of Poland became elective without any restrictions,1 and the right of voting was given to all the nobles, who met in arms to choose a sovereign. These elections were generally marked with violence and bloodshed; but, though the nobles were divided among themselves, they readily united to restrict the royal authority; every sovereign, on his accession, was obliged to sign certain capitulations, which greatly limited his rule, and secured the chief powers of the state to the aristocracy. Under its new constitution, Poland was internally weak and miserable, though some of its monarchs still distinguished themselves by foreign conquests, especially Vladislaus IV., who wrested the duchy of Smolensko from Russia.

SECTION XII. Progress of the Turkish Power in Europe.

THE successors of Mohammed II. on the throne of Constantinople imitated the vigorous policy of that conqueror, and, for nearly a century, were the terror of Christendom. Bayezíd II. subdued Bessarabia and acquired some important provinces in Asia. He was forced to resign the throne by his son Selim (A.D. 1510), and was murdered in prison. Selim I., surnamed Gavúz, or the Savage, was obliged to maintain the throne he had so criminally gained by a series of sanguinary wars with the other members of his family. Having triumphed over these competitors, he turned his arms against the Persians, and gained a complete victory over Ismael Sofí at Tabríz (A.D. 1514). In consequence of this and other successes, Diarbekr and several other provinces beyond the Tigris were annexed to the Turkish empire. The Mameluke sultans of Egypt having assisted the Persians in this war, Selim led an army into Syria, and encountered Sultan Gaurí near Aleppo. After a sanguinary engagement, the Mamelukes were defeated and their leader slain, upon which Aleppo and Damascus submitted to the Turks. This success opened the way for invading Egypt: Túmán Bey, who had been elected sultan in place of Gaurí, assembled the remnants of the Mamelukes under the walls of Cairo, and, having procured some auxiliary forces from the Arabs, prepared to meet the enemy. Selim advanced steadily, and attacked the hostile camp. The battle was obstinate and bloody, but the superior fire of the Turkish artillery, which was served principally by Christian gunners, decided the fate of the day, and Túmán Bey, after having done everything that could be expected from an able officer and a brave warrior, was driven into Cairo (A.D. 1517). Selim stormed the city; but Túmán, not yet disheartened, fled across the Nile, and by incredible exertions once more collected an army. The Turks pursued him closely, and 1 See p. 183.

forced him to a final engagement, in which the Mamelukes were utterly routed, and their gallant sultan taken prisoner. Selim was at first disposed to spare the captive, but his officers, who feared and envied Túmán, persuaded him that such clemency might inspire the Mamelukes with the hope of recovering their dominions, and the unfortunate sultan was hanged at the principal gate of Cairo.

Soleyman, usually surnamed the Magnificent, succeeded his father Selim, and, emulous of the fame acquired by the conquest of Egypt, resolved to turn his arms against the princes of Christendom. Hungary, during the reign of Matthew Corvinus, had become a powerful and flourishing kingdom. Inspired by the example of his father, the renowned Hunniades, Corvinus wrested Bosnia from the Turks, and maintained his supremacy over Transylvania, Wallachia, and Moldavia. But during the reigns of his indolent successors, Uladislaus II. and Louis, who were also kings of Bohemia, Hungary was distracted by factions and ravaged by the Turks. Soleyman took advantage of the minority of Louis and the weakness of Hungary to invade the kingdom. He captured with little difficulty the important fortress of Belgrade, justly deemed the bulwark of Christian Europe (A.D. 1521). Inspired by his first success, he returned to the attack; having traversed the Danube and the Drave without meeting any resistance, he encountered the Christians in the field of Moha'z, and gained over them one of the most signal victories that the Turks ever won (A D. 1526). King Louis, and the principal part of the Hungarian nobility, fell in this fatal battle, the entire country was laid at the mercy of the invaders; but Soleyman, instead of securing a permanent conquest, laid waste the land with fire and sword, and carried myriads of the inhabitants as slaves to Constantinople.

A triumph of even greater importance was gained by the Turks during the Hungarian war. Rhodes, the seat of the heroic knights of St. John, was besieged by Soleyman's vizier. All the arts of assault and defence that had yet been devised by human ingenuity were used in this siege, which lasted more than five months. The assailants and the garrison fought with such fury, that it seemed a contest rather for the empire of the world than the possession of a single city. The sultan himself came in person to superintend the operations of his army, while the knights were not only neglected by the Christian powers but exposed to the open hostilities of the Venetians. They protracted their resistance until every wall and bulwark had crumbled beneath the overwhelming fire of the Turkish batteries, when they surrendered on honourable conditions; and on Christmas-day (A.D. 1522)

T

Soleyman made his triumphant entry into what had been a city, but was now a shapeless mass of ruins.

On the death of Louis, Ferdinand of Austria, who had married the sister of the unfortunate monarch, claimed the crowns of Hungary and Bohemia. He received quiet possession of the latter kingdom; but the Hungarians chose for their sovereign John Zapolya, prince palatine of Transylvania. Zapolya, finding himself unable to resist the power of Ferdinand, claimed the protection of the Turks. Soleyman marched in person to his aid, and, not satisfied with expelling the Austrians from Hungary, pursued them into their own country and laid siege to Vienna (A.D. 1529). He failed in this enterprise, and was compelled to retreat, after having lost eighty thousand men.

The Emperor Charles V., alarmed at the progress of the Turks, tried to form a general confederation of the German princes against them, but found that the troubles occasioned by the progress of the Reformation would prevent any cordial union. He resolved, however, to check the growth of their naval power in the Mediterranean, where Khair-ed-dín,1 or Barbarossa, a pirate whom Soleyman had taken into his service, captured Tunis and Algiers, and was collecting a formidable naval force. Charles took advantage of Soleyman's being engaged in conquering the pashalick of Bagdad from the Persians to invade Africa, where he made himself master of Tunis. Soleyman, returning victorious from Asia, was so enraged at his losses in Africa, that he resolved to attempt the conquest of Italy. The imprudence of a Venetian captain turned the wrath of the sultan upon the republic of Venice; he attacked two Turkish galleys in the Adriatic, for some mistake about their signals, and, satisfaction being refused, Soleyman proclaimed war.

But while thus engaged in the West, Soleyman did not neglect the enlargement of his Eastern dominions. His generals conquered the whole of Arabia, and his admirals, issuing from the Red Sea, attacked, but without success, the Portuguese dominions in India. In the meantime the Venetian senate entered into an alliance with the Emperor Charles V., and the pope, Paul III. ; their united navies were placed under the command of the celebrated Doria, but his success was far from according with the expectations that the allies had formed. The war, however, led to no decisive result; it was suspended by occasional truces, during which Soleyman took the opportunity of enlarging his Asiatic dominions at the expense of Persia.

The knights of St. John, expelled from Rhodes, obtained a Khair-ed-dín signifies the of the Christians was named Barbagoodness of the faith.' This terror rossa, on account of his 'red beard.'

1

settlement in the island of Malta; they directed their attention to naval affairs, and inflicted severe damages on the Turks by sea. Soleyman, roused by the complaints of his subjects, resolved that Malta should share the fate of Rhodes, and collected all his forces for the siege (A.D. 1565). The knights maintained their character for obstinate valour with more success than on the former occasion; after a sanguinary contest, for five months, the Turks were forced to retire, with the loss of twenty-four thousand men and all their artillery. Soleyman prepared to take revenge by completing the conquest of Hungary, but, while besieging Sigeth, he fell a victim to disease, produced by old age and fatigue (A.D. 1566), after having raised the Turkish empire to the highest pitch of its greatness.

Selim II., soon after his accession, made peace with the Germans and Persians, but renewed war with the Venetians, from whom he took the important island of Cyprus (A.D. 1571). But while the Turkish army was thus engaged, their fleet was utterly destroyed in the battle of Lepanto by the allied Venetian, imperial, and papal navy. The allies neglected to improve their victory, and Selim soon repaired his losses. But this sultan sank into the usual indolence of oriental sovereigns; his successors followed his example, and the Ottoman power began rapidly to decline. The Austrian rulers became convinced of the impolicy of harsh measures, and conceded to the Hungarians full security for their political and religious liberties at the diet of Presburg; Hungary was thenceforth united to Austria, and the last war directly resulting from the Reformation happily terminated.

SECTION XIII. History of the Jesuits.

THE rapid progress of the Reformation convinced the rulers of the Romish Church that their ecclesiastical power could not be maintained by the old machinery which had previously kept Christendom in subjection; they eagerly sought for some new engine of dominion, and found one of great promise in the order of the Jesuits, which had been founded by Ignatius Loyola.

The monastic orders arose in ages of darkness and ignorance; their privileges were ratified by silent prescription, and had, in the course of time accommodated themselves in some degree to existing institutions. But Jesuitism appeared in an age of light and knowledge, when men were able and willing to criticise its nature and tendency; not only Protestants but Roman Catholics saw the danger of establishing papal garrisons throughout Europe, and sanctioning an institution which must necessarily be the rival of civil government. Bishops and parliaments protested against the

admission of the order into their dioceses and states ;-true, the constitution of the other orders was equally adverse to the laws of the state and the church; but men will submit to an old abuse who will not endure a new one: and, besides, the weapons of the preaching friars were antiquated and rusty; their tactics belonged to a former age, while the Jesuits possessed arms of the newest pattern, and discipline superior to any yet practised. The Dominicans, Cordeliers, Augustinians, &c., had motives equally powerful to oppose the Jesuits: they saw with indignation, at the very moment when the gains of the monastic orders began to be restricted, a fresh host of claimants demanding to share in them; and they had the art to concentrate against these new rivals all the jealousy which Protestants and Roman Catholics generally and justly felt against all the bodies of the papal militia.

The founder of this society was a gentleman of Biscay; he entered the army, and had his leg broken by a stone at the siege of Pampeluna (A.D. 1521); the leg was set by an unskilful surgeon, and threatened to produce personal deformity, to prevent which, Loyola, who was rather vain of his person, had the courageous weakness to cause the leg to be broken and set a second time. The operation failed, and he continued lame for life. While confined to his bed, he wished to amuse himself with some of the romances of chivalry so popular in Spain before the publication of Don Quixote; none could be found in the house, but their place was supplied by a work called The Flowers of Sanctity, which contained the miraculous histories of St. Anthony, St. Francis, and St. Dominic. The perusal of this volume, which, we may remark, is still popular in Spain, inspired him with visions of spiritual chivalry quite as romantic as those that guided the hero of Cervantes, and, in some respects, of the same nature. He declared himself the knight of the Virgin Mary, and, to do all things in proper order, proceeded to keep his vigil of arms in the monastery of Montserrat. On his road he met a Moor, with whom he entered into a sharp controversy on the mystery of the Incarnation, but the Mussulman was a better logician than the enthusiast, and Ignatius, completely silenced, turned off the road to conceal his indignation. Immediately afterwards, his conscience reproached him for having permitted a blasphemer to escape; he turned back, and, coming to a place where two roads met, threw the reins on the neck of his mule, that Providence might determine whether he should slay the Mussulman or not. Luckily the mule turned into a different road from that which the Moor had taken, and this event is recorded among miracles of St. Ignatius. Having performed his vigil, he consecrated his weapons to the Virgin, and covering himself with rags, undertook various pilgrimages, in the course of which he visited Jerusalem.

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