The Knights of St. John

by Augusta Theodosia Drane

When the last sail of the French fleet disappeared from Lesbos, the rendezvous of the Christian allies, D’Aubusson gave way to a sadness not unusual to him, as to many a great mind besides, which, with its eye fixed on its own lofty and noble views, ever meets with littleness and disgusts in the world around. He felt there was a stain on the honour of Christendom, and the chill of that disappointment is said never to have left him. Still he would not have abandoned all attempts to restrain the Ottoman power; and seeing the siege of Lesbos to be impracticable, he would nevertheless have made some strong and imposing demonstrations against Constantinople, more, however, to maintain a continual and vigilant reconnoissance than to provoke actual hostilities; and for this purpose he directed himself to England. But in London also he met with “ice that would not melt, seas and mountains that brought forth nothing.” He was then in his seventy-eighth year, and seeing there were no hopes, as things then stood, of effecting any thing for the Christian cause, he returned to Rhodes, and spent the last two years of his life in regulating the affairs of his people and of his order. The last edicts which bore his authority were full of a religious spirit: they were directed against blasphemy and public swearing, against luxury in dress, and other abuses. The great captain never forgot that he was also a religious; and none ever enforced religious discipline among his subjects with more effectual severity.

His last hour was worthy of his name. Gathering his knights around his bed, he bade them adhere to their rule; and after many holy words spoken with a calm and sweet serenity, he closed his eyes, and expired without a struggle. No prince or grand master was ever so lamented. In the funeral procession (to adopt Taaffe’s description), first went every religious corporation in Rhodes; next came the Greek patriarch and all his clergy; then the Latin clergy of the order; a little before the bier two hundred of the principal Rhodians clothed in black, and bearing lighted torches in their hands; and following them, the Knights, carrying their colours drooping, so as to sweep the ground; the bier with the corpse borne on the shoulders of the priors, and the grand crosses of the order; after which marched the long troop of mourners, two hundred and fifty in number; and loud was the weeping from the windows, streets, terraces, and roofs, and the wailings and lamentations of the whole populace. Over his tomb was broken his truncheon of command, together with his spurs; and so were concluded all the doleful formalities with singular testimonies of heart-felt grief. Never was son or parent more truly mourned than was D’Aubusson by his knights and Rhodian subjects. They saw in him the honour of chivalry, the father of the poor, the saviour of Rhodes, the sword and buckler of Christendom; and his death was the signal for hostilities which, during his life, had never been pursued by Bajazet, who, strange to say, really loved and honoured the famous grand master as much as he doubtless feared him as an adversary.

Bajazet had nothing of the ferocity or warlike genius of his race. The civil war in which he found himself engaged on first coming to the throne had obliged him to recall Ahmed Keduk from Otranto, which was compelled after an obstinate defence to capitulate to the Duke of Calabria. The infidels thus dispossessed of the only place they held in Italy were happily never able to recover their footing on its shores. His reign was chiefly signalised by great improvements in the Turkish navy, and increasing power at sea. He carried on frequent wars with the Venetians and Hungarians, and took the cities of Lepanto, Coron, and Modon. The carnage at the last-named place was immense; the inhabitants being put to the sword without regard to sex or age; nearly all the nobles perished; and the bishop, Andrew Falconi, was slain while in the act of exhorting the people to fight for their faith and liberties. The conquerors set fire to the town after its capture, and the conflagration lasted five whole days. In resisting the encroachments of the Mameluke sultans of Egypt Bajazet was less successful; the result of the contest being in his adversary’s favour, who, at the peace that was concluded between them, retained three strong places which he had seized and occupied. On the whole, therefore, the Ottoman power may be considered to have remained stationary during his reign; and had he been followed by princes of no more energy, or no better success in war, the decline of the Turkish empire might have dated from his accession, or at any rate would have been anticipated many years. But the dynasty of the sultans boasts a worthy representative in his son and successor Selim. Seizing the reins of government, he commenced his rule by becoming the murderer of his brothers and nephews, if not of his father, and made great preparations for a second invasion of Rhodes. On one occasion, indeed, his fleet, as it returned from Alexandria, menaced the island, but withdrew after making hostile demonstrations. His death, eight years after his accession, prevented the execution of the design; but a glance at his conquests during that short period may show how the circle of the Ottoman power was gathering closer and closer round the devoted island: Egypt, Syria, and Arabia, were now added to the Turkish dominions, which thus became nearly double in extent; and the crescent ruled over every country of the East, save the yet unconquered soil where waved the banner of the Knights of the Cross. Selim may be regarded as the very impersonation of the worst qualities of Mahometanism in general, and of the Turkish character in particular. One instance of his fanaticism may suffice. He had resolved on extirpating the very profession of Christianity from his dominions; and to this end actually ordered the conversion of all the churches into mosques, and the reception of the Koran by all his Greek subjects, under pain of death. From this sanguinary determination he was diverted only by the strong remonstrances of the Greek patriarch, whose efforts were seconded by those of the grand vizier and chief mufti. He reminded him of the solemn pledges given by Mahomet on the capture of Constantinople, and appealed to the very Koran itself against such wholesale slaughter and direct infraction of treaties. Selim yielded thus far that he consented to tolerate the practice of the Christian religion; but he would no longer allow some of the finest buildings of the city to be devoted to its worship; these he gave up to the Mussulmans, and directed structures of wood to be erected in their stead. Thus was completed the degradation of the once Christian metropolis of the East; and, except that their religious assemblies were not forbidden, and their priests were not proscribed, and the saying of Mass was not made a capital offence, and there was no ruinous fine for non-attendance at the Moslem service, the Greek subjects of the Porte were reduced to the same condition as were the Catholics of England in the reign of Elizabeth.

The death of Selim (September 22, 1520) raised to the throne of the Ottoman empire its greatest monarch, in the person of Solyman the Magnificent, whose name is so familiar to the students of that period of history which we might denominate “the age of Charles V.” He succeeded to the vast power left him by his father at the same time that Charles was elected to the imperial dignity: their strength was well matched, and it may be said that, by a kind of instinct, they felt themselves rivals from the moment of their accession. But the policy and character of Solyman differed widely from those of the princes who had preceded him in the government of the East. The influence of European civilisation was gradually making itself felt; and the Turks, learning something of refinement from the nations whom they subjugated, were beginning to exhibit some modification in that savage barbarism which had hitherto alone distinguished them. Solyman’s government of his empire was conducted on principles of justice and equity,—virtues unknown under rulers whose only laws had been the cimeter or the bowstring; and the increased intelligence of the Turkish administration, while it in no wise softened the merciless character of its hostilities, added in no small degree to its power, and consequently to the danger of its Christian adversaries. Among various notes and memoranda left by the Emperor Selim, pointing out with remarkable sagacity the steps necessary to be taken for assuring the safety of his enormous dominions, the possession of two places was named as essential for the preservation of the empire:—they were Belgrade and Rhodes, both which had successfully defied the arms of Mahomet. Solyman determined on both enterprises; and preparations for the siege of Belgrade were commenced in the very year of his accession.

This bulwark of Christendom was compelled to capitulate on the 29th of August 1521. The Hungarians made a most gallant defence and resisted twenty desperate assaults; but to the overwhelming numbers of the beleaguering army and the incessant fire of the Turkish batteries were added the disaffection and treachery of allies and mercenaries. Schism again came to the aid of the infidels; and Belgrade, like Constantinople, fell into the power of the Turks. According to established custom Solyman took formal possession of the place in the name of the false prophet by “saying prayers” in the cathedral, which thus became a mosque, and was then, to use the expression appropriated to such profanations, “purged from idolatry” by the destruction of the altars and the removal of every Christian ornament and symbol. Having thus completed his first great conquest, and established a Turkish stronghold on the Hungarian frontier, the youthful sultan marched back in triumph to Constantinople.

The result meanwhile was watched at Rhodes with anxious interest; for all very well knew, should Belgrade fall, where the next blow would be aimed. Fabricius Carretto was then grand master; the same to whom D’Aubusson was thought to have predicted his election during the storming of St. Nicholas; a man of literary and refined habits, learned in all the learning of the age, which it must be remembered was the age of the Medici and of the revival of letters, skilled in all dead and living languages, a gallant warrior, and at the same time a pacific and popular prince; the brother-in-arms of D’Aubusson, and the friend and correspondent of Leo X. He died in the month of January 1521; and with the daily expectation of a second siege, the choice of his successor was a matter of interest not merely to Rhodes, but to Christendom. The votes fell on one worthy in every way to rank among the galaxy of illustrious princes who adorned the opening of the sixteenth century: Philip Villiers de l’Isle Adam must be added to the list which already included Francis, Charles, Leo, and the Sultan Solyman. He was at Paris when the news of his election reached him, but instantly set out for Rhodes, arriving there, after happily escaping from a fire which broke out in his vessel, a violent tempest, and the corsair Curtogli,[21] who lay in wait for him off Cape St. Angelo, and through whose fleet the dauntless grand master passed under cover of the night. His arrival in Rhodes was joyfully welcomed. There had been no declaration of war on Solyman’s part; yet it was scarcely needed, for Belgrade had fallen, and the intelligence was conveyed to L’Isle Adam in a letter from Solyman himself, the friendly terms of which threw but a transparent veil over the threats they were intended to convey.

The correspondence between the sultan and the grand master may fairly be looked upon as a curiosity in the history of diplomacy, and as such we subjoin the letters.

“Solyman Sultan, by the grace of God King of Kings, Sovereign of Sovereigns, most high Emperor of Byzantium and Trebizond, most powerful King of Persia, Arabia, Syria, and Egypt, Supreme Lord of Europe and Asia, Prince of Mecca and Aleppo, Possessor of Jerusalem, and Ruler of the Universal Sea, to Philip Villiers de L’Isle Adam, Grand Master of Rhodes, wishes health.

“We congratulate you on your new dignity, and on your arrival in your states, desiring that you may reign there happily with yet greater glory than your predecessors have done. It only rests with you to share in our good graces. Accept our friendship, therefore; and, as a friend, be not the last to congratulate us on the conquests we have just achieved in Hungary, where we have made ourselves masters of the important city of Belgrade, having caused all such as dared to resist us to fall under our redoubtable sword. Farewell.”

“Brother Philip Villiers de L’Isle Adam, Grand Master of Rhodes, to Solyman, Sultan of the Turks.