Wallachia, into a modern _kingdom of
Dacia_, leaving the west to the Turks as a barrier against Austrian
aggression--but his want of children left his schemes of aggrandizement
without a motive, and at his death in 1630 they all fell to the ground.
The Thirty Years' War procured the Hungarian subjects of Austria a
temporary respite; but Leopold, who was elected king in 1655, and
succeeded his father Ferdinand in the empire three years later,
stimulated by the triumph of his predecessor over the liberties of
Bohemia, resumed with fresh zeal the crusade against the privileges of
the Magyars. Not only was the persecution of the Protestants
recommenced, but the excesses of the ill-paid and licentious German
mercenaries, who were quartered on the country in defiance of the
constitution after the twenty years' truce, under the pretence of
guarding against any fresh attack from the Turks, were carried to such a
height that disaffection became universal even among those who had
hitherto constantly adhered to the Austrian interest, so that (in the
words of a writer[F] of the time,) "they began to contrast their own
condition with that of the Transylvanians, who are not forced to take
the turban but live quietly under the protection of the Turk--while we
(as they say) are exposed to the caprices of a prince under the absolute
dominion of the Jesuits, a far worse sort of people than the Dervishes!"
As early as 1667, a secret communication had been made to the Porte
through the envoy of Abaffi; but Kiuprili, who was then on the point of
departure for Candia, and was unwilling to risk a fresh rupture with the
empire in his absence, gave little encouragement either to these
overtures, or to the more advantageous propositions received in 1670
from Peter Zriny, Ban of Croatia, and previously a famous
partisan-leader against the Moslems; in which the malecontents offered,
as the price of Ottoman aid and protection, to cede to the sultan all
the fortified towns which should be taken by his arms, and to pay an
annual tribute of 30,000 ducats. The conspiracy had, however, become
known at Vienna; and instant measures were taken for seizing Zriny and
his Croatian confederates, Nadasti, Tattenbach, and Christopher
Frangipani, who were all executed in the course of the following year.
The Emperor, now considering Hungary as a conquered country, formally
abolished the dignity of Palatine, and nominated Gaspar Von Ampringham,
grand master of the