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sultans themselves. Their valour has declined, their discipline is relaxed, and their tumultuary array is incapable of contending with the order and weapons of modern tactics; but at the time of their institution, they possessed a decisive superiority in war; since a regular body of infantry, in constant exercise and pay, was not maintained by any of the princes of Christendom. The Janizaries fought with the zeal of proselytes against their idolatrous countrymen; and in the battle of Cossova, the league and independence of the Sclavonian tribes was finally crushed. As the conqueror walked over the field, he observed that the greatest part of the slain consisted of beardless youths; and listened to the flattering reply of his vizir, that age and wisdom would have taught them not to oppose his irresistible arms. But the sword of his Janizaries could not defend him from the dagger of despair; a Servian soldier started from the crowd of dead bodies, and Amurath was pierced in the belly with a mortal wound. The grandson of Othman was mild in his temper, modest in his apparel, and a lover of learning and virtue; but the Moslems were scandalized at his absence from public worship; and he was corrected by the firmness of the mufti, who dared to reject his testimony in a civil cause; a mixture of servitude and freedom not unfrequent in Oriental history.*

The character of Bajazet, the son and successor of Amurath, is strongly expressed in his surname of Ilderim, or the Lightning; and he might glory in an epithet, which was drawn from the fiery energy of his soul, and the rapidity of his destructive march. In the fourteen years of his reign,t he incessantly moved at the head of his

of the complexion, like the prejudice, now entertained by some, against negroes.-ED.] * See the life and death of Morad, or Amurath I. in Cantemir (p. 33-45), the first book of Chalcondyles, and the Annales Turcici of Leunclavius. According to another story, the sultan was stabbed by a Croat in his tent; and this accident was alleged to Busbequius (Epist. 1. p. 98), as an excuse for the unworthy precaution of pinioning, as it were, between two attendants, an ambassador's arms, when he is introduced to the royal presence.

The reign of Bajazet I. or Ilderim Bayazid, is contained in Cantemir (p. 46), the second book of Chalcondyles, and the Annales Turcici. The surname of Ilderim, or lightning, is an example, that the conquerors and poets of every age have felt the truth of a system which derives the sublime from the principle of terror. [Euripides,

armies, from Boursa to Adrianople, from the Danube to the Euphrates; and, though he strenuously laboured for the propagation of the law, he invaded, with impartial ambition, the Christian and Mahometan princes of Europe and Asia. From Angora and Amasia and Erzeroum, the northern regions of Anatolia were reduced to his obedience; he stripped of their hereditary possessions his brother emirs of Ghermian and Caramania, of Aidin and Sarukhan; and after the conquest of Iconium, the ancient kingdom of the Seljukians again revived in the Ottoman dynasty. Nor were the conquests of Bajazet less rapid or important in Europe. No sooner had he imposed a regular form of servitude on the Servians and Bulgarians, than he passed the Danube to seek new enemies and new subjects in the heart of Moldavia.* Greek empire in Thrace, Macedonia, and Thessaly, acknowWhatever yet adhered to the ledged a Turkish master; an obsequious bishop led him through the gates of Thermopyla into Greece; and we may observe, as a singular fact, that the widow of a Spanish chief, who possessed the ancient seat of the oracle of Delphi, deserved his favour by the sacrifice of a beauteous daughter. The Turkish communication between Europe and Asia had been dangerous and doubtful, till he stationed at Gallipoli a fleet of galleys to command the Hellespont and intercept the Latin succours of Constantinople. While the monarch indulged his passions in a boundless range of injustice and cruelty, he imposed on his soldiers the most rigid laws of modesty and abstinence; and the harvest was peaceably reaped and sold within the precincts of his camp. Provoked by the loose and corrupt administration of justice, he collected in a house the judges and lawyers of his dominions, who expected that in a few moments the fire would be kindled to reduce them to ashes. His ministers trembled

or Critias, in the speech of Sisyphus, quoted by Warburton (Div. Leg. iii. p. 219), has doubly illustrated this idea, by placing the abode of the gods in those regions which sent forth lightnings and dreadful bursts of thunder, to strike the human mind with awe :

ἵν ̓ ἀστραπὰς

Κάτειδεν ὄυσας δεινά τε κτυπήματα

Βροντῆς.

ED.]

* Cantemir, who celebrates the victories of the great Stephen over the Turks (p. 47), had composed the ancient and modern state of his

in silence; but an Ethiopian buffoon presumed to insinuate the true cause of the evil; and future venality was left without excuse, by annexing an adequate salary to the office of Cadhi.* The humble title of emir was no longer suitable to the Ottoman greatness; and Bajazet condescended to accept a patent of sultan from the caliphs who served in Egypt under the yoke of the Mamelukes ;t a last and frivolous homage that was yielded by force to opinion, by the Turkish conquerors to the house of Abbas and the successors of the Arabian prophet. The ambition of the sultan was inflamed by the obligation of deserving this august title; and he turned his arms against the kingdom of Hungary, the perpetual theatre of the Turkish victories and defeats. Sigismond, the Hungarian king, was the son and brother of the emperors of the West; his cause was that of Europe and the Church; and on the report of his danger, the bravest knights of France and Germany were eager to march under his standard and that of the cross. In the battle of Nicopolis, Bajazet defeated a confederate army of a hundred thousand Christians, who had proudly boasted, that if the sky should fall, they could uphold it on their lances. The far greater part were slain or driven into the Danube; and Sigismond, escaping to Constantinople by the river and the Black Sea, returned after a long circuit, to his exhausted kingdom. In the pride of victory,

principality of Moldavia, which has been long promised, and is still unpublished. * Leunclav. Annal. Turcici, p. 318, 319. The venality of the cadhis has long been an object of scandal and satire; and if we distrust the observations of our travellers, we may consult the feeling of the Turks themselves (D'Herbelot, Bibliot. Orientale, p. 216, 217. 229. 230.). The fact, which

is attested by the Arabic history of Ben Schounah, a contemporary Syrian (De Guignes, Hist. des Huns, tom. iv. p. 336), destroys the testimony of Saad Effendi and Cantemir (p. 14, 15) of the election of Othman to the dignity of sultan. See the Decades

Rerum Hungaricarum (Dec. 3, 1. 2, p. 379) of Bonfinius, an Italian, who, in the fifteenth century, was invited into Hungary to compose an eloquent history of that kingdom. Yet if it be extant and accessible, I should give the preference to some homely chronicle of the time and country. [A large body of the Knights of Rhodes formed a part of the Christian army in this battle, and all perished, except the Grand Master, who escaped in a boat with the king of Hungary (Taaffe, ii. p. 322-325). This Nicopolis has been mistaken by some for the city of that name built by Augustus, now Prevesa. But it was another

1

CRUSADE AND CAPTIVITY

[CH. LXIV. Bajazet threatened that he would besiege Buda; that he would subdue the adjacent countries of Germany and Italy; and that he would feed his horse with a bushel of oats on the altar of St. Peter at Rome. His progress was checked, not by the miraculous interposition of the apostle; not by a crusade of the Christian powers, but by a long and painful fit of the gout. The disorders of the moral are sometimes corrected by those of the physical world; and an acrimonious humour falling on a single fibre of one man, may prevent or suspend the misery of nations.

Such is the general idea of the Hungarian war; but the disastrous adventure of the French has procured us some memorials which illustrate the victory and character of Bajazet. The duke of Burgundy, sovereign of Flanders, and uncle of Charles the Sixth, yielded to the ardour of his son, John, Count of Nevers; and the fearless youth was accompanied by four princes, his cousins, and those of the French monarch. Their inexperience was guided by the Sire de Coucy, one of the best and oldest captains of Christendom; but the constable, admiral, and marshal of France commanded an army which did not exceed the number of a thousand knights and squires. These splendid

founded by Trajan, on the west of the Danube in the present province of Wallachia, and its modern name is Nikub. (Koeppen, p. 188. Reichard, Tab. vi.)-ED.] of the labour of this work, if my materials were always derived from * I should not complain such books as the Chronicle of honest Froissart (vol. iv. c. 67. 69. 72. 74. 79-83. 85. 87. 89), who read little, inquired much, and believed The original Memoirs of the Maréchal de Boucicault (partie 1, c. 22-28) add some facts, but they are dry and deficient, if compared with the pleasant garrulity of Froissart. [See Froissart's Chron. edit. Bohn, vol. ii. p. 601. 622. 631.-ED.]

all.

+ An accurate Memoir on the life of Enguerrand VII. Sire de Coucy, has been given by the Baron de Zurlauben. (Hist. de l'Académie des Inscriptions, tom. xxv.) His rank and possessions were equally considerable in France and England; and in 1375, he led an army of adventurers into Switzerland, to recover a large patrimony which he claimed in right of his grandmother, the daughter of the emperor Albert I. of Austria. (Sinner, Voyage dans la Suisse Occidentale, tom. i. p. 118-124). respectable at present, was still more conspicuous when it was divided That military office, so between two persons. (Daniel, Hist. de la Milice Françoise, tom. ii. p. 5.) One of these, the marshal of the crusade, was the famous Boucicault, who afterwards defended Constantinople, governed Genoa, invaded the coast of Asia, and died in the field of Azincour.

names were the source of presumption and the bane of discipline. So many might aspire to command, that none were willing to obey; their national spirit despised both their enemies and their allies; and in the persuasion that Bajazet would fly, or must fall, they began to compute how soon they should visit Constantinople, and deliver the holy sepulchre. When their scouts announced the approach of the Turks, the gay and thoughless youths were at table, already heated with wine; they instantly clasped their armour, mounted their horses, rode full speed to the vanguard, and resented as an affront the advice of Sigismond, which would have deprived them of the right and honour of the foremost attack. The battle of Nicopolis would not have been lost if the French would have obeyed the prudence of the Hungarians; but it might have been gloriously won had the Hungarians imitated the valour of the French. They dispersed the first line, consisting of the troops of Asia; forced a rampart of stakes, which had been planted against the cavalry; broke, after a bloody conflict, the janizaries themselves; and were at length overwhelmed by the numerous squadrons that issued from the woods, and charged on all sides this handful of intrepid warriors. In the speed and secrecy of his march, in the order and evolutions of the battle, his enemies felt and admired the military talents of Bajazet. They accuse his cruelty in the use of victory. After reserving the count of Nevers, and four-and-twenty lords, whose birth and riches were attested by his Latin interpreters, the remainder of the French captives, who had survived the slaughter of the day, were led before his throne; and, as they refused to abjure their faith, were successively beheaded in his presence. The sultan

Α

was exasperated by the loss of his bravest janizaries; and if it be true that, on the eve of the engagement, the French had massacred their Turkish prisoners, they might impute to themselves the consequences of a just retaliation. knight, whose life had been spared, was permitted to return to Paris, that he might relate the deplorable tale, and solicit the ransom of the noble captives. In the meanwhile, the count of Nevers, with the princes and barons of

* For this odious fact, the Abbé de Vertot quotes the Hist. Anonyme de St. Denys, 1. 16, c. 10, 11. (Ordre de Malthe, tom. ii. p. 310.)

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