No. 126.
COUNT EMERIC TEKELI OR TÖCKOLI.
BORN 1658, DIED 1705.
Three-quarters length. Richly-embroidered costume. Leopard’s skin. Holding an axe. Crescent in cap. Troops crossing a bridge in the background.
THE Hungarian subjects of Leopold I., the Emperor of Austria, disgusted with his violation of the promises of civil and religious liberty which he had made them on being proclaimed King of Hungary, and which he ignored on ascending the Imperial throne, revolted in large numbers.
Many of the highest in the land headed the malcontents; and, as we mention in the notice of the Countess Tekeli, her father Count Zrini, Counts Frangipani, Nadasti, and Trauttenbach, suffered death in defence of the privileges of their native land, in 1670-71.
Count Stephen Tekeli, the friend and comrade of these chiefs, a Lutheran of vast possessions, and obnoxious to the Emperor on all these counts, was besieged in his own castle by Leopold’s orders, and died before it surrendered.
His son Emeric, the subject of this notice, then a youth, made his escape in the disguise of a girl, with some friends during the night, and sought refuge at the Court of Poland. Finding the King of that country unable to assist him, he repaired to Transylvania, the Waiwode of which country, Prince Abaffi, his father’s greatest friend, welcomed the young Emeric, made him Prime Minister, and despatched him with the troops, which he was sending to the relief of the Hungarian malcontents. Very shortly afterwards the Count was promoted to the grade of Generalissimo, with the title of Prince and Protector of the Kingdom.