great Spirit and yet exceeding proud which was the cause that he was both the less beloved and feared of his Subjects in general but especially of the Janizaries and other his Souldiers and men of War who scorning his loose Government and griev'd to see even the greatest Affairs of his State not only imparted to Women but by them managed and over-ruled also as by his Mother the Sultaness his Wife and others not only rebelled against him but were oftentimes in their Rages about to have deposed him He was altogether given to sensuality and voluptuous pleasure the marks whereof he still carried about with him a foul swoln unwealdy and overgrown Body unfit for any Princely Office or Function and a Mind thereto answerable wholly given over unto Idleness Pleasure and Excess no small means for the shortning of his days which he ended with Obloquy unregarded of his Subjects and but of few or none of them lamented He had Issue four Sons and three Daughters married unto three of the great Bassaes. His first and eldest Son was called Mahomet after his own Name whom he caused to be strangled in his own sight upon suspicion of aspiring to the Empire and conspiring with the Rebels in Asia but afterward finding him guiltless caused his Body to be buried in his own Sepulchre and hanged the Bassa that had misinformed him His second Son died a natural Death being yet very young His third Son was Sultan Achmat who succeeded his Father and came to the Empire by the untimely Death of Mahomet his eldest Brother His fourth Son being then a Youth of about sixteen Years old was carefully kept within the Seraglio with such a strait Guard set over him as that his Name was not to be learned even by a good understanding Friend of mine of late lying above three Months together at Constantinople who most curiously enquired after the same having very good means to have learned it He was reported to have been long since murthered howbeit that he of late lived but looking every day to be by his Brothers cruel Commandment strangled which is accounted but a matter of course and a Death hereditary to all the younger male Children of the Othoman Emperours the Policy for the maintenance of their great Empire entire and whole so requiring His dead Body lieth buried at Constantinople in a fair Chappel of white Marble near unto the most famous and beautiful Church of S. Sophia for that only purpose by himself most sumptuously built about fifty foot square with four high small round Towers about the which are certain small round Galleries of Stone from which the Turkish Priests and Church-men at certain hours use to call the People every day to Church for they use no Bells themselves neither will they suffer the Christians to use any But the top of this Chappel is built round like unto the ancient Temples of the Heathen Gods in Rome In the midst of this Chappel being indeed nothing else but this great Sultan's Sepulchre standeth his Tomb which is nothing else but a great Urn or Coffin of fair white Marble wherein lieth his Body covered with a great covering of the same Stone over it made rising in the midst and stooping on each sidâ— not much unlike to the Coffins of the ancient Tombs of the Saxon Kings which are to be seen on the North side of the Quire of S. Paul's Church and in other Places of this Land but that this Coffin of the Great Sultan is much greater and more stately than are those of the Saxon Kings it being above five foot high at the end thereof and by little and little falling toward the feet covered with a rich Hearse of Cloth of Gold down to the ground his Turbant standing at his Head and two exceeding great Candles of white Wax about three or four Yards long standing in great brass or silver Candlesticks gilded the one at his Head the other at his Feet which never burn but there stand for shew only all the Floor of the Chappel being covered with Mats and fair Turky Carpets upon them And round about this his Tomb even in the same Chappel are the like Tombs for his Wives and Children but nothing so great and fair Into this Chappel or any other the Turks Churches or Chappels it is not lawful for either Turk or Christian to enter but first he must put off his Shoes leaving them at the Church or Chappel Gate or carrying them in his hand Near unto this Chappel and the great Temple of Sophia are divers other Chappels of the other great Turks as of Sultan Selim this Man 's Grand father with his seven and thirty Children about him of Sultan Amurath this Man's Father with his five and forty Children entombed about him Anâ— in other places not far from them are the Chappels and Sepulchres of the rest of the Great Sultans as of Sultan Mahomet the Great of Sultan Bajazet Sultan Selim the first Sultan Solyman all by these great Mahometan Emperours built whose Names they bear And being all of almost one form and fashion have every one of them a fair Hospital adjoyning unto them wherein a great multitude of poor People are daily still relieved Some others of the great Bassaes have their Chappels and Sepulchres with their great and stately Alms-houses also not much inferiour unto those of the great Sultans as namely Ibrahim Bassa of all the Bassaes that ever were amongst the Turks the most magnificent hath his stately Chappel Sepulchre and Alms-Houses near both in Place and Beauty unto that of Solyman's The Turks bury not at all within their Churches neither are any at all buried within the Walls of the City but the great Turkish Emperours themselves with their Wives and Children about them and some few other of their great Bassaes and those only in Chappels by themselves built for that purpose All the rest of the Turks are buried in the Fields some of the better sort in Tombs of Marble but the rest with Tomb-stones laid upon them or with two great Stones the one set up at the head and the other at the feet of every Grave the greatest part of them being of white Marble brought from the Isle of Marmora They will not bury any man where another hath been buried accounting it Impiety to dig up another man's Bones by reason whereof they cover all the best Ground about the City with such great white Stones which for the infinite number of them are thought sufficient to make another Wall about the City But not to stand longer upon the manner of the Turks Burials leaving this great Sultan to rest with his Ancestors let us now prosecute the course of our History Christian Princes of the same time with Mahomet the Third Emperours of Germany Rodolph the Second 1577. Kings Of England Queen Elizabeth 1558. 47. Of France Henry the Fourth 1589. Of Scotland James the Sixth 1567. Bishops of Rome Clement the
so for that time he retired a little from the Walls But night being come certain busie heads among the common people and they not a few secretly meeting together gave him knowledge that about midnight when as all the Citizens were asleep and the Watchmen in security he should come unto the Walls where they would be ready with Ropes to draw him up unto the top of the Bulwarks which done the matter as they said was as good as dispatched for that they were perswaded that the Citizens so soon as they should once see him in the midst of the City amongst them would forthwith all revolt unto him So he according to this appointment about midnight approaching the Walls found there no such matter as he had well hoped for the receiving of him into the City But contrariwise the Watchmen carefully watching all alongst the Wall and calling one unto another Wherefore finding there no hope he with Catacuzenus and Synadenus his chief Counsellors leaving the South side of the City in a little Boat rowed softly all along the Wall that is toward the Sea if happily they might there find their Friends and so be received in but there the Watchmen also descrying them from the Walls and calling unto them but receiving no answer began to cast stones at them and to make a noise so that deceived of their purpose and out of hope they were glad to get them further off and to depart as they came But the evil success of this Exploit was shortly after with his better Fortune recompenced for by and by after secret Letters were sent unto him from Thessalonica requesting him with all speed to come thither assuring him in the name of the Bishop with divers of the Nobility and the good liking of the people in general at his coming to open the Gates of the City unto him Whereupon he leaving a great part of his Army with Synadenus to keep short the Constantinopolitans he himself with the rest of his Power set forward towards Thessalonica where he in the habit of a plain Country man entred the City unsuspected but being got within the Gate and there casting off that simple attire wherewith he had covered his Rich and Royal Garments and presently known to be the young Emperor the people came flocking about him and with many joyful Acclamations received him as their Lord and Soveraign yet some few more favouring the old Emperor fled into the Castle and there stood upon their Guard which after they had for a space notably defended was at length taken from them Thessalonica thus yielded Demetrius Andronicus and Asan Michael the old Emperors chief Captains then lying with their Army not far off and not well trusting one another fled most of whose Souldiers presently went over unto the young Emperor who departing from Thessalonica came to Serre which by composition was delivered unto him also but not the Castle for that was by Basilicus Nicephorus the Captain thereof still holden for the old Emperor This Basilicus was a man honourably descended but of no great Capacity or Wit as the finer sort supposed and therefore not of them much regarded or thought fit for the taking in hand of any great matter whom yet the old Emperor for his plain sincerity more than for any thing else had made Captain of that Castle and Governor of the Country thereabouts which he yet still held and in these most troublesome times shewed himself wiser than all that had so thought of him of whom some died in despair some fled some were taken Prisoners and so suffered a thousand evils the rest with the loss of their Honour traiterously revolting from the old Emperor to the young whereas he alone looking but even forward upon his Allegiance with his trust in God so long as the old Emperor lived opposed himself against these troubles and stood fast for him and was not to be moved with any fair Promises or cruel Threats of the young aspiring Emperor whereof he lacked none But having strongly fortified the Castle committed to his Charge there kept himself until that hearing of the death of the old Emperor he then reconciling himself to the young as unto his right Soveraign delivered up unto him the Castle who in reward of his Fidelity gave it him again to hold for him in as ample manner as he had before held it for his Grandfather For wise men honour Vertue even in their Enemies as did King Philip in Demosthenes when as he said If any Athenian living in Athens doth say that he preferreth me before his Country him verily would I buy with much money but not think him worthy my friendship but if any for his Countries-sake shall hate me him will I impugne as a Castle a strong Wall or a Bulwark and yet admire his vertue and reckon the City happy in having such a man. And so in few words to conclude a long discourse the young Emperor in short time having roamed through all Macedonia and without resistance taken all the strong Towns and Cities therein he there took also Demetrius the Despots Wife and Children with all his Treasure as also the Wives of Andronicus and Asanes and of all the Senators that followed them after whom the great Commanders their Husbands were also for the most part taken and cast into prison some at Thessalonica some at Didâ—motichum some of the rest afterward most miserably perishing in exile Wherewith the old Emperor discouraged was about to have sent his Embassadors unto his Nephew for Peace whilst he was yet thus busied in Macedonia and had indeed so done had not another hope arising in the mean time quite altered that his better purpose It fortuned at the same time whilst the old Emperor was thus thinking of Peace that Michael the Bulgarian Prince in hope of great profit thereof to arise secretly offered his Aid unto him against the young Emperor his Nephew of which his Offer the old Emperor gladly accepted and Embassadors were sent to and fro about the full conclusion of the matter no man being acquainted therewith more than two or three of the Emperor his most secret friends and trusty Counsellors Yet in the mean time disdaining to be so coupt up as he was by Synadenus one of his Nephews Captains even in the Imperial City sent out one Constantinus Assan with the greatest part of his strength against him who encountering him at the River Maurus was there by him in plain battel overthrown and taken Prisoner the rest of his discomfited Army flying headlong back again to Constantinople All things thus prosperously proceeding with the young Emperor and the Countries of Macedonia and Thracia now almost all at his Command he returned in hast with all his Power unto Constantinople to prevent the coming of the Bulgarians thither as fearing lest that they finding the City weakly manned should treacherously kill the old Emperor with such as were about him and so seize upon the City themselves
happily in the absence of himself and of his Armies the Christian Princes might take occasion to invade his Dominions he strengthned the Frontiers of his Empire with most strong Garrisons and left his Son Solyman who afterward proved the scourge of Christendom at Hadrianople with a strong power and Pyrrhus Bassa his Tutor a man of great Wisdom and Government at Constantinople This great Bassa was of Cilicia a native Turk born which was a thing accounted strange forasmuch as the great Bassaes were alwaies chosen of the Christian blood After that he sent Cherseogles whom of all others he most trusted with his Army into Bithynia and made Zafferus an Eunuch Admiral of his Navy which he had but a little before built and with wonderful labor and charge rigged forth Then staying a few days at Constantinople to see the young Souldiers but then chosen Janizaries year 1516. he departed thence and went to his old Army lying with Sinan Bassa at Iconium purposing to have again invaded the Persian When he was come thither he understood that Campson Gaurus Sultan of Egypt with a great Army levied in Egypt and Iudea was come into Syria giving it out that he would aid the Persian King his Confederate and with all Hostility enter into Cilicia if Selymus should farther proceed to invade Hysmael the Sophi his Friend and Ally Selymus perplexed with these News and fearing that if he should once pass over the River Euphrates Campson lying so near in readiness should forthwith break in at his back into Asia by the Mountain Amanuâ— and so indanger that part of his Dominion staied at Iconium and sent his Embassadors with great Presents to Campson to pacifie him if it might be The chief Men in this Embassage were the Cadelescher a Man of great account amongst the Turks and of them exceedingly Reverenced for the opinion they had of his great knowledge in the Mahometan Superstition who afterwards wrote the Commentaries of this War and Iachis a great Captain The scope of whose Embassage was to intreat Campson that he would not hinder or disturb Selymus from making War upon the Persian King who had so oftâ—â— and so forcibly invaded his Dominions in Asia and by bringing in a new form of Superstition had corrupted and altered the most certain grounds of the Mahometan Religion And if they found him resolutely set down and not to be by any conditions removed then with all possible diligence to learn his strength and farther designs so far as by any means they could and with all speed to make their return But Campson now far spent with age and living in the height of worldly Bliss although he knew it fitter for him at those years to give himself to ease and quietness than to thrust himself into Wars and other Princes quarrels yet thought this Expedition to be for many causes both good and necessary First he deadly hated the Man for his inhuman Cruelty and therefore could never be perswaded to renew the League with him which he had in former time made with his Father Bajâ—zet besides that he desired to abate and repress his audacious insolency grown already by his prosperous Success beyond the bounds of reason for Selymus having taken Tauris overthrown the Persians and slain Aladeules began now to seem terrible to all the Princes that bordered upon him and there were many which said he was another Alexander who whilst other Princes sat still as Men asleep did in the mean time Plot in his victorious mind the Monarchy of the whole World. But above all things the fear of the losing of Syria and consequently the loss of all his Kingdom the quickest motive for stirring up of the suspitious minds of the greatest Princes most inforced Campson to take in hand this War so as much as the goodly Kingdoms of Egypt Iudea and Syria oppressed with the intollerable Government of the Proud Mamalukes and therefore less faithful to the Egyptian Kings were in danger to revolt to the Turks if the Persians should by any mischance or fortune of War be of the Turks vanquished For which cause Campson in the beginning of this War solicited by the Persian Embassadors had made a firm League and confederation with Hysmael and also moved with the misery of the woful young Prince Aladin the Son of Achomates was in mind perswaded that the cruel Turkish Tyrant might by his and the Persian Kings Forces easily be thrust out of his Empire in Asia and Europe For Aladin who after the death of Achomates his Father fled to Campson the Sultan of Egypt as is before declared had lived three years as a forlorn and distressed Prince in the Egyptian Court and by all means he could devise incited the Mamalukes to revenge the injuries and cruelty of his Uncle Selymus The eldest Son also of the late King Aladeules a goodly young Prince having at once lost his Father his Kingdom and whatsoever he had else was in good time fled to the Egyptian King and had so filled the minds of all Men with the indignation and detestation of Selymus his exceeding cruelty that the Princes of the Mamalukes of their own accord came to Campson humbly beseeching him to take upon him so just a War and if by reason of his great years he should think himself unable to indure the travel thereof it would then please him yet to give them leave of themselves to take the matter in hand for the repressing of the insolency of that great and wicked Tyrant These Mamalukes far excelled the Turks not only in strength of Body skilful riding and goodly armor but also in courage and wealth Beside that they had not forgotten with what small power they had under the leading of Caitbeius their great Sultan overthrown the Turks great Armies in Cilicia first at Adena and afterward at Tarsus where they took Prisoners Mesites Palaeologus the great Bassa and Cherseogles Bajazet his Son-in-Law by which Victory they grew into such a proud and vain conceit of themselves as if they had been the only Souldiers of the World able of themselves to vanquish and overcome whatsoever they should set upon These so valiant Souldiers were for the most part of the poor People called in ancient time Getae Zinchi and Bastarnae born near unto the Euxine Sea and the Fens of Maeotis especially on that side where the River Corax falleth into the Euxine Sea which Country is of later time called Circassia of the People called Cercitae near unto Cholchis These miserable and wretched People the Valachians Podolians Polonians Roxolanes and Tartars dwelling by Taurica pulled from their Mothers Breasts or by other violent means surprised were sold to Merchants who culling out the best for strength of Body or aptness of Wit conveied them by Sea to Alexandria from whence they were continually sent to the great Sultan of Egypt and by his appointment were at Caire after the old manner of that People delivered to Masters
loves to slide not stand And leaves fortunes ice vertues firm land Honour had rather be with danger driven Than stay with vertue on the hand of Heaven THE REIGN OF MUSTAPHA The First of that Name Ninth Emperour of the Turks year 1617 OSMAN the eldest Son of Achmat being not above twelve years old Mustapha Brother to Achmat being five and twenty was drawn out of a Cell where he lived as it were religiously and in Contemplation and proclaimed Sultan Mustapha Chan. They write of him that he grew cruel causing young Osman to be kept under sure Guards putting to death his Brethren He also did many indignities unto the Christian Ambassadours and to confirm him in his Throne he gave great Sums of Money to the Janizaries and Spahies and sent a Messenger to Vienna to the Emperour to assure him that he would maintain inviolably whatsoever had been concluded betwixt him and his deceased Brother Achmat. But growing odious by reason of his Tyranny the Grand Visier came out of Persia with an Army and deposed him forcing him to return to his Cell setting Prince Osman at liberty and seating him in the Imperial Throne But for that it may seem strange that Mustapha should be preserved alive during the Reign of his Brother Achmat contrary to the custom of the Othoman Emperours who do usually kill all their Brethren at their first coming to the Crown thinking thereby the better to assure their Estates it shall be fit to make mention thereof Mahomet the third of that name dying in the year 1602 and leaving Achmat and Mustapha his Sons by the Sultana Flatra a Lady of Cyprus some say of Bosna Achmat the eldest was sent for speedily out of Magnesia by the Bassaes to take possession of his Father's Crown being the first Emperour of that Name And for that the custom of the Turkish Emperours was as we have said to have neither Brother nor Nephew alive unless they could save themselves by flight yet the Visier Bassaes and other Officers of the Court concluded in Council that it was not fit that Mustapha Brother to Achmat should dye grounding their opinion upon a good reason of State for that their Emperour being but fifteen years old they feared that dying in his Nonage without children able to govern the Empire might fall into Combustion and ruine it self by reason of Civil Wars Whereupon they decreed that Mustapha's Life should be preserved but with that caution and restriction that he should remain still a Prisoner in some Chambers of the Emperour's Seraglio at Constantinople During Achmat's minority and before he had Children there was no cruel Decree made against Mustapha but he only continued in his Contemplation without any liberty But when as the Emperour saw himself fortified with Issue and remembring the cruel Custom of his Predecessors year 1617 he many times propounded the putting of his Brother to death to his Council the which may seem very strange it took not effect having been often concluded Among others it is written that his Death was concluded one Evening and that it should have been put in Execution the next day But Achmat was so frighted in the Night with Apparitions and fearful Dreams as day being come he said Seeing that the only Resolution to put his Brother to death had so terrified him he did believe that his Torments would much increase if he should put it in Execution and therefore he commanded his Brother should live more in regard of the Terror of his Mind than for any brotherly Affection Another time Sultan Achmat being in one of the Windows of his Seraglio he beheld his Brother Mustapha who by his permission was walking in the Gardens with his Guard Some one of his Bassaes or other Officer that was near unto him and willing to flatter his Humor told him that it was a matter of dangerous Consequence to suffer him to have so great Liberty Achmat move with jealousie and distrust grew into rage at his Words whereupon he suddenly took his Bow and Arrow being a very expert Archer as all the Turkish Nation generally are and aimed at his Brother to kill him but at that very instant he felt so great a pain in his Arm and Shoulder as not able to let loose his Arrow nor to perform what he had intended he said with a loud Voice That Mahomet would not have Mustapha to dye This Prince had three Chambers in the Seraglio where he ramained a Prisoner fifteen years and spent his time in a Contemplative kind of Life after the manner of the Musulmans his whole delight was to read the Arabian Books of their Doctors in divers Sciences The Grand Seignior gave him leave sometimes to take the Air of his Gardens with his Guard and called him to consult with him of Affairs of Estate taking his Advice many times knowing him to be of a sound Judgment After a long imprisonment and a daily apprehension of death the Emperour Achmat falling grievously sick in November as you have heard his Bassaes and other Counsellors about him seeing the danger he was in perswaded him to take some good course for the succession of his Empire He had Children by the Sultana but they so young as they were not capable to govern the Empire Moreover this Sultana was dead and the Children left Friendless and none to speak for them But on the other side the Sultana Flatra Mother to the Emperour Mustapha was yet living who thought that if the Bassaes should undertake to govern the State during the minority of the Emperour's Children her Honour would be much eclipsed wherefore she favoured Mustapha and persuaded the dying Emperour to make him his Successor On the fifteenth of November Achmat seeing his End grow near he called for his Brother and told him That seeing Death approached he desired to provide for the Preservation of the Empire and therefore had made choice of him to succeed him intreating him to take the Government upon him presently after his death Mustapha was much amazed at his Speech and answered him with Words full of Fear and Humility That he might not accept of the Honour which he did him seeing that the Empire did rightly belong unto his eldest Son. Achmat disabled his Son for so great a Government both for his Age and Capacity being necessary for the maintenance of so great a Monarchy that he who was of ripe years and deep judgment should take upon him the managing thereof recommending the Children he had by the Sultana unto him intreating him to use them in the same manner that he had used him leaving the other Children which he had by Concubines being his Slaves to his Discretion Soon after these Words Achmat dyed and Mustapha was generally acknowledged for Successor to the Turkish Empire who at the first was so amazed as he thought he had been in a Dream to see himself advanced to so great a Power and Sovereignty from a straight Prison and
the Christian Reader what I was glad to seek for out of the confused Labours of many A Work so Long and Labourious as might well have deterred a Right Resolute and Constant Mind from the undertaking thereof being as yet to my Knowledge not undergone or performed by any Wherein among such Variety or more truly to say contrariety of Writers I did content my self as a blind man led by his Guide happily of no better sight than himself to tread the steps of this or that one man going for a while before me and by and by leaving me again stumbling in the Dark But out of the Learned and Faithful Works of many according to my simple Iudgment to make Choice of that was most probable still supplying with the perfections of the better what I found wanting or defective in the Weaker propounding unto my self no other Mark to aim at than the very Truth of the History as that which is it self of Power to give Life unto the Dead Letter and to cover the Faults escaped in the homely Penning or compiling thereof Which the better to perform I Collected so much of the History as possibly I could out of the Writings of such as were themselves present and as it were Eye-witnesses of the greatest part of that they Writ and so as of all others best able most like also to have left unto us the very Truth Such is the greatest part of so much of the History of the Greek Empire as I have for the better Vnderstanding of the rising of the Turks in this History set down gathered out of the Doings of Nicetas Choniates Nicephorus Gregoras and Laonicus Chalcocondiles all Writing such Things as they themselves saw or were for most part in their time and near unto them done Such are the Wonderful and almost Incredible Wars betwixt old Amurath the Second and his Foster-Child the Fortunate Prince of Epirus of the Turks commonly called Scanderbeg and by that wayward Tyrant at his Death together with his Kingdom delivered as it were by Inheritance unto his Son the Great and Cruel Sultan Mahomet all Written by Marinus Barletius himself an Epirot and in all those troublesom Times then living in Scodra a City of the Venetians joying upon Epirus Such is the Woful Captivity of the Imperial City of Constantinople with the miserable Death of the Greek Emperor Constantinus Palaeologus and the Fatal Ruine of the Greek Empire Written by Leonardus Chiensis Archbishop of Mytilene being himself then present and there taken Prisoner Such is the Lamentable History of the Rhodes taken for most out of Ja. Fontanus his Three Books de bello Rhodio a Learned Man then present and in great Credit with Villerius the great Master at such time as that famous Island after it had by him and the other Worthy Knights of the Order been most wonderfully of long Defended was to the great ruth of Christendom taken by the Great Sultan Solyman Such is the most Tragical History of Bajazet Solymans youngest Son Collected out of the notable Epistles of Augerius Busbequius Legationis Turcicae he himself then lying Ambassadâ—r for the Empiror Ferdinand at Constantinople and present in Solymans Camp at such time as he himself in Person went over with his Army into Asia to Countenance his eldest Son Selymus who Succeeded him in the Empire against his Valiant yonger Brother Bajazet and beside well acquainted with the Great Bassaes Achmet Rustan Haly and others oftentimes mentioned in the History following Such is also the History of the taking of the antient City of Tripolis in Barbary from the Knights of Malta by Sinan the proud Bassa Written by Nicholas Nicholy Lord of Arâ—euile present at the same time with the Lord of Aramont then Ambassador for the French King unto Solyman So might I say also of the miserable spoil of the Fruitful and Pleasant Islands of the Mediterranean made by Lutzis Bassa Solyman his Brother in Law and Great Admiral with the submitting of the Island of Naxos to the Turks Obeisence Written by John Crispe at that time Duke of the same Island And so likewise of diverse other parts of the History too long to rehearse But forasmuch as every Great and Famous Action had not the Fortune to have in it a Caesar such as both could and would commend unto Posterity by Writing that whereof they might truly say They were themselves a great part many Right Excellent Generals contenting themselves with the Honor of the Field and their Glory there Won leaving the Honorable Fame thereof to be by others reported for lack of such most certain Authors or rather as I before said Eye-witnesses I gathered so much as I could of what remained out of the Works of such as being themselves Men of Great Place and well acquainted with the Great and Worthy Personages of their Time might from their Mouths as from certain Oracles Report the undoubted Truth of many most Famous Exploits done both by themselves and others As might Pau. Jovius from the mouth of Muleasses King of Tunes from Vastius the Great General from Auria the Prince of Melphis Charles the Emperor his Admiral and such others Or else out of the Writings of such as were themselves great Travellers into the Turks Dominions and withal diligent observers of their Affairs and State as were the Physitians Pantaleon Minadoie and Leunclavius of all others a most curious Searcher of their Antiquities and Histories unto which great Clerks and some others of that Learned Profession we may Worthily attribute the greatest Light and Certainty of that is Reported of a great part of the Turkish Affairs But these in the Course of so long a History failing also as by conferring that which is hereafter Written together with their Histories is easily to be perceived to perfect that I had taken in Hand I took my refuge unto the Writings of such other Learned and Credible Authors as of whose Integrity and Faithfulness the World hath not to my Knowledge at any time yet doubted Yea for these few late Years I was glad out of the German and Italian Writers in their own Language in part to borrow the Knowledge of these late Affairs As also from the credible and certain Report of some such Hâ—norable minded Gentlemen of our own Country as have either for their Honors sake served in these late Wars in Hungary or upon some other Occasions spent some good times in Travelling into the Turks Dominions but especially unto the Imperial City of Constantinople the chief Seat of the Turkish Empire and Place of the Great Turks abode Amongst whom I cannot but deservedly remember my kind Friend and Cousin M. Rog. Howe unto whose discreet and curious Observations during the time of his late abode at Constantinople I justly account my self for many things beholden In which Course of my Proceeding if the Reader find not himself so fully satisfied as he could desire I would be glad by him my self to be better informed
thing and had before born some Sway. The Souldiers whose help he had used in aspiring to the Government he rewarded with great bounty all their Offices and Preferments he bestowed either upon his own Children or other his great Favorites divers of the Nobility of whom he liked not were by him in short time driven into exile some were by him deprived of their sight and some others cast into prison not knowing any cause why more than that they were by him secretly condemned for that they were of the Nobility or had done some good Service for the State or exiled for their Personage or some other thing that grieved Andronicus or else for the spark of some old displeasure which yet lay hid as fire raked up in the ashes So that the State of that time began to grow most miserable and the treachery even of men nearest in blood seeking the destruction one of another for to serve their own turns or to gratifie Andronicus most horrible not only one Brother betray'd another but even the Father his Son and the Son his Father if Andronicus would have it so Some accused their nearest Kinsmen that they derided Andronicus his proceedings or that without regard of him they more favoured Alexius the young Emperor then a great offence Yea such was the mischief of the time that many in accusing others were themselves accused and charging others of Treason against Andronicus were themselves charged by them whom they accused and so clapt up both together in one prison Neither were they of the Nobility only which were Enemies to Andronicus thus hardly dealt withall but even some of his great Favorites and Followers also for some whom but yesterday he had used most kindly and enrolled among his best Friends upon them to day he frowned and tyrannized most cruelly so that you might have seen the same man the same to day as it is reported of Xerxes his Admiral to be crowned and beheaded to be graced and disgraced insomuch that the wiser sort deemed Andronicus his praisings the beginning of a mans disgrace his bounty his undoing and his kindness his death The first that tasted of his Tyranny was Mary the Daughter of Emanuel the Emperor who for the hate she bare to Alexius the late President and the Empress her Mother in law had as is aforesaid above all other wisht for his coming but was now by one Pterigionites sometime an Eunuch of her Fathers corrupted by Andronicus having in his aspiring mind purposed the utter destruction of all Emanuels Posterity cunningly poysoned as was her Husband Caesar who lived not long after her poysoned also as was supposed with the same Cup that his Wife was Now among others of the late Emperors House none had ever stood more in his light than had the fair Empress Xene the young Emperors Mother whom now he ceased not most bitterly though wrongfully to accuse as an utter Enemy both to the Emperor and the State making as if he would leave all and again depart if she were not removed from the Emperor her Son and by his cunning so incensed the giddy headed vulgar people against her that they came flocking to Theodâ—sius the good Patriarch ready to tear him out of his Cloaths if he consented not to the removing of the Empress as Andronicus had desired So a Council being called of such his Favorites and others as were not like indifferently to hear her Cause but assuredly to condemn her the Guiltless Empress after many things falsly laid to her Charge was accused of Treason as that she should by her Letters have solicited Bela King of Hungary her Brother in law to invade Brantizoba and Belligrade two strong places belonging to the Empire Whereupon she was condemned and shamefully cast into a most filthy Prison near unto the Monastery of St. Diomede Amongst other Noblemen called unto this wicked Council were Leo Monasteriotes Demetrius Tornicius and Constantius Petrenus who not yet altogether devoted to Andronicus being asked their Opinions concerning the Empress said They would be glad first to know Whether that Council against his Mother were called by the Emperors consent or not With which Speech Andronicus pierced to the heart as with a Sword in great rage started up and said These are they which encouraged the wicked President to all his Villanies lay hands upon them Whereupon they of his Guard in threatning manner shook their Weapons and Swords at them as if they would even presently have slain them and the tumultuouâ— common people catching them by their Cloaks as they came out pulling them some one way some another were so fierce upon them as that they had much ado to escape out of their hands with life Now lay the fair Empress but the other day one of the greatest Princes of the East and honoured of all her Subjects in great misery and despair scorned even of her base Keepers every hour expecting the deadly blow of the Hangman Yet was not the cruelty of Andronicus against her any thing asswaged but grieving that she yet breathed shortly after assembled the former Council the Ministers of his Wrath demanding of them What punishment was by Law appointed for such as betrayed any Town or Province of the Empire whereunto answer being given in Writing That it was by the Law death he could no longer hold but that he must in great choler break out against the poor Empress as if it had been she that had done it and thereupon the wicked Counsellors crying out with one voice That she was to be taken out of the way as they had before agreed by and by without longer stay a damned Writing was subscribed by the young Emperor her Son as if it had been with the blood of his own Mother whereby she was I abhor to write it most unworthily condemned to die The men appointed to see this most horrible and cruel Execution done were Manuel Andronicus his eldest Son and Georgius Augustus his near Kinsman who both dismaid at the very mentioning of the matter not regarding the Emperors Command said plainly that they never before consented to the death of the Empress but had clean hands of so hainous an offence and therefore would now much less see her innocent Body dismembred in their sight At which unexpected answer Andronicus much troubled with his Fingers oftentimes pluckt himself by the hoary Beard and with burning eyes casting sometime up his head and sometime down sighed at his own most miserable tyrannical estate freting inwardly that they which were nearest unto him whom he thought he might even with a beck have commanded to have done any mischief abhorring his cruelty should refuse to do the thing he so much desired to have done yet repressing his anger for a while within a few days after he again commanded her to be strangled which was accordingly done by Constantinus Tripsicus and Pterigionites the ungracious Eunuch by whose help he
Ministers of his Wickedness who had now oftentimes in their mouths that saying of the Poet Est mala res multos dominarier unicus esto Rex Dominusque An evil thing it is to be ruled by many One King and one Lord if there be any And that the old age of an Eagle was better than the youth of a Lark So by the general consent of that wicked Assembly unworthy the name of a grave Council a Decree was made That Alexius should as a man unfit to Govern the State be deprived of all Imperial Dignity and commanded to live a private life Which disloyal Decree of the Conspirators was yet scarcely published but that another more cruel came out of the same Forge That he should forthwith be put to death as one unworthy longer to live For the execution of which so horrible a Sentence Siephanus Hagiochristophorites one of the chief Ministers of Andronicus his Villanies and by him promoted even unto the highest Degrees of the Honours of the Court with Constantinus Trypsicus and one Theodorus Badibrenus Captain of the Tormentors were sent out who entring his Chamber by night without compassion of his tender age or regard of his Honour or Innocency cruelly strangled him with a Bow string which detestable murther so performed Andronicus shortly after coming in spurned the dead body with his foot railing at his Father the late Emperor Emanuel as a forsworn and injurious man and at his Mother as a common Whore. The head was forthwith struck off from this miserable Carkass the mirror of Honours unstability and left for the monstrous Tyrant to feed his eyes upon the body wrapped up in Lead was in a Boat carried to Sea by Io. Camaterius and Theodosius Chumenus two of Andronicus his noble Favorites who with great joy and glee returned with the same Boat to the Court as if they had done some notable Exploit But long continueth not the joy of the Mischievous Vengeance still following them at the heels as it did these two who not long after with the rest that conspired the innocent Emperors death all or most part of them came to shameful or miserable ends Thus perished Alexius the Emperor not yet full fifteen years old in the third year of his Reign which time he lived more like a Servant than an Emperor first under the command of his Mother and afterwards of the Tyrant which brought him to his end Who joyeth now but old Andronicus made young again as should seem by his new gained Honours for shortly after the murder committed he married Anne the French Kings Daughter as some report before betrothed to young Alexius a tender and most beautiful Lady not yet full eleven years old an unfit Match for three score and ten And in some sort as it were to purge himself and his Partakers of the shameful murther by them committed and to stop the mouths of the people he by much flattery and large promises procured of the Bishops a general Absolution for them all from the Oath of Obedience which they had before given unto the Emperor Emanuel and Alexius his Son Which obtained he for a while had the same Bishops in great Honour and shortly after in greater Contempt as men forgetful of their Duties and Calling After that he gave himself wholly unto the establishing of his Estate never reckoning himself thereof assured so long as he saw any of the Nobility or famous Captains alive that favoured Emanuel the late Emperor or Alexius his Son of whom some he secretly poysoned as Mary the Emperor Emanuels Daughter with her Husband Caesar some for light occasions he deprived of their sight as he did Emanuel and Alexius the Sons of that noble Captain Iohn Comâ—enus Andronicus Lapardus whose good Service he had oftentimes used Theodorus Angelus Alexius Comnenus the Emperor Emanuels base Son some he hanged as Leo Synesius Manuel Lachanas with divers others some he burnt as Mamalus one of the Emperor Alexius his chief Secretaries all men of great Honour and place For colour whereof he pretended himself to be sorry for them deeply protesting that they died by the severity of the Law not by his will and by the just doom of the Judges whereunto he was himself as he said to give place and that with tears plentifully running down his aged Cheeks as if he had been the most sorrowful man alive O deep dissimulation and Crocodiles tears by nature ordained to express the heaviness of the heart flowing from the eyes as showers of rain out of the Clouds in good men the most certain signs of greatest grief and surest testimonies of inward torment but in Andronicus you are not so you are far of another nature you proceed of joy you promise not unto the distressed pity or compassion but death and destruction how many mens eyes have you put out how many have you drowned how many have you devoured Most of the Nobility that favoured the late Emperor Emanuel and Alexius his Son thus taken out of the way by Andronicus struck such a fear into the rest that for safeguard of their lives they betook themselves to flight some one way some another never thinking themselves in safety so long as they were within the greedy Tyrants reach whereof shortly after ensued no small Troubles to the shaking of the State of the whole Empire Isaac Comnenus the Emperor Emanuels nigh Kinsman took his Refuge into Cyprus and kept that Island to himself Alexius Comnenus Emanuels Brothers Son fled into Silicia and there stir'd up William King of that Island against Andronicus who with a great Army landed at Dyrrachium took the City and so from thence without resistance passing through the heart of Macedonia spoiling the Country before him as he went met his Fleet at Thessalonica which famous City he also took by force and most miserably spoiled it with all the Country thereabout so that he brought a great fear upon the Imperial City it self Unto which so great evils Andronicus intangled with domestick Troubles and not knowing whom to trust was not able to give remedy although for shew he had to no purpose sent out certain of his most trusty Ministers with such Forces as he could well spare For the Majesty of his Authority growing still less and less and the number of his Enemies both at home and abroad daily increasing and the favour of the unconstant people who now began to speak hardly of him declining he uncertain which way to turn himself rested wholly upon Tyranny proscribing in his fear not only the Friends of such as were fled and whom he distrusted but sometimes whole Families together yea and that for light occasions sometime those who were his best Favorites whose Service he had many times used in the execution of his Cruelty so that now no day passed wherein he did not put to death imprison or torture one great Man or other Whereby it hapned that the
the Relief thereof he raised his Siege and retired as he did also next year after having in vain attempted the strong Castle of Mont-Royal on the further side of Iordan In like manner also the third year he came again into the Holy Land and spoiled the Country beyond Iordan but hearing of the Kings coming against him he forthwith returned again into Egypt All these light Expeditions this politique Prince made not so much for hope of Victory or to prove his Enemies strength as to train his Souldiers especially the effeminate Egyptians and to make them fitter to serve him in his greater designs year 1173. Shortly after died Noradin Sultan of Damasco and in his time a most notable Champion of the Turks after he had reigned nine and twenty years Upon whose death Almericus forthwith besieged the City of Paneale in hope to have again recovered the same but he was by the Widow of the late dead Sultan for a great sum of money and the delivery of certain noble Prisoners intreated to raise his Siege and depart So having sent away his Army and traveling with his ordinary Retinue to Tyberias where he had the Summer before been sick of the Flux feeling himself not well he returned on Horse-back by Nazareth and Neapolis to Ierusalem where his old Disease increasing upon him he was also taken with a Fever wherewith after he had been some few days grievously tormented he requested his Physitians with some gentle potion to loose his Belly which was now somewhat stayed which they refusing to do he commanded the potion to be given him upon his own peril hap thereon what hap should which being given him and his Belly again loosed he seemed therewith to have been at the first well eased but his wonted Fever with great vehemency returning before his weak and spent Body could be with convenient meats refreshed he suddenly died the tenth of Iuly in the year 1173. when he had reigned about ten years His dead Body was with the great lamentation of all his Subjects solemnly buried by his Brothers He was a most wise Prince and withall right valiant amongst many most fit for the Government and Defence of that troublesome Kingdom so hardly beset with the Infidels if it had pleased God to have given him longer life Four days after the death of Almericus was Baldwin his Son then a Youth about thirteen years old by the general consent of the Nobility chosen King and by Almericus the Patriarch in the Temple with great Solemnity Crowned in the year 1173. unto whom as not yet by reason of his tender age fit himself to manage the weighty Affairs of the Kingdom Raymond Count of Tripolis was by the whole consent of the Nobility appointed Tutor to supply what was wanting in the young King. Noradin Sultan of Damasco dead as is aforesaid left behind him Melechsala his Son yet but a Youth to succeed him in his Kingdom Whose Government the Nobility disdaining sent secretly for Saladin Sultan of Egypt unto whom at his coming they betrayed the City of Damasco the Regal Seat of the Turks in Syria Whereof Saladin possessed and entring into Coelosiria without Resistance took Heliopolis Emissa with the great City of Caesarea and in fine all the whole Kingdom of Damasco the City of Arethusa only excepted But thus to suffer Melechsala the young Prince to be wronged and the Kingdom of Damasco to be joyned to the Kingdom of Egypt was of the wiser sort thought not to stand with the safety of the Kingdom of Ierusalem lying in the middle betwixt them both Wherefore the Count of Tripolis Governor of that Kingdom made out certain Forces to have hindred his proceedings At which time also Cotobed Prince of Parthia and Melechsala Uncle sent certain Troops of Parthian Horse-men to have aided his distressed Nephew who were by Saladin overthrown and almost all slain near unto Aleppo where Melechsala lay As for the Count of Tripolis and the other Christian Princes with whom Saladin in the newness of his Kingdom had no desire to fall out he appeased them with fair Intreaty and Rewards unto the Count he sent freely the Hostages which yet lay for his Ransome at Emissa unto the other Princes he sent rich Presents and therewith so contented them all that they returned without any thing doing against him After which time three or four years passed in great quietness to the great strengthening of him in those new gotten Kingdoms At length upon the coming over of Philip Earl of Flanders the Christian Princes of Syria encouraged consulted of an Expedition to be made into Egypt whereof Saladin having Intelligence drew down into that Country the greatest part of his strength But Philip disliking of that Expedition and the rather for that he saw no great chearfulness in the Count of Tripolis and the rest thereunto they with one consent changed their Purpose for Egypt and turning their Forces a quite contrary way miserably and without resistance wasted the Country about Emissa and Caesarea Whilst the Christians wâ—re thus busied in Coelosiria Saladin on the other side took occasion out of Egypt to invade the Kingdom of Ierusalem of whose coming King Baldwin having intelligence with such small Forces as he had left hastned himself to Ascalon In the mean time Saladin with a great Army was entred into the Holy Land where burning the Country before him and raging in the blood of the poor Christians he came and encamped not far from Ascalon and struck such a fear upon the whole Country that they which dwelt in Ierusalem were about to have forsaken the City as for the King himself he lay close within the City of Ascalon not daring to adventure upon so strong an Enemy Wherewith Saladin encouraged and out of fear of his Enemies dispersed his Army some one way some another to forrage the Country Which the King perceiving secretly with all his Power issued out of the City if happily so he might overtake the Sultan unawares neither was he deceived in his expectation for coming suddenly upon him and secretly charging him he had with him for a good space an hard and doubtful battel until that the Victory by the Power of God at length inclining to the Christians Saladin with his Turks fled overthrown with a great slaughter most part of his great Army being either there slain or lost afterward with hunger and cold This Victory fell unto the Christians the 25 th day of November in the year 1177. not without the Almighty Hand of God year 1177. the Turk having in his Army above six and twenty thousand Horse-men and the King not past four hundred Horse with some few Foot-men After which Victory Baldwin in great Triumph returned to Ierusalem and there shortly after with great care and diligence repaired the decayed Walls of the City Saladin in revenge of this Overthrow made divers Incursions into the Frontiers of the Christians and did great harm specially in
length two miles set full of Gallows Gibbets Wheels Stakes and other Instruments of Terror Death and Torture all hanging full of the dead Carkases of Men Women and Children thereupon executed in number as was deemed about twenty thousand There was to be seen the Father with his Wife Children and whole Family hanging together upon one Gallows and the Bodies of sucking Babes sticking upon sharp Stakes others withall their Limbs broken upon Wheels with many other strange and horrible kinds of death so that a man would have thought that all the Torments the Poets feign to be in Hell had been there put in execution All these were such as the notable but cruel Prince jealous of his Estate had either for just desert or some probable suspition put to death and with their Goods rewarded his Souldiers whose cruel manner was together with the Offender to execute the whole Family yea sometimes the whole Kindred Mahomet although he was by Nature of a fierce and cruel Disposition wondred to see so strange a Spectacle of extream cruelty yet said no more but that Wladus knew how to have his Subjects at Command After that Mahomet sent Iosephus one of his great Captains to skirmish with the Valachies who was by them put to the worse but by the coming in of Omares the Son of Turachan they were again in a great Skirmish overthrown and two thousand of their heads brought by the Turks upon their Launces into the Kings Camp for which good Service Omares was by the King preferred to be Governor of Thessalia When Mahomet had thus traced Valachia and having done what harm he could saw it to be to no purpose with such a multitude of men to hunt after his flying Enemy which still kept the thick Woods or rough Mountains he returned again to Constantinople leaving behind him Haly-beg with part of his Army to prosecute that War and with him Dracula the younger Brother of Wladus who was also called Wladus as a Stale to draw the Valachies into Rebellion against the Prince This Dracula the younger was of a little Youth brought up in Mahomets Court and for his comely Feature of him most passionately affected which inordinate perturbation so prevailed in the intemperate Nature of the lascivious Prince that he sought first by fair words and great Gifts to corrupt the Youth and not so prevailing attempted at last to have forced him wherewith the Noble Youth being enraged drew his Rapier and striking at him to have slain him grievously wounded him in the Thigh and thereupon fled Nevertheless being drawn back again to the Court and pardoned he was afterwards reconciled to the King and so became his Ganimede and was of him long time wonderfully both beloved and honoured and now set up for a Stale as is before said for the Valachies his Country-men to gaze upon It fortuned that after the departure of the King divers Valachies came to Haly-beg the Turkish General to Ransome such Friends of theirs as had been taken Prisoners in those Wars and were yet by him detained to whom the younger Dracula by way of discourse declaring the great Power of the Turkish Emperor and as it were lamenting the manifold and endless Miseries of his Native Country cunningly imputed the same unto the disordered Government of his cruel Brother as the ground of all their Woes assuring them of most happy and speedy Redress if the Valachies forsaking his fierce Brother would cleave unto him as their Soveraign in special Favour with the great Emperor Which Speech he delivered unto them with such lively Reasons and in such effectual Terms that they there present perswaded by him and others by them in short time all as if it had been by a secret consent forsook Wladus the elder Brother and chose Dracula the younger Brother to be their Prince and Soveraign Who joyning unto him the Turks Forces by the consent of Mahomet took upon him the Government of that War-like Country and People yet holding the same as the Turkish Tyrants Vassal the readiest way to Infidelity Wladus seeing himself thus forsaken of all his Subjects and his younger Brother possessed of his Dominion fled into Transylvania where he was by the appointment of the Hungarian King apprehended and laid fast in strait prison at Belgrade for that he had without just cause as it was laid to his charge most cruelly executed divers Hungarians in Valachia yet such was his fortune after ten years hard imprisonment to be again enlarged and honourably to die in battel against his ancient Enemies the Turks Mahomet returning out of Valachia to Constantinople sent the same Fleet which he had used in his late Wars into the Aegeum to take in such Islands as being before under the Constantinopolitan Empire had upon the loss of the City put themselves under the Protection of the Venetians but especially the Isle of Mitylene called in ancient time Lesbos pretending that Nicholaus Catelusius Prince thereof did harbour the Pirats of Italy and other places and also bought of them such Prisoners and other Booty as they continually took from the Turks at Sea or alongst the Sea coast out of many places of his Dominions pretending also the chastising of the said Prince for that he had by treachery slain his eldest Brother and so unjustly taken upon him the Government His Fleet thus set forward he himself with a small Army passed over into Asia and came by land to Possidium a City of Ionia over against Mitylene From whence he embarked himself over the narrow Strait into the Island where after he had once landed his Army he in short time overran the whole Island and miserably spoiled the same leading away all the Inhabitants thereof into Captivity who shortly after were sold at Constantinople like Flocks of Sheep and from thence dispersed into all parts of his Dominions After he had thus harried the Country and left nothing therein unspoiled he besieged the Prince in the City of Mitylene whereof the Island now taketh Name and with his great Ordnance continually battered the same by the space of 27 days in which time many sharp Assaults were also given by the Turks whereby the Defendants were greatly diminished and wasted The Prince perceiving himself not able long to hold out offered to yield up the City with all the strong Holds in the Isle upon condition that Mahomet should therefore give unto him some other Province or like value to the Island which his Offer Mahomet accepted and by solemn Oath bound himself for performance of that he had promised Whereupon the Prince came out of the City and humbled himself before him excusing himself for the receiving of the Men of War wherewith he was charged as done for no other purpose but that they should forbear to spoil his own Country much subject to their fury utterly denying that he had at any time bought or shared any part of such Prizes as had by those Pirats by Sea
them that had the leading of the Wings of Scanderbegs Army divers of the common Souldiers thrust the Heads of the slain Turks upon the points of their Spears in token of Victory to the great astonishment of the Turks and now joining themselves with Scanderbeg more fiercely charged the main Battel of the Turks than before Nevertheless Moses encouraging his Souldiers did what was possible for a man to do and even with his own Valour a great while staid the course of the Victory until he seeing the ground about him covered with the dead bodies of his best Souldiers and that there was no remedy but that he must either flie or there die turned his Back and fled In which Flight many of the hindermost of the Turks were slain as for Moses himself he escaped by ways to him well known only with four thousand men the poor remainder of so great an Army the rest to the number of about eleven thousand all choice men were slain whereas of the Christians were not past an hundred lost and about eighty wounded Of all the Turks that were taken only one was saved who being a man of good account had yielded himself to Zacharias and was afterward ransomed the rest were all by the common Souldiers without Pity tortured to death in revenge of the Cruelty by them shewed at Belgrade Scanderbeg himself either not knowing thereof or winking thereat Moses with the rest of his discomfited Army lay still a while upon the Borders of Epirus and would fain have perswaded them after the departure of Scanderbeg to have followed him again into Epirus to have surprised the Garrison left in Dibra in number not above two thousand promising to bring them upon the same Garrison before they should be aware of their coming But the Turks having him now in contempt were about by general consent to forsake him and to return home And so Moses seeing no remedy returned with them to Constantinople with countenance as heavy as if he had been a condemned man now carried to the place of Execution and the Turks which had not long before had him in great admiration expecting that he should have ended the Wars in Epirus began now to disgrace him as fast and to speak all the evil of him they could devise Yea the Tyrant himself although he could blame nothing in the Man but his Fortune was so highly offended with him for the loss of his Army that he had undoubtedly put him to most cruel death had not the great Bassaes and others near about him perswaded him otherwise saying That in so doing he should alienate the minds of all others from revolting unto him or attempting any great thing for his service So was he by their mediation pardoned his life but withal so disgraced that he had little or nothing allowed him afterwards for his necessary maintenance all which despightful contumelies he outwardly seemed patiently to bear but was inwardly so tormented with melancholy and grief that he could neither eat nor drink the remembrance of the foul Treason committed against his Prince and Country was day and night before his Eyes and the disgraces of the Turks Court inwardly tormented him with intollerable grief the sight of the Tyrant who measured all things by the event filled his Heart with secret indignation and to return again to his natural Prince of whom he had so evil deserved he was ashamed sometime the clemency and princely nature of Scanderbeg whom he knew of old slow to revenge and easie to be intreated to forgive heartned him on to think of return and by and by the consideration of his foul Treason overwhelmed him with despair Thus with contrary thoughts plunged too and fro tormented with the unspeakable griefs of a troubled conscience not knowing what to do purposing now one thing and by and by another at last he resolved to forsake the insolent Tyrant and to submit himself to the mercy of Scanderbeg wishing rather to die in his Country for his due desert than to live with infamy derided in the Turks Court. Resting himself upon this resolution one Evening he got secretly out of the Gates of Constantinople and travelling all that night and the day following before he rested by long and weary journeys came at last unto his native Country of Dibra The Garrison Souldiers beholding their old Governor all alone full of heaviness as a man eaten up with cares moved with compassion forgetting the evils he had been the occasion of received him with many tears and friendly embracings and brought him to Scanderbeg who by chance then lay not far off Moses coming unto him with his girdle about his Neck in token that he had deserved death as the manner of that Country was found him walking before his Tent and there with heavy cheer falling down upon his Knees at his Feet submitted himself unto his mercy and with great humility and signs of repentance craved his most gracious pardon Which his request Scanderbeg presently granted and taking him up by the Hand embraced and kissed him in token he had from his Heart forgiven him and within a few days after caused all such things of his as were before confiscate to be again restored unto him with all such Offices and Promotions as he had before enjoyed and by open Proclamation commanded That from thenceforth no man should either publikely or privately speak of that Moses had trespassed Mahomet understanding that Moses was returned again into Epirus and honoured of Scanderbeg as in former time was much grieved thereat and fumed exceedingly first for that he had at all trusted him and then that he had so let him slip out of his Hands being verily perswaded that all that Moses had done was but a fineness of Scanderbeg to deceive him Shortly after that Moses was returned into Epirus Mahomet by like practice allured unto him Amesa Scanderbeg his Nephew promising to make him King of Epirus in his Uncles stead For by that means the crafty Tyrant thought it a more easie way to draw the minds of the people of Epirus from Scanderbeg unto him descended of the Princes Blood than to Moses or to any other Stranger he should fet up Amesa upon this hope of a Kingdom fled to Constantinople and because he would clear the mind of the Tyrant of all Suspition and distrust he carried with him his Wife and Children as the most sure Pledges of his Fidelity This Amesa was of Stature low and the Feature of his Body not so perfect as might sufficiently express the hidden Vertues of his Mind he was of Courage haughty above measure subtil and of a pregnant Wit wonderful painful and thereto courteous and bountiful the chief means whereby aspiring minds steal away the Hearts of Men whatsoever he got of himself or had by the gift of his Uncle he divided it among his Souldiers or Friends he was very affable and could notably both cover and dissemble his affections for which
done he returned again to Euboea Shortly after he with the same Fleet put to Sea again and sailing alongst the coast of Macedonia and Thracia surprised the City of Aenus which standeth upon the mouth of the River Meritza called in ancient time Hebrus upon which River the famous Cities Andrianople and Philippopolis are also situate Canalis after he had taken the spoil of the City returned to his Gallies carrying away with him two thousand Captives into Euboea At the same time also the Venetians giving Aid unto Nicholas Duchaine against his Brother Alexius then at variance for the Principality of Zadrima near unto the River of Drino in Epirus gave a great Overthrow to the Turks which came in the quarrel of Alexius Mahomet not a little offended with the harms done unto him by the Venetians year 1470. and perceiving that the Island of Euboea now called Nigroponte was for the commodious situation and strength thereof the chief place from whence they wrought him all these wrongs and whither they afterwards retired again as unto a most sure place of Refuge determined with himself at once to be even with them for all and to imploy his whole Forces both by Sea and Land for the gaining of that place This Island of Euboea is about an hundred miles in length and lieth over against that part of Graecia which was of old called Boeotia from whence it is separated with a narrow strait of the Sea it aboundeth with Corn Wine Oil Fruit and Wood fit for shipping The chief City thereof was in ancient time called Chalcide and of latter time Nigroponte by which name also the whole Island was known albeit the Turks now call it Egribos a populous rich and strong City so fortified with Walls and Bulwarks that in most mens judgment it seemed a place impregnable Unto this strong City Mahomet resolved to lay siege knowing well that upon the fortune thereof dependeth the state of the whole Island Wherefore he assembled a mighty Army and made great preparation both by Sea and Land and when all things were in readiness sent Mahomet the great Bassa of the Court with a Fleet of thâ—ee hundred Gallies and certain other small Vessels well furnished with Souldiers Mariners and all things necessary by Sea into Euboea and with a great Army marched himself by Land through Achaia until he came over against the City of Chalcis The Venetian Admiral hearing of the coming of the Turks Fleet set forward to have met them near unto the straits of Hellespontus but after he had by his espials descried the great number of the Enemies Fleet finding himself too weak shaped his course to the Island of Scios The Bassa coming out of the Straits of Hellespontus covered the Sea with his Fleet and holding on his intended course without let came to Euboea where at his first landing he took Stora and Basilicon two small Towns which he rased to the ground and from thence went directly to Chalcis As soon as this great Fleet was there arrived Mahomet caused a great Bridge to be made of his smaller Vessels over the Strait betwixt Achaia and Euboea whereby he passed all his Army and so belayed the City round both by Sea and Land. And after he had planted his Battery began most furiously to shake the Walls wherein he had in short time made fair Breaches and the sooner for that one Thomas of Liburnia chief Canoneer of the City before corrupted by the Turks by signs agreed upon gave them certain knowledge in what places the Walls were weakest whereby they so aptly planted their Battery as if they had taken view on the inside of the Walls Which foul Treason was at length perceived and the Traytor therefore worthily executed Yet little prevailed the Tyrant thereby for such was the industry of the Defendants that whatsoever he had by the fury of his great Ordnance beat down by day that they with restless labour repaired again by night Thus was the Siege continued thirty days in which space many a sharp Assault was given by the Turks to their great loss and the City still valiantly defended by the Christians At length the Venetian Admiral to the great comfort of the besieged came with his Fleet within view of the City making semblance as if he would have given the Turks battel Whereupon it is reported that Mahomet was about to have raised his Siege and have got himself over into the Main for fear the Venetians should with their Gallies have broken the Bridge and so have shut him up into that Island which thing it was thought the Admiral might have done to his great praise if he would as a couragious Chieftain have adventured the matter as he was earnestly requested by the Captains of every private Gally who generally grieved to see him so great a Commander to let slip so fair an opportunity But he fearing to come any nearer came to an Anchor and moved not neither gave any sign of comfort or relief to the besieged Which thing the Turkish King quickly perceiving and therewith encouraged having now in divers places beaten down the Walls and made them assaultable brought on his Men to the Breaches promising them the spoil of the City with many other great Rewards and high Preferments according to their particular Deserts whereof he said He would Himself be an Eye-witness Hereupon the Turks gave a most fierce and furious Assault which the Defendants with invincible courage received and made such slaughter of them that the Ditches were fill'd and the Breaches made up with the bodies of the dead Turks But such was the number of that populous Army the greatest strength of the Turks that the living little felt the loss of the dead Mahomet continually sending in new supplies of fresh Men in stead of them that were slain or wounded so that one could no sooner fall but two or three stept up in his room and so successively as if new Men had sprung out of the Bodies of the dead Twice they had even won the Breaches and were both times with wonderful slaughter beaten out again This deadly and dreadful Assault was maintained a whole day and a night without intermission At length the Defendants being for the most part slain or wounded and the rest wearied with long fight and unable to defend the Town now assaulted almost round retired from the Breaches into the Market-place and there like resolute Men sold their lives at a dear price unto the Turks Amongst the slain Christians were found the dead bodies of many notable Women who seeing the ruine of the City chose rather to die with their Friends in defence thereof than alive to fall into the hands of their barbarous Enemies Mahomet being now become Lord of the City and having lost forty thousand of his Turks in that Siege in revenge thereof caused all the men that were found in the City alive to be put to most cruel death especially the
the Island of the Rhodes For why it grieved him that so small an Island should lie so nigh his great Dominions in Asia holden by a few Christians to the great trouble of his Merchants trading in the Mediterranean beside many other harms dayly from thence received and to have no feeling of his greatness But for as much as the winning of that place was thought to be a matter of great difficulty and in former times unfortunately attempted by some of the Mahometan Princes he purposed now with good advice to take this enterprise in hand Wherefore calling together his grave Counsellors and most expert Men of War after he had declared unto them the manifold injuries received from them of the Rhodes he propounded the matter Whether it were best to attempt the winning of that Island or not Some forward men perswaded him to revenge the injuries done by those Christians and to subdue that Island which for the nearness unto Cariâ— might of right be accounted as part of his Dominion and not to forbear that enterprise for fear of repulse forasmuch as he was able to bring more Men to assail it than were Stones in the Wall about it Others better advised declared the Strength of the Island with the Valor of the Defendants Men alwaies brought up in Arms as it were chosen out of all parts of Christendom so that it was as they said like to prove a matter of more difficulty than was by some supposed whereof some of the Mahometan Princes had to their no small dishonour already made sufficient trial alledging farther that that small Island which scarcely appeared in the Sea was not of that worth as that he should thereon engage his honour with the lives of so many good men and most valiant Souldiers as might serve for the conquest of a Kingdom For all that Mahomet prickt forward with the Spurs of Ambition and continual solicitation of Anthonius Meligalus a fugitive Knight of the Rhodes resolved to follow the counsel of them which perswaded the War. This Meligalus was a Knight of the Order which when he had prodigally consumed his substance which was great with two others Demetrius and Sophonius men of his own quality and disposition fled unto the Turkish Emperor presenting unto him a perfect plot of the City with all the strength both of it and the Isle wherein it stood and which way he might with most ease win it In which service they frankly offered to spend their lives but hoping indeed by such foul Treachery to repair their broken Estate All things being now in readiness Mahomet appointed Mesithes Paleologus one of his chief Bassas the near Kinsman of Constantinus Paleologus the last Emperor of Constantinople General for that expedition committing to his charge the whole managing of that so great an action Mesithes embarking his Army in number eighty thousand and throughly furnished with all things necessary for the Siege set forward from Constantinople and with a pleasant gale of Wind sailed along the coast of Asia the less towards the Rhodes where by the way he called unto him Demetrius one of the fugitive Knights to learn of him the best means for the safe landing of his Army As for the Arch Traitor Meligalus and chief Author of this War he was fallen sick upon the way and in the extremity of his sickness growing both troublesome and loathsome unto the Turks that were with him in the same Gally was by the Mariners thrown over board alive crying out in vain for help no man vouchsafing to have any compassion upon him and so swallowed up of the Sea received amidst the Waves the just guerdon of his Treachery At this time Peter Damboise a Frenchman an Avergnoies a man of singular Government was Great Master of the Rhodes whose vigilancy was such that commonly once in eight days he had certain intelligence what great matters passed in the Turks Court and therewith of such deep judgment that he was seldome or never overtaken or deceived with any false advertisements This careful Grand Master was not ignorant of all these great preparations neither of the coming of the Bassa and therefore had before strongly fortified the City and so stored the same with all things needful as might well have served for many years siege especially with such Shot and Powder that it was deemed as indeed it was an especial means whereby the City was afterward preserved At the same time many noble and valiant Gentlemen hearing of the Turks designs repaired thither out of Italy France Spain Germany and other places of Christendom chearfully to adventure their lives in defence both of the place and of the Christian Religion against the common Enemy of Christianity The Great Master taking a general view of all the Forces he had to oppose against so puissant an Enemy found that he had in the City sixteen thousand able men in which number were reckoned many Jews and other men of servile condition who in the Siege following did right good service The great Bassa conducted by the false Traitor Demetrius safely landed both his Army and Artillery in the Island the two and twentieth day of Iune not far from the City At which time the Great Master considering that the safety of the City consisted more in the lively valour of the Defendants than in the Strength of the dead Walls or other warlike provision thought it requisite as a part of his duty by chearful perswasions to encourage them valiantly to withstand the force of their Enemies And therefore calling them all together spake unto them as followeth At length valiant Souldiers and Fellows at Arms we see the Turks our mortal Enemies as we were before advertised as well by Letters from our friends as by common fame breathing after our destruction in readiness to destroy our Churches our Oratories our Altars our Religion and whatsoever else we account sacred or religious seeking the ruin of this noble City and the cruel death of us all gaping at once to devour our lives our wealth our hope with all our former honour And truly as I cannot deny but that the chance of War is doubtful and the event thereof uncertain So when I consider your valiant Courage and Chearfulness of Mind I presently conceive a most assured hope of Victory They have entred into Arms against us not so much for any desert of ours or upon any other quarrel as for the unsatiable desire of Rule and the great despight they bear against us and the Christian Religion But to withstand their Fury and to frustrate their Designs we want neither Weapons nor Artillery nor Provision for many years we have a most strong Garrison of Frenchmen Spaniards Germans English and others the very Chivalry of Christendom and that which more is Christ Iesus our Captain and General by whose power we shall no doubt easily repulse the vain force of our most wicked and graceless Enemies The care we have for the
two or three days in a place Whilst he was thus travelling Selymus no less careful of the keeping of his Estate than he had before been for the obtaining of the same began now to doubt That if he should depart from Constantinople and with all his Forces pass over into Asia against his Brother Achomates Bajazet in the mean time might in his absence return to Constantinople and so again possess himself both of the City and Empire Wherefore to rid himself of that fear he resolved most Viper like before his going to kill his Father and so most unnaturally to deprive him of life of whom he had received life such is the cruel and accursed Nature of Ambition that it knoweth neither Father Mother Brother Wife Kindred or Friend no sometimes not her own Children the fury whereof was never in any one more pregnant than in this most monstrous and cruel Tyrant Selymus The readiest and most secret way he could devise for the effecting of this his damnable device which without great impiety could not be so much as once by him thought upon was to work it by poyson upon which resolution he secretly compacted with Haman a Jew his Fathers chief Physitian to poyson him promising him for his reward a Pension of ten Ducats a day during his life And for that men are oftentimes with terror and fear as well as with reward enforced to be the ministers of mischief he to be the more sure of this Jew prone enough for gain to do evil threatned him with most cruel death if he did not both secretly and speedily work this feat commanding him so soon as he had done it to return unto him to Constantinople The deceitful Jew moved both with the fear of death and hope of reward two great motives coming shortly after to Bajazet and finding him very weak seeming to be very careful of him told him That he would prepare for him a portion which should both restore to him his health and also strengthen his weak body if it would please him to take it the next morning early lying in his bed Bajazet nothing distrusting his old Physitian whom he had so often and so long trusted said he would gladly take it Early the next morning cometh the Jew with the deadly poyson in a Cup of Gold Bajazet yet sleeping which he set down in the Chair of State and so stood waiting untill the aged Prince should of himself awake But Bajazet sleeping soundly as oftentimes it chanceth when men sleep their last and withal somewhat longer than stood with the Jews purpose he presuming of his wonted practice awaked him and told him That the time to take the portion was almost past and asked him if it were his pleasure then to take it Bajazet doubting no Treafon willed him to bring it whereof when the Jew had taken the essay having before himself taken a preservative against that poyson he gave it to Bajazet to drink who chearfully drank it up the Physitian commanding them that waited in his Bed-Chamber and attended on his person to keep him well covered with warm clothes and not to give him any thing to drink until he had well sweat This cursed Jew having thus poysoned the aged Prince to avoid the danger of the Fact and to carry the first news thereof to Selymus secretly conveyed himself away and in hast fled to Constantinople But Bajazet attainted with the force of the Poyso began first to feel most grievous gripings in his Stomach the strong pain whereof appeared by his miserable complaining and heavy groaning in the midst of which torments he gave up the Ghost in the year 1512 when he had reigned thirty years The Turks report that he died a natural death but Antonius Utrius a Genoway who at that time served in Bajazet his Chamber and was present at his death reporteth That upon his dead Body the evident tokens of Poyson were to be seen His dead Body with all his Treasures were presently brought back again to Constantinople and delivered to Selymus who caused the Body of his Father to be with the greatest solemnity that might be buried in a most sumptuous Tomb in a Chappel near unto the great Mahometan Temple which he had before built for himself at Constantinople which Monument there remaineth this day to be seen His Servants were all by Selymus restored to their places which they before held in the Court in the time of their old Master excepting five of the Pages of his Chamber who lamenting the death of their Master above the rest had attired themselves all in mourning Apparel for which cause they were by the commandment of Selymus cast into prison where two of them were put to death the other three at the suit of Solyman Selymus his Son and of other two Bassaes were saved but being stript of their rich Apparel and whatsoever else they had gotten under Bajazet they were inrolled for Common Souldiers under Sullustares Bassa Of these three Antonius Utrius the Genoway before spoken of was one who after ten years miserable Captivity amongst the Turks at last escaped at such time as Selymus was by the Persian discomfited and with much ado returning again into Italy wrote the History of all such things as he himself had there seen with the calamities of Bajazet his House and a great part of the tyrannous Reign of Selymus Haman the false Jew as the same Author reporteth coming to Constantinople and expecting some great reward for his foul Treason by the commandmet of Selymus had his head presently struck off with this exprobration of his Treachery That opportunity serving he would not stick for reward to do the like against Selymus himself Of this Bajazet Ianus Vitalis writeth this Elogium Dum rerum exquiris causas dum procul Hunnes Carmannos Cilices Sauromatasque domas Bajazethe domi proles tua te petit armis Et te per fraudes amovet imperio Adjicit inde novum sceleri scelus tibi miscet Pocula lethiferis illita graminibus Intempestivos crudelis vipera foetus Per sua sic tandem funera rupta parit Quid tutum est cui sint ingentia regna Tyranno Si timant natos progeniemque suam In English thus Whilst that thou Bajazethes seeks of things the hidden cause And fain wouldst bring the Hunne and Russ under thy Turkish Laws Thy Son at home steps up in Arms against thy Royal Crown And by false Treason and Deceit finds means to pluck thee down Whereto he addeth mischief more and straight without delay By Poyson strong in glittering Bowl doth take thy life away The cruel Viper so brings forth her foul untimely Brood Who eat and gnaw her Belly out their first and poisoned Food Which things may Princes hold for safe that do great Kingdoms sway If of their Children they must stand in dread and fear alway Christian Princes of the same time with Bajazet the Second Emperors of
taken from Corcutus all hope of escaping by Sea so that he was fain to hide himself in a Cave near unto the Sea side not far from Smyrna living in hope that after a few days the Fleet would depart and so he should find some opportunity to escape After he had thus a great while in fear most miserably lived with Country Crabs and other like wild Fruit a poor Diet for a man of State and was with extream necessity inforced to send his man for relief to a poor Shephards Cottage thereby he was by a Country Pesant discovered to Cassumes who with too much diligence sought after his life and being by him apprehended was carried towards the Tyrant his Brother at Prusa Right welcome to Selymus was the report of his taking who as soon as he understood that he was within a days journey of Prusa sent one Kirengen-Ogli who of his squint look was called Chior Zeinal to strangle him upon the way and to bring his dead Body to Prusa This Captain coming to Corcutus in the dead time of the night and awaking him out of his sleep told him his heavy Message how that he was sent from his Brother Selymus to see him executed which must as he said presently be done Corcutus exceedingly troubled with these heavy news and fetching a deep sigh desired the Captain so long to spare his life until he might write a few short lines unto his Brother Selymus Which poor request being granted he called for Pen and Paper and readily in Turkish Verse for he had spent all his time in study reproved his Brother of most horrible Cruelty upbraiding him that he had not only most disloyally thrust his Father out of his Empire but also most unnaturally deprived him of Life of whom he had before received the same and not so content had most tyrannously slain his Brothers Children and now like an unmerciful wretch thirsted after the guiltless blood of himself and Achomates his Brethren At last concluding his Letters with many a bitter curse he besought God to take of him just revenge for so much innocent blood by him most unnaturally spilt And when he had thus much written he requested the Captain that it might together with his dead body be delivered unto Selymus So without any further delay he was according to the Tyrants command presently strangled The next day after when the dead body was presented unto Selymus he uncovered the face thereof to be sure that it was he and seeing a Paper in his hand took it from him but when he had read it for all his cruel nature and stony heart he burst out into tears protesting that he was never so much grieved or troubled with any mans death as with his for which cause he commanded general mourning to be made for him in the Court and with Princely solemnity buried his body Three days after he caused fifteen of those diligent searchers who first found Corcutus to have their Heads struck off and their bodies to be flung into the Sea saying That if he were by any extremity driven to fly and hide his Head they would not stick to serve him in like manner as they had done his Brother Now of all the Posterity of Bajazet remained none alive to trouble the cruel Tyrants thoughts but only Achomates and his two Sons who upon the approach of the Spring set forward with his Army from Amasia excited by the often Letters of his Friends who assured him that Selymus might upon the suddain be easily oppressed if he would with all expedition come to Prusa forasmuch as the Janizaries and Europeian Horsemen the undoubted strength of his Army were at that time absent and he himself as one hated both of God and Man could not in so suddain and unexpected danger tell what he were best to do or which way to turn himself wherefore they willed him without delay to hasten his coming and not to expect the milder Weather of the Spring lest in the mean time Selymus should call together his dispersed Forces God they said did oftentimes offer unto men both the opportunity and means to do great matters if they had the power to lay hold thereon and therefore he should do well now by celerity and courage to seek to better his evil Fortune which but a little before had bereft him of his Fathers Kingdom for if Summer were once come on he must either gain the Victory by plain Battel which would be a hard matter or else get him packing out of Cappadocia and all Asia the less Achomates who before had promised unto himself better success as well for the great Strength he had of his own as for the new supply of Horsemen he had procured from Hysmael the Persian King but especially for the hope he had that Selymus generally hated for his late Cruelty should in the time of the Battel be forsaken of his own Souldiers yielded to the perswasions of his Friends who with many pleasing words set before his Eyes glorious things easie to be spoken but hard to be effected Wherefore when he was come into Galatia with somewhat more than fifteen thousand Horsemen having for hast left his Footmen by easie marches to come after him Selymus advertised of his coming by speedy Messengers sent for his Horsemen to Prusa In the mean time whiles he is levying other common Souldiers and expecting the rest of his Forces Fortune which always favoured his attempts did then also avert the danger prepared for him by the unfaithfulness of his Followers and shewed to him the open way to Victory For Achomates secret Friends which were in Selymus his Camp continuing firm in their good will toward him did earnestly by Letters perswade him being already set forward and now come as far as Paphlagonia to make hast and to come before Selymus his Forces were come together for that he had sent for the Janizaries and Europeian Horsemen and did with all speed and diligence make all the preparation he could possibly which for all that would all come too late if he should upon the suddain come upon him before he were provided Which Letters being by chance intercepted gave Selymus certain knowledge both of his Brothers purpose and coming together with the Treason intended against him by his own Servants wherefore executing them who had writ those Letters he in their names caused others to the same effect to be written to Achomates perswading him with all speed possible to come still on and not to stay for his Footmen for that Selymus might easily be oppressed with a few Troops of Horsemen if Achomates would with speed but come and shew himself unto his Friends and Favourites who upon the first signal of Battel would raise a tumult in the Army and upon the suddain kill Selymus unadvisedly going to and fro in the Battel Which Letters so written Selymus caused to be signed with the Seals of them whom he had before
strangled him with a Rope and that he might be the better seen and become more contemptible to all that passed that way they hanged him up by the neck upon an Iron Hook in an Arch of the same Gate and so left him to the worlds wonder Palearius propounding him as a mirror both of the better and worse fortune for all men to look upon aptly describeth both his happiness and misery in these few Verses following Non fuit in toto Rex aeque Oriente beatus Nec magis in toto Rex Oriente miser Quam dolor Egypti olim Tomombeius auro Ingenti atque armis ditione potens Captus ab hoste fero miserum simul atque beatum Exemplo potis est commonuisse suo Quid rides temere quid fles vis te cohibere Et natum post hac te meminisse hominem Mi traheum induto gemmis auroque corona Cingebat fulgens diadema caput Mi quandam ornabant pretiosa monilia collum Nunc fractam vili respice fune gulam In English thus In all the East a King more blest was no where to be found Nor in the East one more accurst liv'd not upon the ground Than Tomombeius Egypts grief sometime for store of gold Of power great for Martial Force and Kingdom he did hold But taken by his cruel Foe may good example be Both to the happy and distrest of mans uncertainty Why do'st thou fondly laugh Why do'st thou vainly cry Canst thou from henceforth stay thy self and think th' art born to die My Garments were the Royal Robes I wore the Crown of Gold With richest Stones most richly set most glorious to behold My neck adorn'd with richest Gems which I did sometimes wear But now trust up in shameful Rope behold me hanging here This misery befel Tomombeius the thirteenth of April in the year 1517 upon the Monday in Easter Week There were many which shed tears to behold that so cruel and lamentable a spectacle who by their woful countenance and pitiful lamentation seemed to detest that foul and unworthy death of their late Sultan notwithstanding that the Janizaries reproved them therefore and threatned them with death who like giddy braind Fools as they termed them enured to the slavery of the Mamalukes joyfully and thankfully accepted not of their deliverance for the Egyptians were as yet uncertain of their Estate and therefore as men in suspence not without cause stood in doubt what should become of themselves fearing lest the Turks a warlike Nation and a terror to all the Princes of Europe and Asia nothing more courteous than the Mamalukes should with no less insolency rage and tyrannize over them under their warlike and cruel Emperor Besides that the woful sight of Tomombeius hanging in the Gate as the unworworthy scorn of Fortune wonderfully wounded their hearts for why it was yet fresh in their remembrance that he with the good liking of all men and general favour of the Nobility with good fame rose up all the degrees of Honour both in Field and Court unto the height of Regal Dignity and therefore grieved the more to see him by inevitable Destiny cast down headlong so shamefully to end his Life and Empire together A notable spectacle undoubtedly amongst the rarest examples of worldly fragility both to the happy and unfortunate the one not to be too proud or too much to flatter themselves in their greatest bliss and the other to learn thereby with patience to indure the heavy and unworthy changes and chances of this wretched and miserable world And so much the more did Tomombeius so hanging move men to compassion for that the Majesty of his tall and strong body and reverend countenance with his long and hoary Beard well agreed with his imperial Dignity and Martial disposition The same fortune with Tomombeius ran also divers of the Princes of the Mamalukes with some others of the common sort also Tomombeius thus taken out of the way and all the Mamalukes almost slain and no power of the Enemy to be heard of in all Egypt to renew the War Selymus dividing his Forces sent them forth with his Captains to take in the Countries and Provinces of Egypt lying further off They of Alexandria after the battel of Caire having thrust out the Garrison and easily surprised the Castle of Pharus which the weak defendants chose rather upon hope of present reward to deliver than with doubtful event to defend yielded themselves many daies before unto the Turks Damiata also called in ancient time Pelusium opened their Gates and submitted themselves to the Victors There was no City betwixt the River of Nilus and the Borders of Iudea and Arabia which yielded not to the obedience of Selymus The Kings also of Africk bordering upon Cyrenaica Tributaries or Confederates of the Egyptian Sultans sent their Embassadors with Presents to Selymus There remained now none but the wild Arabians a People never to be tamed and especially they of Africk who having lost many of their Friends and Kinsmen in aiding Tomombeius would not as it was thought submit themselves unto the Turkish obedience This wandering king of People living for most part by Theft had filled the Countries from Euphrates where it runneth by the Palmyrens with all the inner parts of Egypt and Africk unto the Atlantick Sea with huge multitudes of men and being divided into many Companies under divers Leaders have no certain dwelling places but live an hard and frugal kind of life in Tents and Waggons after the manner of the Tartars their greatest Wealth is a good serviceable Horse with a Launce or a bundle of Darts they were alway at discord and variance amongst themselves by reason whereof they could never agree for the expulsing of the Mamalukes who otherwise had not been able to have stood against them if they should have joyned their Forces together So that the late Egyptian Sultans seemed to hold their State and Empire among so populous a Nation rather by their discord than their own strength wherefore Selymus having now by fit men upon his Faith before given allured many of their Chieftains and greatest Commanders to Caire honourably both entertained and rewarded them By whose example others moved came also in dayly and having received their rewards gave the Oath of their Allegeance to Selymus Others which could by no fair promises or words be won being cunningly intercepted by other Captains and delivered to Selymus indured the pains of their vain obstinacy and malice The other remote Nations toward Aethiopia as they had in former time rather acknowledge the friendship than the command of the Egyptian Sultans so now induced with the fame of the Victory easily joyned in like amity with the Turk About the same time Selymus sent certain Troops of Horsemen to Suezzia a Port of the Red Sea of old called Arsinoe about three days journey from Caire in which Port Campson the great Sultan a little before the coming of the
of the Rhodians that he seemed to make no doubt of the good success of that War presumptuously affirming that upon the first landing of Solymans great Army they of the Rhodes would without delay yield themselves and their City into his hands Amongst others of great experience whose opinion Solyman was desirous to have before he would take so great a matter in hand was the famous Pirat Cortug-Ogli a Man of a mischievous and cruel Nature but of great experience in Sea matters Who presented to Solyman by Mustapha and Ferhates two of the greatest Bassaes going before him after due reverence done and commanded to deliver his opinion spake unto Solyman as followeth The greatness of your deserts most mighty and puissant Emperor maketh me being by you so commanded at this time frankly to speak what I think may be for the glory and honour both of your Majesty and Empire I daily hear the pitiful lamentation of the miserable People of Mitylene Euboea Peloponesus Achaia Caria Lycia and all alongst the Sea Coast of Syria and Egypt bewailing the spoil of their Countries the ransacking of their Cities the taking away of their Cattel and People with other infinite and incredible Calamities which they daily suffer of the crossed Rhodian Pyrats no Man withstanding them Many a time have these wretched People holden up their Hands to me for help most instantly requesting me to be a mean for them to your Imperial Majesty whereby they might be protâ—cted from the injury rapine and slaughter of these cruel Rovers Wherefore in their behalf I beseech your sacred Majesty by the most reverend Name of the holy Prophet Mahomet and by your own most heroical Disposition to deliver your afflicted Subjects from these their most cruel Enemies and at length to set them free from the fury captivity and fear of these Pyrats more grievous unto them than death it self and consider with your self that this injury and insolency tendeth not so much to the hurt of your poor Subjects and oppressed People in private as to the dishonour and disgrace of your Imperial Name and Dignity which if any other Christian King or Prince should offer your Majesty I know would not suffer unrevenged And will you then suffer these Robbers Cut-throats base People gathered out of all the Corners of Christendom to wast your Countries spoil your Cities murther your People and trouble all your Seas For who can pass by Sea to Tripolis Damasco Alexandria Caire Chalcide Lesbos Chios nay unto this your Imperial City of Constantinople without most certain and manifest danger of these Rovers What have we heard every Spring this many years but that the Rhodians had taken some one or other of your Ports led away your People into most miserable Captivity and carried away with them the rich spoils of your Countries And that which is of all other things most dishonourable this they do under your nose and in your sight in the midst and heart of your Empire Pardon me I beseech you most Mighty Emperor if I too plainly speak what I think For whatsoever I say I say it to no other end bâ—t that you should now at length do that which should many years ago have been done We your most Loyal Subjects may not nor ought not for the increase of our Mahometan Religion and for the enlarging of your Empire and Honour to refuse to adventure our Goods our Bodies our Lives to all hazard and danger without exception If you likewise be carried with love of Glory and Renown or ravished with the desire of never dying Fame in what Wars can you more easily gain the same or better imploy us your Servants than in vanquishing and subduing the Rhodes the reputed Bulwark of Christendom which only keâ—peth us from their Countries But some will perhaps say your Ancestors have in former times unfortunately attempted that City so did they also Belgrade in Hungary yet hath your happy Fortune to your immortal Fame brought the same under your subjection being far more strongly fortified than it was in times past and do you then despair of the Rhodes Cast off such vain and needless misdoubt The Turkish Empire-hath always grown by adventures and honourable attempts Therefore make hast to besiege it both by Sea and Land. If your Subjects mourning under the heavy burthen of the Christian Captivity built it with their own Hands for the Christians cannot they now at liberty desirous of revenge and fitted with opportunity with like hands destroy the same If it please you to vouchsafe but to look into the matter most dread Sovereign you shall see that there is a divine occasion by the procurement of our great Prophet Mahomet presented unto your most Sacred Majesty now that the Christians of the West are at discord and mortal War amongst themselves Your Majesty is not ignorant that in mannaging of Wars the opportunity of the time is especially to be followed and that when occasion serveth all remisness and delay is to be carefully avoided the changes of times are most fickle and if you suffer your good hap now to pass over you shall perhaps in vain afterwards pursue the same when it is fled and gone Solyman by Nature an ambitious young Prince prickt forward thus also by the perswasions of Cortug-Ogli and others seeking their further credit and preferment by fitting his ambitious humor but most of all by thâ— instigation of the Bassa Mustapha resolved to go in person himself against the Rhodes And first to make some proof of what spirit and courage Villerius the new chosen Great Master was of in whose sufficiency the greatest part of the defence of the City was supposed to consist to him by way of a little cold Friendship he sent a Messenger with this short Letter thus directed Solyman by the grace of God King of Kings Lord of Lords greatest Emperor of Constantinople and Trapezond most Mighty King of Persia Arabia Syria and Egypt Lord of Asia and Europe Prince of Mecha and Aleppo Ruler of Ierusalem and Master of the Universal Sea To the reverend Father Philippus Villerius Liladamus Great Master of the Rhodes and Legate of Asia Greeting I am glad of thy Kingdom and new promotion which I wish thou mayest long and happily enjoy for that I hope thou wilt in Honour and Fidelity exceed all them which before thee Ruled in the Rhodes from whom as my Ancestors have withdrawn their hand so I after their example joyn with thee in amity and friendship Ioy thou therefore my Friend and in my behalf rejoyce of my Victory and Triumph also for this last Summer passing over Danubius with Ensigns displayed I there expected the Hungarian King who I thought would have given me Battel I took from him by strong hand Belgrade the strongest City of his Kingdom with other strong holds thereabouts and having with Fire and Sword destroyed much People and carried away many more into Captivity as a triumphant Conqueror breaking up
part Mariners able Bodies who in the time of the Siege did great service encouraged by their Sea Captains the Island People which repaired into the City served to little other purpose but to dig and carry Earth unto the Rampiers and the Citizens except it were some few of the better sort were for the most part weak and of small Courage not able to indure any labour or pains and yet hardly to be kept in order and governed great speakers but small doers greater in shew than in deed The Great Master having carefully provided and ordered all things needful for the defence of the City and fearing nothing more than the faint Hearts of the Citizens caused them all to be called together for incouragement of whom he spake unto them as followeth Valiant Gentlemen and worthy Citizens we hear that the Turk our mortal Enemy is coming against us with a huge Army raised of divers Nations from whose natural cruelty and wonted perjury except we defend our selves by force one and the self same danger is like to befal me my Knights and you all For we have with common consent and hand grievously spoiled him both by Sea and Land and you are by booties taken by strong hand out of his Dominions inriched and at this day we keep his People in grievous servitude and he ours but he injuriously and we most justly For his Ancestors weary of the dark Dens and Caves of the Mountain Caucasus their natural Dwelling without Right Title or Cause incited only with Covetousness Ambition and the hatred of our most sacred Religion have driven the Christians out of Syria and afterwards oppressed the Grecians in Grecia where not contâ—nted to have destroyed the People with one simple kind of death as Barbarism is ever cruel and merciless they have with most exquisite and horrible Torments butchered many thousands of that Nation All whom this wicked proud youth whose mischief exceedeth his years an evil Neighbour to all men not contented with the Dominions of Arabia Syria Egypt the greatest part of Asia and of many other places more seeketh in Tyranny Murther Spoil Perjury and Hatred against Christ and Christians far to excel and forceth himself to the uttermost of his power to take from us our Islands and to subdue the Christian Countries that so at length being Lord of all and Commander of the World he may at his pleasure overthrow the Christian Cities kill the Christians and utterly root out the Christian name which he so much hateth For the repulsing of which intollerable injury we have especially chosen this Island of the Rhodes for our dwelling place because the same seemed more commodious than any other for the annoying of this barbarous Nation We have done what in us lay holpen by you we know by proof your great Valour and Fidelity which we now have not in any distrust Wherefore I will not use many words to perswade you to continue in your Fidelity and Loyalty neither long circumstances to encourage you to play the men sithence worthy minds are not with words either encouraged or dismayed But concerning my self and my Knights of the Order I will speak a few words I with them with whom as I hope the Christian Princes and other my Knights of the West will in good time joyn their Forces are most ready and prest to defend your selves your Children your Wives your Goods the Monuments of your Ancestors and sacred Temples dedicated to the service of our God. Which opinion that it may remain firm and fixt in your minds if nothing else my Faithfulness in your Wars my Body not yet altogether spent but able enough to endure pains and travel the Nobility of these worthy Knights of the Order their Love towards you and their Hatred towards your Enemies were sufficient to confirm but beside this the strength of this City which this noble Order hath with infinite charges so notably fortified with Ditches Walls Towers and Bulwarks against all the force and fury of Artillery is such as that no City may worthily be compared much less preferred before the same It is wonderfully stored with all kind of Weapons and Warlike Provision we have laid up plenty of Wine Flesh and Corn in vaults so that neither wet Weather nor Worms can attaint the same of Wood and wholesome Water not to be taken from us things necessary for men besieged we have plenty and able men enough for the defence of the City All which things promise unto us assured Victory and such end of the War as we wish for Besides this Necessity which giveth Courage even unto Cowards will enforce us to fight Yet standeth on our side true Religion Faith Conscience Devotion Constancy the Love of our Country the Love of our Liberty the Love of our Parents Wives Children and whatsoever else we hold dear Whereas they bring with them the proud command of their Captains Infidelity Impiety Unconstancy a wicked desire of your Bondage of your Blood and the Blood of your Parents Wives and Children Out of doubt beloved Citizens our good God will not suffer so many good vertues to be overcome by their foul vices Wherefore be you in mind quiet and secure and trouble not your selves with forboding fear of your Enemies only continue in the Fidelity and Loyalty which you have always kept inviolate and unspotted toward this sacred and honourable Fellowship in most dangerous Wars and hardest chances of Fortune and if need shall so require with couragious band shew your Valour against your Enemies and make it known unto the Spaniards French Italians Hungarians and English That the Rhodians are of power to daunt the Turkish Pride and to avert their Fleets and Armies from Italy which they have so many years threatned with Fire and Sword and will no doubt thither with all speed hasten and come if that which my mind abhorreth to speak they should here prevail Neither will his ambitious youth in Courage Falshood and cruelty exceeding Hannibal imitate him in that that having overthrown the Romans in the great Battel at Cannas knew not to use his Victory but he will presently with more than Caesars celerity bring forth the Treasures his Father got in Egypt and with great Fleets and huge Armies invade Apulia Calabria and Scicilia from whence he will forthwith break into France and afterwards into Spain and other Christian Countries raging through them with all kind of cruelty But I am carried away further than I purposed and than need is For your Fidelity and Valour most worthy Citizens to endure the Siege and repulse the Enemy is such as needeth not my perswasion and of greater resolution than that it can be shaken with the dangers incident to men besieged yet the greatest and most forcible miseries of all which is Hunger and Thirst I assure you you shall never feel which pinching calamities for all that some People in Faithfulness Courage and Valor nothing comparable to you have nevertheless most
great cries and signs of joy valiantly and with great slaughter repulsed their Enemies as if they had been fresh men Long it were to recount the deadly fight and hard adventures which befel at the Assault of the other two Stations of the Avergnoys and Narbonenses but the Turks were in every place put to the worst and lay by heaps slain in the Ditches and Breaches of the Town Solyman from his standing for that purpose made of high Masts beholding the miserable slaughter of his men and no hope of gaining the City caused a Retreat to be sounded a thing welcome both to the Rhodians and the Turks In this terrible Assault which endured by the space of six hours divers of the Knights of the Order were slain especially of the French and Spanish Nation with one hundred and fifty common Souldiers all worthy of eternal fame and of the Turks as they which write most modestly report twenty thousand The young Tyrant was so much offended with the shameful repulse he had received at this last Assault that he fell into a rage against all them which had perswaded him to enter into that action but especially against the great Bassa Mustapha whom he accused as an unfaithful Counsâ—llor and chief perswader of that unlucky War who flattering him in his vain humor by extolling his Forces above measure and falsly extenuating the power of the Enemy assuring him that upon the first approach of his Army they would yield themselves without resistance had drawn him into that dangerous Expedition like to sort to the great dishonour of himself and all the Othoman Family for which doing he adjudged him worthy of death and in great fury commanded the Executioner without further delay to put him to death in his presence Which dreadful doom so suddainly and upon so light an occasion given upon a man of so great mark and quality struck such a terror into the minds of all there present that none of them durst speak one word against the rigor of that sentence or so much as fet a sigh in pitying of his case The Executioner now ready to give the fatal stroke Pyrrhus the most ancient of all the Bassaes moved with compassion and presuming of his great favour with the Tyrant whom he had from his Childhood had the charge and government of stept forth and appealing unto his mercy earnestly requested him to spare his life Wherewith Solyman was so filled with wrath and indignation that for his presumption and for sending for him to Constantinople to come to that dangerous Siege he commanded him to be executed also All the rest of the Counsellors seeing the danger of these two great men fell down at the Feet of the fuming Tyrant craving pardon saying That the Enemies ground had already drunk too much of the Turkish Blood and was not to be further moistned with the Blood of two such noble Personages and worthy Counsellors Solyman moved with this general intercession of his great men pausing a little upon the matter the heat of his Fury being something over suffered himself to be intreated and granted them their lives unto Pyrrhus for his great Age and Wisdom and to Mustapha for his Wives sake who was the Tyrants natural Sister sometime the Wife of Bostanges All the time of this Siege the Turks great Fleet furnished with Men and all manner of Warlike Provision lay before the entrance of the Haven without doing any thing at all for the Admiral being no man of War seeing the mouth of the Haven chained and the Castles upon the entrance full of Ordnance and strongly manned durst not attempt either to enter the Haven or besiege the Castle for which his Cowardise and for that he had negligently suffered Provision both of Victual and Munition to be conveied into the City during the time of the Siege to the great relief of the besieged he was by Solyman adjudged to die a most cruel death but by the mediation of Achimetes one of his best Men of War the severity of that sentence was changed into a punishment unto any noble mind more grievous than death it self for he was by Solymans commandment openly set upon the Poup of the Admiral Gally and there as a Slave received at the hands of the Executioner a hundred Stripes with a Cudgel and so with shame was thrust out of his Office. After that Solyman had in so many places with all his power so long time in vain besieged the Rhodes his haughty Courage began to quail so that he was upon point to have raised his Siege and left the Island yea the grief he had conceived went so near him that he many times fainted and lay speechless as if he had been a dead man. The remembrance of so many unfortunate Assaults the death of so many worthy Captains the loss of so many valiant Souldiers sufficient to have subdued a great Kingdom so much grieved him that a great while after he shunned the company of Men and would not suffer himself to be spoken withal until at length he was again by Abraham his Minion a man in whom he took singular pleasure recomforted and perswaded to continue the Siege for that time as he said which worketh all things would at length â—ame the fierceness of his Enemies whom the Sword could not upon the suddain subdue In the mean time Solyman for his pleasure and to shew unto the Rhodians that he purposed not to depart began to build a sumptuous Castle upon the top of the Mount Philerâ—nus in the eye of the City During which time divers Letters were shot into the City with Turkish Arrows out of the Camp wherein many of Solymans most secret Counsels were revealed and the revolt of a great man promised which the Rhodians by many circumstances gathered to have been Mustapha who could not easily forget the injury so lately offered unto him by Solyman needs it must be some of Solymans secret Counsel otherwise he could not have revealed so great secrets as it were out of the Bosom of Solyman But see the chance at the very same time tidings came unto Solyman that Cayerbeius the Governor of Egypt was dead in whose place Solyman sent Mustapha to Caire as Governor of Egypt by that honourable preferment again to please his discontented mind after which time no more Letters came into the City Now the Turks began to make fair Wars their terrible battery began to grow calm and for certain days it seemed by the manner of their proceeding that they purposed rather by long Siege than by Assault to take the Town Nevertheless the Enemies watching day and night in their Trenches used all the policy they could sometimes offering unto the Souldiers upon the Walls great rewards if they would yield up the City and sometimes threatning them as fast and to breed a dislike amongst the Defendants they would oftentimes say that Solyman desired only to be revenged upon the Latines without
work of whom Solyman in this Siege of the Rhodes and other his Expeditions made not much more account but as of Pioniers to work in Mines and to cast up Trenches and oftentimes with their Bodies to fill Town-Ditches to make a way for the Janizaries to pass over upon they by the constraint of Achimetes undermined the Wall and as they wrought shoared up the same again with Timber whereunto they afterwards set Fire hoping by that means to overthrow the Wall which falling not out according to their expectation for that they had not far enough undermined it they assailed with great Hooks and strong Ropes to have pulled it down But the Rhodians with their great Ordnance from the Avergne Bulwark quickly put them from that mad work with great slaughter and frustrated all their long labour Achimetes thus disappointed of his purpose stood in great doubt whether he should give over the enterprise for that he saw he laboured in vain or else in that dangerous place to expect some better hap the only mean to save him from the Tyrants heavy displeasure who as he knew measured all things by the event Solyman understanding by Achimetes that the Wall although it was not overthrown as was expected was yet sore shaken and weakned with undermining caused his Battery to be planted against that part of the Wall so undermined which so many ways weakned and now sore battered fell down daily more and more For remedy whereof the Rhodians laboured night and day to raise a new Wall in stead of that which was beaten down At the same time Solyman perswaded by the general opinion of all his great Captains that the City was that day or never to be taken determining to give another general Assault caused Proclamation to be made through his Camp wherein he gave the spoil of the City unto his Souldiers and the more to encourage them spake unto them in few words as followeth Fortune at length valiant Souldiers having notably proved your Courage and Patience now offereth unto you the worthy Rewards of your Labour and Pains The Victory and Wealth of your Enemies which you have so much desired is now in your Hands Now is the time to make an end of this mungrel People of whom more are slain than left alive and they not Men but the Shadows and Ghosts of Men feeble and spent with Hunger Wounds Wants and Labour who will I know resist you not because they so dare but because of necessity they so must enforced thereunto with all extremities Wherefore now revenge your selves of the Falshood Cruelty and Villanies of these Christians and make them a woful example to all posterity that never Man hereafter presume to offer injury to a Turk in whatsoever State he be The way is already open into the City there is a fair Breach made whereby thirty Horsemen may at once enter nothing wanteth but Courage in you to assail the same The Souldiers encouraged with this Speech of their Emperor made great shew of cheerfulness and promised to do their uttermost devoir threatning unto the Christians most horrible Death and miserable Captivity In the mean time the great Shot flying continually through the Breach did beat down many Houses in the City but the Countermure new built against the Breach standing upon a lower ground it seldom toucht to the great good of the Rhodians The ratling of the falling Houses the horrible noise of the Enemy with the thundering of the great Artillery wonderfully terrified the miserable Citizens in every place was heard the Lamentation of Women and Children every thing shewed the heaviness of the time and seemed as altogether lost and forlorn The day thus troublesomely spent the night followed much more troublesome and after the night the day of Assault of all other most dreadful for with the dawning thereof the glistering Ensigns of the Enemy were seen flying in the Wind and the Turks cheerful with the hope of Spoil and Victory hasted towards the Breach with great Outcries and Songs after their Country manner and there before one of the Gates of the City called St. Ambrose Gate set down a great number of their Ensigns deckt with Garlands in token of Victory The Turks great Fleet also at the same time sailing too and fro before the Haven made shew as if it would have assailed the City on that side who had seen the City so beset would have said that it would at one instant have been besieged both by Sea and Land and to most Mens judgments it seemed that the Rhodian State should that day have taken end and been destroyed Yet for all these extremities the Rhodians were nothing discouraged but looking upon their Weapons as the only remainders of their hopes not regarding any danger upon the Alarm given came running out of their Houses by heaps unto the Walls like desperate Men opposing their Bodies in stead of their battered Walls against their Enemies in defence of their Country There needed neither Exhortation nor command of Captain every Man was unto himself a perswader to fight valiantly in defence of the City and one of them propounded unto another the cruel death the miserable servitude the mocks and taunts they should indure if they should chance to come into the proud Enemies hand all which was to be avoided either by honourable Victory or Death The Turks conducted by Achimetes fiercely assailed the Breach which was by the Rhodians standing upon the ruins of their Walls valiantly defended In the mean time the dismaied Matrons and Maidens some in their Houses with heavy Hearts expected the woful Destruction of the City and themselves othersome in the Churches with Floods of Tears and lamentable Cries poured forth their Prayers to the Almighty craving his help in that their hard distress and to protect them against their barbarous Enemies The deadly Fight at the Breach was on both sides with great courage and force maintained The Turks were in good hope forthwith to win the City if they did but a little more strain themselves and therefore to terrifie the Rhodians the more oftentimes in their fighting gave out most terrible outcries and the Rhodians accounted the Turks as good as vanquished for they being so many in number and in a place of such indifferency had not yet prevailed beside that they were greatly incouraged with the greatness of the common danger and the sight one of anothers Valour so that by their invincible Courage the Turks were inforced shamefully to retire The Rhodians seeing their Enemies turn their Backs gave a great shout in derision of them the Turks disdaining that they in number many and now Victors if they should with a little resolution maintain the Assault they had begun should be so derided of a handful of Men as good as already vanquished with great indignation returned again to the Breach and more furiously assailed the Rhodians than at the first At which time the City had undoubtedly been
if it had been but to look to his charge when he was come as near as he could to Alis without mistrust thought good to assay if he could by policy bring that to pass which he was otherwise with great danger to attempt by force Wherefore feigning himself to be extream sick he sent Embassadors to Alis requesting him as a friend to vouchsafe to come unto him being at the point of death unto whom he had many things of importance from the great Emperor to impart and would if he should die leave with him all his charge until Solyman should otherwise dispose thereof Alis who from his youth had always honoured the Turkish Emperors and faithfully served them mistrusting no harm came to the Bassa accompanied with his four Sons whom the faithless Bassa without regard of infamy caused presently to be put to death with their Father and so reducing all that Country into the manner of a Province under Solymans obeisance came to him with twenty thousand Men about the time that the City of the Rhodes was yielded up This is the faithless dealing of the Turks not with the Christians only but with them of their own superstition also using it as no small policy utterly to extinguish the Nobility of all Countries subject to their servile Tyranny Solyman after he had thus subdued the Rhodes and disposed of the Island as he liked best returning to Constantinople brake up his Army and for the space of three years after followed his pleasure not doing any thing worthy of remembrance During which time and many years after the rich and flourishing Country of Italy sometime Mistress of the World was miserably afflicted and rent in pieces by Charles the Fifth then Emperor and Francis the French King the one envying unto the other the glory of the Empire and he not content therewith seeking with immoderate ambition to make himself Lord of all Italy most of the other Christian Princes and States being at the same time either by the one or by the other drawn into the fellowship of that War to the great trouble and sore weakning of the Christian Common-weal Whereupon Solyman waiting all occasions that might serve for the enlarging of his Empire and annoying of the Christians thought it not a fit time for him to set his foot into Hungary whereunto he had already laied open a way by the taking of Belgrade He knew right well that Lewis then King of Hungary was but young altogether unacquainted with the Wars commanding over his headstrong Subjects especially his rich Prelates and Nobility no otherwise than pleased themselves being himself rather by them altogether overruled besides that he was in good hope that the other Christian Princes near unto him either carried away with regard of their own Estate would not or else before unto himself by League fast bound could not afford unto him any great aid or succour the Germans he knew would make small hast unto such Wars as should yield them much danger and but small pay As for the Princes of the House of Austria Charles the Emperor and Ferdinand his Brother although they were joyned unto the young King with the nearest bonds of Alliance Lewis having Married Mary their youngest Sister and Ferdinand Ann King Lewis his Sister yet was there as he thought small help to be expected from them Charles having his hands full in Italy and Ferdinand altogether careful of himself and that Sigismund King of Polonia would for the young Kings sake break the ancient League he had with the Turkish Emperors he could hardly be perswaded As for other Christian Princes farther off he stood not in any great doubt year 1526. Thus having with himself singled out this young Prince the Hungarian King whom he had in his greedy mind already devoured he set forward from Constantinople and was come on his way as far as Sophiâ— in Servia with a mighty Army of two hundred thousand men before that the Hungarians had any knowledge of his coming so blind and senseless was that State which now sleeping in security had long before lost those Eies which ever watcht and never spared cost or pains to keep the same in safety in stead of whom were others come in place sharp of sight and too too provident for that concerned their own advancement but blind as Beetles in foreseeing this great and common danger wherewith they were shortly after all quite overwhelmed until it was now brought home unto their own Doors The young King of himself but weak by reason of his youthful years and nothing strengthned by them for whom he had most done and should have been his greatest stay was wonderfully dismaied with the fame of the approach of so mighty an Enemy yet the better to withstand him he sent Embassadors with all speed unto the Christian Princes his Neighbours requesting their Aid against the common Enemy but all in vain In the mean time after the ancient manner of his Country he gave out general Summons for the Assembly of his Counsel for the Wars whether his great stipendary Prelates of duty bound to appear came with their Troops of evil appointed Horsemen and not half full who also delivered in less sums of Mony by far than of right they should have done towards the maintenance of the charge of that common War. And the temporal Nobility forgetting the warlike Discipline of their famous Ancestors as fresh-water Souldiers which had seen the Turkish Emperor in his strength and but little acquainted with some light skirmishes or small invasions in their vain bravery made light account of the Turks proudly vaunting That although they were in number but few yet they would easily overthrow the great numbers of them if ever they came to handy strokes But above all the rest one Paulus Tomoreus Archbishop of Colossa sometimes a Minorite who had before been in divers light skirmishes against the Turks with great insolency did so confidently brag and boast of the Victory he vainly dreamed of that in his Sermons unto the Souldiers and in open talk with the Nobility if he could have done so much as he vaunted of it should seem that he himself had been enough to have overthrown the Turks whole Army But when all the Kings Army was assembled and a general muster taken there was hardly found five and twenty thousand men in all horse and foot So that the foolish hardiness of Tomoreus and others so forwards to give the Turks battel was of most wise men disliked The old Souldiers and men of great experience said plainly That it was meer folly and madness with such a handful of men to give battel unto the Enemy who would bring eight times so many more into the Field as they were Wherefore some wished that the young King should be withdrawn from the eminent danger among whom Stephanus Verbetius a noble Captain of all the rest best acquainted with the Turkish Wars gave Counsel
set forward from Hadrianople his Europeian Horsemen going before him conducted by Abraham the great Bassa and Achomates Michael-Ogli General of the Acanzij or voluntary Horsemen and his Asian Souldiers led by Becrambeius Bassa following after him he himself with his Janizaries and Souldiers of the Court keeping in the middle And marching on in this sort came in fifteen daies to Belgrade where King Iohn accompanied with Lascus and such of the Hungarian Nobility as took his part came unto him of purpose to make himself known unto him which was to protect him and doing him all the honour he possibly could to request him to proceed to revenge his quarrel Solyman with grave and yet friendly countenance raising himself a little from the Cushion whereon he sate gave him his right hand protesting That nothing could happen unto him better or that he more desired of God than to be able to relieve distressed Princes especially such as were wrongfully oppressed by his Enemies wherefore he willed him to be of good comfort promising of his bounty frankly to bestow upon him whatsoever he should in that War win with the Sword from the Enemy King Iohn obtained this rare favour of Solyman by the earnest mediation of Abraham the commanding Bassa whom he had before at Constantinople by his Embassador Lascus so now with Gifts and Requests that he throughly took upon him the defence of the Kings cause wherein Lascus was especially holpen by Aloysius Grittus the Duke of Venice his Son who then followed the Turks Camp and was for his Fathers sake and the great sufficiency he held himself had in great reputation amongst the Turks and in such favour with Abraham who did all in all with Solyman that he could perswade him to any thing he would For this Aloysius Grittus born and brought up in Constantinople and wonderful eloquent in the Turkish Tongue had by the honourable carriage of himself and the great Port he kept in his House so throughly possessed Abraham that all commanded that he would many times bring Solyman himself over the Haven to Pera to solace himself in Grittus his pleasant Gardens and Banqueting Houses which he had there most sumptuously made after the Italian manner whereby to his great profit he obtained to be the chief man in receiving of the Turks Customs The fame of Solymans coming directly from Belgrade to Buda so terrified the Citizens of Buda that they almost all forsook the City and fled unto other places further off some to Strigonium some to Alba Regalis some to Possonium so that at his first coming he entred the City almost desolate without any resistance the Castle holden by a Garrison of Germans he commanded to be besieged The Captain of the Castle was one Thomas Nadastus a man of great account among the Hungarians both for the honour of his House and his qualities answerable to the same graced with singular Learning he perceiving his Souldiers dismaied with the sight of so great an Army and willing to surrender up the Castle as beseemed a valiant Captain forbad his Souldiers to have any talk with the Enemy commanded the great Artillery to be bent and discharged upon the Turks and seeing his Souldiers slack and timerous reproved them of Cowardise and Treason threatning them with shameful death if they did not hold out the Siege to the uttermost and shew themselves valiant men both for the honour of their Country and of King Ferdinand whose Pay they received and of whose bounty they were to expect Rewards and Preferments answerable to their Deserts But they misdoubting by the running too and fro of the Turks that the Castle was undermined and smelling or at leastwise imagining themselves to smell the sent of the Gunpowder which they supposed to be in the Mine and doubting to be presently blown up were struck with such a suddain fear that neither the fear of future punishment neither the shame of so foul a Fact nor the reverence of so worthy a Captain could stay them but that they would needs without further delay deliver up the Castle which when they could by no means perswade the resolute Captain to consent to but that he still with stern Countenance exclaimed against their Cowardise and Treason they laid hands on him and bound him Hand and Foot and so presently concluded with the Enemy to yield to him the Castle so that they might in safety depart thence with Bag and Baggage which their Request Solyman granted But when the Garrison Souldiers in number about seven hundred were about to depart with their baggage towards Possonium as was before agreed and the Janizaries coming into the Castle having loosed the Captain were about to let him go also Solyman advertised of the treachery of the Garrison Souldiers and of the Fidelity of the Captain changing his mind judged such villanous minded men unworthy of his mercy and in detestation of their perfideous dealing with their Captain gave them all to his Janizaries to be slain but to the Captain himself he offered honourable entertainment which when he refused Solyman courteously sent him away holpen therein by the commendation of King Iohn although his Sister was married to Stephanus Maylat his deadly Enemy Which bloody execution done by the commandment of the bloody Tyrant the Turks said was not only lawfully done but also to the immortal glory of his name in the execution of Justice which might peradventure seem reasonable if the perpetual hatred of that most barbarous Nation against the Christians gave not just occasion of suspect that it proceeded rather of their ancient malice than of any regard of Justice For why should the Germans who had offended to his great good and therefore obtained his safe conduct be thought worthy of so cruel death when as Solyman himself in punishing the perjury of another ran into wilful perjury himself perverting the commendation of Justice which he so much desired by his most bloody and unjust sentence Buda the chief City of Hâ—ngary thus taken by Solyman he resolved forthwith to besiege Vienna the chief City of Austria in good hope that by the carriage away of that the other Cities of less strength both of Hungary and Austria would without any resistance be yielded unto him Wherefore he sent before him Achometes with the voluntary Horsemen who according to the manner of the Turkish Wars running through the heart of Hungary and entring with Fire and Sword into Austria passed by Vienna miserably burning and destroying the Country before him as far as Lyntz The poor People not knowing where to hide themselves from the fury of their Enemies nor of whom to crave help fled as Men and Women dismaied carrying with them their beloved Children the unfortunate pledges of their love and what else they could as things saved out of the midst of the Fire For whatsoever fell into the Enemies hand was lost without recure the old men were slain the young men led
from the highest to the lowest had solemnly sworn to defend the City and not to give it over unto the last man reposing their hope not in the Walls and Fortresses thereof but in their Weapons and Valour being men of great resolution and not easily to be vanquished or discouraged With which answer although Solyman was a little moved yet dissembling his present heat said he had hitherto made War against divers Nations and alwaies had the Victory whereof he doubted not now also but as for him and the others taken with him they knew they were in his power to save or kill at his pleasure yet to make them know that he could shew mercy unto his vanquished Enemies he frankly granted them their lives and liberty charging them that after they were again returned into the City they should in his name wish the Defendants of themselves to yield up the City which it was impossible for them long to defend against his mighty power which neither the strong City of Belgrade nor the famous City of the Rhodes were able to withstand and to accept of such reasonable conditions as he should grant unto them promising that amongst other things proceeding of his infinite bounty he would take order that they should in safety depart thence with bag and baggage in which doing they should well provide for the safety of themselves and of their Goods by flying unto his mercy in time before the fury of the War was grown to further extremity all which it would be too late to expect after the Victory when nothing was to be hoped for but cruel death murther and miserable destruction Wherefore it were good for them well to consider of the matter and not foolishly to refuse that was now frankly offered them of mercy which they should not afterwards obtain with any Prayers or Tears for why he was resolutely set down as he said not to depart thence before he had taken the City When he had thus schooled them he gave unto every one of them three Hungarian Ducats and so sent them away They being received into the City with great joy made relation unto the Princes and great Captains of all the threatning and proud speeches of the Turkish Tyrant which they took in such disdain that they would not vouchsafe to return him any answer Solyman not a little displeased that his great words were so lightly regarded by way of derision sent word to the City That if they wanted help he would send them the three hundred Bohemians whom he took in the Castle of Altenbourg to whom answer was returned by them of the City That they needed no help from him wherefore he might dispose of his Prisoners as he thought good By this Solyman perceived that Vienna was not to be won with words nor the Defendants to be discouraged with great looks wherefore he began to use his Force and with such Ordnance as he had brought with him to batter the Walls which because it was not great but fitter for service in Field than for battery did not much more harm than to beat down the Battlements and such like standings made of Timber and Boards in manner of Galleries hanging here and there over the Wall for the small Shot to play out of a simple device instead of Flankers His great Artillery provided for battery was coming up the River of Danubius which he dayly looked for but by good hap Wolfgangus Hoder a forward Captain hearing of the Turks coming up the River went out of Possonium with certain small Vessels well appointed and meeting with the Turks set upon them with such courage and resolution that he slew many of them and sunk divers of their Boats and Pinnaces amongst whom were they which were bringing up Solymans great Pieces for battery to Vienna which was there all sunk in the River with the Boats that brought it By this good service Solyman was disappointed of his great Artillery and the City delivered of a great danger So Wolfgangus having made great Spoil among the Turks and lost some few men returned with Victory to Possonium Yet another part of the Turks Fleet coming up to Vienna at the first coming brake down all the Bridges for a little above the City the River of Danubius dividing its Channel maketh divers Islands which by sundry Bridges are joyned together over which lieth the way from Austria unto the City This Fleet so kept the passage that no man could without danger either by Water or by Land go in or out of the City Solyman having lost all his Pieces for Battery and seeing how little he prevailed with his Field-Pieces fell to undermining of the City hoping by that means to overthrow the Walls and to make a way for his men to enter This work as the Turks chief hope was with wonderful labor and diligence attempted in fifteen sundry places which was not so secretly done but that it was by Drums laid upon the ground by Basons filled with Water and Sounds made into the Earth perceived by the Defendants and so with Countermines met withal that most part of those works were utterly frustrated and in them eight thousand of his Turks either slain or buried quick Solyman to busie the Defendants that they should not so perfectly discover his Mines divided his Army into four parts appointing them orderly to succeed one after another in giving Alarms to the Town that filling their Ears with continual noise he might keep them always occupied In the midst of the hurly burly his Mine-works went forward with all speed possible neither was he in that his expectation deceived for one of the Mines brought to perfection unperceived by the Defendants and suddainly blown up shook and overthrew a great part of the Wall near unto the Gate which leadeth towards Carinthia whereat the Turks gave a great shout as if the City had now been taken and withal couragiously stepping forward pressed in on all sides by the ruins of the Wall to have entred the breach charging the Defendants with their small Shot and Turkish Arrows as thick as Hail Who on the contrary part like resolute Men stood in the face of the breach with more assurance than the Wall it self receiving them with deadly Shot and push of Pike in such furious manner that the Turks for all their multitude unable longer to maintain the Assault began to retire Which thing Solyman perceiving sent in new supplies and so renewed the Assault before given over but with no better success than before for having received a great overthrow as Men forgetting both Duty and martial Discipline they retied not expecting any sign of Retreat At this Assault so many of the Turks were slain that the ground near unto the Town lay covered and the Ditches filled with their dead Bodies Not long after the Wall was blown up in two places more over against St. Clares Church by which breach being not very great the Turks seeking
death which by Embassadors dissemblingly entreating of Peace had in the mean time craftily waged War. Amongst these Prisoners was one Souldier of Bavaria of an exceeding high Stature him in despight of the German Nation he delivered to a little Dwarf whom his Sons made great account of to be slain whose head was scarce so high as the Knees of the tall Captive with that cruel spight to aggravate the indignity of his death when as that goodly tall man mangled about the Legs a long time by that apish Dwarf with his little Scimeter as if it had been in disport fell down and was with many feeble blows hardly at last slain by that Wretch still heartned on by others to satisfie the Eyes of the Princes beholding it as their Sport. This barbarous and cruel execution done Solyman sent his Embassadors with Presents to the young King which were three beautiful Horses with their Bridles of Gold and their Trappings richly set with precious Stones and three Royal Robes of Cloth of Gold and unto the chief of the Nobility he sent rich Gowns and Chains of Gold. The Embassadors which brought these Presents in courteous manner requested of the Queen to send the young King her Son attended with his Nobility into the Camp and without all fear to hope that all should go well both with her and her Son for that Solyman who exceeded all other Kings not in Power and Fortune only but in Vertue and upright dealing also was of such an heroical Disposition that he would not only defend the Child whom in the right of his Father he had once thought worthy his Protection and Favour Victory confirming the same but would also augment his Estate with the largest Bounds of his ancient Kingdom Wherefore he was desirous to see the young King and to behold in him the representation of his Father and with his own hand to deliver him to be imbraced of his Sons that of his Protection renewed so happily begun might be grounded a firm and perpetual Friendship with the Othoman Kings and that he would always account of her as of his Daughter But the cause why he came not to see her which he did in courtesie desire was for that by ancient custom the Othoman Kings were forbidden that point of courtesie to visit other mens Wives in their Houses Besides that Solyman they said was not so forgetful of his Modesty and Honour as to receive into his Pavillion the Daughter of a King his Friend and Ally and she the late Wife of a King his Friend and Tributary and the fair young Mother of a Son growing in the hope of like Regal Dignity for fear he should draw into any suspition the inviolate name of her Chastity which in Queens was to be guarded with an especial and wonderful care Whereunto the Queen a manifest fear confounding the tender Senses in her Motherly Affection answered very doubtfully but the Bishop perswading her and instantly requesting her not to give the Turks occasion to suspect that she had them in distrust by her little and unprofitable delay sent her young Son in Princely swathing Clothes in a rich Chariot with his Nurse and certain great Ladies unto the Camp attended upon with almost all the Nobility to whom Solyman had sent Presents In his coming to the Camp he was for honours sake met upon the way by certain gallant Troops of the Turks brave Horsemen and all the way as he passed in the Camp orderly stood the Janizaries of Solymans Guard. As soon as he was brought into the Camp Solyman courteously looked upon him and familiarly talked with the Nurse and commanded his Sons there present to take him in their Arms and to kiss him in certain token of the love they would bear him whom they were in time to have their Friend and Tributary when he was grown to mans estate these were Selymus and Bajazet begotten of his fair Concubine Roxalana bearing the Names the one of his Grandfather the other of his great Grandfather As for Mustapha his eldest Son by his Circassian Wife he then lived in Magnesia a great way off who though he was a Prince of so great hope as never any of the Turkish Kings had a Son of greater and was therefore exceedingly beloved of the Men of War yet was he not so well liked of his Father brought out of favour with him by Roxalana as if he had traiterously gone about to take the Empire from him yet living as did Selymus his Grandfather from Bajazet for which cause Solyman secretly purposed to take him away as afterwards he did and to appoint Selymus for his Successor as hereafter shall appear But Solyman at such time as the Noblemen of Hungary were dining merrily with the Bassaes had commanded certain Companies to whom he had before given instructions what he would have done under the colour of seeing the City to take one of the Gates called Sabatina and the chief Streets which was done so quietly and cunningly that a wary Watchman standing there and beholding the manner of the Turks coming and going too and fro could hardly have perceived how the Gate was taken until it was too late For many of the Turks walking fair and softly by great Companies into the City as if it had been but for pleasure to have seen it and other some to colour the matter walking likewise back again as if they had sufficiently viewed the City by that means they without any tumult or stir quickly took the appointed Gate with the Market place and chief Streets of the City Which so finely done the Captain of the Janizaries caused Proclamation to be made in all parts of the City That the Citizens should without fear keep themselves within their Houses and forthwith as they would have their Lives Liberty and Goods saved to deliver all their Weapons which they seeing no remedy did and having delivered their Arms and taken the Turks Faith for their security they received them into their Houses as their unwelcome Guests But such was the quietness and modesty of the Turks by reason of the severity of their Martial Discipline that no Citizen which took them into their Houses was by them wronged by Word or Deed. Solyman understanding that the City was thus quietly and without resistance taken sent the Child back again unto the Queen although it was now almost night but the chief Noblemen he retained still with him these were George the Bishop and Treasurer Petrus Vicche the young Kings nigh Kinsman and one of his Tutors Valentinus Turaccus General of the Queens Forces Stephanus Verbetius Chancellor and Bacianus Urbanus Governor of the City of Buda This suddain and unexpected change exceedingly troubled all their minds and so much the more for that the great Bassaes with changed countenance began to pick quarrels with them and as it were straightly and impudently to examine them and to call them to account for all that they
hardly escaped unspoiled had they not been rescued by the Kings Souldiers lying in Garrison in the Castles as they passed along the Country The few which remained after many troubles came at last to Vienna more like Ghosts than Men. Solyman entring quietly into the City first visited the Sepulchers of the Hungarian Kings and gave out Proclamation That the Hungarians should fear of him no harm for that he was not come to conquer them but to deliver them from the Bondage of the Germans and so to restore again that entire Kingdom unto Stephen the right Heir of King Iohn But within three or four days after he called out the chief Citizens into a Field not far off wherein the Bodies of condemned men were wont to be buried as if he would have there taken an Oath of their Fidelity whither after they were all assembled in the best manner they could as to some solemn Feast the cruel Tyrant without regard of his Faith or Promise caused them all to be slain Howbeit some report that he caused them only to be put to death which bare office in the City at such time as they revolted from the Obedience of the Queen and the Infant King unto Ferdinand and had then brought in German-Souldiers and that he sent the rest into exile to Buda and Belgrade So Solyman leaving Balibeius Governor of Alba Regalis and Mahometes sometime Governour of Belgrade his Lieutenant General for the whole Government of that Kingdom returned again toward Constantinople Winter now beginning to approach after he had that Summer won Strigonium and Alba Regalis two of the chiefest Cities of Hungary All this while King Ferdinand had raised no Power worth the speaking of to withstand so mighty an Enemy only at Vienna lay seven thousand Germans and four thousand Italians at such time as Solyman departed from Alba Regalis which were shortly after discharged Whiles Solyman thus lay at the Siege of Alba Regalis he sent his Tartarian Horsemen which served him to small purpose in the Siege to spoil the Country round about these savage People doing much harm were in divers places circumvented by the Hungarians and about three thousand of them slain one of them being taken Prisoner had found in his Knapsack half a Child of about two years old the loathsome remainder of his barbarous feeding Barbarussa all this while lying with his Fleet as we have before said at Marseilles fretted exceedingly that he had to his dishonour undertaken so long a Voyage by Sea to pleasure him which was not able as he said to direct his own designs to any certain resolution but shamefully suffered the best time of the year for service negligently to pass away without any thing doing the blame whereof would as he said be imputed to him at Constantinople and that Solyman who desired to aid the King his Friend and Confederate and by all means to annoy his Enemies would take in evil part to have it reported that he â—ad with so great charge set out so great a Fleet and so far off to help his Friend hardly beset with his Enemies and to have done nothing besides that he took on like a Turk that he who in time of service never used negligently to let slip the least opportunity should now blemish his former credit and estimation by lying still all that Summer in the Harbor of Marseilles where his Souldiers grew lazy with doing nothing Wherefore Polinus going to the King told him of the proud Turks great discontentment for lack of em-employment and returning to Barbarussa brought order from the King that he should â—ay Siege to Nice a City of Provence then holden by the Duke of Savoy This City standing upon the Sea was by one of the French Kings for a great sum of Mony pawned unto the Duke which Mony King Francis had many times offered to have repaid but could never get the City out of the Dukes hands Unto which service the French King sent also his Fleet of two and twenty Gallies and eighteen Ships wherein were embarked eight thousand Footmen and Victual for many days This Fleet departing from Marceilles keeping close by the Shore came to the Port called Mâ—noc whither two days after came Barbarussa also with an hundred and fifty Gallies From thence Polinus by commandment from the King writ to the State of Genoa That they should not fear of that great Fleet any Hostility which was not to hurt any but them of Nice and not them neither if they would yield themselves For more assurance whereof he obtained of the Turks divers Genoa Captives which had long time been chained in their Gallies and courteously set them at liberty and sent them home without ransom After that he friendly exhorted the Citizens of Nice to yield themselves again unto their ancient and lawful Princes renowned for his Bounty and Power rather than to adventure their State to all extremities for that poor and distressed Duke who between the Emperor and the French King dispoiled of the greatest part of his Dominions saw no other end of his miseries but to leave that little which yet remained as a Prey to the one or to the other that should first lay hand thereon Whereunto the Magistrates of the Town answered That they knew no other Prince or Sovereign but Charles their Duke wherefore he should desist farther to solicite them by Letters or Messengers whom they would make no other account of but as of their Enemies Wherefore the Frenchmen and Turks landing their Forces laid Siege to the Town in three places The Citizens had but a little before newly fortified their Walls by the direction of Paulus Simeon Captain of the Castle and one of the Knights of the Rhodes a man of great experience who long before taken at Sea by Pyrats had sometime served Barbarussa and therefore perswaded the Citizens as resolute men to withstand the Turks Which that they should more constantly perform he took their Wives and Children and weaker sort of the People into the Castle and from thence furnished the Citizens with all things necessary for their defence The City was at once in divers places battered by the Turks and French both by Sea and Land so that at last the Turks had beaten down one of the new built Bulwarks and made so fair a Breach that with their Ensigns displaied they attempted to have entred whose forwardness Leo Strozza then serving the French King with a Band of Italians imitating sought to have entred also but the Citizens standing valiantly upon their defence manfully repulsed both the Turks and Italians and caused them with loss to retire In this Assault were slain about an hundred Turks and of Strozza his Souldiers two and twenty Presently after Barbarussa with all his force began a fresh Battery in such terrible manner that the Citizens seeing their Walls in divers places opened and the few Souldiers they had sore wounded and no hope to
of the War and for ever to hold his Kingdom of the King of Spain as his Vassal and Tributary Which his request well considered of and the matter thought of no small consequence for the safety of the Christian Countries lying over against that part of Africk to have so dangerous an Enemy removed Don Iohn the year following in the beginning of October by the commandment of the King of Spain his Brother year 1573. departing from Drepanum in Sicilia with an hundred and five Gallies and forty Ships arrived the next day about noon at Guletta where the Gallies of Malta came unto him and shortly after Iohn Andreas Auria the Admiral with nineteen more and Columnius the Popes Admiral with fourteen more all well appointed At his arrival at Guletta he understood by Amida and the Governour the whole estate both of the City and of the Kingdom of Tunes and that the Turks and Moors terrified with so great a Fleet were about to forsake the City Wherefore having well viewed the place he the next day after landed his Forces about four miles from the City and sent two thousand five hundred Footmen before the rest of the Army to the City who found it all desolate the Turks and Moors being before for fear fled some to Caravana some to Biserta who entring without resistance came to the Castle wherein they found two hundred Moors who said they kept it for Amida their King but yet would by no means suffer the Christians to enter All which was forthwith made known to Don Iohn who then because it was almost night would not move but early the next morning set forward with his whole Army and entring the City before abandoned by the Inhabitants and so coming to the Castle found nothing therein but great store of Oil Butter and Wood. Amida the late King by the commandment of Don Iohn all this while staied at Guletta But whilst Don Iohn was yet at Tunes news was brought to him the thirteenth of October That the Turks Garrison before fled out of Tunes with divers Moors coming to Biserta were there kept out by the Citisens and not suffered to enter for which cause they began to burn and spoil the Country thereabout Whereupon the General sent Tovares the Captain of Guletta thither with part of the Army who encountring with those Turks overthrew them and had the City by the Citisens peaceably delivered unto him The Kingdom of Tunes thus easily once again recovered from the Turks Don Iohn throughly informed of the faithless and cruel dealing of Amida the late King and that in detestation of the Christians and their Religion he had already had intelligence with the Turks and procured the death of some of the Christians gave this definitive sentence upon him being yet in the Castle of Guletta That forasmuch as he had long time been the author of great discord and endless troubles in that Kingdom and had most unnaturally deprived Muleasses his Father first of his Kingdom and afterward of his sight and in like manner tyrannised over his natural Brethren the rightful Heirs of that Kingdom whereby the Turks had taken occasion both to invade and possess the same he should therefore by the commandment of the King of Spain be carried Prisoner with his two Sons into Sicilia there to remain for ever Which heavy doom he taking most grievously and yet crying out for mercy was forthwith thrust into a Gally and with his Wife and Children transported into Sicilia there to live in perpetual Exile The just reward of his merciless and unnatural dealing with his Father and Brethren God no doubt requiting him with the like measure he had before measured unto them After that the King of Spain so commanding Mahomet Amida his elder Brother and right Heir of that Kingdom was appointed King in his place who departing from Guletta to Tunes was received as King and there by solemn Oath promised for ever to be the King of Spain his Vassal and to do whatsoever he should command There was before departed out of Tunes forty thousand Moors who now came and offered their supplication to Don Iohn that they might again return and live with their new King which their request being easily granted they in great numbers every day returned into the City Shortly after 1500 Turks with 3000 of those wild People which some call Arabians some Alarbes sore troubled all the passages about the City who were at last by the Christians overthrown and 150 Christians whom they had taken Prisoners rescued After that Don Iohn by the advice of his most expert and skilful Captains commanded a strong Castle to be built in the middle way betwixt Guletta and Tunes and for the performing thereof left Gabriel Serbellio with 2000 Italians and Calazar a Spaniard with other 2000 at Guletta And so having performed that he came for and disposed of all things as he thought best returned again into Sicilia A grief of griefs it is and sorrow almost unconsolable when worthy actions most happily begun sort not to such happy end as was in reason hoped for The greatest and most famous Victory of all Ages gained against the Turk seemed to have lightned the Christian Common-weal and great hope there was that the Christians falling into unity amongst themselves would by an happy exchange make the Turkish Empire the Seat of their Wars and to turn into the Turks Dominions the terror slaughter and other calamities of War which had so many year afflicted the Christian Common-weal But by how much the more the joy was amidst such daily calamities and tears so much greater was the sorrow so great an hope to be come to nought and Men to be so blinded with the darkness of envy and disdain that they could not so much as think with what dishonour and danger of the Common-state they should shrink from so just so honourable and so needful a service including in it self the general good of all Christendom When posterity shall consider what things might then have been done and the devices whereby the common cause was overthrown it will worthily blame and greatly lament so notable a Victory and fit opportunity sent as it were from Heaven for the effecting of great matters to have been let slip and passed over so lightly regarded This made that they who before had reposed all their hope in Arms had now no other confidence or hope of their welfare but in concluding of Peace Truly the Venetians both spoke and thought honourably of King Philip as of a most faithful just devout and honourable Prince yet greatly blaming his Officers and others of great authority about him as Men more regarding their own private than the good of the Christian Common-weal In these perplexities of the Venetians King Philip promised them to set forth a greater and stronger Fleet against the next year and to be sooner in readiness with all his Forces and warlike Provision and so to help
most terrible and desperate Assaults at length namely the 13 day of September when they had with all their force for the space of six hours furiously assaulted the Castle and slain most of the Defendants at last look it Serbellio shot in with two Bullets and wishing rather to die than to fall into the hand of the Enemy thrust himself into the midst of the Turks there to have perished but by the hasty coming in of Pial Bassa both he and Salazar were taken alive as for all the rest that followed them they were put to the Sword. The Bassa in his rage struck Serbellio and the more to grieve him caused his Son to be cruelly murthred before his Face Neither was this Victory by the Turks obtained without Blood having in less than three months space that the Siege endured lost above thirty thousand Men. These strong Holds the greatest strength of that Kingdom thus taken the Turks marched to Tunes which they easily took and afterwards overthrew the Fortifications thereof because it should no more Rebel Mahomet the young King but the year before placed in that Kingdom by Don Iohn was there taken and in bonds sent aboord to be carried with Carrera Captain of Guletta Prisoners to Constantinople and thus the Kingdom of Tunes with the strong Castle of Guletta fell again into the possession of the Turks to the further trouble of the Christian Countries lying over against it The proud Bassaes having as they thought best disposed of all things at Tunes and Guletta departed thence and with their Fleet of 400 Sail came the fourth of October within sight of Malta But understanding that they of Malta were provided for their coming and remembring what dishonour their most magnificent Emperor Solyman had not many years before there sustained whereof divers of them had been eye-witnesses they turned thence and sailed directly to Constantinople Shortly after this great Emperor Selymus spent with Wine and Women unto whom he had given his great strength died the ninth of December in the year of our Lord 1574 when he had lived one and fifty years and thereof reigned eight and lieth buried at Hadrianople He was but of a mean Stature and of an heavy Disposition his Face rather Swollen than Fat much resembling a Drunkard Of the Othoman Kings and Emperors he was of least Valour and therefore least regarded altogether given to Sensuality and Pleasure and so dying left his Empire unto Amurath his eldest Son a Man of more Temperance but not much greater Courage who nevertheless by his valiant Bassaes and Men of War did great matters especially against the Persians the mortal and dangerous Enemies of the Turks as shall be hereafter in this History declared Christian Princes of the same time with Selymus the Second Emperors of Germany Maximilian the Second 1565. 12. Kings Of England Queen Elizabeth 1558. 45. Of France Charles the Ninth 1560. 14. Of Scotland Queen Mary 1543. 20. James the Sixth that now reigneth 1567. Bishops of Rome Pius the V. 1566. 6. Julius the XIII 1572. 12. Non ego fortis eram quis tanto nomine dignus Ni fortem faciat mens generosa virum Me tumidum fortuna tumens evexit in altum Et par fortuna mens mea semper erat Sic quamvis tenero mihi nil nisi molle placeret Nominis augendi raptus amore fui 〈…〉 ad fortia facta ministros 〈…〉 sublatum est nomen in astrameum 〈◊〉 I waâ— not none deserve that name 〈…〉 whose generous minds bespeake their fame Fâ—rtune advanc'd me high and fickle Shee Still found a Soule bravely prepard in me Soft in my tender years tho' I became 〈◊〉 still I priz'd the glory of my name 〈…〉 abroad my Ministers of State 〈…〉 â—he Slavish drugery of my fate pag 651. Mustapha Ferhates Sinan et ter maximus Osman Terrores Orbis Succubuere mihi Armenios domui fortes Medosque feroces Et mihi paruerat Regia Taurisij Sed mihi quid prodest tantorum parta labâ—re Gloria Si Subito maxima quaeque 〈◊〉 Et nihil est tanti quod non brevis aufere◠〈◊〉 Sic mea cum multis gloria victa 〈◊〉 Osman Ferhates Sinan Mâ—staphâ— The terrors of the World did me obeâ— I broke the Medes and the 〈…〉 And batterd downe the proud Taurâ—â—â—â—n Towers Yet what 's all this to my ill gott renowne Since greatest things are soonest tumbled downe We 're robb'd of all we have in one short houre And quickly we and ours shall be no more THE LIFE OF AMURATH The Third of that Name Sixth Emperour of the Turks THE death of the late Emperour Selymus year 1574 was for fear of the insolent Janizaries notably concealed by the great Bassa's until such time as Amurath his eldest Son then in Asia by speedy Messengers advertis'd thereof about twelve dayes after arrived at Constantinople and there received into the Seraglio took possession of the Empire the five and twentieth day of December solemn amongst us Christians for the Nativity of our Saviour Christ Jesus He was about thirty or as some write seven and twenty years old when he began to reign of a manly stature but pale and corpulent wearing his Beard thin and long in his Countenance appeared not the fierce nature of the Othoman Princes being indeed himself of a peaceable disposition a lover of Justice and in the manner of his Superstition very zealous The riot and excess grown amongst the Turks by his Fathers evil Example he reformed by his own Temperance and the severe punishment of notorious Drunkaâ—ds yet it is reported that he would oftentimes himself drink plentifully of Wormwood-wine he was much subject to the Falling-sickness and sore troubled with the Stone more spare-handed than was for the greatness of his State and yielding more to the counsel of his Mother his Wife and Sister than of his great Bassa's which was of many imputed to him for simplicity At his first coming to Constantinople to appease the murmuring of the Janizaries grieved to see themselves so disappointed of the spoil of the Christians and Jews which they were wont to take in the vacancy of the Empire he beside the usual largess which the Turkish Emperours at their first entrance into the Empire bestow upon them augmented also their daily wages and granted them this Priviledge That their Sons as soon as they came to be twenty years old should be inrolled amongst the nâ—mber of the younger Janizaries and be partakers also of their immunities whereby he won their favours exceedingly And immediately to rid himself of all competitors he after the unnatural manner of the Turkish Policy caused his five Brethren Mustapha Solyman Abdulla Osman and Tzihanger to be all strangled in his own presence The Mother of Solyman pierced through with the cruel death of her young Son as a Woman overcome with sorrow desperately struck her self to the heart with a dagger and so died At which so
eleven Sons namely Mahamet the eldest of an infirmity in his eyes sirnamed Codabanda a man of a peaceable and quiet disposition more delighted with the sweet pleasure of a contented Life than the careful Honours of so great a Kingdom Ismahel the second Son of a more fierce and troublesome nature so much abhoâ—ring quietness that not regarding the League hardly concluded betwixt his aged Father and the Tuâ—kish Emperours Solyman and Selymus he would now and then without his Fathers knowledge upon a youthful heat break out into the Frontiers of the Turks Dominions and there make great spoil for which doing although he was both of his Father and the People the more regarded yet was he by his Fathers commandment who in outward shew seemed to mislike of those his youthful pranks tending to the breach of the League restrained of his liberty and sent to the Castle of Cahacha betwixt Tauris and Casbin where he remained at the time of his Fathers death Aidere the third Son no less ambitious than was his Brother Ismahel but not of like valour kept by Zalcan Pyry Mahamet and other his Kinsfolks all men of great Power and Authority The other eight were Mamuâ— Solyman Mustapha Emanguli Alichan Amet Abrahim and Ismahel the younger The old King before his death had by his last Will and Testament solemnly appointed Ismahel his second Son to succeed him in the Kingdom as of all his Sons most fit to take upon him so great a charge Which thing Mahamet his elder Brother seem'd not much to dislike contenting himself with such Honours as his Father had before bestow'd upon him Tamas thus dead Ismahel was by the Sultans sent for to Cahacha to take upon him his Fathers Kingdom at Casbin when in the mean time there arose a great tumult in the City yea even in the Kings Palace for Aidere the third Brother who in the time of his Fathers greatest sickness had entred the Chamber where he lay drawing towards his end and in his sight most presumptuously set the Royal Crown upon his head to the manifesting of his ambitious desires for which he was then worthily reproved now after the death of his aged Father carried headlong with the same aspiring humour and supported by Zalcan and other his mighty Favourites had so effectually dealt with the great Lady Periaconcona his eldest Sister and the other Sultans Counsellors of Estate put in trust to see the Will of the dead King put in execution as that the Succession could not be any longer kept from him and preserved for Ismahel but by the help of some fine and secret deceit This Lady Periaconcona elder than all the young Princes the Sons of Tamas her Brethren a Woman of great spirit and deep conceit left in great trust by her Father seeing the proceedings of her Brother Aidere durst neither openly to move any thing unto the Sultans prejudicial to his designs neither could she in her heart indure so great an injury to be done to her Brother Ismahel appointed by his Father to succeed him Wherefore in this perplexity she cast in her wily head how to satisfie her ambitious Brother present how to save the right of Ismahel absent the honour of her dead Father's Will and Testament and the safety of the Kingdom For having thorowly debated the matter with the Sultans she resolved that Aidere invested in Royal Apparel and setled in the great Gallery should attend the acclamation of the People an be theâ—e openly inthronised as the very elected King. With which vain shew the unwise youth blinded with Ambition suffered himself to be led year 1576 and being set in his Majesty verily persuaded himself that he should now be honoured both of his Friends and Foes as King. But unto these his so hasty and prosperous designs the Success that sprung from the subtilty of those Counsellors and his dissembling Sister were nothing conformable for that she by their advice took order for the gates of the Palace to be presently lock'd leaving at every passage a sure Guard and only one wicket open safely warded with a company of most faithful and valorous Captains and Souldiers wholly devoted to Tamas and Ismahel with straight charge to suffer every man to enter in saving only the known friends of Aidere In this sort did she think to have entertained the young man until such time as Ismahel should arrive at Cahaca and so put in execution what he thought best for the honour of himself and the general quiet of the Kingdom Who joyeth now but Aidere in conceit a King replenished with unwonted joyes receiving honour from all men but his best Friends By means whereof perceiving now the prohibition of them and moved also with the great stir of Zalcan his greatest Favourite who discovering the deceit and crying upon King Aidere threatned the Lady the Sultans and the rest that waited upon the feigned Succession indeed ordained but for the scorn and despight of the ambitious man strucken with an exceeding fear and full of sorrow he withdrew himself closely amongst certain Women in the Court hoping so to find some way to escape with life In the mean time so greatly increased the cries and threatnings of the Friends and Favourites of Aidere who now had all of them prepared themselves for some dangerous and pernicious attempt that the Counsellors with consent of the Lady his Sister were inforced to take order That to bereave this tumultuous and seditious People of all their hope and courage Aidere should be deprived of his Life Whereupon Sahamal the Georgian Uncle to Aidere by the Mothers side by the appointment of the Lady Periaconcona and the Sultans after long search made for him at last found him hidden amongst the Women and without further delay taking him by the locks struck his head from his shoulders and in the place where Zalcan and the rest of his unfortunate Favourites stood crying and threatning amongst the thickest of the prease of the proud Conspirators flung the Head all bloudy and as it were yet breathing for heat crying aloud to them Behold there your King enjoy him at your pleasure At which sudden and horrible Spectacle every man burned in rage and anger neither for the present wanted there many a rash head that vainly threatned most cruel revenge but in the end when they perceived the neer Succession of Ismahel inevitable and the death of Aidere irrevocable every man betook himself to his own private Affairs and so at last divided themselves one from another and so departing from the Palace scattered themselves some one way some another every man as he thought best for his own safety Shortly after Ismahel the desired King arrived at Casbin where he was of his Sister and the Sultans joyfully received as their lawful and undoubted Sovereign and with the great acclamation of the People saluted King who as soon as he saw himself possessed of the Royal Seat and his power
almost all the Country of Caramania his own After that he laid siege to Cogna a City in the Confines of Natolia which was forthwith yielded unto him And yet not so contented gave it out by open Proclamation that for the reformation of the disordered state he would e're long go to besiege the Imperial City of Constantinople and that therefore all such as would follow him should of him be entreated as his Friends and Companions threatning unto the rest most cruel Death and Destruction Of which his Proceeding Mahomet as then disporting himself in his Gardens of Pleasure in the Country all along the side of Propontis understanding and fearing to be there surprised or that some sudden Innovation might be raised in the City hasted with all speed to Constantinople and from thence in all haste dispatched Mehemet one of the Visier Bassaes the Son of Sinan with all the Forces he could make to go against him Who passing over into Asia with a great Power and yet fearing to come to the trial of a Battel with him whom he knew to be a man of himself desperately set and not a little favoured also even of his own Souldiers so secretly wrought by large Promises that Cusahin's Footmen were even upon the point to have forsaken him Which he quickly perceiving fled forthwith through Siria into the Country of Arabia with his Horsemen and the Horsemen of Simon the Georgian purposing the next Spring by the help of the Arabians and Persians to appear in the field with greater Forces than before After whom Mehemet the great Bassa following came with his Army to Aleppo there to winter and to expect the return of the Rebel together with the Spring This so dangerous a Rebellion with the Troubles of Transilvania and Valachia were the cause that the grand Seignior seeing himself in so many places forsaken of his Subjects was the readier to incline unto peace with the Emperour whereunto for all that the Emperour was not hasty to hearken but upon honourable Conditions as knowing that the Turk required the same not for any desire he had to live at quiet but for that his troubled affairs both at home and elsewhere abroad so required his Janizaries and other men of War in this his so weak Government being grown so insolent as that they were hardly to be by him commanded openly threatning in their discontented humours not only the deposing of the principal Officers about him but of himselfalso and of the banishment of the Sultaness his Mother saying That she had bewitched him to the end she might her self rule year 1599 which she indeed did in all his greatest Affairs But the Rebel Cusahin the next Year grown again very strong was now come into the Field and even ready to have given the Bassa Battel who as he was a Man of great Wisdom and Experience well considering with what a desperate Enemy he had to do thought it best again to prove if his rebellious Followers might by fair means be drawn from him and so coming near unto him by open Proclamation promised a free and general Pardon to all such as had followed the Rebel in those Wars if forsaking him they should forthwith return home to their Dwellings and so to the Obedience of their just and lawful Prince and Sovereign Which general Pardon so proclaimed was the Ruine of Cusahin for that the greatest part of his Followers now enriched with the great Booties they had gotten and now also having free Pardon offered them returned home into their own Countries there at ease to live of their evil gotten Goods leaving their Captain with some few others which staid with him with little hope to be saved So that within a few days after Cusahin thus forsaken of his Followers was himself taken and brought to Constantinople where shortly after he was with most exquisite Torments tortured to death year 1600 The Troubles of this Year thus past Rodolph the Christian Emperour with the beginning of the next whilst the ground yet covered with Snow and the unseasonableness of the Weather would not suffer the Souldiers to keep the Field caused a Diet of the Princes of the Empire to be called to consider with him of such helps as were by them to be given against the next Spring for the maintenance of the Wars which yet he had against the Turk who all promised to send their Souldiers with their Pay and such farther Contribution as might serve for the maintenance of that defensive War against the common Enemy whereunto also Clement now Bishop of Rome this year of Jubile put to his helping hand as he had divers times before by sending thither such aid both of Men and Money as he had before promised so thatby this means great Preparation was made by the Christians for the taking of the Field with the first of the Spring At which time the Turks also began to stir who altho Ibrahim Bassa their General by the appointment of his great Lord was then in some Speech with the Emperour about a Peace yet ceased not they in the mean time that this Treaty was from day to day prolonged with their Companies scattering here and there to do what harm they could upon the Frontiers of the Emperour's Territories the cause why he with more speed called upon his Friends for their promised Aid And for the better managing of this years Wars against the Turk he appointed Duke Mercury who had drawn a great number of French-men both Horse and Foot out of France General of all his Forces sending Ferant Gonzaga sirnamed the Lame whom for his approved Valour and Experience in martial Affairs he had sent for to Mantua Governour into the upper Hungary So the Souldiers now day by day by Companies resorting from divers parts into Austria were from thence sent unto such places as were by the Turks most molested so to repress their often Incursions as in many places they did For eight thousand of the Turks going out upon the sudden to have surprised Pappa were by the Garrison Souldiers of that place encountred and overthrown And on the other side whilst Ferdinand the Arch-duke was assembling his People in Croatia for the defence of that Country against the Incursions of the Enemy six thousand Turks without resistance entring the same as far as Buccari and burning the Country Villages as they went had taken many Prisoners with a great Booty of Cattel and so merry and out of fear being about to have returned were suddenly set upon by the County Serinus in certain strait and troublesome Passages where they least feared any such matter and overcharged also with their Prey were I say easily by him for the most part overthrown and the rest put to flight and so the Prisoners with all the rest of the Booty again recovered At which time also one of the Imperial Collonels with fifteen hundred Horse making an Inroad into the Country about Alba-Regalis and meeting
Preferments of right due unto their faithful and loyal Services Which dangerous Perswasions transported them so far from their Allegiance and Duty as to undertake a greater and more perillous matter against his Crown and Dignity than had the Rebels before by taking up of Arms in the Field against him whereunto the assured knowledge they had of his Cowardise encouraged them also so that their Resolution was to thrust him out of his Imperial State and to set up his eldest Son called also Mahomet in his Place These are the ordinary Effects of Injustice and Cowardise the overthrow of Princes their Injustice through Cruelty arming all Creatures against them and their Cowardise through Contempt dispensing with every man for his Duty so that he must be just that will keep his Subjects in order and valiant that must hold them in awe Unto these Discontentments these Mutineers joyned also as I said the slothfulness effeminateness and sufficiency of Mahomet unfit to deal in matters of Estate and altogether unable to manage Arms. He was too cowardly as they thought to repress their Valour by force and too weak to cross their Designs by Wisdom which not a little incouraged them in that their so desperate and dangerous a Resolution They drew also into this their Plot the Sultaness Mahomet his chief Wife and Mother to the young Prince who blinded with Ambition the bane of great Spirits had not the hap to reject their Perswasions as dangerous unto her and her Son but shutting her Eyes against the due Consideration of Loyalty and Duty cast both her self and her Son headlong into the midst of most desperate Dangers This Project of no less importance than of the deposing of one of the greatest Monarchs of the World resolved upon some of these men according to the manner of the Turks joining Superstition unto their Designs consulted with an Astrologer concerning the Success of the Actions of the young Prince whom they were about to install in his Fathers Imperial Throne This man to be excused in his Trumperies seeing that to deceive is the chief point of his Art erected the figure of the Princes Nativity consulted with his Spirits considered the coelestial Bodies and in fine arrived at the point of his Judgment for the good and welfare of the Prince and thereupon dispatched an Eunuch towards the Sultaness with these pleasing Speeches That she should be of good courage and in assured hope that the young Prince her Son within a few days should have the Imperial Crown set upon his Head and the Royal Scepter put into his hand his Art as he said promising unto him these Honours by the Favour of the Coelestial Bodies of whom he had learned these News and by the Conference with Spirits from whom he had this assurance But O the vain and â—oolish knowledge of Man against God! attributing unto the second Causes that which altogether belongeth unto his own Power robbing him of his own Providence which extendeth over all to give the same unto Creatures which neither have their own Being neither are able of themselves to bring forth or to work any Effects at all without it and that more is to give certain credit unto the Enemy of all Faith and Belief even to the Father of leasing who taketh as much Glory in falshood as God himself doth in truth as being the proper mark of his Power For it chanced that these Letters sent by the Eunuch to the Sultaness were intercepted and brought unto Mahomet the Great Sultan whom they most concerned whereupon it so fell out that he which took upon him to foretell the long Life and Empire to befall to another man could not foresee the end of his own Life which followed him fast even at the heels being himself by the Commandment of the great Sultan with the young Prince the Eunuch and fifty others of the Conspirators and such as were consenting unto the Conspiracy most cruelly strangled and the Sultaness her self drowned Howbeit some report this young Prince to have been strangled upon suspicion of conspiring against his Father with the Rebels of Asia which after his Death being found not to be so the Bassa which put that Suspicion into Mahomets Head to have been therefore worthily hanged But with these Contentments taken from the Crosses of our Enemies let us again return unto Hungary The last year ended with the great brute of the coming of the Tartar Han with a great Army into Hungary and now he had dispatched his Ambassadors towards the King of Polonia to demand of him Tribute and passage through his Country Great and proud demands to be both at once required But the King of Polonia requited him again with the like denying him both the one and the other roughly answering of his Threats Which so resolute and blunt a refusal caused the proud Tyrant to change his intended course and for fear of being defeated by the Polonians in passing through their Country as the Tartars had often been before he could come into Hungary took another way and turned with his Army toward Valachia Of whose coming Radul the Vayvod understanding and that beside the forraging of his Country they had a purpose to displace him and to set up another Vayvod in his stead with great diligence gathered together the greatest Power that he could and so marched unto the Borders of his Country there to attend the coming of these Tartars and to stay them from entring Which in effect fell out according to his desire for the barbarous People being arrived and attempting with all their force to have entred were by this little Army encountered which commanding the Country took all the advantages of the strait passages and there notably repulsed the fierce Enemy Two of the first encounters fell out fortunately unto the Valachians who therein slew a-about 3000 of the Tartars whose avantguard for all that still came on and at the third encounter so long maintained the fight that their whole Army was now come in and hardly charged the Valachians whose Fortune surcharged began then to change the hardy being constrained to bow under the multitude and valor forced to yield unto number Which was not done without a long and cruel fight both Armies encountring with great Courage and Fury the one for the defence of their Country and the other for an entrance unto their Conquests Howbeit the strong Enemy at length prevailed and entring into Valachia brought in with it Ruine Death and Destruction The Tartars having by force thus opened themselves a way through Valachia and grievously spoiled the Country were come with their Army to Quinque Ecclesiae a Town in Hungary to joyn their Forces with Hassan Bassa now after his Marriage returned into this Country with a great Army to continue his Charge who caused the Tartars to be mustered in his Presence and found them to be forty thousand strong Men of great Courage against the
we shall return into Christendom A Turk which was near taking hold of these words reported them unto the Patron who presently laid hold upon the Scribe and drew from him the confession of all the Enterprise He presently sends an hundred Men towards the Gally to seise upon the four French Slaves and the Captain But these five made such a generous resistance as if the other Slaves who were for the most part Moldavians or of the Provinces which border upon the black Sea had had the Courage to fight for their Liberty without doubt the French mens Enterprise had succeeded happily But what could five Men do against an hundred yet they slew fifteen and wounded many the four French-men were all slain and the Florentine Captain was taken alive and reserved to the rigour of a cruel Death For they continued him six hours together in most violent Torments he still calling upon the holy and sacred name of Iesus Christ even to the last gasp and detesting the Errours and falshood of the Law of Mahomet This happened in October this Year A little before the Estates of the united Provinces and Count Maurice seeing the losses which the Ships of Holland suffered in the Mediterranean Sea many of them being taken by the Turkish Gallies and a great number of their men made slaves to the end they might be freed from that danger and have a safe Passage for their Ships and procure liberty for their Captives they resolved to make a League with the Turk Wherefore they sent Cornelius Hage to Constantinople who not only willingly accepted of that Embassy but performed it with such discretion as he purchased great credit and commendation to himself and much profit to the Provinces He had resolved at first to pass through Hungary but he found so many crosses and obstacles by some that were Creatures to the Pope and Spaniard as he was forced to turn out of the way and fetch a great Circuit First of all he fell into the hands of the Arch-duke Ferdinand who caused him to be examined and admonished to desist from his purpose After which he was tost at Sea and in the end having surmounted all dangers he recovered Constantinople the first of May. He had express charge from the United Estates to labour for three things The first was to treat of the deliverance of the Hollanders that were Slaves The second to make a League with the Turk And the third to obtain from him a free Navigation for the Hollanders throughout all the Seas and Ports of his Empire This Ambassador was brought to kiss the Sultan's hands and was favourably received he presented unto his Majesty in the name of the Estates of the United Provinces his Letters of Embassy with the Presents which follow Three Birds of Paradice of rare and precious Plumes wonderful goodly to behold and valued at eight hundred pound sterling two Vessels of Christal wonderful rich and beautiful four other Vessels made of Fishes Bones whereas the art seemed miraculous in the graving forty pieces of Cloth of Gold of divers colours five pieces of Silk five of Damask five of Silk watered and five plain a Staff of an Elephants Tooth graven with admirable industry a Parrat shut in a Cage of Christal so artificially done as no man could discern the entry and many fair and rich Table-cloths of Holland Cloth most part powdred with flowers to the Life and wrought in their lively colours The which the Sultan did accept with admiration All these things shew sufficiently That the Estates from the beginning or soon after have raised Handy-works as well as Traffick and Navigation to the highest point of Perfection The sixth of Iuly following the League was sworn betwixt the Othoman Emperour and the United Provinces of the Low-Countries by the which Achmat promised to cause to be set at liberty all the Hollanders that were detained slaves within his Empire That the Traffick should be free for the Hollanders Ships throughout all his Seas and Havens and moreover he granted That the Estates should have an Ambassador residing at his Port. This alliance with the Turk for the which they have so often and with little reason blamed the French hath been affected and sought by the English and Spaniards as we have said elsewhere and now by the Hollanders whose Estates proceed in all their Affairs with such weight and measure as it seems they do nothing but with great Reason and to good purpose About the end of this Year the Jews whose long Slavery throughout the World reproacheth their wretched and miserable Obstinacy received at Pera near Constantinople the weight of a furious Tempest which fell upon them stirred up against them by the malice of the Morisques Granadines chased out of Spain and retired into the Levant These having by Presents won the favour of the Cadi or Judge of the Place who was a Negro newly settled in that Charge by the Grand Visier Nassuf they obtained Power from him to thrust all the Jews out of Pera and to ruine their Synagogues This Power they executed with all violence And yet these miserable Jews durst not make their Complaints unto the Magistrate except one of their Sect which dwelt in the Isle of Chio who being then at Constantinople and supposing he had more credit than the rest went to complain to this Cadi Negro who presently caused to be given unto him five hundred Blows with a Cudgel instead of doing him Justice so dangerous a thing it is to have to do with such unjust Magistrates The Insolencies of the Morisques transported them farther for after they had expelled the Jews out of their Dwellings they threatned to do unto the Christians at Pera as much as had been done unto them in Spain and they bragged That they would seise upon their Churches and especially on that of the Franciscan Friars the which was reasonable fair for the Place But the French Ambassador having made his Complaint to the chief Visier he prohibited them to make any attempt against the Christians upon pain of rigorous Punishment This Prohibition stayed their fury but they did not forbear in all other occasions to shew the cruel Hatred they owe unto Christians so as through all the Levant in all Encounters where they came they did a thousand times more mischief than the Turks themselves At the same time the Sultan Achmat had drawn together a mighty Army to go into Transilvania he caused it to camp in Tents near unto Constantinople about his Palace called Darut Bassa whither the People of Constantinople went to walk and to see his Forces within few days after he went to Adrianople meaning from thence to proceed in his Voyage carrying with him all the chief Men of his Port except the Bassa of the Sea or Admiral who remained at Constantinople to have a care of the City And for the greater safety thereof this Bassa caused an Edict to
is of Mecha and Medina as also of Jerusalem Aleppo Damascus and of all those Holy and Venerable Countries of Grand Cairo Salutiferous Babylon and of Van of Ethiopia Balsora and the Lesser Asia of all the Countries of the Curds Georgians and Tartars of Moldavia Walachia and universally of all the Provinces and Regions of Greece and Anatolia And in summ Supreme Lord of the Seven Climates the Victorious and Triumphant King in the Service of God Sultan Amurat Han to the Valiant Sofi to whom may God give Peace if he deserve it This Imperial Letter worthy of Obedience being come to thee Be it known unto thee That the Ambassador which Thou didst send to my happy Port with desires of Peace I have detained until this time in which I have subdued Bagdat by means of the keen Edge of my Invincible Semiter If Thou dâ—sirest Peace surrender those Provinces which belong to the Dominions of my Victorious Predecessors into the Hands of my Begâ—erbeys who are now Marching at the Head of my Victorious and Inexpugnable Army Otherwise expect me next Spring with my Troops more numerous than the Sands of the Sea within the Bowels of thy Dominions where I will appear on Horse-back to unkennel Thee from the Caverns wherein thou now lurkest not daring to manage those Arms which are unworthily girt to thy Side That afterwards shall succeed which was determined from all Eternity Peace be to him who directs his ways aright This Letter being dispatched the Grand Signior recalled the forty thousand Men which he had lent from the Service of the Great Mogul which he quartered about Bagdat to hinder the Attempts of the Persians in case they should design to pursue him in the Rear and disturb his return into Europe By reason of the Rigour and Extremity of the Winter and a certain Defluxion which falling on his Nerves made him something Paralytical the Grand Signior departed not from Bagdat until the 15 th of April and then for recovery of his Health and to soil the Horses by the way with convenience of Grass short Days Journeys were appointed The Grand Signior's Indisposition encreasing with some cold and shivering Fits gave the first Symptoms of a Feaver but afterwards it plainly appearing to be a paralytical Distemper suspected by the Physicians to end in an Apoplexy it was rumoured abroad that Morat was dead but it was whispered with such Caution as if they had feared lest the Grand Signior would have over-heard them and risen from his Grave to punish their secret and inward Joy. Being somewhat recovered from the last Accession of his Palsie the Humour fell into his Legs and swelled so much that he could scarce sit upon his Horse howsoever he hastened as fast as he could to Constantinople to disprove and confute the falsity of that Report concerning his Death In the mean time it is not to be expressed with what Fear and Terrour the Chimacam and other great Ministers of State expected the return of their formidable Prince not knowing where the Thunderbolt of his cruel Disposition would strike until at length it fell on the Head of the poor Sultan Mustapha whose weakness as it rendred him unable for Government and Command so it made him stupid and insensible of Death At length on the 10 th of Iune the Grand Signior arrived at Constantinople The Favourite Soltana which had accompanied him to the War passed by Water from Ismit attended with six Gallies and took her Lodging the first Night of her arrival at a small Chiosk or House of Pleasure under the Wall so as to make a magnificent Entry the Day following Her Coach was covered with Cloth of Gold and the Spokes of the Wheels were gilded and the Wheels shod with Silver she was followed by twelve Coaches and the Mufti Pasha's Kadees and other Officers went before to conduct her to the Seraglio The Grand Signior who arrived the same Day attended with fifty six Gallies made not his solemn Entry until two Days after being performed with all the Ceremony State and Magnificence which could be contrived The Grand Signior in his own Person appeared in the Persian Habit with a Leopard's Skin thrown over his Shoulders after the manner of a Kausee as they call them or a brave huffing Champion having his Stirrup attended with twenty two of the chiefest Nobles whom he had reserved at Bagdat purposely to lead in Triumph when he made this Entry The Treasure brought to Constantinople was landed at the Seraglio out of ten Gallies and calculated to amount to a greater Sum than that which was carried from thence for besides the Riches taken in the Plunder of Babylon seisure was mad in divers places of the Estates of Pasha's and other Great Men which by Death or for Crimes escheated to the Grand Signior After the Grand Signior's Departure out of Persia little of Action succeeded as if by mutual Agreement a Truce or Cessation of Arms had been contrived The Persians desired a Peace because they were enfeebled and tired with the War The Turks had regained their Honour by the Conquest of Badgat and being unwilling to lose it by change of unconstant Fortune and longer consume their Riches and Men in a tedious and remote March were attending to receive Propositions of Peace first offered by the Persian To effect which the Great Vizier who was left at Badgat to command the Army intimated to the Governours of the Frontiers that a proffer of Peace should be accepted which being made known to the King of Persia he immediately dispatched an Ambassadour to the Grand Signior to propose Terms of Accommodation The Ambassadour being arrived at Constantinople was grateful and acceptable to all and his Day of Audience appointed after the usual manner on the Pay-day of the Janisaries when the Floor of the Divan is covered with Sacks of Mony before the Door of the Chamber of Audience stood the Persian Captives all cloathed in rich Vests The Ambassadour being conducted to the Royal Presence with the usual Ceremonies of which we have given an Account in another place was received by the Sultan sitting upon a Saffaw covered with Crimson Velvet embroidered with Pearl his Turbant was encompassed with a Chain of Diamonds cloathed with a rich Vest lined with Sables he cast no Pleasantness of Aspect on the Ambassadour but beholding him with a fierce and scornful Look received the Letter in a kind of careless Disdain behaving himself in every Motion as if he neither esteemed the King nor his Ambassadour or as if the Persian had been wholly conquered by him had sent to beg Peace and Pardon for his Life The Ambassadour was soon dismissed from his Presence and matters being referred to the Negotiation of the Chimacam no other difficulty arose besides the Dispute concerning Revan which at length was agreed by another Ambassadour sent to the Vizier on the Frontiers to remain unto the Persian as Bagdat was confirmed to the
which came thither to refresh themselves the Pasha was so enraged thereat that he caused his Souldiers to put Man Woman and Child to the Sword throughout the Village And in this manner the Affairs of the Turks remained in the greatest Confusion imaginable through the whole course of this Year 1658. ANNO 1659. NOr did this Year begin with better Omens of Success for to the other Dangers was added a Report that the Persian had taken the Field with two hundred thousand Men for recovery of Bagdat year 1659. or Babylon which was the ancient Patrimony of his Forefathers so that the Grand Signior being rendred thereby more willing to agree and accommodate Affairs with the Pasha proffered to him the Government of the Province of Soria for ever paying only a yearly Homage of an hundred thousand Sultanees in lieu of three hundred thousand which that Country always yielded But the Pride of the Pasha scorned a Proffer of so mean a Consideration having nothing less in his Thoughts than the entire enjoyment of the Empire or at least to partake an equal share thereof with the Sultan For the Hopes of the Pasha encreasing with his Army which was now grown to eighty thousand Men he took up for some days his Head-quarters near the Fortress of Tocacaia within ten days march of Smyrna and thence approaching towards Constantinople the chief Ministers concluded that there was no other Safety but in their Arms and that the Pasha was not to be reduced to any terms of Gentleness or Moderation Accordingly the Great Vizier passed into Asia with a numerous Army and speedily joined Battel with the Pasha which continued for some Hours with great slaughter on one side and the other but at length the fortune of the Day turned in favour of the Pasha and the Vizier's Army being routed he lost all his Cannon and Baggage and he himself was forced to save himself in the Neighbouring Countries where not being pursued by the Pasha he had time again to collect his torn and scattered Troops The News hereof multiplied the Disorders and Confusions at Constantinople to which being added the Motion of the Persians and that they were to join with the Pasha as also some Troubles in Transylvania caused by the unquiet Spirit of Ragotski together with the ill Humour of the Male-contents in the City made all things appear with equal or greater Danger at Home than Abroad Wherefore as the ultimate Remedy of these imminent Dangers it was resolved that the Grand Signior should go in Person to the War on supposition that Reverence to his Royal Person would produce that awe on the Spirits of his Subjects which was not to be effected by Violence or force of Arms. According to this Resolution the Grand Signior passed into Asia and joining his Forces with those of the Vizier composed an Army of seventy thousand Foot and thirty thousand Horse with which marching boldly towards the Enemy the Heart of the Pasha began to fail him so that calling a Council of his Officers he proposed his Inclinations towards Terms of Agreement rather than to hazard all on the Uncertainties of a Battel the Spirits of the Souldiery being now become tractable by the appearance of so great a Force assented to the Proposition and thereupon Articles being speedily drawn up were sent to the Grand Signior for his Approbation who though he would not seem to refuse any thing therein contained yet declined a personal Treaty as being a Matter too mean for his Imperial Person to capitulate with his Vassals and therefore ordered that Mortaza Pasha should Treat in his behalf promising to confirm whatsoever Act Mortaza Pasha should conclude in this Matter Mortaza being thus made Plenipotentiary refused to treat with the Pasha until such time as he had retreated with his Army at a distance of some days March from the Grand Signior's Camp which being performed near a Town called Alexandria he foolishly suffered himself to be separated in a private Place from his Army on pretence that Peace was more aptly concluded in a free Retirement than under the consâ—raint and force of the Souldiery Here Mortaza meeting the Pasha forcibly strangled him with seventeen of his Complices whom he had brought with him for Witnesses to his Capitulations with the Grand Signior With the news hereof the Army of the Pasha soon disbanded every one with shame and silence shifting for himself retired to his own Country and Home And herewith easily ended this Civil War almost in a moment which but now threatned the Extirpation of the Ottoman Race The cruel Vizier retained his thoughts of Revenge which we shall shortly hear in what manner he vented on the great Spahees and rich Men in Asia who had joined themselves with the Pasha in this Rebellion This good Service promoted Mortaza and rendred him more considerable to the Grand Signior so that he was employed in the Assistance of the Tartars against Ragotski in Transylvania and afterwards preferred to the important Charge of Bagdat or Babylon of whose Success and Fate we we shall hear in the Sequal of a few Years But as yet the Commotions of Asia were not so wholly extinguished but that the Nephew of the Pasha of Aleppo in revenge of the treacherous Death of his Uncle took up Arms and was followed by the People of the Territories depending on Aleppo To his Assistance came in also the Son of Chusaein Pasha late General in Candia whom the cruel Vizier had put to death notwithstanding the merit of his late Services which might seem to atone for his former Misfortunes and make satisfaction for non-compliance with Instructions but this Vizier who never pardoned any Person would not begin with an Act of Clemency towards one who was none of his Creatures or Confidents depending on him To these joined the Bey of Torgue who casting off his Obedience to the Pasha of Cairo entred into the Cabal with ten thousand Horse so that a formidable Army being composed by this Union gave a new Subject of Fear and Apprehension at Constantinople But the Great Vizier so dextrously managed his Affair by sowing Dissention between the Chiefs and bestowing Largesses on the Souldiery that the Army unsensibly mouldred away leaving their Generals and Commanders to shift for themselves and exposing them to the Justice of a Vizier who was unacquainted with Mercy and never pardoned any who was either guilty of a Fault or supected for it Towards the end of this Year the Vizier built the lower Forts which are scituated at the entrance into the Dardanelles commonly called by the name of the Queen-Mother's Castles And dispatched a Chaous to the Pasha of Canea to put all things in a Readiness for the Siege of Candia Orders were also given to the Pashaws of the Inland Countries to prepare themselves for the Wars against Dalmatia and Transilvania ANNO 1660. THE Rendezvous of the Army being appointed at Belgrade the Vizier hastened thither in Person to quicken the
Marquess Villa presented him with a Bason of Gold valued at six thousand Ducats together with a Patent recounting at large the many famous Exploits which he had performed in their Service which they expressed with a stile so generous and obliging as may serve for a Record to transmit the Fame of his Merits to all Posterity Marquess Villa being departed from Candia the Captain-General recalled all his Forces from divers parts of the Archipelago which he had sent thither with the Soldiers wounded in the last Battle and being returned they brought with them great numbers of Pioniers and Workmen to labour in the Fortifications and Mines at the same time also the Captain-Pasha arrived at Canea bringing two thousand Janisaries withhim The Marquess St. Andrea Montbrun a Gentleman of the French Nation was transported to Candia by the General Proveditor Cornaro where being entred into the Charge and Office of Marquess Villa wanted nothing of the vigilance and circumspection of his Predecessour And therefore in the first place having visited all the Forts Out-works and Retrenchments of the Town ordered what was necessary for repair of the breaches and amended what was deficient in the most distressed Fortifications And though the Turks fired a Mine the 22 th of August at the point of the Fort St. Andrea which made a most dangerous breach yet it was so valiantly defended and so speedily repaired that the Enemy gained little or no advantage and all by the extraordinary diligence of this Marquess St. Andrea who passed whole months without uncloathing himself and as his nights were without sleep so his days consumed without repose applying himself personally to all places where was most of danger especially at the Fort of St. Andrea where he took up his constant Quarters The Turks now daily pressing the Town more nearly than before Skirmishes and Sallies were more frequent and more bloody so that about this time the Proveditor General Bernardo Nani applying himself with all earnestness in the performance of his Charge was slain by a Musket-shot in his head his death was much lamented by all being a Gentleman who was born as may be said in the Fleet having had his Education there and passed his youth in Wars and dangers for the safety and honour of his Country Girolamo Bataglia was elected by the Republick to succeed him in the Office whose death was also seconded by that of Francesco Bataglia Brother of the Duke of Candia being shot in the breast with a Musket-bullet and though he was sent thither to administer Justice to the People yet his zeal and courage carrying him to Martial Acts beyond his duty made a grave for him amongst the other Heroes and Worthies of that place The Turk approaching daily nearer with their Works infested very much the passage of Vessels to the Town and shot so directly into the Port that no Ship Galley or Bark could remain in any security from their Cannon to remedy which a small Redoubt was raised at Tramata which being well and strongly fortified served for a small Port under the shelter of which the lesser Vessels found some protection and was of great relief to the distressed City About this time the Popes Gallies with those of Malta arrived commanded by Fra. Vincenzo Rospigliosi the Popes Nephew who having not brought a greater number of people than what served to man their Gallies they were not able to spare many for defence of the Town The long continuance of this Siege and the same thereof noised through the whole World moved the heroick and gallant Spirits of our Age to descend into this Campus Martius this Field of War and give proofs of their Prowess and Valour in defence of the Christan Cause some being moved by a principle of vain-glory proceeding from the briskness of a youthful and aery Spirit and others from the sense of Devotion and fervour towards Religion amongst which none were more forward than some Gentleman of the French Nation as namely Monsieur La Fueillade alias Duke of Roanez with the Count St. Paul a young Cavalier to forward which design taking first the Licence and Benediction of their King they appointed their Rendezvous at Tolon where they listed two hundred Gentleman Cadets or younger Brothers who went in quest of Honour and not of Pay with four hundred ordinary Souldiers who expected their maintenance from the bounty of their Leaders The chief of whom was Monsieur La Fueillade and his Lieutenant the Chevalier De Tresmes Their whole Body was divided into four Bridgades The first commanded by Count St. Paul. The second by the Duke Dâ— Cardâ—â—ousse The third by the Count De Villa Maur. And the fourth by the Duke De Cheateau Tiery When these Persons of Honour and Courage arrived at Candia they found the City hardly beset and reduced to a strait and difficult condition for the Turks were advanced so near to the Fort of St. Andrea that the Souldiers within and without could cross their Muskets and reach Tobaco one to the other howsoever this breach was so well repaired with a good Palissado fortified with several Bonnets and a double Retrenchment on the Bastion it self and a third Retrenchment of squared stone withal that the courage of the Besieged being nothing abated by the many and furious assaults of the Enemy the Town still remained in a defensible posture and still capable with good Succours and Supplies to yield matter of imployment for several years to the Ottoman Forces These worthy Champions as I said being arrived moved with the sense of Religion and desire of glory to themselves challenged the priviledge of mounting the Guard of St. Andrea but that being already prepossessed by the Knights of Malta and other Officers of the place was refused to them Howsoever the Captain-General Morosini was pleased to gratifie them with the Guard of a small Chapel over that Bastion on the right hand of the breach a place of no less danger and therefore of no less honour than the other with which the Cavaliers being satisfied Monsieur St. Paul mounted the Guard one day at six a clock in the morning and continued there â—â—til the same hour of the day following during which time he lost his Major Dupre and Monâ—ieur De Marenval the latter of which had his brains knocked out with so violent a blow of a great shot that some pieces of his skull dangerously wounded the Sieurs De Chamilly and De Lare who were near to him and more maliciously did the Turks ply the stations of these new-come Guests than any others throwing Bomboes Granadoes Stink-pots and other sorts of artificial Fire without cessation into their Quarters notwithstandiug which this young Prince and Monsieur La Fueillade exposed themselves like common Souldiers animating their men more with their example than their words And now by this time by so many Works and removals of Earth by so many Traverses and Mines under ground and throwing up the
so altered on a sudden the manner of Traffick in Buying and Selling that none of the Copper-Money would pass in Payments under three or four for one by which Artifices and Projects he kept up and secured the Government to himself for some time To which we may add one thing more which reconciled the Minds of the Mufti and of the Ulama and Religious Votaries to him For whereas his Predecessor who was a Man of a Gentle Moderate Spirit and not so Cruel and Barbarous as this had granted Licences to the Christians to sell Wine by which a considerable Revenue arises to the Grand Seignior This Vizier to show his Hatred to the Christian Religion issued out most strict Proclamations against the use of Wine making it Death either to Sell or Buy or Drink it which much affected the Hearts of those who were the most Superstitious and Hypocritical and gained him great Credit in general with the Musselmen or Mahometan Believers About the time that the Persian Ambassador made his Entry into Adrianople and received his Audience of the Grand Seignior Count Tekeli arrived there also attended with 30 Officers of his own Creatures and Confidents he entered with great State and Pomp and was conducted to his Lodging in the Palace of Isaac Efendi where the greater Honours were shown him by the Instigation of the French Ambassador The Day following being conducted to his Audience with the Grand Vizier he appeared very Rich and Stately in his Habit wearing after the Hungarian Fashion a large Plume of Heron's Feathers on his Head the bottom of which where they were fixed being set and studded with Precious Stones of great Value he staid above an Hour in Conference with the Grand Vizier being treated with Caresses and Kindness beyond the Manner which is usual amongst Turks After which he received a Coftan lined with Sables as is given to the greatest Pasha's and with him 15 of his Officers were also Vested at this Conference Tekeli advised the Grand Vizier to provide two great Armies one to act on the Frontiers in Hungary and the other in Transilvania After this Audience which Tekeli had with the Grand Vizier the French Ambassador having first obtained License for the same from the Vizier made him a Visit at which the usual Ceremonies passed with great Protestations of Friendship and Promises of Assistance from the King his Master The Turks were very uneasie all this time during the Abode of the Persian Ambassador at the Ottoman Court least he should discover as we have said the Weakness of the Turks in Hungary and the Commotions of the Arabs against the Ottomans so that every thing was Whispered and Concealed with all the Secrecy that was possible and accordingly what Letters came either from Hungary or the Eastern Parts they were committed to some of the Renegade Christians to be read who having been Educated in all the Learning of the Seraglio were capable to Interpret them and being confined within those Schools had no means of Conversation with People without the Seraglio Tekeli and the Tartar Han having finished their Business at Adrianople and agreed on all the Methods they were to act for the ensuing Campaign they were dispatched away the first towards Hungary and the other to the Crim. It being now time to prepare and provide for the War several Changes and Alterations were made amongst the Officers The Captain Pasha was put out of his Office and the Treasurer of the Grand Seignior's Private Cash was put in his Place a Person wholly ignorant of Maritime Affairs but preferred as an Old Servant and for his Merits in other Employments and his Predecessor Missiroglu who had been always bred up a Seaman at Tripoli in Barbary was ordered for Hungary as was also the Chimacam of Constantinople The Aga or General of the Janisaries had also been deprived of his Office and being a Man of good Esteem amongst the Soldiery many adhered to his Party which began to create a strong Faction amongst the Soldiery to prevent the increase of which many Officers amongst the Janisaries were secretly Strangled in the Night whereby all those Plots were overthrown which were designed to promote that General of the Janisaries who had the Esteem for his Courage and good Conduct to the Sublime Office of Grand Vizier by which the Christians received a considerable Prejudice he being a Friend to the Peace and an Enemy to the French. But to keep the Turks fixed and steddy to the War the French Ambassador assured the Turks That his Master the King had dispatched already from France 200 Officers expert in the War who might arrive in very few Days and that amongst them were some famous Engineers skilful in throwing Bombs and Granadoes and making all sorts of Artificial Fire-works And moreover he assured them That every Day he expected two Men of War laden with Bombs and Arms and all sorts of Military Instruments with some Thousands of Muskets to Arm the Janisaries Moreover this Ambassador offered the Port in the Name of his Master to maintain three Regiments of Janisaries and to Cloath them all in Blew Vests but this piece of Generosity looking too mean and disagreeable to the Grandeur of the Turks was refused with some Indignation and Disdain Howsoever the French Engineers upon their Arrival were accepted and Enrolled amongst the other Gunners over which the Master of the Artillery was a Turk The Spring coming now forward great Preparations were making both by Sea and Land for the approaching Campaign At the Arsenal the new Captain Pasha was very diligent to forward the Naval Preparations of which twelve great Mahoones or Galleons and two new Galleasses were preparing with six new Frigats besides the Gallies belonging to the Beys of the Archipelago which are commonly 36 in number Moreover great Quantities of Bisket and Ammunition were preparing to be sent on Saicks by the Danube for the use of the Army Nor were the Preparations and Recruits for the Land Army neglected for a Door as they call it was opened for making Janisaries of which they pretended to form for this Year 25000 and to have a greater Army this Year than they had the last before the Battle of Salankement in which the Turks were the more animated and made to believe better of their own Condition than it really was by the Applications which the Christian Ambassadors made to Mediate a Peace believing that neither the Emperor nor the Venetians would press so hard for a Peace were they able to maintain the War. But what gave some stop to the Warlike Preparations were the Factions amongst the Turks themselves by which the Mufti was suspended and sent into Banishment and a Pitiful Decrepit Old Fellow who had been Imaum or Chaplain to Old Kupriogli put into his Place of whom we have given a Character before and that he was unconstant in all his Resolutions The Persian Ambassador still continuing