https://www.hungarianottomanwars.com/1541-1699/18-november-1664-the-death-of-zrinyi-miklos-aka-nicholas-zrinski/

The Habsburgs could not concentrate on their eastern interests: as a result of a renewed attempt by France under King Louis XIV (r. 1643-1715) to reach the ‘natural frontiers’ – the Rhine and the Alpine ranges – and gain continental hegemony, the Habsburgs were forced to focus more and more of their power in the west in the second half of the 17th century. Vienna wanted to avoid war on two fronts, so it sought peaceful relations with the Porte, which led to the Ottoman Empire, which was enjoying a revival at that time, making new conquests in Hungary.

To avoid conflict, Emperor Leopold I’s generals stood by and watched Várad (Oradea) castle fall in 1660, but the outcome of the war of 1663-64 was also scandalous: Érsekújvár (Nové Zámky), another important fortress, fell from the fortress system, and the Peace of Vasvár, concluded after the triumph of Szentgotthárd, imposed excessively lenient conditions on the Turkish side.

After the victorious battle of Szentgotthárd, the Hungarian and Croatian nobility were outraged by the Habsburgs’ peace treaty of Vasvár with the Ottomans. The nobles began to consider how they could liberate Hungary without the Habsburgs, or even against Vienna. The most important members of the hitherto loyal Hungarian elite aristocracy became utterly disillusioned with their ruler and decided to turn against him.

Tensions grew, and Zrínyi Péter (Petar Zrinski), the younger brother of Zrínyi Miklós, was particularly angry with the Habsburgs. However, the conspiracy against them was started by Prince Rákóczi Ferenc I of Transylvania, who was the leader of the conspirators in Eastern Hungary.

In general, the aristocratic alliance, which lasted for about seven years, chased dreams far more daring than it was ever able to realize. The initial lack of seriousness of the conspirators, led by the noblemen Wesselényi, Zrínyi Péter, the Croatian Ban and Nádasdy Ferenc, is shown by the fact that in 1665, at Murány Castle, they wanted to restore the unity and sovereignty of Hungary by plotting to assassinate the pro-Hapsburg Polish marshal Lubomirski or to kidnap and blackmail Emperor Leopold, with plans worthy of adventure novels.

From the outset, the Wesselényi family tried to gain the support of Leopold’s main opponent, Louis XIV, but received only promises from him; French diplomacy was only interested in the Hungarian overlords’ cause of creating insecurity in the emperor’s hinterland, so that after the end of the War of Devolution – in 1668 – Louis made peace with the Habsburgs and turned away from the conspirators.

They were also in contact with France and Venice. Palatine Wesselényi was angry because he felt he had been sidelined by the Habsburgs. On 19 December 1666, the alliance was signed between Palatine Wesselényi Ferenc, Chief Magistrate Nádasdy Ferenc, and Duke (Bán) of Croatia Zrínyi Péter (Petar Zrinski): the so-called Wesselényi Conspiracy began. But they could not keep the treaty secret for long.

When it came to light, there was great unrest and dissatisfaction among all the aristocratic and common classes of Hungarian society. This was partly because the Treaty of Vasvár had accepted all the recent Ottoman conquests, and partly because the Hungarian Estates were not mentioned in the document.

Zrínyi Péter met Wesselényi Ferenc in April in Stubnyafördő in Upper Hungary, and they signed another agreement in which they offered each other mutual assistance, while the countries of Hungary, Croatia, Dalmatia, and Slavonia would ‘never abandon each other in their distress’. Although Nádasdy Ferenc, the Chief Judge of the country, disliked both Wesselényi and Zrínyi, he joined them in July, perhaps in the hope of obtaining the rank of Palatine. He sent his letter through an envoy to Wesselényi, who put aside their conflict and answered him in a very warm letter.

https://www.hungarianottomanwars.com/essays/dragoons-in-hungary/

The Consequences of the Conspiracy: Caspar Ampringen takes office

On February 27, 1673, King Leopold I of Hungary (r. 1657-1705) appointed Caspar Ampringen, Grand Master of the Teutonic Order, as absolute governor of the country. 

Ampringen’s appointment trampled on Hungarian law (the king should have appointed a Palatine with sovereign authority), while Emperor Leopold’s action was both retaliation for the exposed Wesselényi conspiracy and an attempt to incorporate the independent Hungarian state into the Habsburg Empire. The eight-year reign of Ampringen was a sad period in Hungarian history: the constitutional trials of the wealthiest aristocratic families continued and the persecution of Protestantism was renewed.

Caspar Ampringen is remembered as a dark adventurer, both for his cruelty and his allegedly luxurious lifestyle. As a result of his activities, the Kuruc movement led by Thököly was strengthened in the eastern part of Royal Hungary and enjoyed military success. The indignation caused by Ampringen’s government was so great that in 1681 Leopold I saw fit to replace him and called a Diet in Sopron, which elected a new Palatine, Esterházy Pál.  The Kingdom of Hungary prevented yet another attempt by the Habsburgs to turn it into a mere province.

My conclusion is that all this can be directly linked to the campaign of General Zrínyi Miklós in 1664, which was sabotaged by his own ruler. Let us not forget how disappointed Zrínyi Miklós was and how suddenly he died. It can be said that the Wesselényi Conspiracy was the beginning of the so-called Kuruc era in Hungary, when the lands of the “Hungaries” fell into an even more confused situation than in the period of the Dual Kingship after the Battle of Mohács, more than a hundred years earlier.

Some final notes: Kiss Csaba’s reflections on the conspiracy…

Unfortunately, this whole ‘conspiracy’ was a very amateurish, malicious, self-serving, truly ‘Hungarian’ conspiracy. After the death of Wesselényi Ferenc in March 1667, Nádasdy Ferenc, the Judge of the country, revealed the whole movement to Prince Hannibal Gonzaga, the president of the Military Council of the Court, and later that year to the Emperor through his confidant.

In 1668, Wesselényi’s widow, Széchy Mária, reported the conspiracy to Johann Anton Freiherr von Rottal, the Hungarian chief adviser, and in the same year, through her confidant, Lessenyei Nagy Ferenc, she sent to the court the documents, papers, documents, lists of names, etc. that she had at her disposal.

In the summer of 1669, Petar Zrínyi also revealed the conspiracy to Baron von Rottal and tried to pin the blame on Nádasdy. At the same time, Zrínyi played a double game, because at the end of November 1669, he sent his family friend, Captain Franjo Bukovacki (Bukováczky Ferenc), a Croatian nobleman from Turopolje, as an envoy to the Porte, where he offered the Hungarians and Croats, with noble simplicity, to become Ottoman vassals if the Porte would support their planned uprising with military force.

Sultan Mehmed IV supported the offer, but the Grand Vizier, Köprülü Fazil Ahmed, rejected it and reported it to Vienna. At the same time, Bukovacki returned to his master under the illusion that he had succeeded, as confirmed by a letter from the Bosnian Pasha Ibrahim. Zrínyi and his brother-in-law Fran Krsto Frankopán (Frangepán) began to prepare for the uprising and gathered troops, but the Croatian nobility refused to fight the ruler with the help, let alone the alliance, of the arch-enemy Ottomans.

At the same time, Zrínyi / Zrinski sent a letter to his fellow monks in Upper Hungary encouraging them to revolt, but he also sent envoys to Vienna – including his late brother’s secretary and confidant, the Irish Augustinian monk Mark Forstall – to find a way out… Indeed, only Prince Rákóczi I Ferenc had led a small revolt and won a small victory in Upper Hungary, as we could read.

Zrínyi’s behaviour in particular seems very duplicitous: he betrays the conspiracy and then commits open treason by offering the country to the arch-enemy Ottomans. He is also said to have claimed the Hungarian and Croatian thrones for himself and his family, but this has not been proven. At the same time, his envoys in Vienna continued to try to save their master from the Emperor…

His letter, full of obvious lies, is analyzed by the literary historian Jankovics József. It seems to be a real ‘Hungarian’ trick: the conspirators were not serious about their movement, but only wanted to put pressure on the court for their own interests. The court tolerated the ‘conspiracy’ for years – between 1667 and 1670 – and knew all about it through the participants who kept reporting each other. Through the Grand Vizier, Köprülü Fazil Ahmed, the court received clear evidence of open treason and betrayal: that Zrínyi had offered the lands to the Ottomans while claiming loyalty to the court and blackening the names of his comrades…