Rakoczy, who had taken as yet no open measures, fled to his mother, who by her influence with the Jesuits procured his pardon. Charles Duke of Lorraine besieged the fortress Murany, occupied by the widow of Wesseleny, Maria Szetsi. She surrendered it without resistance, and died some years after, a prisoner at Vienna. The papers found at Murany compromised many leading men, and especially Nadasky, the Judex Curiæ of Hungary, who bore the name of the Hungarian Crœsus, coin to the amount of five millions being found in his treasury at Pottendorf. He also was conveyed a prisoner to Vienna. Of the remaining conspirators Stephen Tekeli was the most formidable. He died during the siege of his fortress of Arva by the imperialists. His daughters were dragged to prison at Vienna; but his son Emerich, afterwards so famous, escaped to Transylvania, and, joining the Turks, became an active adviser and promoter of every design of that power hostile to Austria. An extraordinary commission was instituted at Vienna for the trial of the accused. Its acts were submitted to the Imperial Chamber at Spire, and to the universities of Ingoldstadt, Tubingen, and Leipzick, and these learned and merciless bodies unanimously condemned the prisoners to suffer all the refinements of cruelty which the practice of the age assigned to the crime of treason in the highest degree. The Imperial Privy Council advised the loss of the right hand and beheading, which the Emperor mitigated to simple beheading, accompanied by degradation from the rank of noble and confiscation of property. The ceremony of the degradation of Nadasky took place with the accustomed form of words, “No longer Count Nadasky, but—_thou_ traitor.” He was then brought to the town-house by the Captain of the city guard in a close carriage. The Pope, Clement X., had interceded for his life and that of Zriny, but in vain. On the 30th of April, 1674, at an early hour, the gates of the city were closed; the Burgher guard under arms; chains drawn across the streets; the principal public places occupied by regular troops, foot and horse. In the Burgher hall, near the Register office, the scaffolding hung with red was prepared, and the executioner, John Moser, in attendance, the black staff in his right hand, the sword in his left. The spectators sat round, all dressed in black. A Turkish Chiaus or officer of the Sultan’s guard was present in a private tribune. Nadasky’s head fell at one blow. The body was laid on a bier and exhibited till evening in the court of the town-house. It was then conveyed to the Augustines, and subsequently to the convent founded by the victim at Lockenhaus, in Hungary, where it is said to remain to this day uncorrupted. The sword and chair used in the execution are now in the Burgher arsenal. On the same day Frangipani and Zriny were also executed. Tettenbach’s fate was deferred till December, when he also was beheaded at Gratz. CHAPTER V. 1672 to 1680.