The Sun.
London, England, 1867-06-07 00:00:00

CORONATION OF THE KING OF

HUNGARY.

THE CROWN OF ST: STEPHEN.

The telegraph informs us that Count Charles
Karolyi and Baron Nicholas Vay have been selected
to guard the crown of St: Stephen. The history of
that crown is a true romantic Odyssey. In the year
1000 A D., after the battle of Vesprim, which
achieved the triumph of Christianity in Hungary,
Duke Stephen I. despatched his confident Astricus,
abbot of the Benedictine Convent of Martinsberg,
to Rome, t 3 inform the Pope what he had already
done, and hoped still to do, for the propagation of
Christianity. He solicited the title of King and a
crown, and Sylvester 11. granted both demands,
with the assent of the Emperor Otho 111. Stephen,
surnamed the Saint, was crowned on the 15th of
August, 1008, at Gran, with the crown Astricus
had brought from Rome. On the occasion of the
taking of Belgrade, in 1073, a second insignia—a
gold diadem—was added to the crown. That dia-
dem had been sent by Michael Dukas, Emperor of
Byzantium, to the Duke Geysa, a son of Bela, in
acknowledgment of the clemency Geysa had shown
to the Greek prisoners.
The 23 kingsof the Arpad dynasty who succeeded
St. Stephen were all crowned with this crown, and
some of them caused their anticipated successors to
be crowned, in order to avoid all dispute relative
to the Royal succession. When the male line
of Arpad became extinct at the death of Andrew
111. Hungary was divided in two parties, one, Of
which proclaimed Charles Robert of Naples, and
the other Wenceslas the younger of Bohemia.
'The latter was crowned during the year 1301 at the
Albe Royal ; but he was compelled, in 1304, by
Charles Robert's partisans, to leave Hungary. lie
took away the crown with him, and gave it at Brunn
to the Duke Otho, of Lower Bavaria, who had
been
.meantime elected by the old party of Wen-
ceslas. To reach Hungary, Otho disguised himself
as a trader when crossing through Austria, because
the Emperor Albert and the Duke Rodolph of
Austria were opposed to him. The crown was con-
cealed in a wooden vessel —an esutora, still in use
in Hungary—and arrived safely in Hungary. .
The Emperor, Albert 11., the first Hungarian
King of t' at name, died in 1439, leaving his queen,
Elizabeth, in pregnancy. Elizabeth had the crowns
of the King and Queen of Hungary deposited in her
own bedroom. Subsequently, in consequence of the
danger from fire, she had them placed in a vault of
the fortified castle of Vissegrad. The following
year the Parliament agreed to give the crown to
Wladislaw, of Poland, on the condition that he
should marry Elizabeth, who was 30 years old, while
Wladislaw was past 50. It was with much reluc-
tance that she gave her consent t 3 that union, and
she secretly resolved to seize upon the crown and to
place it on the head of the son she hoped to give
birth to. The governess of the' young Prin3ess
Elizabeth was one of the chief agents in this remark-
able transaction. She was supplied with the Queen's
seal, and the keys opening the three doors to be
passed through before reaching the vault. She had
also the assistance of a bold and clever Magyar,
who provided himself with files, locks, &c. After
surmounting many unforeseen difficulties, the Mag-
yar and his servants reached the vault, and while the
governess was praying for their success and offering
up vows they were hard at work with hammer and
file. At last the door of the vault was got open,
but the coffer in which the crown was deposited h'ad
such strong locks that it was impossible to file them
off. Fire was employed to destroy the box, and at
last the crown was got at. New locks were then
affixed to the doors, which were sealed with the
Queen's seal, and the outside door fastened with the
handkerchief which the Burgrave had sealed with
his arms. Then, the Magyar took a red velvet
cusshion, unsewed it, put the crown in it, and the
cushion was carefully sewed up again. It was
placed In a sledge, the governess sat upon it, and
.
when they happened to stop at an inn, she deposited
the cushion on a table just before her, in order not
to lose sight of it a single second.
The saute night when she rejoined the Queen,
her Majesty gave birth to a male child, who was
baptised tinder the iiathe tiadielas Web. 21,1440).
On the 16th May of the same year, young baublas
was downed at Albe Royal with the holy crown.
The (beds entities, iieittthelessl were powerful
and ekaspetated, and it soon botanic urgent to pro-
vide tot the gafctk Wth df the king and of the
crown. 'the crown was placed in the Iting's cradle,
and the governess put in it a small spoon to make
believe that the crown was a vessel for boiling the
baby's feud: At the death of Louis IL, who was
killed at the battle of 'ohacs, August 20, 1526,
John Zapolya was elected King, and after the coro-
n4tl9ll llg entrusted the crown with Peter Penny.
But Pereny proved a traitor, and surrenderedf it to
Ferdinand, ukerdinand, Archduke of Austria and King o
Albae
-
hernia, who was crowned with that crown at
Royal in 1621, That was the last time a coronation
took place in that town. King Ferdinand had he
crown removed to Prague, where it remained 56
years. During that interval it was used only once
in Hungary proper, at the coronation of Rodolph.
The long absence of the crown very much grieved
the HULlgarkllS, and the heritage of St. Stephen
had scarcely fallen to the lot of Matthias, in conse-
quence of the renunciation of Rodolph, his brother,
when a law was passed enacting that the holy crown
should henceforth be guarded at Presburg by native
and lay Hungarians, that it should be publicly
handed to the crown keepers and deposited in the
chest in presence of the 'Palatine, of three prelates,
and of as many ba r ons. From 1616 to 1715 other

laws relating to the crown were promulgated. For
instance, it
_was enacted that the crown keepers
were to be chosen from among four candidates,
without any distinction of religion. The practical
interpretation given to that enaetment was, that one
of the koepers of the croali ought to be a Catho-
lic, and the other a Protestant. One keeper, at
least, was to be always near the crown, which was
to be deposited at Presburg, whence it could be re-
moved, in time of danger, but only with the know-
led.sze of the palatine.

From the peace of Nicolsburg to Joseph 11. the
crown always remained at Presburg. On the 7th
of April, 1784, the Emperor ;commanded the Go-
vernor of Presburg to remove the Hungarian crown,
together with the insignia of the kingdom, to the
Treasury in Vienna. The Governor demurred, but
the Emperor insisted, and the crown was taken to
Vienna April 28, 1784.
Six years afterwards,
when the Emperor Joseph revoked his reforms, he
also returned the crown to Hungary (Feb. 21, 1790).
When Prince Windischgraetz appeared with his
army under the walls of Buda towards the end of
1818, Kossuth and Ladislas Madaraz proceeded to
the chapel of the Royal castle, and bade the crown
keeper, Joseph Ucrmenyi, to hand it to them. The
revolutionary era had not impaired the respect in
which the, venerable treasure was held, and the
keeper surrendered it with these words I hand
you the holy-crown with whiCh fifty—kings- have been
crowned daring eight hundred years." The people
compelled Kossuth and Madaraz to take off their
hats, crying, " Hats off." 'The crown was taken by
the Dictator to his retreat in Debreczin, and for a
time disappeared without leaving any traces.
Among the people it was said that the crown had
been carried off by angels to the grave of Arpad,
and could only be recovered by a bold man armed
with the sword of the great hero Kinizsi. In official
circles it was believed at first that Kossuth had taken
the Royal insignia to Turkey, in order to give to
his cause the prestige of legitimacy. But it soon
became evident that Kossuth could not have possibly
taken away the crown, because when he reached the
Turkish territory he was closely watched by Ferik
Pacha and- a strong body of troops, and all war
materiel and other articles belonging to- Austria
taken from him and his friends. The Austrian
Government, therefore, appointed a commission to
investigate the subject, and to take measures likely
to lead to the recovery of the crown. But that
commission acted so indiscreetly that the Govern-
ment dissolved it. Private inquiries were then put
on foot, under the supervision of the Lieutenant
Field Marshal Von Kempen.
During the spring of 1853 the country in which
the crown had been buried was submerged by an
overflow of the Danube. The place of concealment
was at the foot of the mountain of Allion, about an
hour's march from 010-Orsova, in the territory of the
regiment of the Roumanians of the Banat, near the
road leading to Wallachia. When Kossuth, then
in Loudon, was informed of the inundation, he feared
that the crown would be washed away or destroyed,
and commissioned an agent to remove the treasure
from its hiding-place and convey it to London. The
Austrian police, however, seem to have been ap-
prised of the project. The country around the
mountain was watched, and when Kossuth's agent
began his voyage his description had already been
given to the Austrian Government, and the Seres-
sans were scouring the country in all directions.
Meantime the project of Kossuth to remove the
crown to London had transpired at Paris, and a
Hungarian exile who heard of it expressed strongly
his opinion against the removal of the crown from
the country. M. Von Kempen having been in-
formed of those words put some one in communi-
cation with the exile, who at length disclosed the
spot where the insignia bad been buried. The
Auditor Kuryer who, as a member of the cormuisioa
of inquiry, had previously made investigations re-
lative to the crown, was sent to 010-Osova, where
he arrived September 5, 1853. The next day he
forwarded to Vienna a telegram announcing •that
the spot indicated by the Hungarian exile had been
found out. On the morning of the Bth of the same
month the crown had been discovered ; the event
filled with joy the whole of Hungary. On the 20th
the crown was shown to the Emperor of Vienna,
and on the 22d it was again at Buda.—Herald.