tinople. The Turk, a savage warrior of the most furious energy,[1] gave him a brief respite, and completed meanwhile his father's conquests in Europe and Asia. Then at last he sent Manuel a letter, bidding him resign his capital, or tremble for himself and his people. However, he graciously allowed the poor emperor to purchase a truce of ten years, one of the inglorious conditions of which was that there was to be a mosque in Constantinople. But even this truce was too much for the impatient Bajazet, and now Manuel's sole resource was to seek help from the West. The duke of Burgundy and the young princes of France, with Sigismund, king of Hungary, and a host of German knights, fought with impetuous ardour for Christendom in this extremity, and would have won the day but for their overweening confidence and the overwhelming numbers of the barbarian cavalry. The battle of Nicopolis, in 1396, was fiercely contested, and the janissaries had to yield to the chivalry of the West. But in the end Bajazet's victory was decisive, and the duke of Burgundy and the French princes became his prisoners. The peril to Constantinople was now again imminent, and but for the rapid movements of Tamerlane, who was now threatening the newly-acquired Ottoman possessions, it must have fallen. In 1400 Manuel quitted the city, and for two years was a voluntary exile. He was a suppliant at the courts of France, England, and Germany, but with no result. He was courteously and hospitably entertained, and received the honour due to an emperor.
- ↑ He was surnamed the Lightning.
