Grantville Gazette, Volume 70

by Bjorn Hasseler

  He was born in Constantinople (current day Istanbul), he was an odabasi and a chorbadji. He became a muhzi-aga in 1620 then he was a turnadjibashi in 1622, then received the rank of a samsudjsibashi and a zagardzibashi the same year, whatever these names may mean. He became a jannichar-kiaya in October 1623 then a jannichar-aga. Four or five weeks later the sultan was forced to remove him from this function but as compensation he was named Pasha of Egypt in 1626. He was removed from there in 1628. He was called back to the court, and they made him the sixth vizier among the viziers. He was appointed as the Pasha of Buda in 1631 but a few days later he became a vizier again. The sources mention him as the Pasha of Rumelia in 1632. Next year he married one of the sultan's elder sisters and thus was made a kaymakham. He acted as the Pasha of Buda again in 1634, but for just a few weeks. Then he became vizier again; and kaymakham for the second time. He wore the title of grand vizier in February, 1637. He was leading the Ottoman army against the Persians toward Baghdad but he died on the road in Djulab, in August, 1638.

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  Pasha Musa (?-1647)

  He was the Pasha of Buda between 1631-34, 1637-38, and 1640-44. He was appointed to be the Pasha of Buda at first in October, 1631, and he was dismissed in June, 1634. He had to go to the court, but he became Pasha of Buda again in February 1637. A year later he was summoned to the court and was given the office of kaymakham. He became a second vizier in June, 1639 and in 1640 he was made Pasha at Buda for the third time. Four years later he was called to the court and they made him Pasha of Sivás. He was a kapudan-pasha in 1646. He was killed during an attack of a Venetian warship while traveling from Crete to Morea in 1647. The Ring of Fire could entirely change his timeline after 1631, and he could be involved in the Ottoman Onslaught.

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  Pasha Hussein

  He was a silibdar-aga and he became a vizier and the Pasha of Buda in June, 1634. He was removed a few days (!) later from this office and became Pasha of Bosnia. Soon he was sent away from here, too, and was made the leader of Sanjak Paphlagonia. He became the Captain of Erzerum in 1635.

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  Pasha Djáfer (?-1635)

  He was a bostandjibashi. He was made a kapudanpasha and a vizier in July, 1632. He became Pasha of Buda in July, 1634. He was sentenced to death and stringed in May, 1635, Buda, in the original time line; events may have changed significantly for him after the RoF.

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  Pasha Nazuhpasazade Hussein

  He had a high rank at court. He became Chief Master of Horse in 1634. Sultan Murad IV promoted him to be Pasha of Buda and vizier in 1635. At the end of February, 1637, he was made the Pasha of Rumelia by the Emperor but he lost this office in September. He stayed in the Divan as a vizier and in 1639 he achieved the rank of Pasha of Erzerum.

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  Pasha Tabani Jassi Muhammed (?–1639)

  He was of Albanian origin and had been the servant of Mustafa Kizlar-Aga and succeeded him as a Chief Master of Horse. He became Pasha of Egypt in 1628 but was summoned to the court in 1630. He became the grand vizier from 1632 to 1637. He was assigned to Buda as its pasha in 1638 and he became Pasha of Silistra as well. He was removed from Buda in February, 1639, then went to the court where he was made a kaymakham in May. He was imprisoned into the Yedikule fortress and stringed accordingly in December, 1639.

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  Benedek Cseszneky

  Nobleman from Pozsony (Pressburg) county. He was converted from Lutheran to Catholic.

  He acted as Ferdinand II's negotiator on the peace talks with the Transylvanian prince until 1626 and was rewarded by the emperor with a village. His wife was Sára Kánya of Budafalva. Their son's name was Peter.

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  Pál Nádasdy (Born in 1597, Sárvár; died in 1633 at Csepreg)

  His father died when he was seven and his uncle's son, his cousin, Tamás, took care of him until 1620. Tamás supported the anti-Habsburg Bocskay but Pál remained loyal to the king. Pál reached adulthood when he was thirteen in 1610 so he could officially take over offices that went with the male members of his family; this was the year he became the Chief Comes of Vas county (which was one of the hereditary offices of his family). When Ferdinand was crowned in 1618, Pál was made a so-called "knight with the golden spurs."

  Unlike his predecessors, Pál disliked politics and economics; he preferred hunts and pageantry. His property was taken care of by his man János Vitnyédi. His offices were: 1605, hereditary Comes of Sopron County; 1610, hereditary Comes of Vas County; 1622, hereditary chief-captain of Trans-Danubian Captaincy; 1627, chief captain of the frontier opposing the Turk-held Kanizsa castle; 1623, royal advisor and chief senechal; 1625, count and chief chamberlain.

  He completed the construction of Sárvár Castle in the manner of his family's tradition in 1615. He constructed printing houses at Csepreg and at Sopronkeresztút, too. He also sponsored talented students learning abroad such as the Protestant preacher of Csepreg, István Letenyei. Letenyei had his prayer book printed in Csepreg in 1631, in the printing house run by Imre Farkas.

  Pál wed his second wife, Judit Révay, in 1620. Their children were Ferenc (eight years old at the Ring of Fire) and Anna Mária, who became a nun.

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  János Homonnay Drugeth (1609-1645)

  He was the one who gained the title of count for his family. They were the wealthiest lords in Zemplén County and Ung County, but he had lands in Poland, too. His father György was converted to Catholicism in 1610 and he began anti-Protestantism on his vast lands. He settled Jesuit priests to his land at Homonna in 1612. Later he supported the union between the Orthodox Catholics and the Roman Catholics by bringing the high priest Athanasius Krupetzkij from Poland to Munkács (Munkacsevo) in 1613, along with 50 lesser priests. This gave an excuse later to Prince Bethlen to take away György's lands in Zemplén County (even Homonna was taken away) so there was a traditional enmity between the Drugeth family and the tolerant Transylvania. The elder Drugeth was defeated there in Homonna in a bloody battle in 1619.

  János continued his father's policy of converting those in his lands and helped Bishop Tarasovich Bazil get his office in Munkács in 1633.

  János helped to put down the peasant uprising of Péter Császár in 1632 in Gönc, with the help of the palatine and István Bethlen. He played a rather cruel role in it. He got back his lands of Zemplén County and the city of Homonna for his deed. He became Captain of Kassa and the judge of the country in 1636. Prince György Rákóczi took Homonna from him again in 1644 and the family began its decline.

  See "The Austro-Hungarian Connection" in Ring of Fire II and subsequent mainline novels for his role in the New Time Line.

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  Below the Radar in the Hungaries:

  Notable People from Ring of Fire Hungary

  Palatine Ferenc Wesselényi (1605–1667)

  He was a Hungarian aristocrat, general, and the Palatine of Hungary 1655-1667. His father, István Wesselényi (1583-1627) was a court advisor to Ferdinand II.

  He was brought up in a Jesuit school in Nagyszombat (Trnava, Tyrnau) where he became a Catholic. He had immense physical strength and was quick-tempered; soon he became a soldier. He was very young when he took part in several battles against the Turks. He helped the Polish King Wladyslav IV Vasa by bringing him Hungarian troops against the Russians and the Tatars for which he was rewarded with Polish nobility and received a dominium worth one hundred thousand florins, too. Later Ferdinand II made him a count and the Captain of Fülek castle. He became the Chief General of Royal Hungary in 1647 and fought against the Swedes and against Prince Rakoczi II. He got hold of the castle of Murány in 1644 as has been described. For this deed he was gifted the castle of Balog as well. At the 1655 Diet of Pozsony (Pressburg, Bratislava) he was elected as palatine of Hungary. As a Palatine, he took part on the coronation of Leopold I. He was fighting the Turks in 1663. After the suspicious death of Miklós Zrínyi in 1644, he joined the conspirators against Vienna in 1655, su
pported all the way by Péter Zrínyi. Wesselényi died before the plot was discovered so he could not be executed.

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  Count Miklós Forgách

  He was a count in Ghymes and Gács and the Chief Master of Treasury in Royal Hungary. In 1633 he was the Chief General of Upper Hungary and the representative of Ferdinand II at the same time. He was not alive in 1649. His wife was Eszter Bossányi who wrote a Hungarian letter to Prince György Rákóczi II in 1649.

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  Zsófia (Sophia) Bosnyák, born Nagysurány, 1609–died Sztrecsény, 1644.

  She was the lady of Sztrecsnó Castle, Upper Hungary. Her father Tamás Bosnyák was a famous warrior who had been valiantly fighting the Turks. Her mother was Mária Kenderes. She was seventeen when she was made to marry Mihály Serényi, the Captain of Fülek and Szendrõ Castles. The marriage lasted for only a few months, and her husband died in 1626.

  She returned to his parents' home, but her mother also died that year. Next year she lost her twenty-two-year-old brother. Her father was fighting the Turks this time in Fülek, so Zsófia had to manage the family's lands. Soon she has become known as the generous helper of the poor and the sick.

  She was twenty-one when Archibishop Péter Pázmány assisted her in marrying Palatine Ferencz Wesselényi. They moved to Sztrecsnó castle and had two boys: Ádám was born in 1630 and László in 1633. Later they moved to Vágtapolca. Zsofia's father Tamás Bosnyák died of cholera in 1634 so Palatine Wesselényi took Fülek Castle over and then he rarely came home to visit Zsofia because Fülek was frequently attacked by the Turks because of its strategic location.

  So Zsófia had to carry on maintaining the lands and bringing up the children. She was taking care of the poor, too; she established a house for them that was used as a hospital as well. The locals respected her for her good heart. Legend says that her husband cheated on her with the famous Mária Széchy, the "Venus of Murány Castle," and Zsófia grieved a lot because of it. She spent more time with charity and regularly went to pray to the chapel of the castle at night. She had an apparition of the Holy Mary who allegedly told her to trust and pray. Eventually, her health gradually got worse, and she died at the age of thirty-five. She was put to rest in the chapel of Sztrecsnó castle.

  Her brother, István Bosnyák, the bishop of Nyitra (Nitra) was two years older and died the same year. Sztrecsnó Castle got a new owner in 1689 who, when he took the place over, found the fully untouched body of Zsófia in the chapel. The body was taken to the church in Vágtapolca, Wesselényi's village. Zsófia Bosnyák's resting place had become a pilgrim's destination and crowds arrived to see her in her glass-covered coffin. Her body was destroyed in 2009 when a thirty-one-year-old Slovakian man set it on fire with gasoline.

  The Ring of Fire could have changed this portion of history quite a bit if Tamás Bosnyák didn't die of cholera in 1634, and if Zsófia didn't die at age thirty-five.

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  Count Pál Csáky (born circa 1603, died sometime after 1649)

  He converted to Catholicism in 1614 and studied in Vienna between 1620-23, acquiring an unusually high education for his time and age. He began managing his estates in 1623 and then settled down in the Castle of Nagyalmás, in Transylvania.

  He was 22 in 1625 when he married Éva, the daughter of the Hungarian Palatine Zsigmond Forgách. Éva died in April, 1639, so he married again in 1640 to Maria, the daughter of the Chief Comes (Count) of Abaúj, György Perényi. Anna died in September, 1641 and he remarried in 1643, taking the hand of Krisztina Mindszenti. He had a total of nine children from these marriages.

  Prince Gábor Bethlen made him the Chief Comes of Kolozs county in 1625. He belonged to the most confidential circles of Catherine of Brandenburg, the wife of the prince. This was the reason why Prince György Rákóczi I chased him out of Transylvania in 1630, under the charge of usurping the throne. His lands were confiscated at the same time, just a year before the Ring of Fire. (This could possibly make him a likely "refugee" to Grantville. He had the education and courtly contacts in both Hungary/Transylvania and Austria, and he doesn't quite seem to qualify for high politics. It could be made quite plausible that—upon hearing about the Ring of Fire—that he traveled to Grantville as a paid agent of the Habsburgs, copied pages regarding Hungary and Transylvania from a late-sixties-era encyclopedia and returned to Vienna to study, absorb, and forge the information to mislead his personal enemy, Prince Rákóczi I of Transylvania. At which point he'd regret not having lifted more information about the Habsburgs and the Soviet Union. He could be the source of thinking that the Americans in Grantville would be antagonistic toward Hungary and the other Soviet-bloc countries).

  In Royal Hungary he became the Captain of Szendrõ Castle in Borsod county, in Upper Hungary, in August, 1633. He also gained the estates of Tarcal and the castle of Tokaj from Catherine of Brandenburg. Soon, he got his Transylvanian estates back, too. He was made a count in 1636. Through his marriages he got the castle of Szepes with 123 villages in Upper Hungary, for just 85,000 florins—which in 1651 finally became 168,000 florins because of the machinations and the greediness of the Viennese court. The Austrian emperor made him master of the treasury in 1647, for his deeds in the campaign against Prince György Rakoczi I. He was on the Diet of Pozsony (Pressburg) in 1649 and had visited Vienna countless times. This ex-lover of Prince Bethlen's wife and turncoat would make a prime anti-Grantviller.

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  Count Nádasdy Ferenc (1623-1671)

  Judge of the Country, aristocrat. Later he was beheaded in Royal Hungary for taking a leading part in the Wesselenyi conspiracy against the emperor. He would have been about eight years old at the Ring of Fire, and about thirteen or fourteen by the time of the Ottoman Onslaught against Vienna.

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  Baron István (Stephen) Thököly (1581-1651)

  He was a wealthy aristocrat in Upper Hungary and unconditionally supported the Habsburgs. He would have been fifty years old at the Ring of fire, and his son, István, born in 1623, would have been about thirteen or fourteen by the time of the Ottoman Onslaught in the NTL. OTL he took part in the Wesselényi conspiracy (ca 1664-71) and was punished for it severely. His descendant was the famous Imre Thököly who rebelled against the Habsburgs and let the Turks come to Vienna in 1683. If he had known how rebellious his family members would become, how would this affect his relationship with the Habsburgs?

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  István (Stephen) Pálffy (1586-1646)

  Aristocrat, Comes of Pozsony, general and Chief Captain of Trans-Danubian Region, loyal to the Habsburgs. His mother was Mária Fugger, from the wealthiest banker family of Europe. He was guarding the Holy Crown 1608-1625. He was given high functions and became advisor to the king and the emperor. Betlen defeated and captured him in 1621 but he remained loyal, nevertheless. He was freed in exchange for 24,500 florins. Ferdinand made him a count in 1634. He respected Péter Pázmány very much. Pálffy was converting people very aggressively. He raised a cavalry contingent for the Emperor in 1639. He remained a very firm adherent of the Habsburgs all his life. An older man at the Ring of Fire (about forty-five), he would likely be set in his ways, suspicious of the American technology, and possibly a strong adversary of the Americans.

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  Benedek Bakai (?-Sárospatak, February, 1633)

  He was a teacher and a school principal from Kassa (Kosice). After finishing his basic schooling, he went to Belgium in 1622 then to the University of Wittenberg in 1625, and he was the first Hungarian who went to study in England. Returning home, he became a teacher or priest in Kassa (Kosice). Prince György Rákóczi I invited him to lead the college of Sárospatak in 1630.

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  János Bánfihunyadi (Joannes Banfi Huniades) (Nagybánya, 1576-Amsterdam, 1646)

  Professor. His father was a Reformed pastor, Benedek Mogyoró of Bánfihunyad, bishop of the Trans-Tisza River Region. After his studies in Europe, János (Joannes) went to England and studied chemistry. Later h
e taught mathematics and alchemy in the Gresham College of London. At the beginning of his stay in England he made his living as a goldsmith, according to early English sources. Prince György Rákóczi I invited him in 1633 to come and teach at the Academy of Kolozsvár (Cluj, Klausenburg) but he couldn't accept it due to his previous obligations in England. He became the acolyte of Sir Kenelm Digby 1633-1635. He had an English wife named Dorothy Colton, the daughter of Sir Francis Colton from Kent County, and they had four children. They set out to Hungary together in 1646 but he died in Amsterdam. János and Dorothy could be quite affected by the Ring of Fire, depending on their standing with the English government. As a Protestant scientist/mathematics teacher, Charles I could make their fellow church members' positions quite uncomfortable. It's possible that since Charles sold the rights to New England to the French, that János could lead a migration to Hungary/Transylvania in the NTL.

  He was dealing with the effect of the mercury on gold and silver as well as different technological problems of chemistry. He was experimenting with the production of paints, glues, glass, and the creation of basic materials for medicine. One of his chemical formula can be found in the Bibliotheca Bodleiana in Oxford. He had a recognized name among the contemporary British scientists, and he was closely connected with Arthur and John Dee, William Lilly, John Booker, John Aubrey, and Jonathan Goddard. At the same time he was in everyday connection with his homeland and had been a great helper of Hungarian students in England.

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