VI. 1541. of paying tribute to the Ottoman Porte, by which John BOOKhad held it, saw such prospects of advantage from espou-. sing the interest of the young king, that he instantly promised him his protection; and commanding one army to advance forthwith towards Hungary, he himself followed with another. Meanwhile, the Germans, hoping to terminate the war by the reduction of a city in which the king and his mother were shut up, had formed the siege of Buda. Martinuzzi, having drawn thither the strength of the Hungarian nobility, defended the town with such courage and skill, as allowed the Turkish forces time to come up to its relief. They instantly attacked the Germans, weakened by fatigue, disease, and desertion, and defeated them with great slaughter". conduct. Solyman soon after joined his victorious troops, and Solyman's being weary of so many expensive expeditions, under- ungenerous taken in defence of dominions which were not his own, or being unable to resist this alluring opportunity of seizing a kingdom while possessed by an infant, under the guardianship of a woman and a priest, he allowed interested considerations to triumph, with too much facility, over the principles of honour and the sentiments of humanity. What he planned ungenerously, he executed by fraud. Having prevailed on the queen to send her son, whom he pretended to be desirous of seeing, into his camp, and having, at the same time, invited the chief of the nobility to an entertainment there, while they suspecting no treachery, gave themselves up to the mirth and jollity of the feast, a select band of troops, by the sultan's orders, seized one of the gates of Buda. Being thus master of the capital, of the king's person, and of the leading men among the nobles, he gave orders to conduct the queen, together with her son, to Transylvania, which province he allotted to them, and appointing a basha to preside in Buda, with a large body of soldiers, annexed Hungary to the Ottoman empire. The tears and complaints of the unhappy queen had no influence to Istuanhaffi Hist. Hung. lib. xiv, p. 150. VI. BOOK change his purpose, nor could Martinuzzi either resist his absolute and uncontroulable command, or prevail on him to recal it o. 1541. Ferdi nand's Overtures Before the account of this violent usurpation reached Ferdinand, he was so unlucky as to have dispatched other to Solyman. ambassadors to Solyman, with a fresh representation of his right to the crown of Hungary, as well as a renewal of his former overture to hold the kingdom of the Ottoman Porte, and to pay for it an annual tribute. This ill-timed proposal was rejected with scorn. The sultan, elated with success, and thinking that he might prescribe what terms he pleased to a prince who voluntarily proffered conditions so unbecoming his own dignity, declared that he would not suspend the operations of war, unless Ferdinand instantly evacuated all the towns which he still held in Hungary, and consented to the imposition of a tribute upon Austria, in order to reimburse the sums which his presumptuous invasion of Hungary had obliged the Ottoman Porte to expend in defence of that kingdom P. *Emperor In this state were the affairs of Hungary. As the unfortunate events there had either happened before the dissolution of the diet at Ratisbon, or were dreaded at that time, Charles saw the danger of irritating and inflaming the minds of the Germans, while a formidable enemy was ready to break into the empire; and perceived that he could not expect any vigorous assistance, either towards the recovery of Hungary, or the defence of the Austrian frontier, unless he courted and satisfied the protestants. By the concessions which have been mentioned, he gained this point; and such liberal supplies, both of men and money, were voted for carrying on the war against the Turks, as left him under little anxiety about the security of Germany during next campaign 1. Immediately upon the conclusion of the diet, the emvisits Italy. peror set out for Italy. As he passed through Lucca, he • Istuanhaffii Hist. Hung. lib. xiv, p. 56 Jovii Hist. lib. xxxix, p. 2476, &c. 4 Sleid, 283. Istuanhaffii, Hist. Hung. lib. xiv, p. 158. VI. 154. had a short interview with the pope; but nothing could BOOK be concluded concerning the proper method of composing the religious disputes in Germany, between two princes whose views and interests, with regard to that matter, were at that juncture so opposite. The pope's endeavours to remove the causes of discord between Charles and Francis, and to extinguish those mutual animosities which threatened to break out suddenly into open hostility, were not more successful. dition The emperor's thoughts were bent so entirely at that His expetime on the great enterprise which he had concerted against Alagainst Algiers, that he listened with little attention to giers, and the pope's schemes or overtures, and hastened to join his it. army and fleet 4. Algiers still continued in that state of dependence on the Turkish empire to which Barbarossa had subjected it. Ever since he, as captain basha, commanded the Ottoman fleet, Algiers had been governed by Hascen-Aga, a renegado eunuch, who, by passing through every station in the corsair's service, had acquired such experience in war, that he was well fitted for a station which required a man of tried and daring courage. Hascen, in order to shew how well he deserved that dignity, carried on his piratical depredations against the Christian states with amazing activity, and outdid, if possible, Barbarossa himself in boldness and cruelty. The commerce of the Mediterranean was greatly interrupted by his cruisers, and such frequent alarms given to the coast of Spain, that there was a necessity of erecting watch-towers, at proper distances, and of keeping guards constantly on foot, in order to descry the approach of his squadrons, and to protect the inhabitants from their descents". Of this the emperor had received repeated and clamorous complaints from his subjects, who represented it as an enterprise corresponding to his power, and becoming his humanity, to reduce Algiers, which, since the conquest a Sandov. Hist. tom. ii, 298. motives of VI. 1541. BOOK of Tunis, was the common receptacle of all the freebooters, and to exterminate that lawless race, the implacable enemies of the Christian name. Moved partly by their entreaties, and partly allured by the hope of adding to the glory which he had acquired by his last expedition into Africa, Charles, before he left Madrid, in his way to the Low Countries, had issued orders, both in Spain and Italy, to prepare a fleet and army for this purpose. No change in circumstances, since that time, could divert him from this resolution, or prevail on him to turn his arms towards Hungary; though the success of the Turks in that country seemed more immediately to require his presence there; though many of his most faithful adherents in Germany urged, that the defence of the empire ought to be his first and peculiar care; though such as bore him no good will ridiculed his preposterous conduct, in flying from an enemy almost at hand, that he might go in quest of a remote and more ignoble foe. But to attack the sultan in Hungary, how splendid soever that measure might appear, was an undertaking which exceeded his power, and was not consistent with his interest. To draw troops out of Spain or Italy, to march them into a country so distant as Hungary, to provide the vast apparatus necessary for transporting thither the artillery, ammunition, and baggage, of a regular army, and to push the war in that quarter, where there was little prospect of bringing it to an issue during several campaigns, were undertakings so expensive and unwieldy, as did not correspond with the low condition of the emperor's treasury. While his principal force was thus employed, his dominions in Italy and the Low Countries must have lain open to the French king, who would not have allowed such a favourable opportunity of attacking them to go unimproved. Whereas the African expedition, the preparations for which were already finished, and almost the whole expense of it defrayed, would depend upon a single effort; and, besides the security and satisfaction which the success of it must give his subjects, VI. would detain him during so short a space, that Francis BOOK could hardly take advantage of his absence to invade his dominions in Europe. 1541. On all these accounts, Charles adhered to his first plan, His preand with such determined obstinacy, that he paid no re- parations. gard to the pope, who advised, or to Andrew Doria, who conjured him not to expose his whole armament to almost unavoidable destruction, by venturing to approach the dangerous coast of Algiers at such an advanced season of the year, and when the autumnal winds were so violent. Having embarked on board Doria's galleys at PortoVenere, in the Genoese territories, he soon found that this experienced sailor had not judged wrong concerning the element with which he was so well acquainted; for such a storm arose, that it was with the utmost difficulty and danger he reached Sardinia, the place of general rendezvous. But as his courage was undaunted, and his temper often inflexible, neither the remonstrances of the pope and Doria, nor the danger to which he had already been exposed by disregarding their advice, had any other effect than to confirm him in his fatal resolution. The force, indeed, which he had collected, was such as might have inspired a prince less adventurous, and less confident in his own schemes, with the most sanguine hopes of success. It consisted of twenty thousand foot, and two thousand horse, Spaniards, Italians, and Germans, mostly veterans, together with three thousand volunteers, the flower of the Spanish and Italian nobility, fond of paying court to the emperor, by attending him in his favourite expedition, and eager to share in the glory which they believed he was going to reap: to these were added a thousand soldiers sent from Malta by the order of St John, led by an hundred of its most gallant knights, Atrica. The voyage from Majorca to the African coast was not Lan is in less tedious or full of hazard than that which he had just finished. When he approached the land, the roll of the sea, and vehemence of the winds, would not permit the |