A DECLARATION OF THE LORDS AND STATES OF THE Realm of HUNGARY containing the reasons which moved them in forcible manner to oppose themselves against the violence and oppression used and practised upon the inhabitants of the foresid country by the emperors subjects.  
Translated out of French.  
Juvenalis. 
Et quis tam patiens tam ferreus ut teneat se?   
LONDON Printed by Ar. Hatfield for john hodget's. 1605.   

Ad Lectorem.  
Reader, read ere thou judge: so mayst thou see  
The Popedomes' sleights and fruit of tyranny.   

THRICE ILLVSTRIous, reverend, generous, magnificent and noble Lords, our approved good friends and worthily respected neighbours, with our heartiest salutation we here offer you all our service.  
ALl the world knoweth that these broils of war & commotions in government have not without just occasion been stirred up, and that our enterprise in betaking us to our arms, neither did nor doth aim at the offence of any man: but was only intended for the standing upon our own guard, and the repelling of so many and so grievous injuries which heretofore we have been subject unto. Nevertheless fearing lest our silence might be a prejudice unto us and brand us with some blame because of the weal-public of Christendom, we thought it convenient, to acquaint you in few terms with the first motives of these tumults, that (occasion offering itself) you might the rather excuse & justify our proceed both to your neighbour Christian Princes, as also to all others of the foresaid Christian commonweal.  
You shall understand then that his sacred Imperial and royal Majesty having infringed the oath wherein he was bound and obliged unto this realm, having violated and disanuld all the rights, immunities, liberties & privileges which for so many especial merits & rare virtues had of a long time been conferred upon our predecessors by the holy kings of Hungary: hath notwithstanding without either regard of our bodies, our goods, or respect of justice, nobility or religion, as it were abandoned and prostituted us to the merciless mercy of his men of war, our bodies for the exercising of their cruelties, and our spoils for the enriching of their bags: himself lending a deaf ear to our so pitiful and so many supplications form and presented unto him within these 20 years at his Diets and general assemblies in Possonia: as also he lightly passed over those relations and remonstrances offered unto him by Ambassadors sent up by the Estates of the realm for the same purpose. True it is that certain years past his foresaid Majesty sent to our succour one George Basta accompanied with an army of sundry nations, and amongst them no few Walloons: but he was so far from employing his force in our defence, that he granted his soldiers absolute commission to put land and country to fire and sword; as also to raunsacke, beat down and level with the ground the new-pilled and lately rob houses of the Noblemen. And although he had sufficiently provided for the most of his guard and such as were nighest about him, yet was there no consideration nor respect had at all: for the Walloons for all this ceased not to surprise, sack and ruinated whole Towns, Villages, Burrowes and noblemen's castles, whom they massacred without respect, as they did also the Ministers of the word of God, flaying some of them as yet alive. They likewise seconded their cruelty with all filthiness and infamous beastliness, raping and forcing women even to death: and without all manner of regard of either youth or age, they spared neither young girls nor (which is more) women now ready to be brought to bed, nay nor those which now they found in travail, whom they forced & ravished with a far more than beastly cruelty. Moreover against all right and justice yawning and gaping for our goods and possessions, he took counsel of his familiars and best-trusted friends, of many sleights and tricks of legerdemain, whereby he might either snatch and extort, or at leastwise confiscate whatsoever we had. All which inventions and mischievous practices he wrought by the means of his Germane captains, whose service he likewise used in the tormenting of our persons, and especially of theirs of the Nobility, who poor souls took no rest: for he casting them into prison for all the torments they endured was never used to release them, before such times as they bought their liberties full dearly. And his custom was by the same means for the releasing of their imprisonment to take of them a great and solemn oath that they would never bethink them of that excessive wrong they had endured, nor ever by justice, laws or any other way go about to recover some satisfaction, as likewise they should never meddle with the recovering of such heritage's and revenues which had been taken from them and bestowed upon strangers. And which is more, his imperial Majesty for the space of thirteen years, during which our wars lasted, never deigned as much as once to honour our Realm with his presence: that after so many mischiefs he might bestow as it were a breathing space upon so many of his faithful and poor distressed subjects: who in all their general Parliaments, renewed every year and very chargeable unto them, had put up unto his Majesty so many and so earnest petitions and supplications: insomuch as many private men upon their own costs were feign to make a voyage unto Pragues and there to cast themselves into his majesties arms, beseeching his mercy and craving justice: but their cries were little regarded, only they were sent to certain counsellors, who after a formal kind of justice dispatched them in the manner of an 
* D'uneacquit.  acquitting: so as the most part was feign to return without aught doing, with strange outcries and complaints for want of justice. His Majesty himself altogether as oft as pleased him, directly against the customs and statutes of the Realm, caused his judgements to be done and put in execution out of the limits of the foresaid Realm: to whom who so resisted (howbeit such powers had been referred to common assemblies or parliaments) was presently punished. Witnesses be the most honourable Lords, Steeven Illyeszarye, now banished and bereft of all his revenues upon this occasion: and john Leo, a most honourable man and a great justiciar, with their counsellors, Diazy, Bamfy, Sigismunde, Sarmasagly, Ladistas, Gyolafy, john Imrify, George and Valentine Homelay, as also the famous George Sabo, who, how they have been dealt withal, all men know. And making no account or esteem of a natural Hungarian, he invested strangers with all the offices and estates of the Realm: which is nothing else but to abastardise and violate the law and liberty of the Realm, a thing most violent and never put in practice in any country. Lastly, to be brief, our wives, our children, our brethren, our sisters, our parents and allies and what else we possessed, lay at their command, and they disposed of it according to their good will and pleasure. Now with what hart-pearcing grief we endured all these crosses, we refer to the judgement of those who stripped of all affections be plain lovers of public honesty and zealous of the law of God. Yet have we endured all these things with such and so great patience as all our neighbour Realms held us in admiration: and for all this never enterprised any thing till we perceived how they of the Clergy against all right and reason and the ordinances of the Realm, not content with their own limits, wrigold themselves unto estates and offices, to the great disparagement of the laity, and snatching the authority of justice, withdrew to themselves all honours and dignities: wherewith not satisfied they further pried how to deprive us of our liberty, and which is worse, have adventured to tempt our Religion, employing for that purpose divers persons to quash and quench in us our Orthodoxal and true confession of faith. Now the Ecclesiastical livings which anciently were by his majesties Father and Grandfather, as also by the Generals of their armies and principal chieftains of war, bestowed for the relief of our public necessities and the maintaining and managing of a continual war, and thereupon became impledgde and mortgaged to our predecessors: are now become the prey and the booty of Churchmen. Who, by unlawful means, usurp and snatch them from the true owners and with their proceed in Ecclesiastical courts, being both judges and parties, do infinitely molest both the Nobility and the common people also, blind-fowlding and enueloping them with the punishment of excommunication; the only means of absolution from the which, is to resort fraught with fat and honourable presents, which in the end bringeth them to a most miserable poverty.  
Moreover in this last Diet, they of the realm having presented certain articles to 
* Sai serenite, meaning the Archduke.  his Highness (who was there present with all the power and puissance of his Majesty as representing his person) and his Highness accepting of them, they of the Church notwithstanding in a manifest disdain both of his Highness and the rest of the Princes, adding, paring, changing and blotting out many points contained in that bill of request, did maim and corrupt it altogether.  
Furthermore the Walloons set on by some of the Bishops and suffering themselves to be carried away with their own passions, having, in a manner never heard of before, tormented the Ministers of the word of God, in the end massacred them most bloodily: and passing further, fleshing themselves upon their dead and now interred carcases: unburied and burnt them stark-naked. And amongst many more, they spared not the dead bodies of the noble and illustrious Lord George, Earl of Bathor, his wife and his parents: and it is incredible how inhumanly they used the dead body of that honourable Count Stephen Bathor. The arms of the Earl George Bathor found within his tomb are at this instant in the possession of the above named George Basta, and borne by him. In the end setting forward to pull down the temple of Cassovia, to banish and chase out all the Ministers and professors of true religion to seize violently upon all the goods of the said town, and all this against the advise of john jacob Barbian, Earl of Belioyense & Governor of high Hungary: as also of Francis Torgat, Chancellor and Bishop of Niter. When we saw these stratagems: we, in the name of all the Realm, met together at the general assembly holden at Possonia, and there wrought all our endeavours by prayers and supplications unto his Highness, that he would hinder that resolution and ward of that blow, humbly beseeching his Serenity that for the conservation of peace, these affairs of Religion might be passed over and deferred until some other time: but for all that we did our utmost devoir, yet could we obtain nothing at all, and thereupon at the very same instance we made our complaints with protestations in the presence of his foresaid 
* Serenité.  Highness and the Estates of the Realm. But in steed of a good and courteous answer which we promised ourselves, his Majesty quite contrary of his own proper disposition never acquainting the Estates withal: and in mere misprision of their authority (a thing never heretofore practised by any King of Hungary) dared boldly of his absolute power to insert a most pernicious and horrible Article among the rest which menaced and threatened no less unto us, than the utter loss and confusion of our substance, our possessions, our lives, yea and our very souls, with the quite abolishing and rooting out of all the Hungarian nation. And by this time for an earnest penny and a sure testimony of his good will, he had already by his most rigorous briefs, proceeded in the banishing of the Archbishop of Coloarense, that by this means he might with the greater facility make himself master of the Temple, the Parish and the University of Lutchenien. Now to delay and allay the current of so many mischiefs, setting before our eyes all such things as had passed as also those flames which more began to work our utter ruin and confusion: by authority of our common assembly called for this purpose in the town of Galred in the presence of the foresaid Earl of Belioyense and of them of the chamber of Sepuse, and he himself of whom we spoke assisting: we solemnly swore to persist constantly in that protestation which we had so authentically made in the Diet of Possonia: and that we would maintain and defend ourselves by those decrees of Andrew, the second, called King of jerusalem, which he enacted in the year 12.22. Art. 31. and they be of this substance. Now if either we or any one of our successors in any time whatsoever, go against this our pleasure, we licence our subjects and give them all power to contradict and resist us, so as afterward they may never be branded with any note of treason or infamy for the same.  
And in the first Epistle, the ninth Tit. of that Tripartite work of the laws of Hungary, he saith expressly: Let this be the fourth and absolute liberty, if any of the Kings or Princes happen to derogate from the freedom of the Noble men etc.  
As it followeth in the decrees of the foresaid most excellent Prince Andrew the second entitled King of jerusalem: and for the more strict observation thereof, every true King of Hungary, before his coronation is bound and accustomed to swear the observance of the same conditions: to wit, To permit and consent that men rise up in arms against him without any note of treason, in such cases: as when he goeth in any thing about to restrain from them their liberty. But in the Articles of the Diet held at Possonia, 1604. about the end there is one last of all which hath been unlawfully and forcibly added and couched in, and it goeth thus:  
Lastly, his sacred Imperial and royal Majesty having understood not without great displeasure as well by reports worthy of credit, as by two requests by which the forenamed high prince Mathias Archduke of Austria, his most dear brother, besought him to take part with them, who termed themselves the better and sounder part of the estate and order of the Realm of Hungary (of the which unusual and uncouth kind of speech he much marveled, as also for their complaints of troubling their exercises of Religion, wasting their Churches and revenues in expenses, and chase away of their Ministers and preachers: of the which they had heretofore complained to his Highness, both by writing and word of mouth, as also by ample declarations, and also besought him to be a mediator unto his Majesty for the restitution of such things as had been violently taken from them, that so they might hereafter live freely in the profession of their religion, who notwithstanding solicited by his Highness to declare more especially, and to specify at large the subject of their writing, and the authors of the same, could never be brought to say any thing, nor to give any further declaration either of the profession of their religion, or of what Churches, what revenues had been taken away from them, of the which they only complained in general terms, not descending to any particulars) and that continuing in their male-contentednes, it was impossible to alter this their opinion: such discord I say, being of no small power to slacken and weaken the effects of all treatises in the Parliament, besides that it is a great scandal and an ill example to other States of the realm, could not but much aggreeve his Highness & his sacred Majesty: who, all astonished cannot call to mind what injuries or what fasheries they pretend to have received in matters of religion, nor what Churches, what revenues, especially hereditary or ancient, could be taken from them. His foresaid Majesty is likewise in doubt and can hardly be resolved seeing their tumultuous pretences, which make him think, nay half persuade him, that by the means of their religion they have practised some intelligence with the free cities of the realm, which be the proper domains of his imperial Majesty as well known King of Hungary. Now even as his sacred imperial and royal Majesty in imitation of so many holy Roman Emperors and Kings of Hungary his ancestors and predecessors, unfeignedly embraceth with ardent zeal the Catholic Roman religion, so in like manner he purposeth and desireth above all things, when he hath purified and cleansed it of all false opinions and newfound doctrines, to make it to the glory and praise of the Almighty God, increase and flourish in all his realms and provinces: but especially in this realm of Hungary to maintain and defend it with all his power, as by the bond of his own vocation he finds himself obliged. Hereupon his sacred imperial Majesty of his own proper motion and of his royal and absolute power doth confirm all those ordinances, statutes and decrees which heretofore have been addressed for the advancement of the aforesaid Catholic and Roman faith, aswell by King Stephen, the Apostle of the Hungarian nation, as by other devout kings of Hungary his predecessors: all which constitutions he fully ratifies by this present Article, as if they had been word by word here specified. And to the end that hereafter in general Assemblies & Diets where are handled matters of great importance and consequence concerning realms, no man shall dare presume upon any incident coloured pretext to insert any point or affairs of religion which might slacken the foresaid public affairs: his sacred Majesty wills and commands that upon most rigorous pains such a one escape not unpunished: but that immediately men proceed against him and all such semblable brabblers, lovers and embracers of novelties: and that without any remission or pardon they be severely chastised and punished, following the decrees enacted against such by our predecessors, the Kings of Hungary, so that others by their correction may learn and take example.  
But leave we these things as others, which to endure longer is impossible, judging by the former that there remains no speedier means to rid us of this insupportable yoke, than the taking of arms, which we will employ upon such as practising against our religion and liberty, endeavour to root out the Hungarian nation. Now to the end men should not take us for Apostates from the Christian faith, or believe that we of set purpose bandied or employed our forces against any that professed Christianity, we thought it good to give your thrice illustrious, respect worthy, Generous, Magnificent, and noble Lordships, our good and ancient neighbours a taste of our intention and of the cause of our commotions: to the end you might understand that neither pride, nor ambition, nor hatred conceived against any Christian prince moved us to the taking of arms, but an holy desire of protecting and defending ourselves against the oppressors of our freedom and our true and Orthodoxal religion. As touching the aid we have from the Turk and the Tartar we reserve them for no other end, but to let the king of Poland and Moldavia see, that we want not wherewithal to serve ourselves in time of need; it being in our power to send them back again when it shall please us. Now although we know that of all antiquity the Duchy of Silisie doth appertain as an inheritance of the realm of Hungary, yet were we willing to entertain their good neighbourhood, living in good peace and amity, which heretofore we have kept inviolably. Wherefore we thought convenient to inform you rightly of our deed, & likewise to eertifie you that we persuade ourselves you have no sinister opinion of us for employing our powers in so good and so just a cause, which certainly is yours also, both being in very deed as it were embarked in the self same vessel: nay we further are of this belief, that you calling to mind our ancient league of amity, will rather commend then dispraise, our just and resolute enterprise: Concerning which point, we humbly pray you to let us freely understand of your advise, deferring until some more convenient time to make you an ample discovery of our deliberation, which neither was nor is to war upon the kingdom of Bohemia, nor Silesia, nor the Marquis of Moravia, unless they give us too much occasion: howbeit we know very well they have heretofore been under the crown of the realm of Hungary. But as heretofore we have often told you, our desire is to employ all our forces against those destroyers, firers, murderers and massacrers of our brethren, with which instruments the house of Ametria, hath so long to our great mischief, reared up his crest. We thought it therefore necessary and convenient (most famous, magnificent and noble Lords) to certify you of these things in few words to whom (for a conclusion) we wish all goodness and happiness. Dated at our royal City of Cassovie, the 24. of April. 1605.  
The servants and friends of your most Famous, Reverend, Generous and Noble Lordships: 

Nicholas Signoy,  
Stephen Egidi,  
Michael Bengalithi,  
john Beteoffy, the Generals and Chieftains of that most excellent Prince and Lord Stephen, by the grace of God, King of Hungary, Transyluania, Transalpina and Earl of Sicilia.