Although the Turks were expelled from Hungary in the sixteenth century, they by no means gave up their ambitious designs on that country. Taking advantage of the cruelty and oppression exercised by Austria towards the Hungarians, they secretly stirred up the nobles to revolt against their harsh masters. In 1678, an able leader was found in Emeric Tekeli, or Tokolyi, who, weary of vainly soliciting the Emperor Leopold to restore his paternal estates, resolved to take them for himself, together with the crown of Hungary. Setting up his standard in Transylvania, he was soon joined by thousands of malcontents. Day by day the revolt gathered strength; and had not the Emperor resorted to the arts of cunning and bribery, it is probable the rebellion would have terminated in a revolution. Tekeli was husband of Helena, widow of Francis Ragotsky (who died in 1667), and daughter of Peter, Count Zrinyi, Ban of Croatia, who, with others, lost his head in 1671 for conspiring against Leopold. Helena was as brave as she was beautiful. By her first husband she had two sons, of whom the eldest, Francis, afterwards took a conspicuous part in the affairs of Hungary. Tekeli commenced the war in 1678, and in 1682 he entered Buda in triumph, where he was inaugurated Prince of Upper Hungary by the nobles and the Turkish Bashaw. In the following year, the Turks, following up these successes, advanced to Vienna, which would have fallen, but for John Sobiesky and his Poles. Leopold took care to foment the growing jealousies between Tekeli and the Turks; and on the failure of the Hungarian leader in an attack on Cassau, the Bashaw of Great Waradin sent the hero in chains to Constantinople. He was released the following year; but during his imprisonment the Turks were driven from Hungary and the rebellion crushed. Helena continued to defend the rock-fortress of Mongatz (or Munkacs) with great courage for two years after the arrest of her husband; but in 1688 she was overpowered by superior numbers, and reduced to capitulate and throw herself with her sons under the protection of the Emperor. Helena was thrown into a convent, while her children were educated under the auspices of Leopold. After a time she was exchanged for an Austrian general, and permitted to join her husband in Turkey. The Sultan, Mustapha, conferred upon Tekeli, Widdin, and some other districts, as a sort of feudal sovereignty; but he was afterwards neglected by the Turkish government, and compelled to start as a vintner in Constantinople, where he died in 1705, in his fiftieth year. Helena, after sharing the misfortunes and vicissitudes of his life, died two years before him, in 1703. * * * * *