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

Never started Warfare for One’s destroy or rage.

But in one certain thing - I see- wisdom left My poor deed.

But you, my son Charles Learn from my fault,

Be wiser than me,

For the sake of publick truth Do not look at weapons,

While your head’s at your neck,

In this Spanish Philip,

And in his offered bond

You should never trust, my dear.”

(Translated by Eva Petrőczi)273

Neither Joachim Rusdorf, nor András Prágai was a John Donne, their writings belong only to the witty “versifying industry” of the era, but in the sixth strophe of the above quoted piece of applied poetry they proved to be prophets when mentioning poor Charles’s head, which was finally lost, though not as a consequence of the planned Spanish marriage.

We hope that this short survey and these contemporary samples illustrated King James’s importance and continuous presence in our 17th-centu- ry culture and also England’s interest towards Hungary and Transylvania. The latter, though connected to political-ecclesiastical matters (Turkish war, Thirty Years’ War, Protestant Union,) was undoubtedly a great step in the history of our connections with the Anglo-Saxon world.

After some samples from the James-reflections of our 17th-century authors, let us turn to a not less important topic: his presence in the scholarly life of 21st-century Hungary, in a normal, out-of-anniversary situation. The first, really clarifying, just and emphatic James-portrait can be found in György Tibor Szántó’s historical summary of the English reformation,

273 RMKT XVII. 8., 62-65.

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