READING HALL

THE DOORS OF WISDOM

A HISTORY OF MODERN EUROPE : A.D. 1453-1900

CHAPTER XXVII.

ESTABLISHMENT OF PEACE IN THE EAST AND WEST

IT has been seen in the preceding chapter that the King of Spain was at this period directing his whole attention to the affairs of France; a mistaken policy which, by diverting his money and resources from the Netherlands, fortunately enabled the Seven United Provinces to become an independent Power. The Austrian Archduke Ernest, who had been appointed Governor of the Netherlands after the death of the Duke of Parma, did not take possession of his office till the beginning of 1594; and in the interval the government was conducted by Count Peter Ernest of Mansfeld. Philip, however, allowed the Count but little real power. He sent some Spaniards to watch over him; and appointed a council of war, in which were several of that nation, having for its president Pedro Henriquez, Count of Fuentes, who published some cruel decrees. In 1593 Count Mansfeld sent into France a small army under the command of his son Charles, which helped the Duke of Mayenne to take Noyon and a few other places in Picardy, and then returned into the Netherlands. During this period Prince Maurice succeeded in taking the important town of Gertruidenberg. In the following year (1594) Philip ordered the Archduke Ernest to despatch Mansfeld with a considerable body of troops to assist Mayenne in relieving Laon; the ill success of which attempt has been already related. Maurice availed himself of Mansfeld's absence to reduce Groningen, a place not only important as a fortress, but also as an indispensable member of the Dutch Republic. Groningen now obtained its place among the Seven United Provinces, of which Maurice was elected Stadholder. Maurice also crippled the power of Spain by supporting the Spanish mutineers in Brabant, whose pay was in arrear. The Archduke Ernest, having died in February, 1595, at the age of forty-two, Philip appointed in his place Ernest's brother, the Archduke Albert, formerly Viceroy of Portugal, and also substituted him for Ernest as the future husband of the Infanta Isabella Clara Eugenia. Although Albert had been made Archbishop of Toledo and a Cardinal, he had not taken priest's orders, and a dispensation for his marriage might easily be procured. With Albert returned Philip William, the eldest son of William the Silent, after a captivity of twenty-eight years in Spain. By so long an exile his spirit had been completely broken; by the arts of the Jesuits he had been converted into a bigoted papist; and Philip now thought that he might be made an instrument for the recovery of the Netherlands.

It was in January of this year that Henry IV declared war against the King of Spain. Besides the expedition of Velasco in the south, Philip II ordered the Spaniard Fuentes, who, till the arrival of Albert, conducted the government of the Netherlands, to invade the north of France; and Fuentes, having quelled the mutiny of the Spanish troops, and having left Modragon with sufficient forces to keep Prince Maurice in check, set off with 15,000 men, with the design of recovering Cambray. Le Catelet and Dourlens yielded to his arms; Ham was betrayed to him by the treachery of the governor, and in August Fuentes sat down before Cambray. It will be recollected that the Duke of Anjou had made over that place to his mother, Catharine de' Medici, who had appointed Balagny to be governor of it. During the civil wars of France, Balagny had established himself there as a little independent sovereign, and called himself Prince of Cambray; but after the discomfiture of the League he had been compelled to declare himself, and had acknowledged his allegiance to the King of France. His extortion and tyranny having rendered him detested by the inhabitants, they sent a message to Henry IV requesting him to dismiss Balagny, and receive them under his immediate authority. Unfortunately, however, Balagny and his wife had gained over Gabrielle d'Estrees; at her instance Henry declined the request of the citizens, who, to avenge themselves, delivered Cambray to the Spaniards, October 2nd. Fuentes now returned into the Netherlands, where the campaign had not been marked by any memorable event.

The Cardinal Archduke Albert arrived at Brussels in February, 1596, when Fuentes resigned his command, and returned to Spain. Albert also directed his principal attention to the war against France, and sent a peaceful message to Prince Maurice and the United Provinces, which, however, met with no attention. Henry IV had been engaged since the winter in the siege of La Fère, a little town at the junction of the Serre and Oise. He had received reinforcements from England as well as from Germany and Holland. He had endeavoured to excuse his apostasy to Queen Elizabeth as an act of political necessity; and although she viewed it with indignation, her hatred of Spain induced her still to assist the French King, though her succours were no longer bestowed so liberally and so cordially as before. Albert marched to Valenciennes with 20,000 men, with the avowed intention of relieving La Fère; but instead of attempting that enterprise, he despatched De Rosne, a French renegade who had entered the service of Spain, with the greater part of the forces, to surprise Calais; and that important place was taken by assault, April 17th, before Henry could arrive for its defence. La Fère surrendered May 22nd; and Henry then marched with his army towards the coast of Picardy, where he endeavoured, but in vain, to provoke the Spaniards to give him battle. After fortifying Calais and Ardres, Albert withdrew again into the Netherlands.

In the negotiations between Elizabeth and Henry in thepreceding year, the English Queen had demanded to be put in possession of Calais or Boulogne, as a security for thecharges of the war; a demand which Henry had rejected. During the investment of Calais by the Spaniards, Elizabeth had renewed her proposal, in case she should be the means of saving it, when Henry again refused. Nevertheless, Elizabeth, alarmed at the occupation by the Spaniards of a port which afforded such facilities for the invasion of England, soon afterwards concluded another offensive and defensive alliance with Henry IV (May 24th), in which the contracting parties pledged themselves to make no separate peace or truce with Philip II; and they invited all those States and Princes, who had reason to dread that ambitious monarch, to join the alliance. The treaty was acceded to by the Dutch; but the German Protestant Princes, offended by Henry's apostasy, and alarmed by the war then raging between the Austrians and the Turks, refused to enter into it. The treaty, however, had little effect. Elizabeth could not be induced to lend the French King more than 2,000 men, and that on condition of his maintaining them; nor would she allow the armament under Essex, which Henry had in vain solicited for the relief of Calais, to co-operate with him in the Netherlands, but despatched it to the coasts of Spain.

Cadiz capture by the English

The hostile preparations in the Spanish ports had for sometime back excited great alarm in England. Another attempt at invasion was apprehended, and a large armament was fitted out under Lord Howard of Effingham as admiral, and the Earl of Essex as commander of the land forces. The expedition was also accompanied by Sir Walter Raleigh. The fleet, which after the junction of twenty-two Dutch ships, consisted of 150 sail, with about 14,000 men on board, cast anchor in the Bay of Cadiz, June 20th. On the following day, after an obstinate contest of some hours' duration, two of the four great Spanish galleons were captured, and two burnt. The rest of the Spanish fleet were driven into the harbour, and rather than pay the ransom demanded the Duke of Medina Sidonia caused them to be burnt—a third of the Spanish navy. Essex, then landing with 3,000 soldiers, succeeded in penetrating into the town; and in the market-place he was joined by the admiral and another party, who had entered at a different quarter. The inhabitants now surrendered, purchasing their lives with 120,000 crowns, and abandoning the city with its goods and merchandise to the conquerors. The bold, but perhaps not impracticable, plans of Essex, to penetrate into the heart of Andalusia, or, at all events, to hold possession of the Isle of Cadiz with 3,000 or 4,000 men, having been rejected by a majority of the commanders, the fleet set sail for England; and after making two descents of no great importance on the Spanish coast, arrived at Plymouth after an absence of about ten weeks. The loss suffered by the Spaniards was estimated at 20,000,000 ducats.

Thus, while Philip II was affecting the conqueror, a severe blow was struck in his own dominions. The secret of hisweakness was revealed; and if the head of the Colossus was of gold, its feet were shown to be of clay. The English, on the other hand, acquired, even from the Spaniards themselves, the praise not only of bravery, but also of humanity and moderation, for the manner in which they had used their victory. The coolness of Essex's reception by the Queen and the intrigues which followed are well known. Infuriated by the insults received at Cadiz, Philip II prepared at Lisbon a new armada for the invasion of England, or rather Ireland. Essex, with Lord Thomas Howard and Raleigh, had been intrusted with a counter-expedition against Spain; but the fleets of both nations were defeated by the elements. The Adelantado of Castile, on sailing from Ferrol, was caught in a terrible storm, which dispersed and damaged his fleet. On again collecting his ships, instead of attempting to land in England, he made the best of his way back to the Spanish coast, but lost by another storm sixteen sail in the Bay of Biscay. The enterprise was then abandoned. On the other hand, Essex had also been driven back to the port by stress of weather, and his ships were so much damaged that most of the gentlemen volunteers refused again to put to sea. Essex himself, however, with a small squadron, sailed to the Azores, and captured Fayal, Graciosa, and Flores, but missed falling in with the Spanish fleet from the Indies, which was the chief object of the expedition. On their return with a few prizes, the English were enveloped, near the Scilly Isles, in the same storm which dispersed the Spanish fleet, but contrived to get safely into their own harbours.

War in the Netherlands, 1597

During Albert's absence in France in 1596 nothing of importance was undertaken by Prince Maurice, who had no great force at his disposal; and the Archduke on his return laid siege to Hulst, which at last surrendered to the Spaniards (August 18th). This disaster, however, was compensated early in 1597 by a splendid victory gained by Prince Maurice at Turnhout, where he defeated and destroyed a large body of Spanish troops. His success on this occasion is ascribed to his having furnished his cavalry with carabines; an invention which afterwards came into general use, and gave rise to that description of troops called "dragoons". Archduke Albert, however, soon afterwards consoled himself for this blow by taking Amiens. Its capture was effected by an ingenious stratagem of the Spanish general Puertocarrero.

Henry IV, after holding an Assembly of Notables at Rouen, was amusing himself at Paris when he received the news of this terrible blow. The loss of Amiens, following so rapidly on that of Dourlens, Cambray, and Calais, had begun to shake all confidence in Henry's good fortune. A great deal of discontent existed in France, occasioned by the taxes which the King had found it necessary to impose; the Huguenots also were in motion; whilst the Duke of Savoy and the Duke of Mercoeur allied themselves with Spain, as we have mentioned in the preceding chapter. In the extremity of his distress Henry applied to Elizabeth to make a diversion by laying siege to Calais, offering now to pledge that town to her if she took it; but this time it was Elizabeth who refused. Henry, however, met his difficulties with vigour and resolution. He sent Biron with 4,500 or 5,000 men to blockade Amiens, and that body was soon converted into a regular army by recruits from all parts of the kingdom. After a siege of several months Amiens submitted (September 19th, 1597). Albert made an ineffectual attempt to relieve it: he was but ill supported by Philip II, who towards the end of 1596 had made another bankruptcy, which had shaken credit and commerce throughout Europe. During the siege Prince Maurice had also gained several advantages in the Netherlands.

The fall of Amiens and the ill success of his attempts upon France turned the thoughts of the Spanish King to peace. Pope Clement VIII had long been desirous of putting an end to the war between France and Spain, which, besides preventing Philip from succouring Austria against the Turks, promoted the cause of heresy in the Netherlands and elsewhere. In 1596 Cardinal Alexander de' Medici, the Papal Legate in France, made advances to the French King which Henry did not repulse; and Fra Buonaventura Calatagirona, the General of the Franciscans, was despatched to Madrid to try the ground. The negotiations were long protracted; and Philip made indirect offers of peace to England, and even to the United Provinces, but Henry IV alone showed any inclination to treat. He sent an envoy extraordinary to London to represent to Elizabeth the necessity of peace for France, and he tried to persuade the Dutch to enter into the negotiations; while on the other hand, Cecil, the English ambassador, and Justin of Nassau and Barneveldt, the Dutch envoys at Paris, did all they could to divert Henry from his design, but without effect. In February, 1598, the French and Spanish plenipotentiaries met at Vervins, and on the 2nd of May a treaty was signed. By the PEACE OF VERVINS the Spaniards restored to France Calais, Ardres, Dourlens, La Capelle, and Le Catelet in Picardy, and Blavet (Port-Louis) in Brittany, of all their conquests retaining only the citadel of Cambray. The rest of the conditions were referred to the treaty of Cateau-Cambrésis, which Henry had stipulated should form the basis of the negotiations. The Duke of Savoy was included in the peace. Thus Philip at length acknowledged the heretic Sovereign, against whom his arms had been so long employed and such vast resources squandered. By the treaty concluded with England and the Dutch in 1596 Henry had bound himself to make no separate peace without the consent of those Powers; but he seems to have availed himself of a technical flaw in that treaty, purposely contrived by Du Vair, one of the negotiators on the part of France. One of the articles stipulated that the ratifications should be exchanged within six months, and Henry had delayed his signature till December 31st, more than seven months. Such a subterfuge could hardly have been allowed had the contracting parties found it expedient to contest the treaty of Vervins; but Henry succeeded in convincing Elizabeth and the Dutch that the peace was indispensable to him, and the good under­standing with those Powers was not interrupted.

The great political drama of which Philip II had so longbeen the protagonist was now drawing to a close. Philip,who felt his end approaching, determined to abdicate, before he died, the sovereignty of the Netherlands in favour of his daughter, thus destroying with his own hands the unity of those provinces for which he had so long been contending. On the 14th of August, 1598, the States-General of the southern or Catholic provinces took the oath of allegiance to the Infanta Isabella Clara Eugenia, and to her destined husband, the Archduke Albert, who had now resigned the cardinalate. The Infanta was also proclaimed in the County of Burgundy (Franche-Comté). Isabella and her heirs were to recognize the King of Spain as lord paramount; any future Prince of the Netherlands was forbidden to marry without the consent of that monarch; and should he fall from the orthodox faith he was, ipso facto, to lose all his rights. The Netherlands were to have the same friends and the same enemies as Spain; to abstain from all commerce with the East and West Indies; and to admit Spanish garrisons into Antwerp, Ghent, and Cambray. Albert wrote to the several States of the United Provinces requiring them to acknowledge their lawful Prince, and offering to guarantee them in the maintenance of their religion, and the order of things established among them. But to this communication the States did not even vouchsafe an answer.

Death of Philip II

Philip did not live to see his daughter's marriage. He expired at his palace of the Escorial, September 13th, 1598, aged seventy-one years, of which he had reigned forty-two. Death was a relief to him. After his return to Spain in 1559, Philip had chiefly resided at Madrid; making rare excursions to Aranjuez or the wood of Segovia, and visiting more frequently the gloomy pile of the Escorial in a dreary, stony valley, the abode of the monks of St. Jerome. Even here he was mostly shut up in his apartments; and in these dismal solitudes he contracted an air of imperturbable tranquillity which froze all who approached him. None dared to speak to him before he was ordered. He very rarely showed himself to the people, or even to the grandees, except on fetes and holidays. His smile, however, is said to have been engaging, perhaps from its rarity; yet it was a saying at Court that there was no great distance between his smile and his dagger. He could long dissemble his resentments till the proper opportunity arrived for gratifying them.

The reign of Philip II was disastrous to his subjects. The lord of both Indies died a bankrupt; Portugal was ruined under his sway; a great part of the Netherlands was lost, while the provinces retained were almost wholly deprived of their commerce and manufactures; Spain itself was impoverished and enslaved. Such were the results of near half a century of busy and ambitious, but misdirected policy. Philip left three children; namely, by his third wife, Elizabeth of France, two daughters, Isabella Clara Eugenia, now sovereign of Flanders, and Catherine, married to the Duke of Savoy; and by his fourth wife, Anne of Austria, a son, who succeeded him with the title of Philip III. He had also had by Anne two sons and a daughter, who died in infancy.

With these revolutions of Western Europe the affairs of its eastern regions have afforded but few points of contact and connection, nor do these eastern affairs offer in themselves anything of very striking interest or importance.

Accession of Rodolf II

The death of Maximilian II in 1576, and the accession of his eldest son Rodolph II to the Empire, have been already recorded. Born in 1552, Rodolph had been educated by his bigoted mother during the first twelve years of his life in that mechanical devotion which passed for religion among the Roman Catholics of those days. He was then sent to Spain, and under the auspices of his kinsman Philip II received during the six years that he remained in that country a strictly Spanish education, superintended by the Jesuits. After the death of Don Carlos, Philip had, indeed, for a period designed to make Rodolph his successor on the Spanish thrones, and to give him the hand of his then only daughter in marriage. But these plans came to nothing; Rodolph returned into Germany, and was invested successively, as already recorded, with the Crowns of Hungary and Bohemia, as well as elected King of the Romans. At his father's death, besides the Imperial Crown, he also succeeded to the sole possession of the Austrian lands; for Maximilian established the right of primogeniture in his hereditary dominions. Rodolph, however, intrusted the Austrian administration to his brother, the Archduke Ernest, and took up his own residence for the most part at Prague. His pursuits indisposed him to take any active share in affairs of state. Although of an indolent temperament, and of a feeble will, which rendered him often the tool of others, Rodolph possessed considerable abilities, which, however, were chiefly applied to the idle studies of alchemy and astrology. The latter, which was dignified with the name of astronomy, incidentally proved of some advantage, by leading him to patronize the eminent astronomers Kepler and Tycho Brahe.

The bigotry of Rodolph II, and still more of his brother Ernest, formed a striking contrast to the tolerant spirit of their father Maximilian, and may be said to have laid the foundation of the war which in the next century desolated Germany during thirty years. The effects of the new reign were soon visible in Austria, then for the most part Lutheran. In 1578 Rodolph determined to celebrate Corpus Christi Day at Vienna with more than usual solemnity. As the long-drawn procession was passing over the Peasants' Market it was found necessary to remove a few stalls, when a tumult immediately arose,with cries of "To arms! we are betrayed!" At these menacing symptoms, the clergy and choristers abandoned the Host and fled; they were followed by the guards and halberdiers, and Rodolph found himself in the midst of an infuriated mob, from which he was protected only by the princes and nobles, who drew their swords and closed around him. This incident made a deep impression on the Emperor, whose education had imbued him with a Spanish dignity and stateliness. The suppression of Protestantism at Vienna was immediately resolved. Joshua Opitz, a Lutheran of the Flaccian schism, the most popular preacher in that capital, distinguished by his eloquent, but violent, sermons against the Papists, was ordered, together with his assistants in church and school, to leave Vienna that day, and the Austrian dominions within a fortnight. This measure was followed up by restraints on Protestant worship throughout Austria; and in the following year (1579) it was ordained that none but Roman Catholic teachers and books should be allowed in Austrian schools.

Bavaria.

A rapid reaction in favour of the Roman Church also took place in Bavaria after the accession of Duke William II, who succeeded his father Albert III in 1579. William was a warm supporter of the Jesuits, and erected for them at Munich a college more splendid than his own palace. He employed for the furtherance of the Roman faith all that pomp and that love of art by which he was characterized; and in order to draw the public mind back to the ancient creed, those religious spectacles and processions were instituted which still subsist in Bavaria. At the dedication of the Jesuits' College a grand dramatic and musical entertainment was exhibited, representing the combat of the Archangel Michael. Nothing could exceed the magnificence of the scenery and costumes; a choir of 900 voices chanted the progress of the action; and the multitudes shuddered with affright when they beheld the rebel angels hurled into the deep and undulating abyss of hell. Duke William also instituted the procession which still takes place at Munich on Corpus Christi Day, but with diminished splendour and less characteristic appliances.

On the other hand, an attempt to extend Protestantism in Germany proved a failure; and its origin merited no better fate. Gebhard Truchsess of Waldburg, who at the age of of thirty had become Archbishop and Elector of Cologne, while walking in a procession during the congress in that city, beheld at a window the Countess Agnes of Mansfeld, a daughter of that noble house at Eisleben which had befriended Luther. Agnes was of extraordinary beauty, but her family had fallen into poverty : Truchsess prevailed on her to live with him as his mistress. The brothers of Agnes, having learnt their sister's shame, accompanied by some armed followers, surprised the Elector in his palace at Bonn, and compelled him, by threats of death if he refused, to promise that he would marry Agnes. The first thought of Truchsess after this occurrence was to resign his archbishopric; but from this he was diverted by Counts Nuenar and Solms, and others of the nobility, as well as by the exhortations of Agnes. In the autumn of 1582 he openly professed his adherence to the Confession of Augsburg, and in the following February, in spite of an admonition from the Pope, he was married to Agnes by a Protestant minister. Gregory XIII now fulminated against him a bull of excommunication, depriving him of all his offices and dignities; and the Chapter of Cologne, who had viewed with displeasure the secession of their Archbishop from the orthodox Church, although he had promised not to interfere with the exercise of their religion or to restrict them in the choice of his successor, proceeded to elect in place of Truchsess Prince Ernest of Bavaria, Bishop of Freising, who had formerly competed with him for the see. The troops of Ernest, assisted by some Spaniards lent to him by the Prince of Parma after the conquest of Zutphen, drove Truchsess from Cologne. Of the Protestant Princes of Germany whose help he had sought, John Casimir of the Palatinate alone lent him some feeble aid. The deposed Elector retired into Westphalia and sent his wife to England to implore the interference of Queen Elizabeth, Agnes, however, incurred the jealousy and anger of the Queen by her supposed familiarity with Leicester, and was dismissed from Court. Truchsess then sought the protection of the Prince of Orange, and finally retired to Strassburg, where he lived sixteen years as dean, till his death in 1601, without renouncing his title of Elector. For nearly two centuries after this event, the Chapter of Cologne continued to elect its Archbishops from the Bavarian family.

Diets of the Empire

Germany, almost isolated at this period from the rest ofEurope, was the scene of a few political events of any importance. The Diets of the Empire were chiefly occupied with matters of internal police. That held at Frankfurt in 1577 published some regulations which exhibit in a curious light the manners of the higher classes of the Germans. The oaths and blasphemies of the nobles are denounced; the Electors and Princes of the Empire, ecclesiastical as well as secular, are alone authorized to keep buffoons, and at the same time forbidden to get drunk themselves or to intoxicate others. These regulations are accompanied with many more, respecting dress, the table, the rate of interest, monopolies, &c.

Poland

The death of Stephen Bathory in December, 1586, having again rendered vacant the throne of Poland, Rodolph's brother, the Archduke Maximilian, proposed himself as a candidate. But the choice of the majority of the Electors fell upon the son of John, King of Sweden, by Catharine, a sister of the last Jagellon; and that young Prince ascended the throne with the title of Sigismund III. Maximilian, however, prepared to contest it with him, and entering Poland with a small body of troops, penetrated to Cracow, at that time the capital, to which he laid siege. But Zamoisky, Grand Chancellor of the Crown, illustrious by his learning and researches, as well as by his military exploits, who had embraced the party of Sigismund, compelled Maximilian to raise the siege; and in the following year (January 24th, 1588) defeated him in a battle near Bitschin in Silesia. Maximilian was soon afterwards captured in that town, and was detained more than a twelvemonth prisoner in a castle near Lublin, till at length the Emperor Eodolph was obliged to obtain his liberation by paying a large ransom, and ceding to the Poles the Hungarian county of Zips, which had been formerly pledged to them by the Emperor Sigismund.

Hungary

The Hungarians were at this time almost independent,though ostensibly Rodolph II was represented in that country by his brother the Archduke Ernest. When, in 1592, Ernest was called by Philip II to the government of the Netherlands, and Rodolph could not prevail upon himself to quit his retirement at Prague, the incompetent Matthias was sent into Hungary; as, of the other two brothers of the Emperor, Maximilian was employed in administering Inner Austria and Tyrol, while Albert was in Spain. The proceedings of the Jesuits and reactionary party, both in Hungary and Transylvania, occasioned the greatest discontent. After the election of Stephen Bathory to the Polish Crown, the government of Transylvania had been conducted by his brother Christopher, who, on Stephen's death was succeeded by his youthful son Sigismund Bathory, a person of weak character, and the mere tool of the Jesuits, by whom he had been educated. Soon afterwards, however, the Protestant party gained the ascendancy, and in 1588 the Jesuits were banished by the States of Transylvania, much against the will of Sigismund. On account of the constant border warfare with the Turks, the Emperor, the Pope, and the King of Spain naturally had much influence with Sigismund, as the only allies to whom he could look for assistance against the Osmanlis, whom he regarded with aversion, though he owed to them his throne. But these circumstances had not much effect on the state of parties in Transylvania till the breaking out of a regular war between the Turks and Hungarians in 1593.

Turkey

The affairs of Turkey have been brought down in a former chapter to the death of Sultan Selim II in 1574. The Grand-Vizier, Mahomet Sokolli, concealed the death of the Sultan, as he had previously done that of Solyman II. till Selim's son and successor, Amurath III, arrived at Constantinople from his government of Magnesia, to take possession of the throne (December 22nd, 1574). Amurath's first act was to cause five brothers, all mere children, to be strangled. The Janissaries had then to be conciliated by an augmented donative of fifty ducats a man, and costly gifts were distributed among the great officers of state. Amurath III was now about twenty-eight years of age. His person was small, his features good, his complexion pale and yellow from the baneful effects of opium. In his youth a favourable estimate was taken of his character; for though of a studious and somewhat melancholy disposition, he had not shown himself averse from, or incapable of, military achievements. But from these good qualities he rapidly degenerated after his accession, becoming avaricious, fickle, mistrustful, cowardly; and at length he wholly secluded himself in the seraglio.

The religious troubles in France tended to diminish the influence of that country with the Porte. The help of the Turks against the House of Austria was no longer necessary to France, while the Guises and the League were in close alliance with Philip II. On the other hand the Huguenots had secret dealings with the Porte, and Coligni sent several nobles of his party to Constantinople; but it does not appear that these negotiations had any result. It may be remarked, however, that the Protestants were much more acceptable to the Turks than the Papists, as approaching more nearly to their own faith, which rejected with abhorrence any semblance of idolatry; and it was, perhaps, partly from this cause that English influence made at this period so surprising an advance at Constantinople.

Towards the end of 1578 William Harebone, or Harburn, an English merchant, presented himself before Sultan Amurath III with a letter from Queen Elizabeth, in which she besought the friendship of the Porte, and requested permission for her subjects to trade under their own flag; for although the English had opened a commerce in the Levant before the capture of Cyprus by Selim II, they had hitherto been obliged to sail in those waters under French colours. The Sultan did not vouchsafe an answer to this application; but Harburn, nothing daunted, opened private communications with the Grand Vizier, Mahomet Sokolli; and as the merchandize of England, and especially its metals, was much prized in Turkey, Harburn soon made great progress, in spite of the efforts of Germigny, the French ambassador to the Porte, to counteract him. Germigny, indeed, succeeded at first in getting a treaty cancelled which Harburn had effected in 1580, and which allowed the English to trade under their own flag; but in May, 1583, Elizabeth's indefatigable ambassador obtained a rescript from the Sultan, granting English commerce in the Levant the same privileges as the French. A Turkey company had already been incorporated in London by royal charter in 1581. Sir William Monson assigns the following reasons for England having embarked so late in the Levant trade: the want of ships, the danger from the Moorish pirates on the coast of Barbary, and the monopoly of the trade by the Venetians, whose argosies brought the merchandize of the East to Southampton. The last argosy which visited our shores was unfortunately wrecked near the Wight in 1587, and her valuable cargo lost.

In her negotiations with the Porte Elizabeth used the plea of religion, styling herself in her letter the protectrix of the true faith against idolaters. Indeed the English agents seem to have assumed an attitude of slavish submission towards the Porte which somewhat moved the contempt of the Turks; and the Grand Vizier Sinan Pasha derisively observed to the Emperor's ambassador, "that the English wanted nothing of being true Moslems except to raise the finger on high and cry Esched" (the formulary of faith). This was contrary to the practice of the Venetians, who in treating with the Porte had learned from experience that it was necessary to assume an air of dignity. Nevertheless, the advantages of trade, the interests of policy, and above all a common hatred of the Pope and the King of Spain, soon cemented the alliance between England and the Turks; though Harburn in vain tried to persuade them to attack the Spanish coasts at the time of the Armada.

Edward Burton was an able successor of Harburn as English ambassador to the Porte, and till his death, in 1598, very much increased the influence of England in Turkey. He found a powerful friend in Seadeddin, the celebrated Turkish historian, minister, and general, whom during the Hungarian war he accompanied on the expedition against Erlau in 1596. The counsels of England now began to have weight even in the Divan. After the accession of Henry IV to the throne of France, a rivalry had ensued between him and Elizabeth for the precedence of their flags in the Levant, in which Burton gradually prevailed; and at length the English flag instead of the French became the covering ensign of foreign vessels in that quarter.

Henry IV resumed the traditional policy of France to break the power of Spain with the assistance of the Osmanlis; but he could never obtain from them any effectual help. His abjuration of Protestantism filled the Porte with suspicion; and after the peace of Vervins he no longer wanted its aid. Henry, however, always maintained an honourable and dignified attitude towards the Sultan; he became the special guardian of the rights and liberties of the Christians in the East, as Francis I had been before him; and he procured the restoration of the privileges of the monks of the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem.

War between the Emperor and the Turk

Of the Turkish relations at this period, however, the most mportant were those with Austria and Hungary. The truce concluded between Austria and Selim II had been frequently renewed; yet the border warfare grew every year more bloody, and the relations with the Porte daily more precarious. In 1592 the Grand-Vizier Sinan Pasha was highly offended by an intercepted letter of Kreckwitz, the Imperial ambassador, in which the Vizier was denounced as the cause of the misunderstanding which had so long prevailed. While he was in this temper an event occurred which afforded a pretence to declare open war. Hassan, the Turkish Governor of Bosnia, having, in June, 1593, crossed the Culpa with 30,000 men, was defeated near Sissek with great slaughter and the loss of all his baggage and guns by only 5,000 Germans and Hungarians. Amurath could now no longer resist the counsels of his Vizier and the importunities of Hassan, and of two Sultanas who had lost their sons at Sissek, to wipe out this disgrace to his arms. War was declared against the Emperor at Constantinople, and Kreckwitz and his suite were thrown into prison. Sinan Pasha left Constantinople with an army in August, 1593, amid the tricks and howlings of dervishes, carrying with him Kreckwitz in chains, who died upon the march. Crossing the Drave at Essek and passing Stuhlweissenburg, Sinan appeared before Veszprem, which surrendered October 13th. On the other hand, after the Turkish army had retired into winter quarters, the Imperialists gained a signal victory over the Pasha of Buda, November 23rd, which struck the Turks with consternation. During the winter the Archduke Matthias, who commanded the Imperial troops in the northern part of Hungary, received considerable reinforcements, and laid siege in the spring of 1594 to Gran, which, however, he was obliged to abandon. The Archduke Maximilian was not more successful in the south, while Sinan, after taking Tata and Eaab, was repulsed at Komorn.

The ensuing campaign seemed to open under better auspices for the Emperor. The Diet, assembled at Ratisbon in 1594, had voted Rodolph large succours of men and money. His hereditary dominions, as well as Bohemia and Hungary, came forward with assistance; from other parts of Europe he received promises which were not fulfilled. But what principally alarmed the Sultan was the revolt from him of the three tributary provinces of Moldavia, Wallachia, and Transylvania, the Voyvodes of which, after either slaying or driving out the Turks, entered into an alliance with the Emperor. In Transylvania the young Prince Sigismund himself, influenced by the Jesuits and the Catholic party, was for Austria, while the greater part of the Protestants preferred the Turks for their masters; and, as since the breaking out of open war it became necessary that the province should declare for one side or the other, a coup d'état was resolved on.

At a Diet held at Klausenburg, in August, 1594, some of the principal leaders of the Protestant party were seized and put to death, and a treaty was entered into with Rodolph, which was ratified at Prague, January 28th, 1595, and confirmed by the Hungarian Diet. The chief conditions were, mutual aid against the Turks, and the reversion of Transylvania to Austria in case Sigismund died without male heirs. The Jesuits now returned into the land, and ruled the weak-minded Sigismund more absolutely than ever. He even thought of entering a convent, and proceeded to Prague to entreat the Emperor to procure him a cardinal's hat. Rodolph, however, dissuaded him from these projects, and prevailed on him to return into Transylvania. The indifferent success of the campaign of 1594, and above all the revolt of the three provinces, filled Amurath with consternation, and, for the first time, he sent for the holy standard from Damascus, the palladium of the faithful in their contests with the infidels. Death, however, released him from his anxieties. Amurath III died January 16th, 1595, and was succeeded by his son, Mahomet III. The death of the Sultan was concealed, as usual, till Mahomet could arrive from his government of Magnesia. He was the last heir of the Turkish throne who enjoyed before his accession an independent government; in future all the Sultan's children were educated exclusively in the Seraglio. The Janissaries had to be conciliated with a donative of 660,000 ducats, and it was also necessary to pacify a revolt of the discontented sipahis.

Mahomet III

In spite of the holy standard, the campaign of 1595 was highly unfavourable to the Turks. Sinan, in attempting to gain possession of Wallachia, was driven back with great slaughter by Prince Michael the Voyvode. The Turkish arms were not more fortunate in Hungary. The Imperialists had now received some of the German contingents, the Pope and other Italian Princes had forwarded contributions in money, and a more able general, Count Mansfeld, who had been despatched from the Netherlands by Philip II, commanded the forces of Rodolph. In September, Mansfeld took the important town of Gran. Shortly after Vissegrad and Waitzen also yielded to the Imperialists, and the Turks lost several places on the Danube. So great was the alarm at Constantinople that prayers were offered up in the mosques for the success of the arms of the faithful, a step never resorted to except in cases of the utmost danger; and the un-warlike Mahomet III felt himself compelled to revive the spirits of his troops by heading them in person. His departure was delayed by the death of his Grand-Vizier Sinan; but in April, 1596, he commenced with great pomp his expedition against Erlau, accompanied by his newly-appointed Grand-Vizier Ibrahim Pasha, and by Seadeddin, who occupied a conspicuous place in the council of war. The Imperialists did not attempt to arrest his march, which was directed by Belgrade, Peterwardein, and Szegedin on Erlau. A week sufficed for the capture of Erlau, when, in spite of the capitulation, the garrison of 5,000 men was cut down by the Janissaries. The Archduke Maximilian, and Sigismund, Prince of Transylvania, now hastened with their forces to recover Erlau, and in October they met the Turks on the plain of Keresztes, where a bloody battle was fought which lasted three days. Victory seemed at first to favour the Christians. Emboldened by their success, they ventured, on the third day (October 26th), to attack the Turkish camp; but they were repulsed with great loss, and, being seized with a panic, took to a disorderly flight, in which 50,000 men are said to have been killed, and 100 guns and the military chest were captured by the Turks. Maximilian, who was one of the first to fly, escaped to Kaschau, and Sigismund with his force retreated through Tokay into Transylvania. Mahomet then marched back to Constantinople, which he entered in triumph. This signal defeat occasioned the greatest alarm and anxiety at Vienna, and, indeed, throughout Europe.

The Sultan, however, did not derive that advantage from his success which might have been expected. In the campaign of 1597 nothing decisive was achieved, while that of 1598 was highly adverse to the Turkish arms: Raab, Tata, Veszprém, Tschambock, besides several fortresses, were taken by the Imperialists, and the operations of the Turkish Sera- skier Saturdschi were so unfortunate as to cost him his dismissal and his life. Both sides were now exhausted, and eager to conclude a peace if satisfactory terms could be obtained. In 1599 the Grand-Vizier, Ibrahim Pasha, who commanded the Turkish forces in Hungary, made proposals to the Imperial general, Nicholas Palfy; but nothing was effected: the demands on both sides were too high, and the war was continued six years longer. We shall not, however, enter into the details of a struggle which was feebly carried on with varying success, and which gave birth to no events of decisive importance. Even the death of Mahomet III, December 22nd, 1603, had little effect on the war, except that it served still further to exhaust the resources of the Porte by the payment of the accustomed donative to the Janissaries. Mahomet was quietly succeeded by his son Achmet I, then hardly fourteen years of age. The renewal of the war between the Sultan and the Shah of Persia in 1603 tended still further to dispose the Porte to close the struggle in Hungary; and the negotiations were facilitated by a revolution in Transylvania.

Sigismund Bathory

The weak and simple-minded Sigismund Bathory was persuaded in 1597 by the Jesuits, as well as by his wife—Maria Christina, daughter of Charles, Duke of Styria—who wanted to get rid of him, to cede Transylvania to Rodolph II, in exchange for the Silesian principalities of Oppeln and Ratibor, and a large pension. In the spring of 1598 Sigismund proceeded into Silesia, where he soon found that he had been deceived in the bargain which he had made; and before the end of August he returned to Klausenburg at the invitation of Stephen Bocskai, a Hungarian noble, and one of the leaders of the liberal and Protestant party in that country. A counter-revolution now took place. The Austrian commissioners who had been sent to take possession of Transylvania were seized and imprisoned; Sigismund took a new oath to the States that he would make no innovations in religion, and the Jesuits were again sent into banishment. But they soon recovered their influence. Sigismund was induced to relinquish his authority to his fanatical kinsman, Cardinal Andrew Bathory, and retired into Poland to live in a private station. At the same time his wife entered a convent at Hall in Tyrol, where she passed twenty-two years, the remainder of her existence. Cardinal Andrew Bathory having been recognized by the States as Prince of Transylvania, in 1599, the Emperor Rodolph commissioned his general, Basta, as well as Michael, Voyvode of Wallachia, to overthrow him, and the Cardinal was soon after killed by Michael's troops. Sigismund now regained for a short time possession of Transylvania, but in 1602 was once more compelled to abdicate, and never again appeared on the political scene. About eight years afterwards, having incurred the suspicion of the Emperor, he was summoned to Prague, where he soon after died in his forty-first year.

Stephen Bocskai, King of Hungary

Stephen Bocskai now set up pretensions of his own, not only to the Principality of Transylvania, but even to the Crown of Hungary. In June, 1605, he entered into an alliance with the Grand-Vizier Lala Mohammed, commander of the Turkish army in Hungary, and assisted him in the campaign of that year, in which Gran, Vissegrad, Veszprém, and other places were taken by their united forces. Bocskai had already been invested with Transylvania, and on November 11th, Lala Mohammed solemnly crowned him King of Hungary on the field of Rakosch, presenting him at the same time with a Turkish sword and colours, in token that he was the Sultan's vassal. It would seem, however, that Bocskai had only been set up as a man of straw by the Turks, in order to obtain better conditions in the treaty of peace which was still negotiating between them and Rodolph II. The Archduke Matthias was first of all commissioned to treat with Bocskai, who was easily persuaded to renounce the Crown of Hungary; and by a treaty signed at Vienna (July 23rd, 1606) he was allowed to retain Transylvania, besides several places in Hungary. This was the prelude to another treaty with the Turks, concluded at Sitvatorok November 11th.

The PEACE OF SITVATOROK, which was to last twenty years from January 1st, 1607, made but slight alterations in the territorial possessions of the contracting parties; but it is remarkable for what may be called the moral and diplomatic concessions on the part of the Porte. It was arranged in the preliminaries that the Emperor should no longer be insulted with the title of "King of Vienna", but that both he and the Sultan should be treated with the Imperial title; and the diplomatic intercourse between the two nations was henceforth to be conducted on an equal footing. But a still more important concession was the abandonment by the Porte of the tribute hitherto paid by Austria; in consideration of which, however, the Emperor was to pay down, once for all, a sum of 200,000 florins, besides making valuable presents. Such an abatement of the haughty tone in which the Turkish Sultans had hitherto spoken betrays a consciousness of inward weakness. The Osmanlis had, indeed, now passed the zenith of their power, and had arrived at the limits of their conquests; yet their Empire still embraced an extent unparalleled since that of ancient Rome. In Asia, the Tigris and Mount Ararat separated the dominions of the Ottoman Sultan and the Shah of Persia; Bagdad, Van, and Erzeroum were Turkish governments; between the Black Sea and the Caspian, the Georgians, Mingrelians, and Circassians, though free, were tributary; the south and west coasts of the Black Sea, from the Caucasus to the Dnieper, Anatolia, Caramania, Armenia, Kurdistan, Mesopotamia, Syria, Palestine and Arabia obeyed the Sultan. In Africa he possessed Egypt, and was lord of the whole coast from the delta of the Nile to the Straits of Gibraltar, with exception of a few places held by the Spaniards. In Europe he ruled, besides Greece and its archipelago and the islands of Cyprus, Rhodes, and Chios, Thrace, Macedonia, Bulgaria, Wallachia, Moldavia, Transylvania, the greater part of Hungary, Bosnia, Servia, and Albania.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

RELIGION AND COMMERCE