Suleiman The Magnificent 1520 1566 (16 page)

Most extraordinary of all was the language used by the Grand Vizir about his relations to his own all-powerful

49 Gevay, vol. II, pt. i, pp. 20-21,

50 Gevay, vol. II, pt. i, p. 23.

51 Gevay, vol. II, pt. r, pp. 26, 27.

sovereign. "Though I am the Sultan's slave/' he assured his hearers,

whatsoever I do is done. I can at a stroke make a pasha out of a stableboy. I can give kingdoms and provinces to whomsoever I choose, and my lord will say nothing against it. Even if he has ordered a thing himself, if I do not want it, it is not done. And if I order a thing to be done, and he has ordered to the contrary, what I wish and not what he wishes is done. The making of war and the granting of peace are in my hand. I can distribute all treasures. He is not better dressed than I; my fortune remains intact, for he pays all my expenses. He intrusts to me his power, his kingdoms, his treasures, everything both great and small, and I can do with them whatsoever I please. 52

Thus spake the too successful favorite, forgetting that, as Ludovico Gritti said, possibly with intention, in a later interview, if Suleiman "should send one of his cooks to kill Ibrahim Pasha, there would be nothing to prevent the killing." *

The sensitiveness of the Turks on the matter of their dignities was in fact the principal reason why Schepper failed to obtain from them the peace which Charles had instructed him to seek; they were as determined as ever to maintain their prestige. At his first interview, the envoy was asked if he bore a letter from the Emperor. When he produced one, the Grand Vizir rose to receive it, saying, "He is a mighty lord, and we should honor him accordingly." Then, in Oriental fashion, he showed his respect by pressing the letter to his forehead and lips before putting it reverently down—to the great edification of Schepper. An examination of its contents, however, soon made trouble. Many of Charles's titles, of which

52 Gevay, vol. II, pt. i, p. 21.

53 Gevay, vol. II, pt. i, p, 31.

he had a list quite as long as the Sultan's, 54 aroused the wrath of the Grand Vizir.

This letter [said Ibrahim] is not written by a modest and prudent prince. Why does he enumerate with such arrogance the titles that are Ms, and those that are not his? Wherefore does he presume to style himself to my lord as King of Jerusalem? Is he ignorant of the fact that my mighty Emperor and not himself, Charles, is Lord of Jerusalem? ... In the same way he calls himself Duke of Athens, which is now Sethine, a small town, and belongs to me. For what reason does he usurp things that are mine? If my master should write down all the provinces that are his, where would be the end to it? Nor would he usurp those of other people, as Charles does. It is not princely to write with such lack of dignity. I do not believe that this letter is from the Emperor Charles, or that he knows anything about it. Besides, in his letter he makes Ferdinand the equal of my lord, the mighty Emperor. He does well to love him so much, but he ought not to show disrespect to my lord. My lord has many governors who are much more powerful than Ferdinand, and have more land and wealth and subjects than he. 55

And there were other minor points of difficulty besides the matter of dignities and titles. Not the least of these was the conduct of the garrison which Andrea Doria had installed at Coron, and which declined to observe the truce which Hieronymus of Zara had arranged in the previous January. But Schepper insisted that the Emperor had no interest in a truce, unless he could have a lasting peace, to which the Grand Vizir replied that if Charles wished for peace, he should despatch a specially accredited ambassador to ask for it. 56 For the moment it was obvious that no further progress could be made*

54 Gevay, vol. II, pt. i, pp. 160-107.

55 Gevay, vol. II, pt. i, pp. 25-26.

56 Gevay, vol. II, pt. i, p. 17.

No such difficulties stood in the way of a settlement with Ferdinand, which was sincerely desired by both sides. To the scandal of all good Moslems, Suleiman went in person to the house of Gritti, who had by this time become the recognized representative of the Sultan in all matters pertaining to Hungary; and he passed three hours there in earnest consultation with him and with Ibrahim. 57 The final audience to the ambassadors also lasted three hours. There was no trouble this time on the score of dignity, as the envoys consented to repeat with docility the form of address which the Grand Vizir had dictated to them:

King Ferdinand, your son, regards all things belonging to him as belonging to you, who are his father, and he regards all things belonging to you as belonging to him, for he is your son. He did not know that you wanted to have Hungary for yourself; had he known this, he would never have waged war over it. ... But since he understands that you, his father, have that kingdom as your own, he is exceeding glad, and wishes for you, as his father, good health, for if you have good health, he has no doubt that you, his father, will aid him, your son, to acquire this realm and others besides. 58

Since the representative of Ferdinand had thus publicly consented to abase himself and his master sufficiently to satisfy the utmost demands of Turkish pride, the arrangement of terms made little trouble. Suleiman granted peace to Ferdinand "not for seven years, for twenty-five years, for a hundred years, but for two centuries, three centuries, indeed forever, if Ferdinand himself does not break it." The Sultan would treat him as a son, and be a friend to his friends and a foe to his foes. Suleiman did not quite abandon Zapolya; it was provided that the voivode and

57 Gevay, vol. II, pt, i, pp. 28-29. 58 Gevay, vol. II, pt. i, p. 36.

Ferdinand should come to an arrangement in regard to the division of the kingdom, and Gritti was to go to Hungary to supervise the territorial delimitations. Whatsoever settlement should be made must be confirmed by the Sultan himself. 59 The envoys bade their formal farewells on July 14, 1533; but the letters which they were to carry to Charles and Ferdinand were not given them till three weeks later, and they did not leave Constantinople till August 6.

Such was the rather inconclusive end to the great expedition on which Suleiman had set forth, with an uninterrupted record of notable victories, against Vienna four years before. Twice had he decided to retire, with his announced object unachieved. On the other hand, there can be no doubt that the name and fame of the Turks were better known in Western Europe, and the imminence of the Turkish peril was far better realized there in 1533 than in 1529. Whether or not Oriental grandiloquence had successfully maintained the Sultan's claim to be the a mightiest sovereign on the face of the earth" is a matter of opinion. In any case, one of the greatest mon-archs of Western Christendom had found himself in such desperate straits, four years before Suleiman had started out to besiege Vienna, that he was not ashamed to beg for the aid of the Commander of the Faithful,

59 Gevay, vol. II, pt. i, pp. 38-39.

Relations with France to 1536

1 f there was any one country in Europe whose history and traditions seemed to designate it as the leader in war against the Moslem, that country was France. In 732 she had turned back the Arabs and the Berbers at the battle of Tours. She was, above all others, the land of the crusades. The enthusiasm which had made them possible had originated in France, at the Council of Clermont, and had been inspired by a French priest, Pope Urban IL The majority of those who took part in the first one were Frenchmen. In the second, which was initiated by a French preacher, St. Bernard of Clairvaux, we find a French sovereign, Louis VII, and in the third, Philip Augustus and Richard Coeur de Lion, who was more than half a Frenchman. The fourth, which turned aside against Constantinople, was largely French; and, finally, the efforts of the crusaders closed with the two fruitless expeditions of Saint Louis the Ninth, the last and noblest of them all. Two of the most famous crusading orders, the Knights Templars and the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, were chiefly French; the latter, as we have already seen, had continued to fight the Moslem until a much later date. Against the Ottoman Turks France had more than once shown traces of her earlier zeal. The French took the leading part in the expedition that ended so disastrously at Nicopolis. Even the hard-headed Louis XI professed to be alarmed by the danger to Christendom. Charles VIII regarded the conquest of the kingdom of

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Naples as but a prelude to the taking of Constantinople, and Louis .XII had continually encouraged the preaching of the Holy War. The king of France was, indeed, le Roi Tres Chretien.

^ Francis I^was not unmindful of these traditions. After his great victory at Marignano, he had frequently expressed his desire for a peace among Christian princes and a league against their common foe. Although he was doubdess less in earnest than he wished to be thought, and was particularly anxious to have the Pope grant him a share of the clerical revenues for the purpose, the idea of a crusade was one which would naturally appeal to his lively imagination. Even his repeated assertion that the sole reason why he desired to be elected Emperor was that he might lead a united Europe against the Moslem may not have been wholly insincere.

But his defeat by Charles V in the imperial election of 1519 and the subsequent outbreak of war between the two sovereigns put an end to any plans of this kind, however vague, which King Francis may have previously entertained. After Sultan Selim had conquered Egypt in 1517, and had begun to reorganize the country, he had at once confirmed the commercial rights which the Catalans and the French—who were classed together-had previously enjoyed there, A basis was thus furnished for a closer understanding with tlie Porte, should it ever prove desirable, and Francis did not forget it. 1 When once his great struggle with the Emperor broke out, he bent all his energies to the defeat of the Hapsburgs. Although the Knights of St. John had always been primarily a French order and a glory to France, and their Grand Master, Villiers de L'Isle Adam, was a Frenchman, the king did not move a finger to aid "his good city of Rhodes," or show any interest in the subsequent fortunes

1 Charriere, I, 121-151,

of the Knights. In the beginning of 1525 we find him considering the plan of an attack on the Austrian provinces of Styria and Carniola by Christopher Frangipani in conjunction with Turkish troops from Bosnia. This design was betrayed to Ferdinand, who defeated it by arresting Frangipani, and released him only on his promise to abandon the Moslem. Still, we have no proof that as yet the "Eldest Son of the Church" had any thought of a step so utterly at variance with his own traditions and previous attitude, so scandalous in the eyes of the whole Christian world, save possibly of the hard-headed Venetians, as actually to ally himself with the arch-enemy of his faith.

His defeat at Pa via, however, on February 25, 1525, made him throw all scruples to the winds. When the battle was over, he found himself a prisoner in the hands of his rival's generals, while his country seemed destined to be the helpless prey of Spaniard, German, Netherlander, and Englishman, and of the traitor Constable of Bourbon. Obviously it was a case for desperate measures; and in his extremity he resolved to beg for the aid of the one sovereign powerful enough to check the victorious Emperor, the Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent. So secretly, however, was the step taken, that for a long time the story of it was shrouded in mystery. Even today we know but little about it, and that Httle we owe chiefly to the notices of Turkish historians and to the loquacity of the Grand Vizir. It seems probable that the first French mission to Constantinople was despatched, almost as soon as the news of Pavia was known, by the Queen-Mother and Regent Louise of Savoy. The name of the envoy has not coine down to us. He had with him a suite of twelve persons bearing rich gifts, including a ruby seal ring which, If we can trust the word of Ibrahim, who showed the ring to Hieronymus of Zara eight years later, had

been worn by Francis at Pavla. 2 If this be true, the king himself must have been privy to the plan. The mission never reached its destination, for it was set upon and murdered in Bosnia, apparently by order of the local sanjak bey. The outrage seems to have been committed chiefly for the sake of plunder; still, when we remember the interests of King Ferdinand in that region, it is permissible to suspect that the enmity of the House of Haps-burg may possibly have been in some measure responsible for a crime which would not have been out of keeping with the political morals of the day.

In the month of December of that same year a second French envoy, John Frangipani, presumably a relative of Christopher, reached Constantinople. He was intrusted, besides verbal messages, with a letter from the Regent, and another which appears to have been written in secret by Francis from his prison in Madrid, and which the envoy carried hidden between the soles of his shoes. Neither of these letters has ever been found, but the contemporaneous authorities 3 make it clear that both of them begged the aid of the Sultan in effecting the deliverance of the king of France and attacking the power of the House of Hapsburg. In any case, they gave Suleiman a perfect opportunity to assert and emphasize his supremacy, and he was quick to take advantage of it. The letter which he gave Frangipani to take back with him, when the latter left Constantinople on February 8, 1526, is one of the finest specimens of Oriental style that has come down to us. It reads as follows:

By the grace of the Most High, whose power be forever exalted! By the sacred miracles of Mohammed (may the blessing of God be upon him!), who is the sun of the skies of

2 Gevay, vol. II, pt. i, p. 27.

3 J[on] Ursu, La Politique orientals de Francois 7* 1 ", ^5^5~/K7 (Paris, 1908), pp. 31-35, notes.

prophecy, star of the constellation of the Apostles, chief of the company of prophets, guide of the hosts of the elect; by the cooperation of the holy souls of his four friends, Abu Bekr, Omar, Othman, and Ali (may the blessing of God on High rest on them all!), and of all God's chosen people, I who am the Sultan of Sultans, the sovereign of sovereigns, the dispenser of crowns to the monarchs on the face of the earth, the shadow of God on earth, the Sultan and sovereign lord of the White Sea and of the Black Sea, of Rumelia and of Anatolia, of Karamania, of the land of Rum, of Zulkadria, of Diarbekir, of Kurdistan, of Azerbaijan, of Persia, of Damascus, of Aleppo, of Cairo, of Mecca, of Medina, of Jerusalem, of all Arabia, of Yemen, and of many other lands which iny noble forefathers and my glorious ancestors (may God light up their tombs!) conquered by the force of their arms, and which my August Majesty has made subject to my flaming sword and my victorious blade, I, Sultan Suleiman Khan, son of Sultan Selim Khan, son of Sultan Bayezid Khan: To thee who art Francis, king of the land of France.