LXVII. The cardinal, who performed the duties of a priest and a CHAP. soldier, was lost in the defeat of Warna. The circumstances of his death are variously related; but it is believed, that a weighty incumbrance of gold impeded his flight, and tempted the cruel avarice of some Christian fugitives. vinus Hu From an humble, or at least a doubtful origin, the merit John Corof John Huniades promoted him to the command of the niades. Hungarian armies. His father was a Walachian, his mother a Greek; her unknown race might possibly ascend to the emperors of Constantinople; and the claims of the Walachians, with the surname of Corvinus, from the place of his nativity, might suggest a thin pretence for mingling his blood with the patricians of ancient Rome. In his youth he served in the wars of Italy; and was retained, with twelve horsemen, by the biship of Zagrab: the valour of the white knight32 was soon conspicuous; he encreased his fortunes by a noble and wealthy marriage; and in the defence of the Hungarian borders, he won in the same year three battles against the Turks. By his influence, Ladislaus of Poland obtained the crown of Hungary; and the important service was rewarded by the title and office of Waivod of Transylvania. The first of Julian's crusades added two Turkish laurels on his brow; and in the public distress the fatal errors of Warna were forgotten. During the absence and minority of Ladislaus of Austria, the titular king, Huniades was elected supreme captain and governor of Hungary; and if envy at first was silenced by terror, a reign of twelve years supposes the arts of policy as well as of war. Yet the idea of a consummate general is not delineated in his campaigns; the white knight fought with the hand rather than the head, as the chief of desultory Barbarians, who attack without fear and fly without shame; and his military life is composed of a romantic alternative of victories and escapes. By the Turks, who employed his name to frighten their perverse children, he was corruptly denominated Fan 31 See Bonfinius, decad iii. 1. iv. p. 423. Could the Italian historian pronounce, or the king of Hungary hear, without a blush, the absurd flattery, which confounded the name of a Walachian village with the casual, though glorious, epithet of a single branch of the Valerian family at Rome ? 32 Philip de Comines (Memoirs, 1. vi. c. 13), from the tradition of the times, mentions him with high encomiums, but under the whimsical name of the Chevalier Blanc de Valaigne (Valachia). The Greek Chalcocondyles, and the Turkish Annals of Leunclavius, presume to accuse his fidelity or valour. CHAP. LXVII. cus Lain, or the Wicked: their hatred is the proof of their esteem; the kingdom which he guarded was inaccessible to their arms: and they felt him most daring and formidable, when they fondly believed the captain and his country irrecoverably lost. Instead of confining himself to a defensive war, four years after the defeat of Warna he again penetrated into the heart of Bulgaria; and in the plain of Cossova sustained, till the third day, the shock of the Ottoman army, four times more numerous than his own. As he fled alone through the woods of Walachia, the hero was surprised by two robbers; but while they disputed a gold chain that hung at his neck, he recovered his sword, slew the one, terrified the other, and, after new perils of captivity or death, consoled by his presence an afflicted kingdom. But the last and most glorious action of his life was the defence of Belgrade against the powers of Mahomet the second in person. After a siege of forty days, the Turks, who had already entered the town, were compelled to retreat; and the and death, joyful nations celebrated Huniades and Belgrade as the bulA.D.1456, warks of Christendom.33 About a month after this greatJuly 22, Sept. 4. deliverance, the champion expired; and his most splendid epitaph is the regret of the Ottoman prince, who sighed that he could no longer hope for revenge against the single antagonist who had triumphed over his arms. On the first vacancy of the throue, Matthias Corvinus, a youth of eighteen years of age, was elected and crowned by the grateful Hungarians. His reign was prosperous and long: Matthias aspired to the glory of a conqueror and a saint; but his purest merit is the encouragement of learning; and the Latin orators and historians, who were invited from Italy by the son, have shed the lustre of their eloquence on the father's character.34 His de fence of Belgrade 33 See Bonfinius (decad iii. 1. viii. p. 432.) and Spondanus (A. D. 1456, No. 1...7). Huniades shared the glory of the defence of Belgrade with Capistran, a Franciscan friar; and in their respective narratives, neither the saint nor the hero condesɛend to take notice of his rival's merit. 34 See Bonfinus, decad iii. 1. viii. ...decad iv. 1. viii. The observations of Spondanus on the life and character of Matthias Corvinus, are curious and critical (A. D. 1464, No. 1. 1475, No. 6. 1476, No. 14...16. 1490, No. 4, 5). Italian fame was the object of his vanity. His actions are celebrated in the Epitome Rerum Hungaricarum (p. 322...412.) of Peter Ranzanus, a Sicilian. His wise and facetious sayings are registered by Galestus Martius of Narni (528...568): and we have a particular narrative of his wedding and coronation. These three tracts are all contained in the first vol. of Bel's Scriptores Rerum Hungaricarum. LXVII. Birth and of Scan Albania, In the list of heroes, John Huniades and Scanderbeg are CHAP. commonly associated:35 and they are both entitled to our notice, since their occupation of the Ottoman arms delayed the ruin of the Greek empire. John Castriot, the father of education Scanderbeg,36 was the hereditary prince of a small district derbeg, of Epirus or Albania, between the mountains and the Adri- prince of atic sea. Unable to contend with the sultan's power, Cas- A. D. 1404 triot submitted to the hard conditions of peace and tribute: ...1413, &c. he delivered his four sons as the pledges of his fidelity; and the Christian youths, after receiving the mark of circumcision, were instructed in the Mahometan religion, and trained in the arms and arts of Turkish policy." The three elder brothers were confounded in the crowd of slaves; and the poison to which their deaths are ascribed, cannot be verified or disproved by any positive evidence. Yet the suspicion is in a great measure removed by the kind and paternal treatment of George Castriot, the fourth brother, who, from his tender youth, displayed the strength and spirit of a soldier. The successive overthrow of a Tartar and two Persians, who carried a proud defiance to the Turkish court, recommended him to the favour of Amurath, and his Turkish appellation of Scanderbeg (Iskender Beg), or the lord Alexander, is an indelible memorial of his glory and servitude. His father's principality was reduced into a province: but the loss was compensated by the rank and title of Sanjiak, a command of five thousand horse, and the prospect of the first dignities of the empire. He served with honour in the wars of Europe and Asia; and we may smile at the art or credulity of the historian, who supposes, that in every encounter he spared the Christians, while he fell with a thundering arm on his Musulman foes. The glory of Huniades is without reproach; he fought in the defence of his reli 35 They are ranked by Sir William Temple, in his pleasing Essay on Heroic Virtue (works, vol. iii. p. 385), among the seven chiefs who have deserved without wearing, a royal crown; Belisarius, Narses, Gonsalvo of Cordova, William first prince of Orange, Alexander duke of Parma, John Huniades, and George Castriot, or Scanderbeg. 36 I could wish for some simple, authentic memoirs of a friend of Scanderbeg, which would introduce me to the man, the time, and the place. In the cld and national history of Marinus Barletius, a priest of Scodra (de Vitâ, Moribus, et Rebus gestis Georgii Castrioti, &c. libri xiii. p. 367. Argentorat. 1537, in fol.), his gawdy and cumbersome robes are stuck with many false jewels. See likewise Chalcocondyles, l. vii. p. 185. 1. viii. p. 229. 37 His circumcision, education, &c. are marked by Marinus with brevity and reluctance (1. i. p. 6, 7). CHAP. gion and country; but the enemies who applaud the patriot, LXVII. have branded his rival with the name of traitor and apos tate. In the eyes of the Christians, the rebellion of Scanderbeg is justified by his father's wrongs, the ambiguous death of his three brothers, his own degradation, and the slavery of his country; and they adore the generous, though tardy, zeal, with which he asserted the faith and independence of his ancestors. But he had imbibed from his ninth year the doctrines of the Koran: he was ignorant of the Gospel; the religion of a soldier is determined by authority and habit; nor is it easy to conceive what new illumination at the age of forty 38 could be poured into his soul. His motives would be less exposed to the suspicion of interest or revenge, had he broken his chain from the moment that he was sensible of its weight: but a long oblivion had surely impaired his original right; and every year of obedience and reward had cemented the mutual bond of the sultan and his subject. If Scanderbeg had long harboured the belief of Christianity and intention of revolt, a worthy mind must condemn the base dissimulation, that could serve only to betray, that could promise only to be foresworn, that could actively join in the temporal and spiritual perdition of so many thousands of his unhappy brethren. Shall we praise a secret correspondence with Huniades, while he commanded the vanguard of His revolt the Turkish army? shall we excuse a desertion of his standard, a treacherous desertion which abandoned the victory to the enemies of his benefactor? In the confusion of a defeat, the eye of Scanderbeg was fixed on the Reis Effendi or principal secretary: with a dagger at his breast, he extorted a firman or patent for the government of Albania; and the murder of the guiltless scribe and his train, prevented the consequences of an immediate discovery. With some bold companions, to whom he had revealed his design, he escaped in the night, by rapid marches, from the field of battle to his paternal mountains. The gates of Croya were opened to the royal mandate; and no sooner did he from the Turks, A. D. 1443. Nov. 28. 38 Since Scanderbeg died A. D. 1466, in the sixty-third year of his age (Marinus, 1. xiii. p. 370), he was born in 1403; since he was torn from his parents by the Turks, when he was novennis (Marinus, I. i. p. 1. 6), that event must have happened in 1412, nine years before the accession of Amurath II. who must have inherited, not acquired, the Albanian slave. Spondanus has remarked this inconsistency, A. D. 1431, No. 31. 1443, No. 14. LXVII. command the fortress, than George Castriot dropt the mask CHAP. 39 His revenue and forces are luckily given by Marinus (1. ii. p. 44). ૧ |