A History of Modern Europe, 1792-1878 — John Shaqi
A History of Modern Europe, 1792-1878Fyffe, Charles Alan
History
A History of Modern Europe, 1792-1878
Fyffe, Charles Alan
Europe -- History -- 1789-1900
Netherlands into successful revolt, and forcing Hungary to the verge of
armed resistance, he revoked his unconstitutional ordinances (January 28,
1790), and restored all the institutions of the Hungarian monarchy which
existed at the date of his accession.
[Leopold II., 1790-1792.]
A month later, death removed Joseph from his struggle and his sorrows. His
successor, Leopold II., found the monarchy involved as Russia's ally in an
attack upon Turkey; threatened by the Northern League of Prussia, England,
and Holland; exhausted in finance; weakened by the revolt of the
Netherlands; and distracted in every province by the conflict of the
ancient and the modern system of government, and the assertion of new
social rights that seemed to have been created only in order to be
extinguished. The recovery of Belgium and the conclusion of peace with
Turkey were effected under circumstances that brought the adroit and
guarded statesmanship of Leopold into just credit. His settlement of the
conflict between the Crown and the Provinces, between the Church and
education, between the noble and the serf, marked the line in which, for
better or for worse, Austrian policy was to run for sixty years. Provincial
rights, the privileges of orders and corporate bodies, Leopold restored;
the personal sovereignty of his house he maintained unimpaired. In the more
liberal part of Joseph's legislation, the emancipation of learning from
clerical control, the suppression of unjust privilege in taxation, the
abolition of the feudal services of the peasant, Leopold was willing to
make concessions to the Church and the aristocracy; to the spirit of
national independence which his predecessor's aggression had excited in
Bohemia as well as in Hungary, he made no concession beyond the restoration
of certain cherished forms. An attempt of the Magyar nobles to affix
conditions to their acknowledgment of Leopold as King of Hungary was
defeated; and, by creating new offices at Vienna for the affairs of Illyria
and Transylvania, and making them independent of the Hungarian Diet,
Leopold showed that the Crown possessed an instrument against the dominant
Magyar race in the Slavic and Romanic elements of the Hungarian Kingdom.
[8] On the other hand, Leopold consented to restore to the Church its
control over the higher education, and to throw back the burden of taxation
upon land not occupied by noble owners. He gave new rigour to the
censorship of the press; but the gain was not to the Church, to which the
censorship had formerly belonged, but to the Government, which now employed
it as an instrument of State. In the great question of the emancipation of
the serf Leopold was confronted by a more resolute and powerful body of
nobility in Hungary than existed in any other province. The right of the
lord to fetter the peasant to the soil and to control his marriage Leopold
refused to restore in any part of his dominions; but, while in parts of
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