CHAP. braved our threats; you despised our friendship; you forced LXV. us to enter your kingdom with our invincible armies. Behold the event. Had you vanquished, I am not ignorant of the fate which you reserved for myself and my troops. But I disdain to retaliate your life and honour are secure; and I shall express my gratitude to God by my clemency to man." The royal captive showed some signs of repentance, accepted the humiliation of a robe of honour, and embraced with tears his son Mousa, who, at his request, was sought and found among the captives of the field. The Ottoman princes were lodged in a splendid pavilion; and the respect of the guards could be surpassed only by their vigilance. On the arrival of the haram from Boursa, Timour restored the queen Despina and her daughter to their father and husband; but he piously required, that the Servian princes, who had hitherto been indulged in the profession of Christianity, should embrace, without delay, the religion of the prophet. In the feast of victory, to which Bajazet was invited, the Mogul emperor placed a crown on his head and a sceptre in his hand, with a solemn assurance of restoring him with an increase of glory to the throne of his ancestors. But the effect of this promise was disappointed by the sultan's untimely death: amidst the care of the most skilful physicians, he expired of an apoplexy at Akshehr, the Antioch of Pisidia, about nine months after his defeat. The victor dropped a tear over his grave; his body, with royal pomp, was conveyed to the mausoleum which he had erected at Boursa; and his son Mousa, after receiving a rich present of gold and jewels, of horses and arms, was invested by a patent in red ink with the kingdom of Anatolia. Such is the portrait of a generous conqueror, which has been extracted from his own memorials, and dedicated to his son and grandson, nineteen years after his decease;47 and, at a time when the truth was remembered by thousands, a manifest falsehood would have implied a satire on his real conduct. Weighty indeed is this evidence, adopted by all the Persian histories; yet flattery, more especially in the East, is base and audacious; and the harsh and ignominious treatment of Bajazet is attested by a chain of witnesses, some of whom shall be produced in the order of their time and country. 1. 1. by the The reader has not forgot the garrison of French, whom the marshal Boucicault left behind him for the defence of Constantinople. They were on the spot to receive the earliest and aftested, French; 47 See the history of Sherefeddin, (1. v. c. 49. 52, 53. 59, 60.) This work was finished at Shiraz, in the year 1424, and dedicated to sultan Ibrahim, the son of Sharokh, the son of Timour, who reigned in Farsistan in his father's lifetime. 48 After the perusal of Khondemir, Ebn Schounah, &c. the learned d'Herbelot (Bibliot. Orientale, p. 882,) may affirm, that this fable is not mentioned in the most authentic histories: but his denial of the visible testimony of Arabshah icaves some room to suspect his accuracy. most faithful intelligence of the overthrow of their great ad- CHAP. versary; and it is more than probable, that some of them ac- LXV. companied the Greek embassy to the camp of Tamerlane. From their account, the hardships of the prison and death of Bajazet are affirmed by the marshal's servant and historian, within the distance of seven years. 49 2. The name of Poggius 2. by the the Italian, is deservedly famous among the revivers of learn- Italians ; ing in the fifteenth century. His elegant dialogue on the vicissitudes of fortune was composed in his fiftieth year, twenty-eight years after the Turkish victory of Tamerlane; whom he celebrates as not inferior to the illustrious barbarians of antiquity. Of his exploits and discipline Poggius was informed by several ocular witnesses; nor does he forget an example so apposite to his theme as the Ottoman monarch, whom the Scythian confined like a wild beast in an iron cage, and exhibited a spectacle to Asia. I might add the authority of two Italian chronicles, parhaps of an earlier date, which would prove at least that the same story, whether false or true, was imported into Europe with the first tidings of the revolution.53 3. At the time when Poggius flourished at Rome, Ahmed Ebn 3. by the Arabshah composed at Damascus the florid and malevolent his- Arabs; tory of Timour, for which he had collected materials in his journeys over Turkey and Tartary.54 Without any possible correspondence between the Latin and the Arabian writer, they agree in the fact of the iron cage; and their agreement is a striking proof of their common veracity. Ahmed Arabshah likewise relates another outrage, which Bajazet endured, of a more domestic and tender nature. His indiscreet mention of women and divorces was deeply resented by the jealous Tartar in the feast of victory, the wine was served by female 49 Et fut lui même (Bajazet) pris, et mené en prison, en laquelle mourut de dure mort! Memoires de Boucicault, P. i. c. 37. These memoirs were composed while the marshal was still governor of Genoa, from whence he was expelled in the year 1409, by a popular insurrection (Muratori, Annali d'Italia, tom. xii. p. 473, 474.) 50 The reader will find a satisfactory account of the life and writings of Poggius, in the Poggiana, an entertaining work of M. Lenfant, and in the Bibliotheca Latina media et infimæ Ætatis of Fabricius (tom. v. p. 305--308.) Poggius was born in the year 1380, and died in 1459. 51 The dialogue de Varietate Fortunæ (of which a complete and elegant edition has been published at Paris in 1723, in 4to.) was composed a short time before the death of Pope Martin V. (p. 5,) and consequently about the end of the year 1430. 52 See a splendid and eloquent encomium of Tamerlane, p. 36-39, ipse enim novi (says Poggius) qui fuere in ejus castris.... Regem vivum cepit, caveâque in modum feræ inclusum per omnem Asiam circumtulit egregrium admirandumque spectaculum fortunæ. 53 The Chronicon Tarvisianum (in Muratori, Script. Rerum Italicarum, tom. xix. p. 800,) and the Annales Estenses (tom. xviii. p. 974.) The two authors, Andrea de Redusiis de Quero, and James de Delayto, were both contemporaries, and both chancellors, the one of Trevigi, the other of Ferrara. The evidence of the former is the most positive. 54 See Arabshah, tom. ii. c. 28. 34. He travelled in regiones Rumæas, A. H. 839 (A. D. 1435, July 27,) tom. ii. c. 2, p. 13. 19 VOL. VI. CHAP. cupbearers, and the sultan beheld his own concubines and LXV. wives confounded among the slaves, and exposed without a veil 4. by the Greeks; 5. by the Turke. Probable conclusion. to the eyes of intemperance. To escape a similar indignity, it is said, that his successors, except in a single instance, have abstained from legitimate nuptials; and the Ottoman practice and belief, at least in the sixteenth century, is attested by the observing Busbequius,55 ambassador from the court of Vienna to the great Soliman. 4. Such is the separation of language, that the testimony of a Greek is not less independent than that of a Latin or an Arab. I suppress the names of Chalcondyles and Ducas, who flourished in a later period, and who speak in a less positive tone; but more attention is due to George Phranza,56 protovestiare of the last emperors, and who was born a year before the battle of Angora. Twenty-two years after that event, he was sent ambassador to Amurath the Second; and the historian might converse with some veteran Janizaries, who had been made prisoners with the sultan, and had themselves seen him in his iron cage. 5. The last evidence, in every sense, is that of the Turkish annals, which have been consulted or transcribed by Leunclavius, Pocock, and Cantemir.57 They unanimously deplore the captivity of the iron cage; and some credit may be allowed to national historians, who cannot stigmatize the Tartar without uncovering the shame of their king and country. From these opposite premises, a fair and moderate conclusion may be deduced. I am satisfied that Sherefeddin Ali has faithfully described the first ostentatious interview, in which the conqueror, whose spirits were harmonized by success, affected the character of generosity. But his mind was insensibly alienated by the unseasonable arrogance of Bajazet; the complaints of his enemies, the Anatolian princes, were just and vehement; and Timour betrayed a design of leading his royal captive in triumph to Samarcand. An attempt to facilitate his escape, by digging a mine under the tent, provoked the Mogul emperor to impose a harsher restraint; and in his perpetual marches, an iron cage on a wagon might be invented, not as a wanton insult, but as a rigorous precaution. Timour had read in some fabulous history a similar treatment of one of his predecessors, a king of Persia; and Bajazet was condemned to represent the person, and expiate the guilt, 55 Busbequius in Legatione Turcicâ, epist. i. p. 52. Yet his respectable authority is somewhat shaken by the subsequent marriages of Amurath II. with a Servian, and of Mahomet II. with an Asiatic, princess (Cantemir, p. 83. 93.) 56 See the testimony of George Phranza (1. i. c. 29,) and his life in Hanckius de Script. Byzant. P. i. c. 40.) Chalcondyles and Ducas speak in general terms of Bajazet's chains. 57 Annales Leunclav. p. 321. Pocock, Prolegomen. ad Abulpharag. Dynast. Cantemir, p. 55. Death of A. D. 1403, of the Roman Cesar.58 But the strength of his mind and CHAP. body fainted under the trial, and his premature death might, LXV. without injustice, be ascribed to the severity of Timour. He warred not with the dead; a tear and a sepulchre were all that Bajazet, he could bestow on a captive who was delivered from his power; and if Mousa, the son of Bajazet, was permitted to reign over the ruins of Boursa, the greatest part of the province of Anatolia had been restored by the conqueror to their lawful Sovereigns. 59 March 9. of Timour, From the Irtish and Volga to the Persian Gulf, and from the Term of the Ganges to Damascus and the Archipelago, Asia was in the hands conquests of Timour; his armies were invincible, his ambition was A. D. 1403. boundless, and his zeal might aspire to conquer and conver the Christian kingdoms of the West, which already trembled at his name. He touched the utmost verge of the land; but an insuperable, though narrow, sea rolled between the two continents of Europe and Asia; and the lord of so many tomans, or myriads of horse, was not master of a single galley. The two passages of the Bosphorus and Hellespont, of Constantinople and Gallipoli were possessed, the one by the Christians, the other by the Turks. On this great occasion, they forgot the difference of religion to act with union and firmness in the common cause the double straits were guarded with ships and fortifications; and they separately withheld the transports, which Timour demanded of either nation, under the pretence of attacking their enemy. At the same time they soothed his pride with tributary gifts and suppliant embassies, and prudently tempted him to retreat with the honours of victory. Soliman, the son of Bajazet, implored his clemency for his father and himself; accepted by a red patent, the investiture of the kingdom of Romania, which he already held by the sword; and reiterated his ardent wish, of casting himself in person at the feet of the king of the world. The Greek emperor (either John or Manuel) submitted to pay the same tribute which he had stipulated with the Turkish sultan, and ratified the treaty by an oath of allegiance, from which he could absolve his conscience, as soon as the Mogul arms had 58 A Sapor, king of Persia, had been made prisoner and enclosed in the figure of a cow's hide by Maximian or Galerius Cesar. Such is the fable related by Eutychius (Annal. tom. i. p. 421, vers. Pocock.) The recollection of the true history (Decline and Fall, &c. vol. i. p. 331-338,) will teach us to appreciate the knowledge of the Orientals of the ages which precede the Hegira. 5 Arabshah (tom. ii. c. 25,) describes, like a curious traveller, the straits of Gallipoli and Constantinople. To acquire a just idea of these events, I have compared the narratives and prejudices of the Moguls, Turks, Greeks, and Arabians. The Spanish ambassador mentions this hostile union of the Christians and Ottomans (Vie de Timour, p. 96.) 60 Since the name of Cesar had been transferred to the sultans of Roum, the Greek princes of Constantinople (Sherefeddin, 1. v. c. 54,) were confounded with the Christian lords of Gallipoli, Thessalonica, &c. under the title of Tekkur, which is derived by corruption from the genitive T8 Kupie (Cantemir, p. 51.) 61 CHAP. retired from Anatoli. But the fear and fancy of nations LXV. ascribed to the ambitious Tamerlane a new design of vast and romantic compass; a design of subduing Egypt and Africa, marching from the Nile to the Atlantic Ocean, entering Europe by the Straits of Gibraltar, and, after imposing his yoke on the kingdoms of Christendom, of returning home by the deserts of Russia and Tartary. This remote, and perhaps imaginary. danger was averted by the submission of the sultan of Egypt: the honours of the prayer and the coin, attested at Cairo the supremacy of Timour; and a rare gift of a giraffe, or camelopard, and nine ostriches, represented at Samarcand the tribute of the African world. Our imagination is not less astonished by the portrait of a Mogul, who, in his camp before Smyrna, meditates and almost accomplishes the invasion of the Chinese empire. Timour was urged to this enterprise by national honour and religious zeal. The torrents which he had shed of Mussulman blood could be expiated only by an equal destruction of the infidels; and as he now stood at the gates of paradise, he might best secure his glorious entrance by demolishing the idols of China, founding mosques in every city, and establishing the profession of faith in one God, and his prophet Mahomet. The recent expulsion of the house of Zingis was an insult on the Mogul name; and the disorders of the empire afforded the fairest opportunity for revenge. The illustrious Hongvou, founder of the dynasty of Mag, died four years before the battle of Angora; and his grandson, a weak and unfortunate youth, was burnt in his palace, after a million of Chinese had perished in the civil war.62 Before he evacuated Anatolia, Timour despatched beyond the Sihoon, a numerous army, or rather colony, of his old and new subjects, to open the road, to subdue the pagan Calmucks and Mungals, and to found cities and Magazines in the desert; and by the diligence of his lieutenant, he soon received a perfect map and description of the unknown regions, from the source of the Irtish to the wall of China. During these preparations, the emperor achieved the final conquest of Georgia; passed the winter on the banks of the Araxes; appeased the troubles of Persia ; and slowly returned to his capital, after a campaign of four years and nine months. His triumph at Samarcand, On the throne of Samarcand,63 he displayed in a short repose his magnificence and power; listened to the complaints AD. 1404, of the people; distributed a just measure of rewards and punish July- January 8, 61 See Sherefeddin, l. v. c. 4, who marks, in a just itinerary, the road to China, which Arabshah (tom. ii. c. 33,) paints in vague and rhetorical colours. 62 Synopsis Hist. Sinicæ, p. 74-76 (in the ivth part of the Relations de Thevenot,) Duhalde, Hist. de la Chine (tom. i. p. 507, 508, folio edition :) and for the chronology of the Chinese emperors, de Guignes, Hist. des Huns, tom. i. p. 71, 72. 63 For the return, triumph, and death of Timour, see Sherefeddin (1. vi. c. 1 --+30) and Arabshah (tom. ii. c. 35-47.) |