LXII. preading lift of confifcation and punishment, CHA P. which involved many perfons, the deareft to the emperor, or the best deserving of his favour. They were conducted to the prifon to behold four princes of the royal blood chained in the four corners, and fhaking their fetters in an agony of grief and rage. Two of these captives were afterwards released; the one by fubmiffion, the other by death: but the obftinacy of their two companions was chastised by the lofs of their eyes; and the Greeks, the leaft adverfe to the union, deplore that cruel and inaufpicious tragedy 35. Perfecutors must expect the hatred of those whom they opprefs; but they commonly find fome confolation in the teftimony of their confcience, the applause of their party, and, perhaps, the fuccefs of their undertaking. But the hypocrify of Michael, which was prompted only by political motives, must have forced him to hate himself, to defpife his followers, and to efteem and envy the rebel champions by whom he was detefted and defpifed. While his violence was abhorred at Conftantinople, at Rome his flownefs was arraigned and his fincerity fufpected; till at length pope Martin the fourth excluded the Greek emperor from the pale of a church, into which he was striving to reduce a schifmatic people. No fooner had the tyrant expired, than The union the union was diffolved, and abjured by unani- diffolved, mous confent; the churches were purified; the 1283. 35 See the vith book of Pachymer, particularly the chapters, 1. II 16 18. 24-27. He is the more credible, as he speaks of this perfecution with less anger than forrow. A. D. CHAP. penitents were reconciled; and his fon Andro LXII. nicus, after weeping the fins and errors of his youth, moft piously denied his father the burial of a prince and a Christian 36. Charles of Anjou fubdues Naples and Sicily, A. D. 1266, 26. II. In the diftrefs of the Latins, the walls and towers of Conftantinople had fallen to decay: they were restored and fortified by the policy of Michael, who depofited a plenteous ftore of corn February and falt provifions, to fuftain the fiege which he might hourly expect from the refentment of the Western powers. Of thefe, the fovereign of the two Sicilies was the moft formidable neighbour; but as long as they were poffeffed by Mainfroy, the baftard of Frederic the fecond, his monarchy was the bulwark rather than the annoyance of the Eastern empire. The ufurper, though a brave and active prince, was fufficiently employed in the defence of his throne: his profcription by fucceffive popes had separated Mainfroy from the common caufe of the Latins; and the forces that might have befieged Conftantinople, were detained in a crufade against the domeftic enemy of Rome. The prize of her avenger, the crown of the two Sicilies, was won and worn by the brother of St. Louis, by Charles count of Anjou and Provence, who led the chivalry of France on this holy expedition 37. The difaffection of his Chriftian 36 Pachymer, 1. vii. c. r-11. 17. The fpeech of Andronicus the elder (lib. xii. c. 2.) is a curious record, which proves, that if the Greeks were the flaves of the emperor, the emperor was not lefs the flave of fuperftition and the clergy. 37 The beft accounts, the neareft the time, the most full and entertaining, of the conqueft of Naples by Charles of Anjou, may be LXII. tian fubjects compelled Mainfroy to enlift a co- CHAP. lony of Saracens whom his father had planted in Apulia: and this odious fuccour will explain the defiance of the Catholic hero, who rejected all terms of accommodation. "Bear this meffage," faid Charles," to the fultan of Nocera, that God " and the fword are umpire between us; and that ❝he fhall either fend me to paradise, or I will "fend him to the pit of hell." The armies met, and though I am ignorant of Mainfroy's doom in the other world, in this he loft his friends, his! kingdom, and his life, in the bloody battle of Benevento. Naples and Sicily were immediately peopled with a warlike race of French nobles; and their aspiring leader embraced the future, conqueft of Africa, Greece, and Palestine. The moft fpecious reafons might point his first arms against the Byzantine empire; and Palæologus, diffident of his own ftrength, repeatedly appealed from the ambition of Charles to the humanity of St. Louis, who ftill preferved a just ascendant over the mind of his ferocious brother. For a while the attention of that brother was confined at home by the invafion of Conradin, the last heir of the Imperial house of Swabia: but the hapless boy funk in the unequal conflict; and his execution on a public fcaffold taught the be found in the Florentine Chronicles of Ricordano Malespina (c. 175-193.) and Giovanni Villani (1. vii. c. 1—10. 25—30.), which are published by Muratori in the viiith and xiiith volumes of the hiftorians of Italy. In his Annals (tom. xi. p. 56—72 ), he has abridged these great events, which are likewife defcribed in the Iftoria Civile of Giannone, tom. ii. 1. xix. tom. iii. 1. xx. the Greek empire, A. D. CHAP. rivals of Charles to tremble for their heads as LXII. well as their dominions. A fecond respite was obtained by the last crusade of St. Louis to the African coaft; and the double motive of interest and duty urged the king of Naples to affift, with his powers and his presence, the holy enterprise. The death of St. Louis released him from the importunity of a virtuous cenfor; the king of Tunis confeffed himself the tributary and vaffal Threatens of the crown of Sicily; and the boldest of the French knights were free to enlist under his ban1270, &c. ner against the Greek empire. A treaty and a marriage united his intereft with the houfe of Courtenay; his daughter Beatrice was promised to Philip, fon and heir of the emperor Baldwin; a penfion of fix hundred ounces of gold was allowed for his maintenance; and his generous father distributed among his allies the kingdoms and provinces of the East, reserving only Constantinople, and one day's journey round the city, for the Imperial domain 38. In this perilous moment, Palæologus was the most eager to fubfcribe the creed and implore the protection of the Roman pontiff, who affumed, with propriety and weight, the character of an angel of peace, the common father of the Christians. By his voice, the fword of Charles was chained in the fcabbard; and the Greek ambaffadors beheld him, in the pope's antichamber, biting his ivory fceptre in a tranfport of fury, and deeply refenting the refufal 38 Ducange, Hift. de C. P. 1. v. c. 49–56. l. vi. c. 1-13. See Pachymer, 1. iv. c. 29. 1, v. c. 7—10. 25. 1, vi, c. 30. 32, 33. and Nicephorus Gregoras, 1. iv. 5. 1. v. 1. 6. to LXII. to enfranchise and confecrate his arms. He ap- CHAP, pears to have refpected the difinterested mediation of Gregory the tenth; but Charles was infenfibly disgusted by the pride and partiality of Nicholas, the third; and his attachment to his kindred, the Urfini family, alienated the most strenuous champion from the service of the church. The hoftile league against the Greeks, of Philip the Latin emperor, the king of the two Sicilies, and the republic of Venice, was ripened into execution; and the election of Martin the fourth, a French pope, gave a fanction to the caufe. Of the allies, Philip fupplied his name, Martin, a bull of excommunication, the Venetians, a fquadron of forty gallies; and the formidable powers of Charles confifted of forty counts, ten thousand men at arms, a numerous body of infantry, and a fleet of more than three hundred fhips and transports. A diftant day was appointed for affembling this mighty force in the harbour of Brindifi: and a previous attempt was risked with a detachment of three hundred knights, who invaded Albania, and befieged the fortrefs of Belgrade. Their defeat might amuse with a triumph the vanity of Conftantinople; but the more fagacious Michael, defpairing of his arms, depended on the effects of a confpiracy; on the fecret workings of a rat, who gnawed the bow-ftring 39 of the Sicilian tyrant, 39 The reader of Herodotus will recollect how miraculously the Affyrian hoft of Sennacherib was difarmed and destroyed (l. ii, C. 141.). Z3 Among |