apparel, and a hundred horses. By a peculiar strain of CHAP. delicacy, the gentle barbarian refused, in the absence of an LXIV. unfortunate friend, to visit his wife, or to taste the luxuries of the palace; sustained in his tent the rigour of the winter; and rejected the hospitable gift, that he might share the hardships of two thousand companions, all as deserving as himself of that honour and distinction. Necessity and revenge might justify his predatory excursions by sea and land; he left nine thousand five hundred men for the guard of his fleet; and persevered in the fruitless search of Cantacuzene, till his embarkation was hastened by a fictitious letter, the severity of the season, the clamours of his independent troops, and the weight of his spoil and captives. In the prosecution of the civil war, the prince of Ionia twice returned to Europe; joined his arms with those of the emperor; besieged Thessalonica, and threatened Constantinople. Calumny might affix some reproach on his imperfect aid, his hasty departure, and a bribe of ten thousand crowns, which he accepted from the Byzantine court; but his friends were satisfied; and the conduct of Amir is excused by the more sacred duty of defending against the Latins his hereditary dominions. The maritime The maritime power of the Turks had united the pope, the king of Cyprus, the republic of Venice, and the order of St. John, in a laudable crusade; their galleys invaded the coast of Ionia; and Amir was slain with an arrow, in the attempt to wrest from the Rhodian knights the citadel of Smyrna.48 Before his death, he generously recommended another ally of his own nation; not more sincere or zealous than himself, but more able to afford a prompt and powerful succour, by his situation along the Propontis and in the front of Constantinople. By the prospect of a more advantageous treaty, the Turkish prince of Bithynia was detached from his engagements with Anne of Savoy; and the pride of Orchan dictated the most solemn protestations, that if he could obtain the daughter of Cantacuzene, he would invariably fulfil the duties of a subject and a son. Parental Marriage of tenderness was silenced by the voice of ambition; the Greek with a clergy connived at the marriage of a Christian princess with a princess, sectary of Mahomet; and the father of Theodora describes, with shameful satisfaction, the dishonour of the purple.49 A body of Turkish cavalry attended the ambassadors, who disembarked from thirty vessels before his camp of Selybria. A 48 After the conquest of Smyrna by the Latins, the defence of this fortress was imposed by pope Gregory XI. on the knights of Rhodes (see Vertot, l. v.) 49 See Cantacuzene, l. iii. c. 95. Nicephorus Gregoras, who, for the light of mount Thabor, brands the emperor with the names of tyrant and Herod, excuses, rather than blames, this Turkish marriage, and alleges the passion and pow er of Orchan, εγγυτατος, και τη δυνάμει τις κατ' αυτον ηδη Περσικος (Turkish) pasar Carpanas (1. xv. 5.) He afterward celebrates his kingdom and armies, See his reign in Cantemir, p. 24—30. Orchan Greek A. D. 1316. CHAP. stately pavilion was erected, in which the empress Irene passed LXIV. the night with her daughters. In the morning, Theodora ascended a throne, which was surrounded with curtains of silk and gold; the troops were under arms; but the emperor alone was on horseback. At a signal the curtains were suddenly withdrawn, to disclose the bride, or the victim, encircled by kneeling eunuchs and hymeneal torches; the sound of flutes and trumpets proclaimed the joyful event; and her pretended happiness was the theme of the nuptial song, which was chanted by such poets as the age could produce. Without the rites of the church, Theodora was delivered to her barbarous lord; but it had been stipulated, that she should preserve her religion in the haram of Boursa; and her father celebrates her charity and devotion in this ambiguous situation. After his peaceful establishment on the throne of Constantinople, the Greek emperor visited his Turkish ally, who, with four sons, by various wives, expected him at Scutari, on the Asiatic shore. The two princes partook, with seeming cordiality, of the pleasures of the banquet and the chase; and Theodora was permitted to repass the Bosphorus, and to enjoy some days in the society of her mother. But the friendship of Orchan was subservient to his religion and interest; and in the Genoese war he joined without a blush the enemies of Cantacuzene. Establishment of the Europe, In the treaty with the empress Anne, the Ottoman prince Ottomans in had inserted a singular condition, that it should be lawful for A. D.1353. him to sell his prisoners at Constantinople, or transport them into Asia. A naked crowd of Christians of both sexes and every age, of priests and monks, of matrons and virgins, was exposed in the public market; the whip was frequently used to quicken the charity of redemption; and the indignant Greeks deplored the fate of their brethren, who were led away to the worst evils of temporal and spiritual bondage.50 Cantacuzene was reduced to subscribe the same terms; and their execution must have been still more pernicious to the empire; a body of ten thousand Turks had been detached to the assistance of the empress Anne; but the entire forces of Orchan were exerted in the service of his father. Yet these calamities were of a transient nature; as soon as the storm had passed away, the fugitives might return to their habitations; and at the conclusion of the civil and foreign wars, Europe was completely evacuated by the Moslems of Asia. It was in his last quarrel with his pupil that Cantacuzene inflicted the deep and deadly wound, which could never be healed by his successors, and which is poorly expiated by his theological dialogues against the prophet Mahomet. Ignorant of their own history, the modern Turks confound their first and their final passage of 50 The most lively and concise picture of this captivity, may be found in the history of Ducas (c. 8,) who fairly describes what Cantacuzene confesses with a guilty blush! 7 51 the Hellespont, and describe the son of Orchan as a noctural CHAP. son. Orchan and and Euru quests of A.D. 1360 Sept. But the Greeks had not time to rejoice in the death of their The reign enemies; and the Turkish scimitar was wielded with the same pean conspirit by Amurath the First, the son of Orchan and the brother Amurath I of Soliman. By the pale and fainting light of the Byzantine-1399, annals, we can discern, that he subdued without resistance the whole province of Romania or Thrace, from the Hellespont to mount Hamus, and the verge of the capital; and that Adrianople was chosen for the royal seat of his government and religion in Europe. Constantinople, whose decline is almost coeval with her foundation, had often, in the lapse of a thousand years, been assaulted by the barbarians of the East and West; but never till this fatal hour had the Greeks been surrounded, both in Asia and Europe, by the arms of the same hostile monarchy. Yet the prudence or generosity of Amurath postponed for a while this easy conquest; and his pride was satisfied with the frequent and humble attendance of the emperor John Palæologus and his four sons, who followed at his summons the In this passage, and the first conquests in Europe, Cantemir (p. 27, &c.) gives a miserable idea of his Turkish guides: nor am I much better satisfied with Chalcondyles (l. i. p. 12, &c.) They forget to consult the most authentic record, the fourth book of Cantacuzene. I likewise regret the last books, which are still manuscript, of Nicephorus Gregoras. 52 After the conclusion of Cantacuzene and Gregoras, there follows a dark interval of a hundred years. George Phranza, Michael Ducas, and Laonicus Chalcondyles, all three wrote after the taking of Constantinople. CHAP. range of injustice and cruelty, he imposed on his soldiers the LXIV, most rigid laws of modesty and abstinence; and the harvest was peaceably reaped and sold within the precincts of his camp. Provoked by the loose and corrupt administration of justice, he collected in a house the judges and lawyers of his dominions, who expected that in a few moments the fire would be kindled to reduce them to ashes. His ministers trembled in silence; but an Ethiopian buffoon presumed to insinuate the true cause of the evil; and future venality was left without excuse, by annexing an adequate salary to the office of cadi.5% The humble title of emir was no longer suitable to the Ottoman greatness; and Bajazet condescended to accept a patent of sultan from the caliphs who served in Egypt under the yoke of the Mamalukes;59 a last and frivolous homage that was yielded by force to opinion; by the Turkish conquerors to the house of Abbas and the successors of the Arabian prophet. The ambition of the sultan was inflamed by the obligation of deserving this august title; and he turned his arms against the kingdom of Hungary, the perpetual theatre of the Turkish victories and defeats. Sigismond, the Hungarian king, was the son and brother of the emperors of the West: his cause was that of Europe and the church: and, on the report of his danger, the bravest knights of France and Germany were Battle of eager to march under his standard and that of the cross. In Nicopolis, AD. 1336, the battle of Nicopolis, Bajazet defeated a confederate army Sept. 28. of a hundred thousand Christians, who had proudly boasted, that if the sky should fall they could uphold it on their lances. The far greater part were slain or driven into the Danube; and Sigismond, escaping to Constantinople by the river and the Black Sea, returned after a long circuit to his exhausted kingdom. In the pride of victory Bajazet threatened that he would besiege Buda; that he would subdue the adjacent countries of Germany and Italy; and that he would feed his horse with a bushel of oats on the altar of St. Peter at Rome. His progress was checked, not by the miraculous interposition of the apostle; not by a crusade of the Christian powers, but by a long and painful fit of the gout. The disorders of the moral, are sometimes corrected by those of the physical, world; and 60 58 Leunclav. Annal. Turcici, p. 318, 319. The venality of the cadis has long been an object of scandal and satire; and if we distrust the observations of our travellers, we may consult the feeling of the Turks themselves (d'Herbelot, Bibliot. Orientale, p. 216, 217. 229, 230.) 59 The fact, which is attested by the Arabic history of Ben Schounah, a contemporary Syrian (de Guignes, Hist. des Huns, tom. iv. p. 336,) destroys the testimony of Saad Effendi and Cantemir (p. 14, 15,) of the election of Othman to the dignity of sultan. 60 See the Decades Rerum Hungaricarum (Dec. iii. l. ii. p. 379,) of Bonfinius, an Italian, who, in the xvth century, was invited into Hungary, to compose an cloquent history of that kingdom. Yet, if it be extant and accessible, I should give the preference to some homely chronicle of the time and country. and an acrimonious humour falling on a single fibre of one CHAP, man, may prevent or suspend the misery of nations. LXIV. and capti French A. D. 139 Such is the general idea of the Hungarian war; but the disastrous adventure of the French has procured us some memo- Crusade rials which illustrate the victory and character of Bajazet.vity of the The duke of Burgundy, sovereign of Flanders, and uncle to princes, Charles the Sixth, yielded to the ardour of his son, John count -1393. of Nevers; and the fearless youth was accompanied by four princes, his cousins, and those of the French monarch. Their inexperience was guided by the sire de Coucy, one of the best and oldest captains of Christendom;62 but the constable, admiral, and marshal, of France commanded an army which did not exceed the number of a thousand knights and squires. These splendid names were the source of presumption and the bane of discipline. So many might aspire to command, that none were willing to obey; their national spirit despised both their enemies and their allies; and in the persuasion that Bajazet would fly, or must fall, they began to compute how soon they should visit Constantinople and deliver the holy sepulchre. When their scouts announced the approach of the Turks, the gay and thoughtless youths were at table, already heated with wine; they instantly clasped their armour, mounted their horses, rode full speed to the vanguard, and resented as an affront the advice of Sigismond, which would have deprived them of the right and honour of the foremost attack. The battle of Nicopolis would not have been lost, if the French would have obeyed the prudence of the Hungarians; but it might have been gloriously won, had the Hungarians imitated the valour of the French. They dispersed the first line, consisting of the troops of Asia; forced a rampart of stakes which had been planted against the cavalry; broke, after a bloody conflict, the Janizaries themselves; and were at length overwhelmed by the numerous squadrons that issued from the woods, and charged on all sides this handful of intrepid war 61 I should not complain of the labour of this work, if my materials were always derived from such books as the chronicle of honest Froissard (vol. iv. c. 67. 69. 72. 74. 79-83. 85. 87. 89,) who read little, inquired much, and believed all. The original Memoirs of the marechal de Boucicault (Partie i. c. 2228,) add some facts, but they are dry and deficient, if compared with the pleasant garrulity of Froissard. 62 An accurate memoir on the life of Enquerrand VII. sire de Coucy, has been given by the baron de Zurlauben (Hist. de l'Academie des Inscriptions, tom. xxv.) His rank and possessions were equally considerable in France and England; and, in 1375, he led an army of adventurers into Switzerland, to recover a large patrimony which he claimed in right of his grandmother, the daughter of the emperor Albert I. of Austria (Sinner, Voyage dans la Suisse Oc cidentale, tom. i. p. 118-124.) 65 That military office, so respectable at present, was still more conspicuous when it was divided between two persons (Daniel, Hist. de la Milice Françoise tom. ii. p. 5.) One of these, the marshal of the crusade, was the famous Boucicault, who afterward defended Constantinople, governed Genoa, invaded the coast of Asia, and died in the field of Azincour. |