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BAYAZID I. 



BAYAZID 1. 



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had two horses killed under him in this engagement, and he performed 

 numerous feats of that romantic valour which has perpetuated his 

 name as one of the last and best representatives of the days of chivalry. 

 Bayard served also in the Italian wars of Louis XII., which began in 

 1499. On one occasion he kept a bridge over the Garigliano single- 

 handed against 200 Spaniards, long enough to enable the main-body 

 of the French to make good their retreat. 



Bayard was also present at the famous ' battle of the Spurs,' fought 

 at Guingaste near Terouenne in Picardy, on the 16th of August, 1513. 

 Either from panic or mistaken orders, the French gendarmerie, when 

 retreating from the English force, commanded in person by the then 

 youthful Henry VIII., fled before the English cavalry in disgraceful 

 confusion. But for the presence of mind and daring valour of Bayard, 

 the whole French army would have shared in the disgrace of the 

 gendarmerie. He retired with fourteen men-at-arms, often turning 

 on his pursuers, till he reached a place where only two could pass in 

 front. " We halt here," said he, " the enemy will be an hour gaining 

 this post. Qo and tell them BO at the camp." He was obeyed, and 

 succeeded in gaming time for the French army to re-assemble itself, 

 but was compelled to surrender himself as a prisoner. Seeing an English 

 knight resting wounded under a tree, Bayard required him to surrender ; 

 the knight, wholly unable to resist, gave up his sword, when Bayard 

 returned his own, saying, " I am Bayard, and now your prisoner." 

 Heury was so well pleased with this ingenious conduct, that the two 

 knights were soon exchanged on their parole. The Emperor Maximi- 

 lian, who was serving in Henry's army, taunted him with the remark 

 that Le thought Bayard was one who never fled. "Sire, if I had fled 

 I should not have been here," was the prompt answer. 



Bayard attended Francis I., then in the pride of youth, and ambitious 

 of the honours of chivalry, in the war undertaken to recover Milan 

 and the other Italian conquests of his predecessor. The bloody battle 

 of Marignano, September 13, 1515, which lasted two days, was fought 

 with a fierceness that made Trivulzio, the French commander, who 

 had been in eighteen pitched battles, exclaim that " all other fights 

 compared with this were but children's sport; this is the war of 

 giants." Bayard displayed bis usual romantic daring and prowess. 

 When the battle was won, Francis, who had fought by his side, and 

 who had witnessed his extraordinary valour, begged and received the 

 honour of knighthood at his hamis upon the field. 



The next great service which Bayard rendered his country was the 

 obstinate and successful defence of Mezieres, on the Netherlands 

 frontier of France, in 1522, against the Count of Nassau, with a force 

 of 35,000 men, aided by a strong artillery. The garrison consisted of 

 only 1000 men, but such was the fame of Bayard, that many of the 

 young nobility of France considered it the highest honour to be engaged 

 under him in the defence of this frontier town. 



In 1524 Bayard had a command in the force which Francis I. sent 

 to Italy to act against the army of the Emperor Charles, directed by 

 the celebrated Duke of Bourbon. The command-in-chief was intrusted 

 to Bonuivet, whose only qualification was personal courage. After 

 various movements and partial successes, Bonnivet was compelled to 

 abandon his strong entrenchments at Biagrasso, and move nearer to 

 the Alps, in expectation of reinforcements from Switzerland. He was 

 pursued by the imperial force*, who attacked his rear with great fury 

 just as he had reached the banks of the Sesia. Bonnivet, while dis- 

 playing much valour in rallying his troops, was wounded in the arm 

 by a ball from an arquebuss. He sent to Bayard immediately, telling 

 him that the fate of the army was in his hands. Bayard, who had in 

 vain throughout the campaign remonstrated with Bonnivet on the 

 course he was pursuing, replied, " It is now too late, but I commend 

 my soul to my God ; my life belongs to my country." He then put 

 himself at the head of the men-at-arms, and kept the main-body of 

 the enemy occupied long enough to enable the rest of the French 

 forces to make good their retreat. While thus engaged he received a 

 mortal wound from a ball, and fell from bis horse. He was pressed 

 to withdraw from the field, but his answer was that he had never 

 turner) hi* back upon an enemy. He ordered himself to be placed 

 with his back against a tree, and his face to the enemy. In this situa- 

 tion he was found by Bourbon, who expressed his regret at seeing 

 him in this condition. " Pity not me," said the dying man, " I die as 

 a man of honour ought, in the discharge of my duty; they, indeed, 

 are objects of pity who fight against their king, their country, and 

 their oath." The Marquis of Pescara, commander of the Spanish 

 troops, passing soon after, manifested (we quote from Robertson's 

 ' Charles V.,' book iii.) his admiration of Bayard's virtues, as well as 

 his sorrow for his fate, with the generosity of a gallant enemy ; and, 

 finding that he could not be removed with safety from that spot, 

 ordered a tent to be pitched there, and appointed proper persons to 

 attend him. Ho died, notwithstanding their care, as his ancestors for 

 several generations had done, on the field of battle. Pescara ordered 

 his body to be embalmed and sent to his relations. In Dauphind, 

 Bayard's native country, the people of all ranks came out in a solemn 

 procession to meet it. 



BAYAZID I., surnamed ILDIRIM, or ' the Lightning,' in allusion 

 to the rapidity of his military achievements, was the son of the sultan 

 of the Osmanlis, Murad I. He was born A.u. 748 (A.D. 1347), and 

 came to the throne in A.H. 792 (A.D. 1389), after his father had been 

 killed in an engagement with the Servians near Cossova. The 



Osmanli dominions at this epoch extended from the Danube to the 

 Euphrates ; and Bayazid, at the head of his army, was alinoat inces- 

 santly moving from one extremity of his empire to the other, to 

 reduce his Mohammedan neighbours to obedience, or to add to his 

 possessions by conquests from the Christian powers of Europe. 

 Brussa and Adrianople were respectively the Asiatic and European 

 capitals of his dominions, and the erection of a magnificent mosque in 

 each of them is one of the earliest acts of his reign that we find 

 recorded. This seemingly pious act forms a strong contrast with his 

 behaviour to Yacub, his only brother, whom he put to death almost 

 immediately on ascending the throne, from no other motive than an 

 apprehension that the example of other eastern princes might encourage 

 him to rebel, and dispute Bayazid's right to the throne. 



The conquests of the Osmanlis had, in the beginning of the 8th 

 century of the Mohammedan era (the 14th after Christ), put an end to 

 the Seljukide dominion in western Asia, and on its ruins several small 

 dynasties had sprung up, all of which were subdued by Bayazid, and 

 incorporated with the Turkish empire. Bayazid had to encounter 

 greater difficulties in subduing the principality of Caramania. Timur- 

 tash, his general, had conquered part of the country, when Alft-eddln, 

 the reigning sovereign, defeated him in a battle and took him prisoner. 

 When this happened Bayaaid was on the banks of the Danube, engaged 

 in a war with Stephau, the prince of Moldavia. On receiving the news 

 of Titnurtash's defeat, Bayazid hastened from Europe into Asia, and 

 within a very short time subdued the whole of Caramania. 



The year 1391 is remarkable for the capture of Philadelphia, or 

 Alashehr (that is, ' The Variegated City'), the last Greek town in Asia 

 Minor that continued faithful to the Byz-mtiue empire. Its Greek 

 commander made a vigorous resistance to the besieging forces of 

 Bayazid, and rejected his invitatiou to surrender the fortress ; while 

 the emperor Joannes and his son Manuel, then the confederates of the 

 sultan, were actually assisting in the siege. 



In 1393 Bayazid undertook another expedition into Europe, in which 

 he took possession of the towns of Saloniki and Yenishehr (Larissa), 

 and for the first time besieged Constantinople. He compelled the 

 emperor to give up his plan of adding to the strength of the capital 

 by new fortifications, and to assign a separate suburb to the Turks 

 with a mosque and a kadi, or judge, of their own. 



In 1396 Bayazid gained an important victory near Nicopolis, on the 

 Danube, over an army of 100,000 Christians, including many of the 

 bravest knights of France and Germany, who had assembled under 

 the standard of Sigismond, the king of Hungary, to check the farther 

 progress of the Mohammedan power in Europe. The greater part of 

 the Christian forces were slain or driven into the Danube. Sigismond 

 escaped to Constantinople. Sixty thousand Turks are stated to have 

 fallen in the same battle; and when Bayazid became aware of the 

 extent of his loss, he gave orders to put to death all the prisoners,- 

 with the exception of twenty-four nobles, who were subsequently 

 ransomed. This great victory was soon followed by further conquests 

 in Greece. 



The dominions of Bayazid and those of the Tartar conqueror Timur 

 now touched each other in the neighbourhood of Erzerum and on the 

 banks of the Euphrates. With doubtful limits between the two em- 

 pires, which had never been defined by treaty, a cause for war between 

 two jealous sovereigns could not long be wanting. Timur had taken 

 possession of Siwas (the ancient Sebaste), on the Halys, and had 

 treated its inhabitants with great cruelty. Bayazid was then engaged 

 in his European dominions, which prevented him from resenting this 

 violation of his territory. About the same time two Mussulman 

 princes, Ahmed-Jelair and Kara-Yussuf, whom Timur had deprived 

 of their possessions, fled for protection first to Seifeddin-Barkuk, the 

 sultan of Egypt, and subsequently to Bayazid, who received them with 

 kindness. Timur sent two embassies for the purpose of demanding the 

 surrender of the princes ; but Bayazid refused to comply, and, insti- 

 gated by the advice of the princes, took possession of Erzinjan, a 

 town situated on the Euphrates within the dominions of Timur. 

 Timur, who now determined to commence an open war against 

 Bayazid, begun the campaign by taking Huleb, Autakia, and other 

 Syrian towns that were subject to the Ostnaulis. He was at Siwas 

 when he received information of the approach of Bayazid from the 

 west. The two sovereigns, at the head of their armies, met in the 

 plains of Angora, the capital of the ancient Galatia. A decisive battle 

 took place (according to M. von Hammer's calculations on the 19th of 

 Zulhaj A.H. 804, that is, the 20th of July A.D. 1401), in which the 

 Osmaulis were totally defeated, and Bayazid became a prisoner in the 

 bands of Timur. The conqueror, according to his Persian biographer, 

 Sherif-eddin, received Bayazid with great kindness, assigned him 

 suitable accommodations, and continued to treat him with distinction 

 till he died, A.H. 806 (A.D. 1403). D'Herbelot (' Bibliotheque Orient.,' 

 art. ' Timour '), M. von Hammer, and most recent authorities, accept 

 this account, and reject as a fable the common report which would 

 charge Timur with great cruelty towards his prisoner. But it is only 

 fair to state that Sir William Jones (' Works ') draws our attention to 

 a passage in another contemporary historian, Ebn-Arabshah's life of 

 Timur, which had been overlooked by D'Herbelot, in which the 

 Arabian author expressly affirms " that Timur did inclose his captive, 

 Ilderim Bayazid, in a cage of iron, in order to retaliate the insult 

 offered to the Persians by a sovereign of Lower Asia, who had treated 



