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# The Seven Counties and the Hajdú s

Katalin (Catherine) of Brandenburg, Bethlen's widow and successor, took no initiatives to retain the seven counties. Barely hours after the prince expired, she dispatched an emissary to Vienna bearing news of his death and a request for immediate reannexation of the counties. Nor did Vienna tarry. Royal commissioners received the appropriate instructions on 30 November 1629, and by 30 March 1630 they could report success. Their task had met with little difficulty, for there was no active support in Transylvania for keeping the counties. The towns and local authorities in Upper Hungary took the oath of allegiance practically without demur.

For the landed nobility in the seven counties, reannexation was more of a relief than a cause for grievance. Their status in the Bethlen era had been anomalous. Bethlen was their ruler, yet the palatine's jurisdiction and their participation in the royal diet symbolized the continuing authority of the Habsburgs. Being subjects of both the king and the prince, they suffered the stresses of divided loyalty. The fact that Bethlen's rule, though tangible, was temporary, reinforced their political ambivalence. Having suffered from this confusion, they welcomed the return to the pre-Nikolsburg state of affairs. The shift in loyalties brought no alteration to their social status.

Only the hajdús of Upper Hungary opposed the change. For them, the prince's rule had borne the promise of a favorable and definitive settlement of their social status. They found encouragement {2-101.} in the confirmation of the status of hajdús in Bethlen's Transylvania. Initially, the Transylvanian hajdús were in the same unsettled social status as those of Upper Hungary. In royal Hungary, the hajdús had been collectively granted noble status, but the ruling class tried to hinder their social integration and drive them back to a peasant status by trimming their privileges and excluding them from the feudal order of nobles. Bethlen, on the other hand, took the opposite tack. Intent on avoiding conflict, he took measures not to limit but to expand the hajdús' privileges. In 1614, he had the Medgyes diet rule that 'according to their own wish, the hajdús will surrender that appellation, become full members of the nobility, and come under the authority of their county of residence'.[64]64. EOE 6, p. 416. The prince thus abolished the Hajdús separate status and moved them upward on the social ladder. By fully satisfying their social demands, Bethlen neutralized this powerful and unpredictable element and solved, at least in Transylvania, the hajdú problem. Once ready to fight for any master, Transylvania's hajdús were now soldiers of the feudal orders.

Over the short period of Bethlen's rule, the hajdús in Upper Hungary forged links with those who had been integrated into the ruling class of Transylvania. Their own status had yet to be regularized, but the Transylvanian example gave them cause for hope. The reannexation of the seven counties dashed these hopes and provoked a rebellion. The movement began in the hajdú center of Böszörmény. Captains who had taken the oath of loyalty were expelled, and new ones elected. The hajdús sought help from Transylvania against the impending retaliatory action from the nobility, but the principality's political leaders turned a deaf ear; now that the counties were reannexed, they wanted to avoid new cause for conflict with royal Hungary.

The two exceptions, both young, were István Bethlen Jr, captain-general of Várad, and Dávid Zólyomi, the Székelys' captain-general; they joined the Transylvanian hajdús in bringing aid to {2-102.} those in Upper Hungary. Both of them had been moulded by Gabriel Bethlen. The 'little count' — his contemporaries' name for young István — had been the designated successor before Bethlen's second marriage, and it was Bethlen who drew Zólyomi, his brother-in-law, into the family circle. Their involvement with the hajdús gave the movement an immediate objective, for they sought to make György Rákóczi prince of Transylvania. It was a phenomenon rare in Hungarian history: two popular politicians, supported by substantial armed force, who did not aspire to win the highest office for themselves. At least in the case of István Bethlen, Jr., the ambition to rule Transylvania might have seemed natural and realizable; yet he never entertained it and backed a more suitable candidate.

Gabriel Bethlen had not been alone in believing that Rákóczi might be able to keep the seven counties linked to Transylvania; indeed, the latter was widely regarded as an opponent of reannexation. Presumably, he had not made public his rejection of the prince's proposal. Even the royal commissioners charged with effecting the reannexation were apprehensive, for they promptly invited Rákóczi to negotiate. The most powerful landowner of Upper Hungary remained aloof, neither responding to the invitation nor doing anything to obstruct the commissioners' task. He appeared to be biding his time.

This mute passivity encouraged István Bethlen and others to believe that he was the man who could win back the counties of Upper Hungary and carry on the work of Gabriel Bethlen. Yet Rákóczi did not respond to Zólyomi's letter of July 1630 urging him to come to the hajdús' encampment. The hajdús were heading towards their first great military success: after harassing the royal forces for a few days in early September, they drove them across the Tisza River, at Rakamaz. Flushed with victory, the two generals rode off to Sárospatak to convince Rákóczi that he should take over the principality, but the report on the Rakamaz battle left him unmoved. Only when he received a persuasive message from the {2-103.} governor, István Bethlen, did Rákóczi finally made his move. In late September 1630, amidst joyful acclamation, he presented himself at the hajdús' camp.