cruell for somuch as they had yelded them selues, hee stayed his hande a litle vntill night came. In the meane tyme drunken Mahumete commyng somethyng to him selfe (whom drunkennes had before ouercome) sent hys second letters to reuoke the first. MarginaliaThe mercyfull prouidence of God in sauyng hys people.Where agayne
This sentence is Foxe's insertion.
MarginaliaConstãtinople made the Imperial seate of the Turkes.Mahumete thus
Except for a few instances, the remainder of the account of Mehmed II is fromCasper Peucer, Chronicon Carionis (Wittenburg,1580), pp. 652-55.
Hieronymus Zieglerus
The anecdote of a heroic Bohemian at Mehmed's siege of Belgradeis taken from Hieronymous Ziegler, Illustrium Germaniae virorum (Ingolstadt,1562), fos. 89v-90r. This is the only time Foxe used this work in his history of theTurks.
This sentence is Foxe's insertion.
This siege of Belgradum began in the yeare of the Lord. 1456. and endured. 46. dayes. Marginalia200 thousãd Turkes at the siege of Belgradum.At the whiche siege were numbered of the Turkes. 200. thousand. Of whom more then. 40. thousand (as is aforesayd) were slayne: where the victory fell to the Christians throughe the prosperous successe geuen of God to Ioannes Hu-niades, and Capistranus. MarginaliaThe deceasse of Ioannes Huniades.Whiche Huniades not long after the sayd victorie, through the importune labour and trauaile in defendyng the sayd towne, was taken with a sore sickenes, and thereof departed: to whose valiaunt prowes and singular courage, stories doo geue great laude and commendation.
[Back to Top]MarginaliaThe Turkes warre agaynst Vsumcassanes.Mahumetes the Turke after this done in Europe, returned into Asia to warre with Vsumcassanes a Persiã, one of the Turkes stocke, with whõ he had iij. battailes. The first was about the riuer Euphrates, where the Turke lost 10. thousand men, and was put to the worse. In the second field likewise he was discõfited. The third battaile was at Arsenga, where through the terrible noyse of the brasen peeces, the Persian horses disturbed the campe, & so was Vsumcassanes ouercome.
[Back to Top]MarginaliaThe Turke returneth agaynst the Christians.From thence the Turke reduced agayne his power agaynst the Christians, MarginaliaSynope, Paphlagonia, Trapezuntus gotten of the Turkes.and first subdued vnto hym Synope and all Paphlagonia: Also the kyngdome of Trapezunce, whiche he besiegyng both by land & water, wãne from the Christians, MarginaliaDauid Emper. of Trapezuntus with hys ii. sonnes and vncle cruelly killed of the Turke.and sent Dauid the kyng of þe same with his ij. sonnes and Calus his vncle, vnto Constantinople, where they were miserably and cruelly put to death, & all the stocke of the Cõneni, whiche were of the kings stocke, by þe Turke were destroyed. Which was about the yeare of our Lord. 1459. at which tyme thys mischieuous Mahumete was first saluted Emperour.
[Back to Top]MarginaliaCorinthus, Mitylene, Lesbos, Lemnus, subdued of the Turke.Not long after, he got from the Grecians Corinthus and Mitylene, not without great slaughter of Christen men: in somuch that the whole Citie of Mitylene was vtterly to the ground almost destroyed. The Iles also of Lemnus and Lesbos he wan from the Venetians: In the whiche Iland of Lesbos is the Citie of Mitylene aforesayd.
[Back to Top]Not farre frõ this Ile of Lesbos & Mitylene, there is a coūtrey in Asia toward þe sea side bordering next to Europe, called Mysia, or of some called Mœsia, wherin stood the Citie of Troye. MarginaliaThe falsehood of the wretched Turke agaynste the prince of Mysia.This countrey Mahumete couetyng to wynne rather by policie and falsehode, then by doubtfull daunger of warre, secretly sent for the prince therof to come to speake with him for certain causes (as he pretended) whiche should concerne the profite and commoditie of them both. Whiche when the kyng of Mysia, either for shame would not, or for feare durst not deny, he came to him as to conferre vppon necessary affaires in common to them apperteynyng. MarginaliaThe cruelty of the Turke against the king of Mysia.Mahumete when hee had brought that to passe which he would, he caused the kyng to be apprehended, & cruelly to be slayne, or rather torne in peeces: & so inuadyng the land of Mysia, exercised the like tyranny vpon all his kynred and affinitie.
[Back to Top]Thus Mysia by fraude beyng taken and lost, Mahumete flyeth agayne toward Europe, where he assayled the Iland Euboia, otherwayes called Nigroponte, makyng a bridge of a meruelous frame ouer the sea Eurypus, to conuey ouer his armye out of Grecia, MarginaliaThe siege of Chalcis in Euboia.and there layde his siege to þe Citie Chalcis, which at length in. 30. dayes he ouercame, not wtout a great slaughter of his armye: who in the siege therof is sayd to haue lost. 40. thousand of his Turkes. MarginaliaThe cruell Tyranny of the Turke agaynst the Citie of Chalcis.But the slaughter of the Christians was greater: for when the Citie was wonne, the tyraunt commaunded most cruelly, none to bee spared within the whole Citie, but to be put to the sword, who soeuer was aboue the age of. xx. yeares. This crueltie was shewed of the barbarous tyraunt for anger and fury, because such a number of his Turkes were slayne at the siege therof, beyng rekened (as is sayd) to 40. thousand. In the fierce
The following anecdote is from Giovann Battisto Ramusio as excerpted in Laonicus Chalkokondylas, De origine rebus gestis Turcorum (Basel, 1556), p. 193.