history of Sherefeddin Ali, which has been given to our curiosity in a French version, and from which I shall collect and abridge a more specious narrative of this memorable transaction. disap- No sooner was Timour informed 54 that the captive Ottoman the Persian was at the door of his tent, than he graciously stepped forwards of Timour: to receive him, seated him by his side, and mingled with just proved by historian [δέσποινα = queen] reproaches a soothing pity for his rank and misfortune. "Alas!" said the emperor, "the decree of fate is now accomplished by your own fault it is the web which you have woven, the thorns of the tree which yourself have planted. I wished to spare, and even to assist, the champion of the Moslems; you braved our threats; you despised our friendship; you forced 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 shewed 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 harem from Boursa, Timour restored the queen Despina and her daughter to their father and husband; but he piously required that the Servian princess, 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 cage, was provided for Bayezid. Such litters were the kind of vehicle regularly used for conveying a prince's harem.] 54 [According to Ducas, Timur was playing chess at the moment of Bayezid's arrival (p. 37).] 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; 55 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; 56 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. The reader has not forgot the garrison of French, whom the attested, 1. marshal Boucicault left behind him for the defence of Con- French stantinople. They were on the spot to receive the earliest and most faithful intelligence of the overthrow of their great adversary; and it is more than probable that some of them accompanied 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." 57 2. The name of Poggius 2. by the the Italian 58 is deservedly famous among the revivers of learning in the fifteenth century. His elegant dialogue on the vicissitudes of fortune 59 was composed in his fiftieth year, 55 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. 56 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 leaves some room to suspect his accuracy. 57 Et fut lui-même (Bajazet) pris, et mené en prison, en laquelle mourut de dure mort! Mémoires 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). [On Boucicaut's Memoirs and Life see Delaville Le Roulx, La France en Orient au 14me siècle. Expéditions du Maréchal Boucicaut, 2 vols., 1886.] 58 The reader will find a satisfactory account of the life and writings of Poggius in the Poggiana, an entertaining work of M. Lenfant [A.D. 1720], and in the Bibliotheca Latina media et infimæ Etatis of Fabricius (tom. v. p. 305-308). Poggius was born in the year 1380, and died in 1459. 59 The dialogue de Varietate Fortuna (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. VOL. VII.-5 by the Italians 3. by the Arabs 4. by the Greeks 60 twenty-eight years after the Turkish victory of Tamerlane, a similar indignity, it is said that his successors, except in a 63 6o See a splendid and elegant encomium of Tamerlane, p. 36-39, ipse enim novi (says Poggius) qui fuere in ejus castris. Regem vivum cepit, caveâque in modum fere inclusum per omnem Asiam circumtulit egregium admirandumque spectaculum fortunæ. 61 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. 62 See Arabshah, tom. ii. c. 28, 34. He travelled in regiones Rumæas, A.H.. 839 (A.D. 1435, 27th July), tom. ii. c. 2, p. 13. 63 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). 64 pendent 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, protovestiare of the last emperors, and who was born a year before the battle of Angora. Twentytwo 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 5. by the last evidence, in every sense, is that of the Turkish annals, which have been consulted or transcribed by Leunclavius, Pocock, and Cantemir.65 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. Turks conclusion From these opposite premises, a fair and moderate con- Probable clusion 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 waggon 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, of Death of the Roman Cæsar.66 But the strength of his mind and body A.D. 1403, fainted under the trial, and his premature death might, with 64 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. 65 Annales Leunclav. p. 321; Pocock, Prolegomen. ad Abulpharag. Dynast.; Cantemir, p. 55. [See above, note 53.] 66 A Sapor, king of Persia, had been made prisoner, and inclosed in the figure of a cow's hide, by Maximian, or Galerius Cæsar. 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. 400 sq.) will teach us to appreciate the knowledge of the Orientals of the ages which precede the Hegira. Bajazet, 9th March Term of the conTimour, A.D. 1403 out injustice, be ascribed to the severity of Timour. He warred not with the dead; a tear and a sepulchre were all that 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. From the Irtish and Volga to the Persian Gulf, and from the Ganges to Damascus and the Archipelago, Asia was in the hand of Timour; his armies were invincible, his ambition was boundless, and his zeal might aspire to conquer and convert 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; 67 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 68 (either John or Manuel) submitted to pay the same tribute which he had stipulated with the Turkish sultan, and 67 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). 68 Since the name of Cæsar had been transferred to the sultans of Roum, the Greek princes of Constantinople (Sherefeddin, l. 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 тoû κuplov (Cantemir, p. 51). |