H. Kolba Judit szerk.: Historical Exhibition of the Hungarian National Museum Guide 2 - From the Foundation of the State until the Expulsion of the Ottomans - The history of Hungary in the 11th to 17th centuries (Budapest, 2005)

ROOM 7 - Transylvania and Royal Hungary (second half of the 16th century-17th century) (Judit H. Kolba)

67. Haban spice container with the coat of arms of the Pálffy family, 1667 tween 1660 and 1664. In the same year Zrínyi was killed in the course of a hunt and with him the Hungarian Estates lost their most versatile leader. His literary and poetic works written in beautiful Hungarian, such as the very famous The Siege of Sziget, secured for him a fame more lasting than that associated with his military successes. In this he erected a monument to his great-grandfather, who died a heroic death in 1566 while defending Szigetvár. In his works The Valiant Commander and On the Life of King Matthias, he planned the establishment of a Hungarian national army. THE WESSELÉNYI CONSPIRACY After the peace treaty of Vasvár, embitterment among the Hungarians kept increasing, and even the aristocracy of Royal Hungary turned against the Viennese Court. Under the leadership of Palatine Ferenc Wesselényi, other men of rank, like Péter Zrínyi, ban (governor) of Croatia, Lord Chief Justice Ferenc Nádasdy, and Ferenc Rákóczi I, joined hands: despairing of the situation, they would rather choose vassalage to the Ottomans similar to that of Transylvania. Their movement remained isolated, and those involved either died or gave up themselves. Vienna did not exercise mercy: in 1671, Nádasdy, Zrínyi and Frangepán were condemned to death and executed. The painting by an unknown master has captured this tragic event for posterity. Rákóczi was ransomed by his mother, Zsófia Báthory, for 400,000 florins. The failure of the so-called Wesselényi conspiracy brought revenge on the country also. Leopold I (1657-1705) confiscated the estates of the executed lords and suspended the feudal constitution. In 1678, nineteen-year-old Imre Thököly, an aristocrat from Upper Hungary who fled to his Transylvanian estates, put himself at the head of the refugees and border soldiers fleeing the retribution of the Habsburgs. Thököly trusted in the support of the Turks, hence the Turkish defeats in the wars of liberation swept him and his Upper Hungarian principality away. The opposite part of the room calls to mind some important events in the life of Royal Hungary. THE COUNTER-REFORMATION The counter-reformation now began to supplant the Reformation, which had gained ground so rapidly in the previous century. The movement, starting in Vienna, then supported by the Viennese Court and by the Jesuits, who established themselves in Hungary, asserted itself on the territory of Royal Hungary, striving to regain the population previously converted to the Protestant faith, leading it back to the Catholic Church. Catholic priests had to use the Hungarian