspection then doth the work of reforming an Estate The Lutherans of Presburgh who could never endure the loss of their Church or recover it without the assistance of strangers call to Ragoski for help This Prince fearing to embark without bisket and to enter in a war in which he could not rationally expect much assistance from the Turk who was kept busie in Asia prayed the Emperor and his Concel to perform what was promised to the Hungarians But he received no satisfactory answer from the Emperor who seemed to contemn both his prayers and his power Therefore conceiving he was more obliged to his Religion then to his Bene-factor he suffered himself to be perswaded by the Embassadors of the Confederates who earnestly sollicited his alliance And having denounced war to the Emperor he entereth Hungary with seventy thousand fighting men And that the world might see he began not the war without reason he declareth by his Manifest that since the year 1619 they had put Hungary in the number of the hereditary Provinces of the House of Austria That they gave these Offices to Church men which belonged to secular persons That the Protestants were thrust out of all Charges nor could their complaints be heard And that against their wills the Jesuits were settled in the Countrey Ragoski his first action was to waste and spoil the territories of George Homonay after which he brought to his obedience all that resisted him even to Cassovia It being taken the Emperor desirous to calm this storm sends against him the Count of Bouchaim with an army of eight and twenty thousand men and with it was the Palatine of Hungary also But not being able to regain Cassovia he hearkened gladly to a Peace By the agreement seven Lordships of Hungary were given to Ragoski And to please him fifty Churches were opened to the Protestants wherein they might freely teach their doctrine and the Hungarians restored to all their priviledges This Treaty seemed disadvantageous to the Catholicks but it was more prejudicial to the Sweds for the Emperor having picked this thorn out of his foot sent secours to Brin and forced Torstenson to raise the siege he had laid to it At which time Lewis Count of Souches a French Gentleman and who had been the principal cause of the preservation of the place received the Governmēt of it for the recompēse of so signal a service P. I can hardly believe that such remarkable and so frequent alterations are to be seen any where so much as in Hungary and Transilvany And I admire that a people which cannot almost stir without drawing into their Countrey either the Germans or the Turks doth run so oft and so readily to arms G. These Countreys breeds a very warlike people such an one as can hardly live in quyet And their Princes very oft throw them in the fire when they think to draw them out of the furnace making their condition worse when they endeavor to make it better whereof Ragoski hath given a demonstration when he espoused the quarrel of the King of Sweden and thereby equally disobliged the Emperor and the Grand Seigneur This Transilvanian being ambitious to have a share of the glory and conquests of King Charles Gustave marched with very considerable forces to Pole and joyned with him And not having done any great feats was forced to return either with much shame or with very little reputaion But his misfortune did not stop with the loss of his army it pursued him further and armed the Great Turk against him and made him die in a battel where with his life he lost his Principality which he should have left to his son Some writes that they were Christians who stirred up the Turks hatred against him and that that should be one of the causes of the present war and one of the truest too Remin Janos his Lieutenant General endeavored to step up to the Throne in the room of his dead Master and for that effect submitted himself to his Imperial Majesty sought and obtained his protection But he was not able to preserve these Estates on which he had seased Then it was that the Court of Vienne endeavoring to save Janos and not to offend the Ottomans did neiter the one nor the other Janos lost his life in a conflict and the Turk was very evil satisfied with the Emperor who as he said had contraveened the Truce which was between them This mis-understanding occasioned a great alteration on both sides and procured several Embassies and Negotiations from one party to the other The Sultan protested constantly that he breathed nothing but the continuing the Peace and his Ministers complained modestly that we were desirous of war which they intended not to make unless necessity constrained them to it While things stood thus Nicolas Count of Serini thinking the war was already at our doors fancied it would be very advantageous for him to build a fort on both sides of the river Mur which he did and began some acts of hostility This Fort augmented the Turks complaints who demanded the demolition of it by a Chiaux and an Aga whom I saw at Vienne in January 1662. These demands obtained no favorable answer and it seemed they were made to men who had no ears And to speak truth seeing them put on a fierce resolution to grant nothing to the Turk I imagined they sought nothing but war and that Serini's Fort was a place of that hie importance that it was able alone to give work to many Ottoman armies yet experience hath made us see that it is worth nothing and that we needed not to have engadged in a war of such consequence I will not give my reasons because any man may imagine them It shal be enough for me to say that the Imperial Court seeing the Turkish forces in Transilvany and fearing to be taken napping they sent the Earles of Montecuculi and Souches with two little bodies of armies whereof a
for his Imperial Majesty came there the day after and upon the tenth of the moneth was brought to the Visiers presence This great Basha had upon his left hand two of his Brothers on his right hand the Mufti and round about him no fewer then two hundred Officers At this first audience the Baron told him after he had complemented him that he was come there to conclude the Treaty that had been begun between him and Ali Basha He was told that he was come too late and that they would think further of the matter when they came to our Frontiers The Baron replyed that then they had done him wrong in making him come so far that he saw no reason why they should not come to a conclusion at that time that greater difficulties would arise after the war broke out and that God would punish those who occasioned the shedding innocent blood The Grand Visier subjoyned that he had thought very deliberatly on all these reasons at Constantinople and if that had been offered there which was done here he had not undertaken so long a voyage neither would he hear any thing of the Treaty of Themiswar but made grievous complaints of those who had violated the peace The Baron told him All these things had been already spoken of and fully answered This was all was done at their first meeting but the Visier said that the Baron might yet send a Courrier to the Emperor and tell him that if he would disburse such a sum of money as should be demanded of him evacuate the places which yet he keeped in Transilvany and Zekelheid in Hungary and demolish the Fort of Serini there was yet hopes of an accommodation P. I believe by this proposition the Visier intended only to amuse the Imperialists for I cannot fancy that the Turk having advanced so far in Hungary with an army of seventy thousand men and an dred and thirty pieces of Canon would return without so much as one blow G. I think so too for I do not fancy that any Minister how great soever he may be either in merite or credite dare fall upon any resolutions but such as his Master hath prescrived to him The Army then began its march the eleventh of June 1663. with so great pompe that one would have thought that it consisted of two hundred thousand fighting men The noise of Camels Horses and Mules the ratling of Drums and Timbals the sound of Trumpets continued almost night and day till the eighteenth of the same moneth The Officers moved but slowly for though every day some went away yet it proved to be almost none but Bashas and their equipage which being splendid made a show brave to admiration At length upon the fifteenth day the Agae of the Janisaries marched with four thousand of his Body and was followed by the rest of his Army till the eighteenth day on which the Grand Visier put himself on his way with royal magnificence He sent before him a thousand foot-men each of them having one or twoled horses After them came the Spahi Alagarsi who is General of the Gentlemen that serves a horse-back his great Standard went before him and he was followed by six hundred Spahi Edeli the valiantest men in Turky having their banner exceedingly fine These were followed by a long stave at the end of which there was a button of brass from which did hang a horse tail A little after you might see two great Banners which were carried before the Visiers two Brothers and other Persons and Commanders of quality who were accompanied with seven hundred Hosvadars or Grooms almost all covered with Jacks or Coats of maile to their knees At length the Collors Ensigns and Banners of the Great Visier marched and were close followed with sixteen led horses decored with Saddles and Caparisons embroidered with gold and precious stones The Grooms who led them had coats of cloath of gold and breeches of crimson velvet Eight Lackeys of the Visier were in the same habit and amongst them Himself marched accompanied with two Janisaries carrying on his Head a Turban of a great value After the Visier came the Rosevendy or Great Chancellor the Testadir or Commissar General with some others of the Principal Officers of the Army The Gentlemen of his Chamber all young men between twenty and thirty years of age covered with Cossacks six hundred Hosvadars or Grooms forty Cimbals and Trumpets two hundred ordinary horse-men and threescore horses which carried the Great Visiers Tents and Pavilions With this formidable and magnificent Company he arrived at Bukovar the twenty fourth of the moneth and there he was told by that Aga whom he had sent to the Cham of Tartary that in stead of fourscore thousand men which he had promised he would send ten thousand under the conduct of his own son The excuse he made for not keeping his word was that the white Tartars and the Muscovites had made incursions in his Territories which obliged him to keep his troops for the defence of his Frontiers Two dayes after he arrived at Esek where he sojourned ten dayes waiting for these who were to come and joyn with him At length he passed over the Bridge which is twelve thousand paces long and came to Buda the fifteenth of July There after many consultations the Seege of Newheusel was resolved on and on the seventh of August the place was invested Three thousand men which Count Forgas Palfi and Marquess Pio commanded maring out to surprise the enemy were taken in the net themselves and either killed or taken prisoners The place was so close beseeged that it was forced to capitulate and render on composition the eighteenth of Sepetember that same year P. The defeat of so great a number that sallied without doubt weakned the garrison and occasioned the loss of the Town G. It is probable it might have held out some longer time but having no hopes of relief it would have been constrained at length to submit to the yoke It endured three assaults in all which the Turk was vigorously beat off and repulsed Yet Count Forgas was put in restraint accused not to have done his duty in the Siege But I believe his misfortune was greater then his fault they talked here when that place was taken that the Officers were young and unexperienced And in the contrare the Visier is a man of thirty and five years very active and diligent in his expeditions skilled in the Mathematicks and of an heroical courage and it is certain he was night and day in the trenches exhorting and incouraging his sojors both by precept and example The Town being taken he caused fire seven pieces of Canon in sign of victory and having sent one of his brothers to the Port to carry the news to the Grand Seigneur he caused repair the breaches and then retired to prepare for the next expedition This loss wakened the Empire which till then seemed to be asleep and the Dyet being
the Swedes and that they do bad offices to the Emperor when they say that he hath some business to do with them they endeavor to perswade the world that the Swedes have an eye upon Silesia and that his Majesty hath concluded this Peace purposely to oppose more vigorously their unjustice My purpose is to stop the torrent of this malice and to show the reasons which probably moved his Imperial Majesty to this accommodation I know not if I shal do all I intend At least I am very assured that his Majesty hath infinite more religious thoughts then these suborners who dare blame his pure and pious intentions And I am verily perswaded he minds nothing but the good of his Estates I know if these seditious persons durst ask him why he entred in a Treaty with the Port at a time when all Europe believed he might have remounted the Throne of Hungary and been crowned with Lawrels he would give them reasons for it to which no reply could be made But Soveraigns have not yet been obliged to submit themselves to the judgement of the populace or commons or give them an account why they have made Peace or why they have declared war And yet if they will hearken to me I am hopeful to satisfie their curiosity The wise Pilot who knows and sees the marks and fore-runners of a storm causeth pull down his sails before they be torn by the tempest or that his ship be in danger to be lost The Emperor did the like in this rencounter He saw that his own forces those of the Empire and those of the Confederates were in a continual difference one with another he was justly afraid that this discord might give the Turks forces which were more unanimous an advantage to give such a blow as might not only make the rest of Hungary submit to the Ottoman yoke but also brangle Germany so that he should find it in an extream disorder He was likewise weary of begging assistance from his equals and inferiors and was forced with grief to hear continual complaints of those who were obliged to send recruts and entertainment to the troops they had levied He knew that many of our Patriots looked with no good eye upon the Auxiliarites and that every mean fellow endeavored to refuse them both victuals and lodging for their money He knew he ought not quarter all the Armies in his own Territories and that he was not obliged by the ruine of his own Estates to preserve these which belonged to other members of the Empire He saw well enough the dangerous misunderstanding that was creepd in amongst the German Princes upon the account of the City of Erfurt and had reason to believe if the matter came to blows they would recall the forces they had in Hungary leave him alone against the whole power of the Turk Italy in this rencounter did move but little for his Imperial Majesty and he whose lawful and holy designs carried him to be most favorable to him could not do much in regard his frequent sickness and indisposition The great affairs he had to do and the conjunctures of time had ever been contrare to him as all the world knows A twenty years war had so drained the Venetians that they were not capable to do great matters and though they should attempt something yet their naval forces would not make the Grand Seigneur recall those Armies of his who lay heavy upon the Emperor The King of Spain hath not yet had time to breath and though his Interests are mixed with those of the Emperor yet being busied to quench the fire that burns his own house he is not in a capacity to assist Leopold with either great sums of money or numbers of men All he can do is to counsell him to take up his measures right and rather buy Peace then want it and thereby put himself in a condition to enter to the inheritance of his Ancestors if he be called to it by the Laws of that Kingdom The King of Great Brittain hath made an alliance with the enemies of the Illustrious House of Austria which probably will hinder him to joyn his forces with ours against a Potentate whom he never feared or ever will be afraid of The Hollanders having been once members of the Empire were obliged to the Emperor Ferdinand the third for acknowledging them to be Soveraign and free Estates at least indirectly after the Peace of Munster have some reason to embrace the interests of his son but they will not do it for all that because they can gain nothing but honor by it that is a morsel which doth not rellish their Palats as also because they may stand in need of all their forces themselves if the English chance to give them any work to do The Hungarians are fickle and volage on whose resolutions no certain foundation can be laid And because they find the inconveniences and discommodities of the war their Countrey being the Stage of it the Emperor did believe and had reason to do so that there was no better mean to keep them within the bounds of their duty then to procure Peace and Quiet to them and to get them to lay down arms under another pretext The Polonians and Muscovites whose interest it ever was to weaken this formidable enemy of the Turk were by the ears destroying one another at the time when they should have taken that advantage against him which we furnished by giving him work elsewhere And the affairs of these two Nations are in such confusion that we have but smal hopes to put them in order and reconcile them The Cossacks are in the same Category and that warlike Nation which in former times made incursions to the Euxin sea sides now with the Polonians or else we ungloriously quiet Spectators of their differences without daring to hazard the enterprise of any important action These are as I conceive the reasons which moved the Emperor to embrace Peace and it may be the Pope fearing he might be obliged to contribute to the maintenance of the war hath advised him to do so for his own particular interest These reasons should if I do not flatter my self sufficiently disabuse those who have entertained themselves with a contrare opinion But because some ill natured Patriots whom I would gladly convince bring reasons on the other part which seem plausible I will be at the pains to examine them cast them one after another They say the fear the Emperor had that the Swedes would invade his Dominions while he was busied in the war of Hungary gave a stop to the pursute of his victories there I am not at all of that opinion But if it were so what can any truly honest man speak against it And certainly no Polititian will blame his Majesty for having such thoughts And if such considerations of importance moved him to accept of an advantageous agreement there is a great deal of more
now only imagine that it will be told me that the Hungarians have some reason to complain And that it would seem the Emperor behaveth himself to them rather as a stepfather then a father in regard to spare his men and his money he hath made a Peace disadvantageous for them But they will alter their opinion who say so when they understand that which none should be ignorant of this people did so often threaten the Emperor to lay down arms and make their own agreement with the Visier that they imposed a pure necessity on his Majesty to prevent them The Christian sojors received as much yea more hurt from them then from the Turks And none were assured of their lives where they were strongest Our horses yea our men starved for hunger in regard none could go abroad to fetch either proviant or fodderage without whole Regiments to guard them I have seen letters writ by the Officers of our armies wherein they complained that the throats of most of their servants were cut by those for whose safety they were generously exposing their lives Many French in their return from this expedition have told me that these of them who went never so little astray or who straggled were presently sacrificed to the fury of that merciless people And that amongst them it was accounted a crime to be well cloathed or to look like men that had money It will be answered that sojors though friends are insupportable to the inhabitants of any Countrey which is the seat of the war that they take with strong hand not only what is necessare for their subsistence but much more and so robs the people of that wherewith they should maintain themselves and their children and consequently drives them to dispair from whence proceeds these excesses whereof I have spoken Let us grant all this to be true and let us add to it that the orders of his Imperial Majesty have been ill observed and that the Officers of his armies wanting bread to give their sojors were constrained to slack the reins of discipline and to permit them to do that which is discharged by the Military Laws of the most licencious war Let it be granted that the disorders were as high as they can be imagined to be and that it was impossible for the sojors to do worse then they did it cannot be denyed that the greater mischiefs the war drew upon that misfortunate Countrey the less reason the Emperor had to continue it And the more hurt the Hungarians suffered by the war the less reason they have to complain of the Peace This Peace hath taken a thorn out of their foot and hath freed his Majesty from the misfortune to see his friends and his subjects made the objects of their dispair Some will say that by this Peace this people have lost a part of that they had in Hungary whereas they hoped to have recovered by the war what they had lost and this sad consideration hath put tears in their eyes and mournful complaints in their mouthes I confess they have reason to bewail their losses and that all Christians should pitty the wretched Hungarians and be sory they are no more the Bulwark of Christendom and the terror of Infidels He must have a heart of Marble who will not be grieved for the losses Jesus Christ suffers and the advantages Mahomet gains He must be a brute who hath not a kindness for the warlike people of Hungary The Hungarians are volage and unconstant but they are Christians They have often contributed to their own misery both by their malice and their inadvertency but they are Christians They have often called in the Mahometans to assist them against their lawful Kings but they are Christians And though they had done worse then all that I should still bewail their misfortunes because they are Christians And I do believe though we be in a better condition then the Hungarians yet we are not better men But the time of their deliverance is not yet comd and we do but yet expect the ruine of the Turks Empire We hope notwithstanding that so great a deliverance is not far of And we know assuredly that our hopes shal not prove vain The Turkish Monarchy hath no more priviledges then these who have been before it And the Hungarians will be unhappy in no higher measure then others who have called upon the Name of JESUS God grant it be soon that this afflicted Nation and we who are pertakers of their affliction may have occasion to wipe the tears from our eyes and to rejoyce when we see the Almighty hath a care of his own people and delivers them from the oppression of their enemies To him alone belongs honor and glory for evermore P. I have attentively red and perused your papers and having nothing to oppose to what you have said I return you them with many thanks I can assure you I will never forget the good instructions you have given me You may therefore go and repose your self a little after which I shal intreat you to entertain me with a Discourse of forreign affairs And running over with me the best places of Europe to speak of them as you have done of our own Germany FINIS