No. 126 Count Emeric Tekeli or Töckoli
BORN 1658, DIED 1705.
Three-quarters length. Richly-embroidered costume. Leopard’s skin. Holding an axe. Crescent in cap. Troops crossing a bridge in the background.
The Hungarian subjects of Leopold I., the Emperor of Austria, disgusted with his violation of the promises of civil and religious liberty which he had made them on being proclaimed King of Hungary, and which he ignored on ascending the Imperial throne, revolted in large numbers.
Many of the highest in the land headed the malcontents; and, as we mention in the notice of the Countess Tekeli, her father Count Zrini, Counts Frangipani, Nadasti, and Trauttenbach, suffered death in defence of the privileges of their native land, in 1670-71.
Count Stephen Tekeli, the friend and comrade of these chiefs, a Lutheran of vast possessions, and obnoxious to the Emperor on all these counts, was besieged in his own castle by Leopold’s orders, and died before it surrendered.
His son Emeric, the subject of this notice, then a youth, made his escape in the disguise of a girl, with some friends during the night, and sought refuge at the Court of Poland. Finding the King of that country unable to assist him, he repaired to Transylvania, the Waiwode of which country, Prince Abaffi, his father’s greatest friend, welcomed the young Emeric, made him Prime Minister, and despatched him with the troops, which he was sending to the relief of the Hungarian malcontents. Very shortly afterwards the Count was promoted to the grade of Generalissimo, with the title of Prince and Protector of the Kingdom.
Emeric Tekeli was at that moment in the full vigour of youth and beauty, for which he was very remarkable. His presence was majestic, and his undoubted courage and ardent patriotism gave him great influence. Innumerable volunteers flocked to his standard, bearing the sacred device, ‘Pro aris et focis,’—the persecuted Lutherans, the mourners whose relatives had been cut off by the bloody hand of the executioner, panting for revenge. The discontented of all classes fixed their hopes on the hero, who had risen so suddenly to eminence. Tekeli published a manifesto promising to defend the liberties of Hungary; his army increased daily; and at the head of these irregular troops, he held his own for three years against the Imperial army.
In the life of the Countess Tekeli will be found the account of his marriage. He had been affianced to her before her union with Prince Ragotski, whose suit her father preferred to that of the handsome but then penniless Count.
After Ragotski’s death Tekeli marched on Mongatz, where his former love resided with her two children, and her mother-in-law, who was most averse to the union with Tekeli. There is a romantic story told of how on one occasion the lover contrived to penetrate into the fortress in the disguise of a pedlar, and being ushered into the presence of Princess Helena, he drew from his bosom the miniature she had given him of herself some years before. But it is difficult to sift fact from fiction in the loves of these remarkable people, and to fix the dates of their adventures. The marriage did not take place till after the death of the Princess-Dowager, and ‘war’s alarms’ soon called Tekeli from the side of his beautiful wife. She was not one indeed to damp his military ardour, or to detain him from the field. He marched into Moldavia, and continued his campaign, resisting and distrusting the frequent overtures made him by Leopold’s ministers. But at length he deemed it politic to call in foreign aid, and applying to the Sultan, Mahomet IV., he obtained from him, with the title of Prince, an auxiliary of Ottoman troops, under the Grand Vizier Caram Mustapha.
The campaign of 1683 was marked by the most revolting cruelty; and, terrible to say, the Christian commander seemed to vie with his Pagan allies in acts of violence and rapacity. He was a strange mixture of the fine gentleman and the barbarian, affecting great luxury and magnificence in his dress, military appointments, arms, accoutrements, and the arrangement of his tent.
There is a story extant respecting the head-dress he wears in his portrait. On his arrival at Buda, he was conducted with much ceremony to the Pasha, who received him with honour, and taking off Count Tekeli’s cap placed it on his own head. Count Tekeli’s cap was replaced by another after the Turkish fashion, by some called a diadem, richly studded with precious stones, and ornamented with heron’s feathers.
Tekeli was present at the famous siege of Vienna, and at Pressburg, where the cruelties practised will not bear description. The town was rescued from his hands by the Prince of Baden; but Tekeli and Mustapha now fell out, and branded each other with recriminations, so that the Hungarian, who was no better indeed than a tributary of the Porte, thought it politic to go to Constantinople in person to make his own defence against Mustapha’s accusations. He did so, but not long after his arrival he was seized at the table of the Seraskier, loaded with chains, and imprisoned by order of the Sultan, on some frivolous pretext. This conduct so disgusted the Count’s Hungarian friends, that they broke their alliance with the Turk, and submitted to Austria under promise of an armistice. Then the Sultan relented, set Tekeli free, and gave him large sums of money. He also nominated him Waiwode of Transylvania.
Surely no one man ever had so many empty titles bestowed on him as Emeric Tekeli. He made war in Slavonia and Servia against the Prince of Baden and Count Piccolomini, but much after the fashion of a guerilla. In 1696 he was with the Sultan in the defence of, and the battle of Orlach, where the Turks were defeated.
Tekeli then retired to some mineral baths in Anatolia to recruit his shattered health and strength, when he was informed that the Sultan had declared a renewal of hostilities, and proclaimed him King of Hungary!
Into that country the Ottoman troops had already penetrated, and the poor titular Sovereign was dragged off to join them, in spite of his failing health. He advised the Sultan to avoid an encounter with the Imperial troops, and rather to march on Transylvania, which was undefended; but his counsels were unheeded, and the Turks were completely routed in an engagement with Prince Eugene.
A story was told on this occasion to the disparagement of the Count, namely, that he remained in the Ottoman camp after the flight of the army, and possessed himself of all the available treasures his friends had left, before the reconstruction of a bridge enabled the enemy to come in for their share.
It was reckoned a shabby trick, but all is fair, we are told, in love and war, and if the Turks had not fled so soon, they might have carried off their own property. The peace of Carlowitz put an end to a terrible war, terminated the campaign, and concluded Count Tekeli’s military and political career. By this treaty, in which the Count’s name was not even mentioned, Turkey ceded most of the disputed territories to Austria, completely ignoring the man whom she had invested with so many titles appertaining to these provinces.
Once more Tekeli proceeded to Constantinople, in spite of all this treatment, to renew his offers of service to the Sultan, on the breaking out of a fresh war. But on arriving near the city he was met by a high officer, who desired him not to enter. It appears that our English Ambassador, Lord Paget, had had an interview with the Sultan, to warn him against harbouring Tekeli. He was therefore ordered off, to a kind of sumptuous banishment, at a delightful country house at Nicomedia, whither a few Hungarians and Transylvanians followed the man who had been their Sovereign in name. His faithful wife joined him the moment she regained her liberty; and here Count de la Mottraye visited him, spending eight days, as he says,—‘where I was nobly entertained, till I was tired, with pheasants and wild-fowl, which were found there in prodigious plenty.’
Towards the end of 1703 the Count and Countess removed to another country house called The Field of Flowers, and here died the brave, noble, and devoted, Helena Princess Ragotski, Countess Tekeli.
For the strange story of the hundred ducats, we refer the reader to the notice of her life. Be that true or false, there is no doubt Tekeli was treated with ingratitude, neglect, and caprice; his revenues stopped, and he himself obliged to gain a scanty subsistence by carrying on the trade of a vintner: the Prince, the Prime Minister, the Generalissimo, the Waiwode, the King of Hungary! Monsieur de la Mottraye visited him a second time at The Field of Flowers, and alluding to the affair of the ducats, he says: ‘The Jesuits made many visits to the Count in the hope of converting him to their creed, but he remained a steadfast Lutheran.’ Other writers testify to his having embraced the Roman Catholic faith; but this is the testimony of one who saw him in his latter days, and thus describes him:—
‘He was sitting in an elbow-chair, according to his usual custom, with a carpet over his knees, much afflicted with the gout. His beard had grown greyer, and new troubles, especially the death of his Countess, seemed to grieve him much. He complained that France had promised him large sums of money for expenses in the war, and had not sent him two-thirds, and since his misfortunes had not sent him ten ducats. I observed that it had to pass through too many hands on its way to Turkey.’
The same writer tells us ‘Count Tekeli had the most taking countenance, and one of the finest tongues, also that he spoke good Latin fluently,’ but that is an accomplishment shared by most of his countrymen. His personal beauty was acknowledged even by his enemies, who gave him the sobriquet of Absalom.
Poor Tekeli was (as La Mottraye observes) as ill treated by the gout as by fortune. He survived his faithful wife only two years, and was interred in the Greek cemetery at Constantinople. Emeric Tekeli, from his wild adventures, his romantic history, and all his curious vicissitudes, became a marked man, the observed of all observers, and there are very curious books extant, with squibs, some in Italian, some in German, as also caricatures of a rude kind of pleasantry, representing him in prison beating against the bars, and bewailing his sad fate.
‘So lohnt der Turk denen die ihm trauen,
Man sollt’ die Trauerspiel recht anschauen,’ etc. etc.