only with the provocations of Honour and Liberty with the emulation of adventure and danger and the very sight one of another and I my self will not be far off with my couragious Souldiers a silent Beholder and Encourager of your Vertue where although I may not avert from you all the force of the cruel Enemy by rash adventure nor try the whole Fortune of this War in plain Field yet will I turn a great part of your dangers upon my self and trouble the Enemies designs with many a hot Skirmish For as much as there is no better manner of fight nor safer kind of War for us amongst such a multitude of men and so many thousands of Souldiers than never to offer battel unto the Enemy in plain Field neither to adventure all upon the Fortune of one Conflict although a man did see apparent signs of Victory He will of purpose at the first give us the opportunity of good hap he will feed our hardiness with the blood of his base Souldiers the easilier to intrap and oppress our rashness allured with the sweet baits of good Fortune but the crafty Devices of the Othoman King are by great policy and consideration to be frustrated this mighty Enemy is by little and little to be cut off as time and place shall give occasion For truly that Victory should be unto me lamentable which I should buy with the blood of my Souldiers and believe me it would be unto me a more sorrowful than pleasant sight to see eight or ten thousand of my Enemies slain with the loss of a few of you I praise and honour my Subjects of Epirus for valiant Conquerors if they shall nâ—t suffer themselves to be conquered of the Turkish King. The rest I had rather you couragious Souldiers of Dybra should consider with your selves than that I should seem to distrust of your assured Faith by giving you a carâ—ful and tedious Admonition When Scanderbeg had with chearful perswasion thus encouraged the Minds of them of Sfetigrade he departed thence and visited divers other Cities of Epirus where finding all things politiquely ordered by Moses and the other Captains whom he had put in trust he returned to his Army then lying near unto Croia Whilst Scanderbeg was with great carefulness yet thus providing for the safeguard of his Kingdom in the mean time Amurath his Army was assembled at Hadrianople to the number of a hundred and fifty thousand men whereof many were Pioneers and men appointed for other base Services necessary at the Siege of Towns. Of this great Army Amurath sent forty thousand light Horsemen before him to Sfetigrade who according to his command came and incamped before the City The news of their coming with a great deal more than truth was forthwith brought to Scanderbeg then lying with his small Army near Croia whereupon he with four thousand Horse and a thousand Foot took the way toward Sfetigrade and strongly incamped his Army within seven miles of the City Where having set all things in good order he accompanied with Moses and Tanusius went by certain blind ways through the Mountains and Woods until he came so near unto the City that from the place where he stood he might easily discover in what sort the Enemy lay incamped and so returning back again to his Camp rose with his Army in the night following and drawing as near unto the Turks Army as he could undiscovered placed all his Army in the covert of the Woods and secret Vallies unperceived of his Enemies After that he sent â—orth Moses and Musachi his Nephew with thirty of his best Horesemen apparelled as if they had been but Common Souldiers but passing well mounted driving before them certain Horses laden with Corn by a by-way as if they had secretly purposed to have got into the City The day then breaking they were discovered by the Turks Scouts and set upon where at the first Moses and the rest began of purpose to fly but when he saw that they were pursued but with like number to themselves he turned back upon the Turks and slew five of them and chased the rest unto the Camp. The General seeing what had happened sent forth four thousand Horsemen to pursue these supposed Victuallers whom they quickly recovered the sight of for that Moses of purpose had made small hast to fly but when the Turks began to draw nigh Moses leâ—t the Horses laden with Corn and fled yet so that he still drew on the Turks with hope to overtake him until he had brought them where Scanderbeg with his Army lay in wait by whom they were suddenly assailed on every side and with great slaughter put to flight In this Conflict two thousand of the Turks were slain and a thousand of their Horses taken of the Christians were lost but two and twenty This was the fiâ—st welcome of the Turks Army to Sfâ—tigrade About eight days after came Amurath with all his Army in the beginning of May Anno Dom. 1449. year 1449. and having made the greatest shew he could with his huge Army to terrifie the Defendants he incamped the baser sort of his Footmen at the foot of the Hill whereon the City stood and lay himself with his Janizaries and other his most valiant Souldiers about three quarters of a mile further off where after he had liâ—n still one day and well considered the strength of the place toward evening he sent a Messenger to the City who requested to speak with the Governor Perlat Whereof he hearing came to the Wall of whom the Messenger requested That he would command the Souldiers standing by to go further-off forasmuch as he had something in secret to say unto him from his Master Unto whom Perlat merrily answered It is like indeed to be some great secret that you would have kept not only from the hearing of my Souldiers but from the very light of the day and therefore have chosen the night but I have not learned of mine Elders to hear any Message from mine Enemies by night neither at any time else out of the hearing of the Garrison Souldiers to whom Scanderbeg hath committed the defence of this City and I the safeguard of my Person you must therefore at this time pardon me and to morrow if your Master so please I will hear you at large And therefore commanded him to depart from the Walls So he returned for that time without Audience as he came It grieved Amurath not a little to see his Messenger so lightly regarded yet for as much as he had more hope to gain the City by large Offers or some reasonable Composition than by all his great force he dissembled his wrath and the next day sent the Messenger again with one of his Bassaes a grave and well spoken man himself born in Epirus This Bassa with three Souldiers and two Servitors was by the Governors commandment by one of the Ports received into the City and brought into Saint Maries
Tyrant but the work of the Mine wherein he had of long laid up his greatest hope sorting now to no good purpose being deemed as well an endless piece of work for the natural hardness of the Rock as also of small importance for that it was by the Defendants discovered drave him to his wits end His Forces he had to his great loss sufficiently proved and still found them too weak and policy prevailed not Nothing now remained but to prove if by great Gifts and glorious Promises he could first corrupt the Faith of the Governor and afterwards the Garrison wherein he determined to spare no cost Upon which Resolution he sent one of his Bassaes a man of great authority and dexterity of wit unto Uranacontes with such rich Gifts and Presents as might have moved a right constant mind commanding the Bassa if it were possible first to fasten the same upon the Governor as Presents sent from Amurath of meer bounty in the honour of his valiant mind and afterwards to deliver his Message not sparing to promise any thing for the giving up of the City yea more than should be desired The Bassa attended on but with two Servants came with this rich Present near to the Gates of the City and there stayed until the Governors pleasure were known by whose command he was received into the City and brought to his Presence Then the Bassa with much Reverence and many magnifical words presented unto Uranacontes the rich Gifts sent from Amurath and would forthwith have delivered them unto him as the Rewards of his Valour But Uranacontes willed him first to declare his Message from Amurath upon the hearing whereof he would as he said as he saw cause either receive or refuse them before which time he would not be beholden to his Enemy by receiving from him the least courtesie With which Answer the subtil Bassa nothing dismayed with great constancy thus began to deliver his Message Howsoever we agree said he upon other matters we come for we brought not these Gifts of purpose to deceive any for so men use to deal with their Children and Servants and not with Men of Courage and Valour And albeit that Enemies Gifts are ever to be suspected as you have right wisely said and we our selves know yet we duâ—st not for shame come unto so worthy a Governor as the common saying is empty handed neither ought you if you be the man you seem to be and whom men report your are to refuse our Courtesie Take these Presents in good part which shall no way inforce or hinder you to determine or dispose of your Affairs otherwise than shall seem unto you good neither shall we once object unto you these Gifts which we so frank and freely offer in the great Sultans Name whether you reject or admit our Demands and Message wherein there is perhaps no less regard had of your good than of ours For there is no greater token of a base mind than to give in hope to receive again We come unto you frankly worthy Governor I speak it from my heart we go not about with filed Speech and rich Rewards to circumvent thee whose invincible Mind we have so often in vain proved with our Forces and Power That is it for which Amurath loveth thee he doth wonderfully admire the Vertues of his Enemies and if it were possible desireth to have them with himself There verily with so mighty a Monarch might thy invincible Mind and pregnant find a better way unto the highest Type of Fortunes bliss Not that I condemn Scanderbeg whom we his Eâ—â—mies do highly commend for his Country so well recovered and so oftentimes worthily defended yet chiefly by your help but you are worthy of another manner of Soveraign and of another manner of Calling and not to spend all the days of your Life and such heroical Vertues in obscurity and without offence be it said in contemptible baseness Besides that Scanderbeg his Estate is but momentary the Destinies have assigned unto him too too mighty an Enemy his destruction may well be deferred but not by any means avoided Amurath hath conceived against him an implacable displeasure and prepared his Forces accordingly he hath sworn to spare no Cost no Labour no Danger and that he will never whilst he liveth depart out of Epirus before he have imposed a deadly yoke on his Neck And behold the first of this misery beginneth at this City and upon your selves We daily hear his Pavilions sound with these and such like speeches That he will never depart out of this place before he have taken this City and satisfied his angry mind with the tâ—rture of your bodies no not if he should therefore lose Hadrianople yea and that more is his whole Kingdom And verily he will do it which I fear to divine or think upon For although I with others bear against you the mind of an Enemy yet I am a man and moved with humane compassion believe me ye men of Croia believe me my Eyes would scarcely endure to behold the horrible spectacle of your miserable Fortune I tell you again he will do it except you change your purpose and now receive Health Life Liberty and Peace whilst it is so freely offered For albeit that this notable strong place these impregnable Walls and especially your own Valour do yet defend you how long will it hold out Verily no longer than you have victual no longer than you have meat to sustain your bodies Do you think that Amurath will raise his Siege in the middle of the heat of this War and be gon No no if force will not prevail if all his attempts fail yet shall you see and feel these Enemies continually to your hurt you shall always have these Tents in your Eyes and at your Gates until long Famine which mastereth all things tame your Courage also I pray you what hope have you left from whence ariseth in your resolute minds such desperate contempt of danger Can Scanderbeg victual you being so straitly besieged which hideth himself poor man in the Woods all the day and flieth over the tops of the Mountains loaden with travel and care scarce able to relieve his own misery Or will the Venetians relieve you which dayly bring unto us and store us with too too great plenty of all things necessary for this War against you Wherefore repent your too much hardiness and gather your Wits together behold I your Enemie advise you you long enough continued in your obstinacy your Country and Liberty is not so far to be defended as that you should therefore fight against God. But wherefore do I call this Liberty you must give place unto your Fortune and learn to obey them that be too strong for you You shall find assured Liberty rich Rewards perpetual Rest with Amurath Provide for your selves if you be wise whilst all things are yet whole for you to determine of whilst we your Enemies exhort and request
Assault The Turks knowing that they were now in the Eye of their King and in the presence of their greatest Commanders strive with might and main to win the Rampiers for in that place the Walls of the City were beaten down to the ground shaken before this Assault with two thousand five hundred thirty nine-Shot of the Canon or other Pieces of no less force The Christians likewise in defence of themselves and their City with invincible Courage opposed themselves against the Turks so that a more desperate Fight than there was hardly ever to be seen desperate men with desperate hand assailing one another and the more to increase the terror of the day the thundering Shot with the clamour of Men and noise of the instruments of War was so great as if Heaven and Earth should have presently fallen together and Arrows falling into the City as if it had been showers of Rain oftentimes darkned the light of the day In this dreadful Fight many of the Defendants were slain but of the Turks twenty to one Near unto that Gate where this terrible Assault was given were certain Loops hewn out of the main Rock which flanked the Ditch all alongst that side of the City out of which the Christians with their murdering Shot made Lanes amongst their Enemies and slew them without number For all that the mighty Bassaes and great Captains one while by perswasion another while by threatning forced them still forward and if any turned back presently slew him so that the Turks seeing no less danger in retiring than in fighting against the Enemy like desperate men thrust forward by heaps and were slain without number Yet still pressing on so long as life lasted and others stepping forward instead of them that were slain they began again to prevail upon the Defendants who in that place were for most part either slain or hurt and again recovered the top of the Rampiers and there advanced the Turks Ensigns Then began the Tyrant to lift up his Head making sure account that the City was now his own But as the common saying is He that reckoneth without his Host must reckon twice so chanched it to Mahomet For the Companies from the beginning of the Siege left in the Market place ready for all events and oftentimes wishing for some occasion wherein to shew themselves being now in good time advertised of the imminent danger came with speed to the place of the Assault before the Turks had taken good footing and there valiantly encountring them slew a great number of them and forced the rest from the Rampiers and plucking down their Ensigns before set up instead of them placed their own With which repulse the Turks were so dismaied that they quite forsook the Assault and in despight of their imperious Commanders not expecting any sign of Retreat in hast retired to their Camp. Mahomet falling from so great an hope and grieved above measure with this shameful repulse returned into his Pavillion fretting and fuming as a man half mad where two days he tormented himself with his own passions not admitting any man to his presence The Christians afterwards took the spoil of the dead Turks and cutting off divers of their Heads set them up upon Poles round about the City to the terror of their Fellows In this Assault were twelve thousand of the Turks slain and many more wounded Of the Christians were lost four hundred and of them that came to the Breach escaped none but he was wounded more or less After that Mahomet had two days digested the last repulse the shame whereof grieved him more than the loss it sâ—lf he sent for both the great Bassaes of Constantinople and Asia and other two of his chief Counsellors with whom he resolved to give another Assault and thereon to gage his whole Forces for they were all of opinion with him That the Defendants were so weakned and wasted with the former Assault that they could not possibly hold out another Whereupon strait Commandment was given through the Camp that every man without exception should be ready to go to the Assault whensoever they were called upon and the more to incourage the Souldiers great rewards and preferments were promised to them which in time of the Assault should perform any especial piece of service The first appearance of the new Moon which the Turks worship with great Devotion was the time that Mahomet had appointed for this general Assault in the mean time he spared not to pour out his fury against the Walls and Rampiers of the Town by the mouth of the Canon The Christian Defendants on the other side first by hearty Prayer commended themselves and their City to the Protection of the Almighty and afterwards with restless labour and no small peril speedily repaired and new fortified whatsoever the fury of the Artillery had overthrown or shaken omitting nothing that could be done or devised for the defence of themselves and their City Now as soon as the new Moon began to shew her self the Mahometan Priests going about the Army gave the Souldiers knowledg thereof as their manner is by singing of a Song in manner of a Procession whereunto the whole Army answered with a short Respond but with such a terrible noise as was wonderful to hear and at the same time bowing themselves to the ground saluted the Moon with great Superstition All their fond Ceremonies performed they began to draw nigh the City so thick and in number so many that all the ground for the space of a mile round about Scodra was thick covered with men The Christians expecting every hour to be assailed were ready upon the Walls and Rampiers of the City to repulse the Enemy but especially at the great Gate where most danger was feared for that the Turks with their great Ordnance had made that place of all others most assaultable Here Iacobus Moneta a Noble Captain with his Brother Moncinus a valiant Gentleman took upon them to receive the first Assault which is commonly of all others most terrible for the Turks use in their Assaults to give three attempts whereof the first is most furious and dangerous as performed by their best Souldiers the other two are of lâ—ss force but if they fail in all three they forsake the enterprise as men discouraged Whilst both the assailants and the Defendants stood thus in readiness the one as it were facing the other a great part of the night Mahomet before day went up to the top of the Bassaes Mount from whence he had before beholden the former Assault at whose coming there were presently eleven Canons discharged and twelve smaller Pieces the signal appointed for the Assault The Turks upon this sign given with exceeding tumult and most hideous out-cry as their manner is began to assail the City round and with such wonderful agility of Body and Courage mounted the Rampiers at the great Gate that they had there as it were in
for them to dwell in with the Temple of the Sepulchre of our Saviour and Mount Sion not for any devotion either unto them or those places but for that it yielded them a great profit by the recourse of devout Christians travelling thither reserving in the mean time unto themselves the other two parts of the City with the Temple of Solomon before re-edified by the Christians Now whilst the Sarasins thus triumph it in the East and not in the East only but over a great part of the West also contenting themselves with such Tributes as they had imposed upon the subdued Nations and Countries up start the Turks a vagrant fierce and cruel people who first breaking into Asia as is before declared and by rare fortune aspiring unto the Kingdom of Persia subdued the Countries of Mesopotamia Syria with the greatest part of the lesser Asia and Iudaea together with the Holy City who both there and in all other places held the poor oppressed Christians in such Subjection and Thraldom as that the former government of the Sarasins seemed in comparison of this to have been but light and easie Neither was there any end or release of these so great miseries to have been expected had not God in mercy by the weak means of a poor Hermit stirred up these most worthy Princes of the West to take up Arms in their defence who having with their victorious Armies recovered the lesser Asia with a great part of Syria were now come unto this Holy City The Governour of Ierusalem understanding by his Espials of the proceedings of the Christians had before their approach got into the City a great garrison of right valiant Souldiers with good store of all things necessary for the holding out of a long Siege The Chrstians with their Army approaching the City encamped before it on the North for that toward the East and the South it was not well to be besieged by reason of the broken Rocks and Mountains Next unto the City lay Godfrey the Duke with the Germans and Lorains near unto him lay the Earl of Flanders and Robert the Norman before the West gate lay Tancred and the Earl of Tholouse Bohemund and Baldwin were both absent the one at Antioch the other at Edissâ— The Christians thus strongly encamped the fifth day after gave unto the City a fierce assâ—ult with such chearfulness as that it was verily supposed it might have been even then woon had they been sufficiently furnished with scaling ladders for want whereof they were glad to give over the assault and retire But within a few days after having supplied that defect and provided all things necessary they came on again afresh and with all their power gave unto the City a most terrible assault wherein was on both sides seen great valour policy and cunning with much slaughter until that at length the Christians weary of the long Fight and in that hot Country and most fervent time of the year fainting for lack of Water were glad again to forsake the assault and to retire into their Trenches only the Well of Siloe yielded them water and that not sufficient for the whole Camp the rest of the Wells which were but few being before by the Enemy either filled up or else poysoned Whilst the Christians thus lay at the Siege of Ierusalem a Fleet oâ— the Genowaies arrived at Ioppa at which time also a great Fleet of the Aegyptian Sultans lay at Ascalon to have brought relief to the besieged Turks in Ierusalem whereof the Genowaies understanding and knowing themselves too weak to encounter them at Sea took all such things out of their Ships as they thought good and so sinking them marched by Land unto the Camp. There was amongst these Genowaies divers Engineers men after the manner of that time cunning in making of all manner of Engines fit for the besieging of Cities by whose device a great moving Tower was framed of timber and thick planks covered over with raw Hides to save the same from fire out of which the Christians might in safety greatly annoy the Defendants This Tower being by night brought close to the Wall served the Christians instead of a most sure fortress in the assault the next day where whilst they strive with warlike Valour and doubtful Victory on both sides from morning until midday by chance the wind favouring the Christians carried the flame of the fire into the face of the Turks wherewith they had thought to have burnt the Tower with such violence that the Christians taking the benefit thereof and holpen by the Tower gained the top of the Wall which was first footed by the Duke Godfrey and his Brother Eustace wâ—â—h their followers and the Ensigns of the Duke there first set up to the great encouraging of the Christians who now pressing in on every side like a violent River that had broken over the Banks bare down all before them All were slain that came to hand Men Women and Children without respect of Age Sex or Condition the Slaughter was great and the sight lamentable all the Streets were filled with blood and the bodies of the dead Death triumphing in every place Yet in this confusion a wonderful number of the better sort of the Turks retiring to Solomons Temple there to do their last Devoir made there a great and terrible Fight armed with dispair to endure any thing and the victorious Christians no less disdaining after the winning of the City to find there so great resistance In this disperate conflict fought with wonderful obstinacy of mind many fell on both sides but the Christians â—ame on so fiercely with desire of blood that breaking into the Temple the foremost of them were by the press of them that followed after violently thrust upon the weapons of their Enemies and so miserably slain Neither did the Turks thus oppressed give it over but as men resolved to dy desperately fought it out with invincible courage not at the gates of the Temple only but even in the midst thereof also where was to be seen great heaps both of the Victors and the vanquished slain indifferently together All the Pavement of the Temple swam with blood in such sort that a man could not set his foot but either upon some dead man or over the shooes in blood Yet for all that the obstinate Enemy still held the Vaults and top of the Temple when as the darkness of the night came so fast on that the Christians were glad to make an end of the Slaughter and to sound a Retreat The next day for Proclamation was made for mercy to be shewed unto all such as should lay down their weapons the Turks that yet held the upper part of the Temple came down and yielded themselves Thus was the famous City of Ierusalem with great bloodshed but far greater honour recovered by these worthy Christians year 1099. in the year 1099 after it had been in the hands of the Infidels above
inviting him to hasten his coming into the City who thereupon coming to Rhegium by his Embassadors sent from thence requested the old Emperor either to give him leave according to the League betwixt them to come into the City or else to send him certain of the chief of the Nobility and Clergy with some of the better and more understanding sort of the Burgers and Citizens also unto whom he might frankly speak his mind for them faithfully to deliver the same again unto the Emperor his Grandfather and the People Which request the old Emperor perceiving to be full of Deceit and Treachery for a good space answered thereunto nothing at all but stood all silent as doubting which to grant for to suffer his Nephew to come into the City he saw was dangerous the Citizens as he well knew being for the most part inclined to revolt to him so soon as they should once see him within the Gates and to send any forth unto him as he desired might be as he feared an occasion of some tumult to be after raised in the City for he knew that his Nephews drift therein was openly by fair words and secretly with great gifts and large promises first to gain them and by them the rest of the Citizens Both which things being dangerous he made choice of the easier and sent forth unto him two of the most noble Senators two of the most reverend Bishops two other grave Prelates and four of the chief Burgesses of the City unto whom at their coming unto him he in the open hearing of all men delivered this premeditated and crafty Speech It is not unknown unto the World you my Subjects to have alwaies been unto me more dear than I have been unto my self and how that I have not upon any ambitious conceit or desire of the sole Government against my Grandfathers good Will gon out For you see how that I neither spare mine own life or attend my pleasure for the care I have of you I come not unto you compassed about with a Guard of armed men as is the manner not of Kings only for the envy of their high place but of others also of far meaner calling whom disaster fortune banished from their Parents and Kindred hath enforced to wander here and there with death also before their Eyes Let any man tell me how I came by these wounds which I yet bear in my body but in fight with the Enemies of my Country which pass over out of Asia into Thracia or else dwelling near unto Isther do with their incursions from thence miserably waste that side of Thracia which is next unto them For I to tell you the very truth seeing the old Emperor by reason of his great years to become slothful and blockish and not possible to be awaked out of his drowsie sleep neither any whit to grieve when as the poor Christians his Subjects were both by day and night some as Sacrifices slain by the barbarous Enemies some carried away into most miserable Captivity and the rest poor and naked to be driven out of their Houses and Cities not to speak in the mean time of the greater mischiefs in Asia and how many Cities have been there lost through the old Emperors sloth and neglience when I saw these things I say strucken with a piercing grief which my heart could not indure I went out for two causes either by some kind of honourable death to end my grief together with my life or else to the uttermost of my power to stand my Country in some stead For by no means it can come to pass but that a man and he that hath of long time reigned must at length become loathsome unto his Subjects and encur their deadly hatred For why God hath made nothing in this life immutable and firm whereby it cometh to pass as we see that all worldly things joy and delight in change But if a man will as it were force Fortune to his desire and strive to bind things unto a certain firm and constant course he shall but lose his labour and in vain strive against nature But whatsoever is contrary unto nature or exceedeth the just bounds thereof hath in it neither comfort nor delight This was it that caused the wise men to say and to leave to us as Rules Not to dwell too long upon any thing and a measure to be the fairest vertue For you see how that my Grandfather being grown to great years and having reigned so long I may almost say as never did any but he is become hateful unto all his people and yet regardeth not either how to discharge himself of so great a burthen or how to relieve the declining State of the Empire or so much as grieveth to see the Successors of the Empire to die before him For my Father is dead without any fruit of the Empire except the bare Title only and others also nearest to him of blood and far younger than hâ— are dead likewise and happily I my self may die also before I shall receive any profit thereof for what can more easily happen especially unto a man that shunneth no danger and regardeth not his life But some perhaps will suspect me of Ambition for departing from the Emperor my Grandfather and for refusing to be ruled by him Which thing I neither flatly deny or altogether confess For might I see the Empire increase and the bounds thereof inlarged I could willingly content my self and at my ease take my rest chearing my self up with such hope as do they that bear with their Cooks making them to stay long for their dinner in hope thereby to fare the better But seeing the State of the Empire daily to decline from evil to worse and the miserable people carried away Captives or slain by their Enemies even at the Gates and under the Walls of the Imperial City what deem you me then to think For most men ease their present grief with the hope of future good although the same be but vain But unto me is not left even such vain hope unto my false comfort And can you marvel at the impotent affection of the Great Alexander of Macedon grieved and displeased to see his Father to heap Victory upon Victory and to cut off all the hope of his Sons glory by leaving him so few occasions of War and not think me to whom you see the quite contrary is chanced and from whom not only the hope of the Empire is cut off for the wasting thereof but even the course of a quiet life to fret and grieve thereat Moved herewith and not able longer to indure it at length I rise up and requested of the Emperor my Grandfather but a thousand men at Arms promising him by the Power of God with them to preserve the Cities in Bithynia and to drive his Enemies further off before that having them they should pass over the strait and besiege the Imperial City of
City and upon the Success thereof to shape them answer accordingly Wherefore so soon as the Embassadors were departed to Synderovia he first by his Messengers assayed the minds of the Citizens and Souldiers with magnifical Promises of large Liberties and infinite Rewards and Preferments if they would yield up the City and many Arrows with Letters made fast unto them full of like Promises were at the same time shot into the City But when he saw no hope to prevail by that means he called together the Captains and Commanders of his Army and there in the presence of them all spake unto them as followeth Although I know it is in mine own Power to grant or not to grant the Peace whereof our Enemies have made a motion yet it is my pleasure worthy Souldiers to know your minds also For so much as we have that War in hand wherein with worldly Felicity whereof amongst you I hold the chief Place is also endangered our Religion and purity of Life the defence and care whereof equally belongeth unto us all for although we differ much one from another in the manner of our Vocation and living here yet after death we all hope for one and the self same Felicity And therefore I would have you to understand all that I shall say as proceeding not of any regard of mine own Private but upon the consideration of the Common Good of you all For as concerning mine own Estate I possess so large Countries in Asia such great Dominions in Europe that either part thereof in good time be it said might seem a sufficient Kingdom so that perhaps it might better stand with my Estate to take more care for keeping of that I have than to travel for the gaining of more but you are to consider with your selves whether you have every man sufficient to suffice himself or not and how long you think your selves assured of the same and moreover that together with these worldly things we shall be driven at length to forsake our Profession and Religion if we shall now lay down Arms. For our Enemies require that we should first cease from War and then afterwards they think it meet to talk of Peace I will not speak of the Indignity that men besieged and in evil plight should propound conditions of Peace to them that besiege them and are well furnished of all things that feeble and cowardly men should promise peace unto couragious and expert Souldiers I omit what labour and pains we have taken in laying our Siege in raising of Mounts in making of Shipping all which our Enemies command us to forsake as if they had us already bound or couped up in hold as we have them All Bulgaria and the greater part of Rascia is now by us conquered and most part of Servia is at our Command all which places are by us either to be kept or else all the rest of that we possess in Europe is with them to be quite lost and forsaken Whosoever shall have in their Power this City which we besiege and that our Enemies know right well shall have not only as it were a Fortress and Bulwark of defence for his own but also a Castle and Entrance for the subduing of others The Kingdom of Hungary is now divided in it self and full of domistical Sedition neither is it so much strengthned by the uniting of the Kingdom of Polonia as it is by civil dissention weakned And in this motion of Peace nothing is sought for but to gain time for the pacifying of their private Quarrels that they may afterward with their double Forces set upon us For if we shall break up our Siege before we have won the City they will easily find delays so long to protract the conclusion of Peace until that either Uladislaus his good Fortune or else the Hungarians being of themselves better advised shall make an end of their Civil Wars What manner and conditions of Peace will they then require of us when they are at Unity amongst themselves and in Arms against us seeing that now being in danger with mutual Discord and almost by us vanquished they think it reasonable as if they had won the Field that we should first raise our Siege and then intreat of Peace Their proud Demands for the Restitution of Bulgaria and Rascia with other Countries and Cities won by our travel and danger already sound in mine ears which if we shall refuse to grant not only the Hungarians being then at Unity among themselves but also the Polonians joyned unto them will bring those Wars home to our doors which we now at great advantage make upon them troubled with discord and civil broils And if for desire of Peace we could be content to yield unto such shameful and miserable Conditions and restore unto them all they should or in reason could desire do you think the Prince of Servia would rest contented with his own whose haughty mind I am sure being inflate with the combining of two such mighty Kingdoms thinketh not only of the recovery of that he hath lost but even now gapeth at all that is Ours in Europe He will not think himself satisfied before he having brought the Hungarian and Polonian Forces against us shall see the same havock and spoil made in our Kingdom with Fire and Sword which he hath before seen made by us in his own Where if his Fortune should answer his Designs which God forbid but yet it may chance desire all the miserable and intolerable Outrages which are to be feared of an angry Conqueror it is accounted with them for a godly and religious Work to use all cruel and unspeakable Villanies against our Nation except we will forsake the Faith and Religion delivered unto us by our Ancestors and follow their new and incredible Ceremonies Neither do they think they can more easily and effectually procure the Favor of God with any kind of Sacrifice or Service than by overthrowing and prophaning our Temples by scoffing at our most sacred and secret Rites and Ceremonies by scorning our Religion and Priests and that you may know all the Fury wherewith they rage against us and our Religion they account all them for holy Saints which die in fight against us There is no cause valiant Souldiers that upon the vain hope of Peace we should expect whilst the Enemy doth gather and unite his Forces and Arms against us especially such an Enemy as propoundeth not spoil and worldly Honours but Immortality it self as a reward of his Victory We have already taken much more labour than we have to take we have filled the Ditches with restless labour we have cast up Bulwarks equal with the Walls and part of the Walls we have beaten even with the ground so that you see the Town half opened and that Town by gaining whereof all that Ours is may be made safe and quiet and that which our Enemy possesseth subject to our spoil and prey If you will
but a little enforce your selves as men mindful of our good Fortune and forwardness you shall find our Temples our Sacrifices our Religion all worldly and heavenly felicity to be then assured unto us when as you shall to morrow overthrow the very Foundation of the Enemies Wall. Then couragious Souldiers we may cry Victory not for the present but for ever If this War should bring unto us nothing else but an assured security of our Estate it were sufficient reward for which we ought chearfully to adventure our selves to all dangers and to challenge in Combate even death it self But as this Victory doth defend all our things as with a deep Trench or sure Wall so doth it lay open and expose all our Enemies Dominions unto danger and spoil Hitherto we have striven with Nature her self in the rough and abrupt Mountains of Bulgaria and Rascia where we were to strive with Hunger Thirst Labour and Desperation all them we have overcome allured with no other reward but that at length we might attain unto the Wealth of fruitful Hungary from whence we must fetch the guerdon of our Victory and the ground of our Glory We are come to the Gates which being laid open we are not to pass over inaccessible Rocks or uncoth Desarts but we shall go through most pleasant places decked both by Nature her self and the industry of man where the temperateness of the Air and lively Springs with the fruitfulness of the Soil doth every where yield plenty of all manner of food both for Man and Beast not only to serve for Natures necessity but even to glut our wanton desires What thing soever curious endeavour hardly bringeth forth in other places that the fertility of the Soil yieldeth plentifully of it self so that it is to be thought that Nature adorned Hungary with a certain extraordinary Care when as she would set forth a pattern of good Husbandry for other Countries to imitate Neither hath she in any place been more bountiful in bestowing her rich Gifts for Gold which other men most painfully dig up and that in few places the Hungarians gather at their ease as if it were a growing Plant. It is in your power worthy Souldiers whether you will to morrow open a way to all these good things for your selves for ever or else leave the way open for your Enemies unto all that you hold I would that you would remember when you go unto the Breach that all the store of happy Fortune is laid open unto you for a Prey without any other defence without any other Garrison without any other Keeper and that behind you are your Wives Children your Houses your Temples and Religion together with the rewards of all your former Victories over whom except you win this City the fury and insolency of the victorious Enemy will most cruelly and shamefully insult I according as I shall see you fight at the Breach to morrow shall easily perceive how you are set down to Command as Conquerors or else as Slaves to be commanded and also what to answer to the most insolent Demands of the proud Embassadors In the mean time make much of your selves and together with your Armor have all things in readiness that to morrow with the dawning of the day we may assault the Breach The Turkish Captains for that time joyfully departed as if they had been already assured of the Victory and of all those good things which Amurath had so lively set before their eyes The next morning very early Amurath commanded the Assault to be given to a great Breach which he had made in the Wall with continual Battery the Souldiers with great courage assailed the Breach especially the Janizaries who under the leading of Haly Bassa valiantly won the same and were entring the City with assured hope of Victory The Christians seeing all in danger to be lost running to the Breach from all parts of the City so forcibly charged the proud Janizaries on every side that they were glad to retire with more hast than they before entred in which Retreat many of them were slain and the rest flying out at the Breach were either slain or burnt to death in the Town-Ditch with Wild-fire whereof the Defendants had cast great store upon the Turks at the Breach which having taken hold upon the Faggots Hurdles and other light matter wherewith the Turks had upon the sudden made their way over the Town-Ditch did so terribly burn that the Janizaries which had entred the Breach being again repulsed were in that fiery Lake consumed or else with smoke strangled In this Assault Amurath is reported to have lost 8000 of his best Men beside 7000 others overwhelmed or strangled in the Mines by the Countermines of the Christians The other part of the Turks which at the same time assaulted the City by Water out of their Gallies and small Ships had as evil or rather worse Success many of them were sunk with great Shot and some burnt by the fire cast from the Walls and so fired one another and divers of them in that sudden fear for avoiding of that present danger ran aground upon the shelfs in the River and so split Amurath wonderfully discouraged with the slaughter of his men and shamefully beaten from the Assault returned to his Camp with his Turks much like men which had lately escaped from some great shipwrack And thus partly by Famine and partly by the Defendants force having lost the greatest part of his Army he determined now after seven months Siege to return home Yet because he would not encourage his Enemies by shewing his fear he sent for the Embassadors into the Camp and with stern Countenance answered them in this sort We will said he then talk of Peace when Uladislaus shall deliver unto us all that part of Rascia which he yet holdeth and also this City of Belgrade as a pledge of the League And for this time I will raise my Siege to give Uladislaus time to advise himself yet I would wish him rather to accept of my friendship upon these Conditions than by denying that little which is demanded to hazard the State of both his Kingdoms I ask but that which is mine own by Law of Arms before Uladislaus was called into Hungary and the Hungarians cannot transfer unto him that Right which they had not themselves Wherefore if he will proceed rather to strive for that which is other mâ—ns than quietly to possess his own I will in good time repair hither again with my God the Beholder and Revenger of Wrong With this Answer he dismissed the Embassadors and forthwith rose with his Army sore repenting his coming thither yet because he would take something in his way he left his Nephew Isa-Beg with certain Troops of Horsemen at Scopia in Servia who so troubled the King of Bosna that he was glad to require Peace of Amurath and to promise unto him a yearly Tribute of five and twenty
distant from Petrella three miles strongly situate upon the top of a Mountain near unto the River Aemathus Scanderbeg had scarcely well encamped himself before this City but that the Governor thereof terrified with the fortune of Croia and Petrella offered to deliver up the City on the same Conditions that were granted at Petrella which being agreed upon the City was forthwith delivered and the Conditions by Scanderbeg faithfully performed Petra-Alba being thus taken and all things set in order Scanderbeg carried with the course of his Victory without delay came to Stellusa which is also a strong City of Aemathia fifty miles distant from Croia pleasantly as it were of purpose built upon the top of an high Hill standing in the midst of a pleasant and fruitful Valley with great Plains round about it There Scanderbeg encamped a little before the going down of the Sun and rested that night In the morning he sent a Messenger to the City with like conditions as were accepted at Petrella and Petra-Alba which most part of the Garrison-Souldiers of the Turks would gladly have accepted but that Desdrot the Governor of the City with some few others earnestly withstood the rest whereupon a great Contention arose amongst the Garrison Souldiers But the greater part desirous to yield up the City when they could by no means perswade the Governor and those few which took his part to yield to their desires they violently set upon him and delivered him with the rest to Scanderbeg fast bound and so yielded up the City For which Fact fearing to return to Amurath some of them remained with Scanderbeg and afterwards became Christians the rest were either honestly provided for or else well rewarded and suffered to depart whether they would All the other weaker places of Epirus wherein any of the Turkish Garrisons lay hearing that the strongest Cities were already delivered unto Scanderbeg in short time yielded themselves upon like conditions only Sfetigrade otherwise called the holy City remained in the possession of the Turks which City is placed in the upper Country of Dibra in the Frontiers of Epirus upon the top of an high and steep Hill as if it were an Eagles nest Unto this City came Scanderbeg with all his Army and having placed his Tents he began first to assay if he could gain it by Composition as he had done the rest and the rather to move them by the examples of others he caused his Embassadors to declare unto them all that had happened at Croia Petrella Petra-Alba and Stellusa specially how he had used the Garrison of Stellusa which yielded unto him with all bounty and courtesie and how that on the contrary part he had the Governor in bands with all his wilful Partakers whom they should presently see executed before their faces if they forthwith delivered not the City This Message troubled the minds of all the Garrison but especially of the Governor seeing before his eyes in the woful example of another man what might by and by happen unto himself Wherefore fearing to deliver his own opinion and to give answer unto the Embassador for offending the inconstant multitude and unknown minds of the people he first entertained the Embassadors honourably and afterwards turning himself unto the Citizens and Souldiers said unto them Worthy men and most faithful Souldiers what is your pleasure or what shall we answer to these our Enemies demands Then one of the Souldiers that stood by a rough bold spirited Fellow unwilling for his own part to give up the City and deeming the Governor to be of the same mind in that he had termed them worthy and faithful and Scanderbeg by the name of the Enemy drawing out his Sword and with his right hand shaking it on high answered Most valiant Governor this same and the like shall make answer for us Nothing was to less purpose than with premeditated words to seek to terrifie valiant minds first with the divers Fortune of Croia and then of Stellusa for as the faces and countenances of men are divers so also are their minds and dispositions Every man wisely directeth his own actions according to his own proper humor and by the same plays the Fool or Bedlam We prescribe no Laws to them of Petrella nor to them of Stellusa neither let them prescribe any unto us Let never so base examples of cowardly Slaves ever enter into the thoughts of couragious men brave minds disdain to imitate other men in their honest Actions much less in their Cowardise And why for every man liveth after his own fashion Wherefore let Scanderbeg proceed let him kill the Governor of Stellusa before our faces let him sacrifice our fellow Souldiers do you therefore think that we shall die in their Bodies shall our living spirits be there extinguished shall our blood there be spilt But O happy Bodies O ghosts of men ever to be revenced which in worthy defence of your Liberty and Faith have indifferently contemned Gold Silver Death and Torture and whatsoever else miserable Worldlings hold dear or dismal Wherefore carry thou back again unto thy Master this Answer from a Common Souldier If he seek to impose these conditions upon us let him once more bare that arm of his which men of courage fear not so much as he thinketh He may peradventure inforce us to these conditions of his if God forsake us but assuredly perswade us unto them shall he never And yet for all that your Master Scanderbeg is not the man we have long since heard him reported to be of an honourable mind easie to forgive and such a one as will indifferently judge betwixt the Enemy and himself for why then doth he hold in bonds the Governor of Stellusa for that he freely justly and honourably stood in defence of his King his Faith and Liberty Why doth he threaten him with death whereas he hath not deserved the same although he hath resolutely offered himself thereunto for defence of his liberty All they which were present listned with great attention to the Souldiers Speech neither was he interrupted by any until he had said what he would Then the Souldiers thronging about him and beating their Swords and Targets together withall gave a great shout in token that they all approved his Speech for answer So the Governor encouraged with the chearfulness of his Souldiers returned the Embassador without other Answer than that of the Common Souldiers and presently appointed every man to his Charge and with great carefulness ordered all things for the better defence of the City But when Scanderbeg had heard the Answer that was sent him from the City delivered by the mouth of a Common Souldier he smiled thereat and said He is undoubtedly a valiant Souldier if his Deeds be answerable to his Speeches but if my force fail me not I will make him happy amongst the happy ghosts of them of Stellusa and by and by commanded the Governor of Stellusa with the
Italians upon whom he shewed his Tyranny with most exquisite and horrible Torments Paulus Ericus Governor of the City with a few others who with him were fled into the Castle without resistance delivered the same unto him upon his faithful Promise that they might in safety depart but after he had got them into his Power the perfidious Tyrant without regard commanded them all to be cruelly murthered The Governors Daughter a Maiden of incomparable beauty was amongst the rest taken Prisoner and for her rare Perfection by them that took her presented to Mahomet as the Mirrour of Beauty The barbarous Tyrant greedy of so fair a Prey sought first by flattering words and fair perswasion to induce her to consent to his desire but when he could not so prevail he fell into another vain and began to shew himself in his own nature threatning her with Death Torture and Force worse than Death it self if she would not otherwise yield unto his Appetite Whereunto the constant Virgin worthy eternal Fame answered so resolutely and so contrary to the Tyrants expectation that he being therewith enraged commanded her to be presently slain The horrible and monstrous Cruelty with the filthy Outrages by that beastly and barbarous people committed at the taking of that City passeth all credit Chalcis thus won the rest of that fruitful Island without further resistance yielded unto the Turish slavery under which it yet groaneth This Calamity happened unto the Venetian State or rather to say truly to the general hurt of the Christian Common-weal in the year of our Redemption 1470. Canalis the Venetian Admiral who all the time of the Siege had in the sight of the City lien at Anchor as a looker on fearing now the City was lost to be set upon by the Turks Fleet hoised Sail and laded with dishonor returned in haste unto Venice where he was by the Commandment of the Senate committed to Prison and afterward with all his Family exiled to Utinum year 1471. Shortly after when Mahomet was departed with his Army out of Euboea and his Fleet returned to Constantinople the Venetians with their Gallies attempted to have upon the sudden surprised the City a little before lost But Mahomet had therein left so strong a Garrison that when the Venetians had landed their Men they were again enforced to retire to their Gallies and to forsake their Island Chalcis thus lost with all the Island of Euboea the Venetians chose Petrus Mocenicus a valiant and discreet Gentleman Admiral of their Fleet in stead of Canalis and by their Embassadors solicited Sixtus the Fourth of that Name then Bishop of Rome and Ferdinand King of Naples with Lewis King of Cyprus and the grand Master of the Rhodes to joyn their Forces together with theirs against the great and common Enemy which thing all the aforesaid Christian Princes promised them to do And the more to intangle the Turk they at the same time sent Caterinus Zenus their Embassador with rich Presents unto Alymbeius Usun-Cassanes the great King of Persia to incite him on that side against the Turk in which Negotiation Zenus so well behaved himself that the next year following that great King took up Arms against Mahomt and had with him mortal Wars as shall be in convenient place hereafter declared Mahomet not ignorant of the proceedings of the Venetians and that they did what they might to stir up as many Enemies as they could and to bring him if it were possible into hatred with the whole World and well knowing how much he had offended the minds of the Christian Princes with the cruelty he had of late used against them of Chalcis thought it not best as then further to provoke them and so happily to bring all at once about his ears but for a season to lie still at Constantinople as if he had been desirous now to live in peace not meaning further harm hoping therâ—by that although he concluded no Peace with any of them which inded he was not desirous of yet that tract of time might mittigate the hainousness of the fact and cool the heat of their displeasure whereby it came to pass as he wished that nothing worth the speaking of was that year attempted against him and because the Persian King was the man of whom he stood most in doubt he sought by his Embassadors to pacifie him and to withdraw him from the League of the Christians requesting him if it were for nothing else but for the Community of the Mahometan Religion wherein they well agreed and were thereby the professed Enemies of the Christians to withdraw his hand and in their cause to cease to take up Arms urging now for that it so stood with his purpose the zeal of Religion whereas otherwise he regarded as was thought no Religion at all But Zenus the Venetian Embassador lying continually in the Persian Court so wrought the matter with Usun-Cassanes that he told the Turks Embassadors plainly That he could nor would not longer endure the manifest injury and wrong done unto him by the Turkish King and farther that he had made a faithful League with the Christian Princes and therefore would to the uttermost of his Power make it known unto the World that he would effectually perform what thing soever he had promised and so dismissed them now no less discontented than were before the Persian Embassadors at such time as they returned from the Turks Court having obtained nothing they then requested concerning the Emperor of Trapâ—zond The year following year 1472. Mocenicus the Venetian Admiral with his Fleet arrived in the Isle of Lesbos where he did great harm From thence he passed the Bay of Adramittium into the lesser Asia and so spoiled the Country about Pergamus After that he landed again at Cnidus upon the coast of Caria where he took a great Booty and so having done the Turks exceeding much harm in Asia all alongst the Sea coast opposite to Graecia he returned laden with spoil towards Peloponnesus In his return about the Promontory of Malea upon the coast of Peloponnesus he met with Richaiensis coming unto him with seventeen Gallies from King Ferdinand by whom he was certified that the great Bishops Fleet was ready to come forth also After mutual Gratulation as the manner at Sea is the Admirals joyning their Fleets in one landed at Methone now called Modon then a City of the Venetians in Peloponnesus where after they had well refreshed their Souldiers and taken in fresh Victuals they put to Sea again and sailing through the Islands landed in Asia where they were at their first landing encountred by the Country Turks whom at last they put to flight and by the space of four days took what pillage they could in the Country where the Souldiers found great store of rich Booty especially of Turky Carpets which are there made in great abundance From thence they sailed to Halicarnassus which is part of Caria where sometime stood
power of the Turk without the help of such base minded Cowards In the mean time he commanded them to surcease from their mutinous talk threatning otherwise to make them examples to others what it is so much to forget themselves But these Spaniards shortly after better considering of the matter and what a dishonour it would be both to themselves and their Nation if they should so dishonourably be sent away repenting themselves of that they had done came and craved pardon of the Great Master and to redeem their former fault in all sallies and services during that Siege shewed themselves most valiant and forward men for all that the Great Master would never afterwards trust them in any service alone The Bassa attempting much and prevailing little thought it would much further his designs if he could by any means take the Great Master out of the way by whose careful policy he saw all his devices still countermanded wherefore to bring this his purpose to pass he practised by the means of one Ianus a Dalmatian to poyson him This Ianus having conceived this Treason from the Bassa was received into the City of the Rhodes as a Christian Fugitive fled from the Turks where he acquainted himself with one Pythius an Epirot of great familiarity with Marius Philelphus of late Secretary unto Damboyse but as then out of favour and in disgrace for that he was partaker with the Spaniards in the late mutiny Ianus by the means of Pythius whom he had now throughly corrupted sought after Philelphus who then as he right well knew lived discontented as a fit instrument whereby to work this Treason for that he was a man well acquainted with the Cooks and Butlers and other Servitors in the Great Masters House and himself yet there very conversant also Pythius presuming of his old acquaintance and familiarity with Philelphus and waiting upon his melancholy humor began to perswade him to revenge the disgrace he lived in and withal to shew him the means how to do it by poysoning the Great Master which might as he said fall out to his greater good than he was yet aware of Philelphus making semblance as if he had not disliked of the motion was desirous to know of him what farther benefit might thereby arise to him more than revenge To whom Pythius forthwith shewed the Bassaes Letters to Ianus whereby he assured him that whatsoever he should promise unto any man for the furtherance of the practice he would to the full perform the same Philelphus having got full understanding of the Treason presently discovered the same to Damboyse By whose commandment Ianus and Pythius were straitwaies apprehended and being examined confessed the Treason for which Ianus lost his Head and Pythius as he had well deserved was shamefully hanged Philelphus for his Fidelity was pardoned his former error and again received into the Great Masters favour The Bassa understanding that the Treason was discovered and the Traitors executed was much grieved therewith Nevertheless he ceased not with continual battery to shake the City but especially the Tower of S. Nicholas for the assailing whereof he made wonderful preparation Amongst other things he had framed a great Bridge staied with strong Ropes and Cables over a short fret of the Sea betwixt the place of his Battery and the same Tower whereon six men might march abreast in which device he reposed great hope But as the Turks were making fast this Bridge and had as they thought brought the work to a good perfection Gervaise Rogers an Englishman of great courage and very skilful in Sea matters found means by night to cut and break in sunder all the Ropes and Cables wherewith the Bridge was staid which now looâ—e was by the violence of the Sea quickly carried away and the Turks disappointed of their purpose For which good service he was by the Great Master honourably rewarded and of him in publick audience highly commended Yet was the furious Battery by the Bassa still maintained and a new Bridge framed upon small Boats and Lighters fast moored with Cables and Anchors and divers Pieces of great Ordnance placed in Fusts and Gallies So that the Tower was at one time battered both by Sea and Land the Defendants assailed with small Shot and Arrows innumerable and the Tower at the same instant desperately scaled But Damboyse had so placed his great Ordnance that with the force thereof the Bridge was broken in sunder four of their great Fusts sunk with great store both of Men and Ordnance the Defendants also in the Tower with Shot Timber Stones and other such like things provided for that purpose grievously overwhelmed the Turks that were scaling the Walls and beat them down with great slaughter This hot Assault was desperately maintained by the Turks from three a clock in the morning untill ten when the Bassa seeing no hope to prevail gave over the Assault having therein lost above two thousand five hundred men whose dead bodies shortly after driven on shore were spoiled by the Christians The same night two Mercenary Souldiers of Crete going about to have fled unto the Enemy were apprehended and put to death And George Frapaine who in the beginning of the Siege fled from the Turks now again vehemently suspected of Treason was executed also Thus neither Force nor Treason prevailing the Bassa because he would leave nothing unproved that might better his cause sent certain Messengers unto the Great Master offering to him in the name of the Turkish Emperor great Rewards with many honourable Preferments if he would yield up the City which he could not as they would have perswaded him long hold against so mighty an Enemy wishing him now in his declining estate not to refuse such honourable and princely Offers for fear he were afterwards constrained to accept of far worse or else through his desperate wilfulness plunge himself and his People into such extreme peril as should be impossible for him or them to find any way out of Whereunto the Great Master in brief answered That he would not willingly in his sure estate use the counsel of his Enemy neither in his greatest distress refuse chearfully to yield his Life unto Almighty God to whom he did ow it and that with far better Will than to yield up the City upon any conditions bear they never so fair a shew of honour or profit The Messengers perceiving his constant resolution rather to die than to yield his City began according to instructions before given them by the Bassa to temper with him another way and to perswade him to yield unto the mighty Emperor some small yearly Tribute or other Homage as an acknowledgment of his greatness and so to live as his Friend in Peace But the Great Master knowing by the woful example of others that in that small request lay included the beginning of the Turkish Thraldom and Slavery utterly refused to pay him the least Tribute or to do him the
commandment honourably buried at Pamphilona But to return again from whence we have something too long with this troublesome Body gone astray The French King having thus lost both his great Hostages Zemes the Turk by death and the Cardinal Borgia by escape held on his journey towards Naples and with wonderful success prevailed as he went all places yielding unto him without any great resistance Alphonsus seeing himself destitute of such aid as he had in vain requested both of the Turkish Emperor and of the Venetians and now almost beset with his mighty Enemy to whom so many strong places had in shorter time been delivered than any man had before imagined and withal considering with himself how that he had lost the hearts of his Subjects the strongest defence of Princes for that most of the Nobility and especially the Neapolitans hated him for his too much severity in punishing the Offenders in the late Rebellion wherein the Princes of Sarne and Salerne were chief and the common People were no less offended with the grievous and heavy exactions required of them for the maintenance of these Wars insomuch that their murmuring Speeches came oftentimes to his own hearing as oftentimes it falleth out That the hatred of the Subjects against their Princes which hath for fear of long time been dissembled during their prosperity more frankly and fiercely breaketh out in their declining estate for these causes Alphonsus fearing to be forsaken of his People as a man in despair with abundance of tears openly in the sight of all the Neapolitans resigned his Kingdom of Naples to his son Ferdinand when as he had as yet scarcely reigned one whole year after the death of Ferdinand his Father and with four Gallies passed over to Mazerea a City of Cicilia His Son Ferdinand a Prince of rare perfection and singularly graced with all the vertues of true Nobility and thereto dearly beloved of all the People was to the wonderful contentment of the Neapolitans with great joy and acclamations saluted King and so having performed all the Ceremonies belonging to his Coronation returned presently to his Army By this time the French King with all his Forces was entred far into the Kingdom of Naples and having taken by Assault certain Cities which trusted too much to their own strength struck such a general terror into the minds of the Neapolitans that they thought no place now strong enough to abide his batteries or power sufficient to abide his Forces Ferdinand the young King with his Army had taken the Straits of the Forrest of S. Germane thereby to impeach the further passage of the French King. But whilst he was there busied he was suddainly advertised that Fabritius Columna with a great power of Frenchmen had by the Appenines broken into Campania and so was marching towards him wherefore doubting to be shut up betwixt two strong Armies of the Enemies he retired speedily to Capua a strong City situate upon the River Vulturnus purposing there by means of that deep River to stay the French from passing farther But whilst he lay there news was brought unto him That all the City of Naples was in an uprore and that the Citizens were all up in Arms as men in doubt which way to turn themselves Ferdinand not a little troubled with these bad news commended the charge of his Army and the defence of the City of Capua to his chief Captains and rid himself in post back again to Naples It is a strange thing to tell what a suddain alteration ensued upon his arrival there for suddainly all the tumult was appeased every man laid down his Arms and welcomed him with a general gratulation for he was a man of a great and invincible Courage and of so comely a Personage as might easily with the hearts of his Subjects insomuch that when he earnestly requested them that they would not traiterously betray him to his barbarous and cruel Enemies being their natural King or rather their Brother born and brought up amongst them they all with one consent answered That they would spend their Lives and Goods in his quarrel so long as he should keep his Army whole and defend the City of Capua but if it should so chance that the Aragonians should be overthrown or else for fear abandon that City and the French King as Victor to approach the City of Naples he should do both against reason and equity if by exacting Fidelity and Allegiance of his Subjects apprehended with so just a fear he should so expose that noble City with the fruitful Country thereabout to be spoiled and destroyed by a merciless and cruel Enemy Whilst Ferdinand was thus busied in appeasing and confirming his wavering Subjects at Naples the French King had taken divers Cities and was come before Capua The Citizens of Capua although they were alwaies well affected to the Aragonian Kings yet seeing the French King as a most violent Tempest to bear down all before him began now to consult amongst themselves of yielding up the City whereunto they were the more prickt forward by the suddain revolt of the great Captain Trivultius with his Followers as also by the departure of Verginius and Petilianus two great and famous Commanders who seeing themselves forsaken of Trivultius fled with their Companies unto the City of Nola. In this discomfiture of King Ferdinands Army the Frenchmen had entred into the Suburbs of the City which thing Gothfredus and Gaspar two valiant German Captains beholding sallied with their Companies out of the City of purpose to abate the pride of the French and to confirm the doubtful Citizens These worthy Captains when they had with exceeding Valour repulsed the French and thought to have again returned into the City could not be suffered to enter but were by the Citizens shut out of the Gate in danger to have had their Throats cut by the Eenmy In which perplexity they were glad upon their knees to intreat the cowardly Citizens standing upon the Walls not in such traiterous manner to betray their Friends ready in their defence to bestow their lives and with much intreating at length obtained of those heartless men that they they might by ten and ten in a Company be received in at one Gate of the City and so put out at another farthest from the danger of the Enemy in which sort when they had passed through the City they took the way towards Naples and upon the way met with the King at Aversa unto whom they declared all that had hapned in his absence at Capua who although he saw his Army dispersed and all things now desperate yet went he on forward and came to the very Gates of Capua and there called upon divers of the chief men of the City requiring to be let in But when he saw there was none to give him answer and an Ensign of the French King displaied upon the Wall in token that the City was become French he returned to
sent for the imperious Letter of the Turkish Tyrant was openly read before the Knights of the Order and the better sort of the Citizens Whereunto the Great Master accounting it both honour enough and sufficient term of life honourably to die answered in this sort You heard sacred Fellows in Arms and valiant Citizens of the Rhodes these imperious and sorrowful Letters whereunto how we are to answer requireth no great deliberation we must as resolute Men either yield or die all hope of the Victory is gone except forraign Aid come Wherefore if you will follow my Counsel let us with Weapons in our Hands until the last Gasp and the spending of the last drop of our Blood like valiant Men defend our Faith and Nobility received from our Ancestors and the Honour which we have so long time gotten both at Home and Abroad and let it never be said that our Honour died but with our Selves This Speech of the Great Master seemed unto mâ—ny heavier than the imperious Commandment of the Turkish Tyrant and a great while Men stood silent heavily looking one upon another many with changing of their countenance and outward gesture more than by words expressing what they thought in heart At length a certain Greek Priest with great compassion of mind as it seemed and Tears trickling down his Cheeks brake forth into these words And I would also hold my peace if I were a private Man and not first of all in so great and troubled assembly broach mine own opinion But forasmuch as the regard of our common preservation can wring a word out of no Mans mouth and all Men know that now is the time to speak and say what every Man thinketh best which shall neither always nor long be granted unto us I will not let it now overpass and slip away Wherefore let us suppose that no command of a most mighty Prince besieging us were come unto us but that I were reasoning as a private Man with his Neighbour or one Friend with another by the fire side or in our cups without care without any great affection to either party as Men indifferent not liking or hating as Men oftentimes do of Princes Affairs which concern them nothing and then as I hope my Speech shall be unto you neither unpleasant nor unprofitable We Greeks and Latins with joyned Arms have now these six Months withstood our deadly Enemies not only abroad before our Walls but also in the very bowels of our City without any forreign help which as we have of long time all vainly looked for so are we now every one of us out of hope thereof And yet our Enemy either moved with the secret goodness of God or else ignorant of our strength and forces spent with Wounds Slaughter Sickness and perpetual Labour doth voluntarily offer that unto us which was of us to be most of all desired and earnestly sued for Your publick and private Treasures the bodies of your selves your Wives and Children he keepeth unviolated he taketh from us only the City which he hath for most part already beaten down and taken Worthy Great Master and you most valiant Knights I have known prowess and valour in many Battels at Sea but especially in this Siege whereof seeing there is no more use in this our desperate estate I do appeal unto your wisdom and discretion Since all is now the Conquerors in that he leaveth unto us our lives and Goods that is to be accounted gains and the yielding up of the City and Island no loss which the victorious Enemy already commandeth which although it be a heavy matter and grievous unto the Nobility yet your Fortune perswadeth you thereunto Wherefore if you be to be moved with any compassion I account it better to yield than to be slain our selves or to see your Wives and Children by Law of Arms to be led away before your Faces into miserable Captivity and Servitude If any Christian compassion remain in your warlike Minds I beseech you seek not the utter destruction of this innocent People who I may with modesty say hath not evil deserved of you whom Christ Iesus whom the Enemy himself would have preserved That I say this which I speak unto you for Christian Charity and for no other cause let this be a sufficient Testimony That so long as you were able to resist by your own power or hoped for Aid from forrein Princes I never spake word or once thought of yielding but now seeing the fatal ruine of all things about us our common Estate brought unto the uttermost extremity our deadly Enemy in the heart of our City no hope and that the War cannot longer be protracted I wish you to yield and for my part had rather make choice of Peace than War and to prove the Enemies Favour than his Fury Most of them there present were of the same mind with the Priest. But as nothing can be so reasonably spoken as to content all Men so this Speech was not of them all liked some there were though not many which considering the harms they had done unto the Turks and doubting with what safety they might yield themselves into the power of that faithless People had rather to have fought it out to the last Man and so to have left unto them a bloody Victory Amongst these one bold spoken Fellow stept forth and in presence of them all disswaded the yielding up of the City in this sort I have not been with any thing more unacquainted than to deliver my opinion before Princes or in such great and publick Assemblies being always more desâ—rous modestly to hear other Mens Opinions than impudently to thrust forth mine own But now seeing extream necessity will not longer suffer me to keep my wonted course of silence I will frankly speak my Mind and tell you what in my Opinion is to bâ— answered unto the heavy Message and imperious Command of the most prefidious Tyrant This cruel Enemy hath overthrown our Wall and is entred three hundred Foot and more within our City and as a most troublesome Guest liveth and converseth with us as it were under the same Roof Such as list not longer to endure such an unwelcome Guest and troublesome Neighbour perswade you because he is troublesome to give him all but worthy and sacred Knights I am of far different Opinion neither do I think a Possession of two hundred and fourteen Years is so lightly to be delivered up and the Ground forsaken but rather that this troublesome Intruder is in like manner to be himself troubled and with deadly Skirmishes continually vexed whom after we had by force of Arms and undaunted Courage maugre his Head held out five Months at length he brake into our City not by any Valour in himself but holpen by time which tameth all things and since his first entrance it is now almost forty days in which time for all his hast he hath scarcely got forward a hundred
away into Captivity Women ravished before their Husbands faces and afterwards slain with their Children young Infants were ript out of their Mothers Wombs and others taken from their Breasts were cut in pieces or else thrâ—â—t upon sharp Stakes yielding up again that breath which they had but a little before received with many other incredible Cruelties which were then by the merciless Enemy committed Solyman himself shortly after followed these forerunners and seting forward with all his Army from Buda towards Vienna by the way took the Castle of Altenbourg whether by force or composition is diversly reported of the Garrison Souldiers there placed by King Ferdinand he reserved three hundred Bohemians whom he commanded to follow his Camp. He also assaulted the little City of Neapolis seven times in one day and was as often repulsed but being loath to spend any longer time about a Town of so small importance he forsook that and held on his way to Vienna whither he came about the six and twentieth day of September and incamped in five places round about the City with such a World of People that unto them which viewed his Camp from the highest Tower in Vienna it seemed that the ground was for the space of eight miles all covered with the multitude of his Tents and People King Ferdinand who from the time that he had by his Embassador Oberdanscus received the hard answer from Solyman alwaies stood in doubt of his coming and beside his own Forces which were not great to oppose against so mighty an Enemy craved Aid of the Christian Princes his Neighbours especially of the Princes of the Empire Who granting him Aid against the common Enemy appointed Frederick Count Palatine of Rhene and Duke of Bavaria General of their Forces But whilst the Germans after their manner slowly set forward and made less hast than the greatness of the present danger required Solyman coming in the mean time had so belaid the City that it was not possible for Duke Fredrick by any means to get into it but was glad to stay with his Army at Chremse about twelve miles from Vienna A few days before by good hap upon the report of the loss of Buda twenty thousand Souldiers Horsemen and Footmen out of divers Countries were in good time come to Vienna Amongst these the chief Commanders was Philip the Palsgrave Duke Fredericks Nephew a young Gentleman of great Courage and Hope sent thither but a little before with a few Companies of Horsemen and Footmen by Frederick his Uncle who was coming after with a great power himself but was now shut out of the City by Solyman Nicholaus Count of Salma the Lord William Rogendorff Steward of the Kings Houshold Ioannes Cazzianer a noble man of Croatia and afterwards Governor of Vienna and next unto them Nicholaus Turrianus Ioannes Hardecus Leonardus Velsius Hector Ramsack Men both for their Birth and Valour of great account amongst the Gâ—â—mans The City of Vienna as it was of some good strength toward the North by reason of Danubius so in other places it was at that time neither by Art nor Nature strong The Ditches such as they were were altogether dry and easie to be passed over the Walls of Brick built round without any Flankers and neither high nor thick but after the ancient simple manner of Fortification of Cities for before that time neither had King Ferdinand fearing no Enemy neither they of Vienna who had not of many years seen an Enemy had any care to fortifie the City but as men altogether buried in security and nothing fearing the coming of so mighty an Enemy although they were thereof before admonished by Oberdanscus had not so much as cast up any Rampier or Bulwark more than at the Gate of Carinthia whereon they might conveniently place their great Ordnance so that of an hundred great Pieces and three hundred others of less charge which might have wonderfully annoyed the Enemy a great part served to no use for want of convenient place to mount them upon Yet as the suddain coming of the Enemy and the shortness of the time gave leave such Bulwarks as they could upon the suddain they cast up and planted their Ordnance thereon The City was divided into divers quarters and to every part a strong Garrison appointed for the defence thereof all the Gates of the City were mured up except such as were of purpose reserved to sally out at Now had Abraham the great Bassa encamped himself upon an high Hill where stood a ruinous Castle from whence he might overlook all the City yet so as that he lay out of danger of Gun shot Becrambeius Solymans great Commander in Asia lay at the Gate called Pâ—rgatoria near the Church of Saint Ulderich In the third Camp towards the rising of the Hills lay Michael-Ogli towards the Church of Saint Vitus At the Scottish Gate toward Danubius lay the Aspi with divers Companies of the Janizaries which with Shot out of their Trenches suffered no man to appear upon the Walls in that quarter without most manifest danger and poured such showers of Arrows over the Walls into City as if they had fallen out of the Clouds that hardly could any man stir in the City unarmed but he was forthwith wounded Solyman himself lay near unto Saint Marks Church compassed about with the Janizaries and other Souldiers of the Court defended also with the brick Walls of the Gardens thereabouts Whilst the Turks were thus incamping themselves the Christian Defendants oftentimes fortunately sallied out upon them and slew many of them In one of which sallies Wolfgangus Hagen a valiant Captain with cetain old Souldiers of the Spaniards was slain fighting most valiantly at the Gates of the Castle and in another skirmish Christopherus Zetlitz a man of great courage sallying out of the City with five hundred Horsemen even unto the Enemies Trenches was intercepted and taken with six others of his Company who were all compelled by the Turks to carry so many Heads of their slain Fellows upon Poles and so presented unto Solyman of whom he inquired many things as well concerning Ferdinand himself and where he was as concerning the Princes which had the charge of the City whether they were in hope to defend the same against his mighty power or not Whereunto Christopherus aptly and wisely answered although not altogether so truly That King Ferdinand lay not far off at the City of Lintz expecting the Assembly of a great Army and that the Princes of Germany Bohemia Moravia and of divers other places were coming unto him with great Aid so that if he would but stay a little until his Forces were come together he should then see whether of them were of great Strength and Power forasmuch as it would not be long before the King would come and give him Battel as for the Princes in the City he said he knew no more of their minds but that both they and all the Souldiers
Solymans great Fleet contrary to all mens expectation suddainly departing from the Coast of Italy landed in Africk at Biserta a famous Port of the Kingdom of Tunes They of Biserta weary of the government of Muleasses and of themselves desirous of change as soon as they heard the name of Roscetes forthwith drave out their Governor and received the Turks into the Town For Barbarussa had before sent certain of Roscetes his familiar Friends ashore which bare the People in hand that he was in the Fleet but not able to come yet on shore for that he was as they said Sea-sick and troubled with an Ague Biserta thus possessed by Barbarussa he presently departed thence and sayling by Utica thirty miles distant from Biserta and so keeping alongst the Coast and passing the Promontory of Carthage came before Guletta a strong Castle within the Bay of Tunes so placed upon a Strait that it commandeth all the passage by Sea unto the City of Tunes Before this Castle Barbarussa in token of Friendship discharged all his great Ordnance which they of the Castle answered with like but being required to deliver it up to Roscetes they said it should be alwaies at his command that ruled in the City of Tunes The News of Roscetes his supposed coming flying swiftly by land from Biserta to Tunes and the great Fleet once discovered set all the City on an uprore for the Citizens were in great expectation of their new King both for the love of Roscetes who had alwaies shewed himself to be of a mild and bountiful nature and also for the hatred of Muleasses whose tyrannous and covetous Government they thought they had too long endured Neither was he ignorant what report ran of himself and how he had lost the hearts of his Subjects which was evidently to be seen in the eyes and countenances of the chief men of the City And that which more increased their hatred was for that he had not according to his promise to them in time of distress made them any recompence for their goodly Houses and Olive Gardens destroyed in the Country by Roscetes in the former Wars wherefore at such time as he came now out of the Castle and in the greatest Assembly of his People began to perswade them to play the Men and to continue constant in their obedience promising unto them such reward as they knew he was never able to perform they all departed and left him alone yea some of them under the colour of Friendship and amongst them Abdabar then Mesuar which was chief Officer next unto the King perswaded him to give place to his hard fortune and forthwith to flie for by chance at the same instant it was in every mans mouth that the Turks were even at hand which thing caused Muleasses forsaken of his Subjects of himself fearful and worthily doubting to be betraied to flie in such hast out of the City that he left behind him both his Treasure and Jewels which afterwards came into the hands of his Enemies The first that revolted was Abezes a man of great Authority and Fetuches Captain of the Castle both renegate Spaniards Fetuches presently after the flight of Muleasses brought out Roscetes Wife and Children whom Muleasses had long time kept in prison and to welcome their Father placed them in the Kings Royal Seat. Abezes also forthwith advertised Barbarussa of Muleasses departure and with what longing the People exepected their desired King wishing him without delay to repair unto the City and for a Present sent him a goodly Barbarian Horse richly furnished and divers others for his other chief Captains Hereupon Barbarussa without longer stay set forward with five thousand Turks which he had already landed and coming to the City was of the Citizens joyfully received But after long looking when they could no where descry Roscetes their supposed King and heard nothing but the name of Solyman and Barbarussa doubled and redoubled by the Turks in their Military acclamations as they marched through the City towards the Castle they began to distrust as the truth was that in stead of their new King whom they so much desired they had received the Turkish Government which they utterly detested Which suspicion once confirmed by certain of Roscetes his Friends whom Barbarussa had brought with him of purpose to delude the People who grieved to see the ruin of their native Country spared not for fear of the present danger to tell their Friends and Acquaintance as they went That they did in vain look for Roscetes whom they had left in bonds at Constantinople it was a wonder to see how suddainly the minds of the People were changed how speedily they ran to their Weapons and how furiously they assailed the Turks now fearing no such matter and were not as yet all got into the Castle The chief Leader of the Citizens in this tumult was Abdahar the Mesuar who but a little before upon the coming of the Turks by augmenting the danger and the unfaithfulness of his Subjects had perswaded Muleasses to flie but now perceiving himself deceived of his expectation for the coming of Roscets and repenting of that he had one sought by all means to drive out the Turks and to recal Muleasses And the more to animate the People as he stood on high from whence he might best be heard he cried unto them with a loud voice We are most villanously betraied worthy Citizens for Roscetes whom we expected for our lawful King lamenteth his misery in Chains in Prison at Constantinople and we except we presently play the men and valiantly fight for our Liberty shall for ever serve as Slaves to these foreign and merciless Pyrats The present danger of our Estate telleth us that we must presently and without delay take the occasion offered Wherefore let all men that mean not to serve as Slaves and to be bought and sold as Beasts take up Arms against the faithless Turks I my self will be your Leader let us therefore all with one consent with heart and hand revenge this shameful Treachery defend our Country and Liberty with the ancient honour and liberty of the Numidians There was now no time to stay every man had betaken himself to his Weapons Muleasses was again sent for who yet staid in the Suburbs expecting what should happen many of the Turks were slain before they were aware or feared any thing all the City was filled with outcries and clattering of Weapons the number of the Citizens was such as might easily have expulsed the Turks had they been but reasonably armed or well conducted which in a matter so suddain and with men altogether ignorant of service was not possible Yet they armed with fury and encouraged with the multitude of themselves swarmed up as thick as was possible one of the Bulwarks of the Castle which they knew was easiest to be gained where the Turks had set up one of their Ensigns and with
means to defend the place yielded themselves whom Barbarussa according to his promise took to mercy in sparing their lives yet carried them away into Captivity to Constantinople The dead Body of Sarmentus could not be known amongst so many heaps of the dead although Barbarussa had caused most diligent search to be made for it and offered great sums of Mony and liberty also to whosoever could recover it being desirous to have sent his Head for a Present to Solyman Barbarussa proud of this Victory began forthwith to gape after Cattarus a City of the Venetians in the bottom of the same Bay and thereupon writ threatning Letters to Ioannes Bembus one of the Venetian Senators then Governour of the City presently to deliver the City which he would as he said otherwise assault by force Whereunto Bembus answered again by Letters that in so doing he should violate the League lately made with Solyman and that he should find him ready by force to repel his Forces Wherewith Barbarussa displeased sent certain Gallies into the bottom of the Bay who discharging certain great Pieces at the City made shew as if they had come to besiege it At whom Bembus a Man of good courage caused as many more like Pieces to be discharged and shewed his Men upon the Walls Which thing Barbarussa perceiving staid his course and calling back his Gallies returned to Castronovum from whence better appeased with Presents afterwards sent from Bembus he departed out of that Bay. The long Wars betwixt Charles the Emperor and Francis the French King were now well pacified and such friendship at leastwise in shew now grown betwixt these two great Princes that most Men thought that all other quarrels laid aside they would now at length with united Forces go against the great and dangerous Enemy of Christendom which opinion not altogether of the wiser sort believed was yet at this time wonderfully confirmed by many extraordinary and rare courtesies then passing betwixt them which concern not this History as also in that two of their most famous Captains Alphonsus Vastius and Hanebald were as it were with one consent by them both sent Embassadors to Venice to have drawn the Venetians into the Confederation of that War against the Turk Which two renowned Captains coming to Venice most gallantly accompanied were by Landus the Duke and the whole State with great magnificence received the people after their wonted manner flocking together in every place to behold them so noble Captains sent from such mighty Princes but especially Vastius whose Fame having many times before filled their Ears made them now the more desirous to satisfie their Eies also with the beholding of his tall and comely Person Which two famous Captains admitted into the Senate for that purpose fully assembled and Audience given Vastius arising from the Dukes side in these or like words delivered their Embassage It is come to pass as I suppose by the great providence of Almighty God and of all the Divine Powers most noble Duke and honourable Senators that two of the most mighty Kings of Europe who of late had of long time made mortal Wars one upon another touched with the Zeal of Religion are become great Friends undoubtedly to that purpose only that having made a firm Peace they may bring such a general quietness to the long troubled and afflicted State of Christendom as best beseemeth their greatness and taking in hand a sacred War to revenge so many calamities received from the Infidel That this might be made known unto you most noble Venetians these mighty Monarchs have sent us hither in good time to kindle in you the like Zeal wherewith it is well known you have always for the honour of your State been enflamed for you of all others which are of such power and valour at Sea they wish for as their Fellows and Confederates in this sacred War and hoped Victory and think you worthy which should enjoy the especial fruit of all that labour Forasmuch as the Christian Forces once renewed and so great and strong a Fleet once assembled every Man seeth that the Turks must needs be too weak although they brag that they carried away the Victory of late at Actium when as they then escaped the victorious hands of our Men not by their own Valour but by the unexpected hap of a suddain Storm For all the powers of Heaven and Earth and of the Sea also will be propitious unto us uniting so great Forces in regard of our sacred Religion and will so take away the Hearts of the Infidels that they shall learn to be overcome As for our land Forces we are to hope nothing but well forasmuch as unto those which the Emperor of late brought into the Field at Vienna and caused the Turkish Emperor to flie shall be joyned not only all the Horsemen and Infantry of France a wonderful strength but Sigismund also King of Polonia will without delay bring forth his Armies wherewith he hath been used in the quarrel of the Christian Religion happily to fight against the Infidels so that it is not to be doubted of a most certain and assured Victory Wherefore the victorious Emperor and most Christian King Francis most instantly request you to enter into the like godly Cogitations conceived for the general good of the Christian Namâ— and religiously to embrace the hope of a most true and glorious Victory and further exhort you by a wholesome Decree to avert your religious and couragious Hearts from the friendship of the Infidels for it may worthily seem unto your most honourable minds a most foul and shameful thing to have renewed your League and to have preferred an infamous and uncertain Peace before a most religious and just War. Neither doth it beseem this most wealthy State to be terrified from that which is good and right with any Charges of War be they never so great for if we shall once overcome which is incident to this present and long wished occasion we shall by the profit of one Victory either by Sea or Land to your incomparable praise recompence all the Losses by us in former times received Whereunto the Duke in the name of the whole State answered That there never happened any thing at any time unto the Venetian Senate more honourable for the manner of the Embassage or for the publick security of their State more to be desired than the hope of such a Peace after that two most mighty Kings by two such famous Captains their Embassadors did certifie them of their attonement and assured Peace most glorious to themselves to their eternal praise wholesome also to the Venetian State beset with so many dangers and wonderfully to be wished for of all the other Princes of Christendom if they would sincerely and religiously with their Forces by common consent united resolve upon that sacred War for then would not the Venetians be wanting to themselves or the Christian Commonâ—weal but end
wonderful Globe of Silver of most rare and curious device daily expressing the hourly passing of the Time the motion of the Planets the Change and Full of the Moon the motion of the superior Orbs ever moving by certain Wheels and Weights curiously conveyed within the same and exactly keeping due time and motion lively expressing the wonderful motions and conversions of the Celestial Frame A most curious and strange piece of Work devised and perfected by the most cunning Astronomers for Maximilian the Emperor whose noble mind never spared for any Cost to obtain things of rare and strange device The Embassadors passing down the River of Danubius were at their landing first received by Cason the Admiral of Solymans Fleet and by him brought into a rich Tent the ground under their Feet being all covered wich rich Carpets to whom Rustan Bassa sent such good chear as the Camp afforded but especially most excellent Wine no less forbidden the Turks by their Law than desired of the Germans The next day after the great Bassaes feasted the Embassadors Solyman himself dining not far off in his Pavillion at which Feast the Bassaes for the more courtesie dined with the Embassadors not sitting with their Legs gathered under them flat upon the ground as their manner was but sitting in Chairs at a high Table after the manner of the Christians only Mahometes Governor of Belgrade for his Age and Valour an extraordinary Ghest sat down upon a Cussion beneath the Bassaes. Their Chear was only Rice and Mutton and that so plainly and sparingly dressed as if they had thereby noted our gormandise and excess who measure not our Chear by that which Nature requireth but that which greedy Appetite desireth as if therein consisted the greatest Nobility and the Drink for the great Bassaes themselves right easie to be had was fair Water out of the River Danubius After Dinner the Embassadors were brought in unto Solyman each of them led betwixt two Bassaes holding them fast by the Arms as it had been for honours sake and so brought to kiss his Hand For the Turks suffer no Stranger otherwise to come unto the Presence of their suspicious Emperor but first they search him that he have no Weapon about him and so clasping him by the Arms under the colour of doing him honour dissemblingly bereave him of the use of his Hands lest he should offer him any violence yet hath he always as he sitteth in his Throne lying at hand ready by him a Target a Scimeter an Iron-Mace with Bow and Arrows The great Globe was also brought in by twelve of the Embassadors Servants which with the strangeness thereof filled the mind of Solyman and the Eyes of his Bassaes with admiration for Solyman was of so sharp a Wit that he was not learned only in such Books as contained the Laws and Rites of the Mahometan Superstition but had also curiously studied Astronomy and especially Cosmography in which profitable and pleasant study he much recreated himself as his leasure served The Embassadors desired that he would give the Kingdom of Hungary to King Ferdinand almost upon the same conditions that Lascus had before required it for him at Constantinople paying him such yearly Tribute as King Iohn had usually paid and promising farther to draw Charles the Emperor his Brother into the same League so that Solyman delivered of all fear that way might at his pleasure turn his Forces upon the Persian which it was thought he most desired Besides that they said he should deal neither honourably nor indifferently if he should prefer the young Child before King Ferdinand who beside his ancient Right unto that Kingdom which they were not now to urge as oppressed by his happy Victories but might in time be revived had also a late interest by a League betwixt him and King Iohn wherein he had expresly covenanted by the solemn consent of the greatest part of his Nobility that King Ferdinand should succeed him in the Kingdom Whereby they excused him of the late War as justly taken in hand against the Queen and her Son usurping upon his Right which King Iohn knowing to be good and moved with Conscience had by his solemn act acknowledged though to the great offence and prejudice of Solyman his setter up and defender as also to the touching of himself in honour to have so unthankfully and fraudulently dealt with his Patron to whom he was by the Oath of Obedience bound Wherefore they requested that sith he being a Prince of all others most mighty and magnificent standing upon his upright dealing both in Peace and War had so lightly regarded the slie dealing of so ungrateful a man he would rather accept of King Ferdinand so many ways injured as his Friend and Tributary than to have him his perpetual Enemy Concluding That nothing could be unto him for the good report of his Justice more commendable or for the assurance of a perpetual Peace more profitable or to the immortal praise of his Bounty more honourable than to call a King of a most ancient Discent famous for his Vertue and Fidelity chosen for a King by the Bohemians desired for a King by the Hungarians Emperor elect of the Roman Empire by the Germans and the natural Brother of the great Emperor his Tributary King of Hungary Solyman with chearful countenance accepting and commending of the Presents answered them two days after by Rustan the Bassa his Son in Law that this was his resolute condition of Peace and Friendship If King Ferdinand would forthwith restore all the Cities Towns and Castles which were before belonging to King Lewis and for ever after abstain from Hungary and whereas he had been so often provoked by him to War and had therein bestowed so great charges and taken so much Travel he could for that be content with an easie pain which should be for his great honour to impose an easie Tribute upon Austria upon which Conditions he was content to enter into League with them but if so be that those Conditions seemed unto them too heavy and that they would rather make choice of War than Peace he would bring to pass by continual War that such things as they had taken from the Kingdom of Hungary should be requited with the destruction of Austria But the Embassadors although they were much moved at the proud Demand of Tribute for Austria as that wherein the two Brethren of mighty power Charles the Emperor and King Ferdinand were disdainfully abused to keep the best course of their Negotiation and to win some time in so hard estate of things required a Truce until such time as King Ferdinand and the Emperor his Brother might be made acquainted with the matter Which their request the Turk perceiving their drift and purpose would in no case grant for Winter was now fast coming on It was lawful for the Embassadors all the time they were in the Turks Camp to view every part thereof Rustan
to the worshipping of the true God and to enjoy the favour and bounty of the most mighty Emperor and withal to revenge himself of the cruel Tyrant Barbarussa for the unnatural Villany done unto his person But if he would needs daily on the time and make proof of the strength of so great preparation he should undoubtedly with the rest of his Followers receive the same reward of his obstinacy which they had to the example of others received at Tunes Whereunto the ungracious Eunuch answered That he thought him altogether mad that would follow his Enemies Council and with a grinning countenance askt him Upon what hope the Emperor trusted to be able to win the City the Messenger pointing with his finger directly to the Fleet told him That which you see with his great Artillery and Valour of his Souldiers both Horse and Foot whereat the Eunuch scornfully laughing replied And we with like Force and Valour will defend this City and make this place already famous for your overthrows here twice now the third time of all others most famous by the Emperors discomfiture It is reported That there was in Algiers an old Witch famous for her Predictions who had as it was said foretold the Shipwracks and misery of Didaco Verra and Hugo Moncada to them of Algiers and also prefixed a time when as the Christian Emperor adventuring to besiege that City should there receive great loss both by Sea and Land. The fame of which blind Prophecy serving fitly to confirm the hope of good success in the minds of the vulgar multitude Assan so fed and augmented although he himself being a crafty wise Fellow believed no such vanity that he did therewith not only encourage his own Souldiers but also struck a terror into the minds of the weaker sort of his Enemies seeing themselves cast upon so dangerous a Coast upon the approach of Winter There was in Garrison in the City but eight hundred Turks and most of them Horsemen but such as whose Valour and resolution far exceeded their number For Assan had lost many of his best men some in fight against Mendoza and othersome at Sea slain or taken by Auria in Corsica and in other places by the Rhodian Neapolitan and Sicilian Gallies but many more were by his leave gon to aid the Moors against the Portugals the other multitude did scarce make up the number of five thousand which were partly natural Moors born in that Country and partly such as were born in Granado to whom were joined many Fugitives out of the Islands of Majorca and Minorca who in former time having entred into Rebellion and fearing condign punishment were fled to Algiers and there revolted to the Mahometan Superstition But the Captains of the wild Numidians made up a great number both of Horse and Foot which lying stragling without the City in the open Fields should night and day vex and molest the Christians This brutish People naturally Enemies unto the Christians had Assan with rewards and hope of a rich Spoil allured out of the Countries thereabout to aid him neither was it lawful for any man to carry his Wife or Children out of the City into places of more safety farther off or to shew any small token of fear pain of death being by the imperious Eunuch proposed to whosoever should but look heavily for fear of danger or speak a word favouring of Cowardise The Emperor by Auria making choice of a most convenient place for landing his men laid his Gallies so close unto his tall Ships that his armed Souldiers might with ease come out of the high built Ships into them and so out of them into the long Boats to be forthwith set on shore And such was the speedy diligence of them that had the charge of that matter and the plenty of Boats still ready to receive the Souldiers as fast as they could come out of the Gallies that the Footmen were in a very short time all landed The Emperor having a little rested and refreshed his Souldiers divided his Army into three equal Battels which was in number about twenty thousand Footmen besides Horsemen and others who of their own voluntary Will then followed the Emperors Fortune Unto every Battel he appointed three Field-Pieces to terrifie the Numidian Horseman which were still pricking up and down about them ready to charge if they could take them at anyadvantage And so setting forward a few Furlongs encamped in a strong and convenient place near unto the City between two deep Ditches which the Water falling from the Mountains had naturally worn so deep that neither Horseman nor Footman could well pass over but by Bridge and fast by upon the left hand was an Hill from the top whereof it seemed the City might with great Ordnance well be battered The City of Algiers sometime the Royal Seat of the great King Iuba called of the Romans Iulia Caesarea is in form of a Triangle situate fast by the Sea towards the North having a Haven but neither great neither safe from the North-Wind The Houses farther off from the Sea stand in seemly order upon the rising of a steep Hill as it were upon degrees in such sort that the Windows of one row still overlooks the tops of the next beneath it into the Sea most beautiful to behold The Emperor having divided his Camp into three parts every Nation by themselves lying on the East side of the Town was in great hope to win it and the rather for that whilst he assaulted it on that side his Ships and Gallies from the North side might in time of the Assault with their great Ordnance beat the Enemy all alongst the Wall which still rising higher and higher according to the rising of the steep Hill could not conveniently be defended with one Bulwark as we see it may in plain ground Nearest unto the rising of the Hills lay the Spaniards in the midst the Germans with the Emperor and in the Plain nearest to the Sea the Italians In the mean time whilst the great Ordnance was landing and the Horses unshipping the Numidians with a hideous outcry shewed themselves upon the tops of the Mountains above the Spaniards and from thence easily gauled them with their Darts and Shot for they nimbly running too and fro in the known parts of the rough Mountains would suddainly and fiercely assail them but after the manner of their Nation skirmishing afar off rather than near at hand In which manner of light skirmishes all the day was spent until night with small danger but much trouble to the Spaniards And when night was come these wild People one Company still succeding another in the place they had before taken never left shooting for wheresoever they saw any Fire in the Spanish Camp thither came Arrows Darts and Stones flying as thick as Hail for remedy whereof the Spaniards were glad to put out their Fires and with silence to expect the day that
that they should without delay yield up the City and put themselves wholly to the mercy of Solyman So the Spaniard being there staid himself writ to Liscanus how he had sped willing him forthwith if he loved his own safety to yield the City without standing upon further terms Liscanus upon receit of these Letters coming forth to the Souldiers declared unto them the necessity of yielding up of the Town and what hope there was to escape with life and liberty But whilst the Souldiers filled with indignation stood as Men in doubt what to do Halis Commander of the Janizaries came unto the Gate and with chearful rather than stern countenance required to have it opened unto him according to the agreement made by Salamanca in the Camp which was forthwith opened by Liscanus and the Keys delivered unto him The Janizaries entring peaceably into the City possessed themselves of the Walls and Fortresses round about commanding the Christian Souldiers to give place out of whom they chose all the beardless Youths and commanded the rest to cast down their Harquebusies and other Weapons in a place appointed which they all for fear did expecting nothing but some cruel execution to be done upon them by the barbarous Enemy Which their fear was the more encreased by a strange accident then unluckily chancing for whilst the Souldiers did as they were commanded with their Harquebusies cast their Flasks full of Powder also one of them suddainly took fire of a Match which was by chance cast in amongst them with fire in it which firing the rest blew about all that heap of Weapons among the Turks which so filled them with anger and fear of some suddain Treachery that they fell upon the Christians and slew divers of them until such time as Halis perswaded that it was a thing hapned rather by chance than malice commanded his Janizaries to stay their fury This tumult appeased Halis caused proclamation to be made That all such Christian Souldiers as would serve Solyman in his Wars should have such place in his Army as their quality required with bountiful entertainment yet of all the Christian Souldiers were found only seventy which careful of their lives accepted the offer fearing that the Turks would upon such as refused exercise their wonted cruelty Halis entertaining them courteously sent them away with the other youths whom he had before culled out down the River to Buda the other Souldiers he took into his protection and used their labour to help the Turks to make clean the Castle But Liscanus who to save his Gold had made Shipwreck of his honour and reputation was glad to give unto Halis the fair Chain of Gold which he had most covetously and insolently before taken from Perenus when as Halis who would otherwise have taken it from him by force by way of military courtesie now craved it of him as a strange kind of ornament among the Turks with which gift he was in hope to have saved the rest of his Coyn. But fortune favoured not so much the covetous Coward for when he was about to depart away with his Horses of service which he kept very good and had cunningly stuffed the Saddles full of Gold thinking so slily to have conveyed it the Turk laughing at him took from him his Horses furnished as they were saying That he which was to go by Water needed no Horses So was the covetous Wretch at once quit of the great Wealth which he had in long time evil got The Captains with the rest of the Souldiers dispoiled of the Arms were conveyed over the River of Danubius and so travelled on foot to Possonium where the Count Salme by the commandment of the King apprehended Liscanus Salamanca and some other of the Captains for suspicion of Treason and committed them to safe custody there to answer for their cowardly yielding up of the City Solyman entred into Strigonium the tenth of August in the year 1543. and there converting Christian Churches into Temples for the Mahometan Superstition first sacrificed for his Victory as he had before done in Buda and after with all speed so strongly fortified the City as if he would thereby for ever have taken from the Christians all hope of recovering the same again deriding the slothful negligence of the Germans who possessed of it fourteen years had neglected all that time to fortifie it Not long after Solyman leaving Ossainus a valiant Captain Governour of Strigonium and sending his Tartarian Horsemen to spoil the Country on the left hand as far as Alba Regalis went himself to besiege the Castle of Tatta called in ancient time Theodota The Garrison Souldiers terrified with the loss of Strigonium and the sight of the Turks Army upon the first summons yielded the Castle without resistance and were so suffered quietly to depart That Castle after the manner of the Turkish Discipline who with few and those very strong Holds keep their Provinces in subjection was by Solymans commandment presently rased down to the Ground Torniellus General of the Italians caused Hanibal Captain of the Castle to have his Head struck off for his cowardly yielding up of the place he had taken charge of thereby to admonish others which had the charge of strong places not to refuse an honourable death in defence of their Country for fear of an ignominious death attending their Cowardise Tatta thus laid in the Dust Solyman marched with his Army towards Alba surnamed Regalis for that the Kings of Hungary by an ancient custom used there to be Crowned and also buried Buda Strigonium and Alba Regalis three princial Cities of the Kingdom of Hungary stand in manner of a Triangle almost equally distant one from another about a hundred miles in compass Buda and Strigonium are situate upon the River of Danubius but Alba standeth more into the Land strongly seated in the midst of a great Lake but not so wholsomely especially in the Summer time the Winter Waters then decreasing and gross vapours arising with the heat of the Sun. From the City through the Marish or Lake unto the firm Land lie three broad and high Causeys in manner of the streaks of a Cart-wheel well built with fair Houses and Gardens on either side and a broad way in the middle whereby Men pass in and out of the City At the end of every Causey toward the Land were cast up strong Bulwarks which the Citizens used not to watch but in dangerous times of War so that by these Bulwarks the Houses of the Suburbs standing upon these Causeys were safe from the danger of the Enemy the Lake filling up all the spaces betwixt the Causeys which what for the Depth what for Mud Flags and Bulrushes growing in it was not by Horse or Man to be passed through And the City it self standing in the midst of the Lake compassed round about with a strong Wall and a deep Ditch always full of Water was hardly to
Nicosia standeth in the midst of the Island in a plain and champain Country compassed round with a Wall as if it had been drawn with a compass and is in circuit about five miles for the manner of the situation and magnificent buildings as well publick as private many have compared it unto the beautiful City of Florence in Italy and was for the wholesome and commodious situation thereof notably peopled This City had the Venetians of late fortified with new Walls thick Rampiers and eleven strong Bulwarks according to the manner of the fortification of our time and had raised three great Fortresses for defence of the Wall which they furnished with a strong Garrison great store of Artillery and other warlike provision Nevertheless they found by experience in this War That Fortifications are strengthned by the Defendants rather than the Defendants by the Fortifications The 22 of Iuly the Bassa with his Army encamped within a mile and a half of the City when presently the Turks by Troops issuing out of the Camp rid contemptuously before the Walls and Gates of the City and with often and loud outcries upbraided the Defendants which by them being answered with silence was taken as a token of their fear And Mustapha himself coming as near as he might without danger took full view of the Walls and situation of the City Shortly after the Enemy drew nearer unto the City into a more open plain and with their Tents filled the lower part of the Hill which they called Mandia but the Bassaes Tent they set aloft upon the Hill to the terror of the Defendants and encouragment of the Turks The Camp being fortified the Turks with incredible labour and celerity brought their Trenches from far and at the first cast up some few Forts but afterwards as their Army encreased many more which they raised so high that they overtopped the Walls of the City and made the place more dangerous for the Christians to defend There having placed seventy great Pieces of Battery they began to batter the City both day and night without intermission with such an horrible thundring that the Earth trembled the Houses shook as if they would have faln down at which time many were slain both with the deadly Shot and the broken pieces of Stones beaten out of the Walls never was such a fear as then within the City of Nicosia every day the Enemy brought his Trenches nearer and nearer and rested not until he had with restless labour brought them unto the very brim of the Town-Ditch which the Citisens before the coming of the Turks had not well scoured Being come so nigh they first skirmished a far off with their small Pieces but afterwards they not only battered the Walls with their great Artillery but with small Shot Arrows and Stones overwhelmed the Defendants as if it had been a shower of Hail so to have driven them from off the Wall and Rampiers In few days not only all the Curtains betwixt three of the Bulwarks was by the fury of the great Ordnance beaten down but all places thereabout lay full of the dead Bodies of the assailants and defendants For although the Christians fought at great disadvantage both for the number of Men and indifferency of the place yet desperation joyned with exteam necessity of all other the greatest Weapon gave them such courage as with Shot Stones Timber and such like to keep down their Enemies and defend their Walls and oftentimes to make great slaughter of them with their Atillery and murthering Pieces bent upon them as at a certain mark who the thicker they stood the greater was their harm They also oftentimes dismounted many of the great Pieces and made them unserviceable and with Feather-beds and Sacks of Cotten-wool made up their Breaches which the Turks laboured again to burn with Pich-barrels and Earthen-pots full of Wild-fire After long fight the Turks entring the Ditch made themselves two ways to the Walls which they fortified on both sides with Fagots and Earth in such sort as that they were safe from the loops of the Bulwarks which flankered the Ditch All this quickly performed some presently set up scaling Ladders others filled the Ditches with Rubbish Wood Fagots and Earth and others in the mean time with Mattocks and Leavers were digging down the Foundations of the Bulwarks Constance and Podocatera taking name of them that had the chief charge in the building thereof The Christians right valiantly endured the first Assault of the Enemy and struck down dead into the Ditches many of them that were climbing up the Ladders and had in short time slain more than they were themselves in number and inforced the rest to give over the Assault These things were done in the beginning of the Siege whilst yet both parties were strong in which hard conflicts a great number of Souldiers were lost and most of the Canoniers slain After this Assault both parties for a while busied themselves and spent the time in their ingenious devices wherein it appeared that the Turks were much cunninger in devising of means to take Cities than were those Christians in defending the same Now had the Venetians in the first motions of these Wars prayed aid of divers Christian Princes from most part of whom they received but cold comfort as is before declared yet now at length though somewhat late they had drawn into the confederation of this War the Pope and the King of Spain by whose example some other Princes of Italy moved put to also their helping hands The Venetians as they whom the matter most concerned had in good time put their Fleet to Sea but knowing themselves too weak to incounter the Turks they lay still upon the Coast of Dalmatia about Iadera expecting the coming of the Spanish Admiral with his Gallies Two Months wherein much might have been done were now past in this expedition and yet no news of his coming so that what the speed and industry of the Venetians had well prepared was by the delay and lingring of the Spaniard marred Besides that the Plague began to arise in the Fleet lying so long in one place which at length grew so hot that many of the Gallies had neither Mariner nor Souldier left in them neither did this Mortality so cease until there were twenty thousand dead thereof amongst whom were many Noble Gentlemen of great account which might have done their Country good service had they been in time imployed Summer now almost half spent and the Plague well ceased the Venetian Admiral weary of expecting of the coming of Auria the Spanish Admiral gathering together his Fleet which he had before dispersed to avoid the Infection sailed to Corcyra where he met with Venerius another of the Venetian Commanders who there staid for him having but a little before taken from the Turks Costria now called Suppoto a Town upon the Sea Coast over against Corcyra The whole Fleet of the Venetians being assembled
force be taken which he threatned would be far greater than the danger the Turks were to undertake for the winning thereof and that therefore it concerned none so much as themselves whether the City were given up by Composition or else won by strong hand he shewed unto them the profit that should arise unto them by yielding of it up and offered to them large Entertainment if they would serve him and to conclude told them that they should never afterwards find at his Hands so great Grace as was at that instant offered them The crafty Bassa did what he might to hasten the winning of the City both for that he doubted the coming of the Christian Fleet and that his great Army was exceedingly troubled with contagious and grievous Diseases arising of the immoderate heat and drought in that so hot a Country But the Souldiers thinking any thing more assured than the Turkish Faith answered him That they did not as yet doubt their own strength and that they were ready to indure any thing that could happen rather than to prefer the uncertain Friendship of an unknown Prince before the gracious Favour of such worthy Princes as they had so good experience of This Answer cut off all the Bassaes hope for taking of the City by Composition wherewith being both grieved and enraged he commanded all things to be made ready for the Assault and the more to encourage his Souldiers promised unto them great Rewards and Honours that should first or second mount the Walls After that he gave a general assault unto the City with all his Power wherein both he as a most worthy Captain and his Souldiers fought most fiercely You have to do said he with the small and last remainders of your Enemies which are scarce able to stand or hold their Weapons in their Hands rather than with Enemies indeed shall you not then easily overcome them being both few and feeble that have vanquished them when they were many and lusty The end of all your Labours is at hand your hoped Rewards approach only play you the men and faint not in this Assault the Spoil of this rich City shall be the worthy reward of your Labours the fruit of all your Travel consisteth in this one moment Whilst he thus incourageth some and reproveth others they mindful of his Promises and these of the disgrace altogether with their thick shot suffer no Man to stand in safety upon the Walls and out of their Forts also with their great Ordnance greatly annoyed the Defendants This done they attempted by the ruines of the Wall and in other places by Scaling-Ladders to have entred the City Which terrible Assault was by the cruel Enemy maintained not for some few hours but for divers days together without any intermission fresh men still coming on in stead of them that were wounded or slain Yet did the Defendants valiantly endure all that Storm and in such weak case as they were worthily performed what was possible for so few to do yet still in hope the poor comfort of men in misery that Relief might come by the approach of the Christian Fleet. At length when the matter was brought to this Point that the Turks were in great hope to have gained the Walls and Mustapha himself probably guessed That the Christians were now weary of the long Assault and sore weakned with Wounds and other infinite Miseries not to seek in a City so hardly distressed and was in that his opinion also confirmed by certain Fugitive Christians he nevertheless upon the sudden caused a Retreat to be sounded and so retiring into his Trenches lay still all the next day without any thing doing The Defendants thinking that he had given over the Assault because of some Aid that was coming to their Relief became more careless of the Enemy and upon the vain hope of such Aid with less diligence repaired their Breaches and provided for the repulsing of their Enemies But the Bassa in the mean time had chosen out of his whole Army about 200 of his best Captains and Souldiers all Men of approved valour and agility of Body whom the next day after he sent early in the Morning to make proof if they could with Scaling-Ladders secretly and without any noise set up get into the four Bulwarks which he had before sore shaken with his great Ordnance These resolute Men leading the way got first up after whom followed divers others and so took the aforesaid Bulwarks when presently after other Companies of their Fellows which stood ready for the purpose coming on forward did with their Scaling-Ladders in divers places recover the top of the Walls for now the matter was not done by secret surprise but by open force In every one of these Bulwarks were 70 Italians and as many Epirots who there kept Watch and Ward these Men part asleep as fearing no such danger and part lying lasily upon the ground were there surprised on the sudden and slain other-some of them awaked with the strange and uncouth noise betook not themselves lustily to their Weapons but forsaking their stations leapt down out of the Bulwarks at such places as were next unto them some for fear ran unawares into the midst of their Enemies Upon this Alarm some of the Christian Captains came speedily to the Walls with their Companies as did Eugenius who whilst he in vain crieth out to such fearful Souldiers as he met that they should not so cowardly fly and stayeth others that were flying was himself shot through with a small shot and slain Other Captains in other places likewise laboured in vain to have staid the flying Souldiers whose Perswasions Requests and Authority in so general a fear nothing at that time prevailed The Defendants thus beaten from the Walls and Bulwarks gathered themselves into the Market place but the Citizens stealing home to their own Houses there stood in the Entrances of the same fearfully expecting the destruction of the Country together were their own In the mean time the Governor of Aleppo with his Regiment scoured the Walls of the City round about as he had in charge from the General and without respect put to Sword all that he met armed or unarmed At the Bulwark called Barbarus it fortuned him to light upon a Company of Italians who for a while fought desperately but were in the end overthrown and slain When he had thus cleared the Walls and left such Companies as he thought good in places convenient for the keeping of them he came down into the more open places of the City and seeing them that were gathered together into the Market place to have cast themselves into a Ring and to fight as Men altogether desperate he caused certain murthering Pieces to be bent upon them which they perceiving laid down their Weapons and yielded themselves unto the mercy of the Enemy By and by all the Gates of the City were strongly guarded by the Enemy to the intent
the Palatine of Valachia Transalpina that joyning those Forces to his own he might take Iohn the Vayvod and sending him in Bonds to Constantinople to place Peter his Brother Vayvod in his place The Palatine glad of this command and having raised his own power together with the Turks and the Hungarians swam over the River Moldavus having in his Army about an hundred and two thousand fighting Men a power not only sufficient to have driven the Vayvod out of Moldavia but also to have shaken a right puissant King in his Kingdom The Palatine in the midst of so great a strength little fearing and less regarding the suddain coming of the Vayvod suffered his Men with their Horses to lie disorderedly here and there dispersed in the large Meadows and Pastures all alongst the fair River side so the better to refresh themselves weary of their long travel In the mean time certain Scouts came to the Vayvod then at Dinner certifying him that the Enemy with an huge Army the certain number whereof they could not well descry was come over the River and now resting themselves had turned off their Horses into the rich Meadows thereabout in such disordered and careless manner as that they might with a small power be easily overthrown The Vayvod glad of this news forthwith sent before Sujercevius with his Cossacks and 5000 other light Horsemen more certainly to descry what the Enemy did with the manner of his lying and he himself with the rest of his Army followed fair and softly after Sujercevius with great silence approaching the Enemies Camp suddainly light upon the Enemies Scouts in number about 500 who enclosed before they were aware were taken every Man by the Cossacks and by them straightly examined of the state of their Army and Camp. Who for safegard of their Lives now in the Enemies power frankly confessed how that the Palatine lay securely there by resting his Army not so much for the refreshing thereof after his Travel as with greater strength to set upon the Vayvod with his fresh Souldiers and that in the Army were about seventy thousand Valachians thirty thousand Turks and three thousand Hungarians who now dispersed and sleeping in security might easily be overthrown Of all these things Sujercevius advertiseth the Vayvod requesting him with all possible speed to hasten his coming for the obtaining of a most notable and assured Victory he in the mean time lying close with his Men not far from the Enemy The Vayvod certified of all these things came without delay and forthwith commanded Sujercevius with his Men to give the onset upon the Enemy purposing himself with the rest of his Army on the other side to charge the disordered Camp in three places Sujercevius according as he had in charge with a great and terrible outcry suddainly set upon the secure Enemies who dismaid with the suddainness of the unexpect danger stood as Men astonished not knowing which way to flie or how to make resistance But whiles Sujercevius with his light Horsemen thus on the one side filled the Camp with tumult terror slaughter and fear behold even as a suddain Tempest cometh the Vayvod bearing all the disordered Camp down before him neither had the Enemies any means to flie having put their Horses a great way off from them into the rich Pastures but there taken unarmed were miserably slain In all the Camp was lamentation and mourning Death raging in every place with such fury that of so great an Army as of late passed the River few or non escaped more than the Palatine with Peter his Brother who by great chance with much ado getting Horses swam over the River and so came to the Castle of Brailovia in Valachia all the rest were slain and left to be of the Beasts of the Field and Birds of the Air devoured It was a most horrible spectacle to see the ground covered with the Bodies of the dead all stained with gore Blood and their Weapons of all sorts lying by them In the Camp were found great Riches all which the Vayvod gave unto his Souldiers and there staied four days to refresh his wearied Men. After that he with his victorious Army entred into Valachia the Palatines Country where he took many Castles and Towns and put to the Sword all that came in his way Men Women and Children without respect of Age or Sex and burnt all the Country Towns and Villages before him as he went so that all that part of the Country of Valachia Transalpina was covered with Smoke and Fire to the terror of the Beholders The aged Fathers were in every place drawn forth to slaughter the young Babes were cut in pieces the Matrons and Virgins defiled and afterwards slain and in brief all the Cruelty that could be devised performed in the bloody execution whereof the Vayvod commended his Men perswading them in like manner still to prosecute the Victory and that the rest of their labours was all but for prey and booty for the enriching of themselves In this havock of all things it was told him That the Palatine with his Brother Peter the Men whom he most sought after were in the Castle of Brailovia not far off whereupon he forthwith marched thither with his Army The City of Brailovia standeth upon the River Danubius and had in it a Castle of some good strength defended both by the nature of the place and a strong Garrison of the Turks which Selymus had appointed for the keeping thereof as the Key of the Country not far from this City the Vayvod encamping his Army writ unto the Captain of the Castle forthwith to deliver unto him the Palatine with Peter his Brother his mortal Enemies who never wronged by him had invaded his Country and sought after his life and being overthrown in Battel were fled unto him which if he should refuse to do he threatned never to depart thence until he had to his further harm constrained him by force to yield them These Letters he sent by two Valachian Captives to be delivered unto the Captain of the Castle whereunto he returned answer by four Turks two of the City and two of his own Servants by whom he also sent ten great Shot and as many small with two Turkish Arrows and this Message For that I know thee to be the Servant of my dread Sovereign Selymus I regard thee and will not deny the same Men to be with me whom thou so much requirest But forasmuch as I understand that thou of late hast slain a great number of the Servants of the great Emperor who by his commandment were bringing Peter the Brother of the Palatine into Moldavia I therefore tell thee that except thou betime raise thy Siege I will feed thee and thy Followers with such Dishâ—s as these whereupon thou and thine Army gorged to the full shall all afterwards dangerously surfeit and cast Farewel This rough answer so much moved the Vayvod that he commanded hands
and seeing no other Remedy he with much difficulty delivered them both covenanting before with the Messenger to have both their Lives spared who coming to Constantinople were forthwith clapt fast into the Tower called Iadicula as there to have been severely examined of all the doings of the Bassa But Mustapha after long delay coming at length to Constantinople the ninth of April in the Spring following and using the mighty and potent mediation of divers great Ladies and other his gracious Friends in Court prevailed so much in that corrupt Government as that he was again at length received into the Favour of Amurath without any further proceeding against Him his Chancellour or Treasurer who by his means were afterwards also inlarged and set at liberty yet was he never after admitted to those Honours which he perswaded himself were of right due unto him for his good and faithful service of long time done to the Othoman Emperours In this time that Mustapha was General at Erzirum Muhamet the Visier Bassa was treacherously slain at Constantinople after whom shortly died also Achmet Bassa who succeeded in his place so that the said sovereign Dignity in Honour next unto the Turkish Emperour was by rightful Succession due to Mustapha the next Bassa but that he was not thought worthy of it by him that might and of right ought to have gratified him therewith as shall be a little hereafter declared when we have briefly set down the sudden and strange death of the said Muhamet the Visier worthy in all Histories to be registred as a mirrour for all such as administer Justice in so great place to look upon This Bassa a man of as great Fame as ever was any that had Government in the Othoman Empire in the time that he all commanded had for some light causes deprived a certain Souldier of Constantinople of his yearly Pension which with many Labours and Dangers he had gotten to maintain himself which Pension the Bassa bestowed upon another Souldier so that the other poor Soul remained in Misery altogether unprovided for Unto which miserable estate seeing himself now brought and not guilty to himself of any Fault worthy so great Punishment he determined with himself to revenge the Injury with the Blood of that great Bassa and to bereave him of Life that had bereft him of Living which because he could not by any fit means put in Execution by reason of the Guard of Slaves that kept the Person of the Visier so that no man can come near him that holdeth that high place except he could by some means acquaint himself in the Visiers House and so insinuate himself into his acquaintance he resolved to take upon him the rude habit of those religious which the Turks call Deruislars and after their manner to present himself every Morning before the Visier to ask his Alms and so he did counterfeiting withall a certain kind of folly and lightness of Mind as do those Deruislars to make the People believe that they contemn all worldly things as men ravished only with heavenly Cogitations which yet was by some that knâ—w him thought to have hapned in him through the Grief he had conceived for the loss of his stipend Muhamet not only the first time but also at all other times that this counterfeit Hypocrite came before him caused him to be comforted with his Alms and as it were with a kind of private stipend enjoyned him every Morning to come unto him into the Divano and there together with others appointed for the same purpose to say his devout Prayers and in singing Praises to their wicked Prophet to intreat God for his Salvation for it is a custom of all the Noble-men that at ordinary hours of Prayers all their Priests assemble themselves in the Divano which is made ready for them and there all-together the infidel Wretches do with their unclean Mouths mumble up their superstitious Prayers or rather most abominable Blasphemies By this means did this dissembling Companion so insinuate himself into the Visiers Acquaintanâ—e that the counterfeit fool went in and out of the Divano at his Pleasure no man gain-saying either his going in or coming out but daily sat in the Presence of the Visier and so having said his Prayers and taken his Alms with all Reverence quietly departed At last when the crafty Hypocrite thought that the time was come wherein he might most fitly execute his purpose having utterly resolved with himself to die so that he might satisfie the Desire he had of Revenge so long covertly fostered in his Heart having conveyed a very sharp Dagger secretly into one of his Sleeves he went according to his Custom to require his Alms with an assured Resolution when he had said his Prayers and reached out his hands to receive his wonted Alms speedily to charge upon the Visier and with the Dagger to strike him to the Heart According to the accustomed manner was the counterfeit Hypocrite for who would ever have suspected so long and so traiterous a designment admitted into the Divano where Muhamet the Visier sat in his House to give publick audience and after the usual manner before any of the suters that attended for answers and dispatch of their business suspected any such deceit he was admitted near to the Visier and sitting right against him according to his old wont poured out those vain Devotions which those hypocritical Barbarians use to mumble up in their Prayers which being finished whilst the Visier simply reacheth unto him his wonted Alms the traiterous Villain in receiving it suddenly drew out his Dagger and once or twice stabbed it into the Visiers Breast out of which so deadly Wounds gushed out his Blood and Life together Whereupon the standers by astonished with the strangeness of the Act ran in but lo the old hoary Visier lay all soiled in his own Blood deadly pale and breathing forth his last gasp The mischievous murderer they presently laid hands upon and bound him fast but the Rumor of the strange fact did by and by flie unto the Emperours Ears who suspecting that some of the other great Bassa's desiring to mount into that high Dignity had provoked the Traitor to do this detestable Act would needs understand of the traiterous Murderer what occasion had moved him so treacherously to kill his Visier Who resolutely answered him That he did it to deliver the City of Constantinople from the Tyranny of him by whom he was undeservedly deprived of his Pension But when he could get no other answer of him he delivered him into the hands of the Slaves of the dead Visier who with most exquisite Torments put him to death Muhamet thus dead after him succeeded Achmetes the next Bassa who as is before said shortly after died also so that it was now Mustapha's course to succeed in that chief room for that he was the third in the order of the Bassaes. But when he had used all the means that he possibly
Afternoon encamped on the side of the River Sagijwa but when he could not or else durst not for the deepness of the way the abundance of the Water and the nearness of the Enemy adventure to pass the River he retired back again to pass over at Iasperin otherwise called Iasbrin where the River was joyned with a Bridg and not far off a good Foord also to pass over at thinking so to have come upon the backs of the Christians and with more safety to have relieved the besiâ—ged Town But Teuffenbach perceiving his purpose forthwith after his departure passed the River with much Difficulty and overtaking him with his Army the next day being the first of May about one of the Clock in the Afternoon between Zarcha and Fuscasalva with his great Ordnance disordered the rereward of the Enemies Battel and coming on courageously with his whole Army began a most cruel fight which the Turks a great while endured with wonderful Resolution but now destitute of their wonted multitude their greatest confidence and hardly layed unto by the Christians they in the end turned their backs and fled whom six thousand Hungarians and Germans fiercely pursued and had the killing of them almost to Buda In this Battel the Christians took all the Enemies great Ordnance with seventeen Ensigns and also the Castle of Iasperin which the Turks had for fear abandoned wherein was found good store of Victuals certain great Pieces with much other warlike Provision Of this so notable a Victory Teuffenbach by Letters presently advertised the Arch-duke after he was again returned to the siege of Hatwan Which Letters because they contain many Particularities and Circumstances of this Battel I have thought it not amiss here to insert ALthough said he I have by a speedy Messenger upon the very Kalends of May certified your Excellency of the notable Victory which God of his great Goodness gave unto us the same day over our hereditary Enemy yet afterward upon diligent Inquisition we understood many Particularities as well of the Captives themselves as of the Inhabitants about Zolnocke Pesth and Buda whereof I thought good to advertise you The Captives themselves confess That the Bassa of Buda with the Sanzacks of Zolnocke Zarwacke Giula and Tschangrad Cippaio Genne and others had with great Celerity raised an Army of thirteen thousand Souldiers amongst whom were many Tartars with purpose to have relieved the beâ—ieged Town of Hatwan and upon the sudden to have oppressed us in our Tents Filled with which hope they in great haste came with all their Power the last of April towards Hatwan but forasmuch as they could not pass over the River Zagijwa by reason of the height of the Water they were the next day being the first of May conducted by the Captain of Jasparin to a more commodious Passage so to come the nearer unto us and the next day in the Morning to have surprised us in our Tents But our most merciful God hath averted this so great a Mischief from us and turned it upon their own Heads For as it is most constantly reported from Zolnocke Pesth and Buda and confirmed by the Inhabitants of the same Places there are two thousand five hundred of the Turks slain and as many wounded of whom many perished and are found dead upon the High-ways leading to Pesth and Zolnocke of these we have sent a thousand Heads to Cassovia and caused many of the Turks to be buried for fear of Infection in this so great heat Verily it was a bloody Battel so that the old Souldiers say they have not remembred or seen the Turks no more in number to have stood so long in Battel and to have so fought it out without flying Many Men of great Name and Place there perished and fell amongst whom are redeemed the Sanzacks of Pesth Novigrade and Temeske Genne Alavus Bogste Alustafa Marielaus and certain Chiaus lately sent from the Court with the Bassa 's Guard wherein were eight hundred right valiant Souldiers of whom few escaped with Life Many fell that would have yielded great Ransome but it was agreed upon between the Germans and the Hungarians not to spare any of the Enemies but to put them all to Sword and that whosoever did otherwise it should be imputed unto him for Dishonour So that more than sixteen common Souldiers none were taken Prisoners of whom we might learn how things went amongst the Turks with other Circumstances of the Battel We took thirteen Field-pieces whereof four were greater than the rest which they called Organes and four and twenty of the Enemies Ensigns The Bassa of Buda beside other three Wounds by him received was grievously wounded in the side Of our men were lost about an hundred and many of them most expert Souldiers and about six hundred others grievously wounded of whom there is small hope many of them being already dead Neither is the loss small we have received in our Horses and Armour for there be few amongst the German Horsemen which have not lost one two or three of their Horses or Servants whereby our Horsemen are wonderfully weakned yet was the Victory great to God be the Praise to him be the Glory and Thanks therefore Let us in the mean time prosecute the siege begun The last Night I commanded the Water to be drawn another way so that now our Trenches may be advanced many Paces and Bulwarks raised within two hundred paces of the Wall. We have already planted five great pieces of Artillery in one Bulwark and hope the next Night to place five more upon a Mount fast by and will do what shall be needful for a straight siege and when time shall serve undertake the Town with all our Power God grant us therein good Success and Victory The Turks in Garrison at Zabola a Fort there by discouraged with the overthrow of their Friends forsook the Fort which for Strength and Greatness was comparable with Tocay or Erla which strong Place the Christians without any loss now recovered Whilst this valiant Captain the Lord Teuffenbach thus lay at the siege of Hatwan Matthias the Arch-duke General of the Christian Army in Hungary incouraged with the good Success he had at Novigrad came with his Army being 44000 strong before Strigonium sometime the Metropolitical City of Hungary but now of long a sure receptacle of the Turks and the sixth of May incamped his Army about a quarter of a mile from the Castle in a most pleasant Medow from whence both the City and the Castle were plainly to be seen Upon whom the Turks out of the Castle and three Gallies that lay upon the River discharged certain great pieces without any great harm doing but after the Christian Fleet was a little before Night come down the River and with their great Ordnance began to answer them again the Enemy ceased shooting and lay still that Night In the mean time it fortuned that a Turkish Youth taken in a Garden thereby
Ensigns of the Turks with fourteen most goodly Horses of the Turks for a Present The next day after this Battel the County sent the Lord Palfi with an Interpreter unto the City to demand it to be yielded who having Audience declared unto the Turks in what danger they were that the help they looked for was now quite overthrown new relief could not but in long time be sent unto them and that therefore it should be good for them whilst yet they might to be well advised and betime to bethink themselves of yielding up the City lest haply when they would it then would not be accepted promising to intreat with the General that they might in safety depart and with sure Convoy be brought unto such place of safety as were convenient Whereunto the besieged Turks answered That the Christians had now five Weeks layn at the Siege and must yet lye three Weeks longer and that whereas of late some few of their Friends came to have relieved them and had failed therein there was yet an hundred thousand more to come after them who if they should not be able to perform that they came for yet that they would not for that deliver or forsake the City before they were ready to be drawn out of it by the heels and that yet they would then take three days to resolve thereupon Now had the Christians with long and continual Battery sore beaten both the upper and the lower Town which Battery they now maintained with greater fury than at any time from the beginning of the Siege and within the City their wants increased daily having nothing left to live upon but a little Wheat and Barley with some Horse-flesh unto whom thus distressed the Lord Palfi by the commandment of the County to try what confidence they yet had in themselves the Ninth of August sent two Gentlemen to the City to do a Message from him to the Governour who advertised thereof being a very aged and courteous man accompanied with the Aga of the Janizaries came to the Walls to hear what they had to say where one of the said Gentlemen in few words delivered him this short Message MY most gracious Lord the Lord Palfi most worthy Governour greeteth thee well and knowing thee to be a Captain both valiant and wise and one that hath always courteously used such as have fallen into thine hands hath Compassion of thy desperate Obstinacy and therefore whereas thou art to look or hope for nothing else but present Death and Destruction he as thy Neighbour and a Lover of thy Vertues adviseth and exhorteth thee if thou wilt save thy self and thine from most undoubted and imminent Death and utter Confusion without delay to deliver up this City which thou canst not longer hold Unto whom the old Governour thus without stay courteously answered THY Speech my Friend and thy Masters Advice are unto me both vain Tell the Lord Palfi in my Name that I cannot pleasure him with the least stone in this City One foot I have already in the grave and will with Honour carry these my gray Hairs into the same and am yet comforted with a most certain and undoubted Hope that my most dread and mighty Sovereign and my Lord Sinan Bassa will not forsake me yea and that if they should write unto me that they could find no means or way to relieve me which I am sure they can yet would I well and at leisure consider whether it were fit for me to deliver up this City or not seeing that of the defence thereof dependeth all mine Honour and Credit Besides that what Reward they have on both sides that so easily deliver over the Cities they have in charge all the World doth see With this Answer he sent them away All this while the Aga of the Janizaries standing by spoke not one word but sighing in silence and grinding his Teeth declared by his Countenance his Indignation and inward Grief In the mid-way between Buda and Strigonium in the midst of the River of Danubius lieth a little Island called Vizze wherein many rich Clothiers dwelt this Island the Hungarian Heidons spoiled and in returning thence met with twenty four Wagons laden with Corn going to Buda which they took with eight and twenty Prisoners which they brought into the Camp. The lower Town being with long and continual Battery made assaultable was by the Christians the Thirteenth of August in three divers places at once assaulted The Bavarians were by lot to give the first Charge who in the performing thereof beginning to faint for that they were notably repulsed by the Turks but seconded by them of Reitnaw and Suevia pluck'd down a great Palisado filled the Ditches removed whatsoever stood in their way and so long fought with the Turks in the breaches that by the coming in of the Marquess of Burgawe with six Ensigns of fresh men they prevailed upon the Enemy and so all together brake into the Town In the midst of this dangerous Fight was the Marquess himself who both with his Presence and chearful Speech so encouraged his Souldiers that they as men fearing no peril ran headlong into all danger until they had entred the Town there might a man have heard a most miserable Cry especially of Women and Children throughout the City whenas the Christians breaking in on every side slew whosoever came in their way without respect of Age or Sex sparing neither Woman great with Child neither the little Children hanging at their Mothers Breasts Yet did not all that were entred so much attend the present Execution as some of them did the Spoil and Prey and especially the Hungarians unto whom all was good Booty even the very Hinges of the Doors and Windows whereby many escaped into the Castle and upper Town with the Bassa and Alis-Beg the old Governour The Christians had not many hours possess'd the Town but that divers fires began to break out in divers places but by what means was not at the first known at last it was found out that the Turks doubting the loss of the Town had before where they thought best left Gun-powder which taking fire by Matches left burning for that purpose should at a certain time set all on fire by which means many most horrible Fires were raised in the Town which consumed many goodly Buildings and other things which might have stood the Christians in great stead and could hardly in a day or two be quenched This so joyful a Victory saw not he by whose good direction next under God it was gained the worthy County for he a few days before being fallen sick of a Fever taken by drinking too much cold drink in his Heat with immoderate pains taking in the late Battel and so afterwards falling into a great flux with a Fever was by the counsel of his Physicians for the better recovering of his Health removed to Komara as a place of more quietness having before his
themselves In this assault and fury perished of the Turks about four thousand and of the Christians not past three hundred In this Town beside that which the fire devoured was found a very rich Prey The first that entred the Town was one Tersky a notable Captain with his Company after whom followed Ruswurme who each of them were thought in their Entrance at the Breach to have slain with their own hand eight or ten Turks Now in the mean time Mahomet the great Sultan being come to Belgrade removed thence to come down into the Heart of Hungary sending Cicala Bassa before him and at length after long looking for the second of September arrived at Buda having in his Army about two hundred thousand men and three hundred Field-pieces From thence he presently sent 40000 to Temeswar but stayed there himself with the rest of his Army The Christians yet lying at Hatwan and doubting lest the Sultan suddenly passing the River should come upon them not yet ready for Battel departing thence and retiring back again came and incamped not far from Vachia And albeit that the Arch-duke before his Departure from Hatwan had left a convenient Garrison for the keeping of the Town yet such was the terror of the Turks approach that the next day after they that were there left in Garrison forsook the Town and setting it on fire followed themselves after the Camp. This coming of the Turkish Sultan to Buda brought also a great fear upon them at Vienna as much doubting lest he should that way have turned his Forces which caused them both day and night to labour for the better Fortification of the City and for the provision of all things as if it had been for a present Siege But Mahomet not provided for the undertaking of so strong a place and not ignorant of the disgrace his great Grand-father the victorious Solyman had sometime received under the Walls thereof had no purpose thereto as having bent his thoughts quite another way In the upper part of Hungary is an ancient famous City well fortified and honoured with a Bishops See called Agria not far from Hatwan upon this City as the chief Fortress of the Christians in those Quarters had Mahomet at his coming into Hungary cast his eyes and began now that way to make head with purpose by taking of that City and placing there a strong Garrison to hinder the uniting of the Emperour's Forces with the Transilvanians for the mutual strengthning of the one the other by the way of the upper Hungary Which the Arch-duke perceiving sent thither forthwith the valiant Collonel Tersky with a notable Company of Italians and Germans and a thousand other Harquebusiers who all arrived there in safety At which time also the Lord Teuffenbach sent into the City three thousand Foot-men under the conduct of County Turne with good store of warlike Provision needful for the defence thereof The one and twentieth of September Mahomet attended upon by the great Bassaes Ibrahim Giaffer Hassan and Cicala for old Sinan was now dead with his Army of an 150000 men came and encamped between the two Rivers of Danubius and Tibiscus covering a great part of the Country with his Tents Approaching the City he with wonderful Celerity cast up five great Mounts and from them with such fury battered the Walls that the Christians were glad night and day to stand in Arms for the defence thereof And altho that the Walls were so great and in many places so weakly fortified as that they were not but by a greater Garrison to be defended against so puissant an Enemy and that therefore the Defendants with their Honour lawfully might even the first day have set the City on fire and retired themselves into the Castle which was both fair and strong and the only place to be trusted unto yet for the space of six days they worthily defended the whole City against the fury of the Enemies and out of it did them great harm But seeing the danger greatly encreasing and that the City was not longer to be holden they set it on fire having before conveyed all the best of their Substance with themselves into the Castle which the Turks quickly perceiving brake so suddenly into the City as if they would together with the Christians have entred the Castle also but in the attempt thereof they were notably repulsed and many of them slain Adjoyning to the Castle was a great and strong Bulwark against which the Turks for certain days furiously thundred with their great Ordnance and that without intermission and having in divers places sore shaken it in the space of two days assaulted it 12 times but not without the wonderful loss of their men and yet gave it not so over but as men with their loss more enraged came on again with greater fury than before and so at last by plain force took it and there put to the Sword all them they found therein except such as by good hap got betimes into the Castle This Bulwark thus lost the Christians the next day sallying out again recovered wherein they slew a great number of the Turks with the loss of some thirty men and as many more wounded The besieged now divers times both by Letters and Messengers craved Aid of Maximilian the General giving him to understand that they could not long hold out for want of Shot and Powder if they were not betimes relieved whereof the Enemy also was not ignorant yet were they resolved to hold it out even to the last man altho the great Sultan had oftentimes by Messengers sent of purpose willed them to yield it up with promise that they should in safety with Life and Goods depart otherwise threatning unto them greater extremities than was of late shewed unto the Turks at Hatwan if they should as obstinate men hold it out unto the last whereunto they never answered him any thing for Terskie had forbid them all Parle with the Enemy and in the midst of the Market-place had caused a pair of Gallows to be set up threatning to hang him thereon whosoever he were that should once make motion of yielding up the City Whilst the besieged thus live in hope of Relief the Arch-duke upon the coming over of the Sultan towards Agria having retired with his Army to Strigonium and there staid somewhat too long expecting the coming of more Aid began now at length to set forward and to make some shew as if he had indeed purposed to have relieved his distressed Friends so hardly beset at Agria But such was the foulness of the Weather hindering the passage of his great Ordnance not to speak of any thing else that in fourteen days he marched scarcely twelve miles forward Whereby the Enemy took occasion to prevail as he did in his Siege who now hearing of the coming of the Christians and seeing to how little purpose he had so long battered the Castle converted all his endeavours to
the Country thereabouts was so plagued with such clouds of Grashoppers as they did shadow the very Sun beams and fell upon the City and Country round about The Turks consulted with their Wise-men what it might portend Who answered That they did foreshew great Plenty to follow But indeed they left not a green Herb nor Leaf in all the Country adjoyning not in the City where they entred into their very Chambers and annoyed them much being almost as big as Dormice with red wings And soon after there fell such extraordinary great Hail in Constantinople and Gallata with such abundance of Rain as the violence of the Water did suddenly shut up one of the Gates of the City and so rebounding filled their Shops and Houses that very many were in great danger of drowning Some Houses fell down and some People were slain the pavements of the streets were torn up and the stones carried together into great heapes We have formerly made relation of the Persians Victories and of the defeat and death of Cicala General of the Turks Army in the year 1605. And that the year following the Sophy having recovered whatsoever the Turks had taken from his Predecessors had extended the bounds of his Empire unto the black Sea from whence he sent an Ambassador unto the Grand Seignior to let him understand that having recovered what had been unjustly usurped from him he would proceed no further but desired to live in Peace the which might now be the better assured the one holding nothing from the other Moreover this Persian Ambassador having remained seven Months at the Sultans Port was in the end forced to retire into Persia without audience And lastly That Amurath Serder the Grand Visier was afterwards forced to convert his Arms against Gambolat and the Rebels of Asia and to neglect the War of Persia. year 1611 Notwithstanding the Persian War there arrived this year at Constantinople an Ambassador from Persia who according to the Turks manner was attended on by a great Troop of Ghaoux on Horseback Capigi's Janizaries and other Captains sent by the Sultan to conduct him to his lodging Within few days after his arrival there was a great show made in Constantinople by the several Trades of the City every one marching by themselves before the Grand Seigniors Serrail and representing unto him their manner of marching in the Wars and the order of their Provision some carrying on their Shoulders Sheep others Lambs Calves Beef c. All which was done of Policy to daunt and dishearten the Persian Ambassador and to encourage their own People and withal to let him know that there should be as great plenty in their Camps as he saw at that present And to abuse him still with the Imagination of their great Preparation the Chimacham or Visiers Lieutenant sent the next day for this Persian Ambassador and during their Conference had taken order That the Emperour of Tartaria's Brother who was then in the Sultans Court should come in at whose entrance the Chimacham arose from his Place Oh said he I know for what you come It is for Money for your Souldiers you shall receive it at such a Place Which words were heard by a Dragoman to the English Ambassador being then present the which was done to terrifie the Persian Ambassador and at the same time and to the same end they sent over divers Troops of Souldiers to Scudaret as if they had been ready to march with an Army The Turks great Armies are not raised in haste neither do they march in post when as the Spahi's that is to say the Horsemen which make the greatest part of his Army and have no other Pay or Entertainment than the Revenues of certain Land are discharged they must have a whole year to recover their Revenue and to put themselves in Equipage and moreover it is threescore days march for an Army from Constantinople into Persia. Also in the year 1609 and 1610 the Turk had not attempted any thing against the Persian who still sollicited him for Peace The greatness of the Othoman Empire could not resolve to make a Peace having receiv'd so great defeats they would give it but as Victors not as vanquished But this year Achmat resolved to send a puissant Army of above 150000 men against this antient Enemy of his House under the command of Amurath Serder his Grand Visier But before the Army entred into Persia it was without a Commander by the death of Serder in the end of Iuly so as they were forced to stay and attend the Sultans pleasure from Constantinople It was suspected that he had been poisoned by Nassuf Bassa one that stood out in Rebellion against the Grand Seignior and yet he had many Friends in the Turks Army wherefore to prevent all Mutinies and consequently the overthrow of the whole Army Amurath Bassa in his Sickness advised the Grand Seignior by Letters which he sent unto him to make Nassuf General of the whole Army and so by fair means to draw him home and then to dispose of him at his pleasure The Sultan with his Bassaes approved well of this Advice and chose him Grand Visier and General of the Army who having received the Seal and Authority did forthwith put many of Amurath's friends to death and with their money paid all the Souldiers which had wanted pay whereof some had been without five years before he also sent unto the Grand Seignior threescore and ten Mules laden with money of Amurath's treasure and threescore with goods all which the Sultan gave to Amurath's Wise and Children It is strange to read how the Grand Seignior doth tyrannize over his Subjects and how severely he doth punish the least omission in any of his Officers for I find it observed that the seventh of Ianuary in the end of this year 1611 the Grand Seignior being abroad in the Snow and not well provided for of fuel he caused Stambol Aga who had that charge to be strip't naked and sâ—t in the Snow four or five hours Indeed this Winter was very rigorous and there fell abundance of Snow throughout all Turkie with great Storms many Houses were beaten down and amongst others the French Consul at Aleppo was slain with the fall of his own house Nassuff parted from Asia and marched with his Army unto the Frontiers of Persia where he committed such Spoils as the Sophy was constrained to draw all his Forces together to prevent the ruine of his Countrey being then about the midst of August But when they were come to a Battel the Persian finding the Party unequal for him and dangerous offered Conditions of Peace and promised to give the Turk a quantity of Silk which should make the charge of two hundred Camels for a yearly Tribute in acknowledgment of some Countreys which he had conquered from the Othomans These offers were accepted at Constantinople but there was added that the Persian's Son should be called
the others with Quarrels and Contests advanced a Fellow of no Understanding or Reputation to the eminent degree of Great Vizier in which condition he remained not long For the Fire of the multitude being with time quenched and the popular Heat abated this new Vizier was displaced all things returning to their usual Channel and Authority to its Fountain And that Matters might more easily be restored to their ancient order the Grand Signior called for the Pasha of Damascus to receive the Dignity of Great Vizier for he being a Person of eighty Years of Age and of long Experience in Affairs having managed the most weighty Charges of the Empire was looked on by all as the most proper Person to compose and heal these great Distempers in the State and this was that famous Kuperlee who was Father to him who succeeded him in this Office. The Pasha of Silistria was also constituted Captain Pasha and Chusaein was confirmed in his Government of Candia And now the bright Beams of Justice and Government having dissipated the Storms and Fury of popular Sollevations the Grand Signior in Person mounting his Horse accompanied with his principal Ministers of State visited all the Parts of Constantinople where making Inquisition for the principal Leaders and Fomenters of this Rebellion he seized on some and without further process boldly executed them in the Face of the People But before things were reduced to this condition four Months were spent in this horrid Confusion and what is most strange this Great Empire for so long time remained without a Pilot tossed on the Waves of popular Commotions all which served to give ease and respite to the Venetians in their War but not to operate towards a Peace so resolute were the Turks in their Design of making an entire Conquest of Candia For having again Equipped a most formidableFleet consisting of sixty light Gallies twenty eight Ships and nine Galleasses they attempted to make their way for Candia and therewith to fight the Venetians in case they should oppose them in their Voyage to which they were the more encouraged upon sight of the Venetians who appeared at the Streights of the Dardanelli with no more than twenty nine Gallies and some Boats or Brigantines howsoever the Turks were not so confident in their numbers but that they judged it requisite to fortify themselves with two Batteries one on the Coast of Anatolia and the other on the European shore whereby they imagined that they might cause the Venetians to give way and open a Passage to their Fleet. But notwithstanding the continual shot which the Turks made upon them they still kept their Station from the 23 d to the 26 th of Iune when the Wind coming about to the North which was favourable for the Turks to Sail out and to bring them nearer to their Enemies they began gently to approach and the like the Christians endeavoured being desirous to join Battel at which firmness of Resolution the Turks being a little startled became willing to avoid the Fight and to creep under the shelter of the point of Babiers which locks in one of the Bayes between the Castles and the Mouth of the Dardanelli But the Wind on a sudden turning favourable for the Venetians the Prior of Rochelle with his Squadron and Mocenigo with three Ships under his Command made up towards the Castles with design to cut the Turks off from their Retreat the others valiantly assailed the Turks who defending themselves like those whose chief security consists in their Arms there ensued a most miserable slaughter on one side and the other at length the Success of Victory happened to the Venetians who were animated by the couragious Example of their General Marcello though he having Boarded and become Master of a great Ship called a Soltana with the Gally which attended her was shot in the thigh with a Cannon Bullet and thereby gained the glory to die Conquering and Triumphant After whose Death the Proveditor taking upon him the Command of the Fleet prosecuted the Victory so close that excepting fourteen Gallies which escaped with the Captain-Pasha and four Gallies of the Bey's all the whole Fleet was either taken sunk or burnt The Venetians not being able to man all the Vessels that they had taken set many of them on fire in the Night excepting only twelve Gallies four Ships and two Galleasses which they reserved for a Demonstration or Evidence of their Victory With this glorious success five thousand poor Christians obtained their Freedom and had their Chains and Shackles knocked off What number the Turks might have lost is uncertain but as to the Venetians it is reported that besides their General there were not above three hundred Men in all killed and wounded The Venetians being encouraged by this Success attacked the Island of Tenedos and in the space of four days became Masters of it as also in a short time afterwards of Stalimene antiently called Lemnos the which shameful Losses and Overthrow so irritated the Mind of the Grand Signior that he gave Orders to carry the War into Dalmatia intending the next Summer to go thither in Person and in the mean time Commanded by the Pasha of Bosna that the City of Ragusa should be put into a readiness to receive his Troops being judged a convenient Place for the Seat and Magazine of Arms for those Countries But the poor Republick greatly apprehending this Misfortune than which there could be no greater Mischief nor Ruin to their Country dispatched certain Deputies with their yearly Tribute to the Port with Instructions that in the way thither they should supplicate the Pasha to intercede with the Grand Signior in their behalf representing to his Majesty that they paying their annual Tribute for Protection ought not in justice to be exposed to the licentiousness of an Army which their little Territories were not capable to receive nor provide with convenient Quarters at which Message the Pasha being highly incensed answered rudely and imprisoned them threatning to strangle them in case their Government did not obey the Commands of the Sultan ANNO 1657. BUT the chief Ministers at the Port taking into their consideration the present State of Affairs that the City of Constantinople was full of Discontents the Persian on one side and the Moscovite on the other ready to invade divers parts of the Empire that there were Designs to depose the Grand Signior and set one of his Brothers on the Throne besides a multitude of other Dangers the resolution of the Court's removal and of the Grand Signior's March into Dalmatia was suspended his Presence and Authority being esteemed most requisite in such a conjuncture of Troubles at the Heart and Center of his Empire After which the appearance of the Grand Signior in Publick was less frequent for that he might hasten the departure of the Spahees and Janisaries for Candia he deferred his Journey to Adrianople for some time but they being averse to
Breach of the lower Town in the taking of which they lost but Eight Soldiers in that Day and Night's Service which being so cheaply obtained the Generals suspected that the Enemy had abandoned the Place with Design and with Intention to Blow up the Assailants with some Mines prepared for them and for that reason they gave a stop to the Advancement of the Troops but the next Day having searched and examined those Places and finding all secure they proceeded to make a new Lodgment in the Angle of the Wall of the lower Town which answered in a right Line to the main Tower of the upper City under whâ—â—h they lay secure from the Enemies Shot This Exploit being performed with the loss only of Sixteen Men there was but little Plunder found therein besides some Horses and Oxen and some few Field-pieces upon one of the Works for all the Houses were beaten down by the Turks themselves and consumed by Fire and the Inhabitants either fled or retired into the upper Fortifications which shews evidently that the Turks looking on that Place as not tenable had drawn their Force into the higher Town in which they placed all their Security hoping to make a most vigorous Resistence both by the advantagious Situation and the goodness of the Fortifications But the Christians finding the Advantage of the lower Ground whereby to offend the upper City employed immediately Two thousand Men with diverse Laboures to draw the Lines and deepen the Approaches from one Gate to the other In the mean time the Turks who lived in the parts adjacent to Buda being put into great Consternation by the concourse of the Christian Arms prepared themselves to fly and seek Refuge in remote parts so that many with their Wives and Children and Servants having taking with them the best of their Housholdstuff and Goods passed over to the Island of St. Margarets which is situate in the Danube and of a very great length but finding this Place of too near Neighbourhood to the Christian Army and very unsecure having got about thirty large Boats and Barges they had laden their Goods and embarked their Persons thereon with design to pass down the River to Belgrade when a Body of Hungarians Hussars and Heydukes under Command of Count Budiani having Advice thereof armed out a good number of Boats and Barges and with Three hundred Dragoons by Land boarded their Vessels and having killed the Boat-men and the chief amongst them easily made themselves Masters of the rest and of all the rich Houshold-stuff Mony and Goods in such abundance that every Common Soldier had a Suit and Vest of Silk for his own Share with other good Booty and Plunder which they carried away and departed but being informed afterwards by some Rascians that the Inhabitants of that Island had committed many Cruelties and Outrages upon the Christians they returned again to the Island which is about seven Hungarian or German Miles long which make about Twenty eight English and there put all to Fire and Sword year 1686. with the Slaughter of about a Thousand Men. After which Count Budiani went purposely to the Duke of Loraine in the Camp to render an account of his late Atchievements and in testimony thereof he presented him with seven Turkish Standards which he had won in that and in an other Rencounter in which he had defeated a Party of the Enemy near Erscin together with some Prisoners of Quality and Condition amongst which there was an Aga and a Chiaus The Christian Soldiers animated with these daily Successes some few of them with more Temerity than Prudence made an attempt to Lodge themselves nearer to the Upper City without those due Precautions of Defence which are commonly used by throwing up of Earth and making some little Blinds as is practiced in all Military Approaches but these bold Men adventured with open Breasts to enlarge their Lodgments on that side of the City which looks towards Strigoniam which when the Turks observed a great number of them flanked on one side by the round Tower and on the other by a Party of Musqueteers throwing Stones and Hand-granadoes assailed the Germans who were not above Fifty in all with so much Fury as forced them to make their Retreat the which notwithstanding they did with good Order being assisted by their Comrades who came to their Help and repulsed the Enemy and made them with some loss to retire back into the City Howsoever in a short time after about the Close of the Evening the Turks made a more vigorous Sally on the Left-hand of the â—ound Tower of the old City The Count of Ausberg and the Cavalier Rohne having the Command that Night of those Quarters with great Bravery received the Enemy and engaged with them for above an Hour's space when the Prince of Commarcy and the Prince of Vaudemont having their Quarters near thereunto came seasonably into their Succour with many Gentlemen who were Voluntiers and Soldiers of Fortune and forced the Turks back into the City with the loss of about Fifty Ianisaries Of the Christians were about ten killed in this Action which was well paid by the advantage then gained for whilst the Parties were engaged in this manner they opened the Trenches on both sides of the old City with two large Parades or places of Arms and extended the Lines of the Approaches towards the two Bulwarks of the upper City And because it was necessary to Batter the City on that side a Battery was raised without the old Wall of Sixteen Pieces of heavy Cannon from which many Shot were made at the round Tower and several Bombs thrown into the City The Turks nothing disanimated herewith made a vigorous Sally on the Quarters of the Bavarian Forces with Three thousand Horse and Foot and thô the Elector was at that time indisposed in his Health yet his Bravery prompted him to mount on Horseback and with the assistance of the Horse under Command of Lieutenant Colonel Hofkerken which were Quartered in a Vally on the Way towards Strigonium he with a steddy Foot opposed the Turks and forced them to Retire with Disorder into the Town In this Action Twenty four of their Officers were Slain with many Ianisaries and many Wounded Of the Bavarians about Forty were Killed caused by a Surprize at the first beginning of the Sally The Prince of Savoy according to his natural Courage and Valour pressing into the thickest of the Enemies numbers had his Horse Killed under him but mounting another pursued the Enemy to the very Gates of the City Whilst these things were acting it was a matter of great encouragement to the Camp to find their Forces daily augmenting by new Recruits For the Swedes were then newly arrived under the Command of the Marquis of Turlac and took their Station on that side which leads to Alba Regalis These were followed by Lieutenant General Schoning Commander in Chief of
on the 17 th about eight a Clock in the Morning the new Grand Seignior went by Boat from the Seraglio to Eiub where the Nakib Effendi or Chief of Mahomet's Kindred Girt him with the Sword which is a Ceremony answering to our Coronation and having said Noon-Prayers at that place and all the Ceremonies ended he rode from the Mosch in a Solemn Cavalcade through the City back to the Seraglio but not with such Splendor and Magnificence as had been done in the time of the Grand Seigniors his Predecessors All People crouded as we may believe to see the Features and Fashion of their new Sultan of whose Person and Abilities Reports had created already a high Expectation He was of a long lean pale Visage but not of an ungrateful Aspect his Eyes were full and black and his Beard was black but somewhat grisly what his Qualications of Mind were will be more evidently discovered hereafter and come then more properly to be described in their due place But in the mean time we may reflect that the change of the person of the Prince could not be of much advantage to the Publick For what the other did out of a remiss and voluptuous Humour attending only to his Divertisements and leaving the Care and Management of all his Affairs to the Contrivance and Conduct of his Ministers this Grand Seignior must now do out of necessity being wholly unexperienced in the World having all his Life been kept up in a Chamber without other Conversation than that of a few Eunuchs some old Women and two or three Hogiaes or Masters to assist him in his Studies As Books were his Entertainment in his confined Life so â—he seemed to have had an affection for them in the choice he made of Kupriogli for his Favourite who was esteemed in that Country a learned Man and to have had the best Library of any in that whole Empire It was said That he had promised his deposed Brother all security of his Life and that he should be kept in the same manner as he was and that he might allow him what comfort he could in that manner of Life he suffered his Children to be with him for some Days but they were afterwards by the Councils of others taken from him and lodged apart His other Brother Achmet the Companion with him in his Imprisonment he visited and promised to be kind to him but he was not perfect Master of his Senses of which we shall speak more when we come to see him on the Throne after the Death of Sultan Solyman The Hazaki Sultana or Empress of the deposed Sultan was sent to the old Seraglio there to remain until Death or some other Revolution of Fortune shall release her In the place of her the Mother of the present Grand Seignior who for some years was reported to be dead appeared alive and removed from the old Seraglio to her Son but she was a little Maddish Thus were all things turned up-side down all the great Officers of the Empire except the Captain Pasha or Admiral being changed Which when a Man seriously considers and that these Revolutions were carried on by common Soldiers one would admire that they should pass with so little Confusion or Blood-shed For except those six which were killed in the Army and Cuchiuck Mahomet at Constantinople in a Military Fury there was only Solyman and Regeb cut off for the Death of Ibrahim at Rhodes did not proceed from them but from Regeb As to the daily Insolences in the Streets they were not committed by the Spahees but by poor Drunken Ianisaries who had neither Money nor Cloths and therewith would be supplied from Christians and Iews and Turks too But this was no new thing but what had been formerly practised by the baser sort of the Soldiers as often as they came from the War or were shortly going thither And now since things were thus changed some Reformation was expected and that was to begin in the Seraglio where the first and most plausible thing was the Retrenchment of the Expences which during the time of the late Sultan had been excessive the very Barly for the Horses costing One thousand five hundred Dollars or Three hundred pounds Sterling a Day the number of the Hawks and Dogs with the People who attended them was vast all which were ordered to be reduced for the present Sultan took so little delight in these Divertisements thaâ— he was to learn how to Ride and the Stables were to be reduced to a Hundred Horse one Hundred and fifty of the Pages were to be made Spahees and the rest were to be changed and new ones put into their places The same was to be performed in the Courts and Chambers of the Women so that the Retrenchments made were calculated to amount unto Eight thousand Purses of Money a year every Purse being Five hundred Dollars and may be accounted to be almost a Million of pounds Sterling The Greyhounds and Dogs of which there were many Hundreds kept in the Seraglio for the use of the late Sultan were all let loose and suffered to run about the Streets of Constantinople where they might have starved had not the godly Men whose Religion consists much in feeding Dogs and Cats taken Compassion on them and fed them daily with Bread from the Bakers Shops These Retrenchments of expence in the Seraglio pleased the Soldiers wonderfully hoping that thereby the more Money would be coming to them and so they continued very observant and quiet during all the time that the Money was paying out but so soon as that began to fail and fall short they became as troublesome as ever assembling with great Insolence at the Vizier's House threw Stones at his Windows storming and raging like Mad-men until such time as with fair words and promises of Money within a few Days they were for a while appeased Thus far had the Soldiery found the ways to raise Money but now they being at a stand it was the Vizier's turn to set on foot some new invention or conjuration for more But so empty and drained were all the great Banks that no other way could be thought on but only to go over the rich Men once more and to squeeze them to the last Dreggs of all their Estates to perform which they began with the old Kuzlir Aga who obtained his Liberty upon payment of Nine hundred Purses in all besides his Furniture and Curiosities which were taken from him to a great value and after that he had the favour to be Banisht to Grand Cairo The Hasnadar Aga who as we have said succeeded him was displaced and paid Two hundred Purses and the Aga of the old Seraglio was made Kuzlir Aga which Promotion was according to the ancient Methods that every one should rise and succeed gradually and favoured something of a Reformation But because this new Tax would not reach the entire Sum required for
Topuss or Mace into his Hand and holding it over the Head of the Aga of the Ianisaries said aloud What is the matter And what Noise is this thou makest Thou old Fool Thinkest thou that thou art more brave or more faithful than I am Hold thy peace or by the living God I will beat thy Brains out with this Topuss For what Reason is it that I am not permitted to speak with that Captain Will he alone take this City Let us hear and see what it is that he will say If his Offers are good we may receive them and if bad we may reject them It was never denied in any part of the World to hear Ambassadours In the mean time a great Noise and Tumult arose amongst the Soldiers at the Gate and above a dozen Cannon-shot were fired at the Imperial Horse which stood drawn up within Musquet-shot of the Gates and some of the Turks mounted on Horse-back made a Sally and began a Skirmish which continued almost two Hours without any other hurt than of some few Turks who were wounded Colonel Riccardi all this time could not discover the true State and Condition of the Town and therefore he gave freedom to two Turks provided that they would procure entrance into the Town and return with certain advice of the true state thereof But the Confusion was so great before the Gates that they were neither permitted to enter or speak Whereupon the Colonel seeing little good was to be done at that present made a Retreat and was on his return with his Soldiers to Palotta when they espied Wrebeck with some other Turks running full speed towards them as if they intended another Skirmish but they stopped their Horses and returned back to the Town and so did the Colonel towards Palotta And having passed a certain Bog or Morass and the River Sarowitz he gave Command to a Turk who was his Prisoner to go that Night to Alba Regalis and having there understood the true State of the place that he should the next day early return with some certain Report thereof year 1688. But the Turk desired to be excused for that in case he were discovered he should most certainly be Empaled But the Colonel fiercely commanded him to go with promise to give him his Liberty at his return The poor Fellow obeyed out of fear and out of Religion to the Faith of his Promise and Oath he faithfully performed the Service enjoyned him For the next Day being the 30 th of March this Turk with Sixteen others well clothed and armed with four Turkish Women Wives to some of them and Children escaped out of the Town and fled to the Christians The Colonel soon enter'd into discourse with them and by their Answers to several Interrogatories he put to them he understood that amongst those Sixteen there were two of them which in the late Tumult in the City had been principal Ringleaders of the Sedition the first called Hadgi Ali and the other Kara Hassan both of them Officers amongst the Spahees and of the number of those who had broken the Vizier's Windows and given some Stabs to the Governour of the Castle And to satisfie the Colonel's Questions more particularly Hadgi Ali gave this following Account of the late Uproar which had hapned in the Town On the 27th said he of this Month of March some Janisaries and Spahees of the Garrison came to me and said Friends and Brethren what are we to do These our Commanders will neither Surrender up the City to the Christians nor yet give us Provisions wherewith to live Come let us go to these Tyrants and require an Account from them for what reason they treat us in this inhuman manner The Day following the Spahees and Janisaries to the number of Four or Five hundred went with me to the Vizier with whom we found the Pasha of the City then present and I as their chief Speaker began in sharp and resenting Terms to lay before them our miserable and starving Condition and Aggrievances The Vizier and Pasha with gentle and most obliging words endeavoured to pacifie us and to lay the blame of all upon the Aga of the Janisaries advising us to cite him before the Kadi or Iudge then sitting in the chief Mosch of the City where being convicted by Iustice they would leave him to our Mercy to inflict Punishment on him according to our own free Will and Pleasure And that their intentions might appear more real and manifest they gave into my Hands an Order directed to the Iudge to give ear unto the Aggrievances of the People and to those Accusations which they had to charge on the Aga of the Janisaries The People herewith went to the House of the Iudge whom finding not at home they proceeded directly to the Aga of the Janisaries who being well pre-advised of the Business called me to himself and began to speak to me in very kind words I know my dear Hadgi you desire that the place be yielded up and for my part I am contented and if you will let me go to the Vizier and the Pasha we will soon agree upon Articles for the Surrender The which we having permitted him to do he immediately mounted on his Horse but the enraged People fell upon him and had killed him had he not retired back into the Yard of his House and shut his Gates upon them and to save himself from farther Out-rage he barred up himself in a secret place of his House resolving not to come forth until he had received assurances for the security of his Life the which when I had given him with consent and approbation of the People on Condition that he should concur with the Vizier and Pasha in their Resolutions for Surrender of the place he then went to the Vizier and the Pasha and being all three together they joyntly agreed to call me to their Presence and caused me which was a thing unusual to sit down amongst them and demanded of me what it was I desired I immediately answered Sirs My Companions have entrusted me to tell you That if you do not Surrender up the City but suffer them miserably to Perish they resolve to Kill you and to do the Business themselves and to depart from hence with their Families to Belgrade These words being uttered with some fierceness and accompanied with some other Menaces they expressed great tenderness for the People repeating their promises to yield unto all their desires But I was scarce got out from their presence before the Gates were with despight shut upon us and the Commanders shewed themselves armed with all their Attendants at the Windows and the Aga of the Janisaries who was more resolute than any and averse to the Surrender holding his Bow and Arrows in his Hand told the People plainly that he would not consent to the Surrender of the City but would defend and maintain it to the last drop of his Blood. The People
enraged hereat drew up into a Body before the Vizier's House and some of them ran upon the Walls and drew from thence two Pieces of Cannon intending therewith to batter down the Vizier's Palace which was ready for Execution when the Renegado Wrebeck a Fellow very dear to the People came with Tears in his Eyes to dissuade them from so violent an Attempt and having used many very pungent Arguments to them he prevailed so far that the Tumult was appeased During this interval or suspension of Arms I who was as it were the Tribune of the People was called again and desired to appease the Multitude promising to answer their desires But they having been so often deluded refused to give any Credit to their Words unless they would solemnly swear on the Alchoran to yield the City nor yet would they draw off and return the Cannon unto the Walls until such time as they had begun to make some steps towards the execution of their desires Hereupon the three Commanders with some of the Citizens assembled in the great Moseh as if they intended to agree upon the Propositions which were to be offer'd to the Enemies but in reality they intended nothing less labouring all that Day to appease the Tumults with Mony and Provisions The Vizier made large distributions to the Spahees and the Aga to the Janisaries and the Pasha to the Citizens and Soldiers of the Country and by these means they took an Oath of the People patiently to endure until St. George's Day being the 23d of April which is a Day regardby the Turks But howsoever they would esteem themselves absolved from this Oath in case an Enemy should in the mean time appear before their Walls and streighten them yet farther by a Siege Colonel Riccardi having by this Relation been rightly informed of the true State of the Town he thought fit to make Tryal of another Appearance before the Walls and came with more than One hundred Horse within Cannon-shot of the place which had he done the preceeding Day before the People had taken an Oath to hold out until St. George's Day the City had most certainly been yielded But now instead thereof they made several Shots from the Bastions and sallied out both Horse and Foot without any other execution on either side than the taking of one Turk whose Head they cut off in sight of his Companions Thus the Colonel having sufficiently been informed of the State of the matter on which he was employed he departed from Palotta with his Troops on the 31 st of March year 1688. and Lodging that Night within a League of Alba Regalis a certain Ianisary well armed and clothed came to them in the Morning and gave an Account that he was fled from the City with some other Companions amongst which was an Odabashee or Captain of the Ianisaries who having been over active and forward in the late Mutiny feared in cooler Blood to be called to question by the angred Officers After which Colonel Riccardi finding little farther to be done marched back to Buda as Colonel Bisterzi did with his Forces to Palotta The obstinate Defence which Alba Regalis made gave some trouble to the Court at Vienna both because it was necessary to have it subjected before the beginning of the Campaign and because the Captive Turks and Deserters were so numerous in those parts and in the Towns and Redoubts over all those Qarters as might give just occasion of Jealousie and fear of Danger in case any design of Massacre or Assassination should be plotted by them But so vile and mean were the Turks esteemed and their price and value so low that a lusty Fellow was sold for a Dollar and a Woman for a quarter But we must here take our leave of Alba Regalis for a while and return to Constantinople where we shall find the Seditions and Military Mutinies broken out again with more Fury and Danger even to the very shaking of the Foundations of the Empire than at the latter end of the last year For the Cabals daily increased amongst the mutinous Soldiers They had lately received their pay and were satisfied in all they could demand their Officers had some of them been displaced and others strangled as they were pleased to bestow their Heads and Offices but not being herewith contented unless every one of them could be made a Vizier or Pasha they were emboldned to proceed to farther Outrages There had been a kind of a cessation of these intestine Troubles for about the space of two Months during which time the new Sultan was persuaded as a thing accustomary to send an Ambassador to France England and Holland to give notice of his happy exaltation to the Sublime Throne of his Ancestors but whilst this was meditating and preparations making for carrying on the Wars of the ensuing Summer which was designed most vigorously to be acted in the Morea and in a defensive manner only in Hungary the Thoughts of sending an Ambassador into Christendom as lately designed were laid aside which was not unpleasing either to Sir William Trumbal who was then Ambassador for his Majesty of Great Britain at Constantinople nor yet to the English Company of Merchants at London trading into the Levant Seas who could expect to reap nothing but trouble and expence from such an Embassy And indeed all things were at a stand by the Insolencies of the Soldiers the Officers both Civil and Military being discouraged and at a stop and full Period in the Grand Seignior's Service had work enough to contrive how to guard their own Persons against the violence of the Soldiers and provide for the safety of their own Lives The daily Cabals of Mutinous Soldiers having been held in several places of the City were adjourned at length to the Vizier's own House where with Menaces and greater Insolencies than formerly they demanded the removal of Kuperlee the Chimacam from his Office saying That he was as bad a Man as his Father who had spilt Rivers of Blood and ruined the Empire It was an unusual Piece of Favour and Mercy in this People to deal thus gently with him who were accustomed formerly to be Executioners of their own Sentence upon those whom they suspected to be no good Wishers to their Side and Faction To oppose them herein had been to no purpose and to expostulate with them had been equally dangerous wherefore the Vizier being sensible of their Outragious and Irrational Humour not patient of the least Contradiction seemed to concur with them in all they asked and ordered a Gally immediately to Transport Kuperlee to the Castles on the Hellespont or Dardanelli There was no need of Commands or Force to drive Kuperlee away for he was affrighted and readily leapt into the Gally thinking it a happy occasion to save his Life and escape out of their Hands The Vizier also at their instance discharged several Officers which they had nominated putting the Chief
took four Prisoners and 90 Horses of which 30 were laden with Flour besides a great Booty of other things On the other side Mahomet Pasha roved round about the Country of Novi Passar burning and destroying all the remaining Villages killing the Country People that they met with and acting all the Cruelties that Fire and Sword could execute But what was of most importance at this time was the Surrender of the strong City and Fortress of Canisia having been reduced thereunto by Famine after a long and severe Blockade by which being brought to such Extremities that not being able to support themselves any longer the Pasha on the 16th of March sent out two Aga's to the Christian Army to treat with the Commanders of the Blockade who were Count Adam Bathiani and Count Stephen Zitchi to whom being conducted by Lieutenant Colonel Pisterski after the usual Complements had been passed on both sides the Turks desired that four Weeks might be granted them to make their Surrender offering in case no Succours came to them within that time they would then resign the City into the Hands of the Emperor's Generals with all the Cannon and Ammunition therein four Guns only excepted which they pretended to carry with them But in regard it was then late in the Evening when these Offers were delivered the Messengers were kept all Night in the Camp and well treated and the next Morning a Council of War being called an Answer was returned them to this Effect That it being well known that neither in four Weeks nor in four Years any Relief or Succour could be expected for them and that tho' their Extremities were so evident that they were certainly assured they could not subsist any longer yet that they might taste of the Grace and Clemency of the Emperor they promised them their Lives provided they should Surrender themselves in the space of 24 Hours With which Answer the two Aga's returned back to the City on which some Consultation being there had on the 19th three Turks were sent out again to the Christian Army declaring to the Generals in the Name of the Pasha and the Garrison That tho' they were still furnished with four Months Provision in the Town yet they would no longer refuse the Clemency of His Imperial Majesty but deliver up the City unto him And for the further management of this Treatise they proposed That three German and Hungarian Officers might be sent into the Town for Hostages in lieu of five Turks who should be employed to Capitulate in the Army The Christians having assented hereunto the three Messengers were next Day returned with this Answer That the Clemency of His Imperial Majesty was such that he never desired to shed the Blood of his Enemies when they implored his Mercy and that the General Bathiani had full Power to pardon them which he was ready to do on Condition that they Surrendred the Place in the space of 24 Hours With this Answer the Turks returning to the Town they desired a third Conference on the 21st the which after a long Dispute was granted and agreed That five Turks of which the Janizar-Aga should be one should come into the Camp and that in the Place of them a German and two Hungarian Officers should be sent for Pledges into the City This being performed on the 22d Day these following Capitulations were agreed and signed Capitulations Agreed I. THAT whatsoever is belonging to the Arsenal and Publick Stores either of Provision Ammunition Cannon or other Arms should be delivered to the Imperial Commissaries to whom also all Mines made about the City should be discovered II. That the Prisoners on both sides should be released without Ransom III. That all the Inhabitants of the City and Strangers shall have liberty to march out with their Arms Moveables Cloaths Servants Children Horses and all other Cattle who shall have safe Passage and Conduct into the Ottoman Dominions but without Flying Colours or Sound of Drum Notwithstanding which in case any of the Rascians who are in pay of the Turks should freely desire to come over to the Christians they shall not be hindered either on the Score of Debt or any other Pretence whatsoever IV. All Christian Renegadoes who shall be desirous to return unto their Ancient Faith shall have liberty to do it and no Christian Children be privately conveyed away V. A sufficient Number of Waggons shall be allowed to the Turks to carry them to the Water-side and from thence Boats to Transport them into the Turkish Dominions VI. That so soon as these Capitulations shall be Signed the Imperialists shall immediately be put into Possession of the Palanca our Out-work called Baschlar Kapaesi in which the Turks shall have liberty to sell what they please of their Goods or to carry them away VII That so soon as the Imperial Ratification shall be returned the Turks shall immediately quit the City and begin their Journey VIII The Turks shall deliver to the Imperial Commissaries all the Tax-Registers in Canisia with such Books as concern the Military Sallaries paid from Bosnia and other Districts depending on Canisia with the Tefter or an account of such Revenues which the Janizaries usually Pay and Receive out of the Homage and Tributary Countries IX That the People of Canisia shall be Convoyed with a sufficient Number of Officers and Soldiers unto the first Turkish Fortress leaving howsoever behind them the Hostages at the last Christian Fortress until the return of the Convoy X. That during the March Provisions shall be furnished to the Turks at moderate Prices With these Capitulations the Imperial Councellor of War called Pozo the Aga and two more Turkish Officers were on the 24th dispatched to Vieâ—na to have the Capitulations Ratified and Signed with the Imperial Firme they arrived on the 30th and the next Day had an Audience of Count Staremberg President of the Council of War to whom they delivered the Capitulation and on the first of April it was returned back again to them Signed by the Emperor who was graciously pleased to mâ—ke a Present therewith unto the Aga of a Watch set with Diamonds With this Ratification the Aga being returned which was on the 3d of April it was resolved by the Pasha and other Officers in the Divan immediately to put the Christians into Possession of one of the Gates of the City the which by the 12th they fully quitted and the next Day the Pasha being on Horseback attended with some Turks on Foot delivered unto General Bathâ—ani the Keys of the Town in a gilded Bason hanging on a Gold Chain The Pasha indeed expected that the General should have alighted from his Horse to receive them but the General refusing to receive them in such a manner as a Condescention too inferiour to the Dignity of His Imperial and Victorious Master the Pasha insisted no farther thereupon but presenting the Key said I deliver unto you the Key of
The Rhodians valiantly defend the City The Spanish Bulwaâ—k taken by the Turks The Spanish Bulwark again recovered The Turks give over the assaulâ— Solyman in his â—ury commandeth the two great Bassaâ—s Mustapha and Pyrrhus to be pâ—t to death The Bassaes spared at the intercession of the other Counsellors Solyman displaceth his Admiral and puniâ—â—eth him as a Slavâ— Solyman exceedingly grieved with the repulse and loss received at the Siege of the Rhodes was upon point to have lâ—ft the same Achimetes promiseth to make a way for Solyman into the City Solyman comforteth his Souldiers and perswadeth them with patience to endure the Siege Achimetes winneth the Vaumures of the Avergne Bulwark raiseth a strong Penthouse against the Wall and so undermiâ—eth the same The miseâ—able state of the Common Souldiers of the Turks and the small account is made of them Solyman encourageth his Souldiers to a fresh Assault The distressed estate of the Rhodians and their couragious resolution therein The Turks trouble the Rhodians with continual Alarms and by casting up of Trenches got into the City Parley offered by the Turks to the Rhodians Secret parley rejected The Great Master at the instance of his People sendeth Embassadors to Solyman Solymans Letter sent to the Great Masteâ— and the Rhodians by their Embassadoâ—s The Great Master his opinion concerning that Solyman demanded by his Letters A notable Speech of a Greek Priest perswading the Great Master to yield A most resolute Speech of a common Souldier disswading the yielding up of the Rhodes The former Speech notably answered by a Greek and the yielding of the City urged The Great Master resolâ—ed that the City was not to be defended calleth a Common-Council of his Knights and the Burgessâ—s of the City A Truce takâ—n with the Turks for four days A barbarous Fact. Solyman his Speech unto the Great Master The resolute answer of the Great Master to Solyman Solyman cometh inâ—o the City unto the Great Master The Speech of the Great Master to Solyman The notable answer of Solyman to the Great Master Solyman entreth into the Rhodes on Christenmas day in the year 1522. Solyman sends Ferhates Bassâ— against Alis-Beg the Mountain Prince Alis and his four Sons treacherously slain Solyman returneth to Constantinople Solyman upon the discord of the Christian Princes and disordered state of â—ungary taketh occasion to invade that Kingdom Solyman cometh against Lewis King of Hungary The vanity of Tomoreus Wholesome Counsel not followed The battel of Mohatchz Tomoreus slain King Lewis drowned in a ditch The Heads of slâ—in Christian Bishops and Captains presâ—nted to Solyman The Bishop of Veradâ—um too true a Prophet The honourabâ—e Speech of Solyman concerning his coming into Hungary Joannes Sepusius Vayvod of Transylvania aspireth to the Kingdom of Hungary King Lewis buried John Sepusius the Vayvod chosen and crowned King of Hungary Ferdinand King of Bohemia layeth claim to the Kingdom of Hungary King Ferdinand taketh Buda The battel of Tocai between the Armies of King John and King Ferdinand King John 〈◊〉 into Polonia Ferdinand crowned King of Hungary at Alba Regalis Lascus counselleth King John to crave aid of Solyman Lascus goeth Embassador for King John to Solyman Abraham Bassa Lascus his request of Solyman in the behalf of King John. Solyman granteth Lascus his request Ferdinand sendeth an Embassador to Solyman Solymans answer to Ferdinâ—nds Embassadors Solyman cometh into Hungary with a great Army King John cometh to Solyman at Belgrade Solyman enters Buda without resistance and besieged the Castle Solyman contrary to his promise causeth the Garrison Souldiers after they had delivered the Castle to be slain Austria spoiled by the Turks Altenbourg taken Solyman cometh to Vienna Vienna badly fortified Solyman releaseth the Christian Princes without ransome Eight thousand Turks lost in the Mines The Walls of Vienna blown up The Turks repulsed from the breach A most terrible Assault The Turks the third time repulsed The Lord â—illâ—â—m â—ogendorffe Vienna 〈…〉 The Turks repulsed Solyman raiseth his Siege Eighty thousand Turks lost at the Siege of Vienna Solyman restoreth the Kingdom of Hungary to King John. The honourable saying of Solyman to King John Solyman Circumciseth his three Sons King Ferdinand sends Embassadors to Solyman The preparation of Charles the Emperor against Solyman Strigonium besieged by King John. Mutiny among the Spanish Souldiers Solyman cometh into Hungary Genza besieged by the Turks The huge Army of Solyman Solymans proud Letters unto the Emperor Charles and King Ferdinand Abraham Bassa perswadeth Solyman to leave the Siege of Gunza The Governor cometh to the Bassa His answer to the Bassa Solyman departeth from the Siege of Gunza Cason sent with fifteen thousand Horsemen to spoil Austria Four thousand Christian Captives murdred by Cason Cason discomâ—ited by the Palatine and slain The slaughter of the Turks Charles the Emperor his power at Vienna The Order of the Christian Army Solyman retâ—rneâ—h The Italians left for the aid of King Ferdinand arise in Mutiny The seditious Oration of Titus Maâ—conius to 〈◊〉 mutinous Italians * At tâ—is very tiâ—e a gâ—â—at Blazing Star was sâ—en in the Firmament at Vienna Eight thousand of the Italians in mutiny forsake their Captains and return into Italy Charles the Emperor returneth into Italy Auria goeth against the Turks Auria besiegeth Corone in Peloponnesus Corone yielded to Auria by the Turks Patras taken and ransacked by Auria Auria returns to Italy The Turks besiege Corone Auria sent by the Emperor to relieve Corone The order of Auria his Fleet before Corone The Christian Fleet disordered Auria arriveth at Corone The Turks Fleet flies to Modon Corone relieved by Auria Auria returns and before Modon braveth the Turks Fleet The Moor of Alexandria well beaten and taken by Câ—â—â—lis the Venetian The Garrison Souldiers of Corone desire of their General to be brought to some service Macicaus Governor of Corone goeth out to surprise Andrussa Macicaus slain Corone forsaken by the Spaniards Aloysius Grittus the Duke of Venice his Son Solymans Lieutenant in Hungary to oversee King John. Americus Bishop of Veradium and Vayvod of Transylvania contemneth Grittus Janus Docia incenseth Grittus against the Vayvod The cause why Lascus the Polonian fell from King John. The Vayvod murdred in his Tent by Docia and his head presented to Grittus The Transylvanians rise up in Arms against Grittus to revenge the death of the Vayvod Grittus besieged by the Transylvanians Grittus taken and brought to Maylat Grittus beheaded The Riches sound about Grittus Solyman at one time purposeth to invade Persia and Africk The poor beginning of Horruccius and Hariadenus who of base Pyrats aspired to the Kingdom of Algiers Horruccius his success Horruccius slain and his head carried about in Spain Hariadenus sirnamed Barbarussa succeedeth his Brother Horruccius in the Kingdom of Algiers His wonderful success Solyman sends for Barbarussa Barbarussa cometh to Constantinople Barbarussa envied in the Turks Court. Barbarussa rejected to Abraham the great Bassa
The main Castle surrenders The Turks endeavour to take Singh Singh assaulted by the Turks They are repulsed The Siege raised 1687 The Emperor prepares for the next Camâ—aign The States of Austria convened They promise Money As do also the States of Stiria Alba Regalis in distress Messengers sent to Belgrade Are taken Valkowar Confession of Achmet The Turks of Alba Regalis Sâ—ize four Waggons with Provisions They are encouraged Means taken to hinder the Succours from Alba Regalâ—s Tekeli writes to his Princess Febr. 1688. He wasts the Countries Tekeli defeated General Carafa at Hermanstadt The Soldiers Allowance in Winter-Quarters increased Halmet yielded Felsiat surrenders 1688. March. The Despot of Valachia submits Alba Regalis in Mutiny Denies to surrender The Blocade closely watched Marquess of Baden at Ratisbon C. Caprara commands in Hungary The designs of the Turks defeated in Sclavonia Ratza taken from the Turks and burnt Baron Amanzaga defeats the Pasha of Gradisca The Garrison of Possega seasonably relieved Colonel Riâ—cardi made enquiry into the State of Alba Regalis Colonel Riccardi desires a parâ—y with the Pasha Iealousies in the Town A Skirmish near the Gates An Uproar in the Town A Relation of the Mutiny in the Town of Alba Regalis Colonel Ricceâ—rdi leavâ—s Alba Regalis Mutinies begin again at Constantinople Kuperlee laid aside He is sent in a Gally to the Castles The Vizier forced to dissemble A Zechin is about 9 â— 6 d. The Grand Seignior's Command read to the Soldiers Tesfagee refuses to obey And is killâ—d Hadgi Ali another Muâ—inous Fellow Kills the Aga of the Janisaries The Tumult increaâ—es The Vizâ—er gives up the Seale He is killed Hâ—s Wâ—fe House c. ransacked Great conâ—usion The ruin of the Mutiniers from whence Mahomet's Standard spread The Sedition suppressed Divers punished The Sultan takes upon him to govern Ismael made Vizierr by Chance March 1688. The Vizier â—ndâ—avourâ— to settle himself Kuperlee sent to Canea Several Imprisoned and Fined Yeghen Bei commits some outrages Pasha of Bâ—snia strangled The Grand Vizier makes excuse for not going to the War. Yeghen intrusted with the Army He demands Money The Vizier answers not Yeghen demands the Grand Seignior's Seals But is degraded New fears in the City from Yeghen Ismael the Vizier undermined Mustapha Pasâ—a sent for Muâ—tapha made Vizier Yeghen writâ—s to Ismael and the Mufti Mustapha Vizier answers Yeghens Letter Ismael blamed Ismael Fined May Fears and terrible Reports at Constantinople Deputies sent from Grand Cairo They are dispatched back again Robbers in Asia trouble the Country Mutinies in Candia Ismael banished Yedic was to be suppressed Yeghen câ—â—â—â—nues in Rebellion Tâ—â— Pâ—â—ple 〈…〉 with the â—â—w Sultâ—n The Turks make small Preparaâ—ions Thâ—â— seek fâ—r Peaâ—e An Ambassador designed â—â—r England The Embassy put off Ambassadors designed to the Emperor The Humour of Sultan Solyman Yeghen made Saraskier His Complices encouraged An Aga sent to Transilvania Alba Regalis straightned May. The Turks make a Sally They Capitulate The Articles are agreed and Messengers sent to Vienna May. The Garrison of Alâ—a Regalis Marches out Counsels of War at Viennâ— The Commanders on either side compared The Christian Generals and Officers Character of the Duke of Loraine Charactâ—r of the the Elector of Bâ—vâ—ria Character of Prince Lewis of Baden Count Caraffa Count Staremberg The Prince of Salm. Count Rabata Dunewald Count Palfi Count Serien P. of Croy. Gondola Count Taff. Souches Schaffenberg Neuburg P. of Savoy Veterani Heusler Piccolomini Result of the Couâ—sels of War at Vienna The Duke of Loraine Sick. The City of Stephanopolis refusâ—s to receive a Germâ—n Garrison The City Surrendered Lippa attacked Lippa yielded Lagos yielded The Elector of Bavaria made General An Earthquake at Smyrna A Fire breaks out Seditions in the Army A Conspiracy against the Vizier plotted and discovered The Methods of the Plot. How prevented Yeghen suspected to have been in the Conspiracy The Viziers respect to Yeghen Money come â—rom Grand Cairo Four nâ—w Vâ—ziers of the Benâ—h made Yeghen in Mutiny He returns to Belgrade Seizes on Hassan Pasha The Turks seek for Peace Their Messengers are suspected Illock abandoned by the Turks 1688. Iuly The E. of Bavaria at Vienna and hastens to the Camp. Sigeth and Kanisia straitned Consultations to pass the Save Five hundrâ—d pass the River Hâ—ffâ—irâ—hâ—n attâ—câ—ed by Topal Pasâ—a Wâ—o is 〈◊〉 Tâ—â— Tuâ—ks endâ—avour to â—e at Hoffâ—â—rchen out of Proot Are repulsed With great loss Proot demolished Iuly Piccolomini sent in quest of Hoffkirchen He retreats He Retreats with much Art and good Conduct Prince Lewis Marches towards Gradâ—ska The Elector of Bavaria prepares his March for Belgrade August 1688. The Cannon c. joyns the Army Resolved to pass the River Attempts to pass the Save The Christian Army passes thâ— Save The Tuâ—ks discourageâ— August The Tuâ—ks Fly. The Citizens of Belgrade abandon their Dwellings August A Fire consumes the Suburbs The Trenches open'd August 1688. Batteries raised The Turks Sue for Peace The Turks throw Bombs and Carcasses Theâ— make a sally and are beaten back The Duke of Loraine câ—mes to the Camp. Is received by the Elector of Bavaria The Turks spring another Mine and make a sally August 1688. Septem 1688. An Attack intended Belgrade Stormed Count Scherffemberg killed The Elector stands on the Breach The Turks Capitulate The P. of Commercy enters on the other side â— Heusâ—er forces a Gate Massacre and slaughter of the Turks The Pasha and other Officers made Prisoners The Cruelty of the Soldiers Sept. 7. Te Deum sung The Turkish Ambassador comeâ— to the Camp. It Feasted with the Generals Topal signifie Lume 1688. Septem P. Lewis passes the Save The Turks assault the Germanâ— The Turkish Horsâ— put to Flight And the Foot exposed to danger P. Lewis returns to Proot News sent to Vienna The French K. obstructs the Wars against the Turks The Rascians in Arms against the Turks The Elector of Bavaria returns to Vienna A Solemn Day of Thanksgiving The French obstructs the War against the Turk The Cruelty of the French in Germany The Elector returns to Monaco The German Troops recalled from Hungary The Pasha of Belgrade Prisoner Capâ—ara commands at Belgrade The Works about Belgâ—ade negligently repaired Caprara seizes on Semandria The Rascians submit to the Emperor They take two places and defeat the Turks Caprará returns to Belgrade Yeghen Pasha commits great Spoils Piccolomini dispatched to Vienna P. Lewis recalled to Vienna The Turks desire Peace The Emperor unhappily reâ—uses it The Turkish Ambassadors in Prison F. Morosini Elected Doge Troublâ—s amongst the Turks in Candiâ— Thâ— Turkish Fleâ—t very weak The Veâ—etian A 〈◊〉 joyned Cornaro in Dalmatia Solyman Pasha troubles the Christians His Kaja beaten by the Cutzi Succours sent to the Cutzi Part of the Venetian Fleet 〈◊〉 to the Dardanelli They stop the Captain Pasha from coming 〈◊〉 The Description of the City of Negropont Negropont when taken by the Turks
Summons given promising to yield the City after they had once won the City of Ierusalem From thence they came to Cesarea in Palestine where they solemnly kept the Feast of Whitsontide and so to Rama which they found for fear forsaken of the Infidels Marching from Rama and drawing near to Ierusalem they in the Vantgard of the Army upon the first descrying of the Holy City gave for joy divers great Shouts and Outcries which with the like applause of the whole Army was so doubled and redoubled as if therewith they would have rent the very Mountains and pierced the highest Heavens There might a man have seen the devout passions of these most worthy and zealous Christians uttered in right divers manners some with theâ—r Eyes and Hands cast up towards Heaven called aloud upon the name and help of Christ Jesus some prostrate upon their faces kissed the ground as that whereon the Redeemer of the World sometime walked others joyfully saluted those holy places which they had heard so much of and then first beheld in brief every man in some sort expressed the joy he had conceived of the sight of the Holy City as the end of their long travel This most ancient and famous City so much renowned in holy Writ is situate in an hilly Country not watred with any River or fresh Springs as other famous Cities for most part be neither yet was it well seated for Wood or Pasture ground but what wanted in these and such other benefits of Nature was by the extraordinary blessings of the most High so supplied as that the Jews there dwelling so long as they kept the Ordinances of the Lord were of all other people in the World justly accounted the most happy and fortunate Yet in those so blessed times was this City for the sin of the people oftentimes delivered into the Enemies hand and the glory thereof defaced as well appeareth by the whole course of the History of holy Scripture as also by the ancient and approved Histories as well of the Jews themselves as others Nevertheless it still rose again though not in like glory as before in the time of King David Solomon and the other next succeeding Kings and so was still repeopled by the Jews until that at last according to the foretelling of our Saviour Christ it was with a great and of all others most lamentable destruction utterly rased and destroyed by the Romans under the leading of Vespasian the Emperor and his noble Son Titus forty years after our Saviour his precious Death and Passion Since which time it was never until this day again repaired or yet well inhabited by the Jews but lying buried in the ruines of it self all the Reign of Domitian Nerva and Trajan until the time of the great Emperor Aelius Adrianus it was again by him re-edified about the year 136 and after the name of him called Aelia who together with the name changed also in some part the ancient situation of the City For whereas before it was seated upon the steep rising of an hill in such sort that towards the East and the South it overlooked the whole ground having only the Temple and the Castle called Antonia in the highest part of the City Adrian translated the whole City unto the very top of the hill so that the place where our blessed Saviour suffered his most bitter Passion with the Sepulchre wherein he was also laid and from whence he in Glory rose again before without the City were then inclosed within the Walls thereof as they are at this day to be seen Yet for all that the Emperor being dead in process of time this new built City recovered again the ancient name of Ierusalem whereby it hath ever since and is at this day yet known This City so re-edified the Emperor first gave unto the Jews whom he afterwards thrust out again for their Rebellion and gave it to the Christians to inhabit over whom one Mark first Bishop of the Gentiles there had the charge But forasmuch as the Roman Emperors were at that time altogether Idolaters and Persecutors of the poor Christians the Church also at Ierusalem with others endured sundry and many grievous Persecutions under the Emperors Antonius Commodus Severus Maximinus Valerianus Aurelianus Dioclesianus and Maxentius until that at length Constantine the Great converted unto the Faith of Christ about the year of Grace 320 suppressing the Pagan Idolatry gave general Peace to the afflicted Church whereby the Christian Church at Ierusalem for the space of three hundred years after happily flourished under the Greek Emperors until the time of the Emperor Phocas who having most cruelly slain the good Emperor Maurice with his Children and so possessed himself of the Empire gave occasion thereby unto Chosroe the Persian King in revenge of the death of Maurice his Father in law with all his Power to invade Syria who as a tempest bearing down all before him took also by force the City of Ierusalem having that year which was about the year Six hundred and ten slain almost an hundred thousand Christians But Phocas the Usurper being by them of his Guard most cruelly slain and Heraclius succeeding in his stead Chosroe was by him again driven out of Syria and the Holy City again recovered about the year 624. In these great Wars against the Persians Heraclius had used the help of the Arabians called Scenite a warlike people of Arabia Deserta altogether given to the Spoil who the Wars now ended expecting to have received their pay were contrary to their expectation and without all reason rejected by them that should have paid them with very foul and contumelious words as that there was not mony enough to pay the Christian Souldiers of the Latines and the Greeks much less those vile dogs whom they so called for that they had but a little before received the damnable Doctrin of the false Prophet Mahomet the great Seducer of the World who even in that time flourished Upon which discontentment they at their return revolted from the Empire and joyned themselves unto their great Prophet and so afterwards unto the Caliphs his Successors extending his Doctrin together with his Soveraignty to the utmost of their power and that with so good success that in short time they had overrun all Aegypâ— Syria the Land of Promise and taken the Holy City With these the Disciples of Mahomet and his Successors the Sarasins for so now they would be called the Greek Emperors ensuing had for certain years divers conflicts with diverse fortune for the possession of Syria But at length wearied out and by them overcome they left the aforesaid Countries wholly to their Devotion Hereby it came to pass that the Sarasins for the space of 370 years following held these Countries with many others in great subjection oppressing still the poor Christians in Ierusalem with most grievous Tributes and exactions unto whom they yet left a third part of the City
and brought into the Camp and examined confessed that there was no Garrison in the City more than four hundred Ianizaries and that a new supply was daily expected from Buda The Christians labouring that Night were by the breaking of the Day come with their Trenches to a Hill over against the Castle where they placed their Battery and forthwith began to baâ—ter the City The same day being the seventh of May two and twenty Turks Heads were presented to the Arch-duke and four men taken alive newly sent out of the City to have viewed the Christian Camp. About Night certain Balls of Wild-fire were shot into the City whereof one fell upon the Tower called St. Adelbert and set it on fire wherewith first the Church and afterward a great part of the Town fell on fire The Sanzacks House with all his Horses and Armour and a great quantity of Powder was then burnt and inestimable hurt done in the City The next day the Christians had with continual battery made a breach in the Castle Wall but adjoyning unto the Wall was an high and broad sandy Rampier which could hardly be battered for all that the Germans gave a fierce assault to the breach hoping to have entred by the Ruins of the Wall but not being able to get over the sandy Rampier were inforced with loss to retire The day following they began again the Battery with eighteen great pieces when about eight a Clock in the Morning the Rascians that were in the old City gave the General to understand That if he would at a place by them appointed assault the greater City to draw the Turks thither they would in the mean time deliver unto the Christians certain little Posterns and receive them into the old City upon Condition that no Violence should be done unto them or theirs Which being so agreed upon the Christians accordingly gave the assault the eleventh of May in the Evening and by the help of the Rascians took the City who according to promise were all taken to Mercy and the Turks slain except such as by their good hap recovered the new Town The keeping of this City was committed to the charge of two Companies of German Footmen and six hundred Hungarians with three hundred Rascians and other Townsmen Thus was the old City of Strigonium gained by the Christians the Suburbs whereof they presently burnt nevertheless the new Town with the Castle was still holden by the Turks Wherefore the Christians having cast up certain Trenches and Mounts and placed their Artillery as they thought most convenient began again to batter the Castle and after they had by the Fury of the Cannon made it assaultaâ—le with great Courage assailed the breach which the Turks valiantly defended so that the Christians were glad to retire leaving behind them about an hundred and thirty of their Fellows slain in the breach The Turks a little before the coming of the Christians had fortified an Hill whereunto the Castle was something subject called of the Christians St. Nicholas his Hill this Hill so fortified the Christians with continual battery and assault gained the 17 th of May and put all the Turks left alive therein to the Sword and turning the Ordnance from thence also battered the Castle The two and twentieth of May a little before the going down of the Sun certain Ensigns of Footmen were drawn out of the Camp to have the next day assaulted the lower Town who taking the benefit of the Night attempting to have entred the Town in the dead time of the Night were notably encountered by the Turks sallying out of the Town upon them The Christians for all that having enforced them to retire prosecuted their former Resolution and with much ado got over the uttermost Wall but finding there contrary to their Expectation such a deep and broad countermure as was not possible to be passed they stood as Men dismaied neither could they in the Darkness of the Night well see how to get back again over the Town-ditch but disorderly retiring stuck fast many of them in the deep mud and there perished In this assault there were about a thousand of the Christians wounded and slain and albeit that they twice or thrice renewed the assault yet prevailed they nothing but were still repulsed with loss Many also of the Turkish Garrison were likewise slain yea the Sanzack himself hurt with a great shot with many other wounded men sent down the River to Buda brought thither true News of the aforesaid Assaults and of the state of the besieged In the mean time News was brought to the Camp That Sinan Bassa the old Enemy of the Christians and the Turks great Lieutenant coming towards Hungary with a great Army and having by Boats conveyed over part thereof was set upon by the Rascians these are poor oppressed Christians dwelling on both sides of Danubius who weary of the Turkish Thraldom and desirous of their antient Liberty have oftentimes taken up Arms against the Turks as they now did encouraged by the good Success of the Christians on the other side of Hungary and that after divers Skirmishes they had taken thirteen of the Turks Vessels wherein besides Victuals and certain great pieces of Artillery they found about 2400 weight of Powder 447 hundred of Lead 46454 bundles of Match 1200 great shot whereof 1005 were of 66 pound weight and of small shot for Harquebusiers 48500 with much other warlike Provision a great part whereof was brought into the Camp at Strigonium and the rest reserved to future Uses This loss so troubled the great Bassa that he altered his purpose before intended for Cassovia The fourth of Iune about five hundred Turks sent up the River from Buda conducted by two Sanzacks under two red and white Ensigns landed near to Gokara on the further side of Danubius over against Strigonium where after they had a while refreshed themselves and left some few for the more assurance of the Place all the rest were conveyed over the River into Strigonium where they had been long looked for the old Garrison being now sore weakned by the former Assaults Four days after the Turks encouraged with this supply sallied out upon a sudden and had entred one of the Forts of the Christians but were forthwith again repulsed having lost six and twenty of their men and two of their Ensigns not far off lay a troop of Horsemen who if they had in time come in not one of the Turks had escaped Long it were to tell how often and in what manner the Christians assaulted this City but were by the Turks so received that in five Assaults they lost five thousand of their Men amongst whom were divers Captains Lieutenants Antients and others of good account three and twenty Canoneers were also slain and ten great pieces of Artillery so spoiled as that they were no more serviceable The Garrison of this City consisted for most part of the Ianizaries the Turks