Petrőczi Éva: Holt költők társaságában. A Puritanizmuskutató Intézet és a Medgyesi Pál Puritán Kiskönyvtár emlékére - Nemzet, egyház, művelődés 9. (Sárospatak, 2014)

James I. and Hungary

PETRŐCZI ÉVA: HOLT KÖLTŐK TÁRSASÁGÁBAN

the merit of my continously good supporter, the Reverend György Szepsi Korotz...”270

In 17,h-century Hungary, besides the Basilicon some further royal mirrors appeared, the most widely read being the work of the court-preacher and historiographer of Emperor Charles V, Antonio Guevara. His Libro llamado relox de principes were published in Bártfa, in 1628, under the name of two translators, János Draskovich and András Prágai.271

András Prágai is a person of special importance in our present survey. In a lengthy poetical panorama (rather: panopticum!) entitled A Too Late Helmet for a Wounded Brain he versified the most important figures of the Thirty Years’ War. As we have already touched it, quite recently, in the first decade of the 21st century it became evident that Prágai wasn’t the original author of this strange Mme Tussaud’s “verbal waxen museum”. His source was the Elegidia et poemata epidicta (Uppsala, 1632) of the German diplomat, Hans Joachim Rusdorf, who — in the court of Frederick V — became one of the most experienced personalities of this stormy period, familiar with the deeds(uses) and abuses of the key-figures of the age, including James I.272

In the Rusdorf-Prágai text just one of James’s wrong decisions appear: the plan of son Charles’s marriage with a Spanish infant. The poor king intended to keep the delicate “ecclesiastical-denominational balance” with this far-fetched idea. But the Spanish royal house treated the matter very aggressively: with a straight demand of the re-Catholisation of England. The protestant forces of Europe - including Germany, Hungary and Transylvania - were shocked by this unfortunate marital experiment. This shock is reflected in the poetical portrait of James:

Jamesus rex Angliáé

All through my time I loved peace and Still life,

270 Ibid., 297.

271 About the style and the reception of James’s, Guevara’s asnd other authors’royal and civil conduct books see: Hargittay Emil 2001.

272 Sándor Fazekas-Juhász Levente, in their above quoted Chameleon could very convincingly prove this „double” (Russdorf-Prágai) authorship.

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