APPENDIX.
CONTENTS OF APPENDIX.

PAGE
I.Sketch of Hungarian History[267]
II.Itineraries[284]
III.Editions[288]
IV.Original Documents:—
i.Patent of Legitimation of Ogier Ghiselin[292]
ii.Patent of Knighthood of Ogier de Busbecq[295]
iii.Purchase Deed of the Seigneurie de Bousbecque[300]
iv.Copy of the Sauve-garde[303]
v.

Pardon of Daniel de Croix for the homicide ofCharlot Desrumaulx

[305]
vi.

Pardon of Jehan Dael for the homicide of Guillibertdu Mortier

[309]

I.
SKETCH OF HUNGARIAN HISTORY DURING THE REIGN OF SOLYMAN.

In order that the reader may be able to appreciate the circumstances under which Busbecq’s Turkish letters were written, and to understand many of the allusions they contain, it is necessary that he should have the power of referring easily to the leading events of Hungarian and Transylvanian history during the reign of Solyman. For Busbecq’s French letters, Motley’s ‘Dutch Republic’ and ‘United Netherlands’ may be consulted, but no such works in English upon Hungarian history exist. The narratives of Robertson and Creasy are meagre in this respect, and contain only scattered and incidental notices of Hungarian events; while Von Hammer, and the Austrian and Turkish histories in Heeren’s Series, valuable as they are, have not been translated into English, and besides are not easily accessible. None of these works give a connected narrative of Hungarian affairs, the notices of which are mixed up with the general Turkish and Austrian history, and have to be picked out from it with much time and trouble. It is hoped that this sketch will to some extent supply the deficiency, and furnish a clue to the intricate maze of Hungarian politics. Some curious facts have been gleaned from Katona’s ‘Critical History of Hungary,’ a rare book, which is mostly composed of original documents, including numerous letters written by Busbecq’s colleague, Verantius, after[268] he had returned from his embassy, and long extracts from Busbecq’s own letters.

During the sixteenth century Hungary formed the Debatable Land between Christendom and Islam. The picture which the ‘Lay of the Last Minstrel’ and the ‘Monastery’ give of the condition of the English and Scottish border, will suggest a faint notion of the state of things all along the frontier between the Turkish and the Christian dominions. Upon both sides continual forays were made, villages were plundered and burnt, castles surprised, cattle driven off, and, worst of all, prisoners were carried away into hopeless slavery.[270] Every few years these desultory hostilities broke out into open war, and, notwithstanding occasional successes of Ferdinand’s party, the tide of Turkish invasion rose steadily higher and higher. In addition, the unfortunate country was distracted by civil war, waged with varying success between Ferdinand and the House of Zapolya, the rivals for the throne, while the magnates of the kingdom went over from one side to the other, according as they thought they could thereby gain any advantage for themselves.

Solyman, the greatest Sovereign of the House of Othman, was born in 1494, and succeeded his father, Selim I., in September 1520. The first year of his reign was marked by a campaign against Hungary, and the fall of Belgrade,[271] the bulwark of that kingdom. Louis, the King of Hungary and Bohemia, was then a minor, and, in the party strife of the different factions of the nobility, the defence of the country was neglected. For several years Solyman’s attention was diverted to other enterprises, of which the most famous was the siege and capture of Rhodes in 1522, but in 1526 he again invaded Hungary. On August 29, the anniversary of the capture of Belgrade, he defeated King Louis with great slaughter at Mohacz,[272] the King himself perishing in the flight, and then advanced on Buda, which surrendered on September 10. Thence he crossed to Pesth, where he received the Hungarian nobles, and, after promising them to make John Zapolya, Count of Zips and Voivode or Viceroy of Transylvania, King of Hungary, returned laden with booty to Constantinople.