The Turks soon arrived and spread themselves out in military array upon the opposite side of the narrow but rapid stream.  As the hostile armies were preparing for an engagement, a young Turk, magnificently mounted, and in gorgeous uniform, having crossed the stream with a party of cavalry, rode in advance of the troop, upon the plain, and in the spirit of ancient chivalry challenged any Christian knight to meet him in single combat.  The Chevalier of Lorraine accepted the challenge, and rode forth to the encounter.  Both armies looked silently on to witness the issue of the duel.  It was of but a few moments’ duration.  Lorraine, warding off every blow of his antagonist, soon passed his sword through the body of the Turk, and he fell dead from his horse.  The victor returned to the Christian camp, leading in triumph the splendid steed of his antagonist.

And now the signal was given for the general battle.  The Turks impetuously crossing the narrow stream, assailed the Christian camp in all directions, with their characteristic physical bravery, the most common, cheap and vulgar of all earthly virtues.  A few months of military discipline will make fearless soldiers of the most ignominious wretches who can be raked from the gutters of Christian or heathen lands.  The battle was waged with intense fierceness on both sides, and was long continued with varying success.  At last the Turks were routed on every portion of the field, and leaving nearly twenty thousand of their number either dead upon the plain or drowned in the Raab, they commenced a precipitate flight.

Leopold was, for many reasons, very anxious for peace, and immediately proposed terms very favorable to the Turks.  The sultan was so disheartened by this signal reverse that he readily listened to the propositions of the emperor, and within nine days after the battle of St. Gothard, to the astonishment of all Europe, a truce was concluded for twenty years.  The Hungarians were much displeased with the terms of this treaty; for in the first place, it was contrary to the laws of the kingdom for the king to make peace without the consent of the diet, and in the second place, the conditions he offered the Turks were humiliating to the Hungarians.  Leopold confirmed to the Turks their ascendency in Transylvania, and allowed them to retain Great Wardein, and two other important fortresses in Hungary.  It was with no little difficulty that the emperor persuaded the diet to ratify these terms.

Leopold is to be considered under the twofold light of sovereign of Austria and Emperor of Germany.  We have seen that his power as emperor was quite limited.  His power as sovereign of Austria, also varied greatly in the different States of his widely extended realms.  In the Austrian duchies proper, upon the Danube, of which he was, by long hereditary descent, archduke, his sway was almost omnipotent.  In Bohemia he was powerful, though much less so than in Austria,