1.

Political events of an unusual nature, with far- CHAP. extending results, and sometimes of a portentous magnitude, were also not wanting to kindle hope, fear and speculation, and to add their augmentation and vicissitudes to the social agitation. The destruction of the Moorish kingdom in Spain, and depression of its Mahomedan population; the expulsion of 800,000 Jews from the same country, to increase the power of the then recently established Turkish empire in Greece, and the East; 53 the destruction of the Venetian greatness and ascending power, by the confederacy procured by Julius II.;54 and the repeated descents of the gentry and nobility of France into Italy and Naples,55 under Charles VIII. Lewis XII. and Francis I. were among these spiritstirring incidents. The habit of all the warring powers of Europe to recruit their armies from all

53 Mariana informs us, that Ferdinand and Isabella having finished their war in Granada, agreed to expel all the Jews, and therefore in 1492 issued their edict, that they should all depart within four months, with liberty to sell their property or take it with them. The unhappy nation embarked at the different ports. Some went to Africa, others to Italy, but the great body to the regions of the Levant. Most authors computed that 170,000 families emigrated, comprising 800,000 souls. Hist. Ep. v. 9. p. 190. John of Portugal offered them a temporary asylum in his kingdom, on paying 8 ducats a head, and 20,000 families, some of them consisting of 10 persons, took the hard-bought refuge. Hieron. Conestag. de Portag. Hisp. Illust. Persecution and intolerance compelled many of them to change their religion; and from these incidents, both Spain and Portugal became spread with secret Jews in the guise of Christians, whose hypocrisy, or the suspicion of it, chiefly upheld the Inquisition. Dr. Walsh, in his late journey from Constantinople, remarks, that these 800,000 Jews, when driven from Spain, sought refuge in the East. They settled at Salonichi, Smyrna, Rodosto and other large towns, where they at this day form an important part of the population. The Turks, who term the Greeks, Yeshir or Slaves; and the Armenians, Rayas or Subjects; call the Jews by the more honorable title of Mousaphir, or Visitors, because they sought an asylum among them, and therefore treat them with kindness and hospitality. Dr. Walsh's Narrative. 54 Hist. Hen. VIII. v. 1. p. 90-3.

35 Hist. Hen. VIII. v. 1. p. 79, 84, 146, 335, 373.

II.

BOOK parts of Germany and Switzerland, was also continually exciting the adventurous spirit, golden hopes, and the dreams of martial egotism, in the rustic hamlet as well as in the baronial castle and the knightly hall, over all the continent, from the Baltic Sea to the Genevan Lake. But the most interesting, and at times disquieting, incidents arose from the entrance of the Turks into Europe, and their determination, as victory influenced their imagination, to subject Europe to their race and Prophet. Their decisive triumph in Hungary, in the reign of their great Amurath, as the fourteenth century expired, presented a danger to Christendom which the fierce Bajazet had threatened and hoped to realize, when the rapid greatness and successful attacks of the new Tartar meteor, Tamerlane, suspended the peril.57 Fifty years afterwards every alarm was renewed, by the news flying thro Europe, first by the fall of the king of Poland in Hungary against the Mahome

56

56 It was on 28th Sept. 1396, at Nicopolis, that the Turks obtained this advantage. The king of Hungary had solicited the Christian Sovereigns for their aid, and the Duke of Burgundy, with several of the French princes and nobility, joined his forces. But the latter were too impetuous and ungovernable, and falling into an ambush, the Christian army was totally defeated. Gobelin Cosmod. p. 287. Froissart, v. 11. c. 41. p. 291. The Turks are stated to have been 300,000 men, their antagonists 80,000; Chron. Turcic. c. 82; but Froissart makes the Mussulmen only 200,000. p. 293. In the pride of victory, Bajazet threatened to besiege Buda, subdue Germany and Italy, and feed his horse on the altar of St. Peter's.' Gibbon, v. 6. c. 64. p. 323. The gout stopped the execution of his project; a petty agent for an important purpose.

57 This unexpected conqueror who emerged in 1370, and aspired to the dominion of the world, actually placed 27 crowns on his head, and after subduing Persia, Turkistan, and Hindostan, took Bajazet prisoner in the decisive battle of Angora, in Anatolia, on 28th July 1402, and kept him prisoner to his death, 9 March 1403. Timour only survived him to 1 April 1405, when he died on his road to China. Gibb. c. 65. p. 331-61.

59

60

I.

dans," and then by the more agitating certainty that CHAP. the Turkish crescent was floating in the long but fruitlessly resisting capital of Greece; and this intelligence was in three years more succeeded by a formidable irruption into Hungary, to add that kingdom to their new empire. It was happily repressed, but only to be followed by new efforts to obtain the monarchy of Europe, with an alarming perseverance which the most intelligent minds contemplated with manifest terror." These apprehensions and this danger, increased to those who lived near the sea shores of Italy and Spain, occasioned the pontiffs to make repeated calls on every Christian nation to

61

58 Uladislaw perished in the battle of Varna, in 1444; Ladislas succeeded, and the brave John Huniades was made governor of the kingdom. Zopf. v. 2. p. 619.

59 It was taken by Mahomet II. on 29 May 1453. Gibbon's description of the general assault is one of the best passages in his History, c. 68. p. 492–504. The German emperor, Frederic, who died in 1493, after a reign of 53 years, is represented by the monkish chronicler, who knew him, as a Vir optimus, who was anxious to keep his kingdom in peace; but who, from this laudable abstinence from war, enabled the Turks to make their great progress in Europe during his reign. Lang. Chron. 884.

The defeat of Mahomet's army in Hungary, in 1456, with a loss of 40,000 men, saved both Belgrade and Europe at that crisis. This victory is in a great degree ascribed to the Stentorian preacher, John de Capistrano, mentioned in note 40. When the Christians gave way to the fury of the Turkish charge, his eloquence rallied and roused them to renew the combat, and to fight till they conquered. Mag. Chron. Belg. 383. He had assembled 100,000 crusaders, and not only animated them by his words, but went into the battle at their head, with a great cross instead of a banner, fought with it most furiously in the first ranks, and slew many of the Turks. Whart. add. to Cave's Script. p. 98.

In 1475, Matthias Corvinus, the son of J. Huniades, was made by the Hungarians their king, and his great spirit and exertions kept the Mussulmen at bay.

61 Melancthon's feelings may be adduced as a specimen. Turkish ferocity menaces our churches, and the whole nation, with ravage and extermination. It is preparing a mighty war on the frontiers of Germany, cursing the Son of the Deity in its public edicts, and planning the slaughter of the pious. Amid so much terror and danger, it is difficult to cherish hope.' Mel. Op. v. 3.

BOOK

II.

62

63

unite in a crusade against the common and undeterred enemy of all. Solyman the Magnificent renewed the alarms, and emulated the triumphs of his predecessors, when the hostilities of Persia operated to the preservation of Europe. This overhanging peril of the Turkish sabre continued, until the naval power of the Ottomans was annihilated in the bay of Lepanto. After this reverse, luxury and selfish policy concurred to extinguish the daring spirit of their sultans for all land aggressions, in the voluptuous and enervating seraglio.

The irregular, the wild and the discreditable, had also their attractions. The tendency of many to join mysterious Rosicrucian societies; of others, to pursue

64

62 It was on 8 October 1526, that Sir John Wallop sent to the English court a detailed account of the great battle on Solyman's invasion, in which Louis II. the king of Hungary and Bohemia fell, and his troops were totally defeated. MSS. British Mus. Vitell. B. 21. This ambitious sultan having taken Belgrade and Buda, in 1529, advanced to Vienna, but its sovereign reinforced its garrison with 20,000 men, and Solyman was baffled, and withdrew. But in 1532 he renewed his formidable invasion, and penetrated to Lintz, which successfully resisted him. Sagredo. Hist. Ottom. 151-191.

63 The Persian war diverted and consumed his forces in 1535; yet in 1538 he again invaded Hungary. In 1541 he renewed his attack, and became master of its capital, and in a future year attempted Transylvania. Cardinal Pole, in his address to Charles V. thus speaks of this dangerous sultan: If the money you have expended elsewhere had been applied against the Turks, would Solyman have taken the two bulwarks of the Christian world, Belgrade and Rhodes? Would he have devastated Hungary, and penetrated to Buda? and have subdued all the region which the Danube washes, and the adjacent provinces? How long shall we see his fleets, every year hovering about Italy, and taking off its people as their captives? If the sophy of Persia had not been his powerful enemy, and limited his audacity, he would have enjoyed by this time universal empire.' Orat. de Pace. Quir. v. 4. p. 410. Sir Thomas Moryson, in his despatch of 4 April 1553, shews also the importance of the Persian hostilities: The Turks are now quiet in Hungary, by reason that the Sophy doth occupy them the other way.' 1 Lodge's Illust. p. 170.

64 This fraternity claimed a German as their founder, who visited Damascus, and died in 1484. They called themselves les Freres de la Rose Croix, and also the illumines, the immortals, and the invisibles.

66

I.

the incoherent dreams of the Jewish Cabala,65 and CHAP. of some, both to study and to vaunt of the possession of Magical powers, affords a further specimen of the restless activity of the mind to deviate, at that time, from the ordinary and straight-forward paths of quiet and contented life. But useful improvements were the more general pursuits; and our most warlike, as well as our most splendid, king became fond of Music; and the latter, as well as his opponent Luther, composed it; and that this sweet art might exhibit also its participation of the general

67

They took oaths of secrecy and fidelity, pretended to great discoveries, and wrote in enigmas. Moreri, Rose Croix. Dee, in publishing Friar Bacon's Epistolæ, added a 'responsio ad fratres Rosacea crucis illustres.' Hamb. 1618.

65 The Cabala was in its greatest credit in the 16th century. The Jewish literati were particularly attached to it. It was supposed to have great magical power. It was divided into two kinds; Mercava, or the Science of the Chariot, and Beresith, or that of the Creation. Moreri in voce. Kircher, Mirandula, and others, wrote upon it. The Jezirah, its most ancient book, and the other treatises in the Cabala denudata,' inform us of the chief part of the published mysteries of the system. The much praised Reuchlin Capnio addressed three books de arte Cabalista to Leo X., which are printed among the Scriptores de arte Cabalistica. Bas. 1587.

66 We can hardly now believe that a delusion so extravagant as the art of Magic should have prevailed in modern Europe. But Trithemius thought it necessary to resolve on writing a work of twelve books on the Demoniacal sciences, to expose 6 quam vanissima' they were. Ep. Fœm, p. 565. He particularises one man, Sabellicus, as professing himself in 1507 to be a chieftain of the necromancers. He gave himself this title, Magister Georgius Sabellicus; Faustus junior; fons necromanticorum; astrologus, Magus secundus; chiromanticus; agræmanticus; pyromanticus.' The abbot met him at Galenhusen, but wishing to reason with him on his art, the impostor disappeared. He pretended to such knowlege, that if all the works of Plato and Aristotle were burnt, he could restore them from his own memory. Ep. Fam. 559, 560.

67 Henry V. was an admirer of church music, and amused himself with playing on the organ. Dr. Henry, v. 10. p. 227. from Elmham, p. 12. 68 We have an anthem of Henry VIII. still remaining. Luther has also left those noble yet simple compositions on the day of Judgment, and the 100th Psalm. James I. of Scotland was a capital performer on the organ, and composed several pieces of sacred music.' Dr. Henry, p. 228. from Ford. Scot's Ch. 1. 16. c. 28.