This Saturday marks the anniversary of the death of Prince Emeric, the first Hungarian heir to the throne, who died at a tragically young age. His death during a hunting accident gave rise to conspiracy theories about his assassination and turned the wild boar into an unusual political actor and symbol in Hungarian history.  

The coronation ceremony of the Kings of Hungary was a highly formalised and strict ritual, which conferred sovereignty onto them via the Holy Crown. It represented the bond between king and nation, and the monarch’s duty to uphold the laws, customs, and liberties of Hungary.

The Habsburg Court regarded Protestantism simply as the ideological expression of the nobility, that is, the ‘spirit of rebellion’. In addition, it was part of the absolutist thinking of the era that only a mono-religious country could be politically united.