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                         KNIGHTS OF ST. JOHN:

                BATTLE OF LEPANTO AND SIEGE OF VIENNA


                   [Illustration: SIEGE OF RHODES.]


                   LONDON: BURNS & OATES, LIMITED.

          NEW YORK, CINCINNATI, CHICAGO: BENZIGER BROTHERS.




PREFACE.


In this little volume it has not been attempted to give a complete
history of the Order of Knights Hospitallers, even from the
comparatively late date from which the narrative begins; nor, indeed,
has it been thought necessary, in a publication of such slight
pretensions, to enter into a full and detailed description of the
several great sieges around which the chief interest of the story
gathers. All that the writer has endeavoured to do is, to present the
reader with as vivid a picture of events so memorable in the annals
of the world as could be conveyed in a rapid and inelaborate sketch.
Other incidents and circumstances having an important bearing on
the general contest between the Moslem and the Christian have been
interwoven with the staple of the narrative, either for the purpose
of linking together the principal facts, or of giving them that
position and prominence which belongs to them.

The determined courage and heroic devotion of the Knights of St.
John have commanded the admiration of every noble and generous mind,
whatever may have been its religious convictions or prejudices.
At Acre, at Smyrna, at Rhodes, and lastly at Malta, these brave
champions of the faith occupied what for the time being was the
outpost of Christendom. At times almost annihilated, they rose again
before the eyes of their enemies with more than recovered strength;
abandoned, or but tardily and grudgingly succoured by the powers of
Europe,—who were too much engaged with their own political quarrels,
and too deeply absorbed by their own selfish and immediate interests,
to look to the future or unite against the common foe,—they
confronted single-handed the enormous hosts of the infidels in their
descents upon Europe, arrested their triumphant march towards the
West, retreated from one position only to rally in another, and renew
a contest which in appearance was hopeless; and at length, when all
seemed lost, by sheer fortitude and perseverance they baffled and
beat back the barbarian invader in the very pride of his strength, so
that he never dared to approach their stronghold again.

So much is patent on the very face of history, and is acknowledged
by all. But few, save they who share the faith of these brave men,
seem to discern wherein the secret of their strength lay, and what
it was that lent such force to their arms, endued them with that
dauntless courage, that irresistible energy, and that tenacity of
purpose, which enabled them to dare and to do and to suffer as
they did. Some, knowing not how else to characterise it, give it
the name of “attachment to their order,”—an indefinable something
corresponding to what the world calls honour, or _esprit de corps_.
Doubtless the Knights of St. John, as sworn companions in arms,
vowed to fight and to die in the same great cause, felt themselves
bound to each other by no ordinary tie, and were ever ready to
sacrifice their lives for the sake of their brethren; but it was
not in this that their strength lay. It lay in the simple power of
divine faith, in a religious devotion as humble as it was ardent,
and a burning enthusiasm for the cause of God in the world. This it
was that elevated their valour to a supernatural virtue, and gave
them the calm intrepid bearing and the indomitable spirit of martyrs.
They were dutiful sons of holy Church, and as such they fought in
her defence; always and every where they demeaned themselves as
veritable soldiers of the Cross, faithful followers of Jesus, devout
clients of Mary.

And in this was included what can never be separated from it—a
true-hearted and loyal obedience to the successor of St. Peter. The
Knights of St. John were ever the devoted subjects of the Holy See.
It was as the Pope’s militia that they performed those wondrous deeds
of arms which have gained them the respect and sympathy of writers
who can scarcely allude to the occupant of Peter’s chair without an
expression of contempt; and if to them, and to those other noble
warriors whose exploits are related in the following pages, belong
the credit and the renown of having stemmed the advancing tide of
Ottoman invasion, it is to the Popes in the first place that the
glory is due.

Europe owes to the Sovereign Pontiffs a heavy debt of gratitude for
the indefatigable zeal with which they never ceased to sound the note
of alarm, and to urge the Christian powers, not only to oppose the
farther progress of the Turkish arms, but to drive back the barbarian
hordes into the regions from which they had emerged; a debt all
the heavier that each respite and each success was obtained almost
against the will of those for whom it was won, and with an apparent
unconsciousness, on their part, of the imminence of the danger or
the nature of the calamity with which they were threatened. If the
Turk retreated from Malta in shame and confusion,—if at Lepanto he
lost the prestige of his naval superiority,—if Vienna defied his
beleaguering hosts and sent him flying from her walls, never again
to return,—it was the Vicar of Christ who thus foiled him and smote
him, and who, from the height of his throne on the Vatican hill,
pronounced that irreversible word, “Thus far shalt thou come, and
no farther.” Every check, every failure, every defeat the infidels
encountered, originated with Rome. D’Aubusson, L’Isle Adam, La
Valette, Don John of Austria, Sobieski,—all were but the lieutenants
of the Pope; and that Europe was not delivered over to a blasphemous
apostasy, and desolated and trodden down by the foulest tyranny
which the world has ever known, may justly be attributed, in the
good providence of God, to the untiring vigilance and the energetic
and persevering hostility of the old man who reigns at Rome, and who
never dies.[1]

The writer had relied chiefly on the works of the Abbé Vertot and Mr.
Taafe for the sketch of the Order of Knights Hospitallers. It may
be proper, however, to state, that since the manuscript came into
the editor’s hands it has been carefully compared with the text of
various approved authors who have either previously or subsequently
written on the subject, and to the results of whose labours reference
is made in the notes. The account of the Battle of Lepanto is mainly
founded on the history recently published by Don Cajetan Rosell, and
the _Life of St. Pius V._, by Maffei; and the story of the Siege and
Relief of Vienna is taken for the most part from Salvandy’s _Life of
John Sobieski_, and that by the Abbé Coyer.

                                                          E. H. T.




  CONTENTS.


  CHAPTER I.
                                                                  PAGE

  Commencement of the Order—The object of its institution—Its
  achievements in the Holy Land—Its settlement in Acre after the
  fall of Jerusalem—Description of Acre—The Great Hospital and its
  traditions—Successes of the Saracens—Siege of Acre under Melec
  Seraf, sultan of Egypt—The last assault—Massacre—The survivors of
  the Order take refuge in Cyprus                                    1


  CHAPTER II.

  The Knights at Limisso—Commencement of their naval
  power—Suppression of the Templars—Enterprise of the
  Hospitallers against Rhodes—Its final success—The island and
  its dependencies—First hostilities with the Turks—Deposition of
  Villaret—Complaints against the Order—Division into languages—The
  Pope charges the Knights with the defence of Smyrna               21


  CHAPTER III.

  Progress of the Turks—Bajazet and Timour the Tartar—Siege
  and conquest of Smyrna—St. Peter’s of the Freed—Greatness of
  the Order under Naillac—Mahomet II.—Fall of Constantinople—
  Threatened invasion of Rhodes—Death of Scanderbeg—Conquest of
  Lesbos and Negropont—Election of Peter d’Aubusson                 39


  CHAPTER IV.

  Character of D’Aubusson—Religious union in Rhodes—Destruction
  of the suburbs—Arrival of the Turkish fleet—Attack on St.
  Nicholas—Conduct of D’Aubusson during the siege—First repulse
  of the infidels—Fresh attack on the Jewish quarter—Storm of the
  city—Defeat and failure of the Turks—D’Aubusson’s danger and
  recovery—Fall of Kaffa and Otranto—Death of Mahomet the Great     64


  CHAPTER V.

  Bajazet and Djem—Djem takes refuge at Rhodes—He proceeds to
  France, and thence to Italy—Exculpation of D’Aubusson—His last
  days and death—Conquests of Selim, and accession of Solyman
  the Magnificent—Fall of Belgrade—Election of L’Isle Adam, and
  his correspondence with the sultan—Preparations for a fresh
  siege—Review of the Knights—Appearance of Rhodes—Character of
  L’Isle Adam—Ceremony at St. John’s—Military spectacle—Arrival
  of the enemy’s fleet                                              86


  CHAPTER VI.

  Ill success of the Turkish troops—Arrival of the sultan—The
  English bastion blown up—Conduct of the grand master—Fresh
  assault under Peri Pasha—Panic produced by the appearance of
  L’Isle Adam—Attack on the ruins of the English bastion by
  Mustapha Pasha—Assault-general—Retreat of the infidels—Renewed
  hostilities—State of Rhodes during the last month of the
  siege—Solyman has recourse to negotiation—The grand master is
  compelled to yield by the entreaties of the citizens—Honourable
  terms of capitulation—Interview between L’Isle Adam and the
  sultan—Cruelties of the Janizaries—Generous conduct of the sultan
  Solyman                                                          108


  CHAPTER VII.

  Departure from Rhodes—Danger at sea—Rendezvous at
  Setia—Deplorable state of the Rhodians—Inspection of his
  followers by the grand master—His arrival with the Rhodians
  at Messina—Inquiry into the conduct of the Knights, and their
  acquittal—They proceed to Cività Vecchia, and are granted
  the city of Viterbo—Journeys of L’Isle Adam to the courts of
  Europe—Offer of Malta to the Order by the emperor—Report of the
  commissioners                                                    124


  CHAPTER VIII.

  Exploits of the Knights in Africa—Taking of Tunis—The great
  carrack—Expedition against Algiers—Tempest off the coast of
  Barbary—Taking of Mehdijé—Admirable charity of the Knights—Dragut
  attacks Malta; failure of the expedition—Fall of Tripoli—Election
  of John de la Valette—Solyman prepares for the siege of
  Malta—Description of the city and its defences—Character of La
  Valette, and his address to his troops                           140


  CHAPTER IX.

  Arrival of the Turkish fleet—The landing and attack on St.
  Elmo—Storming of the ravelin; Christian bearing of the
  Knights—Message to the borgo, and reply of La Valette—First
  assault-general—The Turks are repulsed, and the garrison
  reinforced—Second and third assaults—Preparation of the Knights
  for death—Capture of St Elmo, and barbarities of the Turkish
  general                                                          155


  CHAPTER X.

  St John’s day—Arrival of the “little succour”—Assaults on St.
  Michael—Death of the grand master’s nephew—Assaults from the 2d
  to the 16th of August—Attack on the bastion of Castile—Conduct
  of La Valette—His visit to the infirmary—Repulse of the
  Turks—Appearance of the succours—Hasty embarkation of the
  Turks—Fresh landing, and engagement with the Christian army—They
  leave the island—State of Malta after the siege—Building of the
  city of Valetta—Death of the grand master—Conclusion             172


  THE BATTLE OF LEPANTO.

  Religious state of Europe—Fall of Cyprus—Bragadino—Calepius—The
  Christian league and armament—Rendezvous at Messina—Don John
  of Austria, his character and conduct—Meeting of the hostile
  fleets—Disposition of the ships—The battle—The Knights of
  Malta—Cervantes—Utter defeat of the infidels—Magnanimity of Don
  John—Results of the victory—Revelation made to St. Pius—The joy
  of Christendom, and commemorations of the Church                 199


  THE RELIEF OF VIENNA.


  CHAPTER I.

  THE SIEGE.

  State of the city—Situation of the Empire—Rapid advance
  of the Turks—The massacre of Perchtoldsdorf—The Turkish
  camp—Kollonitsch—View without the walls—Ditto within—Progress
  of the siege—The camp of Crems—Desperate condition of the
  citizens—The signal-rockets                                      239


  CHAPTER II.

  THE RELIEF.

  March of the Poles—Junction with the Imperialists—Ascent of the
  Kahlenberg—A day of suspense—Scene from the heights—The morning
  of the battle—Descent into the plain—Advance of Sobieski—Rout
  of the Turks—Sobieski’s entry into Vienna—Charity of
  Kollonitsch—Behaviour of the emperor—Joy of Europe—Thanksgiving
  of the Church                                                    261




THE KNIGHTS OF ST. JOHN.




CHAPTER I.

  Commencement of the Order—The object of its institution—Its
  achievements in the Holy Land—Its settlement in Acre after the
  fall of Jerusalem—Description of Acre—The great Hospital and its
  traditions—Successes of the Saracens—Siege of Acre under Melec
  Seraf sultan of Egypt—The last assault—Massacre—The survivors of
  the Order take refuge in Cyprus.


The order of the Knights Hospitallers of St. John[2] dates its
origin from that heroic period of Christian chivalry when Jerusalem
opened her gates to the arms of Godfrey de Bouillon. Whether or no
its mixed military and religious character were coeval with its
first establishment, or whether its singular constitution came to be
gradually developed, as it was added to by successive masters, is
a point of little consequence for us to decide. It is certain that
at a very early period after its foundation it is to be found with
both these characters united; and whilst the Hospital of St. John
exercised that admirable charity which was the first condition of
the order’s existence, the knights were winning on every field of
Palestine the title bestowed on them by their Moslem enemies of the
“heroes of the Christian armies.”

It is not our present purpose to set before the reader any account
of those achievements of the order in the Holy Land, which properly
belong to the wars of the Crusades, and cannot be separated from the
history of that period: but, before taking up the narrative from
the day when, driven from the walls of Acre, the shattered remnant
of its heroic legions was tossing in a single bark on the waters
of the Levant, as yet without a home in Europe,—a few remarks seem
necessary, both to explain its constitution as a religious body, and
its position at the moment when our story of its fortunes begins.

At the period when the military orders first sprang into existence,
the road to the Holy Land was, as every one knows, the highway
of Europe; and year by year crowds of pilgrims of all ranks came
flocking to the Holy City, encountering innumerable perils on the
way, and often arriving at their journey’s end in a state of extreme
suffering and destitution. Now the object of the Order of St. John
may very briefly be described if we say, that its members took on
themselves the office of administering the hospitality of Christ:
“Servants of the poor of Christ” was the title that they assumed;
and this name of Christ’s poor was applied indiscriminately to all
pilgrims and crusaders.

The ceremonies attendant on the reception of a knight had a peculiar
significance, and strikingly illustrate the spirit of the order.
The postulant presented himself with a lighted taper in his hand,
and carrying his naked sword to be blessed by the priest. He had
previously prepared himself by a general confession and the reception
of holy communion. After blessing the sword, the priest returned it
to him with these words: “Receive this holy sword in the name of the
Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, amen; and use it for
thy own defence, and that of the Church of God, to the confusion of
the enemies of Jesus Christ and of the Christian faith, and take
heed that no human frailty move thee to strike any man with it
unjustly.” Then he replaced it in the sheath, the priest saying as
he girded himself: “Gird thyself with the sword of Jesus Christ;
and remember that it is not with the sword, but with faith, that the
saints have conquered kingdoms.” The knight then once more drew his
sword, whilst these words were addressed to him: “Let the brilliancy
of this sword represent to thee the brightness of faith; let its
point signify hope, and its hilt charity. Use it for the Catholic
faith, for justice, and for the consolation of widows and orphans:
for this is the true faith and justification of a Christian knight.”
Then he brandished it thrice in the name of the Holy Trinity, and
the brethren proceeded to give him his golden spurs, saying: “Seest
thou these spurs? They signify that as the horse fears them when he
swerves from his duty, so shouldst thou fear to depart from thy post
or from thy vows.” Then the mantle was thrown over him, and as they
pointed to the cross of eight points embroidered on the left side,
they said: “We wear this white cross as a sign of purity; wear it
also within thy heart as well as outwardly, and keep it without soil
or stain. The eight points are the signs of the eight beatitudes,
which thou must ever preserve: viz. 1. spiritual joy; 2. to live
without malice; 3. to weep over thy sins; 4. to humble thyself to
those who injure thee; 5. to love justice; 6. to be merciful; 7. to
be sincere and pure of heart; and 8. to suffer persecution.” Then he
kissed the cross, and the mantle was fastened, whilst the ministering
knight continued, “Take this cross and mantle in the name of the Holy
Trinity, for the repose and salvation of thy soul, the defence of the
Catholic faith, and the honour of our Lord Jesus Christ; and I place
it on the left side near thy heart, that thou mayst love it, and that
thy right hand may defend it, charging thee never to abandon it,
since it is the standard of our holy faith. Shouldst thou ever desert
the standard, and fly when combating the enemies of Jesus Christ,
thou wilt be stripped of this holy sign, according to the statutes of
the order, as having broken the vow thou hast taken, and shalt be cut
off from our body as an unsound member.”

On the mantle were embroidered all the instruments of the Passion;
each of them was pointed out to the new-made knight, with the words:
“In order that thou mayst put all thy hope in the passion of Jesus
Christ, behold the cord whereby He was bound; see, too, His crown of
thorns; this is the column to which He was tied; this is the lance
which pierced His side; this is the sponge with which He was drenched
with gall; these are the whips that scourged Him; and this the cross
on which He suffered. Receive, therefore, the yoke of the Lord, for
it is easy and light, and will give rest to thy soul; and I tie this
cord about thy neck in pledge of the servitude thou hast promised. We
offer thee nothing but bread and water, a simple habit and of little
worth. We give thee and thy parents and relatives a share in the good
works performed by the order, and by our brethren now and hereafter,
throughout the whole world. Amen.” He was then received to the kiss
of peace.

We find no mention of serving the sick in the formula of the vow, but
the obligation of hospitality was indispensable. The grand master
even took the title of the “guardian of the poor of Christ,” and the
knights were wont (according to Michaud) to call the poor and sick
“our masters.” We find various notices of their even undertaking the
charge of deserted children,—a charge which seems to speak volumes
for the loving tenderness of these soldiers of the faith. The
succour of the sick formed, therefore, but one portion of the duties
embraced by their rule under the name of hospitality; these guests
of Christ had to be protected on their journey, as well as guarded
and entertained on their arrival; and thus the military defence of
the Holy City itself came naturally to be first among the acts of
hospitality to which the order devoted itself, and which included at
the same time the tending of the sick, the care of orphan children,
the entertainment of strangers, the ransom of captives, and the daily
clothing and support of the vast multitudes whom every day brought
to the gates of their “Xenodochia,” as the large hospital of the
order was styled.

A chronicler, writing in the year 1150, and describing what he had
himself seen in his youth, says, that you might behold all these
offices of charity going on at the same time: the knights mounting
their horses to ride out to battle; the pilgrims crowding to the
halls of the hospital; and the infirmary full of sick and wounded
Christians, who were served and tended with the utmost care. The
necessary expenses of so vast an undertaking readily account for the
large endowments granted to the order in every Christian country;
their and revenues were not held as furnishing the means of luxury
to themselves, but were the funds ungrudgingly contributed by
Christendom for the support of her pilgrims, and the defence of the
sepulchre of her Lord; and thus the knights were made the holders and
administrators of a mighty trust of charity.

To carry out the full design of their foundation, they extended
their views far beyond the territory of Jerusalem; hospitals were
founded in all the principal maritime states of Europe, which were
considered as affiliated to the mother-house, where pilgrims were
received and helped forward on their journey, and furnished with
escorts and protection in times of danger. These houses afterwards
became the commanderies of the order, and had, of course, their own
communities of knights; for all did not reside at the principal seat
of government, though, as we shall afterwards find, they were liable
to be summoned thither at any moment, either to assist at elections,
or to reinforce the troops actually engaged in war.

In these hospitals the knights led a strict community life, much of
their time being given to active works of charity; a circumstance
to which is doubtless owing the superiority which the order of St.
John always preserved over that of the Templars as a religious body;
for by their peculiar constitution, the military spirit could never
become exclusive among them, but was always tempered and restrained
by their obligation to the duties of Christian hospitality.

St. Bernard, in his “Exhortation to the Knights of the Temple,” has
left us a picture of a military religious order, whose original was
doubtless in part taken from the houses of the Hospitallers, who
preceded the Templars by some years in their foundation. “They live,”
he says, “in a happy yet frugal manner, having neither wives nor
children; and calling nothing their own—not even their own wills:
they are never idle; but when not actually marching to the field
against the infidels, they mend their arms or the harness of their
horses, or engage in various pious exercises under the orders of
their chief. Never does an insolent word, or the least murmur, or
immoderate laughter, pass without severe correction. They detest all
games of chance, and never engage in the chase, or in useless visits;
they avoid with horror shows and buffoonery, together with songs
and conversation of a light or dangerous character; they are little
studious of their dress; their faces are brown with exposure to the
sun, and their aspect is stern and severe. When the hour of combat
approaches, they arm themselves with faith within and with steel
without,—no useless ornament glitters on their armour or that of
their horses; their arms are their only decoration, and they use them
valiantly in the greatest dangers, without fearing either the numbers
or the strength of the barbarians, for their confidence is in the God
of Armies; and in fighting for His cause they seek either certain
victory or a holy and honourable death.”

The various duties of the order were not all discharged by the same
members of the community. Their body was divided into three classes:
the knights, always of noble birth, in whom the government of the
order was vested; the clergy, or chaplains of St. John, whose duties
were purely ecclesiastical, and who also acted as almoners; and the
brothers servants-at-arms, a large and very important class, who
assisted the knights both in war and in the hospitals, and may be
considered as something between squires and lay brothers,—for they
did not act in a menial capacity, and though never eligible to the
rank of knights, they were treated almost on an equality, and had
votes for the election of master. All these classes were bound by
the three essential vows of religion; but, although _religious_, the
knights never bore the priestly character, as has been sometimes
represented. Many instances, however, occur of ecclesiastics having
previously seen military service as knights of the order before
assuming the sacerdotal character. Even the military powers of the
knights themselves had their limitations: they were bound to a strict
neutrality in all wars among Christian nations, and could take arms
only in defence of religion, and against its enemies; when not so
engaged, they were to devote themselves to the care of the sick and
poor: and this neutrality was not only the rule, but the invariable
practice of the order, as their history amply testifies.

So long as the Holy City remained in the hands of the Christians,
it continued to be the principal residence of the Knights of St.
John of Jerusalem; and their large hospital, able to contain above
2000 guests, lay exactly opposite the Holy Sepulchre. It is of
this hospital that Innocent II. speaks in words which so perfectly
describe the character of the institute that we will insert them,
as the best means of conveying a notion to the reader of the design
of its foundation, and the manner of its fulfilment. “How pleasing
to God,” he says, “and how venerable to man, is at least one spot
on earth! How commodious, how useful a refuge is that which the
Hospitallers’ house of hospitality in Jerusalem affords to all poor
pilgrims who face the various dangers by land and sea, with the pious
and devout wish to visit the Sacred City and our Lord’s sepulchre,
as is well known to the whole universe! There, indeed, are the
indigent assisted, and every sort of humane attention is shown to the
weak fatigued by their numerous labours and dangers. There they are
refreshed and recover their strength, so that they are enabled to
visit the sacred places which have been sanctified by our Saviour’s
corporeal presence. Nor do the brethren of that house hesitate to
expose their lives for their brothers in Jesus Christ; but with
infantry and cavalry, kept for that special purpose, and supported
by their own money, they defend the faithful fearlessly from the
Paynims, both in going and returning. It is these Hospitallers who
are the instruments by which the Omnipotent preserves His Church in
the East from the defilements of the infidels.” This was written in
1130: the following year witnessed the death of Baldwin II., and was
succeeded by sorrowful times for Palestine. Those who came after
him, and bore in turn the title of kings of Jerusalem, were but
little fitted for the kingdom whose sceptre was a sword. Under Guy
of Lusignan the cause of the Crusaders became well-nigh desperate;
and on the fatal field of Tiberias, after a combat which lasted three
days, the flower of the Christian army was cut to pieces, and the
king himself was taken prisoner. When he recovered his freedom, it
was to mourn over a yet greater disaster; for Jerusalem itself had
fallen (A.D. 1187), and, eighty-eight years after the triumphant
entry of Godfrey de Bouillon, was once more in the hands of the
Moslems. The news of that event, which is said to have caused the
death of the reigning Pope, immediately roused the sovereigns of
Europe to prepare for a fresh crusade. Nevertheless it was marked by
one circumstance equally honourable to the Christians and to their
enemies. Saladin, we are told, was so touched by the reports brought
him of the charity exercised at the hospital of St. John, that he
gave permission for the Hospitallers to remain in the city one year
undisturbed, that the sick and wounded under their charge might be
perfectly restored before removal. In 1191 the forces of France and
England were united before the walls of Acre; and the third crusade
may be said to have opened by the capitulation of that city, when it
fell into the hands of Richard Cœur de Lion. The Hospitallers were
foremost in the glorious campaign that followed. It lasted little
more than a year; but when the English monarch again embarked for
Europe he showed his gratitude and esteem for the Order of St. John
by bestowing on them the city of Acre as a free donation; and thus
the knights came for the first time to have a fixed residence and
sovereignty, and gave their name to the city, which has ever since
been known as St. Jean d’Acre. It is here, then, that our narrative
finds them, the sovereigns of a city which in all ages seems destined
to be the battle-field for East and West, and which in its very
aspect appears to claim for itself the right never to sink into
insignificance.

Beautiful as it is, even in our own day, it was yet more beautiful
when, seven centuries ago, it was the Christian capital of the East.
Its snow-white palaces sparkled like jewels against the dark woods
of Carmel which rose towards the south. To the east there stretched
away the glorious plain, over which the eye might wander till it lost
itself in the blue outlines of hills on which no Christian eye could
gaze unmoved; for they hid in their bosom the village of Nazareth and
the waters of Tiberias, and had been trodden all about by the feet
of One whose touch had made them holy ground. That rich and fertile
plain, now marshy and deserted, but then a very labyrinth of fields
and vineyards, circled Acre also to the north; but there the eye was
met by a new boundary,—the snowy summits of a lofty mountain range
whose bases were clothed with cedar; while all along the lovely
coast broke the blue waves of that mighty sea whose shores are the
empires of the world. And there lay Acre among her gardens; the long
rows of her marble houses, with their flat roofs, forming terraces
odorous with orange-trees, and rich with flowers of a thousand hues,
which silken awnings shaded from the sun. You might walk from one
end of the city to the other on these terraced roofs, and never once
descend into the streets; and the streets themselves were Wide and
airy, their shops brilliant with the choicest merchandise of the
East, and thronged with the noblest chivalry of Europe. It was the
gayest, gallantest city in existence; its gilded steeples stood out
against the mountains, or above the horizon of those bright waters
that tossed and sparkled in the flood of southern sunshine, and in
the fresh breeze that kissed them from the west; every house was rich
with painted glass,—for this art, as yet rare in Europe, is spoken of
by all writers as lavishly employed in Acre, and was perhaps first
brought from thence by the Crusaders; every nation had its street,
inhabited by its own merchants and nobles, and no less than twenty
crowned heads kept up within the city-walls their palaces and courts.
The emperor of Germany, and the kings of England, France, Sicily,
Spain, Portugal, Denmark, and Jerusalem, had each their residence
there; while the Templars and the Teutonic order had establishments
as well as the Hospitallers, and on a scarcely less sumptuous scale.

But it was the great Xenodochia of the latter which was the glory
of the place; it rivalled in size, and in the magnificence of its
arrangements, the first hospital of Jerusalem; and with a grand and
noble magnanimity, not only Christians, but Moslems and Saracens were
received within its walls. Its fame became poetical, and it had its
legends. Saladin, it is said, hearing of the surprising things done
in the hospital of Acre, came in the disguise of a poor man, and
feigning sickness, was entertained with a marvellous hospitality:
“For,” says the French chronicler, “the infirmarian came to him, and
asked him what he would eat; but he answered, ‘The only thing I can
eat, and do intensely desire, it were madness even to name.’ ‘Do
not hesitate in the least, dear brother,’ replied the infirmarian;
‘for a sick man here is given whatsoever he fancies, if gold can
buy it; ask, therefore, for what you will, and you shall have it.’
‘It is the foot of Moriel, the grand master’s horse,’ answered the
pretended invalid; ‘they say he will not take a thousand bezants
for him; nevertheless, if that be not cut off in my presence, I can
never eat a morsel more.’ So the infirmarian went and told all to
the master, and he marvelled greatly. ‘Well, since it be so, take
my horse,’ he said; ‘better that all my horses were dead than a
man.’ So the horse was led to the side of the sick man’s bed, and
the groom armed himself with a hatchet, and prepared to strike off
the fore-foot of the beautiful and noble steed. ‘Hold now,’ cried
Saladin, ‘for I am satisfied, and will be content with mutton.’ Then
Moriel was loosed again, and led back to his stable, and the grand
master and his brethren were right glad thereof. So, when the soldan
had eaten and drunk, he arose and returned to his country, and sent
thence a charter sealed with his own seal, which ran as follows: ‘Let
all men know that I, Saladin, soldan of Babylon, give and bequeath
to the hospital of Acre a thousand bezants of gold, to be paid every
year, in peace or war, unto the grand master, be he who he may, in
gratitude for the wonderful charity of himself and of his order.’”

We have called this a legendary tale; but though, indeed, it reads
more like fable than reality, it would not be out of harmony with the
romantic and adventurous spirit of its hero, and might be truth, but
that the death of the great soldan occurred in the very year when the
Christians took possession of Acre. Nevertheless it may instance the
kind of reputation enjoyed at that time by the Hospitallers of St.
John.

The term of their residence in Acre was scarce a hundred years;—a
period marked by the Latin conquest of Constantinople, and several
fresh crusades, one of which brought St. Louis to the port of Acre
after his gallant army had been destroyed in Egypt. This was in
1254. A few years later, and the last crusading prince who ever
left the shores of Europe came thither in the person of Edward I.
of England; and there, in 1271, befell the romantic incident of
his attempted assassination, and the heroic devotion of his wife
Eleanor. Meanwhile, in spite of every effort, Palestine was being
lost to the Christian arms; one by one, every town and castle fell
into the hands of the infidels, and the Christians of Syria were
driven to take refuge behind the forts of Acre, almost the last
citadel whereon the banner of the Cross still waved untouched. Its
day, however, was coming, and each new conquest of Kelaoun, the new
sultan of the Saracens, drew the circle of its enemies closer and
closer round its walls. Marcab fell, then Tripoli, which had been
Christian near two hundred years; and the advancing steps of the
victors were marked at each successive triumph by enormities and
crimes, the recital of which could create only horror and disgust.
Acre knew herself doomed; but in vain did she look to Europe for help
in her extremity; the crusading spirit was extinct; and De Lorgue,
the grand master of the Hospitallers, after a fruitless journey to
the courts of Europe, returned to die of a broken heart in his own
city, whose catastrophe he saw was not far distant. It was hastened
by a breach of truce committed by some of the garrison; but ere
it came, Sir John de Villiers, the new grand master, addressed a
circular to all the knights of the order, summoning them to Acre to
join him in its defence; and he himself set out on a fresh embassy,
which proved as useless as his predecessor’s. He, too, returned
disconsolate and alone; and before those whom he had addressed could
come to his assistance, Melec Seraf, the son of Kelaoun, was encamped
beneath the walls of the devoted city (A.D. 1291). The resources of
the Christians were very small: not much above two hundred of the
knights of St. John, and about as many of the Templars, were to be
found in the garrison; for most of the members of both orders had
fallen at Tripoli, and the reinforcements from Europe had not yet
arrived. There were mercenary troops of all nations, but the entire
force under arms amounted to no more than 12,000 men; for, large as
was the population of Acre, it was mostly of the mercantile class.
Of the troops, 500 were from Cyprus, brought thence by Henry, who
bore the empty title of king of Jerusalem; but the succour was small
in point of numbers, and for fidelity scarcely to be depended upon,
and the king’s reputation for courage was none of the highest. The
port of Acre, it must be remembered, was still open, which enabled
the greater part of the inhabitants to embark with their families
and effects, and take flight before the siege began: of those
that remained, many were engaged in the defence; but faction and
disunion sadly weakened their ranks, and the Hospitallers, though
nominally masters of the city, had little power to maintain order
and discipline among the various nations and parties that made up
its population. By common consent, Peter de Beaujeu, grand master of
the Templars, was elected governor of the city; and whatever may be
said of the jealousies of the two orders, it is certain that the most
perfect union existed between them during the whole of this memorable
siege.

The sultan Kelaoun had expired at Cairo whilst actively preparing to
set out for Acre. Before his death he exacted a solemn promise from
his son never to celebrate his funeral until he should have taken
the Christian city, and put all its inhabitants to the sword. Melec
Seraf took the oath with right good will, and sent a host of sappers
and miners before him to prepare the ground; and every day during the
long month of March the Christians had watched the ground from Carmel
to the sea-shore broken up by new intrenchments, and the camp filling
with the reinforcements that were constantly coming in, not from
Egypt alone, but from Arabia and the provinces of the Euphrates, till
the vast plain glittered with the multitudes that covered it; their
golden targets and polished lance-points resembling (says Michaud)
“the shining stars on a serene night; and on the hosts’ advancing, it
was like a forest for the multitude of the lances held aloft:” and
well it might be, for they were more than 400,000 fighting men, and
they covered the entire plain. A little before sunset, the sultan
rode out, surrounded by his officers, to survey his thirty miles of
intrenchments filled with troops whose arms had as yet been found
irresistible; and when he compared his host of combatants with the
contemptible size of the city, the weakness of whose defenders was
well known to him, it seemed to him that the very idea of resistance
was somewhat laughable, and he gave orders for a peremptory summons
to surrender; but there was neither answer nor movement on the part
of the Christians, and the night passed in silence on both sides. The
rosy dawn was streaking the sky just above those low hills that rose
dark against the eastern horizon, when the silence was broken by a
hideous crash. The smoke and dust cleared away, and you might see a
mass of crumbling ruins where but a moment before rose the stately
ramparts of the city. Then a loud cry from the ranks of the Saracens,
a pell-mell charge towards the spot, and a pause as they reached the
verge of a wide, deep ditch which a curve in the ground till then had
concealed from view. There was a bloody struggle on its edge; and
the infidels were forced to retire, leaving five thousand corpses on
the ruined breach. But what were five thousand men to such a host
as theirs? Such a repulse hardly seemed a check; and the word sped
rapidly through the ranks of the cavalry to charge and force their
way to the foot of the breach, which was manned by the Christians,
and defended by several large instruments of war. So the horsemen
came on at a gallop; and even the besieged gazed on the gallant
sight with admiration as they beheld that line of warriors sweeping
forwards on their Arab chargers, their arms and cuirasses, and even
the harness of their horses, glittering in gold; for they were the
flower of the sultan’s troops. But their gallantry was powerless to
carry them over that yawning terrible abyss—not a blow could they
level at their adversaries; whilst a shower of stones and arrows from
the engines on the walls rolled horses and riders in the dust by
scores. For five days were these scenes renewed, and always with the
same result; cavalry and infantry never flinching from the orders of
the sultan, which sent them to certain destruction, but continuing to
rush on with a desperate courage, only to be driven back upon their
ranks, leaving half their numbers dead upon the field.

The sultan was greatly enraged at his repeated failures; but
satisfied at length that the city was not yet to be carried by
assault, he yielded to the persuasions of his emirs, and commanded
the ditch to be filled up. This was a work of time; for, first it
had to be drained of the water, and then huge camel-loads of earth
and stone were thrown into it by thousands; and still, as day after
day went on, it scarcely seemed to fill, and the month of April
passed without his finding himself a step nearer to the end of his
toil. He became impatient, and without waiting for the work to be
finished, gave fresh orders for the assault. The ditch was but half
filled; and when the first line of the Saracens rushed to the edge,
they were once more obliged to fall back in confusion, baffled
and unable to cross, for it was still a full yard deep, and the
horses refused to enter. Then followed a scene, which perhaps has
never had its equal in the chronicles of war or of fanaticism; yet,
strange and incredible as the facts may seem, they are related by
all historians—some being the eye-witnesses of what they describe.
There was among the sultan’s troops a body of men known by the name
of Chages, a kind of new sect among the Moslems, who surpassed all
their comrades in their terrible and bloody devotion to the cause of
Islam. To them Melec Seraf now turned: “You who call yourselves the
chosen of the Prophet,” he cried, “show now your faith by deeds, and
throw yourselves into yonder ditch as a bridge for the mamelukes.”
Without a moment’s hesitation the Chages obeyed the call, and with a
mad enthusiasm flung themselves into the chasm by hundreds, while the
others urged their horses over the quivering bridge of human bodies.
To us it seems a strange idea to storm a breach with cavalry; but
the Saracen and his horse were rarely parted, and many succeeded in
clambering with their chargers up the ruined wall only to find their
labour useless, for a new one had risen behind the old, strongly and
skilfully erected, and defended by the Hospitallers themselves, with
their marshal, Claremont, at their head. But though the horsemen were
easily driven back, the miners of the sultan soon found their way to
the foundation of the new defence: down it came, and with it many a
tower and battlement beside; among them was the principal fortress of
the city, which the infidels were wont to call “the Cursed Tower,”
from the mischief their men received beneath its walls. One assault
now followed close upon another, and just when pressed the hardest,
the Christians were deserted by their Cypriot allies. King Henry had
had to sustain the shock of one day’s assault, and that was enough
for him; under pretext that his men required repose, he got the
Teutonic knights to take his post during the night, promising again
to relieve them when morning dawned. But that dawn only showed the
sails of his vessels sinking in the horizon; he had taken advantage
of the night to embark unperceived, and was far on his way to Cyprus
when the battle recommenced. That day the Saracens were well-nigh
in possession of the town; for in one of their furious charges at
the breach, they not only carried it with the slaughter of all its
defenders, but penetrated to the very heart of the town. There was
hard fighting hand to hand in the crowded streets, and the combat
lasted two entire days, until at length Claremont, at the head of a
handful of knights, drove the intruders back again to their trenches;
whilst some of them were seen to seize their antagonists in their
brawny arms and hurl them headlong over the battlements. One of these
men, a Norman of prodigious size, leapt from his horse and threw
three of the Saracens over one after another, like so many dogs; but
as he was struggling with a fourth, a stone from a war-engine struck
him to the ground.

Another attack;—this time, however, in a different direction:
the great gate of St. Anthony was assaulted by a picked corps of
mamelukes; but there, too, they were met by the Hospitallers and the
Templars, with the two grand masters at their head. These brave
men seemed to be in all parts of the town at one and the same time,
and their presence animated their followers to prodigies of valour.
Alas! their valour availed but little, and at most could but gain a
brief delay; fresh enemies swarmed in the place of those who fell,
while every loss on the part of the Christians was irreparable, and
their numbers were reduced to a scanty handful. Sir John de Villiers
was already badly wounded, when the master of the Templars thus
addressed him: “The town is lost, as things now stand,” he said;
“you must try a sortie that will draw them off awhile, and give us
time to complete some fresh defences.” Villiers, wounded as he was,
did his best to carry out this order, and gathering together all his
men who were yet able to mount, he rode out to the enemy’s camp, his
whole body not consisting of above 500 in number. Bravely did the
little company fall on the Saracen host, which they thought to take
by surprise; but they were met by all the cavalry of the sultan,
and after a desperate struggle, re-entered the town with half their
number missing. Bad news, too, met them on their return; Beaujeu had
been struck, as it was feared, by a poisoned arrow, and half the town
was already in possession of the enemy; with daylight they could look
for nothing but one last death-struggle, and the loss of all; and
a council of the surviving knights of the three orders was hastily
summoned, together with certain of the citizens and the gallant old
patriarch of Jerusalem, who, though he might long since have secured
his safety by flight, had chosen to remain to encourage his children
by his presence. There was indeed little to debate, for all were of
one mind; they knew well enough that they had only to choose between
death and flight,—but of the last they never thought; the port was
indeed open, and there was yet time; but Acre was all Palestine to
its defenders, and each one felt that to die on its battlements
was to die in the cause of Christ. For such a death they therefore
prepared as became the cross they wore; the holy sacrifice was
offered, and each one received what to far the greater number was the
last viaticum; they gave the kiss of peace each one to his neighbour,
old grudges were made up where any existed, and those who had lived
in jealousy or enmity shook one another by the hand, and swore to
stand together and die as friends.

It is said that Beaujeu, before the last combat began, forced his
way to the sultan’s tent to propose conditions of truce; which might
have been accepted but for the unwillingness shown by the renegades
in the Saracen army to listen to terms of peace. Whether or no this
be true, the attempt was certainly of no avail; for it was still
night when the Moslems broke into the city by the great gate of St.
Anthony, their way lighted up by the terrible gleam of the Greek
fire, and a frightful carnage followed in the streets. Beaujeu fell
in the front of the defenders, and Claremont too, the gallant marshal
of the Hospitallers, was cut to pieces by a thousand blows. The day
broke cold and gloomy over the city, which was the scene, not of one,
but of innumerable combats. Every house was defended and stormed;
every square was a rallying post and a battle-ground; the streets
were piled high with dead and dying, and were slippery with blood.
At length it was all over: a rush towards the port carried soldiers
and populace together in one dense and crowded mass, pursued and
massacred by the mamelukes, as they swept along treading one another
under in the crush. Of all that multitude, not half ever reached
the vessels; for the Saracens were amongst them, slaughtering them
as they stood, the Greek fire fell thick over the shipping, and
the crowded boats that left the shore were burnt or sunk before
they reached the vessels’ sides. Sixty thousand Christians fell, it
is said, in that short but horrible massacre. A whole convent of
nuns of the order of St. Clare, to save themselves from the brutal
violence of the conquerors, following the example of their courageous
superior, mutilated their features in the most frightful manner;
so that the Pagan soldiery no sooner beheld these spouses of Christ
all bleeding and ghastly, than, seized with disgust and fury, they
fell upon them and slaughtered them without mercy.[3] As to the
Hospitallers, there were but six left alive, and these made a gallant
retreat under cover of a shower of arrows, and gained the karrack, or
galley of the order, in which they made their way towards Cyprus. The
Templars finding it impossible to cut their way through the masses
of their enemies, threw themselves into a tower, and held it for
some days against all assaults. It was the last struggle of despair:
the tower was soon mined, and scaled by thousands of the Saracens;
but as they crowded to the ladders, the walls gave way, and falling
with a hideous crash, buried Christians and Moslems in their ruins.
It is said that ten Templars escaped previous to the catastrophe,
and found their way to Cyprus; but all that remained in the city,
whether soldiers or citizens, were put to the sword; and for days the
slaughter lasted, till there were none left to be slain.

The fall of Acre was quickly followed by that of Tyre, and all the
smaller towns along the Syrian coast. Nicopolis held out for two
years longer, thanks to a little garrison of Hospitallers; but at
length an earthquake accomplished what the Saracen arms could not
effect, and city and garrison were buried under one heap of ruins.
Thus the Cross was overthrown for ever in Syria; and the order that
was created for its defence was compelled to seek another home.




CHAPTER II.

  The Knights at Limisso—Commencement of their naval
  power—Suppression of the Templars—Enterprise of the
  Hospitallers against Rhodes—Its final success—The island and
  its dependencies—First hostilities with the Turks—Deposition of
  Villaret—Complaints against the Order—Division into languages—The
  Pope charges the Knights with the defence of Smyrna.


The little handful of knights whom we left covered with wounds in
their single galley, directed their course towards Cyprus, which was
looked on in those days as a resting-place on the road between Europe
and Syria, and had been conquered years before, and granted to Guy
de Lusignan by Richard Cœur de Lion in the beginning of his short
crusade. The island was still held, together with the title of king
of Jerusalem, by one of the descendants of De Lusignan, and seemed a
fitting place of refuge for the soldiers of the Cross. We have said
that there were but six who found their way alive out of Acre, of
whom the grand master was one; but their numbers were soon increased,
for knights flocked in from every country in answer to the circular
which had been sent before the siege began; and Villiers soon found
himself surrounded by a numerous and well-appointed body of his
order. King Henry had granted the town of Limisso to him and the
Templars as their temporary place of residence; and here a chapter of
the Hospitallers was held to consider what best was to be done in the
emergency. Never since the first day of their foundation had such an
assembly been seen; for scarcely a man had remained in Europe, but
all had hastened when the summons reached them, and had met in Cyprus
on their road to Acre, though too late to proceed further on their
way. The first act of Villiers was to submit himself to the judgment
of the chapter, for the fact of his leaving Acre alive; and then
a resolute vote was passed, in spite of all their losses, never to
abandon the cause for which their order had been first created, just
two centuries before; but to sacrifice their lives for the Holy Land
whenever and however they might be called; and for this purpose, to
fortify Limisso as they should best be able, as being nearer to the
shores of Syria than any other residence which it was then in their
power to choose.

The spirit of the order must still have been very fresh and
vigorous; for though Limisso was old and half in ruins from the
continual attacks of the Saracen pirates, and there were neither
fortifications, nor even accommodation sufficient for the knights,
yet their first care was directed to preparing some establishment
for the reception of the poor and of the pilgrims. The Xenodochia of
Jerusalem and of Acre could not indeed be thought of; but still the
order might not exist without its hospital. The next step was one
whose future results they themselves perhaps scarcely contemplated:
it was the refitting of the galley which had brought them from Acre,
and which they determined to keep in repair to assist them against
the pirates; at the same time they also resolved by degrees to build
other vessels, that the pilgrims who still found their way to the
holy places, in spite of the presence of the infidels, might be
protected on their journey by sea, since they could have their escort
on land no longer.

This was the origin of their celebrated navy, which afterwards
contributed more than any other single power to defend the coasts of
Europe, and restrain the Moslems within their own shores. It was from
the corsairs of Barbary and Egypt that the Christians suffered so
much during the three centuries that followed; for not only was every
vessel that plied on the Mediterranean subject to their attacks,
but the towns and villages on the coasts of France and Italy were
constantly ravaged, and their inhabitants carried into captivity;
nor as yet had there arisen any maritime power bold and warlike
enough to protect the highway of the sea. Very soon there appeared
in all the chief ports of Europe little vessels of various sizes
and construction, armed and manned by the soldiers of the Cross,
collecting pilgrims and escorting them on their way to the Syrian
shores, and guarding them, a few months later, on their return. The
corsairs, accustomed to make an easy prey of the pilgrims, were not
long in attacking these new galleys; but they found a different
resistance from what they had expected; and few years passed
without the Hospitallers bringing some of the captured vessels of
the Saracens into the ports of Cyprus; so that their little fleet
gradually grew considerable, and the flag of St. John soon came
to be feared and respected in every sea. And here we can scarcely
avoid observing, on the one hand, an example of that wonderful
spirit of adaptation to be found in all the elder religious orders
of the Church, which enabled them to take new shapes and assume new
duties, according as the purposes for which they were originally
instituted changed and shifted with the age; and, on the other hand,
the wonders of God’s providence, which is ever bringing good out of
evil, and turning what men call the disasters and failures of the
Church to her greater glory. The Hospitallers, whilst fixed within
the boundaries of Palestine, were able, indeed, to discharge a great
work of charity, but one whose limits were necessarily prescribed;
the very defeat, however, which drove them out of Syria, and seemed
even to threaten their extinction, became the means of opening to
them a new sphere of action, in which they may be said to have become
the protectors of all Christendom. The numbers they rescued from
captivity, or saved from falling into a bondage often worse than
death, are beyond calculation; and if the crusades, though failing
in their primary object, yet kept the Moslems at bay during two
centuries, and thus saved Europe from that inundation of infidelity
which overwhelmed the eastern nations, the maritime power of the
Knights of St. John contributed in no small degree to the same end,
when the old crusading enthusiasm had faded and died away.

As may be imagined, it was not with indifference that Melec Seraf,
the conqueror of Acre, watched the resurrection to new life of an
order he had thought to destroy. Its new enterprises and repeated
successes against the commanders of his galleys stung him most
sensibly; and he prepared a powerful flotilla to be despatched
against Limisso, for the purpose of exterminating the insolent
Hospitallers and razing their citadel to the ground. God, however,
watched over His own cause. A civil war broke out in the sultan’s own
dominions; he himself fell in the first engagement; and his successor
had too much on his hands to be in a condition to pursue a distant
expedition: thus the knights were saved from an attack against which
they possessed scarcely any defences, and their naval power, instead
of being crushed in its infancy, had time to strengthen and increase.

The residence of the order at Limisso lasted for about eighteen
years; during which period the temporary success of the Tartars,
under their great khan, Gazan, seemed at one time to give hopes of a
re-establishment of the Christian power in Palestine. Gazan, though
not a Christian himself, was always solicitous for the alliance
of the Christian sovereigns. He had Christians from the Asiatic
provinces among his troops, and to please them is said to have
even placed the cross upon his banners. The better to pursue his
hostilities against the Saracens, he entered into a league with the
kings of Armenia and Cyprus, and the orders of the Hospitallers and
Templars; and at the head of their united forces made himself master
of Syria. Once more did the Christian knights find themselves within
the walls of the Holy City; and whilst gazing on the ruins of their
old home, or on the grassy mounds which were all that remained to
show the fate of their brethren of Nicopolis, they doubtless thought
the day was come for the Cross once more to triumph, and that they
should behold the hospital of Jerusalem rise from its ashes in all
its ancient splendour. But Gazan was recalled to his own dominions;
and the forces of the Christians were too weak to hold the country
they had conquered. The ambassadors of the khan were seen indeed at
the court of Rome; and had Bonifice VIII., who then filled the papal
see, been able to unite the European powers in a fresh crusade, it is
probable that a greater advantage might have been obtained than had
ever yet attended their arms,—for the Saracens had lost the prestige
of success; but the pontiff was engaged in a quarrel with the most
powerful of those princes who would naturally have lent their aid
to such an enterprise, and whilst France was governed by Philip
le Bel no undertaking preached by Boniface could look for support
from that nation. The whole plan, therefore, fell to the ground;
and the Hospitallers, whose continuance in Cyprus gave rise to many
jealousies on the part of the sovereigns of the island, began to see
the necessity of abandoning their hopes of returning to Palestine,
and of looking out for some other settlement in the neighbourhood of
its shores, where their independence might be undisputed.

There were many plans afloat at this time for the union of the two
great military orders under one head; plans which, originating
with Clement V., the successor of Boniface, may perhaps have been
intended as a means of avoiding the more violent measures for the
suppression of the Templars forced on him later by the French king.
Molay was then grand master of the Templars, and William de Villaret
of the Hospitallers: both were summoned to France, where the pontiff
then resided, under pretext of conferring on the practicability of
a new crusade; but Molay alone obeyed; Villaret excused his delay
by alleging the urgent necessity which lay on him to provide for
the settlement of his order. He had already fixed on the island
of Rhodes as the place most adapted for his purpose: it was but a
short distance from Palestine, provided with an excellent port, and
capable of being strongly fortified; whilst the circumstances of its
existing government seemed to justify the attempt at conquest. It was
nominally subject to the Greeks; but in the decay of their empire
the lords of Gualla had assumed the real sovereignty of the island;
and, the better to protect their independence against the court of
Constantinople, had introduced a population of Turks and Saracens,
whose lawless piracies they connived at and encouraged. The ports of
Rhodes offered a sure refuge for the vessels of the corsairs when
pursued by the galleys of the Hospitallers, or of other Christian
powers; and the island had come to have a bad reputation, as little
else than a nest of robbers. Villaret, therefore, felt little doubt
that his plan for erecting Rhodes into a sovereignty for his order
would meet with no opposition from the European princes on the ground
of justice: so, after reconnoitering the island, and coming to the
conclusion that the enterprise was beyond his strength without the
assistance of a larger force than he then possessed, he prepared to
set out for Europe, both in obedience to the pontifical summons, and
also for the purpose of collecting the requisite reinforcements. But
he died before putting his proposed voyage into execution; and the
Knights immediately elected in his room his brother Fulk de Villaret,
as being fully possessed of his most secret designs, and the best
capable of bringing them to a successful termination.

Fulk therefore hastened to France early in the spring of 1307, to
lay the plan before the Pope and the French king; Molay had already
preceded him, and was at Poitiers (then the residence of the papal
court) at the very time of his visit. The storm had not yet broken
over the head of the Templars, and the designs against them were
kept a close secret; yet it is probable that there were even then
sufficient tokens of ill-will and approaching disgrace to impress the
grand master of the Hospitallers with the belief, that France was
just then no safe quarters for the representative of either of the
military orders. Nevertheless, it would seem that Clement at least
entered favourably into his views; and though the real object of the
enterprise was kept a secret, yet the proposal for a fresh expedition
against the infidels, when publicly proclaimed, was received with
such enthusiasm, that Villaret soon found himself furnished with
men and money sufficient for his purpose. The money was principally
contributed by the women of Genoa, who sold their jewels to supply
the means of this new crusade, as it was termed; the troops were
chiefly from Germany; and thus provided, he hastened to return to
Cyprus, where he arrived in the August of the same year. Two months
later Molay was arrested, and that terrible tragedy was enacted which
ranks the suppression of the Templars among the great crimes of
history. Its relation forms no part of our subject; for whilst every
fresh investigation serves only to add new evidence of the innocence
of the accused, and to increase the infamy of their enemies, there
has never been an attempt to involve the Hospitallers in the charges
brought against them. Yet it can scarcely be doubted that they too
were included in the original design of the French king; and that,
had Villaret withdrawn his knights to Europe, and, like Molay, put
himself within the power of his enemies, the fate of both orders
would have been alike. But Providence ordered it otherwise; and at
the very time when the Templars were being tortured and massacred in
France, the brilliant fame acquired by the Hospitallers in Rhodes
placed them in a position of safety beyond the grasp of Philip.

Villaret’s movements were conducted with the greatest secrecy; he
remained at Cyprus only long enough to take on board his vessels
those of the knights who still remained in the island, and then
directed his course towards the coast of Asia Minor. Even they, as
well as the rest of the troops, were persuaded that the expedition
was about to be directed against Syria, and the real object was
suspected by none. Anchoring in the port of Myra, the grand
master despatched a secret embassy to the Greek emperor Andronicus
to solicit the formal investiture of Rhodes, under condition of
rendering him military service against the infidels. A compliance
with this request would have been every way advantageous to the
emperor’s interest; but the old jealousy of the Latins was too
strong, and he rejected the proposal with disdain. His reply,
however, made little difference in the course of events; without
waiting for the return of his ambassador, Villaret publicly announced
his real design; and taking the Rhodians by surprise, he disembarked
his troops and military stores with scarcely a show of resistance. In
spite of this first success, however, he found himself encompassed
by many difficulties: the corsairs assembled in great numbers from
the neighbouring islands at the first intelligence of the Christians
landing; and a desultory war began, which lasted for four years
with various success. The inhabitants, assisted by a body of troops
despatched by the Greek emperor, threw themselves into the city
of Rhodes, whose strength of position enabled them to hold out
against repeated assaults. On the other hand, the German and French
volunteers gradually dropped away, and left the knights unsupported;
so that their numbers were considerably reduced, and they, in their
turn, were obliged to stand on the defensive. But for the capacity
and unwearied exertions of their grand master, they might have found
themselves in a critical position; but whilst he succeeded in raising
fresh levies in Europe, he found means also to inspire his followers
with an enthusiasm which never failed them, in spite of every reverse.

No details have been left by contemporary historians of the final
struggle; we know only that it was most bloody; and that before the
banner of the order was planted on the walls of Rhodes, many of the
bravest among the knights were cut to pieces. Villaret, however,
found himself in the end master of the city and of the whole island;
and such of the Saracens as escaped alive, took to their vessels,
and were the first to spread the news of their defeat along the
coasts and among the islands of the Archipelago. The universal
joy and admiration excited throughout Europe by the intelligence
of the event, was a testimony of the benefit which all felt would
accrue to the Christian cause by the establishment of an independent
sovereignty in those seas, which had hitherto been entirely at the
command of the infidels; and the title of “Knights of Rhodes” was not
so much assumed by the order as accorded to them by the unanimous
voice of all nations.

The first act of the grand master, after the surrender of the
capital, and the submission of the Christian inhabitants to their new
sovereigns, was to order the restoration of the city fortifications,
that they might be put in a thorough state of defence; after which
he proceeded to visit the surrounding group of islets, which readily
acknowledged his authority. The territories now subject to the
order included, besides the larger island of Rhodes, nine others,
some scarcely more than fortified rocks, yet serving as outposts of
defence, and all of them inhabited. Others were richly wooded and
productive, and were granted on a kind of feudal tenure to certain of
the knights who had most distinguished themselves in the late war;
of these the most considerable was Cos, or Lango, which afterwards,
under the rule of its new masters, rose to an important position
among the islands of the Archipelago.

In the midst of these surrounding islets, not twenty miles distant
from the Asiatic coast, lay Rhodes—a fairy island on a fairy ocean;
and the soft southern breeze, as it swept over her fields, carried
far over the waters the scent of those roses which bloomed through
all the year, and from which she derived her name. The very rocks
were garlanded with them; beds of flowering myrrh perfumed the air;
and tufts of laurel-roses adorned the margins of the rivulets with
their gaudy blossoms. It is scarcely strange that Rhodes should
in old times have been the school of art; for men caught, as it
were naturally, the painter’s inspiration amidst scenes of such
enchanting loveliness. She was made, indeed, to be a home of peace;
her skies were ever cloudless and untroubled; her woods stood thick
with fruit-trees, and the velvet of her sloping lawns sparkled with
a thousand flowers. Her beauty was neither stern nor grand,—it was
entirely pastoral; and if you wandered inland round her entire
circuit, which was scarcely thirty miles, one verdant landscape every
where met your eye, woods and gardens breaking the sameness of those
lovely pastures; while all round, between the hills and through the
foliage of the trees, you caught the blue line of the sea, whose
music, as it murmured on the shore, was never absent from your ears.
In old times, as we have said, Rhodes had had her celebrity; she had
taught eloquence to Rome, and had claimed the empire of the seas; but
all her greatness had vanished under Greek misrule and the barbarism
of her Saracen masters; and when the knights took possession of their
new territory, they found nothing left of ancient Rhodes but her
beauty and her name. There were, however, great resources, and these,
under their hands, were not long in developing. The forests furnished
wood, and the island of Syma skilful carpenters for ship-building;
and these latter had the art of constructing galleys so light and
swift that no vessel on the eastern seas could match them with
either sail or oar. So on the summit of a high mountain in Syma a
watch-tower was built, and the inhabitants bound themselves to keep a
look-out over the ocean, and send the first news to Rhodes by their
swiftest galley of the approach of hostile fleets; and by their skill
the navy of the order rapidly increased in magnitude and excellence.
Then there was Lero, with her quarries of rich marble, which supplied
a commerce of herself; and Nisara, whose ships were known in every
city on the southern coasts, and whose inhabitants had retained
something of their old fame as artists, and encouraged by a free
and generous government, soon filled their towns with palaces that
vied with those of Genoa;—with rich columns, and statues, and marble
fountains, all brought together in a lavish profusion, and bespeaking
the noble tastes of her merchant lords. There were plenty of ports
and harbours on these island coasts, and a population of maritime
habits, accustomed to live on the sea, or well-nigh in it; in short,
every thing contributed to point out naval and commercial enterprise
as the road to the future greatness of Rhodes.

The first enemy who threatened the safety of the knights in their
new home was one of whom they were hereafter to hear more. The
Tartar Othman was beginning to lay the foundation of the Turkish
empire, and had established himself in Bithynia and other Asiatic
provinces, which he had conquered from the Greeks. It was to him that
the Saracens of Rhodes fled for refuge after being finally driven
out of the island; and he very willingly undertook their cause,
and despatched a considerable force, which besieged the knights in
their city before they had time to restore the walls or raise fresh
fortifications in place of those they had destroyed. Nevertheless,
in spite of their defenceless position, Othman received his first
defeat; and, obliged to retire with considerable loss, he contented
himself with plundering the neighbouring islands, from whence he
kept up a desultory warfare which lasted for some time longer. In
1315, however, the knights were enabled, with the assistance, as it
is said, of Amadeus of Savoy, to expel their Turkish neighbours,
and commence the work of rebuilding and fortifying. So soon as this
was completed, Villaret bent all his endeavours to the restoration
of commerce: the port of Rhodes was thrown open to all nations,
and many of the Latin Christians who had been driven from the Holy
Land, and were scattered about in various parts of Greece, hastened
to enrol themselves under the banner of St. John, which protected
all alike—Greek and Latin, mercantile or military; and out of these
various elements the new state rapidly rose to opulence and renown.

Its opulence was perhaps a doubtful good, to some at least among the
knights, who after their long hardships and sufferings were tempted
to make their restoration to better fortunes the excuse for a life
of ease and indulgence. The relaxation was far from universal; and
from the description left us of the general state of their dominions,
it is evident that a wise and enlightened policy directed their
government, and that the abuses, such as they were, were confined
to a minority. But unhappily the grand master himself was of the
number; hero and man of genius as he had proved himself to be, after
winning the applause of all Europe and a name among the great men
of the time, he was not strong enough to withstand his own success,
and his luxury and neglect of duty soon raised the voice of the
order against him. His irregularities must have been great, for
rarely is a successful chief unpopular among his followers; yet the
discontent even spread into revolt, and the majority of the knights,
after solemnly deposing Villaret from his authority, chose Maurice
de Pagnac in his room,—a man of stern and austere character, and a
zealous advocate of discipline. The matter ended in the interference
of the Pope, John XXII., who summoned the rival grand masters to
Avignon, where Villaret was obliged to retire on a rich commandery
of the order; and Pagnac soon after dying, Helion de Villeneuve was
elected on the recommendation, or nomination, of the Pontiff. On his
return to Rhodes from Montpellier, where he had convened a general
chapter for the reform of abuses, matters began to mend; laws were
passed obliging the residence of all the principal officers of the
order at the seat of government; all the islands were strongly
fortified, and such a spirit infused into the little commonwealth,
that many built and maintained war-galleys for defence against the
infidels at their own expense, in addition to those kept up by the
government; and, in spite of the vast expenses rendered necessary
by the circumstances of the time, the chief glory of Rhodes and her
knightly sovereigns lay in the happiness of those who lived beneath
their rule. They were still worthy of their ancient title, “Servants
of the poor of Christ;” “for,” says Vertot, “there was not a poor
man in all the territories of the order:” there were employment and
support for all; and for the sick there was the large and magnificent
hospital, where soul as well as body was cared for, and where the
grand master’s example of charity animated and kept alive the fervour
of primitive discipline in the hearts of his knights.

Yet the Hospitallers had their enemies; those who had plundered and
destroyed one order, and given it up to centuries of defamation,
would willingly have done the same by its survivor. It was said
of them that they never gave alms;—scarcely an accusation, had it
even been true, if indeed they kept their subjects from the need of
alms-giving; but false, unless we leave out of sight the hospital
and its vast system of charity daily dispensed in grand and lavish
profusion. And that they did not spare themselves in their exertions
to meet the expenses of that system, is evident from the law made
about that time limiting the table of the knights to a single
dish. The Hospitallers had been nominally declared heirs to the
unfortunate Templars; yet, save the odium attaching to the suspicion
of possessing enormous wealth, they gained little by the decree; for
in almost every country, with the exception of England, the property
of the suppressed order found its way into the royal coffers.

Villeneuve, and the grand masters who succeeded him, were unsparing
in their efforts to maintain the primitive and religious character
of the order; and though, doubtless, there were abuses to reform,
yet if we read the repeated remonstrances addressed to them from the
Pontiffs, the accusations do not come to much. “There is a general
feeling,” writes Clement V., “that you do not make a very good
use of your money; it is said you keep fine horses, are superbly
dressed, keen dogs and birds of prey, and neglect the defence of
Christendom.” It must be allowed that these charges are somewhat
vague. The real crime of the Hospitallers in the eyes of those who
incessantly endeavoured to poison the minds of the Pontiffs against
them, was their supposed wealth, which their accusers longed to
sequestrate, and which, though greatly exaggerated, was made the
pretence for throwing on them the chief burden of the Turkish war.
During its long continuance they bore a part which should at least
have acquitted them from the charge of slothfulness in the cause of
Christendom. A new league having been formed against the infidels
between the Pope, the king of Cyprus, the republic of Venice, and the
Order of St. John, it was Biandra prior of Lombardy who led their
forces in the attack on Smyrna, which he carried, sword in hand,
at the head of his knights. Later, when the league was falling to
pieces, it was revived by the grand master Deodato de Gozon. This
Deodato was a very hero of romance—a second St. George, were we
to credit the popular story of his combat with the dragon.[4] In
his own day he deserved to receive the title of the “Magnanimous.”
Immediately on his election he sailed in quest of the Turkish fleet,
which he found at the little isle of Embro, near the mouth of the
Dardanelles. Falling on it by surprise, he gained a brilliant
victory, and captured 118 of the enemy’s vessels; and on returning
from this exploit, he found the ambassadors of the king of Armenia
awaiting him at Rhodes, to implore his assistance against the
Egyptian Saracens. The king was a Greek schismatic; and at a time
when the jealousies between Greek and Latin were at their height,
many might have hesitated to risk the success of such an enterprise.
Not so, however, with Deodato the Magnanimous: “frill of zeal,” says
Vertot, “and animated with the true spirit of his institute, he would
not abandon the Christians to the fury of the barbarians.” So a
powerful force was despatched to Armenia; nor did it return till the
last of the Saracen invaders was driven from the country.

And yet at the very time of these achievements, whilst the treasury
of the order was being exhausted by its disinterested exertions, and
its blood was flowing freely on every coast of the Archipelago, the
old murmurs were being repeated, and representations were constantly
made at the papal court that the knights were idling away their
time in their luxurious palaces, employed in the amassing of vast
treasures, and the enjoyment of a life of ease. Nor was this all:
not a post or embassy from Europe but brought them a fresh budget
of advice. Rhodes was unfit for the residence of the order; they
ought to be somewhere on the mainland; they should be in the Morea,
which the Turks were threatening to overrun; and above all, why did
they not return to the Holy Land? This last suggestion was seriously
propounded in an embassy despatched from Rome, at whose head appeared
one of their own brethren, Heredia, grand prior of Castile,—a man
of consummate abilities, but who, for the gratification of his
boundless ambition, had separated himself from the interests of the
order, and had succeeded in gaining extraordinary influence in the
councils of the Pontiff, Innocent VI. This continual interference
from authorities in Europe, to whom the real state of affairs was
wholly unknown, caused the grand masters much embarrassment, which
was increased by the internal dissensions which rose out of the new
division of the order into languages. This division had gradually
been adopted for the convenience it afforded in several ways, but was
only formally acknowledged in the grand chapter held under Helion
de Villeneuve in 1322. Each language then had its inn, as it was
called, where the knights met for meals in common, and to debate
in their own tongue. But the evil effects of this arrangement were
soon felt in the growth of national jealousies, and the unity of the
order was severely injured by it. To it may be attributed the failure
and disappointment of many a noble plan: as when the heroic Raymund
Beranger, grand master of the order in 1365, after a bold and
successful enterprise against Alexandria, which he took by surprise,
entirely destroying the piratical fleet of the Saracens, addressed
letters to all the powers of Christendom to implore their assistance
against the threatened invasion of his island by the sultan of
Babylon, and appealed at the same time to the order in every country
of Europe to pay up the arrears owing from the different commanderies
and priories, and unite together to avert so imminent a danger. Not
only were the letters disregarded, but the jealousies between the
languages of Provence and Italy reached such a height that Beranger,
worn out with sorrow and disappointment, was only prevented from
resigning in disgust by the authority of Gregory XI., who finally
took the adjustment of the whole question into his own hands.

On the death of Beranger, in 1374, Robert de Juillac, grand prior of
France, was chosen as his successor. He was at his priory at the time
of his election, and setting out for Rhodes, he presented himself at
Avignon on his road, to offer homage to the Pope. The devotion of
the grand masters to the Holy See through all their difficulties is
very striking; and on no occasion did they offer a more noble example
of religious obedience than on the present. Smyrna was still in the
hands of the Christians; its Venetian governor was half-merchant,
half-soldier; and complaints were addressed to the papal court on
the part of the archbishop and inhabitants, that, in consequence
of his devotion to his commercial engagements and frequent voyages
to Italy, the place was left without defence, and almost without
a garrison. Gregory decided on committing the care of the city to
the Hospitallers; and when Juillac appeared at Avignon, the first
intelligence that reached his ears was that, in addition to every
other difficulty and embarrassment, the defence of Smyrna was to
be given into his hands. In vain he represented that Smyrna was a
forlorn hope, isolated in the midst of the Turkish dominions, and too
far from Italy to receive any succours from thence in case of siege.
“The situation of the city,” replied the Pontiff, “in the heart of
the infidel’s own country, is the very cause of my intrusting it to
your order; for the Turks will not advance farther so long as they
have so considerable an enemy at home; and I therefore charge you
under pain of excommunication, to despatch the necessary garrison
immediately on your return to Rhodes.” When this injunction was
communicated to the council of the order assembled in the island on
the arrival of the grand master, there was but one feeling as to
the nature of the commission intrusted to them. “All were very well
aware,” says Vertot, “that it was to send the knights to certain
death; nevertheless they took the part of obedience, and many of them
even generously offered themselves for a service whose dangers and
glory were equally certain. For it was not to be supposed that the
Turks, whose power daily increased, would long leave the knights in
peaceable possession of a place which was in the very centre of their
dominions.” For twenty-seven years, therefore, did the Hospitallers
succeed in holding Smyrna triumphantly against the Turks; and its
noble defence is said to have delayed the fall of Constantinople, and
possibly to have saved the rest of Christendom by drawing away the
attack of the infidels from other quarters. The event, therefore,
amply vindicated the sagacity of Pope Gregory, yet not the less
does it elevate the obedience of the knights to the dignity of a
sacrifice.




CHAPTER III.

  Progress of the Turks—Bajazet and Timour the Tartar—Siege and
  conquest of Smyrna—St. Peter’s of the Freed—Greatness of the
  order under Naillac—Mahomet II.—Fall of Constantinople—Threatened
  invasion of Rhodes—Death of Scanderbeg—Conquest of Lesbos and
  Negropont—Election of Peter d’Aubusson.


From the period of the first settlement of the order at Rhodes the
war with the Turks, though desultory, had been continual. The Turkish
empire, which, under its first sultan Othman, already included many
of the provinces of Asia Minor, extended itself into Europe in the
reign of his son Orchan. Disputes at Constantinople between the rival
emperors, John Palæologus and Cantacuzenus, led to the unhappy policy
adopted by the latter of calling in the Turks to his aid. Orchan (to
whom Cantacuzenus had given his daughter in marriage) did not fail
to seize so favourable an opportunity of enlarging his conquests;
his son Solyman crossed the Hellespont; and speedily making
himself master of the northern provinces of the Greek empire, even
endeavoured to gain a footing in the Morea. Orchan’s son Amurath,—for
Solyman had died in the midst of his career,—followed up his father’s
victories with still greater success; and Palæologus, who in vain
strove to resist the advances of the Turks, was compelled gradually
to yield all his possessions to their arms, with the exception
of Constantinople, Thessalonica, the Morea, and a few islands.
Adrianople (at no great distance from the walls of Constantinople
itself) became the metropolis of the Ottoman dominion in Europe (A.D.
1361), and the danger of the latter city became daily more and more
imminent; for whilst, on the one side, Asia was in the hands of the
infidels, they were, on the other, masters of all the Macedonian
cities and provinces, and from their position at Adrianople were able
to attack and overran the Bulgarian and Servian principalities;
and thus the capital of the Greek emperors was gradually surrounded
on all sides by the victorious Moslem. Two defences alone of any
strength remained to the Christian arms on the shores of the
Archipelago: they were the island of Rhodes and the devoted garrison
of Smyrna.

The divisions and dissensions of that unhappy time no doubt
contributed in a great degree to the rapid extension of the Turkish
conquests. First and foremost, and that which lay at the root of all
the rest, was the disastrous schism which ensued on the death of
Gregory XI., when a pope and an anti-pope claimed the obedience of
the nations. Christendom, thus divided against itself, had no time
to give to the danger that threatened it from without; the western
powers, engaged in contesting the pretensions of two rival claimants
of the papal chair, were unable to unite against the common foe.
The Christian world was, in fact, bereft of its directing head:
the popes had ever been the life and soul of the crusades against
the infidel; and when their voice was dumb, or gave, or at least
seemed to give, an uncertain sound, who could prepare himself for
the battle? As regarded the order of the Knights Hospitallers, the
evil was unmitigated. Our purpose in the present sketch being less
to offer a continuous history of the order of St. John than to
recount their struggles with the Moslems, we must pass rapidly over
the period during which Heredia, the prior of Castile, was grand
master, and redeemed his previous disloyal conduct by a government
of remarkable disinterestedness and devotion. Brave he was even to
daring. At the siege of Patras he mounted the breach, sword in hand,
careless whether his knights followed him or no, and flinging himself
with all the ardour of a young soldier into the midst of the Turks,
encountered the governor in single combat and laid him dead at the
foot of the wall he had been defending. At Corinth, which was the
next point of attack, he fell into an ambush and was taken prisoner.
The order offered the restitution of Patras, together with a large
sum of money, for his ransom, and three of the grand priors even
engaged to remain as hostages in his place until the conditions were
fulfilled: but though the Turks consented, Heredia magnanimously
rejected the proposal. “Leave me, my dear brothers,” he said, “leave
me, worn out as I am with years and toil, to die in my chains, and
reserve yourselves who are young and active for the service of God
and His Church.” As for the money, he would not hear of its being
paid out of the treasury of the order; it should come from his own
family, whom his ambition had enriched. One would have thought that
the infidels would have been moved to generosity by so much nobility
of soul; but all the effect it had upon them was, that they condemned
him to a severer confinement, in which he was detained for more
than three years. On his release, he made ample reparation for his
previous avarice by devoting the wealth he had accumulated to the
foundation of new commanderies and other means of defence against
the untiring enemy of the Christian name; but all his efforts and
self-sacrifices were paralysed and rendered of little avail by the
divisions that prevailed. The contest for the papacy caused a schism
among the knights; and as there were two competitors for the chair
of St. Peter, so there were two grand masters, both arrogating to
themselves the supreme command of the order.

It was then that Bajazet, the son of Amurath, began his extraordinary
career. One province after another was overrun and ravaged by his
armies; from Europe he passed to Asia, and thence back again to
Europe, attacking Christian and infidel alike in the very wantonness
of success. Even the frontiers of Hungary were laid waste; and
having taken some prisoners of that nation, he sent them back
to king Sigismund, with the following insulting message: “Tell
your master that I will pay him a visit next spring; and after
driving him from the land, I will pass over into Italy, and plant
my standards on the Capitol of Rome.” Indeed it was his common
boast that his horse should eat his oats on the high altar of St.
Peter’s. In 1395 the fatal battle of Nicopolis was fought, which
seemed well-nigh to promise the fulfilment of this insolent threat.
Sigismund of Hungary there found himself at the head of a hundred
thousand men,—the army of a new crusade which had at length been
raised through the exertions of Pope Boniface IX.,[5] who proclaimed
a plenary indulgence for all who should repair to the rescue of
Hungary and the neighbouring kingdoms. It was composed of the forces
of France, Venice, Greece, Hungary, and the Knights of St. John.
Sixty thousand horse (according to some writers), “all of tried
courage and enterprise,” says the old chronicler, “the very flower
of Christian chivalry, were there, led on by the Count de Nevers,
a prince of the French blood-royal.” But the battle was lost with
immense slaughter;[6] Sigismund escaping with the grand master,
Philibert de Naillac, in a single galley, to Rhodes, and leaving
(it is said) twenty thousand of his followers dead upon the field.
Ten thousand Christian prisoners, among whom were three hundred of
gentle birth, were led out on the morning after the conflict, with
their hands bound behind them and halters round their necks, and
butchered in cold blood before the eyes of Bajazet himself, who sat
at the entrance of his tent from daybreak till four in the afternoon
to enjoy the horrid spectacle, and forced his unhappy captive, the
Count de Nevers, to stand by and witness the death-pangs of his
comrades. They were offered the Koran or the sword; and as one by one
they made profession of the Christian faith, they paid the penalty
of their fidelity with their lives. “It was a cruel case for them,”
says Froissart, “thus to suffer for the love of our Saviour Jesus
Christ; and may He receive their souls!” This victory brought Bajazet
to the walls of Constantinople. His generals overran Styria and the
south of Hungary; the sultan himself lead his victorious armies into
the north of Greece, while his lieutenants, crossing the isthmus of
Corinth, subdued the whole of the Morea. Athens was taken in 1397,
and the Crescent, the symbol of barbarism, shone over the ancient
seat of learning and the arts. The metropolis of the East, for which
the emperor gained a temporary but ignominious respite by turning
one of the churches of the city into a mosque, and consenting to pay
an annual tribute of 10,000 ducats, would doubtless have speedily
fallen into the power of Bajazet but for the appearance at that
moment of a rival on the scene. Manuel Palæologus had in vain sought
the assistance of the European princes; the wars in which they were
engaged prevented their heeding his appeal. In his extremity he
had recourse to Timour the Terrible,[7] the khan of Tartary, whose
jealousy of Bajazet’s successes induced him readily to listen to
the embassies of the Greek emperor. The result is well known: on
the plains of Angora (A.D. 1402),—the same where Pompey overthrew
the power of Mithridates,—the Turks and Tartars met, and after a
bloody contest the triumphs of Bajazet were terminated for ever,
and he himself, falling into the hands of his savage conqueror, was
subjected to a captivity the ignominy of which has gained for him a
compassion and sympathy to which his crimes and infamous vices were
far from entitling him.

It followed as a matter of course, that the dominions of Bajazet were
simply transferred into the hands of Timour; and with the single
exception of the knights of Rhodes, all the princes of the East
submitted to his yoke, or acceded to his alliance. Their stubborn
independence brought on them a declaration of war from the Tartar
despot. It seemed insufferable that one small island should presume
to withhold its allegiance to a monarch whose dominions exceeded
those of Alexander and of every conqueror the world had ever seen,
and whose power was acknowledged by the Christian sovereigns of
Anatolia, as well as in all the provinces of the East; yet Rhodes,
small as it was, presented so formidable an aspect, with its masses
of fortifications, that he determined on first of all reducing the
city of Smyrna, whose position in the very heart of the Asiatic
provinces seemed to bid defiance to his arms. Timour’s object was,
however, scarcely so much the actual subjection of the place as the
gratification of a proud ambition; and well knowing that a city
which had so long resisted the power of the Turks would prove no easy
conquest, he declared to William de Mina, the governor appointed
by the grand master, that he would be contented if his banner were
suffered to float from the citadel, without proceeding to a siege,
or depriving the knights of their actual possession. But the demand
was scornfully rejected: not that the Hospitallers for one moment
entertained a hope of withstanding the attack of the Tartars,
unsupported as they were by any succours from Europe, and isolated
in the midst of the enemy’s dominions; but Smyrna was the post of
honour which, intrusted to them as it had been by the Pope himself,
it would have been eternal disgrace to the order either to abandon or
surrender: and though the season was winter, Timour, exasperated by
the haughty reply of the garrison, at once commenced the siege.

In fifteen days he had thrown a mole across the harbour, which
deprived the Christians of all succour from without, and brought the
Mongol troops close to the seaward parts of the town; the resistance
he encountered, however, was worthy of the fame of a city, of which
a Persian historian declares, that it had sustained a seven-years’
siege under Bajazet, had never paid tribute to any one, or ever
been in the power of any Mussulman prince from the period of its
conquest by Biandra. Attacks and sallies were daily interchanged;
and whilst both parties displayed prodigies of valour, victory could
be claimed by neither. The mines formed by the Tartars were of no
effect; for the besieged crushed all who entered them by the enormous
stones, or rather rocks, which they dashed from the summits of the
walls. At length Timour, impatient of delay, ordered a general
storm; an enormous number of wooden towers were erected, in which
the besiegers succeeded in approaching the fortifications; and from
these they threw themselves on the ramparts, covering their manœuvre
by a shower of arrows, the density of which darkened the very air.
In vain did the brave defenders struggle to force back the torrent
of their enemies; they poured in from every quarter in countless
numbers: nevertheless the same Persian writer, Cheresiddin Ali,
assures us that the assault lasted from morning to sunset, and that
the obstinacy of the defence equalled the ferocity of the attack.
“No one,” he says, “had a moment’s repose; the intrepid besieged
ceased not to send forth a shower of arrows, Greek fire, and stones,
without giving breathing-space for a minute; and all the while there
fell an extraordinary storm of rain, as though the universe were
about to be swallowed up in a second deluge; yet still, in spite
of the horrors of the tempest, Timour continued to give his orders
to his generals, and to stimulate the courage of his soldiers.” As
soon as the miners had effected a breach, the apertures were filled
with naphtha and other combustibles, and these being fired at once,
the walls fell all together with a hideous crash; and the Tartars,
forcing back the defenders, entered the city, and commenced an
indiscriminate slaughter of every living being it contained, sparing
neither sex nor age.[8] A very few escaped by throwing themselves
into the sea, and swimming to the vessels without the port; but a
vast number were drowned. Several vessels had been despatched from
Rhodes with succours, but were unable to land their troops: among
them, according to Cheresiddin, was the karrack, or great galley
of the order: “it was full of armed men,” he says; “but when they
approached the city, they saw no longer any vestiges of it,—neither
town nor castle remained, for all had been razed to the ground; and
the stones, furniture, and every thing therein had been cast into the
sea. Therefore, when they saw this, they put back their galleys; but
Timour ordered that a number of Christian heads should be thrown from
engines on board their vessels; and this was done so skilfully that
some rolled upon their decks. Then those on board, recognising the
ghastly tokens, gave up all hopes, and returned to their own country.”

Such is the description of the siege left by the Mussulman historian,
who, while he does honour to the courage of the defenders, is, of
course, little able to appreciate the generous devotion of their
death. The defence of Smyrna, first undertaken under religious
obedience, had been persisted in from the same honourable motive.
They had been avowedly stationed in that remotest outpost of
Christendom to offer themselves, if need were, as victims for the
safety of Europe; and the destiny, far from appalling them, had
only seemed glorious in the eyes of men whose vow and vocation it
was to die for the Cross they bore upon their breasts. So when the
black flag of Timour was hung out on the last day of the siege,—his
accustomed signal of “universal destruction,”—they knew very well
that the hour of sacrifice was come, and welcomed it, as the martyrs
did their torments. The dawn saw them at the altar; Mass, and a last
communion, and an offering of their life to God, made solemnly, yet
withal with a certain joy and exultation, preceded the last struggle
at the ruined ramparts. “They captivated their will to obedience unto
death,” says a modern historian of the order, “and fell for their own
honour and the protection of Christendom.”

Nor was the devotion of the order content with this heroic defence;
it did not deem its obligation to obedience satisfied, even when
Smyrna was a heap of ruins, and all its defenders destroyed.
Philibert de Naillac, considering that to his order had been confided
the defence of whatever was left in Asia capable of being defended,
proceeded, on the departure of Timour for Persia, whither he was
called by an invasion from India, to reconnoitre the coasts of Caria,
with the purpose of establishing a fresh garrison in some fortress
of that province. About twelve miles from the isle of Lango, in the
Gulf of Ceramis, there rose an old castle on the ruins of the ancient
Halicarnassus;—a body of troops had been left in it by Timour; but
Naillac, leading thither a small fleet in person, surprised and cut
to pieces the Tartar garrison, and erected on the site of the old
fortress another of extraordinary strength and solidity, which he
dedicated to St. Peter, and which became the asylum of refuge on the
coast of Asia for such Christian slaves as found means to effect
their escape from Turkish or Tartarian bondage. There is something in
the description left us of this fortress that combines the character
of romance with the noblest spirit of chivalry. Naillac surrounded
it with the strongest fortifications that art could devise; there
were walls of enormous height and thickness pierced for cannon, to
keep off the approach of hostile vessels by sea; whilst on the side
of the land the defences were yet stronger; ramparts and bastions
stood one against another, and to gain entrance to the fortress it
was necessary to pass through seven lines of these ramparts and
their seven gates. Over the last gate, however, appeared a motto
which breathed the true spirit of a knight of the Cross, whose trust
was less in his own sword or valour than in the favour of the God
of armies: _Nisi Dominus custodierit civitatem, frustra vigilat qui
custodit eam._[9]

Standing thus proudly on the rocky peninsula of the Carian Gulf,
_St. Peter’s of the Freed_, as it was called, became in one sense
another hospital of the order. A strong garrison was put into it,
and a number of vessels were constantly at anchor in the harbour,
ready at the first note of alarm to issue forth, and either alone or
in conjunction with the galleys of Rhodes and Lango, to sweep the
seas of the hordes of pirates and corsairs that infested the coasts.
Many too were the Christian slaves who, escaping from the chains of
the infidels, found refuge within its walls; and the inmates were
never weary of inventing and practising new devices for the relief
of the refugees. Among others, the knights kept a race of large
and sagacious dogs, whom they trained to go out and seek for those
who might have sunk exhausted on the mountains unable to reach the
castle walls. The instinct of these dogs was extraordinary: we read
of one Christian who, escaping from the hands of his masters, threw
himself into a well when closely pursued, rather than fall again
into their hands. Here he was tracked by one of these watch-dogs,
who, unable to get him out, at least succeeded in saving his life.
The well was dry, and the man had received no injury from his fall,
but would infallibly have died of hunger but for the fidelity of the
Hospitallers’ dogs. For many days did the noble animal bring him in
his mouth all the share of food given him for his own daily support,
dropping it down into the well below. At length it was observed that
the dog was growing thinner every day; and his continual excursions
after breakfast in the same direction exciting curiosity, some of
the servants of the garrison set out to watch what he was about; the
truth being thus discovered, the man was saved, and the dog given his
place in the history of the order, of which he had proved himself so
worthy a member.

Naillac was amongst the most able of the grand masters of that
period, and was recognised as the protector of all the Christian
states of the East. He saved Cyprus from the horrors of civil war
by a disinterested and judicious interference; and in his day,
says Vertot, “there was no corsair vessel that dared approach the
Lycian coast. Every where he was acknowledged as the most powerful
Christian prince of the East; he had more than a thousand knights
under his command in the convent at Rhodes; and the greater number of
the isles of the Sporades were subject to him. The sea was covered
with his fleets; and the Rhodian vessels, under the escort of his
galleys, carried their commerce into every port.” Most of these ships
and galleys were prizes taken from the Saracens, who were even
constrained at length to sue for peace, and despatched an embassy
to Rhodes to arrange the terms. The conditions of pacification were
all in favour of the Christians; and amongst them Jerusalem was
not forgotten. It was stipulated that the Holy Sepulchre should be
surrounded with walls, and that six knights of the order should be
allowed a residence close by, free from all tribute, and with power
to receive pilgrims into their house as of yore.

If we must add to these statements the fact, that Naillac, in common
with those of his knights settled at Rhodes, was on the side of the
anti-popes during the great schism to which we have already adverted,
our readers must not be hasty in condemning him. Those were days
when the right side was hard to be distinguished amid the confusion
in which, from various causes, the whole matter was involved; and
if Naillac was in error, he at least bore no inconsiderable part in
the efforts made by the councils of Pisa and Constance to extinguish
the schism: nor were they without success; and before he died, he
had the satisfaction of seeing that unity which had been restored
to Christian Europe, shared also by the order of which he was the
head. No greater proof can be offered that the knights of Rhodes
were animated by no schismatical spirit than the fact, that in their
island the union between the Greek and Latin churches, established
by the Council of Florence, was ever inviolably observed. Rhodes was
probably the only state in which the two rites were kept in use among
a people who were yet closely bound in one communion, and who never
felt the jealousies of other Eastern countries, where Greek and Latin
were the watchwords of party strife.

During the fifty years that elapsed from the siege of Smyrna to
the fall of Constantinople, the war with the Turks continued with
unabated vigour. Their empire revived after the death of Timour;
and for many years Rhodes maintained a twofold struggle with Turks
and Saracens; from the latter of whom they suffered two invasions
and a siege of forty days, when so gallant a repulse was given
to the infidels, that, as Vertot tells us, the young nobility of
Europe, and especially those of France and Spain, were filled with
an enthusiasm for the glorious body that, unaided and alone, kept
off the dreaded foe whose arms were every where else invincible; and
the best blood of Christendom flowed into the order, which indeed
stood in no small need of such reinforcements. Very few details of
any interest, however, have been left of these achievements, and we
are left to gather what the position of Rhodes was at this period
from the continual circulars and briefs addressed by the Popes to
the monarchs of Christendom, calling on them, but always in vain,
to unite in one vigorous effort against that common enemy now only
kept at bay by the Knights of St. John. It is indeed impossible to
over-estimate the zeal manifested by the Roman Pontiffs for the
preservation of Christendom: even from writers hostile to their
interests we gather an idea of their extraordinary vigilance in this
matter; and doubtless but for their ceaseless exertions the progress
of the infidels would have extended far beyond the boundaries of
the Grecian empire. Had those exertions been seconded, as in the
days of the crusades, the result might have been very different;
but the princes of Europe never heartily entered into the cause;
and though year after year the danger became more threatening, the
appeals and entreaties of the Popes were received but with apathy and
indifference.

It is satisfactory during this period of the history of the order,
when doubtless, though surrounded by peril, its greatness and glory
were at their height, to find a distinct notice of the austere and
religious spirit still preserved alive and vigorous in Rhodes. With
their ports filled with a flourishing commerce, and their treasury
enriched by continual captures from the infidels, the knights
themselves elevated to the position of temporal princes, and courted
by all the nations of Europe as the defenders of Christendom, we
find them derogating in nothing from the severe simplicity of their
institute. Those of the brethren who were settled in the commanderies
of Europe had indeed greatly fallen off from regular discipline; but
at Rhodes, which was the real heart of the order, we read that “every
one lived in the exact practice of the rule and of the statutes.
In the midst of their continual hostilities the knights were never
dispensed from their austere fasts during Lent and Advent, or from
their abstinence on Wednesdays; and in the refectory and other
parts of the house no one ever dared to break the silence which was
observed as regularly as in a community of monks.”[10]

In 1451 the Ottoman throne became vacant by the death of Amurath II.,
who was succeeded by a prince destined to be the deadliest enemy
whom Christendom had yet beheld. This was Mahomet II., surnamed the
Great, who even then, though scarcely twenty-one years of age, had
acquired a fame for talent, valour, and ferocity, which made him the
terror of Europe and of the world. His vast capacity was united to so
detestable a character that he has been called the Mahometan Nero; in
truth he was of no religion; and if, as is said, his mother had been
a Christian, and he had himself been originally brought up in the
true faith, and instructed in its mysteries by the Greek patriarch,
it is probable that his fury against the Cross was accompanied
with all that bitter and unquenchable hatred which ever marks the
apostate. On his accession to the throne his court was filled with
ambassadors from all the eastern states, including that of Rhodes,
to propose treaties and alliances of peace. Mahomet received them
all with the utmost courtesy, and swore to establish a universal
pacification; meanwhile his emissaries were actively employed in
every direction preparing for the conquest of Constantinople; and
scarcely had a year elapsed from his elevation to the sovereignty,
when he marched upon the Greek capital, proclaiming his intentions
in the war-cry which was his manifesto, “Constantinople—and then
Rhodes.”

There is not certainly an episode in history of more melancholy
or more absorbing interest than that which relates to the final
extinction of the Christian empire in the East. The Greek emperors
are for the most part so entirely unworthy of our sympathy, that
we are scarcely prepared for that momentary flicker of a great and
noble spirit which illuminates the fall of the last successor of
Constantine. He bore his name as well as his dignity, and it is
not too much to say that he bore both worthily and well. Long and
zealously had he laboured to heal the calamitous schism which for
ages had separated his people from the communion of the Holy See, and
thus from Europe and the whole Latin world; but unhappily with but
little success. And now, when the ferocious enemy of the Christian
name was before the gates and almost within the walls of the city,
division in all its worst forms of bigotry and fanaticism distracted
and paralysed the efforts of the brave defenders. The infatuated
Greeks, at the head of whom was the Grand Duke Notaras, refused to
co-operate with the Latin auxiliaries who had been despatched to aid
the remnant of what was once the Greek empire in its last struggle
for existence. There was the Cardinal Isidore, whom the Pope had sent
in the hour of need with a small body of veteran soldiers; and there
were bands from Spain and Venice, as skilled in all the arts of war
as they were bold in fight; and above all, there was the celebrated
Genoese, John Giustiniani, a host in himself, with his seven noble
compatriots in arms, and three hundred chosen followers. But union
and concert there were none: it was as if two hostile armies were
arrayed against each other, while the common enemy was battering at
the fortifications and about to precipitate himself upon the devoted
city. Notaras, indeed, openly vowed he would rather see the sultan’s
turban in Constantinople than the cardinal’s hat; and though some
confessed that, if compelled to make the choice, they should prefer
the yoke of those who at any rate believed in Christ and honoured
His Virgin Mother to that of the dreaded and detested Turk, yet
even at the last, when the enemy were pouring through the streets,
and the church of St. Sophia was filled with crouching multitudes
pressing round the altars in all the agony of terror and despair,
Ducas declares that had an angel from heaven appeared to them and
said, “Only accept the union, and I will disperse your enemies,” they
would have remained deaf to his voice, and chosen rather to be slaves
in subjection to the Moslem than freemen in communion with the See
of Rome. The wretched monks who seemed to be possessed body and soul
by the author of strife and division, kept the minds of the populace
inflamed at the highest pitch; a very frenzy, as Von Hammer expresses
it, seemed to have seized upon the convents, and the religious,—if
the term can be applied to men who had neither faith nor the fear of
God,—protested they would sooner acknowledge Mahomet than accept the
creed of the Catholic Church.

The emperor was fully equal to the tremendous occasion; as able in
disposing the troops and resources at his command as he was valiant
in fight, he was indeed, in every sense, the hero of the siege. But
with subjects so divided and so disloyal, what could the highest
genius or the most generous devotion achieve? He reckoned but 9000
combatants of all kinds within his walls, which were fourteen
miles in extent; while the forces that were advancing against
him are said to have been 250,000 in number, without counting a
fleet of 250 vessels, having on board 24,000 men. Nevertheless the
last Constantine vowed never to yield except with life itself;
and Mahomet, on his part, swore that the walls of Stamboul should
be either his sepulchre or his throne. The siege lasted but
two-and-forty days; we can only marvel that the defenders held out
so long; and, though perhaps it scarcely belongs to our subject,
there is something so touchingly beautiful in the account of the
last struggle, that we may be excused for giving it a place in our
pages. It was the evening of the 28th of May 1453, when the cries and
shouts from the vast multitude of the besiegers warned the Christians
that the final assault was in preparation for the following day.
Constantine collected around him a little band of faithful followers,
and addressed them in animated terms. He concluded thus: “My heart
is very full; and yet I can say nothing more. There is my crown; I
received it from God, but I place it in your hands; to-morrow I shall
fight to deserve it still, or to die in its defence.” His words were
drowned by the sobs and tears of those who listened, but he did not
seem to share their grief. Raising his voice above the murmurs and
exclamations of the assembly, he said, with a cheerful and joyous
air, “Comrades, it is our fairest day; there remains only to prepare
for death, and then to die.” Very early in the morning he proceeded
to Santa Sophia, and received the Holy Communion; and turning from
the altar to the weeping crowd that filled the church, he asked them
to pardon him if he had failed to make them happy, and to forgive
him all he had ever done amiss. When they had answered him, more
with tears than words, he went out to the gates of his palace, and
mounting his horse, rode to the ramparts, and stationed himself at
the breach. Every thing was yet silent; but as the sun rose the
combat began, and at noon all was over. For two hours the assailants
made no impression on the gallant band that stood like a rampart of
iron before that chasm in the wall. Wave upon wave of Moslem warriors
rushed madly forward, only to dash themselves to pieces against the
steady solid phalanx that confronted them. In vain did Mahomet in
person rally his disheartened troops, and urge them on by promises
and threats, and even blows; not a man could hold his footing on that
mass of ruin. The prize seemed almost to be torn from his very grasp;
when Giustiniani, who was fighting by the emperor’s side, received a
mortal wound, and was carried from the walls only to die on board
his galley. From that moment the tide of battle turned; a body of
Janizaries,[11] headed by one of gigantic size and strength, with
desperate effort threw themselves upon the barricades. They perished
to a man; but the little band of heroes staggered under the fury of
the assault, and ere they could recover from the shock, host upon
host bore down on them; almost at the same moment a party of Turks,
who had entered well-nigh unopposed through an unguarded gate, took
them in the rear. Resistance was no longer possible against such
overwhelming numbers; the mighty flood swept like an inundation into
the city, and carried all before it. Constantine was seen fighting
in the thickest of the crowd, crying, as it is said, for death from
some Christian hand. When his body was found, after the contest had
ceased, it was too much covered with wounds for form or feature to
be recognised; and only the jewelled sword, still grasped within his
hand, and the golden eagles in his buskins, betrayed the identity of
the last emperor of the East.

“Never,” says Vertot, “was there seen so sad or so frightful a
spectacle as that which was presented at the fall of Constantinople.”
The Turks rushed through the streets massacring as they went along:
forty thousand men were put to the sword; a yet greater number of
every rank, age, and sex, were sold as slaves; and the city which
once had been the centre of learning, refinement, and civilisation,
became changed in a single hour into the seat of the most barbarous
fanaticism. The circumstances attending the end of the unhappy
Notaras are too horrible for recital. At first Mahomet treated him
with courtesy, bestowed gifts upon him, and promised to reinstate
him in his honours and possessions. Deluded by these flatteries,
the traitor gave up the names of all the principal dignitaries and
officers of state, who were instantly proclaimed through the army,
and a large reward offered for their heads. Refusing to comply,
however, with a brutal order issued by the monster amidst his drunken
orgies, he was immediately put to death, with all his children;
their bodies thrown into the streets, and their bloody heads, by the
tyrant’s order, placed in a row before him on the banquet-table.
Many noble Christians, and among them all the Greeks, whose lives
he had promised to spare, were butchered the same day. The Cardinal
Isidore, not being recognised, was sold as a slave; but he contrived
to escape on board a vessel that was lying in the harbour, and
survived to write a touching narrative of all that he had witnessed
and endured. As to the atrocities perpetrated on the inhabitants
of the city during the first fury of the capture, and for the six
months that succeeded this fatal triumph of the Ottoman arms, we
may well shrink from entering on their relation; a sensation of
horror thrilled through Europe at the reports which came one upon
another of deeds that seemed too terrible for belief. Impieties,
enormities unutterable,—all that was holiest profaned and outraged
with abominations that were worthy of the loathsome malice of fiends;
the pictures of the saints torn to shreds; the sacred vessels and
vestments put to the vilest uses; the crucifix—the image of the
Redeemer—borne in mock procession, with the cap of the Janizary
placed derisively on its head; the fonts turned into horse-troughs;
and the very altars, on which had been offered the Adorable
Sacrifice, defiled with nameless brutalities.

Constantinople had fallen; Santa Sophia had become, what it still
remains, a Turkish mosque; the foul creed of Mahomet had usurped the
temple of the Most High; and the infidel was enthroned for centuries
in the metropolis of the once Christian empire of the East. And
Rhodes knew well enough that at her the next blow was to be directed.
Sir John de Lastic, the reigning grand master, hastened to prepare
for the worst, and summoned all his knights throughout Europe to
assemble for the defence. “We command you,” he says, “to come hither
instantly, where your presence is urgently required. Not a day
elapses but we hear of some new slaughter of the Christians by the
grand Turk, whose inhuman cruelties are told us, not by idle rumour,
but by those who have seen what they relate with their own eyes.
Look, therefore, for no further letters, commands, or exhortations;
but the moment you receive this message delay not to set out for
Rhodes by the quickest conveyance love or money can procure.”

“Constantinople—and then Rhodes!” such had been the war-proclamation
of Mahomet II.: nor was it long before his heralds appeared to summon
the knights to acknowledge his pretensions. A yearly tribute of two
thousand ducats, or war to the last extremity: such were the haughty
conditions offered by the conqueror. The reply was such as might be
expected: “Tell your master,” answered Lastic, “that our predecessors
purchased this island at the price of their blood; and that we will
give our lives rather than sacrifice our independence, or that of
our religion.” Nothing doubting that such a reply would soon draw
down on the order the fury of the sultan’s arms, Lastic at the same
time despatched ambassadors to all the European courts, though with
little hopes of deriving any succours from thence. The ambassador to
France was Peter D’Aubusson,—and this is the first mention of a name
which is among the greatest in the chronicles of the Hospitallers
of St. John. A fresh league, which the indefatigable efforts of
the Pontiff, Calixtus III., had succeeded in forming against the
Turks, obliged Mahomet to defer his enterprise against Rhodes, and
thus gave the knights a further time to prepare. Two men were still
found on the frontiers of the Turkish empire before whom the arms
of the Ottoman failed to be invincible: these were Scanderbeg the
chief of Albania, and the gallant regent of Hungary, John Corvinus
Hunyades. Scanderbeg, whose real name was George Castriotes, after
being taken as hostage when nine years old, and brought up in the
religion of Mahomet, had seized an opportunity of escaping to his
native mountains, and openly professing the Christian faith. He was
reckoned the greatest commander of his time; and taking advantage of
the nature of the country, he succeeded in repeatedly beating large
armies sent against him by the Turkish sultans with a mere handful of
men. When, after the fall of Constantinople, every other province of
Greece and the Morea submitted to Mahomet, Albania still held out,
and the very name of Scanderbeg struck terror into the infidels,
whom he defied. For twenty years he maintained the unequal contest.
At length, as he lay at Alyssio, weak and dying of fever, news was
brought him that the Turks were in the neighbourhood devastating the
village and country. He called for his armour, but could not rise to
put it on; nevertheless his followers carried his banner before them
to the scene of combat; and at the first sight of that well-known
ensign, the infidels turned and fled. He lived to hear of this last
success, and then expired; and the Turks, when they took Alyssio
twelve years after his death, had such an opinion of his valour,
that, disinterring his bones, they made amulets of them to wear in
battle. It is said his favourite horse would not suffer any other to
mount him when his master was gone, but turning wild and savage, died
a week after the decease of the noble chieftain.

The independence of Albania expired with its prince. Yet, though
delivered from one of his most formidable opponents and now master
of the whole of Greece, Mahomet was still forced to delay his great
expedition against the Knights of Rhodes. He did not, however,
entirely spare them; but in every attack his galleys made on
their islands, they met with a repulse which warned him that the
subjugation of Rhodes would be a far different enterprise from the
taking of Constantinople. He was compelled to fear as much as he
hated this unconquerable order; he found it every where. At Lesbos,
led on by Zacosta, the grand master, they well-nigh succeeded in
repulsing the assault of his most valiant troops, and would have
saved the island, but for the detestable treachery of its Greek
governor Gattilusio. This miserable man, after giving up the brave
knights to slaughter, thought, if not to gain the reward he coveted,
at least to save his life by adding apostasy to perfidy. But Mahomet
did not grant him long impunity; on some frivolous pretext he had
him thrown into a dungeon, where, shortly after, he was strangled.
Three hundred of the garrison of Mitylene, when they saw that all was
lost, had surrendered on a solemn promise that their lives should be
spared; but no sooner were they in his power than the base and cruel
Turk had them murdered to a man, and that by the most frightful
death he could devise—they were all sawn asunder: this was now
the tyrant’s favourite mode of taking vengeance on his vanquished
foes, being, as he conceived, the most horrible torture that human
ingenuity could inflict. The severed and mangled limbs of his victims
he ordered to be thrown to be devoured by dogs and birds of prey.

Negropont, then subject to the republic of Venice, was the next
point of attack; and though the Venetians had shown but little
friendliness to the order, whose commercial rivalry they feared, yet,
says Vertot, “the grand master Orsini, believing himself bound by his
profession to defend the states of every Christian prince, instantly
sent armed galleys to their assistance, and at the head of a brave
troop of knights, who were to endeavor to land upon the island
and throw themselves into the beleaguered town, was the Commander
D’Aubusson;” who indeed was, at that time, the most distinguished
chief of his illustrious body. Nevertheless Negropont fell, as Lesbos
and Constantinople had already fallen. The Ottoman forces numbered
no less than two hundred thousand men, and were supported by a
powerful fleet; yet were the bold knights eager for the fight, and
loudly demanded that they should be led against the bridge of boats
which the enemy had constructed. But the Venetian admiral, seized
as it appeared with a sudden panic, refused the enterprise, drew
off his vessels, and left the defenders to their fate. Already had
the besiegers made three desperate attacks upon the town, but with
such loss to themselves both of men and ships, that even Mahomet was
beginning to despair: now, however, their courage and hopes revived;
and taking advantage of the consternation inspired by the withdrawal
of the Venetian fleet, though once again repulsed in a fifth bloody
assault, they carried the works and poured down upon the place.
Erizzo, the intrepid governor, disputed every inch of ground with the
assailants, and fought his way from street to street until he gained
the citadel, where with good courage he still continued the defence;
but when provisions and ammunition failed, and he beheld his little
garrison daily thinned by death and exhausted by fatigue and wounds,
he was compelled to sue for terms and offer to surrender on the
sultan’s plighted word, that his life and the lives of his companions
should be safe from harm. Mahomet swore by his own head that the
heads of Erizzo and of all who were with him should be uninjured;
but, furious at the loss of thousands of his best and bravest troops,
when the garrison had laid down their arms, he caused them all to
be massacred, the Greeks alone excepted, with circumstances of the
most barbarous cruelty. Some he had impaled, others cut in pieces, or
stoned to death. Erizzo himself he doomed to be sawn in two; boasting
that thus he scrupulously kept his oath to the very letter, since
he had sworn to leave his head untouched. The brave Venetian had a
daughter, Anne Erizzo, young and beautiful, who, to the dauntless
courage of her noble race joined all the indomitable fortitude of a
Christian martyr. Mahomet, a monster of sensuality as of cruelty, had
her brought into his presence: the virtuous maiden scorned alike his
vile solicitations and his angry threats, till seized with fury, he
drew his cimeter and at a single blow severed her fair head from her
chaste body; thus, as Vertot expresses it, “gratifying to the full
the wishes of this heroine, who, by the sacrifice of a frail life and
a beauty even frailer, earned for herself an imperishable bliss.”
The inhabitants were now at the mercy of the conqueror; but the very
enormity of the crimes which were perpetrated in this as in every
other instance forbids their being detailed. “Words cannot express,”
says the same historian, “all the cruelties exercised at the taking
of Negropont; the whole island was filled with carnage and horror,
for the Turkish soldiers, following their sovereign’s example, made a
merit of their ferocities.”

The rage of Mahomet when he saw the galleys of St. John in the
midst of the Venetian fleet broke out into a kind of madness: the
conqueror of two empires and of twelve kingdoms, as he haughtily
termed himself, he felt the resistance of this single island enough
to counterbalance all his success, and he sent envoys to Rhodes to
declare war to blood and fire, swearing that he would exterminate
the entire order, and put every member of it to the sword. But still
the blow so often threatened was doomed to be delayed. Fresh leagues
against the Turkish sultan gave time for fresh fortifications and
armaments at Rhodes; they were conducted under the direction of
D’Aubusson himself, whose capacity all recognised, so that he was the
soul and animating spirit of the whole order; nothing escaped his
vigilance, and to his charge every thing was committed; war, finance,
fortifications, all were under his superintendence, and all, whether
superiors or inferiors, listened to his word as law. It is no wonder,
therefore, that on the death of Orsini in 1476, D’Aubusson was chosen
as his successor; and it scarcely needed the votes of the chapter
to declare an election which had already been made by the unanimous
voice of his brethren.




CHAPTER IV.

  Character of D’Aubusson—Religious union in Rhodes—Destruction
  of the suburbs—Arrival of the Turkish fleet—Attack on St.
  Nicholas—Conduct of D’Aubusson during the siege—First repulse
  of the infidels—Fresh attack on the Jewish quarter—Storm of the
  city—Defeat and failure of the Turks—D’Aubusson’s danger and
  recovery—Fall of Kaffa and Otranto—Death of Mahomet the Great.


The course of our narrative has now brought us to the first of those
remarkable sieges which constitute the chief interest in the history
of the Knights of St. John. The circumstances briefly detailed in
the foregoing chapter will have enabled the reader in some measure
to appreciate the devotion and gallantry of their resistance, and
the peril of their position when the vast armament of the Ottomans
bore down on Rhodes,—that little island which lay alone amid the
wreck of Christianity in the East, like the single rock which
lifts its head above the raging waters of a mighty deluge. But the
event itself stands out with so much prominence in the annals of
Christian chivalry—it is so honourable to the illustrious society
whose exploits we have undertaken to narrate, and especially to
the commander whose election to the grand-mastership we have just
recorded, that our story must take something of a less desultory
character; and though we cannot pretend to offer a finished portrait
of every great man who appeared in an order of heroes, _his_ name at
least deserves a different kind of notice.

Peter D’Aubusson was descended from one of the most illustrious
houses of France; Norman in its origin, and allied to the royal
Norman blood. He was a soldier from his youth, but a man of letters
also; and, to use the expression of the French historian, “the
extent and facility of his mind sufficed for every thing.” The
popularity of his name, great as it was in his order, was even more
enthusiastically felt among the populace of Rhodes. The extraordinary
joy manifested by them at his election had something in it far
different from the ordinary popular rejoicings at a coronation—it
was from the heart; and men no longer feared Mahomet now that
D’Aubusson was at the head of the Knights of St. John. His first act
was a careful inspection of the entire island in person; and on his
return, he summoned all the knights once more to assemble in Rhodes,
and in the chapter general of the following spring was invested
with absolute power during the ensuing siege, which all now felt
to be close at hand. Indeed, it was a remarkable testimony to the
extraordinary capacity of this great man, that an order so jealous
for the preservation of its constitutional privileges voluntarily
created him its dictator, not only in military, but also in financial
and political affairs. He held an irresponsible power, yet from no
act of usurpation on his own part; nor do we ever find him taking
advantage of the boundless confidence of his subjects to prolong or
extend his authority; but, on the contrary, he himself restrained
it, and after holding the administration of the treasury for three
years and regulating its disorders, he refused to retain it longer,
but gave it back into the hands of the ordinary officers of the
finance. His genius was as universal as it was commanding. He was at
the head of every department: he made his own gunpowder, and directed
the building of his own ships; he surpassed the first engineers of
his age in a practical knowledge of the science of defence, was an
excellent chemist, and assiduous in his personal services in the
hospital, where he showed that he thoroughly understood the treatment
of the sick.

Hitherto the various summonses addressed by previous grand masters to
the knights of distant provinces had produced but little result; but
the name of D’Aubusson gave a magical effect to his commands. From
every quarter the knights flocked in with singular promptitude, and
many of the European sovereigns contributed large sums to facilitate
their journey. Mahomet saw that there was at least little chance
of taking Rhodes and its defenders by surprise; for which reason
he tried every means of throwing the grand master off his guard.
Among these were pretended treaties for truce, and the despatch of
a multitude of spies and feigned embassies; and lastly, an attempt
to introduce dissensions among the people of Rhodes, and win them
over from the cause of the order. The sultan doubtless thought it a
surpassing stroke of policy to suggest to the Rhodian Greeks, as a
lure, the unlimited exercise of their religion free from all Latin
domination. But the result showed that he knew little of the state
with which he had to deal. There was no jealousy of sect or party
known in the religion of Rhodes; and every effort to sow dissension
among the natives was met by the indignant cry, “We are all of one
belief! here there is neither Greek nor Latin; for we are Christians,
the servants of Jesus Christ and of His blessed Mother!” This unity
of religious belief had ever been one of the chief blessings and
privileges enjoyed under the rule of the order; but it was especially
and vigorously protected by D’Aubusson, who, with the utmost zeal,
guarded against any thing that could introduce the fatal seeds of
schism or dissension; and was accustomed to say that he reigned over
Christians, not Latins or Greeks, and that even the schismatics, if
there were any such, should be treated with strict impartiality. The
fact was, however, that, with individual exceptions, the adherents
to the Greek rite in Rhodes were in communion with their Latin
brethren; for the large and wise policy of the grand masters had
still succeeded in preserving alive that union which, settled by the
Florentine Council, had never existed elsewhere but in theory and in
name.

If Rhodes was beautiful to the eye and captivating to the
imagination, when first Villaret and his companions set foot upon its
shores, much more so was it now, when the lapse of a hundred and
seventy years had made it the centre of southern civilisation, and
the riches of a long commercial prosperity had been lavished on its
adornment and the cultivation of the domestic arts. All around the
grand and battlemented walls of the capital there spread in sweet
contrast gardens, villas, and vineyards; most verdant hills darkened
with woods of pomegranates and oranges; a rich suburban district,—the
glory of a city in times of peace, and its worst enemy in the perils
of a siege. All about this garden-world there sparkled streams and
fountains of bright and delicious water; there was no water like that
of Rhodes, nor any country to compare to its rich and beautiful soil,
at least in the mind of its inhabitants. “It was,” says one of its
own citizens,[12] “the favourite, sweetest island of the sun, where
the air was ever pure, and the country ever smiling.”

The first act of D’Aubusson, on his investiture by the chapter with
the supreme and absolute command, was one of stern but most necessary
sacrifice. The suburbs were to be destroyed; the trees and gardens
cut down and wasted; and even the churches razed to the ground, so as
to prevent the enemy from finding shelter under the city-walls. The
Rhodians watched the process of destruction with tears of regret, so
very dear to their hearts was the beauty of their capital; but all
knew that the calamity was inevitable, and so, silencing their grief,
they lent their aid to make a desert of their paradise, and spared
nothing; only, says Vertot, “before destroying the church of our Lady
of Philermos, they carried the image of the Blessed Virgin thence to
the principal church within the city-walls; for it had been preserved
from time immemorial, and was greatly revered.” All the fields were
now laid waste, and the forage carried into the city; many of those
beautiful crystal springs were choked up and rendered useless; in
short, there was nothing left in the island which could furnish
support to the enemy’s troops, or which the barbarians could destroy.

Over all these details, and a thousand more besides, D’Aubusson’s
watchful superintendence presided; and combining the quick eye of
a military commander with the tenderness of a paternal sovereign,
he insisted on personally seeing that every individual among the
citizens, as well as the knights, was properly provided and cared
for; and though he demanded great sacrifices from all, there was
nothing of sternness or indifference in his manner of exacting them.
Rather he found the means of inspiring all around him with his own
heroic and chivalric spirit. The Rhodians were not a warlike people,
yet they caught fire from their sovereign’s animating words and noble
example. And as to the knights, how could they resist those grand
and lofty appeals? “I summon you,” he writes to the absent brethren,
“in virtue of those solemn vows you have made to the God of heaven,
and at the foot of His altar. It is your mother calls you,—a mother
who has nursed you in her bosom, and is now in danger. Shall a
single knight be found to abandon her to the rage of the barbarian?
I will not think it; it would be unworthy of the nobility of your
origin, and still less of the piety and valour of your profession.”
He addressed the chapter in the same exalted strain: “Soldiers of
Christ,” he said, “in a war so holy as this, it is Christ Himself
who is at our head; fear not, for He will never abandon those who
fight but for His interests. In vain does the impious Mahomet, who
recognises no God but power, threaten to exterminate us: his troops
may be more numerous, but ours at least are no vile slaves like
his; I look round me, and I see only men of noble and illustrious
blood, brought up in virtue, and sworn to conquer or die, and
whose piety and courage might alone be the pledges of a certain
victory.” In fact, besides the members of the order, there were
a considerable number of volunteers collected at Rhodes from all
nations, particularly from France: all of them gentlemen of high
birth and renown, filled with a generous enthusiasm, and a devotion
to the cause of the order and to its heroic chief. Amongst them was
D’Aubusson’s elder brother, the Viscount de Monteuil, who received a
high command; and throughout the siege no jealousy ever arose between
these volunteers and the knights, but rather a generous and friendly
rivalry, and a heartiness of obedience and co-operation, that could
only have proceeded from the noblest spirit, inspired and kept alive
by the admirable policy of the grand master. There was something very
remarkable in this affectionate unity of the defenders of Rhodes,
presenting so lovely a contrast to the treachery and dissensions
of other sieges. “It was to be found,” to use the words of the
French author, “in the citizens equally with the knights; Greek and
Latin, all were alike; and it passed even to the women and children,
who vied with one another in working at the fortifications which
D’Aubusson had ordered to be commenced.”

The city of Rhodes stood on the declivity of a wooded hill on the
border of the sea; it was surrounded by a double wall flanked by
large towers, and beyond the wall was a deep and broad ditch. There
were two ports; the first of which, defended by a tower called
Fort St. Elmo, served for the smaller galleys, while the second,
constructed for larger vessels, had two defences, known as Fort St.
John and Fort St. Michael.[13] By the side of this latter port were
two small gulfs, the fortifications of which were so contrived as to
guard the entrance of the ports. Two miles from the city rose the
hill of St. Stephen, and, on the other side, Mount Philermos,[14]
celebrated for that shrine of our Lady to which allusion has been
made, and which was a place of pilgrimage not only to the islanders
but to all the neighbouring states.

It was on the 23d of May 1480, that the great fleet of the infidels
at length appeared in sight of Rhodes. The signal of its approach
was given from the watch-tower on Mount St. Stephen, and thither the
grand master repaired to survey the force destined for the conquest
of the island and the destruction of the order. It was a grand and
terrific sight; a hundred and sixty large vessels of war, and a
very cloud of galleys, feluccas, and transports, having on board a
vast body of troops as well as artillery of most formidable size.
The sea was darkened for miles by this immense armament; and the
landing was soon commenced, under favour of a heavy fire from the
enemy’s artillery, with pomp and music, as though they had been
victors coming to a conquered city. Despite the efforts of the
knights, the hostile troops succeeded in intrenching themselves
in the neighbourhood of Mount St. Stephen, and in landing their
heavy artillery, consisting of 4000 pieces of cannon, some being of
prodigious size and calibre, throwing balls of flint and marble nine
palms in diameter, as D’Aubusson himself declares in his despatch
to the German emperor, written after the siege. So soon as the
artillery was landed and planted,—an operation which the knights
were powerless to resist,—the storm of the cannonade began. For days
together the walls and towers were battered by cannon and mortars
with terrible effect; nine towers were overthrown, and whole streets
demolished; but the chief attack was directed against the tower of
St. Nicholas, situated on the extremity of the mole which defended
the larger port. After resisting the furious bombardment for several
days, during which it received the shock of no less than three
hundred of these marble cannon-balls, the tower fell, and the sight
was welcomed by the enemy with a kind of insane joy. But whilst they
abandoned themselves to their exultation, the besieged set to work
to construct a new defence on the mole itself, and labouring night
and day, contrived a fortification of singular skill in the midst of
the ruins, which they garrisoned with their bravest troops. This
defence, devised by the engineering skill of D’Aubusson, resisted
the utmost efforts of the Turks, who were driven off, after several
furious assaults, with immense loss.

It is sad to find one of the most illustrious names of Christendom
at the head of the infidel army; yet it was a Palæologus[15] who,
under the name of Mesih Pasha, led the Turkish force. A prince of the
imperial family of Greece, and born a Christian, he had renounced his
faith to purchase life at the capture of Constantinople. His talents
had raised him to the rank of admiral grand vizier in the sultan’s
service; and the cause of the Cross had no deadlier enemy than this
miserable renegade, who sought to secure the favour of his new master
by an excess of fury against the Christian name. Other renegades
were in the camp, one of whom, a German engineer, with a treachery
worthy of an apostate, entered the town as a spy, and representing
himself as a deserter from the Turkish camp, endeavoured to possess
himself of the plan of the defences; but D’Aubusson’s quick vigilance
detected the stratagem; and “Master George,” as he was called, found
himself too closely watched to be able to escape.

The assaults on the mole of St. Nicholas continued for several
days; and always on the most dangerous post might be seen the
form of D’Aubusson. At once, captain and soldier, he refused all
solicitations to retire. “The post of honour is here,” he replied
to Carretto, who afterwards succeeded him, “and belongs of right
to your grand master;” adding with a pleasant smile, “and, after
all, if I am killed, there is more to hope for you than to fear for
me:” words which were afterwards taken as a prophecy of Carretto’s
future elevation. A ball having struck his helmet from his head, he
quietly replaced it with the steel-cap of a fallen soldier, without
seeming to heed the danger. Bosio has left us a striking picture of
him during the progress of the defences at St. Nicholas. To complete
them, it was necessary for the workmen to labour continuously for
seventy hours, during which time a constant watch was kept to guard
them from surprise. D’Aubusson never left the spot. “His armour,”
says the historian above named, “was gilt or golden, and always
kept highly polished and shining; and at the head of his chosen and
valiant squadron he sat on his horse the whole night long without
moving, or taking a moment’s repose; and the splendour of the moon
reflected from that gilt cuirass rendered his figure a clear and
striking object.” This long night-watch, and the spectacle of the
grand master in his golden armour, has been noticed by almost every
historian of the order; and doubtless there must have been something
unusually solemn and beautiful in his appearance, which distinguished
him from the numbers around him, whose conduct was nevertheless
scarcely less devoted than his own.

He had all the true courtesy and modesty of chivalry; listening to
the counsel of all, before declaring his own sentiments, which never
failed of being received as law; he had a smile and a patient word
for all; and yet withal his prompt resolution never suffered itself,
when once formed, to be changed or re-considered. And all the while,
great general and brave soldier as he was, he found time and strength
to be carpenter, engineer, or labourer, as occasion called. He drew
the plan of his walls and ramparts, and worked at them with his own
hands; nor was there a sally to be made, or an attack to be repelled,
but D’Aubusson was to be found at the head of the combatants. Nor was
he less the Christian, because he was so entirely a man of genius
and of war; his devotion harmonised with the rest of his character
in its admirable simplicity. The defence of the city was not begun
till after the offering of solemn prayers in all the churches; and
then the image of our Lady of Philermos was exposed, and the cause
of Rhodes committed to her patronage with something of a childlike
trustful confidence; and with our Lady and D’Aubusson to protect
them, the Rhodians felt secure of victory.

Foiled in his first attempts, the Pasha now resolved on a night
attack, which was to be conducted with such secrecy and despatch,
and with such ingenious contrivances to boot, as should secure both
a surprise and a successful issue. A bridge was constructed to reach
from the mainland which the infidels had occupied to the mole of St.
Nicholas; and in the night an anchor was let fall close under the
foot of the tower, and the floating pont made fast to it by a strong
cable. It happened, however, that a Christian sailor, one Rogers,
an Englishman by birth, lying concealed near the spot, had observed
the whole transaction; and no sooner had the Turks withdrawn, than
plunging intrepidly into the sea, he cut the cable, and drew up
the coil upon the strand. Thus was the design entirely frustrated;
for the bridge being cast loose from its fastenings, was speedily
broken to pieces by the waves. But the pasha had caused a second
to be constructed, which, being carried across in the stillness of
the night, was made last to the mole two hours before daybreak on
the morning of the 9th of June; and while all was yet dark, the
Turks began their noiseless passage over it; at the same time, a
flotilla of light boats was sent to co-operate on the seaward side.
So quietly was the manœuvre effected, and such a perfect silence
reigned throughout the Christian defences, that the Turkish commander
flattered himself that his design was undetected. But D’Aubusson was
ready for him; and while the Turks were preparing to make good their
landing on the mole, behind the guns upon the wall stood his resolute
cannoneers with matches burning; a steady line of muskets waited but
the word to discharge their murderous hail in the faces of the foe;
and from every more distant quarter whence the stormers could be
reached, the guns on the ramparts had been brought to bear upon the
point assailed. Suddenly, from the depth of the darkness there issued
a very storm of fire, which canned death and dismay into the midst
of the advancing columns. At the same moment the Rhodian fire-ships
bore down upon the Turkish galleys; horrible was the confusion;—the
roaring of the flames; the incessant cannonading; the fire-balls
blazing and flaming; the yells of the combatants; the shrieks and
groans of the maimed and the dying. On the mole, on the beaches, on
the waters, the battle raged with most terrific fury.

In spite of the tremendous fire poured on them from all sides, the
infidels plant their ladders at the foot, and, brandishing their
cimeters, scale the bastions. The assault is all along the front;
the grand master stands at the breach, and around him his gallant
knights, making a rampart with their bodies. The ladders are thrown
down, only to be raised again by the determined foe; massive stones
and boiling oil and streams of flaming fire are launched upon
them,—still they press on; and those who are below in the boats
and triremes discharge volley after volley of musketry and showers
of arrows from their cross-bows at the knights, or endeavour with
grappling-irons, which they throw upon the ramparts, to drag them
down and stab them as they fall. The advantage, however, was with the
Christians; and dawn disclosed to the Turkish commander the desperate
condition of his troops,—the sea and the strand strewn with corpses,
and the attacking columns every where giving way before the steady
valour of the Christians. It revealed, too, to the defenders, the
floating bridge thronged with Turkish succours hurrying to the
assault, and enabled them to point their guns immediately upon it,
and shatter it to pieces. From near midnight to ten in the morning
the attack and the defence endured with unabated fury; but at length
the triumph of the knights was secured; every man who had mounted the
mole was killed. In vain with menaces and wild entreaties the leaders
urged their troops to sustain the contest; the rout was general and
complete; the victorious knights precipitated their flying enemies
from the mole, and pursued them even into the waters of the harbour.
Conspicuous among the Christian combatants was Anthony Fradin, a
Franciscan friar, as bold in fight as he was eloquent of speech, who,
plunging shoulder-deep into the sea, with his own right hand struck
off many a turbaned head. In this night-assault fell 2500 infidels,
and among them their renowned commander, Ibrahim Bey, the sultan’s
son-in-law. The loss on the Rhodian side was also great; and twelve
of the brave knights of St. John were among the slain.

But this repulse served only to rouse the fury of the vizier to a
greater height. Since St. Nicholas had proved impregnable in its
ruin, he directed his next attack against the city itself. It was so
torn and shaken by the previous cannonade, that, to use the words of
D’Aubusson, “it retained not the least resemblance to what it was.”
The principal attack, however, was made on a portion of the walls
which had remained as yet uninjured, in the Jewish quarter of the
town. “Eight tremendous cannon, of the largest size ever seen, ceased
not night and day from scourging those groaning flanks;” never for
a moment was the hideous roaring of this artillery silenced; but
whilst the walls gradually crumbled to pieces, the besieged, under
the direction of the grand master, busily employed themselves in
erecting new ramparts behind them, “planting stakes of thick green
timber, and covering them with earth and branches of stout tough
underwood and thorns,”—a work which it seemed incredible should have
been accomplished in so short a time. But every one worked with
equal ardour night and day. D’Aubusson superintended all himself,
and set the example to the rest by incessant labour; men and women,
Christians and Jews,—all lent their aid; the very nuns coming out of
their convents, and bearing provision to the workmen; and when the
Turks thought they had effected an easy entrance into the place by
the destruction of the wall, they were confounded to find a new and
stronger rampart, risen as if by magic behind the ruins, and beyond
it a wide deep ditch, which had to be filled before any approach
could be made. Immense loads of stone were now brought and thrown
into the ditch; and meanwhile the cannonade continued its ceaseless
roar, accompanied by many other frightful kinds of artillery then in
use: globes of fire and flaming arrows, and the serpent-guns that
sent fire-balls whining and hissing through the air like deadly
flying reptiles. The sound of the artillery was heard from Kos, a
hundred miles to the west of Rhodes, as far as Castelrosso, the same
distance to the east; the bombardment never ceased for a minute, and
the utmost exertions of the citizens were continually called for to
extinguish the flames of the burning houses. All the sick and infirm
were hidden away in underground cellars and caves to escape those
crushing marble balls, which were the most destructive of all the
engines of attack. But the war was underground also; and by many a
subterranean ditch, most cunningly concealed, did the enemy endeavour
to steal into the city, or to ruin its defences. To resist the effect
of the ponderous marble balls, D’Aubusson contrived to roof in one
quarter of the city so securely, that the women and children were
completely sheltered; whilst under his orders, the city carpenters
constructed a machine for throwing back these unwelcome visitors into
the midst of the assailants; and so enormous was their weight, that,
we are told, they not only crushed all on whom they fell, but often
dashed into and destroyed the mines with all whom they contained.
This machine the knights jestingly termed the “tribute,” in allusion
to that demanded by Mahomet, and which they devised this novel mode
of paying.

Meanwhile the Turks had succeeded in forming a causeway of stones
across one portion of the ditch, which it took them eight-and-thirty
days to accomplish. Thus they completely filled up the fosse, and
raised a mound level with the ramparts, by which they could have
readily mounted on the walls; but when they thought their work was
finished, they were not a little exasperated to see it sinking and
diminishing; for the Rhodians were every night working unperceived
at its foundations, and carrying away the stones noiselessly into
the city. Perceiving, therefore, that they were losing time,
they prepared to storm without delay, and to this end proceeded
to cannonade that portion of the walls which was close to the
fortifications so rapidly repaired; and such was the tempest that
beat upon these new defences, that no living thing could appear on
them for a moment without being swept away. In the course of one day
and night three hundred of those monstrous globes of rock were hurled
at the torn and shattered walls. It was then that the true character
of Master George was finally detected. He was known to be an engineer
of singular skill; and the knights, under whose charge he had been,
and who had not altogether shared in the grand master’s suspicions,
led him to the spot to ask his opinion and advice. It may easily be
believed what kind of counsel they received; yet, to disguise his
treachery, Master George affected the utmost ardour, and insisted
on working a cannon with his own hands. In doing so, however, he
betrayed himself; the quick eye of his guards remarked that he fired
without aim, and, as if by some preconcerted signal, seemed to
draw the enemy’s fire on the weakest point. He was at once seized
and interrogated, and, confessing the whole design, received the
richly-merited reward of his treachery and his crimes. The assault
was now evidently close at hand; nothing remained to keep the Turks
from the attempt; and it is said a few Spanish and Italian knights
ventured to hint at the prudence of coming to honourable terms with
the vizier, who, well knowing the character of his opponents’ valour,
had shown a disposition to treat for a surrender. D’Aubusson, calling
the knights around him, addressed them coldly, as though no longer
members of the order. “_Gentlemen_,” he said,—a term never applied to
the knights, who were always addressed as brothers,—“if any of you
do not feel secure here, the port is not yet so entirely blockaded
but I shall be able to find means for you to retire. If, however,
you choose to remain, let me hear no more of surrender, otherwise
I shall certainly cause you to be put to death.” These words, and
that he called them “gentlemen,” stung them to the quick; they threw
themselves at his feet, and declared they were, and would ever be,
his knights and subjects.

Nevertheless it could not be denied but that the crisis was one
of great peril. So incessant was the cannonading that no time was
given to repair the breaches; the fosses were in many parts filled
up; the walls were every where in ruins; and no obstacle remained
to oppose the entrance of the Turks into the town save the heroic
valour of the defenders. Scarcely had the sun appeared above the
horizon on the morning of the 27th of July, when, at the firing of a
mortar as a signal, the advanced troops of the enemy rushed forward
with a tremendous shout, and with the utmost rapidity scaled the
walls, bore down all before them, and planted their colours before
the besieged could offer any effectual resistance. And now, without
prompt relief, it was all over with Rhodes; but that relief came
in the person of the grand master. “Perceiving,” such is his own
account, “a great conflict at hand, we raised and planted firmly the
banner representing our dear Lord Jesus Christ, and beside it that
of our order directly facing the enemy; and then ensued a battle of
two hours.” Crying, “Come, my brothers, let us fight for the faith
and for Rhodes, or be buried under the ruins,” he hastened to the
spot, surrounded by a chosen band of comrades. Already 2000 Turks had
occupied the ramparts, and behind them 4000 more were advancing and
preparing to mount to the assault. But, nothing daunted, D’Aubusson,
seizing a ladder, planted it with his own hands against the wall in
spite of a shower of stones, and was the first[16] to mount, pike in
hand, followed by the rest of his party. Owing to the character of
the ground, and the fact that the Turks had already formed a position
on the top of the ramparts, they were now themselves the besieged,
and the assault was from the garrison. The valour displayed on
both sides was of the most signal description. The Turks, says the
historian, “were as lions rushing upon their prey;” the Christians,
“like the Machabees, fighting for their religion and their
liberties.” The fury of the infidels was well-nigh irresistible; many
of the knights were crushed under the weight of the heavy stones
which were dashed down upon their heads as they strove to mount the
platform which the enemy had occupied. Twice was D’Aubusson himself
struck down, and thrown from the ramparts; but, covered with wounds,
he returned to the charge without heeding his danger, and at length,
by sheer force, the infidels were driven from their position; and
the mass of the Christians throwing themselves on their ranks, a
desperate struggle commenced. The grand master slew many of the
boldest with his own hands; and some 300 or more were tumbled from
the walls into the city, where they were instantly slain.

But their losses were quickly supplied by reinforcements from the
vast multitude that covered the field below, so thickly that the
eye could not discern the ground on which they stood. And now a
body of Janizaries, urged on by the hope of a large reward, charged
furiously on the knights, and fought their way to where the grand
master stood, his armour flashing in the blaze of the musketry, and
the short spear he carried red with Turkish blood. One while he
seemed completely surrounded and overpowered by these desperate men;
but though wounded in several places, and bleeding profusely, still
he held his ground, and laid many of his assailants dead at his feet.
His gallant comrades, fearing for his safety, and reckless of their
own lives so that they could save that of their beloved commander,
threw themselves with renewed energy upon the dense mass of their
assailants; and such was the fury of their assault, that “at length,”
to resume D’Aubusson’s own description, “the Turks, hard pressed,
broken, wearied out, terrified, and covered with wounds, turned and
fled, and so hastily that they hindered one another, and did but
increase their own destruction. There fell in that conflict 3500 of
them, as we learned by the corpses which we afterwards burnt for
fear of infection. The panic was contagious, spreading from one rank
to another, till at length the whole Moslem army was in flight.” It
was indeed a complete and unexpected victory. In vain did the vizier
attempt to rally his vast masses, now thrown into all the confusion
of a hasty rout. The Christian troops, precipitating themselves from
the walls, pursued the fugitives far over the plain; and Mesih Pasha
himself was compelled to fly with the rest. “In these battles,”
continues D’Aubusson, “we have lost many of our knights, fighting
bravely in the thickest of the enemy’s squares. We ourselves, and our
companions-in-arms, have had many wounds; but after placing a strong
garrison on the ramparts, we returned home to give thanks to God: for
surely it was not without Divine assistance that we were saved from
butchery; and doubtless the Almighty God sent us that succour from
heaven, lest His poor Christian people should be infected with the
filth of Mahometanism.”

The infidels plainly had reckoned on nothing short of certain
victory; their women had already prepared ropes for the prisoners,
and wooden stakes for their torture; for it had been ordered that
every living being above ten years of age should be slain or impaled
alive, and the children sold as slaves. Their cruelty, however, was
doomed for once to disappointment: the vizier saw plainly enough,
that, after so complete a defeat, there was nothing further to
be done but to embark and make the best of his way back to safe
quarters, which they did with incredible speed; so that within a few
days there was nothing left of their vast armament but the corpses
that strewed the battle-field as thick as the forest-leaves in
autumn. During the three months of siege the Turks had 9000 killed
and 15,000 wounded.

It is a pious tradition, that at the moment of the last terrible
assault, as the defenders, reduced to extremity, unfurled the banners
of Christ, our Lady, and St. John, and cried aloud to heaven for
help, the Moslems were stupefied by the sudden apparition on the
battlements of a lady of dazzling and extraordinary beauty, who
extended a shield over the devoted city. By her side stood one whom
the Rhodians recognised as St. John Baptist, their patron saint;
and the heavenly vision struck such terror into the hearts of the
assailants that they instantly turned and fled. This account was at
the time universally believed by the Rhodians; and the relief of the
island has always been reckoned as one among the many victories of
Mary. The Turkish historian, Afendy, however, has a different tale,
which has been adopted by certain modern writers, that but for the
cupidity of Mesih Pasha the forts and the island must have fallen;
that at the moment when the Ottoman standard was planted on the
walls, he ordered proclamation to be made that pillage was forbidden,
and that the rich plunder of Rhodes belonged to the sultan; that so
great in consequence was the disgust and indignation of the soldiery,
that the storming columns halted in mid-career; the battalions
outside the town refused to mount the breach; the Christians seized
the moment when the ranks were wavering to precipitate themselves
upon the besiegers, and the retreat commenced. One would wish to
have something more than the bare word of this writer in support of
an account so strongly at variance with Turkish custom, and with the
character and real interests of the pasha; but even if it be true,
it derogates nothing from the ability or the heroism of the defence;
neither, be it added, did the fact, if fact it were, diminish at the
time the importance of the event or the magnitude of the result. The
outpost of Christendom was saved; Rhodes was rescued for nearly half
a century; and when it fell, it was into the hands of a conqueror who
knew how to appreciate the courage of a vanquished foe, and, infidel
as he was, to keep faith with Christians.

D’Aubusson was carried to his palace covered with wounds, and for
three days his life was despaired of. It was in his bed that he
received from the hands of his knights the Moslem standard, and
gave orders for a public thanksgiving to be rendered to the God of
armies. During those three days the palace-doors were crowded by
anxious citizens of all ranks; and it is said their joy was less
when they watched the last sail of the Turkish fleet disappear below
the horizon, than when the surgeon announced to the populace that
the danger was past, and, as it was thought, not without tokens of
a miraculous cure. So soon as he could walk, D’Aubusson proceeded
to the great church of St. John to offer his own thanksgivings;
and, as a perpetual monument of the deliverance of the city by the
intervention of the Blessed Virgin, he ordered the erection of
three churches in her honour and that of the patrons of the city.
These churches were endowed for prayers and masses to be offered in
perpetuity for the souls of those who had fallen in battle; and one
was for the Greek rite: but the expression, “devout Catholics,” which
is used by Bosio, shows us that the Greeks to whom he here alluded
were in communion with the see of Rome, and not schismatics, as some
later writers have supposed.

Nor was his care of the living less large and generous than for the
dead. “All, down to the meanest soldier, had a share of his notice,”
says Vertot; “and to comfort the poor peasants and the inhabitants of
the country which had been devastated by the enemy, he distributed
among them corn and provisions for their support till next harvest,
and took off for several years the taxes they had hitherto paid.”

The same day that Mesih Pasha was driven from the walls of Rhodes,
the Turks, under Ahmed Keduk, first set foot on the tempting shores
of Italy, making a successful descent on the Apulian coast, and
marched at once to invest Otranto. When grand vizier, he had, in
1475, conquered the Crimea, and signalised his victories by the
perpetration of all those outrages which have given to Turkish
warfare an infamous celebrity even in the annals of blood and crime.
The taking of Kaffa, which belonged to the Genoese, and was a place
of great wealth and importance, was marked by a deed of the blackest
perfidy. The town held out but three days; on the fourth, through
the machinations of one Squerciafico, it surrendered at discretion.
The booty was immense; 40,000 of the inhabitants were sent to
Constantinople, and 1500 young Genoese nobles were compelled to
enter the corps of Janizaries. Eight days after the capture, Ahmed
Keduk gave a grand banquet to the principal Armenian citizens, who,
in concert with the Genoese traitor, had delivered up the town into
his hands. At the end of the entertainment their host bade them
adieu with all the politeness possible; but a different leave-taking
awaited them outside. The door of the banqueting chamber opened on a
narrow flight of steps, at the bottom of which was stationed a Turk,
scimitar in hand, who, as each guest emerged, severed his head from
his body. Treachery never fails to inspire contempt even in those in
whose service it is practised; and the Ottoman seldom forgave such
acts of baseness, although coupled, as was not unfrequently the case,
with the crime of apostasy. Squerciafico himself was spared only to
be reserved for a like fate at Constantinople.

Otranto speedily fell. The inhabitants defended themselves with great
courage, but the town was unprepared, and it was carried by assault
after only a fortnight’s resistance. Of the 22,000 who formed the
population, 12,000 were slaughtered without mercy; such as it was
supposed might furnish a heavy ransom were reduced to slavery; the
rest were subjected to treatment, compared with which slavery and
death in any form would have been a welcome boon: wives and daughters
brutally outraged before their husbands’ and parents’ faces; infants
torn from their mothers’ bosoms and dashed against the walls. The
commandant, the archbishop, and his clergy, were singled out for the
most horrible of all deaths, and sawn asunder. Need it be added, that
they who revelled in cruelties so truly diabolical, spared not the
altars of God, or the images of the saints, or aught that was holy
and venerable? All the awful woes predicted by the Jewish prophets
seemed to have come upon the world, and with such particularity
and completeness, that it was difficult to see how any fuller
accomplishment were possible. It was as if the mystery of iniquity
were revealed, and the days of Antichrist had begun.

Despite this triumphant success on the shores of Italy, and the
prospects of long-meditated conquest thus opened before him, the
failure before Rhodes rankled like a poisoned arrow in the heart of
Mahomet. When the news of the defeat of his armament reached the
sultan, his fury was unbounded, nay, it may be said to have amounted
to madness. None dared present themselves before him, and the vizier
was thought to have had a fortunate escape, when he received no
greater chastisement at the tyrant’s hands than disgrace and exile.
After the first outburst of rage was over, Mahomet prepared for
vengeance. Declaring that his troops were only invincible under his
own command, he assembled a force of 300,000 men, whom he led into
Asia Minor, designing from thence to fall upon Rhodes, and crush the
audacious islanders to the dust. But his hours were numbered; he
died at Nicomedia after a brief and sudden sickness, which is said
to have been his first; in the frenzy of his rage pouring forth wild
and passionate expressions to the last, and shrieking in the very
agonies of his death-struggle the words, “Rhodes, Rhodes, Rhodes!”
They carried his body to Constantinople, and buried it in the mosque
he had founded, and the inscription he had himself dictated on his
death-bed was placed over his tomb:

                 I INTENDED TO CONQUER RHODES AND TO
                            SUBDUE ITALY.




CHAPTER V.

  Bajazet and Djem—Djem takes refuge at Rhodes—He proceeds to
  France, and thence to Italy—Exculpation of D’Aubusson—His last
  days and death—Conquests of Selim, and accession of Solyman
  the Magnificent—Fall of Belgrade—Election of L’Isle Adam, and
  his correspondence with the sultan—Preparations for a fresh
  siege—Review of the Knights—Appearance of Rhodes—Character of
  L’Isle Adam—Ceremony at St. John’s—Military spectacle—Arrival of
  the enemy’s fleet.


The repulse of the infidels from the walls of Rhodes raised the
order and its grand master to even a higher reputation than they had
yet enjoyed. The name of D’Aubusson and his gallant knights rang
through Europe, and excited an enthusiasm of admiration; and singular
incidents followed on the death of Mahomet II. which served to
extend the esteem and influence of the order even among the infidels
themselves.

Mahomet left two sons, Bajazet and Djem;[17] the first a mild and
pacific prince, the other generous and warlike, and no mean scholar
for his age and nation. Hardly was Bajazet on the throne, when he
made proposals of peace to Rhodes. D’Aubusson, unwilling to accede
thereto on his own authority, sent, like a dutiful son of the Church,
to consult the Holy See. But ere an answer came, a strange thing
happened. A struggle for the imperial power between the partisans
of the rival princes ended in the defeat and flight of Djem; and as
the fate of a fallen prince, whose arms had been turned against his
successful competitor, could be small matter of doubt, according to
the ordinary policy of the Ottoman court, Djem, now a friendless
fugitive, knew that his life was not worth an hour’s purchase
should he fall into his brother’s hands. Whither should he go, or
where apply for refuge? His decision was a singular one: something
perhaps in his own frank and generous nature had endeared the name
of D’Aubusson to his imagination; certain it is that he felt a warm
and enthusiastic admiration for the heroic order which had defied
his father’s invincible arms, and it was to the hospitality and
magnanimity of the Knights of St. John that he resolved to trust his
fortunes.

Before his messengers could reach the capital of Rhodes, the position
of the unfortunate prince became still more desperate. Alone on the
coast of Lycia,—for he had sent his followers away, bidding them
seek their own safety,—a party of fifty mamelukes suddenly appeared
from behind a rock and attempted to seize him. Throwing himself
from his saddle, he leapt into the sea and struck out to a poor
fishing-boat that he knew to own a Christian for its master; for,
after the fashion of the times, it bore at its prow a rude wooden
cross, without which no fisherman of that day would have thought of
venturing to sea. The mamelukes, urging their steeds into the water,
were close behind him,—a price was on his head living or dead; but as
they almost touched their prize, the strong arm of the rowers lifted
him over the side, and a few strokes of the oar sufficed to place the
boat and its crew beyond the reach of the pursuers. Djem knew that
his only safety was now to remain among the Christians; and hastily
writing the following lines, he attached the letter to an arrow, and
shot it among the mamelukes on the shore.


  “_King Djem to King Bajazet his inhuman brother._[18]

  “God and the Prophet are witness of the unhappy necessity that
  drives me to take refuge among the Christians. Not content with
  depriving me of my just rights to the empire, you pursue me from
  country to country, and to save my life you force me to seek refuge
  among the Knights of Rhodes, the bitter enemies of our house. If
  our father could have foreseen such a profanation of the Ottoman
  name, he would have strangled you with his own hands; but Heaven
  will not fail to avenge your cruelty, and I trust yet to live to be
  witness of your punishment.”

Djem was received at Rhodes with the courtesy due to his rank, and
with all pomp and ceremony. A horse richly caparisoned was prepared
for him, and so mounted he passed through the streets thronged with
spectators, and strewn for the occasion with sprigs of myrtle and
odoriferous flowers, which, as they were pressed by his horse’s
hoofs, emitted a delicious fragrance. Splendid hangings every where
met his eye, and his ear was regaled with strains of martial music.
The grand master himself came forth to greet him, mounted also on a
noble steed, and followed by a brilliant train. It was a strange and
might have been an embarrassing meeting: on the one side, the head of
that great military order, whose very vocation it was to do battle
with the infidel; and on the other, the brother of the reigning
sultan, nay himself, in pretension, the very commander of the forces
of Islam; and that too within those walls which had so lately and so
successfully defied the Moslem arms. But it would seem that in the
whole matter the order acted but in accordance with their grand duty
of _hospitality_. To be the asylum of the destitute and oppressed was
so natural to them, that their gates opened to receive the fugitive
who claimed their protection, almost without a question of his faith;
for a Hospitaller to have refused to receive a guest would have been
a disgrace upon the name; and moreover the rules of chivalry exacted
the most scrupulous courtesy to enemies. The question, therefore,
of Djem’s reception was soon settled; and the treatment he received
during his forty days’ residence there was noble and princely, as
the unfortunate fugitive himself acknowledged in the manifesto he
drew up before leaving them, to place himself under the protection
of the French king. For, indeed, he felt Rhodes itself was too near
his brother’s court; secret assassins could easily be found to reach
him there; and so, with D’Aubusson’s consent, he departed, falling
at his feet and embracing them as he bade his generous entertainer
farewell, and vowing, were he ever restored to his rights, to observe
an inviolable friendship with the Order of St. John. In France he
met with but a cold reception, and retired to a priory of the order;
being supported partly by an appanage which the grand master obtained
from Bajazet for him by dint of skilful treaty, and partly by the
private liberality of D’Aubusson himself. So munificent, indeed, was
the grand master’s bounty, that the chapter general declared, after
an examination of the accounts, that he ought to be reimbursed out
of the treasury of the order the large sums he had expended on the
prince.[19]

This singular episode in the history of the order has been
represented by some as an artful stroke of policy on the part of
the grand master; though, indeed, it would be difficult to see what
he could gain by the open protection of Bajazet’s rival at the very
moment when terms of peace were being negotiated with that monarch.
As for any violation of safe-conduct, it does not appear how far such
stipulation, if stipulation there were, extended; and Taaffe is of
opinion that anyhow it was faithfully observed in according him a
safe and honourable reception at Rhodes, and freedom to depart when
he pleased. It seems incontestable, indeed, that in the terms of
pacification afterwards made with Bajazet, the strict guardianship
of Djem, so as to prevent his making further attempts against his
brother’s crown, formed one of the conditions; but it does not seem
unfitting, or in any way unworthy of D’Aubusson’s reputation, that,
whilst protecting the life of the fugitive prince, he should also
prevent him from forming new plots against the sultan, whose claims
to the sovereignty as elder brother could scarcely be disputed. Our
own history tells us how difficult a trust is the guardianship of a
fallen and a hostile prince: in the end it must ever take the form of
imprisonment; but that he was treated harshly or “like a prisoner,”
the author we have quoted above declares to be “ridiculously untrue.”
Reasons there were every way why he should be detained in honourable
ward, were it only to keep a curb on Bajazet, and to save Christendom
and the world from a renewal of the horrible atrocities of Turkish
warfare. Besides, Djem’s partisans were known to be the most virulent
of all the infidels in their hatred of Christians in general, and of
the Knights in particular; and had he been allowed to put himself at
their head, the greatest evils might have resulted to religion and
civilisation.

The unhappy prince is supposed to have died of poison in Italy,
whither by his own desire he had been removed from France. But the
affair, even on the confession of those who are strong as to the
fact, is involved in perhaps inextricable mystery; and indeed the
whole history of those times, and of the papal court in particular,
has been so overlaid with falsehood, that it is impossible, with all
the existing materials before us, and after a careful and impartial
collation of conflicting authorities, to arrive at any satisfactory
conclusion. But anyhow they who most blame the grand master and the
order for allowing the Turkish prince to pass out of their safe
keeping, never so much as hint at their participation in his death.
On the contrary, they say that the first step taken for carrying
out the design against his life was the removal of his faithful
Hospitallers. They describe the horror and indignation felt at
Rhodes when the unhappy news arrived; and declare that it was as a
death-blow to the grand master, who felt that such a catastrophe was
a blot on the honour of Christian hospitality, and deeply lamented
the loss of one whom in their short intimacy he had learnt to regard
with interest and even with affection.

However, were any exculpation of D’Aubusson and his order required,
it may be found in Djem’s own letter to the grand master, written
shortly before his death, wherein he deplores his separation from
the Knights, and assures them of his eternal gratitude; declaring,
by the way, that, except that he was deprived of his usual guard of
knights, which vexed him much and caused him infinite grief, he was
“honourably and sufficiently well treated.”[20]

D’Aubusson’s was a proud position during the three-and-twenty years
that his government lasted after the siege of Rhodes. The Pope
presented him with a cardinal’s hat; all nations were proud of him;
the emperor refused to declare war against the sultan without his
assent; and the English king, sending him a present of guns and
Irish horses, says courteously in his letter, “The guns are for the
defence of Rhodes, but the horses for the use of him whom I love
and reverence as my father.” When, towards the close of his life, a
new Christian league was formed against the infidel, including the
emperor, the republic of Venice, and the kings of France, Castile,
Portugal, and Hungary, with most of the Italian princes, a general
consent was given to the papal decree which named him generalissimo
of the Christian armies. But the result of this great league was like
most of those which preceded it. War between the European sovereigns
themselves soon broke it up, and each power made peace with the
Moslem on his own terms; so that the order was, as usual, left alone
and unsupported to carry on the war.

When the last sail of the French fleet disappeared from Lesbos,
the rendezvous of the Christian allies, D’Aubusson gave way to a
sadness not unusual to him, as to many a great mind besides, which,
with its eye fixed on its own lofty and noble views, ever meets
with littleness and disgusts in the world around. He felt there
was a stain on the honour of Christendom, and the chill of that
disappointment is said never to have left him. Still he would not
have abandoned all attempts to restrain the Ottoman power; and seeing
the siege of Lesbos to be impracticable, he would nevertheless have
made some strong and imposing demonstrations against Constantinople,
more, however, to maintain a continual and vigilant reconnoissance
than to provoke actual hostilities; and for this purpose he directed
himself to England. But in London also he met with “ice that would
not melt, seas and mountains that brought forth nothing.” He was
then in his seventy-eighth year, and seeing there were no hopes, as
things then stood, of effecting any thing for the Christian cause,
he returned to Rhodes, and spent the last two years of his life in
regulating the affairs of his people and of his order. The last
edicts which bore his authority were full of a religious spirit: they
were directed against blasphemy and public swearing, against luxury
in dress, and other abuses. The great captain never forgot that he
was also a religious; and none ever enforced religious discipline
among his subjects with more effectual severity.

His last hour was worthy of his name. Gathering his knights around
his bed, he bade them adhere to their rule; and after many holy
words spoken with a calm and sweet serenity, he closed his eyes, and
expired without a struggle. No prince or grand master was ever so
lamented. In the funeral procession (to adopt Taaffe’s description),
first went every religious corporation in Rhodes; next came the Greek
patriarch and all his clergy; then the Latin clergy of the order; a
little before the bier two hundred of the principal Rhodians clothed
in black, and bearing lighted torches in their hands; and following
them, the Knights, carrying their colours drooping, so as to sweep
the ground; the bier with the corpse borne on the shoulders of the
priors, and the grand crosses of the order; after which marched the
long troop of mourners, two hundred and fifty in number; and loud was
the weeping from the windows, streets, terraces, and roofs, and the
wailings and lamentations of the whole populace. Over his tomb was
broken his truncheon of command, together with his spurs; and so were
concluded all the doleful formalities with singular testimonies of
heart-felt grief. Never was son or parent more truly mourned than was
D’Aubusson by his knights and Rhodian subjects. They saw in him the
honour of chivalry, the father of the poor, the saviour of Rhodes,
the sword and buckler of Christendom; and his death was the signal
for hostilities which, during his life, had never been pursued by
Bajazet, who, strange to say, really loved and honoured the famous
grand master as much as he doubtless feared him as an adversary.

Bajazet had nothing of the ferocity or warlike genius of his race.
The civil war in which he found himself engaged on first coming to
the throne had obliged him to recall Ahmed Keduk from Otranto, which
was compelled after an obstinate defence to capitulate to the Duke
of Calabria. The infidels thus dispossessed of the only place they
held in Italy were happily never able to recover their footing on
its shores. His reign was chiefly signalised by great improvements
in the Turkish navy, and increasing power at sea. He carried on
frequent wars with the Venetians and Hungarians, and took the cities
of Lepanto, Coron, and Modon. The carnage at the last-named place was
immense; the inhabitants being put to the sword without regard to
sex or age; nearly all the nobles perished; and the bishop, Andrew
Falconi, was slain while in the act of exhorting the people to fight
for their faith and liberties. The conquerors set fire to the town
after its capture, and the conflagration lasted five whole days.
In resisting the encroachments of the Mameluke sultans of Egypt
Bajazet was less successful; the result of the contest being in his
adversary’s favour, who, at the peace that was concluded between
them, retained three strong places which he had seized and occupied.
On the whole, therefore, the Ottoman power may be considered to have
remained stationary during his reign; and had he been followed by
princes of no more energy, or no better success in war, the decline
of the Turkish empire might have dated from his accession, or at
any rate would have been anticipated many years. But the dynasty of
the sultans boasts a worthy representative in his son and successor
Selim. Seizing the reins of government, he commenced his rule by
becoming the murderer of his brothers and nephews, if not of his
father, and made great preparations for a second invasion of Rhodes.
On one occasion, indeed, his fleet, as it returned from Alexandria,
menaced the island, but withdrew after making hostile demonstrations.
His death, eight years after his accession, prevented the execution
of the design; but a glance at his conquests during that short period
may show how the circle of the Ottoman power was gathering closer
and closer round the devoted island: Egypt, Syria, and Arabia, were
now added to the Turkish dominions, which thus became nearly double
in extent; and the crescent ruled over every country of the East,
save the yet unconquered soil where waved the banner of the Knights
of the Cross. Selim may be regarded as the very impersonation of
the worst qualities of Mahometanism in general, and of the Turkish
character in particular. One instance of his fanaticism may suffice.
He had resolved on extirpating the very profession of Christianity
from his dominions; and to this end actually ordered the conversion
of all the churches into mosques, and the reception of the Koran by
all his Greek subjects, under pain of death. From this sanguinary
determination he was diverted only by the strong remonstrances of the
Greek patriarch, whose efforts were seconded by those of the grand
vizier and chief mufti. He reminded him of the solemn pledges given
by Mahomet on the capture of Constantinople, and appealed to the very
Koran itself against such wholesale slaughter and direct infraction
of treaties. Selim yielded thus far that he consented to tolerate the
practice of the Christian religion; but he would no longer allow some
of the finest buildings of the city to be devoted to its worship;
these he gave up to the Mussulmans, and directed structures of wood
to be erected in their stead. Thus was completed the degradation of
the once Christian metropolis of the East; and, except that their
religious assemblies were not forbidden, and their priests were not
proscribed, and the saying of Mass was not made a capital offence,
and there was no ruinous fine for non-attendance at the Moslem
service, the Greek subjects of the Porte were reduced to the same
condition as were the Catholics of England in the reign of Elizabeth.

The death of Selim (September 22, 1520) raised to the throne of
the Ottoman empire its greatest monarch, in the person of Solyman
the Magnificent, whose name is so familiar to the students of that
period of history which we might denominate “the age of Charles
V.” He succeeded to the vast power left him by his father at the
same time that Charles was elected to the imperial dignity: their
strength was well matched, and it may be said that, by a kind of
instinct, they felt themselves rivals from the moment of their
accession. But the policy and character of Solyman differed widely
from those of the princes who had preceded him in the government
of the East. The influence of European civilisation was gradually
making itself felt; and the Turks, learning something of refinement
from the nations whom they subjugated, were beginning to exhibit
some modification in that savage barbarism which had hitherto alone
distinguished them. Solyman’s government of his empire was conducted
on principles of justice and equity,—virtues unknown under rulers
whose only laws had been the cimeter or the bowstring; and the
increased intelligence of the Turkish administration, while it in
no wise softened the merciless character of its hostilities, added
in no small degree to its power, and consequently to the danger of
its Christian adversaries. Among various notes and memoranda left
by the Emperor Selim, pointing out with remarkable sagacity the
steps necessary to be taken for assuring the safety of his enormous
dominions, the possession of two places was named as essential for
the preservation of the empire:—they were Belgrade and Rhodes, both
which had successfully defied the arms of Mahomet. Solyman determined
on both enterprises; and preparations for the siege of Belgrade were
commenced in the very year of his accession.

This bulwark of Christendom was compelled to capitulate on the 29th
of August 1521. The Hungarians made a most gallant defence and
resisted twenty desperate assaults; but to the overwhelming numbers
of the beleaguering army and the incessant fire of the Turkish
batteries were added the disaffection and treachery of allies and
mercenaries. Schism again came to the aid of the infidels; and
Belgrade, like Constantinople, fell into the power of the Turks.
According to established custom Solyman took formal possession of
the place in the name of the false prophet by “saying prayers” in
the cathedral, which thus became a mosque, and was then, to use the
expression appropriated to such profanations, “purged from idolatry”
by the destruction of the altars and the removal of every Christian
ornament and symbol. Having thus completed his first great conquest,
and established a Turkish stronghold on the Hungarian frontier, the
youthful sultan marched back in triumph to Constantinople.

The result meanwhile was watched at Rhodes with anxious interest;
for all very well knew, should Belgrade fall, where the next blow
would be aimed. Fabricius Carretto was then grand master; the same
to whom D’Aubusson was thought to have predicted his election during
the storming of St. Nicholas; a man of literary and refined habits,
learned in all the learning of the age, which it must be remembered
was the age of the Medici and of the revival of letters, skilled in
all dead and living languages, a gallant warrior, and at the same
time a pacific and popular prince; the brother-in-arms of D’Aubusson,
and the friend and correspondent of Leo X. He died in the month of
January 1521; and with the daily expectation of a second siege, the
choice of his successor was a matter of interest not merely to
Rhodes, but to Christendom. The votes fell on one worthy in every
way to rank among the galaxy of illustrious princes who adorned the
opening of the sixteenth century: Philip Villiers de l’Isle Adam must
be added to the list which already included Francis, Charles, Leo,
and the Sultan Solyman. He was at Paris when the news of his election
reached him, but instantly set out for Rhodes, arriving there, after
happily escaping from a fire which broke out in his vessel, a violent
tempest, and the corsair Curtogli,[21] who lay in wait for him off
Cape St. Angelo, and through whose fleet the dauntless grand master
passed under cover of the night. His arrival in Rhodes was joyfully
welcomed. There had been no declaration of war on Solyman’s part; yet
it was scarcely needed, for Belgrade had fallen, and the intelligence
was conveyed to L’Isle Adam in a letter from Solyman himself, the
friendly terms of which threw but a transparent veil over the threats
they were intended to convey.

The correspondence between the sultan and the grand master may fairly
be looked upon as a curiosity in the history of diplomacy, and as
such we subjoin the letters.

    “Solyman Sultan, by the grace of God King of Kings, Sovereign of
    Sovereigns, most high Emperor of Byzantium and Trebizond, most
    powerful King of Persia, Arabia, Syria, and Egypt, Supreme Lord
    of Europe and Asia, Prince of Mecca and Aleppo, Possessor of
    Jerusalem, and Ruler of the Universal Sea, to Philip Villiers de
    L’Isle Adam, Grand Master of Rhodes, wishes health.

  “We congratulate you on your new dignity, and on your arrival in
  your states, desiring that you may reign there happily with yet
  greater glory than your predecessors have done. It only rests
  with you to share in our good graces. Accept our friendship,
  therefore; and, as a friend, be not the last to congratulate us on
  the conquests we have just achieved in Hungary, where we have made
  ourselves masters of the important city of Belgrade, having caused
  all such as dared to resist us to fall under our redoubtable sword.
  Farewell.”


    “Brother Philip Villiers de L’Isle Adam, Grand Master of Rhodes,
    to Solyman, Sultan of the Turks.

  “I have well understood the purport of your letter, delivered to
  me by your ambassador. Your proposals of peace are as agreeable to
  me as they are disagreeable to Curtogli. That corsair omitted no
  efforts to surprise me on my passage from France; but not having
  succeeded in his project, and being unable to resolve on quitting
  these seas without causing us some damage, he has tried to carry
  off two of our merchant vessels on the coast of Lycia; but the
  galleys of the order have compelled him to fly. Farewell.”

This letter was despatched by a Greek merchant, the grand master not
judging it expedient to trust one of his knights in the hands of the
wily sultan. But anxious to entrap a representative of the order
whose presence at his court might be turned to good account, Solyman,
in his second letter, pretended never to have received the reply to
his first; it was intimated by his emissaries that it had not been
delivered on account of the meanness of the messenger, who all the
while had been seized, and tortured, to extract from him all the
information he could give. Solyman meantime writes as follows:

  “They assure us that the letter which our magnificence wrote to you
  has reached you, causing you more astonishment than pleasure. Rest
  assured that I do not mean to content myself with the taking of
  Belgrade, but that I shortly propose to myself a yet more important
  enterprise, of which you will soon have warning; for, indeed, you
  and your knights always keep a place in my memory.”

This was a little more intelligible in its irony, and the grand
master’s answer was in the same tone.

  “I am truly glad that you remember me and my order. You speak to
  me of your conquests in Hungary, and of your design of undertaking
  fresh ones, whose success you trust will be similar. I would have
  you consider that, of all the projects which men form, none are
  more uncertain than those which depend on the fate of arms. Adieu.”

Shortly after this, a brigantine of the order was captured close to
Rhodes, and the war may be said to have begun. Meanwhile there were
not wanting traitors in Rhodes, who busily furnished the sultan with
every information he required; one being a Jewish physician, who even
received baptism for the purpose of blinding the Rhodians to his true
character; another, yet more dangerous and powerful, being found
unhappily in the ranks of the order, in the person of Andrew Damaral,
chancellor, and grand prior of Castile. Old differences with L’Isle
Adam, and a bitter jealousy of his elevation to power, contributed to
induce this man to betray his trust; and it is said the final loss of
the island was the result of his duplicity, as he had given a false
report of the quantity of powder in the place; so that no sufficient
supplies were laid in before the siege, when the vigilance of L’Isle
Adam was employed in furnishing every other magazine.

Great preparations were indeed made: the ramparts were strengthened,
the storehouses of forage and general provisions were replenished;
fresh artillery was imported from Europe; and embassies numberless,
and uniformly without result, were despatched to the Christian
sovereigns to implore a timely succour. But all was in vain; Charles
V. and Francis I. were just then playing their tournament for the
world’s applause; and in the rivalry of a miserable ambition were
deaf to the call of duty. So Rhodes was left to take care of herself,
the only ally she gained being the celebrated engineer, Gabriel
Martinengo, who at great personal sacrifices joined the order, and
was found of inestimable service during the siege.

There was a grand review and inspection of the knights and regular
troops held before the grand master; a splendid and inspiriting
sight. Each language drawn up before its inn—the knights in full
armour, their scarlet surcoats, worn only in time of war, displaying
the cross on every side; their numbers about six hundred, with some
5000 troops under their command; a handful of men soon to be matched
with the swarms of an Ottoman armament. Each language was reviewed
by a knight of its own division, every one touching his cross, and
swearing that his arms and armour were his own. England was nobly
represented, and her knights bore a distinguished part in the
conflict that ensued; nor indeed can we avoid the observation, that
so long as the English language existed in the order, its preeminent
valour is noticed by all historians, and, as is well known, the
important office of _Turcopolier_, or leader of the cavalry, belonged
of right to the English nation.

Again we have occasion to notice and to admire the religious unity
displayed at a time when jealousies between rival rites might so
easily have sown seeds of dangerous dissensions. The two patriarchs,
Greek and Latin, united in communion, knew no rivalry save that of
enthusiasm in the common cause; and the spirit of the people was
greatly animated and sustained by the eloquence of a Greek monk.
The Greek archbishop harangued the populace in the streets: he was
a noble old man, wise and gentle, but full of ardour; and he stood
opposite an image of our Lady, holding the crucifix aloft, while he
addressed his audience in strains of glowing fervour, and called on
them to have trust in God and His dear Mother, and to dwell on those
lofty thoughts of religion which are stronger than tower or bastion
for defence; and to be firm and constant in faith and loyalty, and
yield as true a service to their present grand master as they had
yielded to the glorious D’Aubusson. The traditions of Rhodes, and its
ancient glory, were not forgotten; and such words had the effect on
the people which might have been expected: the Rhodians were like one
man in their fearless vigorous resolve to suffer all things before
surrender or disgrace.

It is touching to read how every historian of the order, before
entering on the sad history of its downfall at Rhodes, gives, as it
were, one last lingering glance over the lovely island, never again
to be what it had now been for more than two hundred years. That
lofty capital, with the upper town, crested with the battlemented
palace of the grand master, surrounded by the dwellings of his
knights; those picturesque streets, with all the curious carvings and
ornaments of early ages, the knightly escutcheons on the walls and
the arched doorways, which still remain;[22] the city, round in its
form, but presenting from the sea the appearance of a graceful and
brilliant crescent; the forts still guarded as before, but greatly
strengthened in their defences, within whose bosom the cool clear
waters bathed the very foot of the houses, and mirrored in their
bright expanse the picture of that pile of palaces, which, half in
shade and half in sunshine, gave back the rays of the sun from their
marble walls with the brilliancy of gold. How lovely it all was!
and the forty years which had elapsed since the last invasion had
sufficed to restore to their pristine beauty the gardens and richly
cultivated country that girdled it from the land; so that if you
ascended the high steeple of St. John’s church, (still standing as a
mosque,) you might have gazed over the fairest landscape painter’s
eye could desire to rest upon, and might have caught the rich scent
of the roses on those peaceful fields, and watched the waving of the
corn, and the rustling leaves of vines and orange-trees,—all soon to
be laid waste, and trampled down in mire and blood. It was June; the
very noontide of summer beauty lay upon the sloping hills of Rhodes;
and many an eye, as it gazed for the last time on the lovely scene,
was blinded with the tears of a prophetic feeling which told that the
halcyon days of Rhodian glory were gone for ever.

The suburbs were destroyed as before; and this time with so vigorous
a good will as to draw forth particular notice and commendation from
the eye-witnesses. Villas, farm-houses, and cottages demolished;
trees cut down; corn uprooted, though the harvest was already
ripening in that sunny land; nothing was left that could afford
shelter, or food, or materials of war to the invader. The country
people came pouring into the city, bringing with them provisions,
animals, furniture, instruments of agriculture, all in strange
confusion: “the women, with their hair dishevelled, scratching
their cheeks,[23] as is the custom of the place, weeping sore, and
supplicating their Lord and God, with their tiny children lifting up
their clasped hands to heaven, and praying Him to have compassion
on them.” The citizens were armed and organised, and the sailors
and harbour-men enrolled and charged with the defence of the port;
the peasants set to work as pioneers; and the slaves compelled to
labour in digging trenches and repairing and strengthening the
fortifications. And lastly, our Lady of Philermos was brought in in
solemn procession, and deposited in the church of St. Mark, clergy
and people assisting in crowds; for now, as before, the defence of
Rhodes was solemnly committed to her patronage.

Nor was it long before open declaration of war was made, couched in
the following terms:

    “To the Grand Master and his Knights, and to all the Inhabitants
    of Rhodes, warning:

  “The piracies which you continue to exercise against my faithful
  subjects, and the insult you audaciously offer to my imperial
  majesty, oblige me to command you instantly to render up your
  island and fortress into my hands. If this you do forthwith, I
  swear by the God who made heaven and earth,—by the hundred and
  twenty-four thousand prophets,—by the four sacred books which fell
  from heaven,—and by our great prophet Mahomet,—that you shall have
  free liberty to depart from the island, and the inhabitants to
  remain therein without hurt or damage. But if you yield not instant
  obedience to my orders, you shall all pass under the edge of my
  invincible sword; and the towers, the bastions, and the walls of
  Rhodes shall be reduced to the level of the grass that grows at
  their feet.”

To this peremptory summons of the sultan it was resolved in council
of the Knights that the only answer accorded him should issue from
the cannon’s mouth. Rhodes now knew that the hour of peril was at
hand; the inhabitants of the neighbouring islands belonging to the
order, many of them expert in war, were summoned in, and set to
garrison the various forts under command of chosen knights; but
ere the enemy appeared, and when every preparation had been made,
each man being assigned his post and duty with a particularity the
details of which might only fatigue the reader, the grand master
ordered that all should make ready for action by fasts and prayer,—he
himself setting the example; for whenever the cares of business and
government left him a moment free, he was to be seen at the foot of
the altar. The knights and citizens trusted as much in his prayers as
in his valour, and were used to say that Heaven itself was interested
in the cause of so holy a prince. All through the siege he wore the
same sweet gracious look; a smile ever ready upon his lips; nothing
of hurry or passion in his manner, but the tranquillity that became
him as a religious, well fitted with the gallant bearing of the
knight. You might see him kneel down at times in his armour, just
putting aside his helmet, to pray on the spot where he stood. He ate
with the common soldiers, and sometimes went on guard at night like
a private sentinel; and this from that true poverty of spirit for
which he was remarkable, and which made men revere him as a saint at
the same time that they followed him as a captain. Indeed, it was
whispered that something of a supernatural, superhuman character
attached to him; and they scarce knew whether to wonder most at his
gifts of valour or of prayer.

It was early on the morning of the 26th of June 1522, when the
sentinel on the top of St. Stephen’s Hill espied the Turkish fleet
advancing on the eastern side, and at the distance of about a mile.
Tidings were instantly sent to the grand master, who received them
as though it were a matter of which he was already well informed. It
was within the octave of the feast of St. John; and the custom was in
Rhodes to make a daily procession during that time, which the grand
master would not permit to be interrupted this year, nor even on
this day. Despite, therefore, the excitement and consternation that
prevailed, all was conducted as though the city were in profoundest
peace. The populace assembled in St. John’s church; and after High
Mass, the procession was made round the church as heretofore, only
with something of unusual solemnity and care. Then the grand master
came before the altar, and, going up the steps, reverently opened
the tabernacle door, and took out the Most Holy Sacrament in the
Ostensorium;—first genuflecting, and remaining for a moment in
prayer, he took It in his hands, and turning, exhibited It to the
people; after which he prayed for them all,—for Rhodes, and for
its church and children, that God would turn away the danger, and
give His servants the blessings of peace. So, replacing the Blessed
Sacrament in the tabernacle, he left the altar, and causing the
church-doors to be shut, gave out the orders for every one to proceed
to his post.

As he himself returned to his palace after this touching ceremony,
word was brought him that the enemy’s fleet was close to land; he
heard the news with his usual tranquillity, and only ordered the
city-gates to be closed. An hour afterwards the palace-gates were
thrown open, and there rode out a brilliant and gallant train. Many
knights in armour and scarlet surcoats, the three standards floating
over their heads, each borne by chosen men, to whom they had been
solemnly delivered in charge; and one, whereon the white cross was
quartered with the arms of the grand master, was carried by a young
Englishman, who found an early death at the very beginning of the
siege. L’Isle Adam, in golden armour, was at their head; and as
the procession came along, and the trumpets sounded with a loud
triumphant flourish, such a thrill of glad and glorious enthusiasm
stirred through the crowd as banished fear; and they rushed to window
and terraced roof to watch the coming of the Turkish fleet, and
almost to welcome its advance. What a magnificent spectacle! In the
streets below that gorgeous chivalric procession, the finest steeds
and the brightest armour, and the gallantest hearts of Christendom!
Suddenly, and as though by some preconcerted signal, on every rampart
and battlemented wall, from the inns of the various languages and
all the posts of separate command, there wave a thousand flags. Each
nation has its own proud ensign and its own representative among the
Knights of Rhodes. There you may see the golden lilies of France
floating not far from the royal lions of England; there is the plain
cross of Savoy, first borne in honour of the order; there are the
white flag of Portugal, and the time-honoured banners of Castile and
Auvergne; and you know that beneath the silken folds of each are
posted brave and gallant hearts, who will add fresh honour to their
old renown. Look out over the port to the tower of St. Nicholas,
the key of Rhodes; twenty Provençal knights are there, claiming, as
Provence ever would, the post of danger and of glory. The rest of the
French you may distinguish drawn up with admirable regularity from
the tower of France to the Ambrosian gate; and thence to the gate
of St. George stand the Germans—you may tell them by the imperial
standard. Spain and England stand together; the banner of the
Turcopolier, Sir John Buck, waves out over their ranks; only nineteen
English are there, but every man a hero, and ready for a hero’s
death. The grand master will head them himself; for it is thought
the English bastion will bear the hardest brunt; but his ordinary
post of command when not in action will be opposite the church of
our Lady of Victories. It stands below you,—and from the platform in
front you may reach each post in a few moments,—a stately and a noble
building; but Rhodes has many such, though none to equal St. John’s,
whose delicate tapering steeple, “buried in air, and looking to the
sky,—the deep blue sky” of Rhodes,—catches the eye when you are miles
off at sea, and seems to place the glittering cross that crests its
summit half way ’twixt earth and heaven. If you watch, you may see
the four chief grand crosses, and their companies of relief, as they
are termed, going the rounds of the ramparts. There is an hourly
inspection of the defences day and night; and when the grand crosses
are not there, six hundred men take it by turns to make the circuit,
under two French and two Spanish knights, with rather summary
directions how to treat malefactors or traitors. Very little of trial
by jury, but a brief court-martial and a running noose.

Préjan de Bidoux has the charge of the batteries; he is the governor
of Cos: but after beating off thirty Turkish galleys from his own
island, he sent off straight to Rhodes, to beg the grand master’s
leave to come and join in the defence; and so soon as the joyful
permission was granted, he threw himself into a small vessel, and was
in the port before the Turks could stop him, though it is thought
his brigantine must have pushed through the very midst of their fleet.

Lastly, those venerable unwarlike forms, bearded and saint-like, at
whose approach knights and sentinels and glittering ranks kneel down
as for a father’s blessing, are not the least among the defenders of
Rhodes. Leonard Balestein is the Latin metropolitan, reckoned the
most eloquent preacher of his day; Clement, the Greek archbishop,
you have already heard of; and they love one another as brothers; so
that, as they go from post to post, they are seldom to be met apart.

All this you may see as you look down upon the city. But glance
over the ocean, and another spectacle awaits you. The blue line of
the Levant, sparkling in the summer sunshine, and kissed into life
and motion by a northern breeze; and on its heaving bright expanse
300 Turkish sail, gathered from every coast that owns the Ottoman
rule,—from Egypt, Syria, and every part of Asia,—and having on board,
in addition to the regular crews, 8000 chosen soldiers and 2000
pioneers; whilst 100,000 men under Solyman himself are advancing
along the western coast of Asia Minor.[24] Alas for Rhodes and her
6000 defenders! We may well be pardoned this glance at her as she
stands in the last hour of her beauty and display. The 26th of June
sees her indeed magnificent to the eye, and in all the pomp and
pride of chivalry and warlike show; but soon that gay and martial
music will be exchanged for the thunder of artillery, and those
battlemented bannered walls will be crumbling to the dust.

We must, however, commence a fresh chapter before entering on the
story of the last siege of Rhodes.




CHAPTER VI.

  Ill success of the Turkish troops—Arrival of the sultan—The
  English bastion blown up—Conduct of the grand master—Fresh
  assault under Peri Pasha—Panic produced by the appearance of
  L’Isle Adam—Attack on the ruins of the English bastion by
  Mustapha Pasha—Assault-general—Retreat of the infidels—Renewed
  hostilities—State of Rhodes during the last month of the
  siege—Solyman has recourse to negotiation—The grand master is
  compelled to yield by the entreaties of the citizens—Honourable
  terms of capitulation—Interview between L’Isle Adam and the
  sultan—Cruelties of the Janizaries—Generous conduct of the sultan
  Solyman.


The Turkish forces now before the capital of Rhodes were commanded
by Mustapha Pasha, whose counsel had in the first instance urged on
the sultan to undertake the enterprise, and to whom its conduct had
been intrusted. The troops were landed on the 28th of July 1522, but
siege-operations did not commence until the 1st of August. In the
expectation of finding an abundance of provisions in the fertile
island, scarcely any had been brought by the fleet. The first thing,
therefore, perceived on the disembarkment of the troops was the
fact that the army stood in no small danger of starvation. Instead
of the abundance they had expected to meet with, they found on all
sides a desert, without crops, inhabitants, or forage; for to such
a state had the wise precautions of the grand master reduced the
whole country round. The wells were choked and rendered nauseous and
poisonous; and Mustapha soon found that to keep the field for many
days together, he would require something more than the garlic, dried
fruits, fish, and salt meat, which, as his physician Ramadan tells
us, were all the provisions he had deemed it necessary to bring.

His principal hopes of success had been placed in the operations
of his miners: but at the commencement the frequent sorties of the
Knights, and their ruinous fire, prevented the Turks from gaining
any advantage; and what with continual conflicts in which they were
always the losers, the prospect of starvation, and no hopes of booty,
the soldiers of the besieging army showed symptoms of discontent
which soon broke out into open mutiny. Peri Pasha, the second in
command, and appointed by the sultan to furnish him with exact
intelligence of all that passed, lost no time in acquainting him
with the gloomy aspect of affairs; adding, that perhaps the “gentle
omnipotence” of his presence might restore the courage of his troops.
The celerity with which Solyman acted on this advice rivalled, says
Bosio, the intrepid marches of Cæsar. Embarking with a few followers
in two small open boats, he appeared at Rhodes before his approach
could have been suspected, and declared to the army, who received
him with all military honours, that he was only come to punish their
rebellion and decimate his cowardly battalions. The interference
of Peri Pasha, perhaps pre-arranged, turned him from this design;
and the troops, recalled to their duty by his presence, sought to
regain their reputation for valour and discipline by entering on the
siege with an ardour hitherto unparalleled. If we are to judge by
the language employed by Ramadan in his history of the expedition,
the Turkish soldiery were stimulated to the conquest of the island
by descriptions addressed to their vilest passions,—descriptions
which, by throwing a veil of voluptuousness and romance over the
most detestable enormities, were calculated to stifle every feeling
of humanity in their breasts, and to make them regard the worst
crimes they could perpetrate as the legitimate rewards of bravery
and daring. But what else could be expected of a creed so foul
and revolting? With a Mahometan heaven as the hoped-for reward,
sensuality the most licentious must be a virtue and a merit in the
eyes of the “true believer”.

The loss sustained by the garrison in their sorties, though slight
in comparison with that of their opponents, was judged by the grand
master too great to make the continuance of this mode of conflict
prudent or advisable. A hundred or a thousand men were little for
the enemy to lose, whilst the fall of a single knight was felt as
a disaster by the Christians. Keeping close, therefore, within
their ramparts, they left the infidels at liberty to erect their
batteries and make all their dispositions undisturbed, save by the
artillery from the walls. The high steeple of St. John’s served as
an observatory from whence every movement of the hostile forces
could easily be discerned. From its summit the whole camp and city
might be viewed, spread out as on a map; and the Turks were well
aware of the use made of the building by the Christian engineers.
Very early, therefore, it became the mark for their artillery,
and almost the first cannonade directed against it brought it to
the ground. The Turks had with them twelve monstrous guns, two of
which discharged, as on the former occasion, balls eleven or twelve
palms in diameter.[25] And now began the same furious and incessant
firing which had been endured at the previous siege; day and night
might be heard that long continuous roar, responded to by a fire
as hot and destructive on the part of the garrison. Mines, too,
underneath burrowed the ground in every direction; and it is said
that Martinengo, the engineer of the order, broke into no less than
fifty-five of these in the progress of his operations.

The walls of Rhodes were of prodigious height; “as high,” says the
Arabian physician before named, “as sultan Mahmoud’s minarets, and
broad as the streets of Constantinople.” To command these, therefore,
the Turks undertook a truly wonderful work, being nothing less than
the construction of two vast mounds or hills, artificially composed
of earth and stones brought together with immense labour, which rose
ten or twelve feet above the battlements, and gave extraordinary
effect to the batteries which were planted on their summits. The
laborious engineering works undertaken by both parties during
the siege were indeed of an herculean character; and though such
operations are for the most part of little interest to the general
reader, yet they become invested with an almost romantic character
from the scale on which we find them here conducted. In the attack on
St. Nicholas, for instance, the pasha, remembering the failure of his
predecessor at the former siege, dressed his batteries, and worked
them by night only, every morning dismantling the guns and burying
them in the sand. He flattered himself he had succeeded, when he
saw the western rampart fall in ruins; but all the while his labour
had been rivalled and surpassed by his indefatigable opponents, who
had built and armed a new fortress within the old one; so that, as
the outer ruin fell, like a certain drawn aside, it but displayed a
new wall, which stood behind bristling with cannon, and rendering
necessary the re-commencement of the whole attack.

We shall not, however, call on our readers to accompany us through
the course of these operations; but passing over three months of
weary battery and bloodshed, ask him to enter St. John’s church on
an afternoon in the first week of September, where he will find a
crowd of all ranks (but women mostly, for the men are at the walls,)
praying silently, while the choir is just about to begin vespers.
Kneeling in his wonted place is Villiers de L’Isle Adam; he is ever
there when not engaged in active conflict; and just now there is a
lull in the cannonading, as though the enemy were perplexed at the
obstinate resistance, and were planning a fresh method of attack.
His noble venerable countenance is sad, though not discouraged: how
should it be otherwise? His little force is now reduced to scarcely
3000 men besides the knights; of them 300 alone are left. The powder
is failing; rumours of treachery every where abroad, and no news of
succour yet from Europe. A courier has been sent to Rome, and bears
the news that the struggle is desperate; women fighting because there
are not men enough to work the batteries, and no provisions left but
bread and water. He wears his cuirass,—for indeed he never lays it
aside, but even in church is always ready for a hasty summons; just
now, however, there seems a little respite; that long and deafening
roar is still, and you may hear the sweet voices of the choir as they
intone the versicles: _Deus, in adjutorium meum intende: Domine,
ad adjuvandum me festina._ But the rest is drowned in a sudden
interruption. First a strange and hideous rumbling underground:
the city trembles as from an earthquake; then a shock, and a loud
explosion, shrieks of dying and wounded, and cries of combat; a wild
disordered confusion of all noises, and the fall of stones and rocks
upon the roofs, give notice of some great disaster. And so indeed it
was; for the greater part of the English bastion had been blown into
the air by an enormous mine; and the Turks, taking advantage of the
confusion, were preparing for the assault. “I accept the omen,” cried
the grand master, as he repeated the words which the choir had just
sung; then turning to the knights who surrounded him, “Come, dear
brothers,” he said, “we must exchange the sacrifice of praise for
that of our lives;” and seizing a lance from an attendant, he hurried
to the spot.

Not all the bastion was destroyed; but the part still standing was
already in possession of the Turks, when the grand master and his
intrepid followers appeared upon the scene. Not a dozen in number,
they throw themselves on the enemy; every thing is swept before
them; the heavy blows from the stalwart aims hew in pieces all that
opposes them; the banners just planted on the walls are torn down
and thrown into the ditch, and their defenders flung after them as
easily as though they were no greater weight than their own turbans.
In vain Mustapha heads his beaten soldiers sword in hand, and slays
the foremost in retreat; in vain batteries play upon the smoking
ruins, and column after column of fresh troops endeavour to regain
the post occupied by such a handful of opponents,—nothing can resist
the Christian knights; and soon from the walls and every quarter that
overlooks the scene there pour down on the besiegers’ heads stones
and fire-pots and other horrible war-missiles of the time—streams of
flaming pitch and brimstone, that burn and blind them as they press
forward to the breach, and deadly volleys of artillery which lay rank
after rank upon the field. It was an hour’s combat; but at length
the thick masses of the enemy were forced to retreat. Never had the
besiegers received so terrible a repulse; and Solyman, as he walked
over the ground viewing the myriads of his slain, was filled with a
very passion of anguish when he marked amongst them the form of his
favourite officer, the young chief of the Ottoman artillery.

Five days passed without any fresh attack. The Janizaries were
murmuring at the prolonged struggle, which they deemed but a hopeless
sacrifice of their blood, when Peri Pasha resolved on leading a new
assault in person, directed this time against the Italian bastion.
Extraordinary preparations were made on the part of the Turks; their
troops, divided into seven bodies, were led on by chosen chiefs,
and over each waved a standard solemnly committed to the charge
of men chosen from the bravest and most ferocious or the veteran
soldiers. Every thing was done to impress the troops with a sense
of the importance of their enterprise, and to inspire them with a
confidence of victory. They approached the walls in profound silence,
unperceived by their adversaries, and then raising a loud yell dashed
up the breach, and made their way to the inner fortification. The
guards were few in number, and were soon cut to pieces; the night
too was dark, and favoured the design of the assailants; and the
garrison, wearied out with constant watching, were scarcely able to
rouse themselves for the defence. Every thing seemed gained; and
Peri Pasha, followed by his seven standard-bearers, was in the act
of directing all his strength upon the remnant of the besieged, who,
though wounded and grievously thinned in numbers, still held their
ground with an obstinate resolution,—when the Turkish line wavered
as by some sudden panic; their arms, raised high to strike, fell
powerless to their sides; and hesitating and scared, they shrank back
upon those behind, as a gigantic and powerful form stepped between
the ranks of the combatants, and seemed to clear the ground before
him by the very majesty of his presence. The flash of the fire-arms
and the gleaming torch-light fell upon his face, and a shout of
triumph rose from the Christian soldiers as they recognised the
person of their grand master, who, with a few of his chosen knights,
seemed to multiply himself, says the French historian, so as to be
at every post of danger. Fontanus, an eye-witness, declares that at
his very appearance, without the striking of a blow, the Turks drew
back in fear while turning to his followers, he exclaimed: “Come,
comrades, drive back these fellows from the breach; we must not fear
men who are beaten every day.” His words were received with a cheer
of victory, as they dashed upon the Turks with an impetuous shock:
then you might have seen the grand master drive back the enemy with
his single arm,[26] and as they threw themselves pell-mell from
breach and rampart, the handful of defenders were left masters of the
field.

This was the 13th of September. Another four days passed without
the assault being renewed; when Mustapha, whose former failures had
earned him a disgrace, gave orders for a fresh attack on the ruined
bastion of England, determining to carry it at all costs, or die in
the intrenchments, rather than again appear before Solyman after a
new defeat. Achmet Pasha at the same time was to storm the quarters
of Spain and Auvergne; and the besieged, thus divided in their
strength, would, it was hoped, be unable to resist. The battalions
of the Turks, five in number, were met on the summit of the ruined
ramparts by the English knights, with the Turcopolier, Sir John
Buck, at their head. He was the first to fall; but in spite of their
leader’s death, the English gained the day, and held their shattered
ruin by main courage and strength of arm for yet another month.
After this repulse, the infidels began to think of abandoning the
enterprise as hopeless; for they were wont to say one to another,
that the knights could never be beaten in the presence of their
chief; and as for “the cursed L’Isle Adam, he was every where at
once.” Whilst they were hesitating and taking counsel, and whilst
Solyman was endeavouring to infuse new spirit into their failing
hearts, the treason of the Jewish physician was discovered, and
met with its merited reward; and rightly interpreting the various
movements in the enemy’s camp to betoken the approach of some new and
prodigious effort, the Christians spent the interval in preparations
for meeting an assault-general, which was indeed the plan on which
Solyman had determined. For, as he said, “whilst we attack these
giaours at one place only at a time, we make war for their amusement;
rather must they be assailed on all sides at once,—overwhelmed,
inundated by our countless numbers, and, if not exterminated from the
earth under our sabres, compelled to sue for mercy at our hands.”

The 24th of September was the day indicated for this great attack,
which was to be made at once on all four quarters of the city. From
noon till midnight of the day before, heralds continued traversing
the infidel camp crying, “To-morrow is the assault; the stones and
the land are the sultan’s; the lives and the goods of the citizens
are the prize of the conquerors.” The grand master, after making the
best disposal in his power of his little company, addressed them and
the inhabitants in a few simple words. But there was little time for
exhortation or farewell; for at break of day the wild trumpets from
the Janizaries’ band gave the signal for the advance; and those who
stood at their posts on the walls could plainly see the sultan’s
throne erected on an adjacent hill which commanded a view of the
whole field, so that his troops well knew that they fought under
their sovereign’s eye.

On they come under cover of a shower of arrows and the fire of their
side batteries; they reach the walls, and are received by hissing
streams of boiling oil, and fire-balls that fill the air with a
thick and noisome smoke; the bastions of England, Provence, Spain,
and Italy are the quarters of attack, but the bloodiest fight is on
that of England, and thither the grand master hastens, his presence
in itself being like a very host of succour. The scaling-ladders are
thrown down, and the ditch below is choked with the prostrate Turks;
the cannon are pointed on their dense masses, which they rend and
tear with a terrible carnage; charge after charge is made by the
maddened infidels, but the English will not yield; priests, monks,
even children join in the defence, and tiny hands may be seen hurling
stones and sticks upon the advancing stormers with an audacity
which nothing will appal. All about the town the women may be seen
running from bastion to bastion, carrying water to the wounded, whom
they even bear off upon their shoulders. At one time forty Turkish
standards are waving on the ramparts; but in a moment they are
torn down, and the Cross is planted in their room. The assault is
repulsed from England, and the cry is now, “Spain! Spain!” Glancing
in the direction of the Spanish bastion, L’Isle Adam sees the green
flag and the crescent of the infidels on the topmost summit of the
walls. In a moment he is on the spot: “Auvergne to the rescue!” rings
from the ranks of the French, as the grand master stands among his
countrymen, and with his own hands points the cannon of that bastion
down upon the breach of Spain. The Turks dare not advance to secure
their victory; and in another moment the commander De Bourbon, at
the head of the French chivalry, is on the platform, and his knights
are seen tearing down the colours, and clearing the ground at the
point of their swords. But the aga of the Janizaries who leads on
that spot is not to be so easily repulsed; he rallies his men, and
charges through the thick of the fire with mad impetuosity, when
he is met by L’Isle Adam and his guards, and a conflict ensues, so
long and desperate that far out to sea the blue waters are dyed with
streams of blood, and the breach of Spain becomes a heap of dead
and dying. Six hours it lasted; and then a reinforcement from St.
Nicholas decided the day in favour of the Cross. Solyman himself
was compelled to give the signal for retreat; and the masses of his
troops fell back broken and disordered, leaving 20,000 corpses on
those unconquerable walls. The grand master, without laying aside his
armour, or taking rest or food, directed his steps to the church to
give thanks to God for a victory so costly and yet so surpassing in
its glory; and Rhodes, after that day of carnage, had another week of
rest. So immense had been the slaughter during this conflict, that we
are told the cessation of hostilities arose from both parties being
compelled to withdraw from the walls, where the stench of the bodies
was unendurable.

Solyman, enraged at his repeated discomfitures, condemned both
his unfortunate generals to death; and it was only at the earnest
entreaties of the other pashas, who threw themselves in tears at his
feet, that he was induced to spare their lives. Mustapha was sent as
governor into Egypt, and Achmet Pasha was placed at the head of the
army.[27] But for assurances of his spies and the traitors within
the walls that Rhodes was at its last gasp, it seems certain that he
would have abandoned the enterprise altogether. But a council of
war being held, it was determined to renew the assault on the eighth
day. Accordingly the whole line of walls was stormed for three days
successively; the English bastion, still the post of danger and of
glory, though now a mere charred and ruined fragment, being this time
held by a picked body of French, for every English knight was dead.
In one of these battles Martinengo fell desperately wounded,—a great
loss to the Christians, whose movements had been mainly directed
by his skill; but the grand master thenceforth took his place, and
for thirty-four days, we are assured, he never left the bastion of
Spain, where the chief struggle was maintained, taking no rest save
on a mattress they laid for him at the foot of a battery; “acting
sometimes as a soldier, and sometimes as an engineer, but always
as a general,” and exposing his life with a fearlessness that made
his preservation something like a perpetual miracle. It was at this
period of the siege that the treachery of Damaral being suspected, he
was tried and condemned. Some have doubted his guilt, and represented
that his misconduct consisted in nothing worse than a coldness and
slackness in his duties, proceeding from jealousy of the grand
master; however that might be, it is certain that he met with a
traitor’s death.

We shall not ask our reader to accompany us through the history of
the last month of uninterrupted fighting. During that extraordinary
struggle, Rhodes presented the spectacle of a city entirely unwalled,
with neither gates nor ramparts left, garrisoned by about 2000
wounded and exhausted men, yet keeping at bay the entire Turkish
force at the point of their swords. In vain did Solyman in his
addresses to his soldiers assure them that there was nothing to keep
them out of the city; it lay open on all sides, and thirty men might
ride abreast into its breaches: the artillery no longer played on the
ramparts, but on the houses themselves. Yet still, whilst the remnant
of the Christian garrison stood before their ruins, every effort
of the infidels was in vain; and as often as they advanced within
hearing, they were received with jests and defiances, taunted for
their cowardice, and incited with bitter mockery to come up into the
city, and take it if they could. Hardly were there left men enough to
make the line of defence complete; the women stood sometimes by their
sides, praying and encouraging their sons and husbands to fight on to
the last for liberty and faith. And thus things continued until the
beginning of the month of December.

There can be no doubt that, had succours arrived from Europe, the
place would have been saved; for the Turks, who are said to have
lost by war and disease no fewer than 90,000 men, were well-nigh
in despair, particularly as the weather had become stormy, and
threatened the destruction of their fleet. But there was no help
from Christendom for its brave defenders: compliments in plenty, and
fine words to the ambassadors who were despatched to represent the
threatened danger; but whilst the sovereigns of France and Spain
were courteous enough to say that Rhodes was the spectacle of the
universe, they were too busy in a war of foolish rivalry to send a
single galley to its aid. The knights scattered through the various
countries of Europe made every effort to reinforce their comrades;
but the tempests that raged during many weeks prevented them from
arriving in time. The French knights were forced into the ports of
Sardinia; a Spanish flotilla which had made its way to the harbour
of Rhodes was beaten off by the Turks, and obliged to retire; and
lastly, a few English knights, under the gallant veteran Sir Thomas
Newport, persisting in the attempt to keep at sea, their vessel
foundered in the storm, and every soul on board was drowned.

It was now that Solyman, desirous of getting possession of the city
on any terms, and perhaps not unwilling to obtain a reputation for
clemency, had recourse to negotiations; and a certain Genoese who
was found in the camp was despatched to represent to the besieged
the misery which a prolonged resistance would infallibly bring on
the unoffending inhabitants when the city should at length be taken,
whereas a timely surrender would prevent all the horrors of a storm.
L’Isle Adam, however, rejected all overtures with the enemy, as
contrary to the statutes of his order, and declared his own firm
resolve to be buried under the ruins of Rhodes sooner than consent to
yield his trust into the hands of the infidel. Emissaries from the
Turkish camp appeared again and again before the walls; the grand
master ordered them to be fired upon; the citizens, weary of the
contest, threatened to treat for terms on their own account; still
he was inflexible. But he was unsupported: not but that his knights
were as ready as himself to die, sword in hand fighting against the
infidels; but they could not resist the crowd of weeping citizens
who stood about the council-door begging them to save their wives
and children by a timely compliance with honourable terms; and their
voices prevailed; for at length, after long hesitation, L’Isle Adam
was forced to yield; and doubtless the concession cost him more than
all the suffering and disaster of the last six months of bloodshed.
He consented to take advantage of the first overtures that were
made to treat for a surrender. The opportunity soon came: on the
10th of December the sultan caused a flag of truce to be hoisted on
a neighbouring church outside the walls, and despatched two of his
officers with a letter offering to allow the knights and citizens a
free embarkation, carrying goods and chattels with them, in case of
capitulation; otherwise an indiscriminate massacre of all, without
distinction of age or sex, and that instantly; to which was attached
his signature in letters of gold. The grand master in return sent
two envoys, who begged a three days’ armistice for deliberation;
this Solyman refused, and hostilities were renewed. The infidels
were again repulsed with great slaughter; but the townspeople,
terrified at the peril that impended, came in a body and entreated
L’Isle Adam to renew negotiations. He consented; but to gain time,
he sent Achmet Pasha the treaty by which Bajazet had, in the most
solemn form, guaranteed to the order the free possession of Rhodes.
Achmet no sooner cast his eyes on the parchment than, in a fit of
rage, he tore it in pieces and trod the fragments under foot; and
not content with this, he drove the envoys from his presence, and
sent an insulting message to the grand master by the prisoners
taken the same day, whose fingers, ears, and nose he inhumanly cut
off. At length, however, as no prospect of relief appeared, and all
hope of prolonging the defence was gone, L’Isle Adam consented to
the terms proposed by Solyman, and the treaty was signed. Terms so
honourable to the Christians had never yet been granted: the exercise
of the Christian religion was to be free; the churches unprofaned;
the children were not to be seized and brought up in the faith of
Mahomet; the knights and inhabitants were to be afforded a safe
passage out of the port; and the Turks bound themselves even to
supply vessels for this purpose should they be required. Moreover,
the holy relics and the sacred vases of the church of St. John were
to be given up to the Christians, as well as the cannon with which
to arm their galleys; the Ottoman army retiring from the walls
during the evacuation of the place, and leaving only a guard of 4000
Janizaries.

Two days after the signing of the treaty, L’Isle Adam visited the
sultan in his tent, and being admitted to his presence, after being
kept waiting for many hours in a pitiless storm of snow, was received
with an almost involuntary respect. For indeed there was a majesty
in the very look of the grand master which none was ever known to
resist; and although Solyman was not prepared to evince much courtesy
to his fallen adversary, yet we are told, after the two had gazed
at one another for a few moments in silence, the haughtiness of
the Ottoman sovereign was forced to yield, and giving his hand to
the grand master to kiss, he even attempted to console him under
his misfortunes; offering him the highest rank within his power to
bestow, if he would embrace the Moslem faith and join his service; to
which L’Isle Adam’s reply may be imagined.

Unhappily the fair terms of Solyman’s treaty were but little
regarded. A fresh band of Janizaries landing in the island on
Christmas Eve, broke into the city, and, armed only with clubs,
pillaged the houses of the principal inhabitants, and committed
every manner of atrocity. The church of St. John was the principal
object of their fury: they defaced the frescoes on the walls, dashed
the images to pieces, overturned the altars, flung out ornaments,
relics, every thing; dragged the crucifix through the mud, and in
their search for hidden treasure broke open and demolished the very
tombs of the grand masters. This done, they mounted to the top of the
tower, “called the faithful to prayer,” and that same hour turned
the sacred building into a mosque. From the church they proceeded
to the great hospital, where, as we learn from an eye-witness, they
_beat the sick in their beds_ with such violence that many died, and
among them one of the knights of the order, who was flung from the
corridor and killed. The Christians they met with in the streets
they fell upon with their clubs, murdering some on the spot; they
robbed the townspeople who were carrying their goods down to the
ships, compelling them to carry their own property on their backs,
like beasts of burden, to the camp; women and young girls, some mere
children, they made the victims of their brutality.

The fault, however, is not to be attributed to Solyman, who hastened
to put a stop to these excesses; and entering the city in person,
proceeded to return the visit of the grand master in his own palace.
Whatever his motive, none can deny that in his transactions with the
knights Solyman observed a moderation which was worthy of his title
of “Magnificent:” not, perhaps, so loyal and sincere a generosity as
that which has often been seen displayed by Christian chivalry, yet
presenting a most striking contrast to the ferocious barbarism of
his predecessors; and it is said, that during the final interview
between him and L’Isle Adam, he was so touched with the resigned and
tranquil deportment of the venerable hero, that, turning as he left
the palace to one of his generals, he observed, “It is not without
regret that I force this brave Christian to leave his home in his old
age.”[28]

The Turks entered Rhodes on the morning of Christmas Day. At that
same hour Pope Adrian was offering the Holy Sacrifice on the high
altar of St. Peter’s: suddenly a stone detached itself from a
projecting cornice and fell at his feet, as though to warn the
Universal Pastor that one of the outworks of Christendom was lost to
the Church.




CHAPTER VII.

  Departure from Rhodes—Danger at sea—Rendezvous at
  Setia—Deplorable state of the Rhodians—Inspection of his
  followers by the grand master—His arrival with the Rhodians
  at Missina—Inquiry into the conduct of the Knights, and their
  acquittal—They proceed to Cività Vecchia, and are granted
  the city of Viterbo—Journeys of L’Isle Adam to the courts of
  Europe—Offer of Malta to the order by the emperor—Report of the
  commissioners.


It was the Feast of our Lord’s Circumcision, 1523. Fifty vessels,
crowded with a mixed multitude of citizens and soldiers, were
standing out to sea, having among them the grand carrack of the
order of St. John and the scanty remnant of the Knights of Rhodes.
Alas, that title was now lost for ever! they were literally without
a home, beating about on those stormy waters, as Villiers and his
five followers had done 200 years before when flying from the walls
of Acre. L’Isle Adam never showed himself greater than in misfortune.
During the hurry and confusion of embarkation under the eyes of his
enemies, he had maintained the same tranquil dignity he had ever
displayed; remembering every thing and the needs of every one; not
forgetting to send to all the knights of the dependent islands and
fortresses, including St. Peter’s of the Freed, bidding them join him
in Candia.

Few knights, indeed, were to be found on board those fifty vessels;
the exact number that survived the siege is not given, but it
must have been very small. Most of them, sick and wounded, were
received into the carrack, where L’Isle Adam commanded in person;
the remainder of the fleet was chiefly occupied by the Rhodians,
who preferred to abide by the fortunes of an order whose wise and
gentle government had rendered it so dear, rather than trust to the
generosity of the infidels. Yet, though their choice was freely
and promptly made, it was a sad one. Many gazed on the shores
of their darling island till the low dark line sank beneath the
horizon, abandoning themselves to a transport of grief. But the
danger of their present situation served in some degree as a relief,
by calling on them for efforts to preserve the crazy badly-fitted
vessels from shipwreck. The storm continued unabated; and on reaching
Candia several of the galleys were driven on the coast, and many
valuable lives were lost. However, after numerous disasters, the
whole mustered at the rendezvous appointed at the town of Setia; the
knights from the distant stations before named also joined them;
and a general review was made of the whole body, which, including
men, women, and children, amounted to about 5000 in number, of
whom not 1000 were members of the order. But their condition was
truly deplorable; sick and wounded, half-naked, and wholly without
support, these Rhodians, whose loyal devotion caused the grand
master no small embarrassment, gathered about him like helpless
children, and seemed to appeal to his protection and tenderness as
infants to a mother. At Rhodes, six months before, they had been
among the noblest and wealthiest of its population; now they were a
crowd of beggars, dependent on the charity of their sovereign for
a daily alms. Yet their deep and touching affection for his person
showed itself as enthusiastically as ever; and as he appeared among
them, and went through the shivering and weeping ranks, he too,
who had never shown one touch of weakness, even in the anguish of
his last humiliation, could not endure the sight, but burst into a
passionate flood of tears. Yet even the most stoical heart might
well have softened at trials such as these; and the self-control of
L’Isle Adam in the midst of suffering sprang not from stoicism, but
from the firm and chastened temper of one who joined the soldier’s
heroism to the impassible tranquillity of a monk. Nature must needs
assert her claims; and her voice so cried within his heart in that
sad hour, that all his fortitude gave way. He seemed to see again
the bloody ramparts of the city, whereon had fallen comrades and
brothers-in-arms, so long and truly tried; these Rhodian followers
too, so simple and affectionate in their truthfulness, cast utterly
into ruin, and leaning on him for bare support; his order, it might
be, tottering to its fall; the world before him, and not a port or
harbour he could call his own, whither he might guide his people. All
this was knocking at his heart, with the remembrance too of Rhodes
and its glories, and the disgrace and ruin of the Christian cause;
the Cross overthrown, as it seemed, for ever in the East; and the
recovery of Jerusalem, that cherished hope of the children of St.
John, become a faint and airy dream.

Even their position in Candia was of doubtful security; for the
island was the property of the Venetian republic, whose generosity
to a fallen rival was scarcely to be trusted. Happily, however, the
governor at that time was the noble Paul Giustiniani, of a family
whose name alone was ever sufficient security for greatness of soul
and devotion in the Christian cause. He delighted in showing a
singular respect to the grand master in his misfortunes, and came
to meet him with demonstrations of extraordinary honour. Trusting
to his friendship, L’Isle Adam remained in Candia until his vessels
could refit; and meanwhile held a chapter general, and sent word of
his coming to Messina, where the greater part of the knights absent
in Europe had assembled from different quarters, and were preparing
to embark for Rhodes when the news reached them that all was over.
The intelligence was received in Europe like a thunderclap, and,
too late, filled all the sovereigns with shame and self-reproach.
“Nothing has been well lost but Rhodes,” was the exclamation of
Charles V.;—one of those sayings which have become historic, and
which yet was a valueless and empty flattery from the man whose word,
a month before, might have sufficed to save the island. Another
addition to the numbers assembled at Setia soon arrived in the
persons of Leonard Balestein and all the Latin clergy of Rhodes,
who, contrary to treaty, had been summarily turned out by Solyman so
soon as the Knights had departed, with the brief explanation that he
would have no Latins in his states. Solyman’s generosity, in fact,
was of a limited kind; he coveted a name for magnanimity in the eyes
of the European sovereigns, and was ready therefore to purchase his
reputation for “magnificence” by some sacrifices; but it could not
conquer the innate selfishness of the Moslem character, or, as it
would seem, its ferocity; for among the tidings brought by Leonard
was that of the seizure of Amurath,[29] the son of Djem, who, having
embraced Christianity, had lived at Rhodes with the Knights after
his father’s death; but now, falling into the hands of the jealous
despot, was, with his two sons, strangled in the presence of the
whole Turkish army, and his wife and daughters sent to the imperial
harem at Constantinople.

On the first day of Lent the Christian fleet left the hospitable
shores of Candia, directing its course still westward, with the
purpose of taking up its temporary quarters in the harbour of
Messina. The naval skill of England was even then universally
allowed, and the conduct of the fleet was committed to Sir William
Weston, now Turcopolier of the order. The carrack and ships of war
made straight for Sicily: but the grand master did not accompany
them; like a tender father, he had taken as his charge the care of
his poor sick Rhodians, and a long and disastrous voyage he had, not
reaching Messina until the first week in May. Fontanus describes his
landing. He had been long and anxiously expected by his knights,
who hurried to the shore to greet him. It was a sad but touching
spectacle to see the miserable, shattered vessels, without anchors,
rudders, and with torn sails and broken masts. Around their sovereign
stood a ragged and sickly crowd; it was a marvel that they had made
the voyage at all: but you might see where their confidence had
been placed, and who had been their guide; for a flag, torn and
weather-beaten, was floating over the deck, whereon you might discern
the half-effaced figure of the Mother of Sorrows, holding her dead
Son in her arms, with the motto, _Afflictis spes unica rebus_,[30]
and this was the ensign or the fleet. Seven hundred knights stood
on the shore, and with them mingled the nobles of Sicily and the
ambassadors from foreign courts; but at the sight of such distress,
and of their beloved grand master, who had chosen, like a good
shepherd, to abide with the weakest of his flock, there arose from
the illustrious body nothing but a wail of weeping; and this was
the welcome of L’Isle Adam on the soil of Sicily. As he landed, the
viceroy advanced to receive him; and then came the meeting with his
knights—those who had been absent from Rhodes, and now could offer
only their sympathy and their tears. The populace too pressed about
his person, and, kneeling, kissed his feet and dress. Every one was
bare-headed; and perhaps there has rarely been witnessed so touching
a demonstration of honour to fallen greatness.

The first care of the grand master, when lodged in the palace
prepared for him, was to turn it into a hospital for his sick.
True and worthy Hospitaller, he retained unchanged and unsullied
the spirit of his religious vocation, and served as humbly and as
untiringly as though he were a novice in the famous Xenodochia. Nor
were his knights unworthy of so admirable a chief. “It was a moving
spectacle,” says Vertot, “to see these men, so formidable in war, now
animated only with a spirit of charity; devoting themselves to the
meanest services, carrying the broth to the sick, making their beds,
and, as it seemed, concerned with nothing but their consolation and
relief.”[31]

Next came a stern investigation into the conduct of the absent
knights. There was enough strength in the forces assembled at Messina
to have succoured Rhodes; but, after a severe court-martial, the
fact was proved beyond a doubt, that they had done what men could do
to join their comrades, and had failed; many having perished in the
attempt, like the brave old English bailiff Sir Thomas Newport, and
others whose fate was similar. In short, the honour of the order was
declared to be unstained; and when the tribunal returned a verdict
that no man had been found guilty, L’Isle Adam exclaimed, in a burst
of thankful joy, “May God be praised for ever! who in this hour of
misfortune has proved to me that the loss of Rhodes could not be
attributed to the negligence of my order.”

So soon as this affair was completed, the grand master prepared to
set out for Rome, to confer with the Pope as to the steps advisable
to take for the preservation of the order. After being detained a
month on the Neapolitan coast, in consequence of pestilence breaking
out among his followers, he and his colony cast anchor in the port of
Cività Vecchia. At Rome he was received with extraordinary honours;
the cardinals coming forth in their own persons to meet him, together
with a large and brilliant cortège of barons and princes, all the
various dignitaries of the Church and magistrates of the city,
besides the papal guards, and a numerous squadron of cavalry; and so
in grand procession, amidst the shouts of the populace and salvoes
of artillery from the Castle of St. Angelo, he passed through the
streets, and was conducted to the Vatican, where he was hospitably
entertained. Within a few weeks after the arrival of L’Isle Adam,
Pope Adrian VI. expired, and, by a singular chance, was succeeded by
Cardinal Julius de Medicis, nephew to Leo X., and himself a member
of the order of St. John, who had exchanged the military for the
ecclesiastical profession, and now assumed the title of Clement
VII. It was natural, and to be expected, that some advantage should
accrue to the wanderers from the elevation to supreme power of one
of their own brethren; and accordingly one of the first acts of the
new pontiff was to assign the city of Viterbo for their temporary
residence, granting them permission at the same time to keep their
fleet in the arbour of Cività Vecchia until such time as they
should be able to find some more fitting settlement. On the 25th
of January 1524, therefore, L’Isle Adam set out for Viterbo, “the
most delicious city of the Pope’s dominions, and most magnificent
after Rome,” as Fontanus calls it. The knights proceeded first, the
Rhodians next,—for in all the wanderings of this second Æneas, as he
may well be termed, his Rhodians were never forgotten; nor did they
forget their devotion to our Lady of Philermos, but carried her on
their shoulders, and would have carried her to the end of the world,
if their nomadic life had lasted for another century. It was just a
year since the fall of Rhodes; want and suffering had sadly ravaged
the ranks of the little colony; the Rhodians died in great numbers
from the pestilence, and the knights were reduced to such poverty,
that L’Isle Adam was forced to grant them a dispensation to work at
menial crafts in order to support themselves and their unfortunate
dependants. Yet Bosio tells us, that in these trying extremities
there was no instance of any abandoning their rule; and L’Isle Adam,
amidst all his sorrows, at least had the consolation—and there could
be none greater—of ruling over subjects faithful to their plighted
vows.

So soon as he had seen his followers in some degree settled, the
indefatigable chief set out upon fresh journeys to every court
of Europe, to negotiate, if it were possible, for some permanent
and independent residence. His activity and perseverance were
extraordinary. Spain, France, and even England, he visited by turns;
nor was it without necessity; for some of the princes of Europe,
Henry VIII. among the number, after suffering the order to be driven
from Rhodes before their eyes, were now occupying themselves with
the design of seizing upon its possessions, as though it were
extinct. L’Isle Adam, however, very soon made Portugal and England
understand that, fallen as was the order, it was not quite come to
that; and the “defender of the faith” was, it is said, so moved by
the eloquence and heroic bearing of the venerable old man, that,
instead of plundering him at that time, he received him with royal
magnificence, and presented him with a jewelled basin and ewer,
still preserved in Boisgelin’s time in the treasury of the order.
Not to weary the reader with negotiations, which were indeed most
wearisome and vexatious to endure, the chapter general at length,
after many prorogations, met at Viterbo in the month of February
1527, to consider the final answer to be given to the proposals of
the emperor. They were not too generous; Charles, indeed, was not a
man from whom great acts of generosity were to be expected; and on
the present occasion he certainly endeavoured to drive as profitable
a bargain with the order as he could. The islands of Malta and Gozo
were offered to their acceptance,—subject, however, to the emperor,
and with the most unfair and harsh condition of their undertaking to
garrison and defend _for him_ the town of Tripoli on the coast of
Africa—a second Smyrna. Commissioners were appointed to report on
the nature of the territory thus offered; and there is an amusing
_naïveté_ in the account, which Boisgelin, usually so simple and
unpretending in his style, gives us of the result. It was, he says,
to this effect: “That the island of Malta was nothing but a rock of
soft sandstone, about six or seven leagues long and four broad; that
the surface was scarcely covered with three feet of soil—very stony,
and quite unfit for growing corn; that, with the exception of a few
springs, there was no running water, nor even wells; that wood was
so scarce as to be sold by the pound, so that the chief fuel was
dried dung, or wild thistle; that the greater part of the houses
of the capital were uninhabited—the circumference of the town not
being more than 1303 paces; that the miserable walls surrounding it
were open thirty paces in breadth; that the shore was full of rocks;
the port defended by a small and ruinous castle, whose artillery
consisted of one cannon and a few mortars; and that, owing to the
barrenness of the soil and the frequent descents of the corsairs, the
twelve thousand inhabitants were poor and wretched;—in a word, that
a residence in Malta appeared extremely disagreeable, indeed almost
insupportable, particularly in summer.” So much for the island.
As to the fortress of Tripoli, there was but one opinion; without
fortifications, and situated on a foundation of sand, which rendered
their erection impossible—subject to inundations—surrounded by the
territories of the king of Tunis, and with a soil that produced
nothing but dates, the commissioners declared that its occupation
could only expose the knights placed there to certain death.

All this was very different from the glories of Acre and the richness
of beautiful Rhodes;[32] yet there was no choice. Already they had
been forced to leave Viterbo,[33] in consequence of the breaking out
of plague, and to recommence their wanderings, to Corneto first,
where we again find notice of their charity to the sufferers, and
the exact discipline preserved among them; thence to Nice, where a
temporary resting-place was prepared for them by the Duke of Savoy;
so that they who had hitherto offered hospitality to Christendom were
now forced to beg it at the doors of the European princes. There had
been some intention of endeavouring to reconquer Rhodes, and an
attempt had been made to seize on Modon in the Morea; but all these
designs proved abortive; and at length, having agreed to accept the
emperor’s offer, the deed of donation of Malta, Gozo, and Tripoli,
received the imperial signature; the condition of feudal subjection
to himself being withdrawn as interfering with the neutrality which
the order was bound to observe between Christian princes, and the
payment of a falcon yearly to the Sicilian government substituted
in its stead. Tripoli, however, must be garrisoned; on that point
Charles was inexorable, and accordingly two galleys conducted
thither the ill-fated knights chosen for that duty; whilst a timely
present from England of nineteen superb pieces of artillery and 1023
cannon-balls, enabled them to furnish something to its defence.
Nothing now remained to be done but to take possession of the new
territory, which was speedily done (October 26th, 1530); and thus, in
the eighth year after their departure from Rhodes, the knights again
saw themselves established in an independent sovereignty, and, once
more changing their title, became thenceforth known through Europe as
the Knights of Malta.

There was little of exultation in the sentiments with which they
entered on their new dominions. The sterile soil, the burning
climate, and the squalid population, recalled sad thoughts of Rhodes,
with its abundant harvests and odoriferous orange-groves, its fleets
and armaments and prosperous commerce, and the palaces of its wealthy
nobles. But L’Isle Adam had a greatness of soul that rose superior
to circumstances, and at once set about constructing habitations for
his knights and laying the foundation of a hospital—not forgetting,
at the same time, to provide for his poor Rhodians, and to concert
measures for the amelioration of the condition of the inhabitants
themselves.

The last days of L’Isle Adam were, however, clouded with fresh
sorrows; he lived to see the breaking out of that great religious
revolution which was to change the face of Europe. In the
proscriptions and martyrdoms that took place in England, we have
the names of four knights of the order[34] who gave their lives
for the faith, many others perishing in prison; while scarcely a
month passed without bringing fresh refugees to Malta, where the
paternal tenderness of the grand master supplied them with the means
of support. But the extinction of the language of England, and the
gloomy cloud that hung over the Church, laid the last weight on that
burden which had long been pressing down the heroic soul of L’Isle
Adam to the dust. He died in the arms of his knights, on the 21st of
August 1534; and over his tomb they engraved these words:

      “Hic jacet Virtus victrix Fortunæ.”[35]

The effects resulting from the expulsion of the knights from Rhodes,
and their temporary suspension from all active operation against
the infidels, were soon felt throughout Europe. Solyman, secure
from their attacks, was free to turn his attention to the northern
frontier of his empire, where the recent fall of Belgrade, and the
distractions of the kingdom of Hungary, seemed to hold out promise of
an easy conquest.

Louis of Hungary, a prince wholly unequal to the government of his
factious and ambitious nobles, rashly gave battle to the superior
forces of the sultan on the fatal field of Mohacs, where he fell,
with the flower of his troops, on the 28th of August 1526. The battle
lasted only two hours, yet in that short space of time there perished
with their young monarch 4000 knights (comprising the greater portion
of the Hungarian nobility), 8 bishops, and 20,000 common soldiers.
In true Tartar fashion, a pyramid of 2000 human heads was raised
before the imperial tent; and, ere he resumed his march, Solyman
the _Magnificent_ had 4000 prisoners massacred in cold blood! As he
advanced he ravaged the whole country with his troops, burning towns
and cities, and slaughtering the inhabitants even on surrender; so
that it is calculated that Hungary lost no less than 200,000 of her
people in this terrible invasion; and when he withdrew his army,
laden with immense booty, he dragged with him into slavery, and to
all the horrors which slavery among the Turks involves, 100,000
captives.

The death of Louis increased the disorder of affairs by raising
the question of a disputed succession. The crown had indeed been
previously settled on the representative of the house of Austria; but
Zapolya, the ambitious wayvode of Transylvania, seized the occasion
to proclaim himself king, on the plea that none but an Hungarian
could reign in Hungary. Finding himself unable, however, to resist
the power of the Archduke Ferdinand and his party among the magnates,
he had recourse to the unworthy policy of calling in the Ottomans to
his aid. The year 1529, accordingly, saw the terrible hordes of the
Turkish invaders again let loose on the frontiers of the kingdom.
Before them marched a wild irregular force of 30,000 men, whom the
Germans denominated “the sackmen,” and whose atrocities, under their
leader Michael Oglou, were of the most appalling character. Hungary
was soon overrun; and within five months from the day when they
crossed its frontier, the vast army of the Turks, amounting to more
than 300,000 men, appeared under the walls of Vienna (September 27th,
1529).

Never had the dreaded standards of the infidels been known to advance
so far into the heart of Christendom since the day when the Moors had
received their decisive overthrow on the field of Tours. But there
seemed little chance of such a triumph to the Christian cause in the
present case; for Vienna, with ruinous and inadequate defences, and
a garrison of no more than 20,000 men, could scarcely look to offer
more than a brief resistance to such an overwhelming force. By the
first prisoners who were taken by his skirmishers Solyman had sent
back a message to the following effect: “That should the city venture
to resist, he would not retreat till he had reduced it; and then he
would spare neither old nor young, nor the child in the mother’s
womb; and would so utterly destroy the city that men should not know
where it stood. He would not rest his head till Vienna and the whole
of Christendom were under his subjection; and it was his settled
purpose within three days, namely, on the feast of St. Michael, to
break his fast in Vienna.” Nor to the terrified inhabitants did this
seem any idle threat; for, as they gazed from the walls, they could
behold nothing but a forest of tents stretching as far as the eye
could reach; and the reports which had been brought in by fugitives
from the country told of horrors which fulfilled to the letter, and
even surpassed in savage atrocity, all that menace could express or
imagination depict. One by one all their communications from without
were cut off, and the mines and batteries of their assailants began
their fatal work.

The siege may be said to have formally opened on the 29th of
September; but in spite of their superior numbers, every effort of
the Turks to render themselves masters of the city was unsuccessful.
On three different days they assaulted the walls, which had been
reduced to ruins by the explosions of their mines, but each time
they were repulsed with loss; and the superstition of the Turkish
troops came in aid of the heroic defence of the garrison to bring
about the abandonment of the enterprise. The law of Islam commanded
three attacks on an enemy, and no more; when, therefore, the third
assault failed, the soldiers, yielding to the fatalism of their
nation, declared their unwillingness to prosecute the attempt any
further. A last desperate assault was indeed made on the 14th of
October, out with the same result that had attended those which had
preceded it; and Solyman, yielding to necessity, gave orders for a
retreat.

An hour before midnight the army began to move, and marked its
departure by one of those frightful deeds of cruelty so frequent
in the annals of Turkish warfare. The Janizaries set fire to the
huts they had constructed, and to all the forage and plunder they
had collected but were unable to carry away. At the same time they
commenced a general massacre of the Christian prisoners, of whom vast
numbers had been brought into the camp by the “runners and burners”
during the three weeks of the siege, reserving only the fairest youth
of both sexes, whom they tied together by ropes and hurried away
into an infamous captivity. The old men and women, and the little
children, they threw into the midst of the burning piles, while such
as were of an age to bear arms they cut to pieces or impaled. The
shrieks of the unhappy beings were heard distinctly by those who
thronged the city-walls; they could even see by the light of the
flames the work of butchery that was going forward, and the writhing
forms of their fellow-countrymen, and thus had terrible and sensible
proof of the despair of the ferocious enemy and of the horrors which
awaited them had that enemy been victorious. The morning showed the
Ottoman army in full retreat; and a general discharge of artillery
announced to the inhabitants of Vienna the realisation of hopes which
they had hardly ventured to entertain. Once more the bells of the
churches gave forth their joyous peals; a _Te Deum_ was sung in St.
Stephen’s, and High Mass celebrated in thanksgiving to the Most Holy
Trinity.

Solyman’s forces retired across the Turkish frontier, and spite of
the rapid success which had attended his march through Hungary,
the expedition failed in its main object; for the establishment of
Zapolya as tributary king of Hungary, or rather of that portion
of the country which he held in occupation (a dignity he retained
till his death in 1540[36]), was but a poor result for the campaign
which had been undertaken with the boastful design of erecting
the victorious trophies of the Crescent on the very banks of the
Rhine. It is amusing to read the arrogant terms in which the sultan
announces to his faithful subjects the results of the campaign,
and with cool effrontery would have them believe that, in his
magnanimity, he had forborne to push his conquests further than
justice or the interests of the empire demanded, and had disdained
to crush the foe he had humbled and chastised. One of his bulletins
thus concludes: “An unbeliever came out from the fortress (Vienna),
and brought intelligence of the submission of the princes and of the
people, on whose behalf he prayed for grace and pardon. The padishah
received his prayer with favour, and granted them pardon. Inasmuch as
the German lands were unconnected with the Ottoman realm, that hence
it was hard to occupy the frontier places and conduct their affairs,
the faithful would not trouble themselves to clear out the fortress,
or purify, improve, and put it into repair; but a reward of 1000
aspers was dealt out to each of the Janizaries, and security being
established, the horses’ heads were turned towards the throne of
Solomon.”[37] But in spite of these endeavours to conceal the truth
even from himself, Solyman never forgot the repulse he had sustained;
and it is said that he imprecated a curse upon any of his successors
who should renew the attempt.

Nevertheless we shall hereafter see the Ottomans encamped for a
second time before the city of Vienna, and shall have to relate
the story of its glorious deliverance, which forms one of the most
striking features in the history of the struggle between the Crescent
and the Cross.




CHAPTER VIII.

  Exploits of the Knights in Africa—Taking of Tunis—The great
  carrack—Expedition against Algiers—Tempest off the coast of
  Barbary—Taking of Mehdijé—Admirable charity of the Knights—Dragut
  attacks Malta; failure of the expedition—Fall of Tripoli—Election
  of John de la Valette—Solyman prepares for the siege of
  Malta—Description of the city and its defences—Character of La
  Valette, and his address to his troops.


It was but natural that the gratitude of the order towards the
emperor, to whom it owed its present independence, should be eagerly
manifested on the occasion of his enterprise against Barbary; and
accordingly, during the twenty years that succeeded the death
of L’Isle Adam, we find the Knights of Malta foremost in every
engagement with the corsairs of Algiers and Tunis, and earning a
reputation on the coasts of Africa not unworthy of their ancient
fame. The northern provinces of Africa had gradually fallen into
the power of the Moorish pirates, under their celebrated chief
Barbarossa;[38] and their constant descents from thence on the coasts
of Spain and Italy rendered a declaration of war from the emperor not
merely just but actually necessary.

The sieges of Goletta and Tunis opened the campaign; and at both
places the valour of the knights contributed in no small degree to
the success of the Christian arms. At Tunis the scarlet banner of
St. John was seen first in the assault, first also to be planted on
the bastion, surrounded by its knights, whose white crosses rendered
them conspicuous to the whole army. Their soldierly appearance, when
they presented themselves before the emperor, drew an expression of
admiration from his lips: “These are your brethren,” he said, turning
to the Prince of Portugal, a member of the order; “had we more of
them, we might be sure of victory.” And, indeed, the victory, so
far as Tunis was concerned, might certainly be attributed to them;
if, as we are told, the flight of Barbarossa was occasioned by an
incident within the fortress, thus related by Vertot. There was
among the slaves confined at Tunis a certain Knight of St. John,
by name Paul Simconi, the same who, when only eighteen years of
age, defended the Isle of Lero against the infidels with surpassing
courage. On the approach of the imperial army, Simconi determined on
a bold stroke for liberty. Gaining over his jailers, he contrived
to break his own chains and those of his fellow-prisoners, and,
proceeding to the armory of the castle, they all armed themselves
with whatever came first to hand, and falling on the Turkish garrison
cut them to pieces, and made themselves masters of the fortress.
Barbarossa, hearing the tumult, hastened to the castle gates, but was
received with a fire of musketry; and discovering what had happened,
exclaimed, “All is lost now these dogs are masters of the place!”
and immediately took to flight. When Charles entered the city,[39]
therefore, he was met by Simconi, accompanied by 6000 Christians, all
of whom he had contrived to deliver from their chains; and as he
embraced the gallant hospitaller he exclaimed, “Brave knight, blessed
for ever be your generous valour, which has assisted my conquests,
and added to the glory of your order!”

In these battles on the coast of Barbary, the grand carrack of the
order held a distinguished place. So very wonderful a production of
naval skill cannot be passed without a word of notice, and may be
given as a piece of the romance of ship-building. It was not the
same which had been brought from Rhodes, but a new one built at Nice
after the accidental burning of its predecessor. It had two things
in particular to be admired: first, that it was built with such
precautions against infection in time of pestilence, that even while
the plague raged at Nice, and the air was so pestilential that the
birds dropped dead as they flew over the city, there was not a sick
man known on board; next, the construction of this extraordinary
vessel was such that nothing could sink it. It was sheathed in metal,
and perfectly cannon-proof; but in spite of its size and weight,
swift as a felucca. Its dimensions are not given; we only know that
it could take in provisions of water and stores for a six-months’
voyage; that its oven baked two thousand loaves at a time; that it
had eight decks, an armory for five hundred men, magnificent suites
of rooms, and delicious artificial gardens, where large pots of
orange, lemon, and cypress trees created a cool and fragrant shade.
After this, it must be allowed that England must silence her boasts
about “the Royal Harry.”

In fact, the naval skill and power of the order was fast on the
increase: their reputation for boldness in navigation we may gather
from the words of Charles the Fifth during a storm off the Gulf
of Spezia, where he narrowly escaped shipwreck. Through the murky
atmosphere some galleys were observed riding out the hurricane, and
even attempting to continue their voyage in despite of the elements.
“Whose are those vessels?” asked Doria in surprise; “are they madmen,
who keep at sea in such weather?” “No,” replied the emperor, who
overheard him; “they are only Hospitallers:—no galleys but theirs can
brave a storm like this.”

In the end Barbarossa fled to Constantinople to implore the succour
of Solyman; and the knights, in hourly expectation of a visit _en
passant_ from their old enemies, applied themselves to prepare
for their reception. As to Tripoli, it was equally incapable of
defence or fortification, yet still Charles turned a deaf ear to all
representations addressed to him on the subject; it was to be held
anyhow, and by the knights alone. And held it was for one-and-twenty
years; during which time, in spite of its ruinous condition, the
knights not only stoutly defended “the ill-conditioned place,” as
it is termed by Boisgelin, but made from thence such continual
aggressions on the infidels, that Tripoli and its garrison became the
terror of all the corsairs of Barbary, and more than once they were
driven disgracefully from its shattered walls.

During the expedition against Algiers (1541), the knights showed
their usual valour. So many offered themselves as volunteers, that,
had all been accepted, Malta would have been left without defenders;
so that Homedez, the grand master at that time, was obliged to limit
their numbers to four hundred. At Majorca they joined the emperor,
who insisted on immediately setting out for Barbary in spite of the
stormy season, for it was towards the end of September. Andrew Doria,
the veteran commander of the fleet, ventured on a remonstrance.
“My liege,” he said, “be persuaded to abandon this enterprise, for
_pardieu!_ if we go, we shall all perish.” “And are not twenty-two
years of empire enough for me, and seventy-two years of life for
you?” replied Charles. “By St. James! if we do perish, we may both
die content.” Spite of the prognostics of shipwreck, the army
disembarked safely before Algiers. It consisted of twenty thousand
foot and six thousand horse, Germans, Italians, and Spaniards—each
nation forming a separate body. The knights held a conspicuous place
and fought dismounted: “their surcoats of crimson velvet (says the
author of a narrative sent to the Pope), over which glittered their
white crosses, making them an object of remark; while they bore
themselves with a proud and martial air which struck terror among the
barbarians who approached them.” A severe storm of hail, accompanied
with piercing cold, produced such an effect on the imperial troops,
that they were almost unable to resist a night attack directed
against them by the Moorish garrison, and the first conflict was a
severe one.

The gallantry displayed by the Hospitallers on this occasion is
illustrated by many anecdotes. Among others who distinguished
themselves was a young French knight, Nicholas de Villegagnon, who,
being wounded severely by a Moorish horseman, sprang behind his
adversary on the crupper of his steed, and, plunging his dagger into
his heart, spurred the animal through the ranks of the Moors, and so
reached his own line in safety. A rally was made round the banner of
St. John, and the struggle was maintained with spirit, when Ferdinand
Gonzaga, one of the imperial generals, rode up to the spot. “Sir
Hospitaller,” he cried, addressing the grand bailiff of the order,
“it is not enough to beat these dogs,—chase them back to Algiers,
and enter the city with them; your knights are used to take towns
without guns.” His words roused the enthusiastic chivalry of those
to whom they were addressed; and dashing upon the Moors with wild
impetuosity, they drove them before their horses like a flock of
sheep until they reached the city-gates, which the governor closed in
the very face of his own soldiers, lest the Christians should enter
with them. Nevertheless Ponce de Savignac, the standard-bearer of the
order, rode up fearlessly and drove his poniard into the doors, and
galloped away before his audacity was perceived. He fell, however, in
the combat of the ensuing day, directed exclusively on the Maltese
quarter; for, as the knights a second time pursued their enemies to
the gates of Algiers, he was struck by a poisoned arrow. Feeling
himself wounded, he called a soldier to support him. “Help me to
bear up the standard,” he cried; and leaning on the shoulder of his
comrade, he had the courage and resolution to stand there, with the
banner in his grasp, until he fell dead upon the ground.

The losses sustained in these conflicts were by no means the worst
disasters that befell the Christian army. A terrible tempest nearly
destroyed their fleet; and as galley after galley was driven upon the
rocks, the troops were sad spectators of the slaughter of their crews
by the inhuman Arabs. The number of vessels destroyed in this tempest
was something incredible. The crew of one of the Maltese galleys,
_The Bastard_, believing it impossible to save her, endeavoured to
run her on the rocks, that they might abandon her; but Azevedo, the
commander, obstinately refused his consent. In vain they represented
that she was old and unfit for service; and that the lives of the men
were of more value than a few worm-eaten timbers. “I know nothing of
all that,” he replied, “but only that this galley has been intrusted
to my care by the order; and, by the arm of St. John! I will slay the
first man who talks of leaving his post;—you will save her, or die
upon her decks.” And, inspired by his resolution, they did save her,
and brought her safe back to Malta.

The army meanwhile, without tents, provisions, or hospital equipage,
was soon reduced to extremity; and the siege was raised.

The successor of Barbarossa in the chieftainship of the Moorish
corsairs was the celebrated Dragut (or Torghoud). Brought up from
childhood in the service of the Ottomans, he had attained the
highest reputation for skill and ferocity among all the brigands of
the African coast. He had recently possessed himself of the strong
city of Mehdijé,[40] situated between Tunis and Tripoli; and his
neighbourhood to the two towns in possession of the Christians
rendered an attack on this fortress absolutely necessary. The
imperial fleet was led by Doria; and 140 knights, under the bailiff
De la Sangle, joined the expedition with 400 troops (1530). The siege
was long and bloody; but it is scarcely so much to the military
operations before the walls of Mehdijé that we desire to direct
the reader’s attention, as to a far more beautiful and impressive
spectacle which was then displayed. La Sangle may be taken as a fair
and worthy example of the spirit of his institute;—wise in council,
dauntless in battle, but in all characters most religious and
humane. The prolonged siege soon produced the usual sufferings among
the invading army; and pestilence made even greater ravages among
the troops than the arms of the enemy. The brave old Hospitaller,
however, only felt the emergency to be a call upon the best exertions
of himself and his knights. “Our first duty, gentlemen,” he said to
his comrades, “is hospitality, for to that we are bound by our vows;
let, therefore, every Hospitaller give his tent to the hospital
of the order, and serve, as becomes him, in the infirmary.” The
proposal was received with enthusiasm; a kind of canvas hospital
was improvised out of the tents of the knights; all the sick were
received into it, and served tenderly and unweariedly by these brave
and noble men: and never, surely, did their deeds of prowess gain
them half the title to our praise, and to the recompense of eternal
fame, which was earned by their heroic charity in the hospital of
Mehdijé.

Dragut was a formidable adversary, and kept his opponents well
employed; every day witnessed some sortie and bloody conflict, in
which the Christians suffered considerable loss. During the second
assault on the town the knights claimed the post of honour; the great
banner was carried at their head by the commander De Giou, and as
the attack was made on the side of the sea, they advanced to the
assault through the water, which rose as high as their shoulders;
for, impatient at the stoppages of the boats against the sandbanks,
they threw themselves sword in hand into the sea, and thus gained
the foot of the ramparts under the fire of the garrison. In a few
moments the banner of St. John waved from the summit of the walls;
but its brave defender fell dead at the same instant. Copier, another
commander, instantly seized it ere it fell; and through the whole of
the combat that followed, in the very thick of the firing, he stood
calm and unmoved, holding it aloft above his head. The imperial
troops, however, despairing of carrying the place, were about to give
way, when Gimeran, a commander of the order, discovered a narrow
entrance, through which he forced his way at the head of the knights
into the heart of the city. This decided the day, and the place
was immediately taken and sacked: the principal mosque, however,
was blessed and converted into a church; and there the knights and
officers who had fallen in the bloody contest were interred. When
the town was afterwards abandoned, the remains of these heroes were
removed to Sicily, and placed in a magnificent mausoleum in the
Cathedral of Montreal.

Dragut, in despair at the loss of Mehdijé, repaired to the court
of Solyman, and represented that the cause of the Crescent would
be ruined and for ever disgraced if the Knights of St. John were
not speedily exterminated. The sultan, who readily entered into his
views, and was continually irritated by hearing of fresh victories
achieved by an order he had thought to crush for ever, empowered
Dragut to assemble all the corsairs of Africa, in order that, being
united to the Turkish fleet, they might proceed to the work of
“extermination” by carrying fire and sword to Tripoli and Malta, the
two chief nests of the “dogs of giaours.”

At the first rumour of an attack on Malta, the knights hastened
to assemble for its defence, without waiting for a summons. Among
those first to arrive in the island was the commander Nicholas de
Villegagnon—the same whose prowess before Algiers we have already
noticed. He was one of the most popular men of his order; the more
so, perhaps, that Homedez, the grand master at that time, showed
a cold and avaricious disposition which raised him many enemies,
and rendered the display of reckless and romantic chivalry, such
as that of Villegagnon, doubly welcome among the younger knights.
Malta was in a most destitute state; and Homedez, as is said, from
motives of self-interest, resisted all the representations that were
made to him as to the necessity of securing its defences. “It was a
needless expense,” he said; “these rumours of Turkish armaments were
premature and ridiculous; and if you attended to them, you might
attend to nothing else.” Nevertheless, on the morning of the 16th of
July 1551, three days after he had expressed himself to this effect,
he beheld from the windows of his palace the arrival of the whole
Ottoman fleet, sailing before a favourable wind, and about, as it
seemed, to cast anchor before the principal fort of the island. That
of the old city, or borgo, was defended only by a small fort, now
without a garrison; for all the forces on the island had been called
in to guard the fortifications of St. Angelo, then the residence
of the order. The terrified inhabitants of the city hastened to
despatch messengers to Homedez imploring succour: but the grand
master refused; he had need, he said, of all his forces to defend
St Angelo. “At least,” returned the envoy in despair, “let us have
Villegagnon with us”—a singular compliment to the bravery of that
knight; nor did he decline the post, although, as he represented,
the defence of the old city required at least the presence of a
hundred men. “I expect courage and obedience, not reasoning, from a
knight,” replied Homedez. “You can have six companions; if they are
not enough, and you are afraid of the business, some one else may
be found to undertake it.” Villegagnon keenly felt the taunt, and
instantly rose to depart. “I will show you, sir,” he replied, “that
fear, at least, has never made me shrink from danger.” He set out at
once, accompanied by six French knights; finding some horses grazing
outside, they threw themselves on their backs without saddles or
bridles, and reached the town. Gliding unperceived to the bottom of
the walls, they made signals to the inhabitants, who lowered a rope;
and thus all seven with their guide entered the fort under the eye of
the enemy.

Meanwhile the Turkish fleet had been making the circuit of the
island, considering the best point of attack. As they appeared before
the fortified heights of St. Angelo, Sinam, the Ottoman general,
called Dragut to his side. “Is that the castle you have represented
so weak and defenceless?” he exclaimed; “why, no eagle could choose a
better eyrie.” “Truly, signior,” added a veteran corsair, who stood
by his side, “it were hard to steal the eagle’s eggs. Dost thou see
yon rampart, where the scarlet banner floats? When I was a slave in
the giaours’ galleys, some twenty years ago, my shoulders helped to
carry up the stones that built it; and you may take my word for it,
ere you cast it to the ground, summer shall go and winter come, for
its foundation is the rock itself.” “Enough,” replied Sinam, “we land
at the town below; and ere we batter the kennel of these dogs about
their ears, we will teach the islanders how to show hospitality to
the sultan’s troops.” Accordingly the troops landed on the lower part
of the island, and prepared to invest the old city, when a shout
from the walls was heard, accompanied with discharges of musketry
and repeated cries of joy;—it was the welcome which the citizens
were giving to Villegagnon and his comrades. “It is the Spanish
fleet!” exclaimed one; “The galleys from Naples!” cried another; “The
garrison of St. Angelo are coming down!” cried a third: and within
an hour Sinam’s troops had re-embarked. After a descent on Gozo, in
which they succeeded in carrying off six thousand of the inhabitants
into slavery, the fleet directed its course to Tripoli; but it must
be allowed that this was but a pitiful commencement of the war of
“extermination.”

The garrison of Tripoli consisted chiefly of some fresh levies
of Spanish and Calabrian troops; and the mutiny of these men,
unaccustomed to face the enemy, brought about the speedy fall of the
place; for Vallier, the marshal of the order, who held the command,
perceiving the impossibility of resistance, felt himself justified in
agreeing to terms of capitulation; a determination, however, which
disgraced him in the eyes of his order, and on his arrival at Malta
with his knights he was condemned to imprisonment.

It was in the August of 1557 that the death of La Sangle, successor
to Homedez in the grand-mastership, necessitated a new election, and
placed John Parisot de la Valette at the head of an order in whose
history he was destined to play so distinguished a part. Convinced
that another attack on the island was meditated at no distant period,
the first care of La Valette was to put his island in something like
a state of defence; and with the generous purpose of sharing the
dangers of his people, he removed his residence from St. Angelo to
the borgo, from whence he was better able to direct the progress of
the works. The final determination of Solyman to renew his attack
on Malta was occasioned by the loss of a valuable galleon, laden
with goods for the ladies of the seraglio, which was captured by
the knights under the brave Romegas after a sharp engagement of
five hours. This the sultan regarded as a sort of personal insult;
and vowing vengeance against the order, he declared that, cost
what it might, Malta should be destroyed. Accordingly the Algerine
fleet of corsairs, under Dragut, was speedily summoned to join his
forces and prepare for the contest. His design was no secret; and La
Valette employed the interval in assembling troops and provisions,
and assigning to each of his followers their posts and duties in
the coming siege. Like his predecessors D’Aubusson and L’Isle Adam,
he had nothing but the valour of the order on which to depend. The
Pope contributed a sum of 10,000 crowns; but allies he had none,
save the brave viceroy of Sicily, Garcias de Toledo, who visited
him personally in the month of April, and promised to be back with
succours before the end of June: France was distracted with Huguenot
wars; Germany had enough to do to preserve her own frontiers;
England, under Elizabeth, was ready to help the Turk himself against
the Church; and Spain alone showed any disposition to assist the
knights, though as yet the caution and deliberation of Philip II. had
come to no decision on the subject.

La Valette, however, was equal to a great emergency; he had
filled every office in the order, and thoroughly understood his
position—nay, it seemed the peculiar destiny of his order to be the
forlorn-hope of Europe, and to enter the arena with the infidels
under circumstances which gave its combatants the valour of desperate
men. Seven hundred knights, besides serving-brothers[41] and 8500
paid soldiers, formed his army of defence. Among these we find
but _one_ Englishman, to represent a nation formerly the foremost
in the list; yet, sad as is the contrast, it is pleasant to record
his name—he was Sir Oliver Starkey. Possibly there might have been
others; but their names have escaped the record of the historian;
and, considering the times, it may be matter of surprise that even
one could yet be found.

Before entering on the story of the last great siege sustained by
the order of St. John, it may be well to offer some description of
the city and its defences, which will better enable the reader to
understand the position of the contending parties.

A narrow tongue of land, running out into the sea on the north-east
coast of Malta, separated two large and commodious ports: the Great
Harbour, now Port Valetta, to the east; and Port Musiette to the
west. As yet it was not built upon; except that Strozzi, prior of
Capua, had raised at its extremity a strong castle, which bore the
name of Fort St. Elmo. This fortress commanded both harbours, but
was itself liable to be cut off from communication with the mainland
in time of siege. Within the larger port were two promontories: the
outermost of which was occupied by the little town, or borgo, and was
defended by the castle of St. Angelo; the innermost was called La
Sangle, after the grand master who first fortified it, and had also
at its extremity a fort named St. Michael, round which a straggling
population had gathered. Between these two promontories the galleys
were moored; and the mouth of the port was closed by an iron chain.

In distributing the various posts of defence the same order was
observed as at Rhodes. Each language had its own place assigned
to it. To France was given the charge of the borgo; to Italy the
promontory of La Sangle; while fifty Spanish knights held the castle
of St. Angelo; and sixty more, under Deguarras, bailiff of Negropont,
were sent to reinforce the garrison of St. Elmo, commanded by an aged
knight named De Broglio. From the borgo to St. Angelo were to be
drawn up the knights of Arragon and Navarre, and on the other side
those of Castile, Provence, and Germany; while the platform at the
foot of the castle was guarded by a Spanish knight, with some of
the crews of the galleys, whose business was to work nine pieces of
ordnance, and to defend the mouth of the port and the great chain—a
very marvellous production, so thick that nothing had ever been seen
to equal its enormous dimensions, and fastened by the anchor that had
belonged to the great carrack of the order.

When La Valette had formed these dispositions of his forces, he
caused the same scene to be enacted which had formerly been displayed
at Rhodes—a general review of all the troops, each before his own
inn; their arms and numbers were examined, and their skill tested
by shooting at a mark. His own appearance among them, as he passed
from line to line, was received with shouts of enthusiasm; and truly
his bearing was one well calculated to rouse the ardour of his
followers. He had that same air of tranquil serene intrepidity which
distinguished L’Isle Adam, and which bore with it the assurance of
success, because it breathed a higher trust than mere confidence in
human skill or valour. His eye was perhaps a little stern; but if
so, you forgot its sternness as you gazed at that sweet and placid
mouth, whose delicate lines declared the presence of a refined and
cultivated mind, and the tenderness which at times accords so well
with a brave and dauntless spirit. Every heart beat with a noble
pride as the grand master approached the assembled troops, and
checking his horse, addressed them in the following terms: “Comrades,
a cloud of barbarians is about to burst upon our coast; they are
the enemies of Jesus; and in the coming contest it is to be decided
whether the Gospel or the Koran shall triumph. At such a moment God
calls on us for those lives which we have devoted to His service.
Happy they who shall first offer Him this sacrifice! But, to render
ourselves worthy of such a grace, let us renew our vows at the foot
of His altar; and seek in the Blood of Christ, poured out to us in
His sacraments, that true indifference to death which will render our
arms invincible.”

As he closed his address he moved towards the great church of St.
John’s, where the Blessed Sacrament was exposed for adoration, and
whither he was followed by all the knights. Every one confessed, and
approached the holy table; “there was not an unshriven man among
them. The remainder of the day was spent, as became men preparing for
death, in reconciling differences and taking a brotherly farewell;
and before nightfall every one was at his post.”




CHAPTER IX.

  Arrival of the Turkish fleet—The landing, and attack on
  St. Elmo—Storming of the ravelin; Christian bearing of the
  Knights—Message to the borgo, and reply of La Valette—First
  assault-general—The Turks are repulsed, and the garrison
  reinforced—Second and third assaults—Preparation of the Knights
  for death—Capture of St. Elmo, and barbarities of the Turkish
  general.


It was the 18th of May 1565, a little before sunrise when the guns
of St. Angelo gave the signal of the enemy’s approach. As the sun
rose over the western ocean it displayed the magnificent spectacle of
the whole Turkish fleet, consisting of 181 vessels, besides a number
of transports, bearing on towards the coast. They had 30,000 men on
board, the flower of the Ottoman army; 4500 being Janizaries, under
the command of Mustapha Pasha and the celebrated corsair[42] Admiral
Piali:[43] Dragut and Ouloudjali were to follow speedily with the
forces of Tripoli and Alexandria. Solyman is said to have spent five
years in the equipment of this force; far less numerous than that
formerly despatched against Rhodes, but furnished with such vast and
formidable resources of all kinds, in stores, artillery, and machines
of war, that it was thought its equal had never before been brought
together.

The defenders of Malta had ample time to survey the force prepared
for their attack; for, as though to display their strength, the
Turkish vessels made the entire circuit of the island several
times, being watched by the gallant Copier, marshal of the order,
who, at the head of a small body of horse and about 600 foot, was
charged with the duty of reconnoitring the enemy’s movements, and
harassing them during their disembarkation. Late in the day the
vessels dropped anchor opposite Citta Vecchia, the intention being to
deceive the marshal, for in reality there was no thought of landing
in that direction; and finally the whole army disembarked at Marsa
Sirocco, a bay in the vicinity of the borgo, and proceeded to fortify
their position so as to secure themselves from the sorties of the
Christians.

The first few days were spent in spirited engagements between the
skirmishing-parties on both sides, which La Valette allowed in order
that his men might get accustomed to the appearance and method of
fighting of the Turks; but the impetuosity of the knights was so
great, that it required all the authority of the grand master to
get the city-gates closed; and he saw the necessity of keeping his
men within their enclosure if he did not wish to bring on a general
engagement, which, with such unequal forces, would, he well knew,
be madness. The 20th of May fell on a Sunday; many Masses had been
said, and a solemn procession made in all the churches; the evening
of the same day the Turkish artillery opened on the town, being
principally directed against Fort St. Elmo, which was indeed the key
of the Christian position. La Valette, regardless of the entreaties
of his attendants not to expose his person, ascended the bastion of
Provence, from whence he could command a view of the whole scene.
It was indeed a splendid spectacle. Thirty thousand men drawn up in
the form of a vast crescent, and seeming to cover the whole face of
the country: the bright burning sun lit up their gilded armour and
gay attire, their standards and many-coloured tents and flags, of
which there was an infinite number of every hue; so that, to use
the expression of an historian, “they looked like a multitude of
flowers on a luxuriant meadow,” while from their ranks arose a soft
and exquisite music from all kinds of martial instruments. Sometimes
you might see a cloud of skirmishers separate from the dark mass of
troops; for the marshal and Deguarras hovered on their flanks, and
kept up a continual and harassing attack. Nevertheless both parties
felt that this kind of desultory conflict was but waste of time, and
La Valette knew as well as did the Turkish chiefs themselves that
the attack would soon commence in real earnest on St. Elmo. Nor was
he deceived; on the 24th the cannonade against that fort commenced
both from sea and land; and once more those marble balls, which had
done such terrible execution on the walls of Rhodes, were heard
thundering against the bastions with terrible effect. La Valette well
knew the importance of the post and its danger, and did what he could
to relieve it by daily reinforcements sent in boats by night, which
returned with the wounded. One day, as he stood watching the fire of
the Turks from his usual post on the Provence bastion, La Cerda, a
Spanish knight, appeared before him with a message from the garrison.
“So please you,” exclaimed the envoy, “the bailiff of Negropont bids
me say, that if the fort be not speedily succoured, it must fall; it
cannot hold out another week under the fire of the eighty-pounders.”
La Valette looked at him surprised. “What great loss has befallen
you, sir,” he said, “that makes you cry thus for help?” “My lord,”
replied La Cerda, “it is no time for delay: the castle is like a
sick man, whose strength is exhausted, and can only be kept up by
constant nourishment and care.” “I will be its physician,” said the
grand master haughtily; “I will bring with me those who, if they
cannot cure _you_ of your fears may at least save _the fortress_ by
their valour.” And, in fact, he would have himself accompanied the
reinforcements he despatched but for the interference of his council;
for, as he was wont to say, he dreaded but one thing, and that was
the possibility of a feeble defence. At length he consented that
fifty of the order, with two companies of soldiers, should return
with La Cerda to the post of danger. This reinforcement was placed
under the command of the bold Medrano, and ere it departed to the
fort was further increased by several knights from Sicily, who
volunteered to share the fortunes of their brethren.

The great battery of the Turks, finished on the last day of May,
was a curious structure; built at Constantinople in separate pieces
of timber, so as to be put together on the spot, and now erected
before the devoted fortress, whose garrison consisted of no more
than 400 men. It was of enormous size, and decorated with fourteen
standards of different colours: removed at first only 180 yards
from the castle-walls; afterwards another battery was added, which
discharged thirty heavy pieces of artillery at the distance of but
thirty yards. It was a very tempest of fire; and that the walls
could stand at all under such an assault is matter of surprise.
The outer ravelin was stormed on St. Elmo’s day, the 3d of June;
and the scene was anxiously watched from the borgo. From the other
quarters of the town every incident of the fight could be distinctly
discerned; and the Christians were compelled to be spectators of
their comrades’ danger, while they were powerless to succour them;
for St. Elmo was surrounded on all sides by its besiegers, and its
communication with the old city entirely cut off. Is all lost, then?
The parapets are crowded with turbaned heads; the ravelin is not only
in the possession of the infidels, but is levelled to the ground; its
defenders retreat to the main body of the fortress. But the Turks
press hard upon their ranks; and as both parties, mingling together
in a hand to hand fight, enter the court between the outworks and the
citadel, the confused sound of yells and cries of every description
announces to the excited beholders that a combat of no ordinary kind
is raging in that narrow space. What can it mean? Will they storm the
citadel itself before the batteries have formed a breach? There it is
again; you may almost catch the taunting words of the combatants, as
they confront each other face to face. But the Turks have surely got
the worst; for there, in that pent-up court, there comes down upon
them from the ramparts overhead such a storm of stones and wildfire
and boiling oil, such volleys of musketry and the annihilating fire
of cannon, which at that short range play on their thick masses with
horrible effect, that they are forced to fall back on the ravelin.
It was but to prepare, however, for a fresh attack; for, mad as the
design may seem, the Turks had resolved on storming St. Elmo that
very day, without waiting for the aid of breach or mine. The cry of
“Scaling-ladders for the walls!” may now be heard; and scarcely are
they brought but you may see the wild tumultuous rush with which they
throw themselves on the ramparts, only to be hurled headlong on the
rocks below. But the madness of savages has seized their ranks; they
care nothing for the risk of death,—nothing for the crushing stones
and torrents of burning pitch poured upon their defenceless heads;
they scream curses and blasphemies at their adversaries, and you may
catch their cries of rage and defeated malice, while there rises from
that narrow neck of land a thick offensive smoke, through which glare
lurid flames as in the crater of a volcano; and the dense cloud hangs
over the water, gradually concealing every thing from view, so that
at length you can but guess what kind of work is going on at that
beleaguered fortress by the sounds that issue from the spot.

What meanwhile has been the situation of the garrison? Almost a
desperate one: and yet they are the victors of the day. A hundred
men, and twenty knights besides, have fallen in their ranks: but the
bodies of three thousand of their enemies are lying on the rocks
beneath; and, spite of all their frantic efforts, they have been
compelled to retire defeated from the walls. And how have those
hundred and twenty died? Do we find in their defence the same savage
brute ferocity as was exhibited in the onslaught of their assailants?
Surely, if so, such butchery were scarcely worthy of a record from
a Christian pen. But it was not so; they combated to death, yet
died as became the champions of the cross they wore. “Save yourself,
comrade,” cried the French knight Bridier de la Gordamp; “and count
me as a dead man, for the ball is very near my heart.” “By the fair
fame of Auvergne, I will not leave you till I bear you to a place of
safety,” said his companion; and, lifting him in his arms, he carried
him through the fire to a sheltered nook. “Now go, dear brother,”
said the wounded knight, “I can but die; and down there yonder they
are fighting for the faith.” The other left him, as he desired; but
when the fight was over, he searched in vain for his comrade, alive
or dead. “Where is Bridier?” he said to the knights around him, “he
had not strength to make his way within; I surely thought he had
spoken his last word by our side.” At length a track of blood upon
the step that led to the chapel within the fortress attracted their
attention; they entered and approached the altar, and found the dead
man, with his hands clasped as if in prayer, lying at its foot; he
had felt the hand of death, and, summoning all his strength, had
crawled away to die in quiet, and in the presence of his Lord. “He
had ever led,” says Goussancourt, “a most religious life.” Much of
the same spirit is shown in other anecdotes, and a certain sweet and
noble chivalry breathes through the conduct of the knights, which
singularly contrasts with the mad barbarism of their assailants: it
is as though, through the bursts of a wild and terrible hurricane, we
caught the rich tones of some lofty martial strain.

The attack lasted from daybreak till noon; and at nightfall La
Valette succeeded in bringing off the wounded, and throwing a small
reinforcement into the place, in spite of the fire of the janizary
musketry. The bailiff and the commander Broglio, both badly wounded,
would not accept the permission granted them to retire, but, together
with many others of the garrison, preferred to remain and die at
their posts. They might be seen, regardless of their sufferings, in
the thickest of the fire, carrying earth to strengthen the ramparts,
or administering help to the wounded; and, when unable to render
more active service, you might see them drag themselves beside the
artillerymen, and help them in the working of the guns.

Meanwhile La Valette had made frequent representations to the viceroy
Toledo that his promised succours were badly needed; but they
still delayed: only a small galley arrived from Sicily, bringing
the gallant knight Miranda, who instantly volunteered to join the
garrison at St. Elmo. His presence in the fortress had an astonishing
effect,—for he was a man equally renowned for piety, courage, and
military skill,—and his presence gave new life to the defence.
Nevertheless it became every day more desperate: the ramparts were
in ruins, the garrison worn out with constant fatigue; for, after
days spent in conflict, their nights were employed in burying their
dead and the torn and mangled limbs of those dismembered by the
cannonade. Scarcely could you tell them to be men, so disfigured were
they by the smoke and the wildfire that blazed around them; their
faces bruised and burnt, and not one unwounded man among them. It was
now the 6th of June; and while the guns of those terrible batteries
still stormed against the ruins of St. Elmo, the Turks, after many
fruitless efforts, succeeded at length in almost cutting off all
communication between the fortress and the town. A wall was erected
on the ravelin, which seemed to enclose the castle and entirely to
shut it in from the mainland; and in this extremity it was determined
to despatch a messenger to La Valette to inform him that St. Elmo was
no longer tenable. Medrano, who was charged with the delivery of the
intelligence, succeeded in making his way to the borgo. A majority of
the council were for abandoning a position which it was impossible to
hold; but La Valette, although he felt bitterly the hard necessity of
refusing to recall the devoted troops, maintained that every day St.
Elmo held out was worth a week to the safety oi the island, for the
borgo could not be attacked till the castle fell; and the council
came round to his opinion. “It is a sacrifice,” wrote the grand
master; “but to such sacrifice of our life for Christendom our vows
and profession bind us. The succour from Sicily is daily expected;
and till it come, the decision of the council is, that St. Elmo must
not be abandoned, but that its defenders must abide in it until
death.”

It was a hard sentence; for the castle was rocking to its
foundations, and the noise of the miners underneath could be
distinctly heard; nevertheless Miranda and the elder knights, with
the heroic old bailiff, received it with a shout of enthusiasm.
But the younger brethren, to the number of fifty, protested that,
rather than wait tamely to be butchered like sheep in a pen, they
would sally out upon the foe, and perish to a man in one desperate
encounter. This resolution they signified in a letter to the grand
master. His reply was stern and peremptory. He bade them remember
they were bound by their vows to fight and die, not in such manner
as they willed, but as he their commander directed. That he might
not appear, however, to slight their protestation, he sent three
commissioners to report on the state of the defences. Two out of the
number sided with the remonstrants; the third, an Italian knight
named Castriot, not only declared the place still tenable, but boldly
offered himself to undertake its defence; and this he repeated to
the grand master on his return. Volunteers presented themselves on
all sides, and in such crowds that La Valette’s only embarrassment
was what selection to make. The complainants were told that their
prayer was granted; they should be relieved that very evening, and
within the walls of their convent might feel themselves, at least for
the present, in safety. Stung to the quick by this sarcastic reply,
the young knights humbly sued for forgiveness and for permission
still to die at their posts. La Valette was at first inflexible, but
yielded at length to the entreaties of the penitent brethren, and
the new levies were dismissed. The hired troops also had betrayed
their discontent. However, they too were at length shamed into
resolution; for when they found that their departure was not opposed,
and that hundreds in the ranks of their comrades on shore were eager
to take their places, they declared that they would not be the
first to retire, but would stay and die with their commanders. With
extreme difficulty a fresh reinforcement of fifteen knights was now
thrown into the fortress, who were received with such cheers and
demonstrations of rejoicing, that the Turks, led to believe some
powerful succour had arrived, were only driven to renew their fire
more heavily than before. Dragut had arrived (June 2d) with thirteen
galleys, containing each 100 men, and ten galliots, having on board
810 soldiers. With the guns of his ships he constructed a battery on
the point of land which still hears his name, and firing across Port
Musiette, swept the western flank of St. Elmo with terrible effect;
and then from land and sea, both day and night, the enemy’s artillery
continued to bombard the defences of the fort, as well as of the
castle of St. Angelo. At length a yawning chasm in the walls showed
that a practicable breach was effected; and Dragut fixed the 16th of
June for the assault-general on St. Elmo.

Let our readers, therefore, transport themselves to the heights
above the city, and watch the scene beneath. The whole Moslem fleet
gathered like a forest round the mouth of the harbour,—for the attack
is to be by sea as well as by land; the trenches filled with Turkish
troops,—all, however, preserving a profound and singular silence; and
8000 horsemen before the bridge which faces the great front of the
castle, where Mustapha Pasha commands in person, his presence being
indicated by the great standard given into his hands before leaving
Constantinople by the sultan himself. As to the garrison, they are
well prepared for the attack; and, thanks to La Valette’s constant
succours, their numbers are again complete; yet they are but 400 men.
A knight stands to every three soldiers around the walls; heaps of
stones are arranged at regular distances, with instruments of war
not known in our day, and of the most terrible description; large
hoops, which, dipped in certain combustible preparations and set on
fire, are cast among the masses of the enemy, and surround some two
or three with a circle of certain death; pots of wildfire, which
break when hurled on the heads of the storming party, and scatter
their burning contents far and wide; and other inventions of a
similar kind, then in common use, which gave a peculiar horror to the
sieges of the time. The wounded have their duties assigned to them,
namely, to bring food and wine to those on the walls, and to drag
away the dead or dying from beneath the feet of their comrades. In
short, Christians and Moslems are ready and impatient, and only wait
the signal of attack.

It was given by the planting of the sultan’s standard on the bridge;
and the yell that burst from the Turkish line warned the garrison
that their assailants were at hand. Thirty of their chosen men,
bound by fearful oaths to enter the fortress together or die in the
attempt, stormed the weakest bulwark, and would have infallibly
succeeded but for the quick eye of La Valette, who watched all
from the castle of St. Angelo, and directed two guns to bear upon
the spot, which swept twenty of them away, and the remainder were
compelled to retire. Still the attack on the other quarters was
unabated in its fury. Mad with drink and with a wild religious
fanaticism, the half-savage bodies of the Moslem troops threw
themselves on the ladders, but never reached the top. Down came the
fiery hoops and the stones and hissing wildfire, and swept them away
by twenties at a time. All up and down the walls there seemed to
flare and blaze those streams of liquid fire; and in the dense ranks
of the assailants, those on whom it fell were unable to escape. Even
when fresh stormers struggled to the parapets they met a wall of
pikes they could not pierce; hand to hand the foemen grappled amid
the showers of arrows and volleys of musketry that poured in from the
trenches: but the strong arms of the Christian knights thrust off
their enemies, and again the ladders were emptied and the walls left
free. Then Dragut and Mustapha advanced, and choosing two of the most
ferocious of their men, committed to each a splendid standard, and
bade them plant them on the walls. In a moment the gilded banners are
glittering on the ramparts; but in another they are torn away, and
their bearers are hurled lifeless into the ditch. After a terrific
conflict of six hours the infidels abandoned the attempt, leaving
more than 2000 of their companions dead under the walls. It was now
that Dragut met his doom. As he stood outside the trenches, making
dispositions with Mustapha for screening off the fire of St. Angelo,
a ball from that fort splintered a rock close beside him, and a
fragment of the stone struck him on the head. He fell on the instant
speechless and bathed in his own blood; and the pasha, to hide the
catastrophe from the soldiers, threw his cloak over him, and had him
carried to his tent, where he lived only long enough to learn the
ultimate fate of St. Elmo.

Again, then, the victory is with the Christians; there is a service
of thanksgiving in the great church of St. John’s, and a call for
fresh volunteers; for out of the four hundred who held St. Elmo that
morning not a hundred are left alive. Seventeen of the knights had
fallen, and among them the brave Medrano, who, in the act of tearing
a Turkish standard from the rampart, was himself struck down by a
bullet from an arquebuse. Before nightfall, the reinforcement, led
by thirty knights, is safe within the walls, ready, when the morning
comes, to renew the combat with undiminished valour. It is said that
La Valette himself marvelled at the ardour of his brethren: they
contended for the glorious post of sacrifice as though for martyrdom;
and such perhaps it was,—for their death was not for conquest or
ambition, but for the safety of the Christian world.

The Turks now resolved to cut off all communication between the
fortress, and St. Angelo and the town, by continuing the line of
intrenchments to the Great Harbour, where a battery of heavy guns
could command the landing-place. While the works were in progress
the garrison were kept in a state of perpetual alarm: all through
the day an incessant fire was directed against the already ruined
ramparts, and at night continual attacks, real or feigned, allowed
the exhausted defenders no interval of repose. On the 18th of the
month the investment was complete, and the little garrison knew
that their hour was come. It was with unspeakable anguish that La
Valette had watched that impassable barrier closing each day around
the devoted band, unable to offer any succour to his brethren, or
even to embarrass or retard the enemy’s work. The 20th was the
Feast of Corpus Christi, and never perhaps was it celebrated under
circumstances of greater solemnity, or such as were more calculated
to inspire devotion. The Blessed Sacrament was borne in procession
the whole circuit of the town, care only being taken to avoid such
points as were most exposed to the enemy’s artillery. At its head
walked the grand master, and after him came the Knights, clad in
their dark robes with the white cross upon their breasts. The entire
population accompanied them to the great church, where, prostrate on
the pavement, they adored the Most Holy enthroned above the altar,
and besought Him to have pity on them in their extremity, to grant
to their brethren at St. Elmo the aid which no human power could
give, and not to allow His worshippers to fall into the hands of the
enemies of the faith.

All through the 21st the cannonading continued with increased
severity, until the tottering walls of the castle were in many
places levelled to the surface of the rock on which they stood; and
on the next day the second assault was made: the whole army of the
infidels against four hundred men. Thrice the enemy renewed that
terrible charge, and thrice they were withstood. The defenders seemed
to be possessed of a supernatural strength and a presence that
was ubiquitous; and once again the shout—a feeble shout indeed—of
“Victory! victory!” which reached the borgo, told the Christians that
their comrades had gained the day. But a messenger from the fort,
diving under water, and with wonderful dexterity escaping through the
Turkish boats, brought a letter which told La Valette that two-thirds
of their numbers were fallen, and the rest, wounded and exhausted,
could scarcely lift their swords. Fresh succours were instantly
despatched, but for the first time found it impossible to approach;
for eighty of the Turkish galleys lying off the harbour darted
forward to intercept them on their way, and so rapid were their
movements, that, seeing they would infallibly be surrounded if they
attempted to force a passage, the volunteers were forced reluctantly
to retire. The garrison had watched them from the wall, and now
learnt too surely that there was nothing more to hope. Daybreak would
bring the last assault, and they could but die; but how should the
night be passed? Surely as became the Hospitallers of the Cross. They
dressed each other’s wounds, and each man comforted his fellow with
noble and religious words; Miranda and the bailiff devoted themselves
to the soldiers; and all confessed and communicated; then, embracing
one another like brethren in Christ, they went to the walls, and
those who could not stand were carried thither in a chair, and sat at
the breach grasping their swords in both hands, and waiting for the
enemy.

The morning broke at last; it was the vigil of St. John. The Turks
came on with shouts of certain victory, which were proudly answered
by the cheers of the garrison. For four long hours they withstood
charge after charge from their assailants with heroic firmness; those
who could not rise on their feet still kept up a fire of musketry,
until their ammunition was so exhausted that they were forced to
collect the grains of powder out of the pockets of their fallen
brethren. At the end of that time only sixty men were left alive; but
these maintained the defence with such undaunted courage, that at
eleven o’clock the infidels discontinued the assault, and gave them a
brief respite while they prepared to renew the combat with redoubled
fury.

As the besieged were enjoying the short breathing-space the signal
was heard for the re-commencement of the attack; the Turks poured in
on every side, and in fact there was nothing to keep them out,—the
walls were gone, and the guns silent now for want of powder,—only
a few brave men, too weak to stand, with broken limbs and ghastly
bleeding wounds; yet with their last breath, wielding their pikes and
two-handed swords, they confronted the invaders, and seemed to defy
them to do their worst. “In, followers of Islam!” shouted the pasha;
“the dogs can do you no harm!” and with yells of fiendish malice the
wild troops of the Spahis and Dahis burst into the fortress. The
gallant old bailiff D’Egueras was the first to meet them lance in
hand, and the first to fall from a blow that severed his head from
his body, and laid his white hairs on the bloody ground. Francis
Lanfreducci, before he died, struggled to the spot where a beacon
was prepared to give notice to the borgo that all hope was gone; he
fired it, and at the same moment expired from his wounds. The fight
was soon over for want of combatants, yet one was left alive—Paul of
Novara, who, summoning his last energies, charged boldly at the whole
front of his enemies and drove them bodily from the breach; then,
overpowered by numbers, he fell with his face to the foe, and the
bloody scene was over. Five Maltese soldiers alone escaped by casting
themselves into the water and swimming to the shore. Nine knights
also, it is said, who were posted near the end of the fosse, were
taken prisoners by the corsairs. These were the sole survivors of the
massacre; for the Turks gave no quarter, Mustapha having offered a
prize for every Christian head, and this in pursuance, as is said,
of orders from the sultan. Twelve others at the point of death were
found, like Bridier de Gordamp, lying before the chapel-altar, and
being seized, were hung up by the feet, and then crucified.

The pasha himself now entered the fort, and struck by the
insignificance of the place, rightly judged that the conquest of
the borgo would be no easy task. “What,” he exclaimed, “will be the
resistance of the parent when the child has cost us eight thousand
of our bravest men?” To intimidate the knights, therefore, he had
recourse to horrible barbarities. The heads of four of the principal
brethren, among them those of Miranda and the brave old bailiff, he
caused to be fixed aloft upon a pole with their faces towards the
town; then ordering search to be made among the heaps of dead that
covered the ramparts, he selected the bodies of the knights, some
of whom still breathed, and first gashing their breasts crosswise
and tearing out their hearts, he cut off their heads and feet, and
nailed their mangled trunks upon wooden crosses;[44] then, throwing
over each their scarlet surcoats, he cast them into the sea, trusting
that the waves would bear them to the foot of the castle of St.
Angelo, where they might meet the eyes of the grand master and his
knights. The evening tide brought them to the shore; the sight drew
tears from the eyes of La Valette, and those torn and mangled bodies,
being lifted reverently and tenderly, were kissed and honoured as the
relics of glorious martyrs. Happy were they in their comrades’ eyes,
thus bearing the cross, and bound to it to the last. “Grieve not for
the fall of St. Elmo,” said La Valette to his council, “but rather
give God thanks that the noble few who held it could keep their post
so long. If now they have been forced to yield, yet has their death
been glorious, and their end, which the infidels deemed disgrace, fit
funeral for Hospitallers of the Cross.”

Yet, spite of his words, the anguish of the grand master was not to
be concealed; and he changed his residence, so as no longer to see
from the windows of his palace the fort which recalled the slaughter
of his comrades; and his countenance, though it lost nothing of its
lofty serenity, was lined and worn by suffering strongly mastered and
suppressed.

From this time La Valette gave no quarter, as, notwithstanding the
contrary inhuman practice of the Turks, he had hitherto done. So far,
at least, he was justified by the laws of war; but not satisfied with
this, he was carried on to the committal of an act which,—whatever
might be the usage of those days, and whatever excuse may be framed
for it from the consideration of the ferocious barbarity of the
adversary he had to deal with, and the maddening horror inspired by
the sight of the mangled remains of his brethren, bearing on them the
marks of the torments they had undergone,—cannot but be regarded as
a stain on the pure glory of this Christian knight. He gave instant
orders for the execution of the prisoners; and that the brutal foe
might learn the sudden vengeance which their cold-blooded cruelty
had brought down upon their comrades, he caused their gory heads to
be fired into the Turkish camp. Doubtless he hoped to strike terror
into the infidels, and to teach them the danger to themselves of
converting warfare into butchery. But such fierce reprisals seldom
produce any salutary effect, while the recital gives a painful jar to
the feelings with which we love to regard these heroic champions of
the Cross.

The loss of the Christians in the defence of St. Elmo is differently
estimated; but the common account puts it at 1300 men, of whom
130 were knights.[45] When we reflect that a handful of warriors
withstood for the space of a month the whole strength of the Ottoman
army, and consider the deliberate nature of their sacrifice in an
enterprise where victory was never once contemplated, but in which
they sought only to secure the safety of the island by a prolonged
resistance, we shall not hesitate to place their devotion at least
on a level with that of the three hundred heroes of Thermopylæ,—far
above it, if we remember that in their case patriotic ardour was
rendered holy by religious zeal: “The profession of our oath,” said
the grand master in his letter, “is to sacrifice our lives for
Christendom.”




CHAPTER X.

  St. John’s day—Arrival of the “little succour”—Assaults on St.
  Michael—Death of the grand master’s nephew—Assaults from the 2d
  to the 16th of August—Attack on the bastion of Castile—Conduct
  of La Valette—His visit to the infirmary—Repulse of the
  Turks—Appearance of the succours—Hasty embarkation of the
  Turks—Fresh landing, and engagement with the Christian army—They
  leave the island—State of Malta after the siege—Building of the
  city of Valetta—Death of the grand master—Conclusion.


It was the festival of St. John; there was a pause in the fierce
cannonade which had so long thundered in the ears of the inhabitants
of Malta, and the bright midsummer day shone over the waves, whose
dancing brightness told no tale of the ghastly procession they had
borne on their surface the night before. The morning had been ushered
in with a religious ceremony,—the solemn burying of the martyrs of
St. Elmo, as the people loved to call them; and over the grave La
Valette addressed his followers, and bade them keep true to so bright
and noble an example. “What more can we desire than to die for the
faith of Christ? in His service we are omnipotent.” Then, turning
to the women, he bade them dry their tears, and keep St. John’s day
with their accustomed joy. And so they did, flocking to the churches,
and kindling through the streets those huge bonfires that in every
Christian land, from Norway to Spain, light up the night which
celebrates the Precursor’s birth.

On the 16th of June, the same day on which the first assault-general
had been made on St. Elmo, four galleys had set sail from Messina,
having on board the force designated by the Maltese historians as
the “little succour.” Certainly, after its despatch had been so
long talked of, it might seem _little_ enough, consisting as it
did of only 700 men and forty knights; not enough to replace those
who had fallen in the siege. However, it arrived on the 29th; and
little as it was, it numbered some of the first warriors of the
day, among others Parisot, the grand master’s nephew. They had no
small difficulty in passing the Turkish fleet, and landing at Citta
Vecchia, and were heartily welcomed, though, as La Valette again
wrote to the viceroy, nothing less than 12,000 men would suffice for
the necessities of the siege. Meanwhile a Greek slave was despatched
as envoy to the grand master from the pasha, proposing conditions of
honourable capitulation; but La Valette desired him to be conducted
through the fortifications, and shown the deep ditch that surrounded
the counterscarp. “_This_,” said the knight who escorted him, “is the
place we intend to surrender to your master; but there is room enough
to bury him and his Janizaries.”

Disappointed in his attempts at negotiation, Mustapha prepared
to push the siege with all vigour. Not a moment had been lost in
pursuing the necessary operations; and the blockade was soon complete
both by sea and by land. Early in July the encircling batteries,
mounted with sixty or seventy heavy pieces of cannon, poured their
converging fire on the towns and fortresses and the shipping that lay
at anchor in the Port of the Galleys, and the roar of that artillery
sounded like the mutterings of distant thunder on the coast of
Sicily; but the chief point of attack was the castle of St. Michael,
situated on the promontory, or island, as it is often termed, of
La Sangle. The pasha determined to assault it not only by land but
by sea. To effect this, without exposing his vessels to the guns
of St. Angelo, it was necessary to carry boats overland across the
peninsula on which St. Elmo had stood. The manœuvre was successfully
accomplished; and no less than eighty vessels were thus transported
across the heights in the sight of the astonished Christians, and
launched on the waters of the basin. But La Valette was equally
prompt in adopting measures of defence; and to oppose the passage
of the Turkish flotilla, erected with almost incredible labour,—for
the work could be carried on only by night,—a strong palisade at the
southern extremity of the harbour. This led to bloody combats, half
on land and half on water, nay, often _in_ the water itself, in which
the dexterous Maltese swimmers, stripped naked and armed only with a
short sword, at length completely routed the bands of Turkish axemen
who were sent to destroy the works.

Not to weary our readers with the repetition of the same bloody
details, it is enough to say that St. Michael proved as hard a task
for the besiegers as St. Elmo. Dragut, as has been said, had fallen
in the former conflict; but his place was supplied by the corsair
Hassan, Beyler Bey of Algiers, who had landed at the head of 2500
men. As son of the famous Barbarossa, and son-in-law of Dragut, he
claimed the honour of leading the assault against St. Michael. The
pasha placed 6000 men at his command, and with these, early on the
morning of the 15th of July, he assaulted the fortress from the
land; while the old corsair, Candelissa, a Greek renegade, with the
Algerine squadron, attacked the inner harbour of the galleys. With
the sound of tambours and blasts of trumpets he directed his course
towards the palisades; before him, in a shallop, going the imaums
and the marabouts, clad in their dark-coloured robes, reciting aloud
passages from the Koran, and screaming out prayers to heaven and
curses on the Christians. But these soon dropped aside, and the
flotilla of boats came on, the chiefs conspicuous in the midst, with
their gaily-streaming mantles and glittering arms. The struggle was
long and obstinate: it continued for five hours, during which the
Turks made incessant attempts to scale the parapets, and at one
moment succeeded in planting their standards on the ramparts. But,
fired at the sight, the Christians rushed upon the foe with redoubled
vigour; the Admiral Monté put himself at their head; their long
swords swept the ranks of their assailants; with pikes and poniards
they threw themselves into the thick of the fray;—there also might
be seen Brother Robert, a sword in one hand and a crucifix in the
other, exhorting the Christian combatants to fight for the faith of
Jesus Christ and die in its defence. But even valour desperate as
theirs might have been fruitless against such overwhelming odds,
had not the grand master, whose eye nothing seemed to escape, by
means of a floating bridge which he had thrown across the Port of
Galleys, despatched reinforcements at the very moment of need. Then,
too, was beheld a strange and an inspiring sight: a troop of boys,
200 strong, issued from the town, armed with slings; shouting “A
rescue-rescue, victory!” they let fly a shower of stones on the heads
and in the faces of the foe; at the same instant De Giou, commandant
of the galleys, charging at the head of the new succours, drove
every thing before him, and forced back the infidels with frightful
slaughter. The wildfire glared over their falling masses, and there
was a hurried scramble to the boats, and plunge after plunge into the
water; but even then the batteries played on them without ceasing;
the port was filled with dead and dying, and crimsoned with blood.
In vain they who could not reach the boats begged for mercy on their
knees; the terrible shout rang in their ears, “Remember St. Elmo!” To
all their cries for quarter the only answer was, “_St. Elmo’s pay!_”

Ere this victory was accomplished the pasha had despatched a powerful
reinforcement, which, avoiding the palisades, steered its course more
northernward; but here it became exposed to one of the batteries of
St. Angelo, which, sunk low down, almost beneath the level of the
water, had remained concealed; and now, as the enemy advanced within
range of its shot, suddenly opened a terrific discharge upon them,
which shattered nine out of the ten barges in which the troops were
being transported to the scene of action; and in an instant the
surface of the harbour was covered with splinters of wood, severed
limbs, mutilated bodies, and such few of the survivors as were still
left to struggle in the waves: the remaining boat turned and fled
back to shore. Meanwhile Hassan had fared no better at the breach
than had Candelissa at the bastion. Again and again he strove to
pierce the barrier of mail that defended the chasm in the walls;
his troops threw themselves upon the little host of warriors only
to recoil with thinned and disordered ranks; and when their bastion
was cleared of assailants, and the defenders were at liberty to
succour their comrades at the breach, the infidels were swept as by
a whirlwind from the ruined wall, and the victory of the Christians
was every where complete. Of the six or seven thousand Moslems who
had taken part in the two attacks not more than half that number
returned to camp. The besieged had to lament the loss of 200 fighting
men, among whom were the brave commander Zanoguerra, and Frederic de
Toledo, son of the Viceroy of Sicily. But their confidence rose with
their success; and La Valette, with all his knights, and the entire
population of the borgo, went in procession to the great church of
St. Lawrence, to adore the God of armies, and to suspend above the
altar the banners of the infidels in token of thanksgiving.

Mustapha, now at last understanding the determined valour of the
men with whom he had to deal, resolved to level the defences to
the ground before attempting a renewal of the assault. After still
further extending and strengthening his batteries, he opened a
tremendous fire on the bastion of Castile, as well as on that part
of the borgo which was nearest to it; and such was the crushing
effect of the ponderous balls discharged from the Turkish mortars
that the quarter of the town exposed to that unintermitting storm
of stone and metal was speedily reduced to ruins, and numbers of
the inhabitants were killed. La Valette, however, was as inventive
of resources as was the pasha of engines of attack: his eye and
hand were every where; no man knew when he took repose; by night as
well as by day he might be seen, now superintending the operations
he had ordered, now himself performing many of the most laborious
duties of the common soldier, exhibiting the while the same unchanged
tranquillity in his countenance and mien, which inspired all who
beheld him with like resolution and courage. And yet, amidst his
indefatigable toils, he never failed every day to betake himself to
the church of St. Lawrence, there to implore the blessing of Heaven
on the Christian arms, and its protection of those to whom all human
aid appeared to be denied. Forcing the Moslem slaves to aid in the
work of defence, he caused a barrier of masonry to be thrown across
the streets so broad and solid as to serve for a protection to the
citizens; while on the side of the port he rendered all approach
impossible by sinking barges laden with heavy stones not far from
shore. Nor were the inhabitants less active on their part, but in
all things showed themselves worthy of their beloved commander. Men,
women, and children were continually engaged in constructing gabions,
manufacturing fireworks, preparing stones and other missiles to hurl
upon the besiegers’ heads, and, above all, in repairing the breaches
and fortifying the shattered walls. Nor all this time did they
neglect to avail themselves of the aids which religion offered, but
cultivated in themselves those pious dispositions which should enable
them to gain the plenary indulgence which the Pope had granted to all
who took part in this holy warfare.

Among other warlike devices the pasha at length contrived a sort of
raised bridge by which the troops should be enabled to reach the
battlements safe from the destructive fire of the garrison. Alarmed
at the sight of this structure, the Christians endeavoured to set
fire to it by night; but, after two failures, were obliged to defer
their attempts till day. The enterprise was full of danger, and was
intrusted by the grand master to his nephew Henry de la Valette,
or, as he is elsewhere called, the Commander _Parisot_, from his
lordship of that name. Parisot was accompanied by his dear friend and
brother-in-arms Polastra, and a small number of soldiers. Throwing
cables round the bridge, they endeavoured by main force to pull
it to the ground; but being wholly exposed to the enemy’s view, a
severe fire was soon directed on the spot. The two young knights,
observing their men beginning to falter under the heavy cannonade,
sprang intrepidly forward, and advanced alone to the foot of the
bridge; but scarcely had they reached the spot when a volley of
musketry laid both dead upon the ground. Instantly the Janizaries
rushed forward to secure their bodies, in the hopes of gaining the
reward offered for the heads of the Christian knights; but the
soldiers, guessing their intention and reproaching themselves for
their cowardice in not following the knights, rallied at the sight,
and advanced to dispute the possession of the bodies. After a violent
conflict the Christians succeeded in carrying off the remains of the
two gallant officers, and bearing them to the fort, whence messengers
were sent to La Valette to acquaint him with his nephew’s death.
Parisot was a favourite with the whole order,—the _beau ideal_ of a
young cavalier,—but to none dearer than to the grand master himself.
Nevertheless he received the news with that high and generous spirit
which always distinguished him, and only raised his eyes to heaven
and thanked God for granting his nephew so glorious an end, and
himself a sacrifice to offer which had cost him something. Some of
the brethren would have condoled with him on his loss, but he stopped
them: “Every one of my knights,” he said, “is equally dear to my
heart, for all are my children: the loss of Parisot does not move
me more than that of Polastra. And, after all, what does it matter?
they have but gone a little while before us. So now to your duty, and
let me hear no more about it:” nor was he ever heard to speak of his
loss again to mortal ear. Nevertheless he bade them take him to the
spot where the two young knights had fallen; and, after inspecting
the bridge and its position, he planted a cannon on the wall opposite
to it, which opened so effectual a fire as entirely to destroy the
dangerous erection.

The besieged had now to sustain a double attack; for whilst the
pasha and the Bey of Algiers continued the attempt on the fortress
of St. Michael, Piali, the admiral of the fleet, led the assault on
the bastion of Castile to the eastward of the borgo; and at the same
time eighty of the largest armed galleys kept the sea, to prevent
the landing of the daily-expected succours from Messina. The assault
of the 2d of August was among the most desperate yet attempted: the
pasha animated his soldiers by his presence and his threats, and
with his own hand slew two Janizaries who had retreated before the
swords of the knights. But he fought against men resolved to conquer.
Even women and children presented themselves to defend the breach,
and rendered no contemptible assistance to the garrison. While the
knights and men-at-arms poured withering volleys of musketry on the
assailants as they rushed forward to the breach, the Maltese launched
down heavy stones and pieces of timber, and discharged torrents of
scalding pitch and streams of wildfire on their heads; and when the
storming columns had scaled the ruined walls they found themselves
opposed by an inner barrier of newly-raised intrenchments, behind
which stood a living and still more impenetrable rampart in the
persons of the brethren of St. John. Great was the confusion and
slaughter among the infidels: stunned by the incessant and increasing
violence of the fiery hurricane that beat upon them, and entangled
among the sharp-pointed spikes with which the ruins had every where
been thickly planted, their disordered ranks reeled and broke as
though the earth were quaking beneath their feet, and, in spite of
all their leaders could do, turned and fled precipitately to their
trenches, leaving the breach encumbered with their dead. Again and
again, refreshed and reinforced, the Turks returned to the assault,
and as often recoiled before the terrible prowess of the Christian
chivalry, until at length, as the day wore on, and all his resources
had been tried in vain, the pasha gave the word to retire; and from
both bastion and fortress his baffled hosts withdrew in discomfiture
and dismay.

Assaults again upon the morrow, and on each succeeding day, but with
the same result; and then came the intelligence that 160 vessels
and 15,000 troops were assembled in the ports of Sicily and about
to sail. Mustapha was well-nigh in despair; but knowing that a
failure and abandonment of the siege would entail certain disgrace
at the hands of Solyman, he resolved on an extraordinary effort—an
assault-general, made by relief-parties of his troops, and kept
up without cessation till the physical strength of the exhausted
garrison must perforce be worn out; and this was accordingly fixed to
commence on the 7th of August.

He chose the hour of noon, when, in that burning climate, the knights
would, he judged, be unfit for great exertions. The morning, too,
passing in comparative quiet, was calculated to throw them off their
guard. Suddenly, in the midday stillness, the explosion of a mine,
and the cries from the wall of “Castile! Castile!” drew all eyes to
the spot thus indicated. Floating over the bastion, they beheld a
huge red banner, with its gilded pole and black horse-tail; and the
alarming rumour spread rapidly through the city that the bastion was
in the possession of the enemy. A few moments more and the infidels
would have been in the heart of the town. Brother William, a chaplain
of the order, ran instantly to seek the grand master, whom he found
standing, as was his wont, in the great square unarmed. “My lord,” he
exclaimed, “Castile is lost! and the borgo will soon be in the hands
of the enemy; you will surely retire to St. Angelo.” La Valette,
without a gesture of surprise, took his helmet from his page’s hands,
and a lance from the nearest soldier: “Come, gentlemen,” he said to
the knights surrounding him, “we are wanted at the bastion; let us
die together:” and, regardless of the entreaties of his followers
that he would not needlessly expose his person, he hurried to the
spot. The alarm-bell was rung, a crowd of citizens rallied round
him, and at their head he fell upon the Turks. A terrific struggle
ensued, and the life of the grand master seemed in momentary peril.
Mendoza, who stood by his side amidst a heap of slain, implored him
to retire; he even knelt at his feet, conjuring him not to expose
a life, on the preservation of which hung the only hopes of the
city and the order; but La Valette answered him by a gesture of his
hand: “Do you see those banners,” he said, pointing to the Turkish
standards, “and ask me to retire before they are trampled in the
dust?” Then, heading the attack, with his own hand he tore them from
the ramparts, and planting himself among the pikemen who defended the
breach, remained there till, after a long and bloody contest, the
enemy had retreated. So soon as all immediate danger was over he bade
his attendants prepare him some accommodation in this bastion, which
he intended thenceforth to make his residence. He believed that the
enemy had withdrawn only to return under cover of the night; and in
reply to the knights who opposed his design he only answered, that at
seventy years of age he had nothing better to hope for than to die in
the midst of his children, and in defence of the faith.

The Christians kept strict watch and ward; and, as La Valette
expected, darkness had no sooner fallen than the infidels, knowing
that no time had been given for throwing up new intrenchments, ran
swiftly to the breach, while the whole scene was suddenly lighted
up by incessant discharges of artillery, and by thousands of fiery
missiles that came flaming and darting through the air. They had
hoped to surprise the garrison exhausted by the day’s encounter,
and sunk in profound repose; but they found the walls ready manned
to receive them, and were met by such volleys of well-directed
musketry, and by such a renewal of those deadly showers, the effects
of which they had so well learnt to dread, that neither the threats
nor the blows of their infuriated chiefs could urge them to the
charge; and the broken routed columns rushed back as they had come,
and abandoned the attempt. The Christians, in their joy at the
hard-earned victory, forgot not Him from whom it came: in the morning
a _Te Deum_ was sung in public thanksgiving; and, if it were not
performed with all the solemnity usual in the order of St. John, at
least it was accompanied (says the chronicler) with tears of grateful
devotion and of true contrition from the eyes of many a man as well
as woman in the assembled crowd.

During the bloody assaults of the long days that followed, La
Valette and his pike were ever in the front of the defence; severely
wounded, he concealed his hurt, and by his words and example inspired
soldiers and citizens with the same ardour that animated the knights
themselves. The fight became too close for musketry; it was hand to
hand, with pike and poniard, renewed every day, and scarcely ceasing
even during night: for the design of the pasha was to do by the whole
city as he had done by St. Elmo, and make himself master of the place
simply by the annihilation of all its defenders. Proclamations went
through the Turkish camp that the city was to be sacked, and every
living soul destroyed, with the exception of the grand master, who
was to be carried in chains to Constantinople. La Valette heard of
this boastful threat: “Yet,” he said to his knights, “it will hardly
be as the pasha thinks; sooner than suffer a grand master of the
order of St. John to appear before the sultan in chains, I will take
the dress of one of my own pikemen, and die among the battalions of
the infidels at their next rush upon the breach.”

Meanwhile the condition of the besieged grew every day more
desperate; their numbers reduced by half, and the survivors wounded,
and well-nigh dying of fatigue; powder failing, and the ramparts all
ruined and shattered by the cannon; breaches every where, and some
so large that thirty men abreast could ride through them, dismount
and mount again with ease; whilst in many places there rose over the
walls enormous mounds, erected by the Turks, and furnished with
cannon, which entirely commanded the quarters of the city against
which they were directed. Every invention of military skill known
to Turkish science was tried in turn by the pasha, and failed: his
mines were countermined; his movable towers were burnt and destroyed;
a huge machine which he caused to be constructed, capacious as a
hogshead and filled with all manner of combustibles, and which was
launched by engines on to the rampart of the bastion, was thrown back
upon its constructors, and, bursting in its fall, dealt terrific
havoc around.

At length, on the 20th of August, a letter was thrown into the borgo,
and brought to the grand master, who opened it in the presence of
his council, and found but one word, “_Thursday_;” which he rightly
interpreted to be a warning from some friendly hand to prepare for a
new assault on the 23d. In fact, it was the last effort of Mustapha,
who found that, whatever might be his own resolution, the spirits of
his troops were fast giving way under their repeated failures; and
it was only when the emirs and chief officers of the army offered to
make the assault alone, that the Janizaries and inferior troops could
be induced to move. La Valette, who foresaw that a great struggle
was at hand, and felt that he had no means of meeting a general
attack with his reduced numbers, proceeded to the infirmary, and
addressed the wounded knights. “I am likewise wounded,” he said, “yet
I continue on duty; so also do others who have never left the walls.
It remains to be seen whether you whom I see around me are content
to be massacred in your beds, rather than to die like men upon the
parapets; for to that crisis are we come.” Such an address had the
effect he intended. “Death on the breach!” burst from the lips of
all. La Valette answered their shout with a pleased and approving
smile; and distributing them among the various quarters where their
presence was most needed, he felt well assured that the sense of
wounded honour would wring from them a resistance so long as life
remained.

The walls during those three days were strangely manned: wounded men,
with arms and heads bound up in bloody cloths; women, with casque
and cuirass, assumed to deceive the enemy with the appearance of
a garrison, the skeleton of which alone was left; guns worked by
feeble children,—sometimes the strongest and best fit to fight of
all the forces that were there. The assault one day lasted _twelve
hours_,—the bloodiest and fiercest that had yet been made; the
enormous platform, or “cavalier,” as it was called, which rose above
the parapet afforded such a position for the Turkish musketeers,
that no one appeared on the walls but he fell instantly under their
deadly aim. Nothing silenced their fire; and night alone brought a
brief respite, which was employed by the grand master in assembling
a council of his knights to determine what steps should be taken in
the deplorable condition to which they were now reduced. The majority
of the grand crosses and dignitaries of the order were for abandoning
the outworks, and retiring with what strength they had left to the
castle of St. Angelo, where they might hope to hold out till the
arrival of the succour; but to this plan La Valette would not for a
moment consent. He rejected it with as much horror as though he had
been required to surrender the city to the infidels; for, good and
Christian veteran as he was, he well knew that St. Angelo, though
capable of receiving the troops and fighting men, could offer no
protection to the women and defenceless citizens, who, in case of
such a resolution being taken, must be given up to the fury of the
enemy: St. Michael and its brave defenders must also be abandoned to
their fate. “No, brethren,” he said, addressing the assembly, “we
will all die together, and on our walls, as becomes our profession,
if first, by God’s blessing, we do not drive these Turkish dogs from
thence.”

So the day dawned on a fresh scene of battle; the Turks, maddened
to frenzy, seemed callous to musketry and stones and boiling oil,
and gaining rampart after rampart, stood at length with nothing to
separate them from the Christians who held the city but a stockade
of wood, behind which the garrison was drawn up; but beyond that
they could not pass. As to the bastion of Castile, La Valette had
declared his resolution of remaining in it to the last; and calling
in almost all the forces which garrisoned St. Angelo, he caused the
wooden bridge which connected it with the borgo to be sawn asunder,
thus cutting off the possibility of retreat. On the last day of
August, the pasha made an attempt on Citta Vecchia, leaving Piali
to continue the assault on the borgo and St. Michael. Mesquita, a
brave Portuguese, commanded there; and on the news of the enemy’s
approach, dressed up his walls with banners and pikes, women again
assuming their casques and muskets, and crowding to the ramparts; for
indeed the place was almost wholly without defenders, yet a warlike
aspect was so well sustained, that no real assault was attempted.
In fact the siege was drawing to its close: ammunition was failing;
twenty-five days’ provision was all that remained in the Turkish
camp; a dysentery, the result of the great heat, bad food, and
constant exposure, was carrying off large numbers every day; the
troops were disheartened, and the garrison, as it seemed to them,
invincible; and when, on the 4th of September, the sails of the
Sicilian galleys were seen on the broad horizon, nothing more was
needed to complete the discomfiture of the infidels.

The succour so long promised consisted of about 11,000 men, 200
being knights of the order, with whom were associated a number of
volunteer adventurers of the best blood of Spain, Italy, and France,
eager to join in a defence whose fame had now spread through Europe,
and bade fair to surpass in glory even that of Rhodes. At the first
news of their approach a kind of consternation seized the two pashas,
and they resolved on a hasty embarkment of their troops. Without
waiting to ascertain the strength of the force opposed to them,
they made every preparation for retiring; the garrison which had
been posted at St. Elmo was called in, the artillery was abandoned,
and a precipitate retreat commenced. As morning broke on the 8th of
September, the festival of Our Lady’s Nativity, the weary watchers
once more dragged themselves to the walls. Taught by bitter and
repeated disappointments, they had put no trust in the reported sight
of those distant sails, and treated the talk of the Sicilian succours
as a delusive dream; no news had yet reached them of the landing of
the troops, which had, indeed, taken place on the preceding evening,
in a distant part of the island, the forces being then in full march
upon the town. Nothing, therefore, was looked for by the garrison,
now reduced to six hundred feeble men, but a renewal of the long
struggle which had lasted without interruption for so many weeks.
Yet, though exhausted in body, their confidence and courage were
unshaken; leaning from the ramparts, they even defied their enemies
to the assault, shouting to them to come on, and do their worst,
without waiting for the sunrise. There was no answer, only a clang
of arms that seemed dying away in the distance. “Heard you that?”
suddenly exclaimed one of the men; “surely those were the Janizary
trumpets sounding from the shore. And down there yonder, beneath the
walls, what can be the meaning of those marshalled troops defiling
from the trenches towards the camp? Either my eyes are blinded by
long watching, or the infidels are in retreat.”

The strange news spread quickly from mouth to mouth, and La Valette,
as soon as he was convinced of its truth, ordered a sortie to be made
from the walls and the intrenchments of the enemy to be destroyed,
as a precaution in case of their return; for indeed the whole thing
seemed inexplicable, and, as he suspected, might be nothing but a
feint to conceal some deep design. Women and children worked with
right good will at the task of destruction; and before nightfall the
complicated works of the Turkish engineers presented a spectacle
of utter confusion. A party was also despatched to take possession
of the abandoned fortress of St. Elmo; and the infidels, from the
decks of their vessels, had the chagrin of seeing the banner of St.
John floating once more over those hardly-contested walls. They
could hear, too, the sonorous peal of the church-bells, silent
for three months, except to give out martial signals or notes of
alarm; but which now burst merrily forth from every tower and
steeple, to celebrate at once the birthday of the Mother of God and
the unhoped-for deliverance of her clients. Never sounded sweeter
music to human ears than that which once more summoned the faithful
to Mass; and doubtless the Rhodians who might be found among the
population were not slow in attributing their happy fortune to
the intercession of Our Lady of Philermos.[46] La Valette headed
the people in a procession to the great church of St. John, where
with hearts flowing over with joy, they gave thanks to God and His
blessed Mother for the mercy so signally vouchsafed. Nor was it long
before the certainty of the good news was ascertained, and its cause
explained by intelligence of the arrival of the Sicilian troops.

Meanwhile the pasha had scarcely entered his vessel when he was
overwhelmed with shame at the thought of having abandoned the city
at the first rumour of relief. The whole Christian forces scarcely
numbered half his own; and it seemed as though by an able movement
he might easily crush the new-comers, and regain his position before
the town, which he well knew was at its last extremity. To land
again, after having but just completed so hurried an embarkment, had
certainly a foolish look about it; but the council of war agreed it
was the only measure that could retrieve the honour of their arms;
and so, despite the unwillingness of the troops, they were once
more put on shore, and marched in the direction of the Christian
forces. The two armies came up to one another in the neighbourhood
of Citta Notabile, and an engagement immediately took place. The
Sicilians were commanded by Ascanio de la Corña; while the knights
who accompanied them were led by Alvarez de Sandé, who led the attack
with characteristic ardour. The Turkish soldiers, dispirited and
fatigued, scarcely made a show of resistance; but at the first charge
turned and fled to the Port of St. Paul, where the Bey of Algiers,
with 1500 men, was waiting to cover their retreat to the boats. The
unfortunate pasha, endeavouring in vain to rally the fugitives, was
hurried along with his cowardly troops, and twice narrowly escaped
falling into the hands of the Christians. The Sicilians followed the
pursuit as though it had been a stag-hunt; and in their thoughtless
impetuosity threw off their cuirasses, and broke their ranks, to
enable them the more speedily to overtake the flying enemy,—an
imprudence which was near costing them dear: for on arriving at
the place of embarkation, they were met by the Bey of Algiers, who
charged them with great fury, and would have carried off a number
of prisoners but for the timely arrival of De Sandé. Then the Turks
no longer preserved even the form of a retreat; there was a general
rush to the boats, the Christians pursuing the infidels even into
the sea, where great numbers of the enemy were slain, or perished in
the waters. This victory put the last stroke to the discomfiture of
the pasha, and before sunset the sails of the Moslem fleet were seen
sinking on the eastern horizon.

Such was the end of this memorable siege, which had lasted four
months; the last of which may be said to have been little else than
one continuous battle.[47] It is said that when the news of the
result was brought to Solyman, he tore the letter to fragments and
trampled it under his feet, repeating the exclamation of Mahomet
after the failure of his Rhodian expedition,—“My arms are invincible
only in my own hands,”—and swearing to return in person the
ensuing year, and put every Christian in the island to the sword.
Nevertheless he thought it prudent to adopt a different policy to
that usually practised by Ottoman sovereigns towards their officers,
with whom failure was the certain forerunner of a disgraceful death.
Following the precedent he had set himself after the retreat from
Vienna, he proclaimed through Constantinople that Mustapha had met
with a brilliant success, that he was bringing captive all the
knights who had survived the slaughter; but that, as the Maltese
rocks were unfit to maintain a garrison, the Ottoman clemency had
been content with the destruction of the fortifications; so that
should the Christian corsairs have the audacity to return, they
would be at the mercy of his fleets, and would not fail to be again
speedily “exterminated.”

Whatever may be thought of the truthfulness of the sultan’s
proclamation of victory, there can be but little question that
Malta, after the raising of the siege, resembled nothing less than
a fortified city, and rather bore the resemblance of one which had
been dismantled and destroyed. Full 200 knights, and more than 9000
soldiers and citizens, had perished during the three months of
conflict; and at the moment when the enemy retired not 600 men of all
ranks or classes were to be found within the city-walls. On the other
hand the loss of the Turks was computed at 30,000 men amounting to
nearly three-fourths of the original besieging army.

There was a joyful meeting between the Christian forces; for the
chief and officers of the newly-arrived troops lost no time in
proceeding to the borgo, where they were received by La Valette
and his companions as their deliverers. Yet a proud and honest
satisfaction was felt by the gallant defenders of the city, as they
thought that they had won the victory for themselves; for the enemy’s
fire had slackened, and his assaults had grown feebler every day, and
he had fled from the walls ere certain intelligence had reached him
of the landing of the succours. It was an affecting scene which was
then witnessed in the ruined streets of the borgo. “The knights,”
says Vertot, “embraced one another with a loving tenderness: but
when they called to mind the loss of so many brave and illustrious
men; when they looked around them and beheld the shattered state
of the city, the walls and ramparts all shaken and destroyed, guns
dismounted and houses overthrown, and saw, moreover, the pale and
emaciated countenances of the inhabitants, the knights, and the
grand master himself, with matted hair and beards, their dress dirty
and disordered,—for many had never laid aside their clothes for
months,—and the greater part of them covered with wounds, and with
arms and heads bound up and bandaged, and the traces of suffering
and privation on the faces of all,—none could restrain their tears
at the touching spectacle; and while some wept in remembering their
misfortunes, others shed tears of joy to think that Malta had at any
rate been saved at last.”

The borgo received the new name of _Vittoriosa_; and a plan already
occupied the mind of La Valette for securing the island against any
fresh attacks, by laying the foundations of a new city whose defences
should be impregnable. As to the joy which the news of the Christian
success spread through Europe, it was of a nature impossible to
describe. “At Rome,” says Vertot, “the day on which the news was
announced was kept as a high festival; all public business was
suspended; the courts of justice and the shops were closed; only the
churches were open, and the people ran in crowds to thank God for
the happy event.” As Innocent VIII. to D’Aubusson, so Pius IV. to La
Valette made offer of the cardinalate; but the grand master in his
humility declined the dignity, begging it might rather be bestowed
on his brother, the Bishop of Vabres, for that he had himself grown
old in the profession of arms. But, indeed, honours poured in upon La
Valette on every side; and money too, to help forward the erection of
the new capital. There was need of expedition, for rumours thickened
fast of another armament in preparation at Constantinople for the
last trial at “extermination;” and a singular dispensation for
continuing work on all Sundays and festivals was granted by Pope Pius
V. for the rapid completion of a city which was to be the bulwark of
the Christian world. The first stone was laid on the 28th of March
1566, by the grand master in person, and bore the impress of a golden
lion on a bloody field, which was his family device. “But,” says a
modern writer, “it was Europe rather than the order, which gave to
the young city the name of _La Valetta_.”[48]

Every year, on the 8th of September, the memory of the great
deliverance was renewed by a solemn religious ceremony within the
church of St. John: the victorious standard of the order was borne
to the altar by a knight in the helmet and armour of the ages of
Crusade,—for to Jerusalem was the lingering look of the Hospitallers
still directed with a fond and sorrowful regret,—and by his side were
carried the sword and poniard of La Valette, whose portrait was on
that day publicly exhibited to the people. As the procession passed
into the church, and the standard was laid at the foot of the altar,
the action was proclaimed by flourishes of trumpets and salvoes of
artillery from the forts. Mass was said by the prior of the order;
and while the gospel was being read the grand master held aloft the
hero’s sword unsheathed, as though to notify to all Christendom, and
to all the enemies of the faith, that the Knights of St. John were
ever ready to do battle for the Cross.

The grand master did not long survive his triumph, or live to see the
completion of his city; he received a stroke of the sun on a hot day
in July, while engaged in his favourite diversion of hawking, and
expired on the 21st of August 1568, retaining his consciousness to
the last. “O my God!” he was heard frequently to exclaim, “send me
one of Thy blessed angels to help me in this last hour.” A cloud of
darkness gathered for a while over his soul, and he seemed wrestling
for the first time in his life with the emotion of fear: he, who
had met so many dangers with such serene intrepidity, and who slept
with a pet lioness in his bed-chamber, trembled for a moment before
the approach of death; but very soon the trouble passed, and a sweet
tranquillity again appeared upon his countenance, as, devoutly
pronouncing the names of Jesus and Mary, he departed without a
struggle. He was buried in the chapel of Our Lady of Philermos within
the church of St. Lawrence; but his body was afterwards removed to
the new church of Our Lady of Victories, whose foundations he had
himself begun as an offering of thanksgiving to the holy Mother of
God.

       *       *       *       *       *

With the siege of Malta our sketch of the order of Hospitallers, or
rather of its struggles with the power of the Moslems in defence
of Europe and of Christendom, must conclude. Its galleys continued
to maintain their supremacy over the infidels on all the coasts of
the Mediterranean, and bore a distinguished part in the victory of
Lepanto, a notice of which will be given in another page. After an
existence of six centuries the order of St. John still preserved its
sovereign character, up to that period when, in common with almost
every other of the ancient institutions of Europe, it was swept away
before the conquering arm of Buonaparte. Even now it may be styled
dethroned rather than extinct;[49] and its restoration at some future
day is at least no more visionary a dream than that which looks
forward to the recall of other exiled and abeyant dynasties.

As a religious order it has one great claim upon our respect, namely,
in having preserved to the last hour of its existence the spirit of
its original institute unchanged and unabated. In 1606 we find the
Knights on the shores of Tunis still faithful to their old instinct
of hospitality. A terrible tempest was destroying their galleys, and
as they beat upon the rocks the Moors were on the watch to massacre
those who escaped from the waves. Then did the Provençal, Vaucluse
de Villeneuf, uphold the glory of his ancient name; and that of his
order: “for,” says Goussancourt, “though he might have escaped in the
galleys among the first, yet he chose to remain with the sick and
wounded, carrying them on his shoulders, which was the cause of his
being taken.” And down to a very late date we find the record of many
whose noble confession of the Christian faith whilst in captivity won
them the crown of martyrdom under most cruel tortures. The religious
spirit was never wanting; and perhaps no more beautiful account of
a Christian death-bed could be found than that given in a letter
from the Père de la Croix, rector of the Jesuit College at Malta, in
which he describes the last moments of two knights who died of their
wounds received in a sea-fight on Saragossa in the year 1635. One of
these, whom he calls “my good penitent the Chevalier Serviens,” was
reckoned the most accomplished gentleman of his day. Such a term had
unhappily in the seventeenth century a far different signification
to that which would have attached to the words in earlier times; and
yet the old meaning had not been forgotten among the Hospitallers of
the Cross. Before departing on the enterprise in which he met with
his death, Serviens had prepared himself by a general confession;
“and his death,” says the good father, “was one which the most
austere religious might well have cause to envy.” The other knight,
who was wounded in the same fight, and died in the same room with
his comrade, was La Roche Pichelle. “He was truly a saint,” writes
the rector; “and to my knowledge had studied the interior life of
perfection for four years, and that to such good purpose that he had
outstripped many a Capuchin and Jesuit father in the progress he had
made. These two friends lay side by side, assisting and consoling one
another: they agreed together that whichever survived the longest
should offer all his pains for the relief of his companion’s soul;
and that the one who died first should in like manner offer all his
prayers that the other might make a happy death. A little before his
departure, Serviens called to his comrade, and asked him if he were
ready to go, saying several times, ‘Let us go, let us go together;’
then he repeated the _Salve Regina_, and saluted his good angel;
and at last took the crucifix in his hand, and repeated the prayer
_Respice_ as it is wont to be said in Holy Week. When he had ended,
he grasped my hand,” continues the rector, “saying, ‘Farewell, my
father;’ I told him he should try to expire with the holy names upon
his lips; whereupon he kissed his scapular, and ejaculating the names
of Jesus and Mary gave up his soul to his Creator.”

Nor could the religious spirit of the order have been as yet decayed,
when we find the edifying spectacle it presented in 1637, bringing
back to the bosom of the Church a descendant of St. Elizabeth of
Hungary, in the person of Prince Frederic of Hesse. In the course of
his travels through Italy he arrived at Malta, where he took such
delight in the sight of so many young knights of all nations gathered
together and living in perfect harmony and religious discipline one
with another, that, returning to Rome, he implored the holy Pontiff,
Urban VIII., to receive him into the true fold; after which he
solicited and received the habit of St. John.

Again, in 1783, we find the Knights of Malta exhibiting their
unalterable constancy to that sublime vocation which made
Goussancourt declare, that “this order containeth within itself the
perfection of all kinds of charity.” During the horrors of the great
earthquake which destroyed the city of Messina, their generous and
extraordinary exertions on behalf of the sufferers earned them a
higher title to fame than was ever won on battle-field or on breach.

In the regret, therefore, with which we view the extinction of an
institution whose name has been illustrious for so many ages, there
mingles nothing of the contempt sometimes called forth by the fall
of a dynasty which has derogated from its ancient fame. It was
high-minded and chivalrous even amid the anarchy and confusion of the
reign of terror. La Brilhane, the last ambassador of Malta at the
court of France, was warned that his life was in danger. “I am under
no apprehensions,” he loftily replied; “the moment is come at last,
when a man of honour who faithfully performs his duty may die as
gloriously on the gallows as he could ever have done on the field of
battle.” And we can find no fitter words in which to give the epitaph
of his order.




THE BATTLE OF LEPANTO.

  Religious state of Europe—Fall of Cyprus—Bragadino—Calepius—The
  Christian league and armament—Rendezvous at Messina—Don John
  of Austria, his character and conduct—Meeting of the hostile
  fleets—Disposition of the ships—The battle—The Knights of
  Malta—Cervantes—Utter defeat of the infidels—Magnanimity of Don
  John—Results of the victory—Revelation made to St. Pius—The joy
  of Christendom, and commemorations of the Church.


The sixteenth century was drawing to its close,—a century marked by
the ravages of religious revolution, and destined to be for ever
honoured or deplored according as men may think of it as the age of
reformation or of decay. Among the many social changes which arose
out of the new order of things, we can scarcely fail to notice the
growth of that exclusive nationality which has lasted until our own
time. The great tie of religious unity was broken which had given
the nations of Europe a common interest even in the midst of the
continual warfare in which they were engaged, and which had inspired
them with so many generous enterprises in defence of the faith. But
when that bond of brotherhood was lost, there was no longer a common
cause to fight for: a profound selfishness may thenceforward be
discovered in the whole history of Europe, and the chance alliances
of one power with another had no nobler basis than the political
interests of the hour.

This change began to be felt immediately after the separation of the
northern nations from the unity of the Church, and the circumstance
was not unobserved by the great infidel power of the East. The
enormous progress of that power was almost coeval with the period
of the Reformation; and the distractions and divisions among the
Christians that followed that event were so many gains to the Turks,
who pushed their victorious arms further and further, till the
dreaded Crescent,—which the long struggle of the crusades and of the
heroic ages of Christendom had kept at bay,—was displayed under the
very walls of Marseilles and the port of Rome by the corsair-fleets
which roved at large over the waters of the Mediterranean, and
scarcely found an enemy to oppose them in their course. The republic
of Venice, indeed, was still master of many of the island-fortresses
of the Levant and the Archipelago; but as the power of that state
was now gradually declining, the eyes of her foe were fastened with
a bolder ambition upon the dominions which she seemed helpless
to defend. The rich and beautiful island of Cyprus in particular
excited the cupidity of Selim II.,[50] who had succeeded his father,
Solyman the Magnificent, in the empire of the East; and the report
of a sudden disaster which befell the republic in the explosion and
destruction of her arsenal, encouraged him to seize the occasion of
breaking, in the face of solemn treaties, a peace which had remained
undisturbed between the two states for nearly thirty years.

When the hostile intentions of the Turkish sultan became known, the
republic was little prepared to recommence the desperate struggle.
Her utmost efforts were spent in the equipment of a fleet which, when
assembled, was found wholly inadequate to meet the enemy; and in her
distress, crippled as she was by the loss of her vast magazines, and
drained of all resources, she implored the assistance of the Roman
Pontiff, and, through him, of the other powers of Christendom. Pius
V. then filled the chair of St. Peter; and his sagacious eye had
long foreseen the danger; nor had he spared any efforts to provide
the necessary defences. But the times were against him. A famine
was ravaging the fair fields of Italy; the government of France was
too busy with the Huguenots to have time or strength to bestow on
a quarrel with the Turks; and as to England—to use the expression
of a writer of the time—its ruler was Elizabeth, “a greater enemy
to Rome than the Turks themselves.” Nevertheless, in spite of all
discouragements, the zeal of the Roman Pontiff was manifested by an
extraordinary activity. Every court of Europe was visited by his
ambassadors, who vainly tried to rouse the spirit of the Christian
princes against a foe whose conquests were as rapid as they were
blood-stained. One after another they excused themselves on the plea
of domestic troubles and exhausted treasuries and in the month of
May 1570, when Pius had fondly hoped to have seen his noble appeals
as nobly responded to by the universal voice of Christendom, he
found himself supported by the king of Spain alone out of all the
potentates of Europe.

Meanwhile the fall of Cyprus, attended by barbarities which rivalled
in cruelty and atrocity the torments inflicted on the early Christian
martyrs, signalised the opening of the war, and gave to the Turkish
arms the prestige of the first success. A slight notice of that
terrible event may give our readers some idea of the sort of
adversary by whom Christendom was at this time threatened.

Already the sultan had ordered the seizure of all merchant vessels
that chanced to be at anchor within the ports of the Turkish empire,
and the closing of all the avenues by which relief could be afforded
to the doomed island; and yet in Venice itself counsels were still
divided: the doge was just dead, and the senate was occupied with
the nomination of his successor. To the last no vigorous measures
were taken by the republic to throw a sufficient force into Cyprus,
and the commanders of the allied Venetian and Spanish fleets strove
in vain to convey the necessary succours. Sickness and famine made
fearful ravages among the troops, and many thousands perished. The
ships which had on board Count Jerome Martinengo and 3000 men were
overtaken by a tremendous storm; an epidemic broke out which carried
off more than a third of the number, and among them their renowned
commander himself; and they who, from the shores of the island had
long watched for the reinforcements, of which they stood in such
desperate need, saw at length but a few shattered vessels come into
harbour, bearing with them the dead body of the man on whose bravery
and skill they had rested all their hopes of deliverance. To add
to the general consternation, Nicholas Dandolo, who had but just
taken on himself the office of governor, was one in whose capacity
and judgment neither soldiers nor people felt they could place any
reliance. Lala Mustapha, a renegade already infamous for his foul
and treacherous practices, was the commander of the Ottoman forces,
numbering, as some historians have computed, 80,000 men; to oppose
which vast armament the Christians could not muster more than 500 or
600 horse, a small body of local militia, and 2000 foot-soldiers fit
for active service.

The city of Nicosia, the first object of attack, was taken by storm,
on the 9th of September 1570, after an heroic resistance of seven
weeks, during which the inhabitants had again and again repulsed the
assaults of the Turks with a valour which struck such terror into the
besiegers, that more than once they all but abandoned their attempts
on the town. The ammunition had failed, the fortifications were
demolished, most of the distinguished leaders had been slain; the
devoted bishop, who had given up all he possessed for the support
of the soldiery and people, had himself fallen in a _mêlée_; the
Count de Rochas, who ranked next in command to the governor, was
killed in defending one of the ruined bastions, and the Turks, after
grossly outraging his body, thrust it into a mortar and launched
it into the town. Dandolo retreated into his palace as soon as the
enemy penetrated into the town, and the wretched inhabitants were
given up as a prey to their infuriated assailants. In vain they
threw themselves on their knees before their vanquishers; they
were massacred without pity: for seven hours the horrible carnage
proceeded. The palace still held out. The pasha offered the garrison
their lives on condition of their laying down their arms: they did
so, and every soul was put to the sword. The Bishop of Baffo, who,
in the estimation of his countrymen, was as capable of commanding an
army as of governing a diocese, was butchered among the rest. The
unhappy Dandolo, after suffering frightful tortures at the hands of
the infidels, was decapitated, and his head sent to the governor of
Cerino, the third principal town of the island, as a token of what
he might himself expect if he did not instantly surrender the place.
The atrocities committed by the Turks defy description. Mustapha, it
is related, ordered the children and old men, and all whom it was not
worth the victor’s while to preserve, to be piled one upon another in
the great square of the town and burnt alive; at the same time, to
show his hatred of the Christian name, he directed numerous carcases
of swine,—for which the followers of Mahomet entertain a religious
abhorrence,—to be heaped upon his victims, and consumed together with
them. For three days the town was given up to pillage, and every
barbarity which an infernal malice could suggest was perpetrated upon
its despairing population. Women threw themselves from the house-tops
to escape from their pursuers; mothers slew their daughters with
their own hands rather than that they should fall into the power of
the brutal foe. More than 20,000 human beings were slaughtered on the
day of the assault: in the first paroxysm of their rage the infidels
spared neither sex nor age; 2000 alone were reserved for a slavery
more terrible than death. One fearful act of vengeance marked the
close of this memorable siege. The Turks had collected in a single
galleon the most beautiful youths and maidens of the place, together
with the most precious portion of the booty, with the intention
of conveying them as presents to the sultan, his eldest son, and
the grand vizier. One of the captives, a lady of noble family,
knowing but too well the wretched fate that awaited herself and her
companions, set fire to the powder-magazine, and blew the vessel high
into the air. Two others loaded with the spoils of the town were
involved in its destruction; great numbers of the enemy perished,
and among them many Christians of distinction, and the flower of the
youth of either sex.

Mustapha now led his troops, flushed with victory and outnumbering by
thousands their Christian opponents, under the walls of Famagosta.
For eleven months the brave Bragadino, with a scanty garrison and a
few thousands of armed citizens, withstood the Moslem hosts.[51] In
vain had they sought relief from Spain and their own republic. The
Spanish admiral weakly held aloof; the Venetians succeeded only in
throwing a handful of men into the place. The besieged fought with
all the strength of despair: women not only laboured in supplying
arms and ammunition to the soldiers, but combated by their side upon
the walls, throwing down stones and boiling-water on the assailants,
or precipitating themselves with deadly effect into the masses of the
foe, and causing many a Moslem warrior to bite the dust. The bishop
of the place, a Dominican by profession, contributed not a little
in re-animating the spirits of the garrison, whose ranks were being
every day rapidly thinned by famine and the sword: his exhortations,
say the chroniclers, elicited prodigies of valour. In the very
heat of the assault he might be seen for hours upon the ramparts,
surrounded by his clergy, holding aloft the crucifix, and calling on
the people to resist unto death fighting for the faith.[52] All in
vain: on the 1st of August 1571, the walls were nearly levelled to
the ground; the defences consisted only of bags of earth and bales
of cotton; the Italian and Greek auxiliaries, whose prowess had done
such execution on the Turks, were all annihilated; there were left
but seven barrels of powder, and of food there was none remaining;
the combatants, emaciated by want and incessant toil, could scarcely
hold their weapons in their hands. Further resistance was impossible,
and Bragadino, yielding at length to the piteous entreaties of the
townspeople, consented to sue for terms. But as the intrepid governor
bade the white flag be unfurled, he exclaimed, “Officers and men,
I call Heaven to witness that it is not I who surrender this town
to the infidels, but the senate of Venice, who, by abandoning us to
our fate, have given us up into the hands of these barbarians.” A
capitulation was concluded, by which the inhabitants were to remain
in possession of their goods, and to have the free exercise of their
religion; all who chose might quit the town, and sell or carry off
their effects; the garrison were to march out with their arms and
with all the honours of war, and to be transported in Turkish vessels
to Crete.

The terms were ratified; and on the morning of the 15th August,
the Feast of the Assumption, Bragadino, according to agreement,
proceeded with two of his officers and a small escort to the tent
of the Turkish general to deliver up into his own hands the keys of
the town. But no sooner had he entered the pavilion than he and his
attendants were treacherously seized on some frivolous pretence;
new conditions were imposed; and on the governor’s remonstrating
against the injustice of such proceedings, Mustapha ordered his
companions to be beheaded on the spot before his eyes. Bragadino
himself he condemned to a like fate: three times he compelled the
noble Venetian to bow his head to receive the murderer’s stroke, and
as often,—as though he would make his victim drink the bitter cup of
torment drop by drop,—arrested by a sign the executioner’s arm. The
tyrant had another and a more terrible death in store for one who had
so long defied his most furious efforts; and he contented himself
for the present with ordering his captive’s nose and ears to be cut
off in his presence; which done, he had him loaded with chains, and
cast, bleeding as he was, into a dungeon, tauntingly bidding him
call now upon his Christ, for it was time that He should help him.
Three hundred Christians who were in the camp were butchered in cold
blood; the rest of the garrison and the unhappy townspeople, who were
already on board the Turkish transports, were reduced to slavery;
while the hostages sent into the Turkish quarters before the treaty
was formally signed, among whom was Henry Martinengo, nephew of the
count, were subjected to barbarous mutilation. The fortifications
were now ordered to be rebuilt; and the Turk compelled his noble
prisoner to carry loads of earth upon his shoulders for the repair of
the walls, and to kiss his feet each time he passed before him; and
not yet satisfied with the indignities he heaped upon him, he had him
hoisted up aloft on the yard-arm of a vessel in the harbour, where he
kept him exposed for hours to the gaze and scoff of the infidels, and
then suddenly plunged him into the sea. At last, after trampling him
under foot, he doomed him to be flayed alive in the public square.
The indomitable commander, who united in himself the resolute courage
of a chivalrous soldier with the supernatural patience of a Christian
martyr, amidst his untold agonies betrayed not a sign of pain,
uttered not a murmur or a complaint against his torturers, but, as
they stripped the skin from his quivering flesh, calmly prayed and
recited aloud from time to time verses from the _Miserere_ and other
Psalms. When the Christians in the crowd heard him breathe the words,
_Domine, in manus tuas commendo spiritum meum_,[53] they thought
he was rendering up his life to God; but there followed in tender
accents,—as if to show Whose sufferings in that hour of agony were
most present to his thoughts, and Whose meek and loving spirit then
filled his inflexible and dauntless soul,—_Pater, dimitte illis; non
enim sciunt quid faciunt_;[54] and with this prayer for mercy on his
tormentors the brave soldier of Christ passed to receive the martyr’s
palm. But Turkish malice was not even yet exhausted. Mustapha caused
the brave man’s body to be cut into four quarters, and each to be
attached to the muzzle of the largest guns. His skin was stuffed with
straw, and, together with a representation of our Divine Lord in
His adorable Passion, paraded through the camp and through the town
fastened on the back of a cow. Finally, he despatched both figures
as trophies to the Sultan his master, with the head of Bragadino and
those of the two murdered commanders. At Constantinople the skin
of the heroic martyr was hung up as a spectacle for the Christian
galley-slaves.[55]

After the fall of Famagosta further resistance was impossible; indeed
(to their everlasting shame be it written) the Greek population
of the island sided actively with the invaders, and, in their
obstinate blindness, not knowing what they did, delivered themselves
up to the degrading domination of the Turks. Every where the most
frightful scenes were enacted: the Mussulman soldiery broke into
the wine-cellars, and, maddened with drink, indulged in orgies too
revolting for description. By the command of the renegade Mustapha
the tombs of the dead were opened, and their contents scattered to
the winds; the images and pictures of the saints were demolished;
the churches defiled with abominations so loathsome that the pen of
the historian refuses to record them. Friday the 17th of August, the
day on which the noble Bragadino suffered, was set apart for the
deliberate perpetration of horrors which rivalled in foulness and
atrocity the infamous mysteries of Venus, and the bloody rites at
which pagans offered sacrifices of human victims to the devils whom
they worshipped. A few days after, Lala Mustapha made his triumphal
entry into Constantinople with the spoils of a conquest which had
cost him 50,000 men.

During the dreadful scenes which accompanied the fall of Cyprus,
there were not wanting many who displayed a spirit worthy of the best
days of Christendom. F. Angelo Calepius, a member of the Dominican
order, has left an interesting and valuable narrative of the taking
of Nicosia, of which place he was a native. He himself played a
distinguished part in its defence; for during the seven weeks of
siege which preceded the entrance of the Turks, he was unwearied
in his efforts to rouse the inhabitants to an heroic resistance in
the cause of liberty and faith. In spite of the continual fire of
the enemy, Calepius was to be seen every where, attending to the
wounded and dying, and encouraging the harassed and disheartened
combatants. When at length the place surrendered, and was abandoned
for three days to pillage and slaughter, the zeal and devotion of
this excellent man displayed itself under the very swords of the
infidels. The streets were flowing with blood; yet wherever the
danger was greatest and the heaps of dead and dying lay the thickest,
Father Angelo might be seen, regardless of the ferocious soldiery who
surrounded him, administering the consolations of religion to their
victims, and endeavouring to comfort them in that dreadful hour by
the power of his words and of his very presence.

Among those whose murder in cold blood he was forced to witness,
was his own mother Lucretia Calepia and almost all his relatives,
with numbers of the clergy and his fellow religious; yet the thought
of flight or concealment never seemed to suggest itself to him amid
scenes which, with all their horrors, offered him a field for his
labours in defence of the faith and in aid of his brethren. “He was,”
says Echard, “a constant champion and defender of the Christian
faith.” But at length his own turn came: he was seized, stripped
of his religious habit, and placed, loaded with chains, among the
other captives. After passing through many hands, he was finally
purchased by Osma, the captain of a Turkish galley, and carried
by him to Constantinople. Before long, however, Angelo so far won
the good graces of his master, that he was no longer treated as a
slave: he was even suffered to sit at the same table, and permitted
to go through the city wherever he desired without restraint, the
only condition exacted from him being, that he should not leave the
walls. He had no temptation to do so; for the sole use he made of his
liberty was to visit his fellow-captives, to console them in their
sufferings, and strengthen them in the faith. There are some men who
find their apostolate every where, and such was Calepius. True to the
great instinct of his order, he was ready, like his great patriarch,
“to save souls any where, and as many as he could.” In those days
the chains and scourges of the Moslems were a less terrible danger
to their captives than the temptations to apostasy, with which they
were careful to surround them. Men needed a living and a lively faith
to be able constantly to persevere in the most appalling sufferings,
when a few words would purchase for them ease, liberty, and often
the highest rank in the sultan’s service,—for many of the most
distinguished commanders were Christian renegades; and Calepius,
who knew this, felt that no more fitting field of missionary labour
could have been granted to him than he now found in the dungeons
and bagnios of Constantinople, confirming his weak brethren, and
sometimes winning back those who had strayed, to the profession of
their faith.

Meanwhile his order had not forgotten him; his name had long been
known in Rome, and Seraphin Cavalli, the general of the Dominicans,
who had his liberation greatly at heart, succeeded at length in
despatching four hundred gold crowns to Constantinople as the price
of his ransom. Calepius was therefore free. He might have returned to
Cyprus, or made his way to Rome, where he was sure of an honourable
reception; but ease and honour were the last things of which he
thought. He had chosen the damp vaults of the slave-prisons for
the scene of his ministry, and without hesitation he determined on
remaining at Constantinople, and sacrificing liberty, advancement,
nay, life itself if need were, for the salvation of his brethren.
So there he stayed, a beggar at the doors of the ambassadors and
Christian merchants, carrying the alms he collected to the miserable
objects of his charity, some of whom he was even enabled to set at
liberty, rejoicing as he did so rather at the deliverance of their
souls than the emancipation of their bodies. Many renegades were by
his means recalled to the faith, and a far greater number preserved
from falling. At length, however, his unwearied labours drew on him
the jealousy of the Turks: he was forbidden to visit the slaves; but
continuing to do so by stealth, he was at length formally accused of
being a spy and an enemy to the Prophet. The charge was a capital
one; and on the 3d of February 1572, he was again seized and thrown
into a wretched dungeon. Calepius had never looked for any other
result; and joyfully hailing what he trusted was the approach of
martyrdom, he prepared for death with his usual calmness. It was not
so ordered, however; he had many friends, both among the ambassadors
and even among the infidels themselves, and his release was at
length procured, on the condition, not a little flattering to his
influence and character, that he would instantly quit the Turkish
dominions. It was useless to resist; and since he could no longer
assist his captive brethren by his presence, he determined not the
less to devote himself to their deliverance in another way. He
passed over to Italy, and became there what he had already been in
Constantinople—a beggar for the Christian slaves. Naples, Bologna,
Florence, Milan, and Venice, and every other city whither the Cyprian
refugees had retired, was visited by him in turns. He pleaded the
cause of their poor countrymen with all the skill of an advocate and
all the tenderness of a father, and represented their sufferings with
so touching an eloquence, that he effectually roused every one to
give according to his means. Another Dominican, by name Stephen de
Lusignan, of the royal house of Cyprus, joined him in his work; and
together these two men were enabled to ransom great numbers of the
captives, devoting their entire energies to this undertaking for many
years.

It is at the end of De Lusignan’s _Universal History_ that the two
narratives of Calepius on the taking of Nicosia and Famagosta are
inserted; and it is said that the publication of these memoirs
became the means of exciting many to liberal alms on behalf of the
sufferers. Some years afterwards Angelo was nominated by Gregory
XIII. to the bishopric of Santarini, as a reward for his zeal and
perseverance.

       *       *       *       *       *

So was lost the fair isle of Cyprus to Venice and to Christian
Europe: it passed under the dominion of the Mahometan, and to this
day it remains subject to the same evil sway;[56] a monument alike
of the treacherous cruelty of the Turk and of the disastrous
dissensions and faithless jealousies of Christian states and princes.

The horror inspired by this catastrophe determined the Catholic
League to prepare for more vigorous measures than had yet been
attempted; and it is from this period that we shall endeavour to
take up the narrative, and lay before our readers the details of a
struggle whose result has been found worthy of commemoration not only
in the pages of history, but in the office of the Church.

And first, let us see what was the relative strength of the parties
about to enter into the combat. A fleet of about 160 vessels, thinly
manned, was furnished by the Venetian states, under the command of
Sebastian Veniero, who had as his lieutenant Agostino Barbarigo,
a man of distinguished merit and courage. The Pope had no naval
force at his disposal, but undertook to furnish and equip twelve
of the Venetian galleys; Mark Anthony Colonna, Duke of Paliano,
was appointed to the command; and, besides the regular forces in
the papal service, a considerable number of the Roman nobility
volunteered to join the enterprise. Every thing had been done to give
a character of religious solemnity to the enrolment and departure of
these troops. The venerable Basilica of the Apostles had witnessed a
function of singular character and magnificence in the June of the
previous year, when after High Mass, sung by the Cardinal Colonna,
the Pope solemnly implored the Divine benediction on the Christian
arms, and blessed the crimson standard, emblazoned with the crucifix
and with the figures of the two apostles of Rome, which was committed
to the Duke of Paliano; whilst the words embroidered as a legend on
the damask folds were given to him as his watchword and assurance of
success,—“_In hoc signo vinces_.” Nor was another kind of assurance
wanting to encourage him and his followers. When, attended by all
his officers and by the crowd of noble volunteers who had joined his
company, he presented himself to receive the parting benediction of
his Holiness, it was given to them accompanied by words which from
the mouth of such a speaker had something in them of a prophetic
character: “Go, my children,” he said, “and fight in God’s name
against the Turks; it is in His name and on His part that I promise
you the victory.” Similar to this had been the message sent by him to
the Spanish leaders by the hands of his nuncio Odescalchi, as well
as to the other princes who had joined in the enterprise; and to the
Count de Carillo, as he knelt at his feet, the holy Pontiff again
repeated, “It is in the name of the Most High that I promise you a
certain victory.”

Yet this assurance could scarcely be thought to arise from the extent
of the martial preparations. So far as the co-operation of the
European governments was concerned, the embassies and negotiations
of his ambassadors had almost utterly failed. Nevertheless we must
remember that the influence of the Roman Pontiff over the heart
of Christendom rests on something deeper and more powerful than
the success of a political negotiation. And so, notwithstanding
the coldness and backwardness of the Christian princes, the appeal
of the Pope had been royally and warmly received by many in every
nation whither his nuncios had been despatched. Besides the regular
armaments of Spain and Venice, and the forces contributed by Genoa
and the Duke of Savoy, by the Knights of Malta, and several of the
lesser Italian states, the volunteers who joined the troops of the
allies, to the number of more than two thousand, were of all nations,
and included some of the most distinguished soldiers of the day.
But, more than this, it cannot be doubted that the confidence which
filled the heart of St. Pius had another and a surer foundation. He
could not command the arms of Europe, but the prayers of Christendom
at least were at his disposal. Up from every church in every country
that owned his obedience there had been arising for months a swell
of fervent and united supplication. The religious order to which he
himself belonged had been foremost in the use of this great weapon
of intercession; and every Confraternity of the Rosary throughout
Europe attached to the Dominican body had been unwearied in their
processions and devotions for the success of the Christian arms. How
strong a feeling had been excited by the efforts of the Pope may be
judged by one fact: it was the period of so-called reformation, when
throughout a vast portion of Europe the devout practices of former
ages were sinking into contempt; and yet we are told Loretto had
never seen such a year of pilgrimage. Every road to the Holy House
was crowded by devotees of all nations; and all crowded thither
with but one object—to place the cause of the Christians under the
patronage of Mary.

The Spanish fleet had been hitherto commanded by John Andrew
Doria,[57] and some symptoms of jealousy had arisen in the first
movements of the allies between him and the Roman leader, Colonna.
These were, however, happily placed at rest by the appointment to
the chief command of one whose rank as well as his reputation raised
him far above all the subordinate generals of the league. This was
Don John of Austria, the natural son of the emperor Charles V., and
the captain-general of the navy of Spain. Colonna was, with the
consent of all parties, declared his lieutenant; and his arrival was
anxiously expected at Messina, where the various squadrons of the
allied powers had assembled towards the close of the month of August.
It was the 25th of the same month when he arrived at the place of
rendezvous; and his entrance into the city seemed rather the triumph
given to a conqueror than the reception of one whose victory was yet
to be hardly earned. All the showy magnificence of the times was
displayed in the preparations made for welcoming him. The city was
filled with arches and triumphal columns, and the shores covered with
the gaily-emblazoned banners of the various chiefs, whose martial
appearance recalled to the eye the costume at least, if it did not
represent something also of that chivalrous spirit which was fast
expiring before the progress of modern civilisation and the eager
pursuit of material interests. And indeed there was much in this,
almost the last of the Christian leagues against the infidel, which
was worthy of the best days of chivalry. A great principle, even when
it has received its death-blow, is long in dying; and the embers
of that generous fire blazed up in many a bright and flickering
flame before they were wholly quenched in darkness. We can scarcely
fail, for instance, to admire the generosity evinced by the Spanish
government; for, apart from the religious considerations of the war,
its main object was undoubtedly the relief and protection of the
Venetian states,—those very states which but a short time previously
had refused to assist the Spaniards against the Turks, and by their
refusal had been in great part the cause of the fall of Rhodes. Yet
Philip II.,[58]—a monarch whose traditional unpopularity in England,
as the husband of Mary the Catholic, has obscured the memory of his
many great qualities,—never seems to have given a moment’s place to
the petty yet not unnatural feeling of resentment which might have
led him to seize so favourable an opportunity for retaliating on a
humbled rival. No sooner did the appeal of the Pope reach him than
he gave orders to Doria to render every assistance to the Venetian
fleet, without the exaction of any condition, or a symptom of any
sentiment but that of hearty and devoted adherence to what he deemed
the cause of God. There was, moreover, a deeply religious feeling
among those now gathered on the shores of Messina. Many of the most
distinguished leaders in their ranks had earned their laurels in the
defence of the Catholic faith; not a few of the most renowned of the
French volunteers; such as the Count de Ligny, and others, like the
two Sforzas, had gained their military reputation in the Huguenot
wars; whilst that of Don John himself had been in great part acquired
in long and successful struggles with the Moors of Africa. But above
all, a distinct religious character was given to the enterprise by
the presence of Odescalchi, the papal nuncio, whose mission in the
Christian camp was not merely to bestow the apostolic benediction on
the soldiers, and to animate them to the combat by the assurance of
the favour of Heaven, but, as we are told, to drive away all bandits,
assassins, thieves, and other public sinners, who might have enlisted
from the hope of booty, and who, unworthy of fighting in a holy
cause, might rather draw down the anger of God by new crimes.

The chief appointed to lead the Christian forces, whose arrival was
being welcomed with such enthusiastic manifestations of joy, was
one every way worthy of a great command. His German biographer thus
describes him: “He was of sanguine temperament and lordly presence;
in stature somewhat above the middle height; of a frank and generous
nature, possessing a strong sense of justice, and gifted with a ready
wit and a retentive memory. He was remarkably vigorous and strong;
so much so, that he could swim in his armour as if he had nothing
on him. He was agreeable and courteous in manner, a great respecter
of letters and arms, and an excellent horseman. He had a noble,
clear, and spacious forehead; his blue eyes were large and bright,
with a grave and kindly expression; his countenance was handsome; he
had little beard, and was of a light and graceful figure.” By the
terms of the league the squadron was to consist of 300 vessels and
galleys, and 50,000 men. The actual combatants, however, were not
more than 29,000, although there were more than 80,000 altogether
in the fleet that was now assembled under the eye of its commander.
The council of war having determined on seeking battle with the
Turks without loss of time, only a few days were given to the
marshalling of the armament, which then sailed out of the port of
Messina, presenting a spectacle of naval magnificence which in those
days had rarely been equalled. One by one each vessel passed in its
allotted order out of the harbour, and fell into its appointed place,
whilst the nuncio Odescalchi stood on the pier-head, blessing each
in turn. The vessel which bore the Spanish prince was conspicuous
for its beauty and decorations; it was the royal galley of Spain,
ornamented after the fanciful taste of the day with “delicate carving
and ingenious allegories.” The order of battle, which was to be
inviolably preserved during the whole time of the expedition, was as
follows: Doria led the right wing, having fifty-four galleys under
his command, with orders to keep about six miles in advance of the
main body, so as to give the ships plenty of sea-room. The left
wing was under Agostino Barbarigo, and consisted of an equal number
of galleys. The main body of sixty vessels was under the personal
command of Don John himself; whilst the reserve of thirty more was
intrusted to Don Alvaro di Bazzano, Marquis of Santa Cruz. Don John
of Cardona was despatched with some Sicilian galleys a few miles in
advance, with orders to reconnoitre the enemy, and fall into his
place at the extremity of Doria’s wing, so soon as he should have
discovered him. The hoisting of the consecrated standard was to be
the signal for the whole fleet falling into line and presenting a
single front; whilst a number of galleys were selected to form a
circle around the leading vessels of the three chief divisions of
the armament to act as a support. Besides the advanced galleys of
Cardona, Andrada, a Spanish knight, had previously been sent by Don
John, in a light and swift vessel, to make secret observations on
the position and preparations of the Turks; whilst the Christian
squadrons meanwhile proceeded to the harbour of Gomenizza, where the
whole fleet was reviewed by the commander in person, not without
symptoms of jealousy and opposition on the part of the Venetians.

But there was little time for the settlement of mutual disputes;
and the intelligence brought by the Spanish spies soon induced all
parties to lay aside their rivalries, and prepare for the combat. The
tidings of the fall of Famagosta were now fully confirmed; Cyprus
was lost past recall; and the Turkish fleet, under the command of
Ali Pasha, was drawn up in the bay of Lepanto, with orders from the
sultan to seek and fight the Christians wherever they might be. Some,
indeed, were found who, even at this juncture, advised defensive
measures; but their votes were overpowered by the ardour of the
Colonna and of Don John himself, who, we are assured, had such faith
in the sanctity of Pius, and in the assurance of victory which he had
received from his mouth, that he relied more on his words than even
on the number and valour of his soldiers. But it seemed as though
his purpose of giving battle must perforce be deferred. A sudden
obstacle presented itself; an adverse wind arose, which rendered
the advance of the armada all but impossible. For two days it had
kept steadily blowing from the same quarter, and there seemed no
indication of a change; nevertheless (to use the words of the Spanish
historian, Rosell) “on the morning of the 7th of October, a little
before daybreak, Don John, defying the opposition of the elements,
and as though impelled by an irresistible power, to the astonishment
of all gave the signal to weigh anchor.” It was obeyed; and labouring
against the contrary wind, the vessels began to make their slow and
difficult way, tossed and beaten by the waves, as the morning light
was breaking over the horizon. Just as the sun rose over the glorious
coast of that island-group, anciently known as the Echinades, the
watchman on board the prince’s galley made signal of a sail. It was
quickly repeated by the lookers-out in Doria’s squadron, and many who
eagerly ascended the rigging plainly discerned not one sail alone,
but, like so many dark specks on the flashing surface of the western
sea, the distant array of the whole Turkish fleet. A battle was
therefore felt to be close at hand; and whilst the crimson folds of
the consecrated banner, to which a blessed rosary was affixed, were
displayed aloft on the royal vessel, and the signal-gun gave notice
for all to fall into position, loud acclamations burst from every
part of the Christian host in token of their enthusiastic joy. The
Turkish fleet consisted of upwards of 400 vessels of all sizes,[59]
manned by not fewer than 120,000 men; in strength, therefore, the
Moslems far surpassed the Christians, and they had the prestige
of their late conquests in their favour. As the fleets were still
distant, the interval was spent by the leaders of both parties in
encouraging their followers and preparing for hostilities. Some of
the Spanish generals, who still doubted the prudence of provoking
the contest, appeared on board the royal galley to learn the final
decision of the prince. They received it in a few words: “Gentlemen,”
he replied, “you mistake; this is not the time for council, but for
combat;” and turning from them, he continued issuing his orders.
Then, taking a small and swift galley, he went the rounds of the
fleet, animating their crews with a few of those brief and heroic
phrases which fall with such powerful effect from the lips of a
great commander. He had an appropriate word for all. The Venetians
he reminded of their injuries, and of the slaughter of Famagosta.
Sebastian Veniero, whose irritable and stubborn temper had, at the
first departure from Messina, betrayed him into excesses which
banished him from the prince’s council, still bore himself morose and
sullen under his disgrace; but the judicious and courteous kindness
of Don John so won upon him, that he laid aside his angry feelings
and distinguished himself in the subsequent battle among the most
valiant and devoted of the combatants. His address to the Spaniards
has been preserved: “My children,” he said, “we have come here to
die—to conquer, if Heaven so disposes. Give not occasion to the enemy
to say with impious arrogance, ‘Where is now your God?’ Fight, then,
in His holy name; fallen, a victorious immortality will be yours!”
And now might be seen other galleys passing from vessel to vessel on
a different mission. These conveyed the religious appointed to attend
the armada by the Pope, who went through every squadron publishing
the indulgence granted by his Holiness, hearing the confessions
of the soldiers, and preparing all for death. Their labours were
crowned with abundant fruit. So soon as the prince had returned to
his vessel the signal throughout the squadrons was given for prayer;
all the soldiers, fully armed for the combat, fell upon their knees,
the crucifix was upraised on the deck of every vessel, and for some
minutes, as the two hosts drew rapidly nearer to each other, every
man on board the Christian fleet was engaged in humbly imploring the
Divine blessing on its arms.

Gradually the whole battle-front of the enemy displayed itself to
view; and the sun, now risen high above the horizon, shone over a
spectacle as terrible as it was magnificent. Three hundred and thirty
large Turkish vessels were to be seen, disposed in the form of a vast
crescent, and far outflanking their opponents’ line; but the courage
of the Christian leaders remained unmoved by the terrific sight.
Although it became evident that the reports of the Spanish spies
had greatly underrated the numbers and strength of their opponents,
yet, as Rosell relates, the heart of Don John was unappalled; and
placing his hopes in God, and fixing his eyes upon the crucifix
he ever carried with him, he gave thanks aloud for his victory as
already won. No sooner were the words uttered than a token seemed
to be given him to assure him that his trust was not ill-founded. We
have said that hitherto the wind had been all in favour of the Turks,
whose enormous crescent was bearing rapidly down on the Christian
host, like some fierce bird of prey with outstretched wings, when
suddenly the breeze fell, and the sails flapped idly on the masts;
there was a dead and profound calm. The sea, but a moment before
crested with foam, became motionless and smooth as a sheet of glass:
it seemed as though they were going to fight on land rather than
on water, so still and quiet lay the ships but just now tossed and
beaten by the angry waves. Presently a soft rising breeze was heard
sighing among the cordage; by and by it gathered strength; but this
time it filled the Christian sails, blowing right against the prows
of the Turkish ships, and the whole state of things was changed. The
Turkish line, which but a minute previously had seemed to extend its
wide arms as if to enfold its helpless foe in a deadly embrace, was
thrown into some confusion by this sudden and extraordinary veering
of the wind; while the Christian vessels, carried forward by a brisk
and favourable breeze, bore down with impetuous gallantry on the foe,
and thus gained all the advantage of attack. The Turks, however,
fired the first shot, which was quickly answered by the Spaniards;
then, placing himself in full armour on the prow of his galley, Don
John ordered the trumpets to sound the charge; whilst in every vessel
the crews and soldiers knelt to receive the last general absolution,
and this being given, every thought was turned to the approaching
struggle.

It was noon before the fight began; the brilliant sun rode aloft
in the clear azure of the Grecian sky, and flashed brightly on the
casques and armour of the warriors. The Moslems received their
assailants with loud and horrible cries, which were met on the part
of the Christians by a profound silence. The flag-ship of Ali Pasha
commenced the cannonade; but the fire of the Venetians opened on the
Turks so suddenly, and with such overwhelming violence, that at the
first discharge their advancing vessels recoiled as though from the
shock of a tremendous blow, and at the second broadside two of their
galleys were sunk. In addition to the discouragement produced by
this first incident in the fight, the adverse wind carried all the
smoke of the Christian artillery right upon the decks of the Turks,
who were thus blinded and embarrassed; whilst their enemies were
able to direct every movement with facility, and fought in the clear
light of day. After this first encounter the battle became general;
Don John eagerly made his way towards the pasha’s galley, and Ali,
on his part, did not decline the challenge. To form any thing like
a correct idea of a sea-fight in those days, we must remember the
nature of the vessels then in use, propelled as they were by rowers
seated on several tiers of benches, and defended less by artillery
than by the armed combatants, who strove to grapple hand to hand with
their opponents. The galleys of war were armed with long beaks, or
pointed prows, with which they dashed against the enemy’s vessels,
and often sunk them at the first shock. Terrible was the meeting of
the leaders of the two armaments; the long beak of Ali Pasha’s galley
was forced far among the benches of the Christian rowers: his own
rowers, be it said, were Christians also,—slaves chained to their
posts, and working under the threat of death if they shrank from
their task, and the promise of liberty if the Turks should gain the
day. Then there rose the clash of arms; the combatants met face to
face, and their swords rang on the armour of their opponents, whilst
the waters were lashed into fury by the strokes of a thousand oars.
Wider and wider the conflict spread: the Bey of Alexandria, at the
head of his galleys, made a furious attack on the Venetian squadron;
but he was met by Barbarigo and his men with the most eager and
determined courage; for the memory of the cruelties practised on
their countrymen at Famagosta was fresh in their minds, and animated
them to vengeance. A shower of darts rained around them, but they
seemed regardless of all danger. One of these deadly weapons struck
Barbarigo himself in the eye whilst in the very front of the battle;
he was carried to his cabin, where, after lingering three days, he
expired of his wound. The slaughter on both sides was terrible,
though the Venetians were finally successful in repulsing their
enemies; the galley of Contarini, the nephew of Barbarigo, narrowly
escaped being taken, from the fact of almost every man on board of it
being slain, Contarini himself among the number.

Whilst matters proceeded thus in the left wing, the right was engaged
in an equally desperate struggle. To the Spanish commander, Doria,
was opposed, on the side of the Turks, the famous renegade corsair
Ouloudj Ali, who, from the rank of a poor Neapolitan fisherman, had
risen, through his apostasy from the faith and his extraordinary and
ferocious valour, to the sovereignty of Algiers, and had become one
of the most distinguished admirals of the day. In the course of the
preceding year he had surprised a large squadron of galleys belonging
to the Knights of Malta, three of which he succeeded in capturing,
whilst others, including the admiral’s vessel, were severely injured
and run aground off the coast of Sicily. This circumstance had for
the time so crippled the squadron of the order, that it was able to
contribute no more than three[60] galleys to the Christian fleet.
They were commanded by Peter Giustiniani, grand prior of Messina,
one of that illustrious race which was ever foremost when the cause
was that of the Church, and the enemy was the Mussulman, and whose
boast it was, to reckon the names of fifty saints among its lineage.
Giustiniani’s own vessel, the _Capitana di Malta_, was posted in the
very centre of the line of battle, the place of honour being granted
without opposition to the banner of St. John; but the other galleys
were attached to Doria’s division, and received the first attack of
Ouloudj Ali. In spite of their heroic defence, they were overpowered
by numbers; the _St. Stephen_ was assailed by three Turkish
vessels at once, and was in the utmost danger of being taken, when
Giustiniani, perceiving the danger of his knights, hastened to their
assistance, and forced two of the enemy’s vessels to strike. The
third was on the point of doing the same, when Ouloudj Ali brought
up four other galleys, and then ensued one of the most desperate and
bloody combats that was witnessed throughout the day. Every man on
board the prior’s vessel was slain, with the exception of himself
and two knights, who were all, however, severely wounded. One of
the knights fought till he could no longer stand, and fell, as was
supposed, dead; yet he afterwards recovered, and lived for several
years, with the loss of an arm, a leg, and an eye, and was looked
on in the order as one of their trophies of Lepanto. Giustiniani
himself was wounded in fourteen places; and his galley, now without
defenders, fell into the hands of the Turks, who immediately brought
up their seven shattered vessels, and towed her off in triumph.

It was with inexpressible grief that the Christian fleet beheld the
fall of the Maltese standard and the capture of its chief galley;
but the success of the infidels was of short duration. The knights
inspired with fresh courage by the spectacle of their admiral’s
misfortune, attacked the vessel of the corsair-chief with redoubled
fury. He defended himself with extraordinary obstinacy; but at
length, after the loss of all his bravest men, the banner of the
Hospitallers was once more seen to float over the _Capitana di
Malta_, and Giustiniani and his two wounded comrades were rescued
from the enemy’s hands.[61] No less than seventy-three knights fell
in this struggle. Among those who most distinguished themselves
was the Gascon hero, Maturin de Lescat, better known as “the brave
Romegas.” In his own day he enjoyed a kind of romantic celebrity;
for it was said that in all his combats with the Moslems they had
never been known to gain a single advantage over him. In the course
of five years he is said to have destroyed more than fifty Turkish
vessels, and to have delivered one thousand Christians from slavery.
Many of his most daring exploits had been performed on the coasts
of Sicily, where he was so great a favourite, that, as Goussancourt
informs us, whenever he entered any city of that island, the people
would flock out of their houses only to behold him; not knowing
which to admire most, so much courage adorned with such rare graces
of person, or those graces sustained by so undaunted a valour. Much
of the old chivalrous spirit was to be found in his character,
defaced, indeed, by an ambition which afterwards obscured his fame;
but at Lepanto that fame had as yet lost nothing of its brilliancy,
and Romegas was never higher in estimation than when he led on the
galleys of his order to the rescue of the admiral. Before the battle
began he made a solemn vow that the first Turkish captain who might
fall into his hands should be offered to God: it chanced that his
first prisoner was a most ferocious Turk, who had lost the use of his
right arm, as was said, in consequence of the violence he had used in
inflicting the torture on his Christian slaves. This man was given
by Romegas, in fulfilment of his vow, to the church of St. John at
Malta, and had good reason to thank the brave Gascon for his happy
fortune; for his heart changed in his captivity, and he learnt to
weep over the actions wherein he had formerly placed his glory; so
that, embracing Christianity, he solicited baptism from his masters,
and died happily in the true faith. The gallantry displayed by the
Hospitallers in the engagement forced the Venetian Contarini to
acknowledge that, in spite of their insignificant numbers, their part
in the victory almost surpassed that of Venice herself; and in fact,
when we remember that Don John of Austria was himself a member of the
order,[62] we are bound to admit that their share in the honour of
the day has not been sufficiently acknowledged by historians.

Among the combatants in Doria’s division, whose courage equalled any
of those engaged in the battle, was one whose celebrity, great as
ever in our own day, rests, strange to say, rather on the wit, whose
ridicule gave the last blow to the chivalry of the middle ages, than
on the valour which made its owner himself worthy of the highest
chivalrous renown: it was Miguel Cervantes, “brave as the bravest.”
He lay sick of fever in the cabin of his ship when the tumult of the
battle began; but he could no longer endure to remain inactive. In
spite of the entreaties of his friends, he arose, and rushed into
the hottest of the fight. Being covered with wounds, his companions
again urged him to retire; but he replied, “Better for the soldier
to remain dead in battle than to seek safety in flight. Wounds on
the face and breast are like stars to guide others to the heaven of
honour.” Besides other less important wounds, Cervantes lost in this
battle his left arm;[63] his right hand was destined to gain him
another kind of immortality.

The combat soon became too general for the different divisions of the
two armaments to preserve their respective positions. Every portion
of the hostile fleets was engaged; but the most desperate fight
was that between the galleys of the rival generals, Ali Pasha and
Don John of Austria. Both commanders fought in the thickest of the
fray, regardless of their rank, and with the bold temerity of simple
men-at-arms. By the side of the prince’s galley were those of Colonna
and Sebastian Veniero; and in them, and in the other vessels that
surrounded them, were assembled the very flower of the Christian
host. Here for the most part were the noble French and Roman
volunteers; hardly a great house of Italy but had its representative
among the combatants: two of the Colonnas; Paul Orsini, the chief of
his name, with his brothers, Horace and Virginius; Antonio Carrafa,
Michel Bonelli, and Paul Ghislieri, nephews of the Pope; and Farnese,
prince of Parma, who played a very hero’s part in the flag-ship of
the Genoese republic. The battle in the centre, led on by such men,
and met with equal valour and determination on the part of their
adversaries, lasted more than two hours. Already had the Christians
made two gallant attempts to board the vessel of the pasha, and each
time they were driven back with loss so soon as they reached his
decks. The burning midday-sun added to the heat of the engagement,
and the thirst of the soldiers was almost intolerable. The decks were
heaped with dead, and those still living were covered with wounds,
and well-nigh exhausted from loss of blood, and still they maintained
the conflict with unabated courage. At length the signal was given
for a third charge. It was obeyed with an impetuosity nothing could
resist; and whilst Ali Pasha vainly strove, as before, to drive
back his desperate assailants, a shot from an arquebuse struck him
in the forehead. Staggering from his wound, he fell, and his head
was instantly cut off by a blow from one of the galley-slaves,
and thrown into the sea. The event of the battle after this was
no longer doubtful; Don John with his own hands pulled down the
Turkish flag, and shouted, “Victory!” whilst Santa Cruz, profiting
by the confusion, pushed forward with the reserve, and completed the
discomfiture of the foe. At this critical moment the corsair Ouloudj
Ali, seeing that the whole Turkish centre was broken, and the day
irretrievably lost, hoisted all sail, and with forty galleys, the
only vessels that escaped out of that bloody battle, passed safely
through the midst of the Christian fleet.

The Turks struggled long and desperately before they finally gave
way. It was four in the afternoon ere the fight was over; and the
lowering sky betokened the gathering of a tempest. The remains of
the Turkish fleet fled in all directions, pursued, though with
difficulty, by the allies, whose wearied rowers could scarcely hold
the oars; whilst their numbers were so thinned by the slaughter, that
it was as much as the commanders could do to find crews for their
vessels. Crippled as the Christians were, however, the infidels were
seized with panic, and ran their vessels madly against the shore
of Lepanto. In their terrified efforts to land, many were drowned;
whilst the galleys were broken by the waves, or fell an easy prey
to the conquerors. The whole sea for miles presented most terrible
tokens of the battle; those clear waters, on which the morning sun
had shone so brightly, were now dark and discoloured by human blood.
Headless corpses and the fragments of many a wreck floated about
in strange confusion; while the storm, which every moment raged in
wilder fury, added to the horror of the scene, lit up as the night
advanced by the flames from the burning galleys, many of which were
found too much disabled to be of any use to their captors. Twelve[64]
of those belonging to the allies were destroyed; but the extent
of their victory may be estimated by the fact that eighty vessels
belonging to the Turks were sunk, whilst 130 remained in the hands
of the Christians. The pasha’s galley, which was among those taken,
was a vessel of surpassing beauty. The deck, says Knolles, was of
walnut-wood, dark as ebony, “checkered and wrought marvellously
fine with divers lively colours and variety of histories;” and her
cabin glittered with ornaments of gold, rich hangings, and precious
gems.[65] The enemy’s slain amounted to 30,000 men; and 15,000 of
the Christian slaves who had been compelled to work the Ottoman
galleys were liberated. Yet the victory, complete as it was, was
dearly bought; the loss of the allies was reckoned at about 8000 men;
and their ships, riddled with balls, and many of them dismasted,
presented a striking contrast to the gay and gallant trim in which
but a few days previously they had left the harbour of Messina.

The conduct of Don John of Austria after the battle justifies us in
ranking him among the true heroes of chivalry. He had been foremost
in the day’s conflict, where he had been seen, sword in hand,
wherever the danger was greatest and the blows hardest. He was now
equally conspicuous for his care of the wounded, his generosity
towards his prisoners, and his frank and noble recognition of the
services of a rival. Sebastian Veniero, the disgraced leader of the
Venetian forces, had distinguished himself in the fight by a valour
that had made his gray hairs the centre round which the most gallant
of the young volunteers of France and Italy had rallied during that
eventful day. The prince sent for him as soon as the confusion of the
victory had subsided, and (adds Rosell in his history of the battle),
“to show him that he harboured no resentment for past offences, he
advanced to meet him as far as the ladder of his galley, embraced
him affectionately, and, calling him _his father_, extolled, as was
just, his great valour, and could not finish what he would have said
for the sobs and tears that choked his utterance. The poor old man,
who did not expect such a reception, wept also, and so did all who
witnessed the scene.” Whilst this interview was taking place, the two
sons of Ali Pasha were brought prisoners into the prince’s presence.
“It was a piteous sight,” says the same historian, “to see the tears
they shed on finding themselves at once prisoners and orphans.”
But they met with a friend and comforter in their generous captor;
he embraced them, and expressed the tenderest sympathy for their
misfortunes. The delicacy of his kindness showed itself in more
than words; he treated them rather as his guests than as captives,
lodging them in one of his own cabins, and even ordering Turkish
clothes to be provided for them at his expense, that they might not
be pained by being obliged to adopt the European costume. Neither was
he less forward in returning thanks to God for the victory granted
to his arms than he had been in commending to Him the event of the
day’s conflict. Thus the night closed: the vessels cast anchor amid
the wreck of battle, and the wearied combatants took a short and
necessary repose. So soon as day again broke, the sails were hoisted,
and, securing their prizes, they proceeded to the port of Petala, to
repair their damages and provide for the necessities of the wounded.

Such was the celebrated battle of Lepanto, whose results were in one
way insignificant, owing to the losses incurred by the Christian
allies, and the limitation put on the power of Don John by the
cautious policy of the Spanish king. Yet we should be wrong to
estimate the worth of any victory by the amount of its territorial
conquests, or its lists of killed and wounded. The moral effects
of the day of Lepanto are beyond calculation: it was the turning
point in the history of the Ottoman Turks; from it may be dated the
decline of their dominion; for though indeed, during the following
century, the terror of Europe was still constantly excited by their
attacks on the frontier of the empire, yet their naval power was
never again formidable, and the long prestige of continual success
was broken.[66] Moreover, whilst it is impossible to deny that the
advantages of the victory were never followed up, and that, in
consequence of the desertion of the Venetians, the league itself was
soon dissolved; yet it is also certain that the further progress of
the Ottomans westward was checked from the hour of their defeat;
whereas every campaign during preceding years had witnessed their
gradual advance.

It only remains for us to speak of the manner in which the news of
the success of the Christian arms was received by those who were so
anxiously awaiting the result of the expedition at the courts of Rome
and Madrid. Pius V., who may be considered as the originator of the
whole enterprise, had, from the first departure of the fleet, ordered
continual fasts and prayers for its success. On the memorable 7th
of October on which the battle took place, and which fell that year
on a Sunday, all the confraternities of the Rosary had assembled
in the Dominican church of the Minerva to offer their devotions
for victory under the intercession of Mary. All Rome was in prayer
that day, and her prayer was the _Ave Maria_. The Pope himself had
attended the procession; and on returning to the Vatican after the
conclusion of the ceremony, he was walking to and fro through the
long suites of rooms in the pontifical palace, in conversation with
some of the cardinals and Baffotti, the treasurer, on various matters
of business. Suddenly he stopped as if listening to a distant sound,
then, leaving his companions, he approached one of the windows, and
threw it open; whilst those who watched his movements observed that
his eyes were raised to heaven with the expression of one in ecstasy.
They themselves also listened, but were unable to catch the faintest
sound that could account for his singular behaviour; and whilst they
gazed at one another in astonishment, unable to comprehend the scene,
Pius (says his biographer Maffei), “whose eyes had been fixed upwards
for a good space, shutting the window again, and seemingly full of
great things, turned graciously to the treasurer, and said, ‘This is
no time for business; let us go and give God thanks, for our fleet
has fought with the Turks, and in this very hour has conquered.’ He
knelt down as he spoke, and gave thanks to God with great fervour;
then taking a pen, he wrote down the day and the hour: it was the
decisive moment at which the battle had turned in favour of the
Christians.”

The actual intelligence of the victory did not reach Rome until the
21st of October, owing to contrary winds which delayed the couriers
of Colonna; so that the first news was brought by a messenger from
the republic of Venice. It was night when he arrived; but when word
was brought to the holy father of the happy realisation of his hopes
and of the Divine assurance he had received, he sprang from his
bed, and bursting into tears, exclaimed, “There was a man sent from
God, whose name was John;” then, hurrying to his private chapel,
he summoned all his attendants and officers to meet him there,
to offer their thanksgivings for the great event. A more solemn
function was performed on the following morning in the Basilica of
the Apostles, and none of those who had joined in the previous and
reiterated prayers by which the patronage of Mary had been invoked
on the Christian arms, failed to ascribe the success which had been
granted, to the power of her intercession, especially as invoked in
the holy devotion of the Rosary, under whose banner, as it were, the
battle had been fought and won. The emotion displayed by St. Pius was
in accordance with the simplicity and tenderness of his character.
Not less characteristic, nor less religious, though possibly less
calculated to engage the sympathy of our readers, was the calmness
with which the same intelligence was received by Philip of Spain. He
was at Vespers when the news was brought him, and heard it without
the smallest manifestation of joy or surprise. When the office was
concluded, he desired the _Te Deum_ to be sung; and on the following
day proceeded to Madrid, to be present at a solemn Mass offered in
thanksgiving for the victory. An entire and rigid self-command was at
once the virtue and the cause of the unpopularity of this singular
man. As a virtue, it was the effect of natural impulse subdued and
annihilated; but along with this there doubtless mingled much of
constitutional reserve and coldness. As to the Venetian republic,
the charge of insensibility could not certainly be brought against
either its senate or its people. The religious emotion of St. Pius,
and the austere self-restraint of King Philip, were there exchanged
for the tumultuous expressions of popular rejoicing. The great Piazza
of St. Mark was like a fair, where doge and senator, nobles and
citizens, all met to congratulate one another; whilst the shouts and
_vivas_ of the crowd rang far over the waters of the Adriatic; and
by an edict of the senate the prisons were thrown open, and none of
those whose relations had fallen in the battle were allowed to wear
mourning, or show any outward demonstrations of grief; for their loss
was rather counted to them as glory.

We shall not dwell on the tokens of gratitude showered on the
victorious chiefs,—on those revivals of the classic triumphs which
filled the streets of Rome on the entry of Colonna,—nor on all the
laurel-wreaths and orations, the poems and painted galleries, and
other similar memorials of the great event, which the gratitude and
the genius of the day presented to the conquerors of Lepanto. There
was another kind of gratitude owing, and to a different victor; and
the Church well knew how to pay her debt. The voice of Catholic
Christendom agreed in attributing the victory to the intercession
of Mary; and the invocation, “Help of Christians,” was introduced
into the Litany of Loretto in memory of the fact. But St. Pius was
scarcely content with so slender an acknowledgment as this. “In the
revelation granted to him of the victory,” says Maffei, “it had been
also made known to him that the prayers of the brethren of the Holy
Rosary had greatly contributed to the same. Being therefore desirous
of perpetuating the memory of this, he instituted a feast, appointed
for the 7th of October, in honour of ‘Our Lady of Victories.’” But
Gregory XIII., admiring the modesty of his predecessor, who, being
a religious of the Order of Friars Preachers, had not chosen to
make mention of the Rosary, for fear he should be thought rather
to have sought the honour of his order than that of truth, desired
that in future the feast of our Lady of Victories should be kept on
the first Sunday in October in all Dominican churches, and wherever
the Confraternity of the Rosary existed, under the new title of the
“Festival of the Holy Rosary,” which was thenceforward no longer to
be celebrated on the 25th of March, as in time past it had been. This
was finally extended to the whole of the Church by Clement XII., who
changed the wording of the Roman Martyrology to its present form:
“The Commemoration of our Lady of Victories, which Pope Pius V.
ordained to be observed every year, in memory of a famous victory
gained at sea this day by the Christians over the Turks, through the
help of the Mother of God; and Gregory XIII. likewise ordained the
annual solemnity of the Rosary of the same most Blessed Virgin to be
kept on the first Sunday of the month for the same cause.”

Baronius, in his notes on the Martyrology, has commented on these
words, saying they are but the confirmation from the hand of Clement
of that which had been already declared by Gregory XIII., namely,
that by the common consent of the Catholic world the victory of
Lepanto was due to the intercession of Mary, invoked and obtained
by the prayers of the brethren of the Rosary, and of the Dominican
Order; not only the prayers offered up before the battle, but those
especially which were rising to Heaven at the very moment when the
tide of victory turned in favour of the Christian league.

On one of the northern hills of Rome may be seen another monument
of the Church’s gratitude to her mother and protector: it is the
Church of our Lady of Victories. There, upon walls dazzling with the
rich colours of their jaspers and marbles, hang the tattered and
discoloured banners of the infidels. The church was raised to receive
them, and to be a witness to all ages of the omnipotence of prayer.

Nor, considering how slight were the immediate and apparent results
of the victory of Lepanto,—so slight, indeed, that historians have
spoken of them as null,—will the pious mind fail to note and admire
how, with prophetic eye reading futurity, the Church saw in that
event the crisis in the fortunes, and the incipient decay, of that
monstrous anti-Christian power, whose advances, so far from being
arrested, seemed only to be accelerated by any check it might chance
to encounter. The commemorations of the Church are not only preludes
of victory, but triumphs already accomplished and secured.




THE RELIEF OF VIENNA.




CHAPTER I.

THE SIEGE.

  State of the city—Situation of the Empire—Rapid advance
  of the Turks—The massacre of Perchtoldsdorf—The Turkish
  camp—Kollonitsch—View without the walls—Ditto within—Progress
  of the siege—The camp of Crems—Desperate condition of the
  citizens—The signal-rockets.


On the evening of the 7th of July 1683 the city of Vienna presented
a strange and melancholy spectacle. The road leading out of the
Rothenthurm Gate was crowded by a dense mass of carriages and other
vehicles, as well as by a vast multitude of foot-passengers, who,
by their anxious and terrified looks, seemed to be flying from a
pressing danger. Hour after hour you might have watched the stream
of fugitives, and still it flowed on without intermission, till you
would have thought the city emptied of its inhabitants, or at least
of all those of the noble and wealthier classes. And had you sought
the reason of so strange a spectacle, the red glare of the distant
horizon, lit up by the flames of burning villages, and nearer still,
those that enveloped the Carmelite Convent on the heights of the
Kahlenberg, would have furnished you with the answer. Those fires
were the tokens that Vienna was surrounded by the dreaded forces of
the Turks. Every post, for weeks past, had brought the intelligence
of some fresh disaster. Hungary was in open revolt; and 400,000
Turks, under the command of the Vizier Kara Mustapha, had poured
into the territories of the empire, invited by the treachery of the
insurgents. Then came the news that Emerick Tekeli had accepted the
investiture of the Hungarian kingdom at the hands of the infidels,
and basely acknowledged himself and his countrymen vassals to the
Porte. And at last, on that very morning, the city had been thrown
into a very panic of alarm by the hasty entrance of fugitives of
the imperial cavalry; and the rumour quickly spread that the forces
of the Duke of Lorraine had been surprised and totally defeated at
Petrouel by the Tartar horse, and that the remains of the imperial
army were falling back in disordered flight upon the capital. This,
as it afterwards proved, was a false report; as Lorraine, although
surprised by the enemy, had succeeded in repulsing them, and was
effecting his retreat in good order. But the Emperor Leopold did not
wait for the confirmation or contradiction of the intelligence; and
at seven o’clock on the same evening the imperial carriages were
seen hastily passing over the Tabor Bridge on their way to Lintz,
thus giving an example of flight which was quickly followed by the
greater portion of the wealthier citizens. It is calculated that
upwards of 60,000 persons left the city during that memorable night,
the confused masses being lighted on their way by the flames of the
burning convent. A great number of these having no conveyances fell
into the hands of the very enemy from whom they sought to escape;
and the roads leading to Styria were covered with unhappy fugitives,
whom the Turks are even said to have hunted down with bloodhounds:
some perished of hunger in the woods; others met a cruel death from
their barbarous pursuers; the rest succeeded in reaching the Bavarian
dominions, where Leopold had already found refuge, after narrowly
escaping the Tartar cavalry, who occupied the very line of route
which had been originally proposed for him to take.

Our present business, however, is rather with the story of the few
who, resisting the infection of terror, remained at their post, and
prepared, as best they could, to offer a determined resistance to
the besiegers. Their numbers were fearfully small. One regiment of
troops only was within the walls, and the citizens capable of bearing
arms were reckoned at no more than 1200 men. Ernest Ruchjer, Count
of Stahremberg, was the heroic governor to whom the defence of the
city was intrusted and if his scanty forces, and the utter want of
all preparation for a warlike emergency, might well have made his
heart sink at the task before him, yet his own gallantry and the
active co-operation of some of his followers and of the burgher
authorities almost supplied for the want of other resources. The
works necessary for the defence of the city were not yet begun; for
even the ordinary engineering tools were wanting. The supplies of
fuel, water, and provisions requisite for sustaining a long siege
were still unprovided; and all this had to be done, and was done,
by the astonishing exertions of a few men within the space of a
single week. The spectacle which their courage and activity presented
formed a striking contrast to that which had been displayed only a
few days previously by the flight of the court and of so many of
their fellow-citizens. Men of all classes, priests, and even women,
were to be seen labouring at the fortifications: the burgomaster,
Von Liebenberg, was foremost with his wheelbarrow among the workmen,
cheering them on by his example and words of encouragement; some
carried loads of wood from the suburbs to the city-stores; whilst the
circle of flames from the burning villages, denoting the advance of
the enemy, drew nearer and nearer, so that by the 12th of July they
were working under the very eyes of the Turks.

Before proceeding to the story of the siege, it may be necessary to
say a few words on the position of the two parties in the struggle
about to commence, so as to give some idea of their relative chances
of success. The hostilities between the Turks and the Empire had
been interrupted only by occasional truces, from the first occupation
of Constantinople by the former two centuries previously. The
present invasion had been brought about mainly through the means of
the Hungarian insurgents; and however much we may be disposed to
allow that the severity of the Austrian government to a conquered
country provoked the assertion of national independence on the part
of its oppressed people, yet we cannot but withhold the title of
“patriots” from those who, in their hatred to Austria, were ready
to sacrifice the very safety of Christendom, and whose notions of
national independence consisted in exchanging subjection to the
Austrians for a far more degrading vassalage to the infidels. When
the news of the vast preparations of the Ottomans reached Vienna,
it found the imperial government almost without defence. The day
was past when Christian Europe could be roused to a crusade in
defence of its faith, or even of its freedom; nay, in the history
of this contest we are met at every page by the details of secret
negotiations and most unworthy intrigues, by which the emissaries of
the “Most Christian King,” Louis XIV., encouraged and assisted the
invasion of the infidels to gratify his personal jealousy against
the House of Hapsburgh. In the day of his distress and humiliation
Leopold was compelled to seek for assistance from one whom till then
it had been the policy of his government to slight and thwart on all
occasions, and from whom, according to the calculations of a selfish
policy, he had certainly nothing to expect. This was John Sobieski,
the elective king of Poland, whose former exploits had rendered
his name a very watchword of terror to the Turks, but on whom the
Austrian sovereign had but little claim. The interests of the Polish
king were all opposed to his taking any part in the hostilities.
After years of civil war and foreign invasion, his surpassing genius
had but just obtained for Poland a profound and honourable peace.
An alliance with the House of Hapsburgh was at variance with the
close and intimate connection existing between himself and the court
of Versailles; and the favour and protection of the French king was
of no small importance to the distracted councils of Poland; whilst
the contemptuous and unfriendly treatment he had ever received from
the Austrian sovereign might very naturally have prompted him to
refuse the sacrifice of his own interests in that monarch’s behalf.
But none of these considerations had any weight in the noble heart
of Sobieski, who looked on the question simply as one involving his
faith and honour as a Christian king. “For thirty years,” to use
the words of Pope Innocent XI., “he had been the bulwark of the
Christian republic—the wall of brass against which all the efforts
of the barbarians had been broken in pieces.” Indeed, if we may so
say, he had come to look on war with the infidel as his special
vocation: the victories of Podhaiski and Choczim, and that other
wonderful series of achievements, to which history has given the
title, adopted from the gazette of Louis XIV., of the “Miraculous
Campaign,” had, as it were, installed him in his glorious office;
and when the same Pope called him in council “the lieutenant of God”
he did but give expression to the feeling with which all Christian
Europe looked to him as her hero and protector. It is not a little
striking that the greater number of the semi-infidel historians of
the eighteenth century, while doing full justice to the gallantry
and genius of this extraordinary man, have condemned his enterprise
against the Turks as proceeding only from a religious and chivalrous
impulse, undirected by any views of sound state-policy. Whether the
policy which saved Europe from the horrors[67] of an Ottoman invasion
can rightly be termed unsound, our readers may determine; it was
doubtless unselfish, and probably its very generosity has been the
principal cause of its condemnation by these writers; but we refer
to their criticism as an unquestionable testimony in proof of the
real character of this campaign, and of the motives from which it was
undertaken; and we think, on their own showing, we can scarcely be
wrong in representing this war as purely a religious one, entered on
in defence of the Christian faith, and without any mixture of those
political motives, the want of which is so deplored by the historians
of that sceptical age, but which renders its history so glorious in
the eyes of the Christian student.

The treaty between the two sovereigns, signed on the 31st of March
1683, was confirmed by the solemnity of an oath administered by
the cardinal-legate, the obligation of which on the conscience of
Sobieski will be found to have exercised a marked influence on his
future conduct. At the time when the treaty was concluded the invader
had not yet set foot in Hungary. To approach the Austrian capital
they would have to pass a number of strongly fortified towns, which,
according to the ordinary course of military proceedings, must
first be reduced before pushing further into the enemy’s country.
Nevertheless, the intelligence which reached Sobieski from his secret
spies and envoys in the Turkish dominions all pointed to Vienna
itself as the object of attack. But in spite of his representations
to Leopold, that monarch could not be induced to believe himself in
danger, or to prepare for an emergency; and thus, when the heights of
the surrounding hills blazed with the camp-fires of the Tartars, the
city, as we have seen, was taken by surprise; and the inhabitants of
the surrounding country were quietly at work in the harvest-fields,
when the hosts of the enemy came on them like some sudden inundation.
Indeed, the march of Kara Mustapha was without a precedent. To
advance from the borders of Hungary to the walls of Vienna, leaving
in his rear all the fortresses of the imperialists, was the affair
of a week; before another had closed, his trenches were opened and
the siege begun; and this extraordinary rapidity must account, both
for the defenceless state of the capital and for the time which
necessarily elapsed before the Polish king could come to its relief.

An incident may here be related which will show the nature of the
warfare waged by the infidels, and the treatment which the Viennese
might expect at their hands. In the neighbourhood of the city was
the small town of Perchtoldsdorf; and as one of the first objects of
the invaders was to secure all the places capable of being fortified
within a short distance of Vienna, a detachment was sent to take
possession. The inhabitants, under the direction of their bailiff,
at first endeavoured to hold the town; but owing to the superior
numbers of the enemy and the failure of ammunition, they were soon
compelled to abandon it, and to betake themselves to the tower of the
church and its precincts, which, on the approach of the Turks, they
had diligently fortified, as their forefathers had done 150 years
before. Small hope, however, was there that they should be able to
keep the enemy at bay; and when a horseman, bearing a flag of truce,
summoned them to surrender, with the offer of security to life and
property in case of immediate compliance, they did not hesitate to
accept the terms. On the morning of July 17th a pasha arrived from
the camp, and, seating himself on a red carpet opposite the church,
announced to the besieged the conditions of surrender; which were,
that the inhabitants should pay a contribution of 6000 florins, and,
as a token that they had not yielded up the place, but had honourably
capitulated, the keys were to be delivered by a young maiden with
her hair flowing and a garland on her head. These terms concluded,
the citizens left their stronghold; and the daughter of the bailiff,
arrayed as described, bore the keys of the place on a cushion, and
presented them to the pasha. The latter now required that all the
men capable of bearing arms should be drawn up in the market-place,
on pretence of ascertaining what number of troops were needed for
the occupation of the town. It was too late to retreat, and the
order was obeyed. As the inhabitants came out, the Turkish soldiers
closed about them, and deprived them of their arms; such as hesitated
were overpowered, and those who paused in the gateway, reluctant to
proceed, were dragged out by the hair of their heads. The unfortunate
people were no sooner all assembled than their persons were searched,
and every thing they had about them was taken away. At the same time
the entrance-gate was strongly guarded. Some of the townsmen, seized
with alarm, endeavoured, with the bailiff at their head, to regain
the church; but the Turks rushed upon them with drawn sabres, and
the bailiff was cut down on the threshold. At that instant the pasha
rose from his seat, flung down the table before him, and gave the
signal for a general massacre, himself setting the example by cutting
down with his own hand the trembling girl at his side. The slaughter
raged for two hours without intermission; 3500 persons were put to
the sword, and in a space so confined that the expression “torrents
of blood,” so often a figure of speech, was fully applicable to the
case. The women and children, who still remained within the church,
together with the parish-priest and his coadjutor, were dragged into
slavery, and never heard of more. Among the victims, numbers of whom
were inhabitants of adjacent places who had taken refuge in the town,
some, it is conjectured, were people of condition; for, in the course
of excavations which lately took place on the scene of the massacre,
valuable rings set with precious stones have been discovered.[68]
To this day the Holy Sacrifice is offered every year for those who
perished on the fatal 17th of July by this act of savage treachery.

But to return. Thirteen thousand regular troops from the army of
Lorraine were assembled within the walls of Vienna by the evening of
the 13th; and at sunrise on the following day a dusky moving mass
appeared on the heights of the Weinerberg, which was the main body
of the enemy. Scarcely could the most practised eye distinguish one
object from another in the confusion of the crowd. Men, horses,
camels, and carriages, formed a mixed multitude, which from the
ramparts of the city seemed like some swarm of locusts, and extended
for miles along the plains of the Danube and the surrounding hills.
The formation of the besieging camp was immediately begun, and within
a few hours 25,000 tents had risen as if by magic out of the ground.
Luxury and magnificence formed the very tradition of an eastern army;
and since the days of Xerxes perhaps no such host had been seen,
either for numbers or for splendour of equipment, as that which now
spread around the walls of the devoted city of Vienna. We should
form an imperfect notion of the spectacle presented to the eyes of
its defenders, if our idea of the Turkish camp were modelled on the
usual military equipages of European nations. The pavilion of the
vizier and his principal officers blazed with a wealth which the
imperial palaces could hardly rival. That of Kara Mustapha was a town
in itself: the canvas walls formed streets and houses, and included
within one enclosure baths, fountains, and flower-gardens, and even
a menagerie stocked from the imperial collection of the Favorita,
which had fallen into the hands of the invaders. Within the mazy
labyrinth of these luxurious alleys stood the pavilion of Mustapha
himself. The material was of green silk, worked in gold and silver,
and it was furnished with the richest oriental carpets and dazzling
with precious stones. In a yet more magnificent sanctuary, forming
the centre of the whole, was preserved the sacred standard of the
Prophet, which had been solemnly intrusted to the care of the vizier
by the sultan’s own hands. The display of the inferior officers was
on a corresponding scale.

Whilst these preparations were going on outside the walls,
Stahremberg was busy in his arrangements for the defence. Among his
most able coadjutors was one whose name deserves to be remembered
among the noblest ranks of Christian patriots. This was Leopold von
Kollonitsch, Bishop of Neustadt, on whom the spiritual care of the
city had devolved; the Bishop of Vienna having accompanied his royal
master in his flight. It could scarce have fallen on one better
fitted to hold it at such a time. In his youth he had served as a
Knight of Malta in many campaigns against the infidels; and in the
Cretan war had excited the wonder and admiration of the Venetians,
before whose eyes he boarded several Turkish galleys, killing many
unbelievers with his own hand, and tearing down and bearing away
as a trophy the Moslem standard of the horse-tail. The military
experience of such a man was of no small use in the present crisis;
yet we should be in error if we attached to the name of Kollonitsch
the prejudice which lies against the character of a military prelate.
If he was daily on the ramparts, and by the side of Stahremberg in
the posts of greatest danger, it was to console the wounded and
administer the last rites of religion to the dying. His talents and
scientific knowledge were directed towards securing the safety of
his fellow-citizens, and mitigating the sufferings of the siege. It
was he who suggested, and, indeed, by his exertions supplied the
necessary means for provisioning the city; regulated the tariff;
and even provided for the extinction of the fires which might be
caused by the shells of the besiegers. Yet, extraordinary as were
the services he rendered, in discharging them he never seems for
one moment to have stepped beyond the line assigned to him by his
clerical character. The hospital was his home; women, children, and
the aged and infirm, were the only forces whose command he assumed;
and by his ingenuity they were organised into a regular body, and
rendered efficient for many services which would otherwise have
necessarily taken up the time of those whose presence was required on
the walls.

Let us now place ourselves on those walls and watch the scene before
us. A week ago there was a pleasant prospect over the faubourgs
of the city, where in the midst of vineyards and gardens might be
seen the white walls of costly public edifices, or the villas of
the nobility and richer citizens. All this is now gone; for, as a
necessary precaution of public safety, the suburbs, whose proximity
to the city would have afforded a dangerous cover to the invaders,
have been devoted to the flames. Beyond the blackened ruins, which
gird the ramparts of Vienna with a dark line of desolation, stretches
the camp of the Ottomans, in the form of a vast half-moon. The
bright July sun is shining over its gilded pavilions, and you may
see the busy caravans of merchants with their trains of camels and
elephants, which carry your fancy back to the gorgeous descriptions
of an Arabian tale. It seems like the work of some of its own fabled
genii when you see the landscape, but a day or two ago rich in the
civilisation of an European capital, now suddenly transformed into
an Oriental scene, and mark the picture of mimic domes and minarets,
and the horse-tail standards waving in the breeze, every breath of
which brings the echo of a wild and savage music from the cymbals and
trombones of the Tartar troops.

Now let us turn our eyes on the city itself. The first object which
meets our gaze is the smoking ruin of the Scottish convent. On the
first day of the siege it caught fire, and was reduced to ashes; and
you may hear from the lips of any citizen you meet how but for the
protection of God and our Lady that first day of siege bade fair
to have been the last: for the fire spread rapidly to the imperial
arsenal, which contained the whole store of powder belonging to the
garrison. It seemed to defy every effort to extinguish it; and an
explosion was each moment expected, which, had it taken place, must
have destroyed the whole northern quarter of the city, and laid
it open for the entrance of the enemy. Two windows were already
on fire, and the heat prevented the workmen from approaching the
spot. But the people, who watched the scene with terrible anxiety,
prayed, even as they worked, and invoked the patronage of that fond
Mother whose ear is never closed to her children’s prayers; and
then, what historians call a favourable chance happened, which
saved the city. The wind suddenly changed; the flames went out of
themselves, or spread in a contrary direction. Though posterity may
laugh at their superstition and credulity, the foolish people of
Vienna are contented to believe that they have been preserved by the
providence of Him whose ministers are the winds and His messengers
the flaming fire. Nor indeed had this been the only instance of what
was naturally deemed a providential intervention in behalf of the
besieged. The first shell fired by the Turks into the town fell near
the church of St. Michael; and before it had time to burst, a little
child of three years old ran fearlessly up to it, and extinguished
it. A second struck through the roof of the cathedral, and fell among
a crowded congregation; but one woman alone was slightly injured by
the explosion; and a third was thrown right into an open barrel of
powder, but no mischief ensued: and the citizens were accustomed to
collect the fragments, and, after having them blessed by a priest, to
re-discharge them at the enemy. In vain did the besiegers try every
combustible weapon which ingenuity could suggest; Vienna seemed at
least insured against conflagration, and the fire-balls, and arrows
wrapped with combustible materials, fell on the roofs and in the
streets as harmlessly as a shower of leaves.

Now let us look up to the tall and graceful spire of St. Stephen,
whose tapering summit, surmounted by the crescent, bears witness
to the former presence of the infidels. Within those fretted and
sculptured pinnacles, beyond the reach of the most piercing eye, is
the stone-chair whence the governor Stahremberg overlooks the whole
camp of the enemy. There he sits, hour after hour; for a wound in
his head, received from the bursting of a shell, has disabled him
for the present from taking his usual position on the ramparts;
though not a day passes but you may see him carried in a chair to the
defences which are being completed under his direction. There are
others whom you encounter at every turn, whose names and services
are almost as memorable as his. There is the Baron of Kielmansegge,
who is ready for any thing, and will carry a private’s musket in the
ranks, if need be; while his mechanical and scientific ingenuity have
supplied the garrison with a powder-mill and a hand-grenade of his
own construction. Or there is Count Sigbert von Heister, whose hat
was pierced through with the first Turkish arrow shot into the town:
and both arrow and hat are still to be seen in the Ambrose Museum of
the city. Or you will come across singularly accoutred members of
the various volunteer-corps of the city, whose patriotism has taught
them to shoulder a gun for the first time; while the name of their
companies may perhaps account for their awkwardness in their new
profession: they are members of the gallant burgher companies,—of
the butchers, or the bakers, or the shoemakers,—and they render good
service on the walls, and never shrink from fire. But a more trimly
equipped body may be seen, neither burghers nor yet of the regular
force; there is a fanciful oddity in their costume, and a certain
recklessness in their very walk and gestures; you see at once they
are the students from the university, commanded by their rector
Lawrence Grüner. And lastly, wherever the shots are thickest and
the danger greatest, wherever blood is flowing and men are dying or
suffering, you may see the form of the excellent Kollonitsch, not a
quiver of whose eyelid betrays that the balls whistling round his
head are any objects of terror to his soul, while he stoops over
the prostrate bodies of the wounded, and tenderly bears them on his
shoulders to the hospital which is his home.

       *       *       *       *       *

A month has passed; and the siege has rapidly advanced, and brought
many a sad change to the position of the defenders. There have been
assaults and sallies, mines and countermines, without number; the
bastions are in many places a heap of ruins, smashed with shot and by
the explosion of mines. There are some where the fire is so thick
and continual, that to show yourself for a moment on them is certain
death. The city lies open in many places to the enemy; but in vain
have the Janizaries led their best men to the breach; each time have
they been met by the heroic defenders, whose own arms have proved
a surer barrier than the most skilful fortifications, and over and
over again have they been compelled to retire to their trenches with
loss. The progress of the Turkish miners, the most skilful of their
day, has been rapid and alarming. Their excavations have reached
the very heart of the city; and each house has its sentinel day and
night to prevent a subterraneous surprise. In every cellar there
is a large vessel of water and a drum covered with peas, that the
possible presence of the enemy underground may be betrayed by their
vibration. These mines were indeed extraordinary works of art, and
excited the admiration of the German engineers when they inspected
them at the close of the siege. They were vast excavations, often
themselves fortified; for the countermines of the besieged sometimes
broke into them, and then a deadly contest was carried on hand to
hand in the bowels of the earth. Frequently did the brave defenders
succeed in destroying not only the works but the workmen, and many
hundredweights of powder were thus seized and carried off. The
trenches were divided into chambers for the accommodation of the
officers, and some prepared for the use of the vizier were perfectly
carpeted and cushioned. He himself divided his time between the
inspection of the trenches and the luxurious enjoyments of his camp.
Every third day he caused himself to be carried to the works in a
litter made shot-proof by strong plates of iron, and might be seen
urging on the men with his words, and sometimes striking the idlers
with the flat of his sabre.

But the fire of the enemy was not the only danger that now threatened
the defenders. The usual consequences of a siege began to show
themselves in disease, brought on by bad food and the infection
from the dead bodies. Among its victims were the brave Burgomaster
Liebenberg, and many of the highest functionaries and ecclesiastics
of the city. The hospitals were crowded as well with the sick as with
the wounded; and if the pestilence at length subsided, it was in
great measure owing to the exertions of Kollonitsch, whose sagacity
suggested, whilst his prompt and untiring activity carried out,
every precaution that the urgency of the case required. You might
see him every where: he was constantly in the hospitals, nursing
the sufferers with the tenderness of a woman; and an hour after you
would find him superintending the construction of drains and kennels,
and working with his own hand to teach and encourage his men. His
name became so familiar in people’s mouths as the chief protector of
the city, that the fame of his services reached the vizier’s camp;
and Kara Mustapha is said to have vowed his head to the sultan as a
revenge for his success in checking the ravages of that pestilence on
which he counted as his best ally. Meanwhile every man in the city
was employed in his own way: the citizens were busy with carts and
horses; the Jesuits had two of their number constantly perched on the
tower of St. Stephen, making telescopic observations of the hostile
movements. Such men as Kielmansegge turned their amateur ingenuity to
account by manufacturing handmills to grind the flour; and, spite of
their sufferings, no abatement of courage or spirit was observable
among the ranks.

Still there was no sign of relief. Sobieski, besieged by messages
from the Pope and the emperor, was indeed making prodigious
efforts to raise the necessary forces; but many had to be armed
and disciplined before they could be ready to meet the enemy. The
small army of Lorraine maintained its position at Crems, and even
showed itself on the offensive against Tekeli, whom it compelled
to retire from Presburg; but its numbers were wholly inadequate to
an encounter with the Turks. The alarm of Europe grew every day
greater, and showed itself in generous contributions towards the
expenses of the war. Every town in Italy sent its list of voluntary
subscriptions; whilst the cardinals of Rome sold plate and carriages
to offer every thing to the cause. Once more, as in the days of
Lepanto, the devout hearts of the faithful were roused to prayer;
and before every Catholic shrine were to be seen crowds of pilgrims
and daily processions to invoke the protection of the God of armies.
Something like the old enthusiasm of the crusades revived in Europe,
and volunteers from all nations enrolled themselves under the banners
of Lorraine. France alone was chained back by the will of her “grand
monarque,” whose conduct on this occasion must remain a perpetual
disgrace upon his name. The brave Conti, who had secretly set out
to offer the services of his sword to the Austrian commander, was
followed and arrested by the order of his royal master, who preferred
the triumph of the infidel to the success of a rival. Two princes
of the house of Savoy, who had accompanied Conti in his flight,
succeeded, however, in making their way to the scene of war; these
were the Prince of Carignan Soissons and his younger brother, known
then by the name of the little Abbé of Savoy. The news of their
departure was brought to the minister Louvois, who received it with
an expression of contempt. “So the abbé has gone,” he said; “so much
the better; he will not come back to this country very soon.” Nor,
indeed, did he return till he came with arms in his hands; and then
“the little Abbé of Savoy” was better known as the Great Eugene.

Thus, by degrees, the imperial camp of Crems became the rendezvous
for all the gallant spirits of the time; but no means had yet been
found of communicating with the city, which was closely hemmed in
on all sides by the besieging forces, and thus cut off from all
knowledge of the chances of its relief. At length, on the 6th of
August, a trooper of Lorraine’s succeeded in the daring enterprise of
swimming across the Danube in the face of the enemy, and making his
way into the city, bearing despatches from the duke, secured from the
water in a thick envelope of wax. On his return, however, he fell
into the hands of the Turks; and, on being questioned concerning the
state of the city, saved his life by a cunningly invented tale of the
despair of the besieged and their approaching surrender. After this,
a great number of others were found to imitate his exploit; and, in
spite of the vigilance of the Turks, the communication between the
city and the camp was continually carried on; the safe arrival of
their respective messengers being announced by a shower of rockets.
Many are the stratagems and hair-breadth escapes which the annals
of the siege record. There we read of the brave Pole, Kolschitzki,
attended by a countryman as daring as himself, strolling in disguise
through the Turkish camp, and singing gaily as he goes; drinking
coffee at his ease in an aga’s tent, and entertaining his host the
while with many a song and careless jest, telling him he had followed
the army of the vizier from sheer love of fighting and adventure;
and dismissed with a caution to beware of falling into Christian
hands: so pursuing his perilous journey, and returning unscathed,
with precious despatches from the duke.[69] We read, too, of his
intrepid attendant twice repeating the hazardous exploit alone; how,
on his second return, with an autograph letter from the emperor,
after having all but passed the enemy’s lines, he is joined by a
Turkish horseman, and, unable to shake off his unwelcome companion,
he suddenly turns upon him, strikes off his head at a blow, and
springing on the now riderless steed, reaches the city-gates in
safety.

Meanwhile deputies from all the imperial dominions were sent to
hasten the preparations of the Polish king, to whose warlike spirit
the delay he was forced to endure was as painful as it was to them.
Once the apostolic nuncio and the imperial minister surprised him
alone, and, throwing themselves at his feet, embraced his knees
in a very agony of distress. Leopold condescended to the most
extraordinary promises, in case he should succeed in delivering him
and his capital. The kingdom of Hungary was to be his; his eldest
son should form an alliance with the imperial family; he was to name
his own conditions, only he must come, and come quickly. Sobieski’s
reply to these offers was worthy of himself: “I desire no other
reward than the glory of doing right before God and man.” At last,
on the 15th of August,—a day he had chosen as being the Feast of the
Assumption of the glorious Mother of God, to whom he had consecrated
his arms and his enterprise,—the royal lance of Poland, surmounted
by a white plume, was displayed in the streets of Cracow; the usual
signal for the gathering of the forces destined for war. Sobieski
commenced the day by performing the stations on foot to the different
churches of the city; then, without waiting for the troops expected
from Lithuania, he set out at the head of the Polish forces for the
frontier of Germany. Caraffa, the Austrian general, pushed forward
to meet him, impatient to know if the report of the king’s presence
with the army were indeed true; for so extraordinary was the power
of his name, that—as Lorraine expressed it—that one man was an army
in himself. He was instantly introduced to Sobieski, who eagerly
inquired from him the disposition of the Ottoman troops, and the
ground they occupied. “They occupy every space and height around the
city,” replied Caraffa, “the Kahlenberg alone excepted.” “Then the
Kahlenberg will be the point of attack,” replied Sobieski; and in
the rapid conception of genius the whole plan of the campaign was
before him in that single phrase. In fact, the neglect of the Turks
in leaving these important heights unguarded forms an unaccountable
blunder in the otherwise skilful dispositions of the vizier. They
commanded the whole of the adjacent plains, and in their present
state offered a cover for the approach, and a strong post for the
occupation, of the relieving army. This the quick eye of Sobieski
at once perceived. Had it been otherwise, the event of the coming
struggle might have been very different; and the singular oversight
of the Turkish commander was felt in the hour of the Christian
success to be explained only by the superintending influence of that
God to whom the cause had been so solemnly committed.

August, therefore, is now closing in; and far away on the frontier
the warriors of Poland are making their way to the scene of combat
over the rocky heights of the Carpathians. The fast-crumbling walls
of Vienna are now no longer the defence of the city, but the rough
battle-ground on which the besieged and their enemies meet daily
hand to hand. Strange sights may be seen in those deadly combats:
musket and matchlock are laid aside, for there is scarcely room to
use them; and the keen Turkish scimitar is met on the side of the
besieged with battle-axe and halberd, and with uncouth and frightful
weapons fashioned for the purpose. There is the morning-star, a
hideous club covered with spikes of brass; long scythes fixed to the
ends of poles, like the Lochaber axes of the Highlanders; and in
every street in the city you may see huge fires, over which there
boil caldrons of water and pitch, which the women and children carry
to the battlements, and which, dashed in the faces of the advancing
squadrons, prove a deadly means of offence. What cries of pain and
baffled rage, what wild shouts and imprecations, rise from those
savage Tartar tribes! They fall by hundreds into the ditch, pushed
back by the strong arm of their opponents; and the scalding, blinding
deluge from above pours down on them, like the brimstone tempest of
Gomorrah! But the daring defence is not kept up with impunity; the
air is darkened with the shower of Turkish arrows, whose poisoned
wounds are almost certain death. They have for days past kept off the
enemy from the shattered ravelin of the Burg by wooden palisades
erected in the very face of their fire. Now the whole work is in
flames; the Turks press hard behind the burning timbers, and threaten
to overwhelm the scanty troop of defenders, rendered helpless by the
scorching heat. But in another moment the tide of fortune has turned
again; for the soldiers, tearing off their steel head-pieces, fill
them with water, and rushing into the midst of the blazing mass,
extinguish it, and drive back their assailants.

Still they advanced step by step,—slowly, yet with a terrible
certainly. Above, the ruined bastions became in turn the batteries
for the guns which they turned against the town; whilst still the
war was carried on underground between the desperate combatants,
and no less than 16,000 of the Turkish miners were slain in these
subterranean conflicts. Famine was beginning to show itself; and
he who could succeed in getting a shot at some wandering cat was
considered a fortunate speculator with his prize. The chase of these
poor animals, indeed, became a regular trade; and, keeping up their
spirits in the midst of their sufferings, the Viennese bestowed on
this new game, which they hunted over the roofs of the houses, the
truly German appellation of “dachshase,” or roof-hare.

At length, the vizier prepared for a vigorous assault; and had it
been conducted by the mass of the besieging force, there can be
little doubt that the result would have been fatal. As it was, a
portion only of his troops were despatched to the breach. This want
of energy at the very crisis of the siege proceeded from a covetous
fear on the part of the Turkish chief, that, in the license of
a general assault, he should lose the enormous plunder which he
promised himself, could he reduce the city by less violent measures.
Nevertheless, on the morning of the 4th of September, a column of
smoke rising from the Burg bastion announced an enormous explosion,
and 4000 Turks rushed to the breach. They were met by Stahremberg and
his whole staff, who, hopeless of success, prepared to die at the
post of honour. On came the Moslems, carrying baskets of earth on
their backs, to form a way for those who followed, and the horse-tail
standards were even planted on the rampart crest; but again and again
they were driven back with loss. Then came a breathing-space of a
single day; and the interval was occupied by the heroic defenders
in filling up the yawning breaches in their walls with mattresses,
sandbags, and every imaginable material they could supply. A yet more
furious assault followed on the 6th; but still the result was the
same, and 1500 bodies of the infidels remained heaped on the summit
of the strange barrier. Alas, this was almost the energy of a death
agony; and, nobly as they fought for faith and fatherland, each one
well knew, if relief did not quickly come, the fate of the city
might be delayed from day to day, but must be sealed at last. Every
night, fires from the spire of St. Stephen’s, and the graceful fall
of those beautiful rockets,—the sad signals of distress,—were to be
seen, notifying to the distant army of the Imperialists the urgency
of the danger. The evening of that day, which had witnessed so
obstinate a repulse of the last assault, closed in more sadly for the
victors than for the defeated infidels. The bodies of 117 brave men
of their little army were lying among the corpses of their enemies;
the town was crumbling into ruins; and the hearts of the besieged
were at last giving way under exhaustion and despair. Kollonitsch
might be seen going from house to house, striving to reanimate the
courage of the citizens with the hopes of speedy succour; but he was
met with a moody and disspiriting silence. Suddenly there was a cry
from the ramparts, a signal from the watch-tower of the Jesuits, and
thousands hurried to the shattered walls, expecting some surprise
from the enemy. What did they see? and why did men cast themselves
into one another’s arms, and weep like women; and women kneel by
their side, as they gazed on the distant horizon, giving thanks to
God and to the Mother of God for their answered prayers? There was
the clear starlit sky of a summer’s night, and the far outline of the
Kahlenberg cutting the sapphire canopy overhead with its deep dark
mass of shadow; and there, on the very summit of its rocky height,
rising into the air and floating in its glorious vault, like a string
of jewels, were the gleaming tracks and the fiery stars of five
signal-rockets from the advanced guard of the imperial army. They
had, then, crossed the river; the outposts were already in possession
of those rampart hills; and, as the blessed truth came home to the
hearts of the beholders, they were filled with a fresh courage;
and, cheered on by their noble leader, they prepared to prolong a
yet more obstinate resistance, till the hour of their deliverance
should arrive. Nor were theirs the only eyes who had marked those
signal-rockets; and the preparations for a street-fight within the
walls of Vienna were accompanied by redoubled preparations for
hostilities in the Ottoman camp.




CHAPTER II.

THE RELIEF.

  March of the Poles—Junction with the Imperialists—Ascent of the
  Kahlenberg—A day of suspense—Scene from the heights—The morning
  of the battle—Descent into the plain—Advance of Sobieski—Rout
  of the Turks—Sobieski’s entry into Vienna—Charity of
  Kollonitsch—Behaviour of the emperor—Joy of Europe—Thanksgiving
  of the Church—End of Kara Mustapha.


Sobieski and his army were on the borders of Silesia within a week
from their departure from Cracow. His eldest son, Prince James Louis,
the youth of many a hope and many a bitter disappointment, marched
by the side of his heroic father. His queen accompanied him to the
frontier, where they were obliged to separate; and the letters which
passed between them during the remainder of the campaign form a
singular and most valuable portion of the documentary history of the
day. His march revived the hopes of Europe, and the malice of the
“grand monarque;” and whilst the intelligence of the approaching
crisis was received in Rome by solemn prayers for the success of the
Christian arms, by exposition of the Blessed Sacrament in all the
churches, and by processions in all the streets, Louis XIV. could
see in it nothing but an opportunity for surprising the Austrian
provinces of the Low Country by a _coup-de-main_: and Brussels saw
a French army at its gates without even a declaration of war. Such
are the tactics of that state-policy which the French writers of
the succeeding century deplore as so deficient in the enterprise of
Sobieski. We leave our readers to draw their own comparison between
the conduct of the Christian hero and that of the “Most Christian
king.”

The events of the march followed one another in rapid succession.
It lay through a rough and mountainous country, beset with
wandering tribes of Tartars and Hungarians. As they drew near the
head-quarters of the Imperialists the ardour of Sobieski would not
allow him to delay; but setting forward with a few cavalry, he
pushed on in advance of his army, “that he might the sooner taste
the waters of the Danube and hear the cannon of Vienna:” these are
his own words in his letter to his wife. Lorraine hastened to meet
them. Destiny had hitherto matched them as rivals, both in love and
in war; but each was too great to remember past jealousies at such
a moment. By the 5th of September the junction of the two armies at
Tuln was completely effected; and the supreme command was unanimously
made over to the Polish king. There was still a doubt about the
practicability of crossing the river; but Sobieski had a way of his
own for settling such questions. He went down to inspect the bridge,
which the Imperialists were still engaged in constructing in the very
face of the Ottoman batteries: “The man who suffered this bridge
to be built under his very beard is but a contemptible general,
and cannot fail to be beaten,” he said. “The affair is settled;
the army will cross to-morrow.” And even as he spoke, a messenger
from Stahremberg, dripping with water,—for he had swum across the
river,—was ushered into the presence of the generals. He bore a
despatch of few words, yet they told all the agony of suspense which
was then reigning in the city: “No time to be lost!—no time to be
lost!” The affair was therefore settled as Sobieski had said, and
none ventured a remonstrance.

The next day was that memorable 6th of September of which we have
spoken. Whilst the besieged, still ignorant of the near presence
of their deliverers, were making that gallant and despairing stand
against the assault of their opponents, the Christian host were
passing over the Danube and making their rapid advance upon the
Kahlenberg. The Polish cavalry marched first, their costume mingling
something of oriental magnificence with the European character of
their arms; the infantry followed, less brilliantly equipped; one
regiment, indeed, and that one of the bravest of the whole force,
showed so ragged and dilapidated an exterior, that Sobieski’s pride
was hurt. He turned to Lorraine, as the ranks defiled before them,
saying, “Look at these fellows; they are invincible rascals, who have
sworn never to clothe themselves except out of the enemy’s spoils.”
It was a glorious and inspiriting sight; and never had Sobieski
found himself at the head of so numerous or powerful an army. He who
had beaten the Turks over and over again at the head of a handful
of armed peasants, felt it pusillanimous to doubt of victory with a
force like the present, and the favour of heaven on his side: 70,000
men were passing in brilliant order before his eyes. There were the
troops of Saxony, with their elector at their head; and those of the
Bavarians, just arrived in time to join the main body, with their
young and gallant Elector Maximilian, burning with military ardour,
and destined to celebrity, as well in his achievements as in his
misfortunes, who now intrusted the command of his people to abler
hands, and served himself in the ranks as a volunteer. There was a
crowd of illustrious names in the battle-roll of that army; and the
“little Abbé of Savoy” was not missing among them. The river crossed,
there yet remained the Kahlenberg to be scaled and secured. They did
not yet know if the summit were still unoccupied; and the dangerous
task of reconnoitring was undertaken by Sobieski himself. Let us
place the scene before us, to estimate the difficulty of the task.
The Kahlenberg mountain, which now stretched like a huge curtain
between the hosts of the infidels and the advancing bands of the
allies, was a wild range of rocky hills and precipices, covered on
one side by a vast forest, whilst the other descended abruptly to
the waters of the Danube. Its crest was crowned with a fortress and
a little chapel; and these were still untouched. Kara Mustapha, in
his gilded pavilion, lay buried in profound and luxurious security
in the plain below, all unconscious that on the other side of those
rugged peaks, struggling among the rocks and in the mazes of the
tangled forest, wearily dragging their guns over the rough roads, and
casting away baggage and accoutrements in their eagerness to press
on to the longed-for goal, were the scattered forces of his enemies,
whom a handful of determined men might have annihilated whilst they
were in the perils of that terrible ascent. But a blindness had
come over the judgment of the Turks. Some of their wandering Tartar
bands even encountered the outposts of the enemy, and, with singular
simplicity, are said to have inquired what all this bustle meant.
“It means that the King of Poland is behind,” replied the soldiers.
“The King of Poland!” answered the Tartar, with a sneering laugh: “we
know very well that he is far away from here.” And this scrambling
weary march lasted three days. They climbed the rocks like cats,
and threw themselves down the crags, clinging to the bushes. A few
must have reached the summit, by means of incredible exertions, the
very evening of the passage of the river, as we have already seen
that signal-rockets from the top of the mountain gave warning to the
citizens of their approach so early as the night of the 6th; but it
was not until the 10th that the main body succeeded in taking up a
position on the heights.

The ascent of the Kahlenberg must be reckoned amongst the most
brilliant achievements of the Polish king. Its difficulties were such
as could be surmounted only by determined courage and a surpassing
genius. The imperial troops were fearful and discouraged; and when
the cry of “Allah!” from some of the outposts of the infidels
first broke on their ear, they were all but taking to flight, in
the extremity of their terror. The heavy pieces of artillery were
obliged to be left below; for there were no means of transporting
them through the savage passes they had to cross. Neither chiefs
nor soldiers had encumbered themselves with provisions, and during
their three days’ march their food was oak-leaves. A few who gained
the summit before the others, terrified by the first prospect of
the infidels, came back, leaping over the rocks in wild confusion,
spreading fear and disorder wherever they appeared. Sobieski’s own
voice, and the might of his heroic presence, his gay and cheerful
words, and the memory of his past victories, which seemed to surround
him as with a glory, were necessary to restore the courage of his
men. The soldiers of his own guard showed symptoms of discontent.
He advanced to them, and proposed that they should return to the
baggage-waggons; and, at those few words, they cast themselves at his
feet, and exclaimed, with tears, “We will live and die with our king,
Sobieski!” And all this time, amidst the incessant anxieties and
fatigues of his post, he could find leisure to write an incredible
number of letters to his wife, in which the hearty expressions of
generous affection, and the thoughtful simple tenderness with which
he tells her “to be sure not to rise too early in the morning,” would
fill us with feelings of more unmixed pleasure as we read them, could
we forget the unworthy and vexatious character of the woman on whom
he lavished so devoted an attachment.

It was on the morning of the 10th that the Turks, perceiving at
length the importance of the Kahlenberg position, made a hasty
movement of their troops to occupy it. But it was too late to repair
their error. A few Saxon squadrons were forced forwards into line,
and three guns brought to the summit. The Turks instantly retired;
and the roar of those three pieces of artillery proclaimed to the
ears of the distant citizens that their deliverance was at hand.
The echo of that sound drew them to the walls; and the sight that
met their eye on that distant ridge revived all their hopes. The
morning sun sparkled on a bristling forest of lances and the pennons
of the Polish hussars. Every moment the armed battalions might
be seen gathering in greater numbers, as they climbed the last
ascent, and formed in array of battle. There was a stir, too, in
the camp of the Ottomans; and the vast masses of the Turkish troops
swayed to and fro, then broke into three divisions. One seemed
to prepare for conflict with the Polish force, and faced towards
the mountains; another, composed of the camp-followers and other
irregular combatants, might be seen securing their baggage, and
moving off, with camels and horses, in the direction of the Hungarian
frontier; whilst the third advanced to renew the assault on the
city. It was a day of agonising suspense. The final struggle had
not, indeed, as yet begun, but it was evidently close at hand; and
whilst Kollonitsch called the women and the infirm to the churches,
Stahremberg once more led the remains of his dauntless forces to the
breach and the ramparts. By eleven o’clock on the morning of the 11th
the main body of the army was formed into line on the ridge of the
Kahlenberg, occupying the old castle and the little chapel before
mentioned. Below them lay the vast plain of Austria, where stretched
the enormous crescent of the Ottoman camp, sparkling with its gilded
tents, and intrenched with lines of fortifications; whilst, close at
the foot of the hill, and under cover of the forest and ravines, was
drawn up a considerable portion of the hostile army. No movement was,
however, made by either side; and both parties spent the remaining
hours of the day in councils of war, and arrangements for the morrow.
And so, whilst the rocket-signals of distress continued to rise from
the city-walls, and were answered by blazing fires from the mountain,
the eve of the great day closed in. Sobieski spent it in the saddle,
and before night had ridden along and inspected the entire position
of his forces.

The dawn of the autumn morning was breaking in the horizon. A thin
mist rested on the crest of the Kahlenberg, and gathered in dense
masses on the plain and river below. The eye of the Polish sentinels
could catch the spire of St Stephen’s rising above that silvery
cloud, whilst the darker masses of the city-walls were still veiled
within its folds; and still unceasingly from that tapering tower
there rose those fiery signals, which seemed to repeat, hour after
hour, the words of Stahremberg’s last despatch: “No time to be lost.”
It was a Sunday morning, as on the day of Lepanto,—an association
not forgotten by the Christian host; and as the sun rose higher, and
raised the curtain of mist that hung over the scene, life seemed
to wake in the Turkish camp, and again the roar of their artillery
was heard pouring its destructive fire upon the city, whilst their
cavalry and the squadrons of the Tartars faced towards the mountain.
The vizier was thus preparing for battle on either side of his
encampment. But before we endeavour to follow the course of the
conflict, let us pause on the heights of the Kahlenberg, and watch
the scene that meets our eye among the forces of the Christian
allies. Falling sweetly and gently through the morning air, there
comes the echo of a bell from the chapel of the Margrave: its little
steeple rises above the masses of forest-foliage, rich with autumn
tints; and as the sound reaches the lines of the Polish troops, the
clang of their arms, and the long reveille of their trumpets, are
hushed in silence. Before the chapel-door is planted the Christian
standard,—a red flag bearing a white cross; and as the symbol of
their faith, and of the holy cause for which they are in arms, is
displayed, a shout of enthusiasm bursts from the ranks, and is caught
up again and again from every quarter of the mountain. But silence is
restored, and all eyes turn in the direction of the old castle; and
as its gates are suddenly flung open, you may see a procession of the
princes of the empire, and of many a gallant and noble soldier from
every nation of Christendom, moving forward to commend the cause of
their arms to the God of battles. At the head of that column walks
neither king nor prince, but the form of one with the brown habit,
shaven crown, and sandalled feet, of a Capuchin friar. The soldiers
cross themselves as he passes, and kneel to receive the blessing
which he gives with outstretched hands. It is Marco Aviano, the
confessor to the emperor, and one on whom there rests the character
of a saint, and the reputation of prophetic gifts. He has been with
the army in all its hours of difficulty and distress; he is with them
now, to bless their arms, and to remind them of the cause for which
they are about to fight. And close following him in the gorgeous
procession, are three figures, that rivet you as you gaze. The first
is one whose look instantly commands respect. He is past the prime
of life, and there is something too much of portliness in his manly
form; and yet the majesty of his bearing tells you at a glance that
he is a hero and a king: that broad and noble forehead, that quick
yet gentle eye, and the open look that mingles such simplicity with
its command,—all bespeak no common man: it is the conqueror of
Choczim and Podacksi. On his left is the young prince James, the
father afterwards of the princess Clementina, whose marriage with
the Chevalier of St. George mingled the blood of Sobieski with that
of our own exiled Stuarts. His after-career was sad and inglorious;
but now he marches by his father’s side, a gallant youth of sixteen,
armed with helmet and breastplate, the pride and darling of the
hero’s heart. On the right of the king is the form of Charles of
Lorraine, plain and negligent in his attire; and yet, in spite of
negligence, and even a slouching and unmilitary gait, you may tell,
to use Sobieski’s words, “that he is no shopkeeper, but a man of note
and distinction.” Then follow the sovereign princes of Germany. We
will not weary our reader with a list of names. As our eye wanders
over the royal and noble ranks, glittering with the insignia of their
rank and military command, it rests on a slender youth of middle
stature, whose eye has in it the promise of a future career of glory.
Yes, you have guessed aright: the prince, his eldest brother, has
already fallen in the cause; but Eugene of Savoy has escaped to draw
his maiden sword in the defence of the faith, and to learn under
Sobieski his first lessons of that science in which he was hereafter
to share the battle-fields and renown of our own Marlborough. They
enter the chapel: Aviano celebrates the Mass, which is served by
Sobieski himself; and during the pauses in which he is not engaged
at the altar, he is kneeling on the steps, his head bowed down, his
arms extended in the form of a cross, and his whole soul absorbed in
prayer. It is a spectacle which revives to your imagination the days
of Dominic and de Montfort, and the consecration of the crusaders’
swords before the fight of Muret, as you see every individual in that
princely and martial assembly kneeling in turn to receive the Bread
of Life, whilst the thunder of the Turkish guns is even now sounding
in their ears: they will soon be in the field, and, ere the sun is
down, some of them will be lying there cold and dead. But they have
fitted themselves for death; and at this moment, as you gaze on them,
they seem full of that antique spirit of the elder chivalry, which
has stamped its likeness on those tombs and sculptured effigies,
making you doubt whether they who lie beneath were men of war or
prayer.

The Mass is over. Aviano, in his priestly vestments, is standing
at the chapel-door, with the crucifix in his hand. Raising it on
high, he gives his solemn benediction to the troops, saying these
words: “Soldiers, I announce to you, on the part of the Holy See,
that if you have confidence in God, the victory is yours;” and then
the last act of the religious ceremony is completed by a touching
and beautiful incident. Prince James is led to the feet of his
heroic father to receive the still honourable and sacred dignity of
Christian knighthood. When this was done, the ardour of Sobieski
became impatient of further delay. He sprang into his saddle, and
riding forward to the front of the line, spoke to his followers in
their own language: “Warriors and friends,” he said, “our enemies
are yonder in the plain, in greater numbers than at Choczim, when
we trampled them under our feet. We fight them on a foreign soil,
but we fight for our country; and under the walls of Vienna we are
defending those of Cracow and Warsaw. We have to save this day, not a
single city, but Christendom itself: the war is therefore holy. There
is a blessing on our arms, and a crown of glory for him who falls.
You are not fighting for any earthly sovereign, but for the King of
kings. It is He who has led you up these heights, and placed the
victory in your hands. I have but one command to give: Follow me. The
time is come for the young to win their spurs.” A tremendous shout
from the ranks was the answer to this harangue; replied to from the
distant enemy by cries of “Allah! Allah!” Then, pressing his horse to
the mountain edge, Sobieski pointed to the plain below, to the rocks
and precipices of the descent, and the moving masses of the enemy.
“March on in confidence,” he cried: “God and His Blessed Mother are
with us!” And as he spoke, five cannon-shots gave the signal for the
advance. The ranks immediately commenced the descent; and Aviano
turned back into the chapel to pray.

It was the original plan of the king to content himself this day
with the descent of the Kahlenberg, and the secure establishment
of the troops in position for battle on the morrow. Even his quick
and ardent genius had proposed no such gigantic undertaking as the
routing of the whole Turkish host, and the deliverance of the city,
in the course of a few hours. The event of the day was scarcely
so much the result of his own calculations as of the unforeseen
circumstances by which the left wing of the army, under Lorraine,
became engaged in a premature and desperate struggle with the right
of the Turkish force, and thus brought on the necessity for a general
action. The imperial troops descended the wooded ravines, driving
their opponents before them, slowly but surely; for though the Turks
obstinately defended every foot of ground, they were no match for
their adversaries. The Christian army was arranged in order of
battle in five distinct columns, which came down the mountain-side
“like so many irresistible torrents, yet in admirable order,”
stopping every hundred paces to enable those behind to come up to
them, and preserve their ranks. Each ravine was found guarded and
fortified, and was the scene of a separate conflict. The rocks, and
groups of trees, and the thick tangle of the vineyards,—all formed
so many covers for defence to the retreating Ottomans; but still,
spite of all resistance on their parts, nothing could check the
downward progress of those five mountain-torrents, which rolled on
steadily and victoriously, sweeping all before them. The descent
had commenced at eight o’clock, and by ten the left wing of the
army was in the plain. Lorraine halted, by command of Sobieski, to
enable the Polish troops to come up; and as each squadron issued
from the mountain-defiles, it took up its position in the order
of battle prescribed by the king, and planted its standard in the
field. By this time, the hope of pushing the struggle to a decisive
issue that day had suggested itself to the imperial commanders; and
Field-Marshal Geltz, perceiving the progress of the Bavarians and
Poles on the right and centre, observed to the Duke, that it would
be his own fault if he did not that night sleep in Vienna. It was
eleven o’clock: the burning sun had scattered all the mist of the
morning, and the whole scene glittered in the noonday blaze. The
heat was oppressive; and there was a pause in the movements of the
imperial troops. Suddenly a cry ran along the line, caught up from
regiment to regiment, “Live Sobieski!” Out from the wooded defiles of
the Wienerberg flashed the gilded cuirasses of the Polish cavalry;
and the bay horse and sky-blue doublet of the rider at their head
announced the presence of the king. Before him went an attendant,
bearing a shield emblazoned with his arms. Another rode near him,
bearing the plumed lance of Poland: this, as it streamed above the
heads of the combatants, always showed Sobieski’s place in the
battle; and round it the fight always gathered the thickest; while
his soldiers were accustomed to look to that white and waving signal
as to the star of victory.

The rocks and broken ground in which they stood formed a vast and
beautiful amphitheatre, carpeted with turf and dotted with noble
trees. Under one of these Sobieski alighted; and, ordering his men to
do the same, they took a hasty repast. It occupied but a few minutes;
and then, the semicircular battle-line of the Christian columns
forming in admirable order, the king rode round the whole body,
speaking to each in their own language; for there were few European
tongues of which he was not perfect master. The order was given for
the whole line to advance. The Turks, profiting by the halt of their
enemies, had brought up large reinforcements, commanded by the vizier
in person. They were met by a furious charge from the Polish lancers,
who at first drove all before them; but, led on by their impetuosity,
and surrounded by the masses of the infidels, they were for a moment
nearly overwhelmed. Their officers fell thick and fast. Waldech and
his Bavarians came up to their rescue; but the struggle was still
doubtful, when the second line and the imperial dragoons, with
Sobieski at their head, came down on the squadrons of the Turks with
a tremendous shock. Every thing gave way before them: on they went,
through ravines and villages, and still, as they dashed on, they
swept their foes from one outpost to another, nor drew their reins
till they touched the glacis of the camp, and the gilded peaks of the
Ottoman tents rose close before their eyes. Here the whole Turkish
force was drawn up to receive them. The front of their line bristled
with artillery; the flanks were strongly protected by fortifications
hastily but skilfully raised.

It was five o’clock. “Sobieski,” says Salvandy, “had reckoned on
sleeping on the field of battle, and deferring until next day the
completion of the drama; for that which remained to be done scarcely
seemed possible to be completed in a few hours, and with tired
troops. Nevertheless the allies, in spite of the oppressiveness of
the weather, were reanimated rather than exhausted by their march;
whereas it was evident that consternation reigned in the Ottoman
ranks. Far away were to be seen the long lines of the camels, hastily
pressing forward on the road to Hungary: they might be tracked by
the cloud of dust which darkened the horizon for miles.” The vizier
alone showed confidence, as dangerous and unreasonable as was the
panic of his followers. He counted on an easy triumph; and having, as
a first step, ordered the slaughter of all his captives, including
women and children, to the number of 30,000 souls, he appeared on
the field mounted on a charger, whose accoutrements, glittering
with gold, rendered the animal equally unserviceable for battle or
for flight. But flight was the last idea that suggested itself to
the mind of Kara Mustapha. Dismounted from his overloaded horse, he
might have been seen seated in a damask tent, luxuriously drinking
coffee with his two sons, as if he had but to look on at his ease,
and watch the dispersion of his enemies. The sight stirred the choler
of Sobieski. So rapid had been his advance, that he had no heavy
artillery with him, save two or three light pieces, which Kouski had
dragged on by the strong arm of his artillerymen. These the king
ordered to be pointed at the brilliant tent, from which the vizier
was now giving his orders; but the ammunition soon failed, and a
French officer ingeniously rammed home the last cartridge with his
wig, gloves, and a bundle of newspapers. We are not told the effect
of this original discharge; but at that moment the infantry came
up under Maligni, the king’s brother-in-law, and were instantly
despatched to a height which commanded the position of the vizier. A
vigorous attack soon carried them beyond the outposts, and planted
them on the redoubts. Then a wavering hesitation was observed in
the crowded ranks of the Mussulmans, which caught the quick eye of
Sobieski, and decided the fate of the day. “They are lost men,” he
cried; “let the whole line advance.” And as he led them in person
right for the vizier’s tent, his terrible presence was recognised
by the infidels. “By Allah, the king is with them!” exclaimed the
Khan of the Crimea; and every eye was turned in terror towards the
spot where the dancing feathers of that snow-white plume carried
victory wherever they appeared. Sobieski had sent word to Lorraine
to attack the centre, and leave him to finish the disordered masses
in his front. Then, surrounded by his hussars, and preceded by his
emblazoned shield and the plume-bearing lance which distinguished his
place in the battle, he brandished his sword in the foremost rank,
calling aloud, in the words of the royal prophet, “Not unto us, not
unto us, O Lord God of hosts, but to Thy name give the glory!” The
enthusiasm of his presence excited his troops to prodigies of valour;
his name rang through the plain; and, as the infidels quailed and
gave way before the charges of his cavalry, led on by their glorious
chief, a bloody token appeared in the evening sky, which struck a
supernatural dread into their hearts. It was an eclipse of the moon,
and the heavens themselves seemed fighting against the host of the
Ottomans. “God defend Poland!” the national cry, now sounded from
the advancing columns of a fresh body of troopers. They came on at
full gallop, the other squadrons joining in their desperate charge.
Palatines, senators, and nobles, they fell with headlong impetuosity
on the masses of their foes; and such was the fury of their attack,
that as man and horse went down before their lances, the huge body of
the Ottomans was cleft in twain, and a road, as it were, cut in their
centre, formed by the passage of the Christian troops. The shock was
so terrible, that nearly every lance of the Polish squadrons was
snapped asunder; those lances of which one of their nobles once said,
that should the heavens fall, they would bear them up upon their
points.

The Turks could offer no further resistance, and there was but one
thought among their ranks, and that was flight: their very numbers,
instead of strengthening, only embarrassed them. The vizier, but
an hour before so proud and confident, was borne along in the
panic-stricken crowd, weeping and cursing by turns. In the mêlée he
came across the Khan of the Crimea, himself among the foremost of
the fugitives. “You, too,” he said bitterly, “can you do nothing to
help me?” “The King of Poland is behind,” was his reply; “there is
but one thing left for us. Look at the sky, too, and see if God be
not against us;” and he pointed to the bloody moon, which, close
to the horizon, presented a ghastly spectacle to the eyes of the
terror-stricken infidel. And so the tide of flight and of pursuit
swept on: conquered, terrified, and not daring to raise their eyes
from the earth, the Mussulman army no longer existed. The cause of
Europe, of Christendom, and of civilisation, had triumphed; the
floods of the Ottoman power were checked, and rolled backwards, never
to rise again.

An hour only had passed since the fight began; and when it closed,
Sobieski was standing within the vizier’s tent. The charger, with its
golden caparisons, was led to him by a slave, who held its bridle,
before the door of the pavilion. Taking one of its golden stirrups,
the king gave it in charge to a courier to bear to the queen, as a
token of the defeat and flight of its owner.[70] Then his standards
were planted in the camp, and a wild and stormy night closed over the
field of battle.

Meanwhile there had been an action as desperate, and as successful
in its result to the Christian arms, on the breach of Vienna. The
storming party was repulsed by the determined valour of Stahremberg
and his shattered yet heroic followers. And when the Turks gave way,
and Louis of Baden pushed on towards the Scottish Gate, the garrison,
sallying from the walls, and mingling with his dragoons, fell on the
main body of the Janizaries occupying the trenches of the enemy, and
cut them all to pieces.

The king passed the night under a tree; and after fourteen hours
spent in the saddle, his sleep was sound and heavy. The sunrise broke
over a scene of strange and melancholy confusion. The Ottoman camp,
so lately glittering in all its oriental splendour, was now deserted
by its occupants, and bore in every direction the traces of their
ferocious cruelty. As the Poles marched through it, they trod over
the bodies of the Christian captives murdered in cold blood. Every
woman attached to the camp had suffered a similar fate. Nor was this
all; for camels and horses were found slaughtered in great numbers,
lest they should fall alive into the hands of the victors; nay, it
is said, the vizier had beheaded an ostrich with his own scimitar,
that it might never own a Christian for its master. The camp, with
its silken pavilion, and all its riches, was one vast charnel-house.
The horrors of the scene were heightened by the signs of luxury that
every where met the eye. The baths and fountains, the tissues and gay
carpetings, the jewelled arms and ornaments, with which the ground
was strewn, contrasted strangely with the heaps of ghastly corpses
that lay piled around.

But we will pass over the lists of the slain, and the details of a
booty almost fabulous in value, to bring our readers to the walls of
Vienna, where the agony of a long suspense had been exchanged for
the joy of a deliverance at once so sudden and so complete. Sobieski
entered the city through the breach made by the guns of the infidels,
and through which, but for his speedy succour, they would themselves
have passed as victors. As he rode along by the side of Stahremberg,
accompanied by the Duke of Lorraine and the Elector of Saxony, the
streets resounded with the acclamations of the people who crowded
about his horse. They kissed his hand, his feet, his very dress; and
some were heard to exclaim, as they involuntarily compared the hero
who had delivered them with the sovereign who had deserted them, “Why
is he not our master?” It was evident that these demonstrations of
feeling were already exciting the jealousy and displeasure of the
Austrian authorities; and even in his triumphal entrance, the king
was made to taste something of that ingratitude and cold neglect
that was afterwards exhibited in so extraordinary and disgraceful a
manner by Leopold himself. Nevertheless the people were not to be
restrained by the marked discouragement of their civic rulers; they
followed Sobieski in crowds to the church of the Augustines, where,
finding the clergy unprepared, or hesitating, perhaps, to offer the
usual service of thanksgiving, he himself, filled with impatient
enthusiasm, stepped before the high altar, and commenced intoning
the _Te Deum_, which was instantly taken up by his own Poles and the
clergy of the church. The sudden stillness caused by the cessation of
the firing, which had been distinctly heard, not only at Neustadt,
but far over the Styrian Alps, struck terror into the surrounding
population, who thought that the ancient city of the Christian Cæsars
had fallen into the hands of the enemies of the faith. A welcome
sound, therefore, to them was the boom of the three hundred cannons,
the thunder of which accompanied the thanksgiving at the church of
the Augustines. Ashamed of their neglect, the magistrates caused the
ceremony to be repeated with something more of pomp and splendour
in the cathedral of St. Stephen’s; and as the echoes of the chant
rolled through its glorious aisles, Sobieski knelt, as his biographer
relates, “prostrate, with his face upon the ground.” There was a
sermon too; and if the text were a plagiarism from the lips of St.
Pius, on the day of Lepanto, it was at least an appropriate one:
“There was a man sent from God, whose name was John.”

Where was Kollonitsch? for his name has not appeared in the list of
those who are rejoicing in the streets, or preaching in the churches.
You must look for him in the camp, where, unappalled by the terrors
of the scene, he is searching among the bloody corpses for any in
whom life may not yet be quite extinct; and his patient noble charity
has its reward; for, hiding among the tents, or even under the bodies
of their mothers, he has found more than six hundred infants, and
has claimed these children as his own. Nor is this all: many of
the Turkish women and Christian slaves are but half murdered; and
Kollonitsch has ordered carriages from the city to transport them, at
his own expense, to the hospitals. As to the children, his care of
them will end but with his life. “Like another St. Vincent de Paul,”
says Salvandy, “he became the father of them all.”[71] He provided
them with both maintenance and education, and thought himself well
paid for all his sacrifices by having gained them to the Christian
faith. The Pope, however, not so unmindful either of his personal
merits, or of the eminent services he had rendered to religion in the
hour of need, bestowed upon him the highest dignity which it was in
his power to confer, by exalting him to the cardinalate.

Of Aviano we find only an allusion to his joy at the victory, and
that during the whole of that eventful day, as he watched the
conflict from the chapel of the Margrave, he thought he beheld, as
he prayed, a white dove hovering over the Christian host. After the
return of Leopold to Vienna, “disgusted with the intrigues of the
court and the license of the camp,” he refused to retain the office
he held in the imperial family, and returned to Italy.

Sobieski himself soon left the city to return to the camp, and
prepare for the following up of this victory by a march into Hungary.
Indeed, anyhow he was unwilling to remain in Vienna; for, strange to
say, Leopold would not enter his capital until the man who had saved
it from destruction was at a distance from its walls. And what do
our readers suppose was the pretext for so ungracious a proceeding?
A scruple of ceremony; a piece of court-etiquette! _How_ should the
emperor receive him? Were he an hereditary monarch, courtesy would
place him on the imperial right hand; but to one who was but an
elective king, how could so high a dignity be accorded? When the
question, how such a one should be received, was proposed to Charles
of Lorraine, the Duke magnanimously replied: “With open arms, if he
has saved the empire!” But the generosity of this sentiment found
but little response in hearts which a narrow jealousy and pride
had closed to every noble impulse. The simple straightforwardness
of Sobieski at last solved the difficult problem. Finding himself
put off from day to day by clumsily invented excuses, he bluntly
asked one of the imperial courtiers whether the right hand were the
obstacle to the interview so long delayed; and on being answered
as simply in the affirmative, he ingeniously suggested that the
meeting should be one of face to face, each on horseback, the
emperor, accompanied by his suite, and himself, at the head of the
Polish troops. And thus it actually took place, as described in the
king’s own words: “We saluted each other civilly enough. I made
him my compliments in Latin, and in few words. He answered in the
same language, in a studied style. As we stood thus, face to face,
I presented to him my son, who came forward and saluted him. The
emperor did not even put his hand to his hat. I was wholly taken by
surprise. However, to avoid scandal and public remarks, I addressed
a few more words to the emperor, and then turned my horse round.
We again saluted each other, and I returned to my own camp.[72]
The Palatine of Russia, at the emperor’s desire, passed our army
in review before him. But our men have felt greatly affronted, and
have complained loudly that the emperor did not condescend to thank
them, even with a bow, for all they had done and suffered. Since
this parting, a sudden change has come over every thing: they take
not the slightest notice of us; they supply us with neither forage
nor provisions. The Holy Father had sent money for these to the Abbé
Buonvisi, but he has stopped short at Lintz.”

The conclusion of the memorable campaign to which we have adverted
forms no part of our present subject. It is enough for us to
remember, that in spite of every insult offered him; the ingratitude
shown him by the emperor, nay, the cruel insolence which denied
hospitals to his sick and burial to his dead, and which formally
refused all redress when the Poles were robbed of their baggage and
their horses by the followers of Leopold himself; the artillerymen
pillaged of their effects while on guard over the very guns they
had taken from the enemy;—in spite of all this, and of the marked
personal affronts which (as just related) the emperor put upon
his gallant deliverer on the plain of Ebersdorf, Sobieski did not
desert him; or rather, he would not desert the cause of Christendom,
to which his solemn oath, as a Christian king, bound him by an
obligation which he felt to be inviolable. His letters to his queen
abound with the expressions of this loyalty to his plighted word:
“I know there are many,” he says, “who wish me to return to Poland;
but for me, I have devoted my life to the glory of God and His holy
cause, and in that I shall persist. I too cling to life,” he adds; “I
cling to it for the service of Christendom, and of my country, for
you, my children, and my friends; but my honour is yet dearer to me.
Have no fear: we shall reconcile all these things if God give His
help.”

If gratitude and joy were wanting where they seemed most due, Europe
took the burden on itself, and paid the debt of Vienna. The news of
the great event, which fixed the destinies of the West, flew from
country to country, and every where roused the enthusiasm of the
people. Protestant and Catholic states united in decreeing public
thanksgiving to be offered in the churches for the great victory
obtained; and every where it was celebrated with rejoicings at court
and in the houses of the nobility. Even in England, severed as she
was from Catholic unity, the pulpits rang with the triumphs of the
Polish king. At Rome, the feast of thanksgiving lasted an entire
month. When the news of the victory reached the ears of Innocent XI.,
he cast himself at the foot of the crucifix, and melted into tears.
The night saw the magical dome of St. Peter’s blazing with its fiery
illumination; and within that dome, a few days later, the great
banner of the vizier, which had been despatched to the Pontiff in the
first moment of victory, was solemnly suspended side by side with the
captured standards of Choczim.

But it was not to Sobieski’s name alone that the glory and honour of
Her great deliverance was ascribed by the voice of Christendom. _Non
nobis, Domine, non nobis_, had been his battle-cry in the front of
the Turkish lines; and it was taken up and re-echoed by the Church.
Europe, in its gratitude, gave thanks to the interceding love of Her
whose image, on the shattered and crumbling walls of Vienna, had
remained untouched by all the batteries of the infidels; and by order
of Innocent, the Sunday within the octave of our Lady’s Nativity, on
which day the memorable action was fought, was thenceforward kept as
a solemn festival of thanksgiving for this and all the other mercies
bestowed on the Church through her gracious intercession, and has
received the title of the Feast of the Name of Mary.


                               THE END.


                  BURNS AND OATES, PRINTERS, LONDON.




FOOTNOTES:

[1] The reader will not need to be reminded of the striking summary
given by Dr. Newman, in his _Lectures on the Turks_ (pp. 131-133), of
the successive measures, spiritual and otherwise, taken by the Popes,
from the eleventh to the eighteenth century, to rouse Christendom
to a common crusade against the Ottomans, and to mark each victory
obtained over them as a _fait accompli_ in the commemorations of the
Church.

[2] St. John the Baptist, the patron of the Order.

[3] Roger of Wendover, in his _Flowers of History_, relates a similar
instance of admirable courage on the part of the nuns of Coldingham
in Berwickshire, when the country was invaded by the merciless
Danes in the year 870. Assembling all the sisters, the holy abbess
addressed them, and having obtained from them a promise of implicit
obedience to her maternal commands, she “took a razor, and with
it cut off her nose, together with her upper lip unto the teeth,
presenting herself a horrible spectacle to those who stood by. Filled
with admiration at this heroic deed, the whole community followed her
example, and each did the like to themselves. With the morrow’s dawn
came those most cruel tyrants, to disgrace the holy women dedicated
to God, and to pillage and burn the monastery; but on beholding the
abbess and all the sisters so frightfully mutilated and stained with
their own blood from the sole of their foot unto their head, they
retreated in haste from the spot, thinking a moment too long for
tarrying there. But as they were retiring, the leaders ordered their
wicked followers to set fire and burn the monastery, with all its
buildings and its holy inmates. Which being done, the holy abbess and
all the holy virgins with her attained the glory of martyrdom.”

[4] The legend is as follows: “A huge serpent, or crocodile,—for
it is described as an amphibious animal,—had taken up its abode
in a cavern on the brink of a marsh situated at the base of Mount
St. Stephen, about two miles from the city, from whence it sallied
forth frequently in search of prey. Not only cattle, but even men,
became its victims; and the whole island trembled at its voracity.
Knight after knight, ambitious of the renown of slaying such a
monster, stole singly and secretly to its haunt, and never returned.
The creature was covered with scales, which were proof against the
keenest arrows and darts: and at length the grand master held it his
duty to forbid the knights from courting so unequal an encounter.
Deodato de Gozon, a knight of Provence, alone failed to respect this
prohibition, and resolved to deliver the island from the monster,
or perish. Having often reconnoitered the beast from a distance, he
constructed a model of it of wood or pasteboard, and habituated two
young bull-dogs to throw themselves under its belly on a certain cry
being given, while he himself, mounted and clad in armour, assailed
it with his lance. Having perfected his arrangements, he bestrode
his charger, and rode down privately into the marsh, leaving several
confidential attendants stationed in a spot from whence they could
behold the combat. The monster no sooner beheld him approach, than
it ran, with open mouth and eyes darting fire, to devour him. Gozon
charged it with his lance; but the impenetrable scales turned aside
the weapon; and his steed, terrified at the fierce hissing and
abominable effluvium of the creature, became so ungovernable that
he had to dismount and trust to his good sword and his dogs. But
the scales of the monster were as proof against his falchion as his
lance. With a slap of its tail it dashed him to the earth, and was
just opening its voracious jaws to devour him, helmet, hauberk, spurs
and all, when his faithful dogs gripped it tightly with their teeth
in a vulnerable part of the belly. On this the knight quickly sprang
to his feet, and thrust his sword up to the hilt in a place which
had no scales to defend it. The monster, rearing itself in agony,
fell with a tremendous hiss on the knight, and again prostrated him
in the dust; and though it instantly gasped its last, so prodigious
was its size that Gozon would have been squeezed to death, had not
his attendants, seeing the object of their terror deprived of life,
made haste to his assistance. They found their master in a swoon;
but after they had with great difficulty drawn him from under the
serpent, he began to breathe again, and speedily recovered. The fame
of this achievement being bruited in the city, a multitude of people
hurried forth to meet him. He was conducted in triumph to the grand
master’s palace; but that dignitary, heedless of popular acclamation,
sternly demanded wherefore he had violated his orders, and commanded
him to be carried to prison. At a subsequent meeting of the council
he proposed that the culprit should atone for his disobedience with
his life; but this severe sentence was mitigated to a deprivation of
the habit of the order. To this degradation he was forced to submit;
but in a little time the grand master relented, and not only restored
him to his former rank, but loaded him with favours.” Sutherland’s
_Knights of Malta_ vol. i. pp. 275-277.

[5] “In his bull, he bewails the sins of Christendom, which
had brought upon them the scourge which is the occasion of his
invitation. He speaks of the massacres, the tortures and slavery
which had been inflicted on multitudes of the faithful. ‘The mind is
horrified,’ he says, ‘at the very mention of these miseries; but it
crowns our anguish to reflect, that the whole of Christendom, which
if in concord might put an end to these and even greater evils, is
either in open war, country with country, or if in apparent peace,
is secretly wasted by mutual jealousies and animosities.’” Newman’s
_Lectures on the History of the Turks_, pp. 177-8.

[6] The loss of this battle seems mainly attributable to the rash and
arrogant confidence of the French chevaliers. The general conduct of
the crusaders likewise was not such as to warrant any expectation
of God’s blessing on their enterprise. Not only did they, at the
siege of Raco, refuse quarter to such as laid down their arms, but
immediately before the first onset at Nicopolis they massacred a
number of Turkish prisoners who had surrendered under promise that
their lives should be spared. (Creasy’s _History of the Ottoman
Turks_, vol. i. pp. 58-60.) This act of cruelty, however, has been
attributed not to the veteran knights, but to some headstrong and
intemperate men among their juniors who took the matter into their
own hands. Sutherland, vol. i. p. 309.

[7] Commonly called Tamerlane, from Timourlenk, _i. e._ Timour the
Lame,—the name given him by his countrymen on account of the effects
of a wound received in early life. His massacres were of a wholesale
description. At Ispahan he had a tower constructed of 70,000 human
heads; and when Bagdad revolted, he exacted no less than 90,000 for
the same purpose. On his march to Delhi, the future capital of his
empire, he ordered a general slaughter of his prisoners, 100,000 in
number; compelling each of his captains and soldiers to kill his
captives with his own hands, under penalty of being themselves put to
death, and their property and wives given up to the informer. But Von
Hammer relates an instance of his cruelty still more horrible. At the
taking of Sebaste, 4,000 Armenian Christians had capitulated, on the
condition that, though they were to be sent into slavery, their lives
were to be spared. No sooner, however, had they surrendered than the
tyrant, faithless to his oath, ordered them to be buried alive with
circumstances of the most atrocious barbarity. They were thrown ten
together into deep pits with their heads tied between their knees;
planks were then laid across, and earth heaped upon them; and there
they were left, in their living graves, to die a death of slow and
lingering torture.

[8] Here also Timour reared a tower of human heads; but as neither
garrison nor town afforded a sufficient number to raise the structure
to the accustomed height, he was compelled to have a layer of mud
placed between each row of heads.

[9] “Unless the Lord keep the city, he who keepeth it watcheth in
vain.”

[10] Vertot.

[11] The Janizaries (Yeni tscheri, or “new troops”) were composed
entirely of the children of Christians, who had been forced, usually
at a tender age, to adopt Mahometanism. They were torn from their
parents, and trained to renounce the faith in which they were born
and baptised, and to profess the creed of Mahomet. They were then
carefully educated for a soldier’s life; the discipline to which they
were subjected being peculiar, and in some respects severe. They
were taught to pay the most implicit obedience, and to bear without
repining fatigue, pain, and hunger. At first they were made to share
with the peasants the labours of the field, after which they were
drafted into the companies of the Janizaries, but only to commence
a second noviciate. Sometimes they were employed in the menial
duties of the palace; sometimes in the public works, the dockyards,
or the imperial gardens. But liberal honours and prompt promotion
were the sure rewards of docility and courage. Some attained to
the highest dignities in the state; and one of them married the
sister of the sultan. Cut off from all ties of country, kith, and
kin, but with high pay and privileges, with ample opportunities for
military advancement and for the gratification of the violent, the
sensual, and the sordid passions of their animal natures amid the
customary atrocities of successful warfare, this military brotherhood
grew up to be the strongest and fiercest instrument of imperial
ambition which remorseless fanaticism, prompted by the most subtle
state-craft, ever devised upon earth. As the Turkish power extended
itself in Europe, care was taken to recruit the chosen corps from
children who were natives of that continent rather than among the
Asiatics. This terrible body of infantry, so long the scourge of
Christendom and the terror of their own sovereigns, was during three
centuries (the conquering period of the Ottoman power) recruited by
an annual enrolment of 1000 Christian children; so that no less than
300,000 baptised souls were thus made the polluted and sanguinary
ministers and agents of Mahometan crime and dominion. From the year
1648, in the reign of Mahomet IV., the recruits were taken from among
the children of Janizaries and native Turks; and finally the whole
corps, 20,000 in number, was annihilated in our own day by means
of a barbarous massacre. Creasy, vol. i. pp. 20-24, 161. Newman’s
_Lectures_, pp. 137, 267-8.

[12] Gulielmus Caoursinus.

[13] Such is Vertot’s description. Von Hammer’s account differs; but
the subject is involved in some confusion.

[14] Now called _Sunbullu_, _i. e._ “covered with hyacinths.” (Von
Hammer.)

[15] Von Hammer questions this fact, as resting on no authority; but,
however this may be, it is remarkable how many of the ablest leaders
of the Ottoman forces, and of course the most inveterate foes of
the Christian name, were apostates. Their malice seemed insatiable;
and many of the worst atrocities recorded in Turkish warfare were
perpetrated by them. It was at the instigation of three renegades
from the order that Mahomet undertook this very expedition against
Rhodes; and the reader of history will not fail to notice, that in
almost every renewed enterprise against Christendom, an apostate from
the faith was its contriver or its conductor. “If we look,” says
Professor Creasy, “to the period when the Turkish power was at its
height,—the period of the reign of Solyman I. and Selim II.,—we shall
find that out of ten viziers of this epoch eight were renegades. Of
the other high dignitaries of the Porte during the same period, we
shall find that at least twelve of her best generals, and four of her
most renowned admirals, were supplied to her by Christian countries.”

[16] D’Aubusson, in his despatch, omits all personal mention of
himself, and merely says, “We of the relief party ascended from Jew
street,” &c.

[17] Written also Zain or Zizim.

[18] Von Hammer considers this letter apocryphal.

[19] This is Taaffe’s defence of D’Aubusson and of the order against
the charge of “making money” by Djem’s captivity, as is asserted
by Ottoman historians. That prince’s expenditure, he says, was
very great, owing to the state in which he lived, and the constant
coming and going of ambassadors to and from Constantinople and other
courts. The knights also maintained at their own cost Djem’s only son
Amurath, who became a Christian, and his family.

[20] Taaffe gives the letter at length. D’Aubusson’s accusers of
course deny its genuineness.

[21] Subsequently appointed by Solyman grand admiral of the Turkish
fleet.

[22] “Such was the esteem with which the valour of the knights had
inspired the Turks, that they refrained from defacing their armorial
bearings and inscriptions on the buildings. For more than 300 years
the Ottomans have treated the memory of their brave foemen with
the same respect; and the escutcheons of the Knights of St. John,
who fought against Sultan Solyman for Rhodes, still decorate the
long-captured city.” “The street of the knights is uninjured,” writes
Marshal Marmont, “and the door of each house is still ornamented
with the escutcheon of the last inhabitant. The buildings have been
spared, but are unoccupied; and we could almost fancy ourselves
surrounded by the shades of departed heroes. The arms of France, the
noble _fleurs-de-lis_, are seen in all directions. I observed those
of the Clermont Tennerres, and of other ancient and illustrious
families.” (Creasy, vol. i. p. 263.) “The Turks,” says Taaffe,
“never destroyed so much of Rhodes as the French during their first
days at Malta, pulling down all the statues of renowned heroes, and
chiselling out the coats-of-arms every where, even over the palace.”
Vol. iv. p. 217.

[23] Fontanus, cited by Taaffe.

[24] In the end there seem to have been 200,000 Turks, including
pioneers, collected in Rhodes.

[25] Some of these enormous balls are still found from time to time
in front of the walls and within the fortress; proof positive of the
truth of the assertion made by historians. The Turks also used shells
for the first time in this siege. (Von Hammer.)

[26] “Le grand maistre repoussa l’ennemi _en personne_, la toste
baissée, et la pique en main.” (Goussancourt.)

[27] Mustapha was recalled the next year at the earnest
representations of his wife, the sultan’s sister, and restored to the
imperial favour. The end of Achmet was, that, being deprived of his
office of grand vizier and sent to Egypt, he excited the Mamelukes
to revolt, and was defeated and killed. He had even entered into
correspondence with L’Isle Adam, and made proposals for restoring
Rhodes to the order.

[28] Fontanus declares that the sultan gave the grand master his
right hand, and even raised the imperial diadem a little from his
head in saluting him; a ceremony never used by Ottoman sovereigns
even towards Mahometan kings. “It is but justice to say,” adds
Boisgelin, “that his troops, belonging to a nation of all others
most adverse to the arts, would have thought the splendour of their
victory tarnished had they possessed themselves of the arms and
escutcheons of the knights, which (as was mentioned in a previous
note) they permitted to remain uninjured.” The archives and the
relics were also faithfully preserved, and given up to the Knights,
who carried with them at the same time their beloved image of our
Lady of Philermos.

[29] He had hoped to escape from the island in disguise, in the
company of the Knights; but had been detected by the sultan’s spies.

[30] “In adversity our only hope.”

[31] “Les Chevaliers, selon leur ancienne instruction, pansoient et
servoient les malades, mesme le grand maistre: ce qui fit admirer
toute la ville de Messine, et les autres villes où les Chevaliers ont
demeurés.” (Goussancourt.)

[32] Lord Carlisle, in his _Diary in Turkish and Greek Waters_,
speaking of the present relative condition of Rhodes and Malta, says,
“I have qualified myself for adjudging that, in most respects, the
tables are now turned between the two islands; and they certainly
afford a very decisive criterion of the results of Turkish and
Christian dominion.”

[33] A few weeks before their removal, in the spring of 1527, the
Imperialists, who were marching to the sack of Rome under the
Constable Bourbon, spared Viterbo, out of respect, it is said, for
the grand master; although they plundered the neighbouring town, ill
treated the inhabitants, burned down the churches, and committed
excesses rivalling in atrocity those of the Turks themselves.

[34] Some account of these English martyrs may not be here out
of place. The first knight who suffered death in England for the
faith was Adrian Fortescue, beheaded on the 8th of July 1539. After
him followed two others, Ingley and Adrian Forrest, “who,” says
Goussancourt, “being called on to recognise the king as head of the
Church and to approve of his ordinances, chose, rather, courageously
to suffer death than to live in delicacy, having made shipwreck of
the faith. Thus they gave their lives as gloriously at home as they
could ever have done in combat.” Henry offered Sir William Weston,
Lord Prior of England (the priors sat in parliament on an equality
with the first barons of the realm), a pension of 1000_l_. a-year;
but that knight was so overwhelmed with grief at the suppression
of his order that he never received a penny, but soon after died,
and was buried in the chancel of the old church of St. James,
Clerkenwell. Marmaduke Bohun, whom Goussancourt calls “the blessed,”
was beheaded under Queen Elizabeth in 1585. Many others died in
prison, in the same reign, from the horrible sufferings endured in
their confinement; among whom we find the names of Sir Thomas Mytton
and Sir Edward Waldegrave.

[35] “Here lies Virtue victorious over Fortune.”

[36] It was arranged by a secret treaty between Ferdinand and
Zapolya that the latter should retain the crown till his death, when
the whole of the kingdom should revert to Austria, Zapolya’s son
retaining only his hereditary dignity of countship of Zips. But at
Zapolya’s death his widow asserted the rights of her son as king
of Hungary, and called in the sultan to her aid. Solyman turned
the country into a Turkish province, professing all the time to be
merely holding it until the child had attained his majority. War with
Austria continued for many years, until, in 1547, a truce for five
years was concluded, which left the sultan in possession of nearly
the whole of Hungary and Transylvania, and which bound Ferdinand
to the humiliating condition of paying a tribute of 30,000 ducats
a-year. Hostilities were resumed on the very day the armistice
expired.

[37] Von Hammer, as cited in _Two Sieges of Vienna_ (Murray).

[38] Khaireddin, better known in Europe by his surname of Barbarossa,
was a native of Mitylene, and with his brothers practised piracy
in the reigns of Bajazet and Selim, the latter of whom he formally
recognised as his sovereign. He seized the strong city of Algiers,
desolated the coasts of Naples, and captured Tunis. Solyman took him
into his service, and conferred upon him the highest naval dignity,
making him his admiral, or kapitan pasha. In the great battle off
Previsa, September 28th, 1538, he defeated the combined fleets of the
Pope (Paul III.), the emperor, and the republic of Venice.

[39] At the taking of Tunis (July 21st, 1535) the Imperialists and
liberated slaves committed such frightful excesses that Vertot says,
it seemed as if Christians tried to rival and even to surpass the
worst barbarians in cruelty and licentiousness. The details he gives
are of the most revolting description. Tunis was retaken by the
corsair Ouloudj Ali, in 1570, with the exception of the citadel,
which was still held by the Spaniards. Don John of Austria retook it;
but at the end of eighteen months it again fell into the power of the
Turks, in whose possession it has since remained.

[40] European historians (_e. g._ Vertot) have confounded this place
with the town of Africa, or Afrikiya. (Von Hammer.)

[41] Taaffe puts the number at 474 knights and 67 servants-at-arms,
giving Bosio as his authority; but it does not appear that Bosio
considered his list to be complete. His division according to
countries is as follows:

            Knights.   Servants-at-arms.
  Provence     61               15
  Auvergne     25               14
  France       57               24
  Italy       164                5
  England       1                0
  Germany      13                1
  Castile      68                6
  Arragon      85                2
              ---               --
              474               67

Prescott says that “the whole force which La Valette could muster in
defence of the island amounted to about 9000 men. This included 700
knights, of whom about 600 had already arrived. The remainder were
on their way, and joined him at a later period of the siege. Between
3000 and 4000 were Maltese, irregularly trained, but who had already
gained some experience of war in their contests with the Barbary
coasts. The rest of the army, with the exception of 500 galley-slaves
and the personal followers of the knights, was made up of levies from
Spain and Italy.” _History of the Reign of Philip II._, book iv.
chap. 3.

These volumes, which have appeared since the present sketch was
written, contain a detailed and very animated description of this
memorable siege.

[42] This Turkish corsair (commonly called Ochiali) made himself
famous in the succeeding reign. We shall meet with him again in the
battle of Lepanto.

[43] Piali was by birth a Croatian. On the 14th of May 1560 he
had defeated and almost annihilated the combined Christian fleet
commanded by the Genoese Doria, the favourite admiral of Charles V.
The battle took place off the island of Djerbé.

[44] Goussancourt gives the names of thirteen as having been found
still alive by the Turks. One—Lawrence de Bonlieu—before being
fastened to the cross, was first _flayed_!

[45] Prescott says that the number of Christians who fell amounted to
about 1500, of whom 123 were members of the order. The loss of the
infidels he estimates at 8000.

[46] Von Hammer says that both Turks and Christians declared that at
the last assault they suddenly beheld upon the ramparts a lady and
two men whom they had never seen before; that the Christians devoutly
believed that it was the Blessed Virgin herself, accompanied by St.
Paul and St. John Baptist, the patron of the order, and were animated
in consequence to perform prodigies of valour; while the infidels, on
the other hand, were seized with consternation.

[47] The last knight who fell was Giovanni Malespina, and his death
happened under curious circumstances. He was standing at the bastion
of Castile, from whence he watched the embarkation of the Turks, and,
full of joy and thankfulness, sang aloud the _Te Deum_. Whilst doing
so, a chance shot struck him to the ground, but without interrupting
his devotions; and he expired as he pronounced the words, “_In te,
Domine, speravi_.”

[48] Taaffe. It was, however, the custom at that time to give every
city an _epithet_ as well as a name. That chosen by the grand master
was intended to express the modesty of an order whose only pride was
to be in the Cross of Christ: it was “_Humilissima_.”

[49] At the dispersion of the Knights, upon the occupation of Malta
by the French, some took refuge in Russia; where, in the year 1801,
a council met to deliberate on the election of a grand master. It
was resolved that, as the elements of a general chapter could not
be assembled at St. Petersburg, the different grand priors should
be invited to convene their chapters for the purpose of forming
lists of such knights as were worthy of succeeding to the sovereign
dignity. These lists the council proposed afterwards to submit to
the Pope, for him to choose a grand master out of them. Accordingly
(Feb. 9, 1805) his Holiness Pius VII. nominated Tommasi, an Italian
knight, grand master. In 1814 the French knights taking heart at the
humiliation of their arch-enemy Napoleon, assembled at Paris in a
general chapter, under the presidency of the prince Camille de Rohan,
grand prior of Aquitaine, for the election of a permanent capitulary
commission. Under the direction of this commission a formal but
fruitless application was made to the congress of Vienna for a grant
of some sovereign independency, in lieu of that of which the order
had been so wrongfully despoiled. In 1823, when the Greek cause began
to wear a prosperous aspect, the same chapter entered into a treaty
with the Greeks for the cession of Sapienza and Cabressa, two islets
on the western shore of the Morea, as a preliminary step to the
re-conquest of Rhodes; to facilitate which arrangement an endeavour
was made to raise a loan of 640,000_l._ in England, but the attempt
failed. The council of the order is now established at Rome, and
presided over by the Venerable Balio di Colloredo, lieutenant of the
grand-mastership. A novitiate and hospital of the order are about
to be erected at Jerusalem, under the sanction of the Holy See. His
Holiness Pius IX. has approved a plan for the extension of the order,
and for a more strict observance of its rule. The English _langue_,
or language of the order, no longer exists, though there are several
English knights. The crowns of Spain, Russia, and Prussia give the
cross of St. John as a decoration; but those knights are not members
of the order, which is sovereign, and not subject to any temporal
prince, and is accordingly styled the Sovereign, Military, and
Religious Order of St. John of Jerusalem. The eight-cornered cross
represents the eight beatitudes; and it is not a mere decoration, but
the badge of a Catholic religious order.

[50] Known in history as “Selim the Sot.” It is said he was
instigated to the conquest of the island by a Jew, his boon
companion, who represented to him how easily he could make himself
master of the soil on which grew the grapes which produced his
favourite wine.

[51] For a short but spirited account of this heroic defence and its
fatal catastrophe the reader is referred to _The Four Martyrs_, by M.
Rio.

[52] On one of the last days of the siege he was struck by a ball and
killed, while praying in the garden of his palace.

[53] “Lord, into Thy hands I commend my spirit.”

[54] “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.”

[55] It was afterwards stolen by a Christian slave and taken to
Venice, where it was deposited in an urn in the church of St. John
and St. Paul; the martyr’s bones were also carefully collected, and
buried in the church of St. Gregory.

[56] Dr. Newman thus describes the effects of Turkish domination:
“As to Cyprus, from holding a million of inhabitants, it now has
only 30,000. Its climate was that of a perpetual spring, now it is
unwholesome and unpleasant; its cities and towns nearly touched each
other, now they are simply ruins. Corn, wine, oil, sugar, and the
metals are among its productions; the soil is still exceedingly rich;
but now, according to Dr. Clarke, ‘in that paradise of the Levant,
agriculture is neglected, the inhabitants are oppressed, population
is destroyed.’” _The Turks_, p. 149.

[57] Nephew of the great admiral of the emperor Charles V.

[58] In 1587, when the armada was in preparation, Queen Elizabeth
tried to draw Sultan Amurath III. into an alliance with her against
Philip and the Pope. Von Hammer gives the letters written on the
occasion. With characteristic astuteness she appealed to the
religious sympathies of the Turk, making common cause with him as
the “destroyer of idolatry,” and declaring that together they could
“strike down the proud Spaniard and the lying Pope with all their
adherents.” Such were the representations made by the English envoy
as to the religious belief of his queen and nation, that one of the
Turkish ministers remarked to the Austrian ambassador, that “nothing
more was wanted to turn the English into good Mussulmans than that
they should lift a finger and recite the Eshdad” (or creed of
Mahomet).

[59] Von Hammer makes the Turkish fleet consist of 240 galleys and
60 vessels of smaller size, just 300 in all. His account of the
Christian fleet is as follows: 70 Spanish galleys, 6 Maltese, 3
Savoy, 12 Papal, 108 Venetian; in all 199 galleys, to which he adds
6 huge galeasses contributed by Venice; making the sum-total 205
vessels.

[60] Vertot. Von Hammer, as has been said, mentions six.

[61] Von Hammer says that Ouloudj Ali struck off Giustiniani’s head
with his own hand. Contarini, on the contrary, writes that he was “so
badly wounded that he was all but killed.”

[62] _All_ the members of the order did not live in community; some
were scattered about, and were liable to be called in, in case of
emergencies—_e. g._ we find several Knights of St. John among the
early governors and settlers of Canada.

[63] “A trifling price to pay (he says in the Preface to the second
part of _Don Quixote_) for the honour of partaking in the first great
action in which the naval supremacy of the Ottoman was successfully
disputed by Christian arms.”

[64] Von Hammer says fifteen; and that the Turks lost 224 vessels, of
which 94 were burnt or shattered on the coast; the rest were divided
among the allies. But this calculation leaves 36 vessels unaccounted
for, after reckoning the 40 which Ouloudj Ali succeeded in saving.
The number of prisoners he estimates at 3468.

[65] Sutherland, vol. ii. p. 244.

[66] Cervantes calls it “that day so fortunate to Christendom, when
all nations were undeceived of their error in believing the Turks to
be invincible at sea.” _Don Quixote._

[67] It was calculated by contemporary writers of credit that, in
this very expedition, the Turks carried off into slavery from Austria
6000 men, 11,000 women, 19,000 girls—of whom 200 were of noble
extraction—and 56,000 children.

[68] Two Sieges of Vienna, pp. 95-98.

[69] Kolschitzki was rewarded for his extraordinary services during
the siege by a permission to set up the first coffee-house in Vienna;
and “to this day,” says the authority from whom we have taken the
above, “the head of the corporation of coffee-providers is bound to
have in his house a portrait of this patriarch of his profession.”
It was in consequence of the enormous stores of coffee found in the
abandoned camp of the Turks, after the raising of the siege, that it
became from that day the favourite drink of the Viennese.

[70] The fate of Kara Mustapha, the leader of the Ottoman forces,
although one of common occurrence in the history of oriental
despotism, has enough of singularity in it to demand a notice.
When tidings first reached the sultan that all was not advancing
as prosperously before the walls of Vienna as his proud confidence
had decreed, his fury was such, that he was hardly restrained from
ordering a general massacre of all the Christians in his dominions;
but to this succeeded a fit of sullen gloom, from which he was
not roused even by the news of the vizier’s defeat and flight. He
seemed, however, to accept the interpretation which the commander’s
despatches put upon his conduct, sent him the usual marks of honour,
and, to all appearance, regarded him with his wonted favour. But his
rage did not so much slumber as coil and gather itself up, to spring
with the more fatal suddenness on its prey. After the unsuccessful
issue of the Hungarian campaign, with the silence and celerity which
not inaptly represent the dread resistless force of that fate to
which the haughtiest follower of the false prophet bows without a
murmur, an officer of the court is sent to fetch the vizier’s head.
The affair is conducted with all due solemnity; not a point of
ceremonious etiquette is omitted. The messengers reverently announce
their mission, and present their credentials, which are as formally
acknowledged. The carpet is spread; the vizier gravely says his
prayers; then yields with calm dignity his neck to the bowstring;
and in a few moments the commander of 200,000 men lies a hideous
trunk on the floor of his pavilion. His head is taken to Adrianople,
and thence is sent by the sultan to Belgrade, to be deposited in a
mosque; but its fortunes ended not there. Ere long the latter place
is captured (1688) by the Christians; the mosque once more becomes a
Christian Church, and is given to the Jesuit fathers: and the unholy
relic is despatched by them to the good bishop Kollonitsch. Strange
reversal of the vow which the proud infidel had made, when he swore
that he would send the head of the brave prelate on a lance’s point
to the sultan his master, for daring to stay even the ravages of the
plague, that was playing the part of an ally to the besieging Moslem!
The skull of the vizier was presented by the bishop to the arsenal of
Vienna, where, for aught we know, it still remains.

[71] Kollonitsch, who, at the siege of Crete, had so valorously
defended the Christian faith, at that of Vienna showed himself the
benefactor of mankind, a second Vincent de Paul. _Von Hammer._

[72] The king, it has been observed, does not mention in this letter
the reply he made to the emperor’s cold and formal thanks: “I am
glad, sire, to have done you this little service.”




  TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE

  The page numbering has two gaps; page numbers 196 and 197 are
  absent; and page numbers 236, 237 and 238 are absent. No text is
  missing, but those page numbers have been skipped by the printer.

  Obvious typographical errors and punctuation errors have been
  corrected after careful comparison with other occurrences within
  the text and consultation of external sources.

  Some hyphens in words have been silently removed, some added,
  when a predominant preference was found in the original book.

  Except for those changes noted below, all misspellings in the
  text, and inconsistent or archaic usage, have been retained.

  Pg 14: ‘and deefnded by’ replaced by ‘and defended by’.
  Pg 14: ‘orders o  the sultan’ replaced by ‘orders of the sultan’.
  Pg 28: ‘neighbouring inslands’ replaced by ‘neighbouring islands’.
  Pg 61: ‘the beseigers made’ replaced by ‘the besiegers made’.
  Pg 76: ‘wide deep  tch’ replaced by ‘wide deep ditch’.
  Pg 76: ‘could  e made’ replaced by ‘could be made’.
  Pg 76: ‘unwelcome visito into’ replaced by ‘unwelcome visitors into’.
  Pg 77: ‘an: the knights’ replaced by ‘and the knights’.
  Pg 83: ‘Geneose nobles’ replaced by ‘Genoese nobles’.
  Pg 83: ‘flight o  steps’ replaced by ‘flight of steps’.
  Pg 83: ‘cimeter in hand’ replaced by ‘scimitar in hand’.
  Pg 83: ‘severe his head’ replaced by ‘severed his head’.
  Pg 96: ‘his successo was’ replaced by ‘his successor was’.
  Pg 130: ‘and most magnificient’ replaced by ‘and most magnificent’.
  Pg 192: ‘was laid a the’ replaced by ‘was laid at the’.
  Pg 214: ‘various squadrous’ replaced by ‘various squadrons’.
  Pg 227: ‘unabated co rage’ replaced by ‘unabated courage’.
  Pg 227: ‘a third cha ge’ replaced by ‘a third charge’.
  Pg 231: ‘witnessed heir’ replaced by ‘witnessed their’.
  Pg 246: ‘on the threshhold’ replaced by ‘on the threshold’.
  Pg 257: ‘Turkish scymitar is’ replaced by ‘Turkish scimitar is’.
  Pg 277: ‘his own scymetar’ replaced by ‘his own scimitar’.

  Footnote 6: ‘seige of Raco’ replaced by ‘siege of Raco’.
  Footnote 15: ‘of  er best’ replaced by ‘of her best’.
  Footnote 15: ‘were  pplied to’ replaced by ‘were supplied to’.
  Footnote 47: ‘thankfulness, [unclear]’ replaced by
               ‘thankfulness, sang’.



*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 74632 ***