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There is the Chevalier Taaffe in his original English. As corroborative evidence, let us put beside him Mary Dupuis, in his original French. He points out the military disadvantages implied in the picturesque beauty of the situation. Heavy ordnance had not been long enough in use in the fifteenth century to make the Knights aware of the life-and-death importance of fortifying and maintaining the hill of St. Stephen:

'Laquelle ville de Rhodes est assise en beau pays et de belle venue de toutes pars bien murée et tourrée et à la muraille a XXII piex despesseur et plus; et y a de beaux fosses et larges tours à fons de cuve, et la ville la mieulx clause que je veix oncques qui soit au monde comme je croi, et est bien garnie d'artillerie tant grosse que petite et de tous autres batons, et y a toujours beaucoup de nobles et vaillans chevaliers et de toutes les nations du monde qui sont chacun jour prests et appareillés de combatre pour la foy Catholique et défendre la Chrétienté, et qui souvent courent en Turquie, et qui jamais n'ont paix aux Turcs et infidèles; devant laquelle ville et cité du couste de terre et comme au meillieu des deux bandes de la marine y a une petite montaigne plate, laquelle montaigne est nommée et appellée la montaigne Saint Estienne. Et tout autour de ladicte ville et cité de Rhodes a le plus beau lieu du monde pour mettre et pour poser siège. Car tout autour de ladicte ville y a beaucoup de jardins et tout plein de petites maisons églises et chapelles de Grecs, vieilles murailles tant de pierres et petis roches où l'on se peut mettre à couvert contre ceulx de la ville, en telle manière que se toute l'artillerie du monde estoit dedans la ville, elle ne saroit faire nul mal à ceulx qui sont dehors s'ils ne se approuchent près de la ville.'

Such was Rhodes in 1480 a rose of roses, well worth the plucking. More than a century and a half earlier, the Hospitallers had spent four years in conquering the island; and since that time they had lavished all their treasures, all their skill, and all their aristocratic taste, drawn from the richest countries of Europe, in perfecting its strength and beauty. Those who have seen what the Knights of St. John effected in less than three centuries on the barren rock of Malta, now proudly called by its indigenous patriots the fior del mondo,' will be able to imagine what an exquisite gem of the sea they created in Rhodes.

Caoursin the Vice-Chancellor, writing in the full pride of success, and possessed with an exemplary faith in the indestructibility of the tenure by which the Order of St. John then held this favoured island, chastises, in words which are barely represented by the following paraphrase, the presumptuous and unwarrantable insolence of the Turk in attempting to eject them. It should be remembered that he wrote at a time when the Turkish empire was divided against itself by the quarrel

between Mahomet's two sons, Bajazet and Zizim, if indeed Prince Zizim was not already a fugitive, living at Rhodes under the protection of the Order.

As the strength of the Grand Turk grew daily, so (says Caoursin) did his arrogance grow also. And whereas in the course of twenty-four years he had brought many of the neighbouring nations under his own yoke, he was thereby puffed up and took it hardly, that the city of Rhodes and the domain of the Knights of Jerusalem, bordering on his own so closely, should yet be free and independent of his empire. And, moreover at divers times he had sent four several expeditions to invade their territories and besiege their fortified places, but had reaped therefrom nothing but peril, loss, and shame. His soldiers had suffered fire and sword, stoning, hanging, and as many other varieties of capital punishment as the early Christian martyrs. In Caoursin's own exhaustive words-multi trucidati: palo suffixi: furcis suspensi: sagittis affecti: lapidibusque cæsi: calamis perustis suffossi: gladiis objecti: membratim discerpti: perierunt.'

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Amurath was succeeded by Mahomet in 1451; Constantinople taken in 1453; so that from whichever date we assume the curriculum' of twenty-four years to run, we must suppose the great struggle to have been meditated upon by one side, and prepared for by the other, for three years at least, if not five. The varied course of experiments in practical surgery on which Caoursin dwells with such unction took place chiefly between the years 1454 and 1467. Constantinople had not fallen six months before Mahomet demanded a yearly tribute from the Order, and ravaged their coasts on receiving a refusal. Except for two years, when he had signed a truce with them, in order to devote his whole power to the attack on Trebizond, there was a constant interchange of desultory hostilities. There was also from time to time an equally desultory interchange of negotiations; for he was politic enough to wish sincerely to keep the peace with his neighbours till his own time, and upon his own terms. As long as he was obliged to employ his chief strength against the Venetians, it was of the utmost convenience to him to keep the Rhodian wasps'-nest in good humour, both in respect of Cyprus and the more western possessions of the sovereign Republic. He was always ready to negotiate through his Greek agents ('greculi,' Caoursin calls them, in opposition to the Græci, or Greek citizens of Rhodes) a peace upon equal terms, provided only the Order would consent to pay him a trifle by way of tribute-dummodo quidpiam 'tributi titulo concederetur.' The chivalrous Hospitallers had

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indeed at earlier periods of their history not held it incompatible with their knightly profession to pay something in the nature of a toll for the right of way to the Holy Sepulchre; but this was no precedent for the present demand, which was summarily refused as often as made. As it suited their master's plan to wait, the greculi' did not take umbrage at trifling modifications.' The offensive expression of tribute is struck out from the note of the Sultan's ambassador. Mahomet will conclude -'si peace if presents and homage are promised in its place: tacitâ tributi conditione orator Hierosolimorum cum munus'culis tribunal suum adeat.' This concession is refused by the Order with equal peremptoriness; much, no doubt, to the personal gratification of Caoursin, if he was public orator at the time. He would not have relished going on a tribute-bearing errand to the Court of the Grand Seignior. The last of these negotiations appears to have been about the year 1476; and on its failure, says our Vice-Chancellor, the rage of Mahomet was beyond bounds-'rabidus hostis odium contra Rhodios inexorabile concepit.' There was a feeling on both sides that the struggle must come; it was only a question of time.

6

There were to be found at Constantinople many renegades more or less acquainted with the city of Rhodes, and ready enough to give or sell their information to the Grand Turk and his officers. Among those whose infamy is immortalised by the indignant Christian historians, was one Antonio Meligala (milk and honey), a ruined spendthrift of Rhodes, who hoped to retrieve his fortunes by conveying to Constantinople a plan of the fortifications of his native town, and entered into an intrigue with a certain Bassia greculus' of the ex-imperial family of the Palæologi, now in the Sultan's service. Meligala reaped no great harvest either of good or evil from his baseness, as he died before the expedition actually took place. Another of these convenient traitors was a greculus' of Euboea, Demetrius Sophiano by name, who had deserted to the Turkish faith and fortunes on the capture of that island by Mahomet. His religion and himself were adscripti glebæ, and went with the land. These men represented the conquest of Rhodes as a simple and easy matter. The fortifications, they said, were old and crumbling; the defenders so few in number as to be unequal to manning the walls; the city badly victualled and ill provided in all respects; and if once invested, there was no hope of either succour or reinforcements being conveyed to the garrison, except from a long and almost impossible distance. Tempted by these alleged facilities, Palæologus Basha eagerly intrigued for, and thought himself fortunate to obtain, the command of the expedition against Rhodes.

The man on whom the Basha built the most absolute trust, and who promised to be most useful to him in more ways than one, was one George Trapant, otherwise called Master George, a German by birth, an engineer by profession, and by profession a renegade also, with a family at Constantinople. Twenty years earlier he had visited Rhodes, and carried away an accurate and scientific plan of the fortifications as they were at that time. He was a clever fellow,-vir vafro subtilique ingenio,' says Caoursin; fort excellant homme en fait dar'tillerie,' says Mary Dupuis; and a tall fellow of his hands-'ung 'homme grant, bien formé de tous ses membres et de belle 'stature, beau langagier, de grant entretenement, et homme fort 'malicieux à la veoir et oyr parler.' For his various useful qualities he was well known to the Sultan himself; and, as may be imagined, was in high favour. Men who, like Mahomet the Second, are destined to conquer two empires, twelve kingdoms, and three hundred cities within thirty years, must needs have a keen eye for such merits as those of Master George.

If the Grand Turk had his spies and informants, the Knights had theirs in like manner. They probably kept pace with all that was growing into form at Constantinople as accurately as he did with the statistics of Rhodes; and they girded themselves up with silent energy to meet the Ottomite preparation whenever it should make for their island. The warning of Proximus ardet Ucalegon had been repeated too often and too loudly in the fate of Constantinople, Trebizond, the Negropont, and Greece, to allow any excuse for negligence, or any flattering hope that the struggle would be less than desperate. And if ever the Order had a Head equal to such a situation, it possessed one now, in Peter D'Aubusson, the thirty-ninth Grand Master.

The family of D'Aubusson, a noble house of Auvergne, had not been unknown to French history since the ninth century, during which the first Viscount of the name was created. Some of its representatives were remarkable as zealous Crusaders, others as magnificent patrons of the gentle Troubadours; some destroyed monasteries, others rebuilt and newly endowed them. One of them was the object of the Church's wrath even after his death; for being unfortunately killed in the act of pillaging ecclesiastical property, he died ipso facto excommunicated: insomuch that a lenient abbot, who gave him Christian burial within his monastery, was reprimanded in due form by the Bishop of Limoges, his indignant superior. Peter D'Aubusson himself had rendered his Order important services both in a civil and a military capacity, and achieved an European reputation, long before he was called to the supreme authority. We hear of

him in 1456 as ambassador from the Order to the Court of France and Burgundy, from which he succeeded in obtaining large sums of money in aid of the defences of Rhodes. The importance of these subsidies was testified by the engraving of the arms of Burgundy on the tower of St. Nicholas, which was built with the gold of Duke Philip. Most of the repairs and extensions of the fortifications in Rhodes itself, and the other islands of the Order, were executed under the advice and immediate superintendence of D'Aubusson as surveyor-general. On the invasion of the Negropont by Mahomet, in 1470, D'Aubusson commanded in person the forces sent to the aid of the Venetians; and though he could not enable them to maintain that island, he did them better service in the way of reprisals than the generals and admirals of the Republic were able or willing to carry out for themselves. He was Grand Prior of the Language of Auvergne, and de facto the first man of the Order, for some years during the mastership of Ursini, on whose death in 1476 he was unanimously elected Grand Master, at the age of fifty-three.

On attaining this rank, he carried on his fortifications more vigorously than ever; stored his magazines with provisions and ammunitions; summoned all the knights who were absent in the various countries of Europe to repair to the head-quarters of their Order; and while temporising with the Sultan, concluded treaties with the Soldan of Egypt and the King of Tunis, so as to have only one Mahometan enemy to face. The Order placed the most perfect trust in his ability, and followed his orders with enthusiasm, as if he were divino instinctu ' edoctus.' A similar spirit was awakened outside of the Order; besides the knights, and the free lances paid by them, many noble gentlemen flocked to Rhodes with their retainers to take part in so stirring and illustrious a game. Before the storm burst, everything, says Caoursin,-'nutu Dei et magistri operâ' -was made ready for resisting it.

In the winter of 1479-80, Palæologus Basha executed with a few ships a reconnoissance on the coasts of Rhodes, ravaged the island of Tilo (Telos), and even attempted to take by a coup de main the fortress of that name. Thence he sailed to Physco (Marmorice), a port of Lycia, twenty miles distant from Rhodes, which he had appointed as the rendezvous of his expedition. The bulk of the army marched across Asia Minor, while the heavy artillery was sent round from Constantinople by sea. All the Turkish ports were strictly shut, lest any word of the approach or of the actual power of his armament should reach Rhodes before him.

VOL. CI. NO. CCV.

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