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The Felsőbüki Nagy family 247 West, while on the other hand, the resources of the Kingdom of Hungary were inadeguate to attain full independence. Therefore, the concluding Treaty of Szatmär (1711), later approved by King Charles IH (1711-1741, as emperor Charles VI), stabilized the position of the Hungarian estates - more and more an anachronism in the age of absolutism. The diet, the parliament of Hungary, regained control over taxation, and noble elites (aristocracy and gentry, in contrast to the masses of petty nobility) did not have to pay tax, though they might offer the ruler voluntary subsidia. The rulers of Hungary were not any longer elected at the diet, but their coronation oath and the diploma inaugurale issued before their coronation were a result of bargaining with the diet, so the essential contractual nature of their rule was conserved to a significant extent. The estates of Hungary preserved the monopoly of regional administration as well as significant rights in national administration and jurisdiction throughout the eighteenth century. The viability of this compromise was amply demonstrated by the War of the Austrian Succession, when, unlike Bohemia, Hungary stayed loyal to Queen Maria Theresa (1740-1780, later empress, 1745-1780). As a consequence, Hungary was left out of the reforms initiated by Count Haugwitz, that drew closer the ties of the Austrian and Czech provinces, and introduced regular taxation for the nobility and the clergy. This historical Sonderweg of Hungary, its special path within the Habsburg Monarchy, gradually deviated from that of the western provinces, conserving an increasingly outdated dualism of king and estates, which the estates redefined in modern terms by the 1790s, as they came to call their rights and privileges the ‘constitution’ of Hungary.’ As we know, this Sonderweg led finally to the establishment of the dual monarchy of Austria-Hungary in 1867. The special status of the Kingdom of Hungary among the kingdoms and provinces of the Habsburg monarchy became more accentuated in the second half of the eighteenth century, when, to Maria Theresa’s growing dissatisfaction, the diet of Hungary rejected her proposals for noble taxation. Joseph II (1780-1790) was not crowned king of Hungary, so that he would not be bound to take a coronation oath and sign a diploma inaugurale. Following a decade characterized by his short-lived radical reforms, in 1790 the estates of Hungary made an attempt to re-structure politics and acquire positions comparable 3 Szijartd 2019.
