Based on the correspondence between the representatives and the council of the free royal city of Pest during the 1764–65 National Assembly, presently kept in the Budapest City Archives, the study examines the municipalities’ perceptions of tax disputes, their stance concerning tax hikes and reforms changing from rejection to support, as well as the channels they sought to assert their interests within the National Assembly and the government apparatus. Not unlike municipalities as a whole, the representatives of Pest could not substantially participate in the clashes between the government and the real movers and shakers of political life, namely the magnates and the county representatives. In comparison to previous diets, where the cities took a clear pro-government position, significant changes can be observed in 1764–65. Due to their own unfavorable financial situation and the reform plans propagated by Vienna, municipalities temporarily aligned themselves with the opposition in the matter of tax increases and the reform of nobiliary military duty (exercitus insurrectio), and mollified their staunch opposition against the government’s proposals only gradually. Nevertheless, the government’s distrust towards the cities remained palpable throughout the National Assembly, and the court never publicly supported any of their demands in opposition of the counties’ interests. The representative of Pest was limited to presenting their grievances to committees appointed to determine taxable estates, whereby they privately lobbied for their city’s support with various dignitaries outside the public sessions.

Town representatives played a marginal role in the eighteenth-century history of Hungarian diets. Relevant literature usually notes both their limited leverage and their loyalty to the government in general. The present inquiry probes deeper by studying in detail the activities of the representatives of Buda at the 1741 assembly as recorded in the correspondence between the city council, the representatives themselves, and the town’s agents in Vienna, as well as the diet records kept by the representatives. The main research questions include the demands and complaints put forward at the diet by the Buda representatives and how successful they were in resolving these during their stay in Pressburg/Pozsony (today Bratislava, Slovakia). Further, the author explores the various methods deployed to assert town interests and demonstrates the representatives’ “lobbying” at the diet and beyond. The study reveals that by 1741 the city of Buda – despite the Ottoman rule and the devastation caused by the “Rákóczi uprising” – had fully regained its former privileges and power as (capital) city. The archival sources also shed light on the evolution of bills regarding free royal towns through a closer look at the motivation and political agenda of the towns in the assembly’s decision making process. The examination of the decision making mechanism revealed that in the course of the diet proceedings, the representatives of Buda attained a leading position as one of the free royal towns and managed to close the gap with Pressburg and Pest.