In the midst of these perpetual struggles and successive calamities closed the sixteenth century, and began the seventeenth quite as inauspiciously for the Hungarians. Until now they had cherished the hope that the Hapsburg kings would rescue them from the cruel rule of the Osmanlis. But after a lapse of seventy years they not only saw their hopes of liberation from the hated yoke destroyed, but had the mortification of witnessing the continual spread of the Turkish power. Besides, a sharp antagonism of another kind gradually arose between the nation and their king. The national spirit, in spite of the sad condition of the people, asserted itself more and more, and frequently came into collision with the foreign royal dynasty, whose seat of government was without the frontiers of the country. This antagonism was not only of a national, but also of a religious character, for, while the largest part of Hungary was overwhelmingly Protestant, the kings of this period were among the staunchest supporters of the Church of Rome. In addition to this, the kings, who were at the same time emperors of Germany, had brought themselves, by their autocratic actions, into direct opposition to the constitution of the country and to the rights and privileges guaranteed by law. As a consequence a fierce constitutional contest was raging, during the whole of the seventeenth century, between the nation and their kings, which quite overshadowed the struggle against the Turks. In these contests the Hungarian people leaned for support chiefly on the principality of Transylvania, whose rulers, Stephen Bocskay, Gabriel Bethlen, George Rákóczy I., not only made their comparatively small country the bulwark of Hungarian nationality and of the Protestant Church, but raised her to a position of exceptional influence in European politics. Before continuing to sketch the period of the Turkish rule in Hungary, we will take a rapid glance at the rise of Protestantism amongst the Hungarians. [Illustration: HUNGARIAN PEASANTS IN AN INN.]