"Pour les intérêts d' un si grand Roi?"

Archbishop György Lippay of Esztergom and the "Wesselényi Conspiracy"

Abstract

The main purpose of the paper was to analyse the role of György Lippay, the archbishop of Esztergom (1642–1666), in the so-called “Wesselényi conspiracy” (1664–1671) based on the published French diplomatic sources; more precisely his role taken in the feudal movement intensifying in the autumn of 1664, after the Peace of Vasvár. Lippay became known in historiography mainly due to this participation. The thorough analysis of the reports and orders of Jacques de Grémonville, the extraordinary envoy of Louis XIV in Vienna, enables many significant statements of the yet missing detailed reconstruction of the events. 
The newly founded relation with the French diplomacy’s envoy in Vienna in December 1664 can be interpreted in the context of the Hungarian feudal leaders’ relation with the League of the Rhine, which enjoyed the permission of the monarch and was traceable since 1663. Louis XIV was also the member of the League as the count of Alsace. Primate Lippay’s primary aim with Grémonville in December was the same than that of with von Gallen three months prior, the prince-bishop of Munster, one of the leaders of the League of Rhine, who arrived in Hungary and in Vienna with his troops. The aim of the continuance of the campaign was to prevent the ratification of the Peace of Vasvár with the siege of Érsekújvár. The primate was planning the siege of the border fort – regarded as his own – still in February 1665. He informed the French diplomacy about his plan through his auxiliary bishop of Greek origin, Jácint Macripodari, the bishop of Csanád, who once studied in Paris as a Dominican monk. Lippay wanted to set the course for Leopold I’s policy by the assistance of the French, to continue the anti-Ottoman campaign and to start to liberate Hungary, for which the military background already existed. (This was realised 20 years later.)
During the negotiations in December 1664, the secret ally with the French occurred on the part of the primate for the sake of a certain “big plan” (grand dessein). This was already not against the policy of the monarch (or rather his ministers), but explicitly against Leopold I, namely he had given the country to the Ottomans simply to “deprive the Hungarians from their freedom” and to be able to act with full power against the French. However, despite this evident conflict of interests, Primate Lippay disappeared from the reports of Grémonville after April 1665, apparently he did not keep in touch with the French and did not keep the door open to the secret ally considered in December 1664. This change of action was not due to his illness and his passivity as the research had suggested before, but he viewed the “French alliance” with due criticism based on his European political experience and his judgements. He was obviously aware of the court of Paris’s absolutist tendency – that exceeded Vienna – and its attempt to gain European hegemony; moreover, with the centuries-old nature of French politics towards the Ottomans. After the death of Miklós Zrínyi, among the Hungarian feudal leaders, he (and Court Chancellor György Szelepchény, archbishop of Kalocsa) was the one who knew the European politics properly, ha gained extensive experience in diplomacy and administration to come to this realisation. Similarly to Miklós Zrínyi, it was not an option for Lippay to give in the Ottomans. 
There is no trace in the archives of Hungary and Vienna that the ecclesiastical orders had drafted a political program in the end. The answer can be reached through the research in the Vatican.