History of the Reign of Philip the Second, King of Spain, Vols. 1 and 2

by William Hickling Prescott

The theory of an absolute government would seem to imply perfection in the head of it. But, as perfection is not the lot of humanity, it was prudently provided by the Turkish constitution that the sultan should have the benefit of a council to advise him. It consisted of three or four great officers, appointed by himself, with the grand-vizier at their head. This functionary was possessed of an authority far exceeding that of the prime-minister of any European prince. All the business of state may be said to have passed through his hands. The persons chosen for this high office were usually men of capacity and experience; and in a weak reign they served by their large authority to screen the incapacity of the sovereign from the eyes of his subjects, while they preserved the state from detriment. It might be thought that powers so vast as those bestowed on the vizier might have rendered him formidable, if not dangerous, to his master. But his master was placed as far above him as above the meanest of his subjects. He had unlimited power of life and death; and how little he was troubled with scruples in the exercise of this power is abundantly shown in history. The bowstring was too often the only warrant for the deposition of a minister.

But the most remarkable of the Turkish institutions, the one which may be said to have formed the keystone of the system, was that relating to the Christian population of the empire. Once in five years a general conscription was made, by means of which all the children of Christian parents who had reached the age of seven, and gave promise of excellence in mind or body, were taken from their homes and brought to the capital. They were then removed to different quarters, and placed in seminaries where they might receive such instruction as would fit them for the duties of life. Those giving greatest promise of strength and endurance were sent to places prepared for them in Asia Minor. Here they were subjected to a severe training, to abstinence, to privations of every kind, and to the strict discipline which should fit them for the profession of a soldier. From this body was formed the famous corps of the janizaries.

Another portion were placed in schools in the capital, or the neighboring cities, where, under the eye of the sultan, as it were, they were taught various manly accomplishments, with such a smattering of science as Turkish, or rather Arabian, scholarship could supply. When their education was finished, some went into the sultan's body-guard, where a splendid provision was made for their maintenance. Others, intended for civil life, entered on a career which might lead to the highest offices in the state.

CONDITION OF TURKEY.

As all these classes of Christian youths were taken from their parents at[{395}] that tender age when the doctrines of their own faith could hardly have taken root in their minds, they were, without difficulty, won over to the faith of the Koran; which was further commended to their choice as the religion of the state, the only one which opened to them the path of preferment. Thus set apart from the rest of the community, and cherished by royal favor, the new converts, as they rallied round the throne of their sovereign, became more stanch in their devotion to his interests, as well as to the interests of the religion they had adopted, than even the Turks themselves.

This singular institution bore hard on the Christian population, who paid this heavy tax of their own offspring. But it worked well for the monarchy, which, acquiring fresh vigor from the constant infusion of new blood into its veins, was slow in exhibiting any signs of decrepitude or decay.

The most important of these various classes was that of the janizaries, whose discipline was far from terminating with the school. Indeed, their whole life may be said to have been passed in war, or in preparation for it. Forbidden to marry, they had no families to engage their affections, which, as with the monks and friars in Christian countries, were concentrated on their own order, whose prosperity was inseparably connected with that of the state. Proud of the privileges which distinguished them from the rest of the army, they seemed desirous to prove their title to them by their thorough discipline, and by their promptness to execute the most dangerous and difficult services. Their post was always the post of danger. It was their proud vaunt, that they had never fled before an enemy. Clad in their flowing robes, so little suited to the warrior, armed with the arquebuse and the scymitar,—in their hands more than a match for the pike or sword of the European,—with the heron's plume waving above their heads, their dense array might ever be seen bearing down in the thickest of the fight; and more than once, when the fate of the empire trembled in the balance, it was this invincible corps that turned the scale, and by their intrepid conduct decided the fortune of the day. Gathering fresh reputation with age, so long as their discipline remained unimpaired, they were a match for the best soldiers of Europe. But in time this admirable organization experienced a change. One sultan allowed them to marry; another, to bring their sons into the corps; a third opened the ranks to Turks as well as Christians; until, forfeiting their peculiar character, the janizaries became confounded with the militia of the empire. These changes occurred in the time of Philip the Second; but their consequences were not fully unfolded till the following century.[1270]

It was fortunate for the Turks, considering the unlimited power lodged in the hands of their rulers, that these should have so often been possessed of the courage and capacity for using it for the advancement of the nation. From Othman the First, the founder of the dynasty, to Solyman the Magnificent, the contemporary of Philip, the Turkish throne was filled by a succession of able princes, who, bred to war, were every year enlarging the boundaries of the empire, and adding to its resources. By the middle of the sixteenth century, besides their vast possessions in Asia, they held the eastern portions of Africa. In Europe, together with the countries at this day acknowledging their sceptre, they were masters of Greece; and Solyman, overrunning Transylvania and Hungary, had twice carried his victorious[{396}] banners up to the walls of Vienna. The battle-ground of the Cross and the Crescent was transferred from the west to the east of Europe; and Germany in the sixteenth century became what Spain and the Pyrenees had been in the eighth, the bulwark of Christendom.

Nor was the power of Turkey on the sea less formidable than on the land. Her fleet rode undisputed mistress of the Levant; for Venice, warned by the memorable defeat at Prevesa, in 1538, and by the loss of Cyprus and other territories, hardly ventured to renew the contest. That wily republic found that it was safer to trust to diplomacy than to arms, in her dealings with the Ottomans.

The Turkish navy, sweeping over the Mediterranean, combined with the corsairs of the Barbary coast,—who, to some extent, owed allegiance to the Porte,—and made frequent descents on the coasts of Italy and Spain, committing worse ravages than those of the hurricane. From these ravages France only was exempt; for her princes, with an unscrupulous policy which caused general scandal in Christendom, by an alliance with the Turks, protected her territories somewhat at the expense of her honor.