ect, dependent on, and tributary
to the Porte, from which its princes, elected by the Diet at
Klaucenburg, received confirmation and investiture, like the waiwodes of
the neighbouring provinces of Moldavia and Wallachia. During the
interval between the death of John Sigismond Zapolya in 1571, and the
election of Michael Abaffi in 1661, not fewer than thirteen princes,
besides nearly as many ephemeral pretenders, had occupied the throne;
and, though at one time the family of Batthori, and, subsequently, that
of Racoczy, established a kind of hereditary claim to election, their
tenure was always precarious; and, on more than one occasion, the prince
was imposed on the states by the Turks or Austrians, without even the
shadow of constitutional forms.

This modified independence of Transylvania, however, often gave its
princes great political importance, during the endless troubles of
Hungary, as the assertors of civil and religions liberty against the
tyranny and bad faith of the Austrian cabinet; which, with unaccountable
infatuation, instead of striving to attach to its rule, by conciliation
and good government, the remnant of the kingdom still subject to its
sceptre, bent all its efforts to destroy the ancient privileges of the
Magyars, and to make the crown formally, as it already was in fact,
hereditary in the imperial family. The extirpation of Protestantism was
another favourite object of Austrian policy: and the cruelties
perpetrated with this view by George Basta and the other imperial
generals at the beginning of the century was such, that a general rising
took place under Stephen Boczkai, then waiwode of Transylvania,
Wallachia, and Moldavia, who extorted from the Emperor Rodolph, in 1607,
the famous _pacification of Vienna_, which was guaranteed by the Porte,
and which secured to the Hungarians full liberty of conscience, as well
as the enjoyment of all their ancient rights. This agreement was soon
violated; but the Protestants again found a protector in a Transylvanian
prince, the celebrated Bethlen-Gabor;[E] who, assuming the royal title,
occupied Presburg and Neuhausel in 1619, formed an alliance with the
Bohemian revolters under Count Thurn, and was narrowly prevented from
forming a junction with them under the walls of Vienna, which, if
effected, would probably have overthrown the dynasty of Hapsburg. He is
said to have entertained the design of uniting all Hungary east of the
Theiss, with Transylvania and