Royal Hungary in the context of "Rákóczi's War of Independence"

The Diet of Hungary or originally: Parlamentum Publicum / Parlamentum Generale (Hungarian: Országgyűlés) was the most important political assembly in Hungary since the 12th century, which emerged to the position of the supreme legislative institution in the Kingdom of Hungary from the 1290s, and in its successor states, Royal Hungary and the Habsburg kingdom of Hungary throughout the early modern period until the end of World War II. The name of the legislative body was originally "Parlamentum" during the Middle Ages, the "Diet" expression gained mostly in the early modern period. It convened at regular intervals with interruptions from the 12th century to 1918, and again until 1946.

The articles of the 1790 diet set out that the diet should meet at least once every 3 years, but since the diet was called by the Habsburg monarchy, this promise was not kept on several occasions thereafter. As a result of the Austro-Hungarian Compromise, it was reconstituted in 1867.

The Bocskai uprising, known in Hungary as Bocskai's War of Independence (Hungarian: Bocskai szabadságharc, Bocskai-felkelés) was a revolt which took place in Hungary, Transylvania and modern Slovakia during the Long Turkish War (between 1604 and 1606) against Emperor Rudolf II. The rebel leader was Stephen Bocskai, a Protestant Hungarian nobleman. The Ottoman wars had burdened the Kingdom of Hungary for years, causing famine and disease, and the armies of the Christian states had been weakened by losses to Ottoman and Tatar forces.

Rudolf II persecuted the Protestants, and the wealthy Hungarian noblemen were falsely accused of treason. Bocskai organized the revolt and persuaded the Hungarian military Hajduks to join, defeating the imperial forces and foreign mercenaries. The Hungarian nobility, soldiers and peasants (including the minorities) joined Bocskai's Hajduk army. Although he was supported by the Ottoman Empire, the Crimean Khanate, Moldavia, Transylvania, he prevented an Ottoman siege of Vienna. Bocskai was declared Prince of Transylvania and Hungary, but recognized that total Hungarian independence was impossible against the Habsburg monarchy and the Ottoman Empire. He blazed a political trail for his supporters: the preservation of an independent Transylvania, a potential base for the unification of Hungary. Based on the terms of the Treaty of Vienna in 1606, all constitutional and religious rights and privileges were granted to the Hungarians in both the Principality of Transylvania and Royal Hungary. The treaty also recognized Bocskai as the Prince of Transylvania and guaranteed the right of Transylvanians to elect their own independent princes in the future.

Isabella Jagiellon (Hungarian: Izabella királyné; Polish: Izabela Jagiellonka; Lithuanian: Izabelė Jogailaitė; 18 January 1519 – 15 September 1559) was a princess of the Kingdom of Poland and of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and later also the Queen consort of Hungary. She was the oldest child of Sigismund I the Old, King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania, and his Italian wife Bona Sforza.

In 1539, she married John Zápolya, Voivode of Transylvania and King of Hungary. At the time Hungary was contested between Ferdinand of Austria who wanted to add it to the Habsburg domains (see Royal Hungary), local nobles who wanted to keep Hungary independent (see Eastern Hungarian Kingdom), and Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent who saw it as a vassal state of the Ottoman Empire (see also Little War in Hungary). While Isabella's marriage lasted only a year and a half, it did produce a male heir – John Sigismund Zápolya born just two weeks before his father's death in July 1540.

The Treaty of Nagyvárad (or Treaty of Grosswardein) was a secret peace agreement between Emperor Ferdinand I and John Zápolya, rival claimants to the Kingdom of Hungary, signed in Grosswardein / Várad (modern-day Oradea, Romania) on February 24, 1538. In the treaty, they divided Hungary between them according to the actual possession.

Ferdinand recognized Zápolya as John I, King of Hungary and ruler of two-thirds of the Kingdom, while Zápolya conceded the rule of Ferdinand over western Hungary, and recognized him as heir to the Hungarian throne, since Zápolya was childless.

The Treaty of Speyer, signed at the Diet of Speyer in 1570, was a peace agreement between the two Hungarian Kingdoms, Royal Hungary led by Maximilian II, and the Eastern Hungarian Kingdom, ruled by John Sigismund Zápolya, which lead to the establishment of the Principality of Transylvania.

Ali Janbulad Pasha (transliterated in Turkish as Canbolatoğlu Ali Paşa; died 1 March 1610) was a Kurdish tribal chief from Kilis and a rebel Ottoman governor of Aleppo who wielded practical supremacy over Syria in c. 1606–1607. His rebellion, launched to avenge the execution of his uncle Huseyn ibn Janbulad by the commander Jigalazade Sinan Pasha in 1605, gained currency among northern Syria's Kurdish, Turkmen and Arab tribes and expanded to include local Syrian governors and chiefs, most prominently Fakhr al-Din Ma'n of Mount Lebanon and his erstwhile enemy Yusuf Sayfa Pasha of Tripoli. Ali formed a secret military alliance with the Grand Duke of Tuscany, Ferdinand I, with the explicit aim of jointly destroying the Ottoman Empire and establishing the Janbulad family as the sovereigns of Syria.

Ali's burgeoning ties with several Celali revolt leaders, whose influence spanned central Anatolia, Cilicia and part of Mesopotamia, posed a major threat to the Empire at a time in which it was at war with Austria-Hungary in the west and Safavid Iran in the east. The prospect of a foreign-backed, wide-scale rebellion in the Ottoman heartland prompted Grand Vizier Kuyucu Murad Pasha to launch an expedition against Ali. The latter publicly maintained his loyalty to Sultan Ahmed I throughout his rebellion and his practical control of Aleppo was formalized with his appointment as beylerbey in September 1606. Murad Pasha's campaign against Ali was ostensibly directed against the Safavids to avoid Ali's mobilization; the latter realized he was the grand vizier's target only when Murad Pasha's army routed his Celali allies in Cilicia and approached his north Syrian domains. The grand vizier's army of Rumeli and Anatolian troops routed and mass executed Ali's rebel sekbans (musketeers) at the Amik Valley in October 1607, but Ali escaped, first to Aleppo then to the Euphrates valley. Through the mediation of his uncle Haydar ibn Janbulad and other representatives, he was pardoned by the sultan in 1608 and appointed beylerbey of Temeşvar several months later. Machinations against him by the local elites and Janissaries there compelled him to seek refuge in Belgrade in April 1609. Murad Pasha ordered his arrest there in the summer and he was executed in March 1610.