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The Crimes of the House of Hapsburg Against Its Own Liege Subjects
The Crimes of the House of Hapsburg Against Its Own Liege Subjects Author:Francis William Newman Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: blending the heterogeneous elements of a nation, and fusing it into a single nationality, out of which grows patriotism and strength. But all history testifies t... more »hat permanent despotism causes decay. We must not, then, wonder that the Turkish power, now so despised, was dreadful to all Europe three and four centuries ago. Its actual resources of men and of wealth have declined, while those of Christendom have vastly increased ; moreover, its own belief in its destiny has received the severest moral wounds. Louis, king of Hungary and Bohemia, fell with the flower of the Hungarian nobility by the arms of Solyman the Magnificent, in the fatal battle of'Mohacs, Aug. 29th, 1526. The moral effect on all Europe was immense. Dread of the Turks overpowered in the minds of the Hungarian and Bohemian peers their well-founded jealousy of the House of Hapsburg; so that Ferdinand of Austria was elected to both crowns. Of the details we shall afterwards speak. Nothing is commoner, than that public danger threatening from a foreign power induces nations to lend great military force into the hand of some king or general; and nothing, alas! is commoner, than perfidy in the Trustee of power. The same drama was acted on a greater scale in the history of the House of Austria. III.—CASTILE. Charles of Ghent, son of Philip and Joanna, was born in the year 1500 of our era. When only 16 years old, he usurped royal power in Spain; while his mother,—queen in her own right,—was swallowed up in grief at his father's death. The usurpation was inwardly resented, but led to no public- resistance.—In the third year afterwards, he was elected emperor of Germany, to the deepest dissatisfaction of leading Spaniards, who foreboded the evil results, yet dreaded a convulsive struggle, if they attempted to fo...« less