the Tatar khan withdrew with the loss of his bravest followers, and, in the great victory of Mantin on the Danube (1595), the Turkish army was annihilated, and its leader, Mustafa, slain. The sultan now sent Sinan Pasha, “the Renegade,” to invade Walachia with 100,000 men. Michael withdrew to the mountains before this overwhelming force, but, being joined by Báthory with a Transylvanian contingent, the voivode resumed the offensive, stormed Bucharest, where Sinan had entrenched a Turkish detachment, and, pursuing the main body of his forces to the Danube, overtook the rearguard and cut it to pieces, capturing enormous booty. Sinan Pasha returned to Constantinople to die, it is said, of vexation; and in 1597, the sultan, weary of a disastrous contest, sent Michael a red flag in token of reconciliation, reinvested him for life in an office of which he had been unable to deprive him, and granted the succession to his son.
In 1599, on the abdication of Sigismund Báthory in Transylvania, Michael, in league with the imperialist forces, and in Conquest of Transylvania. connivance with the Saxon burghers, attacked and defeated his successor Andreas Báthory near Hermannstadt, and seizing himself the reins of government, secured his proclamation as prince of Transylvania. The emperor consented to appoint him his viceroy (locum tenens per Transylvaniam), and the sultan ratified his election. As prince of Transylvania he summoned diets in 1399 and 1600, and, having expelled the voivode of Moldavia, united under his sceptre three principalities. The partiality that he showed for the Ruman and Szekler parts of the population alienated, however, the Transylvanian Saxons, who preferred the direct government of the emperor. The imperial commissioner General Basta lent his support to the disaffected party, and Michael was driven out of Transylvania by a successful revolt, while a Polish army invaded Walachia from the Moldavian side. Michael's coolness and resource, however, never deserted him. He resolved to appeal to the emperor, rode to Prague, won over Rudolph by his singular address, and, richly supplied with funds, reappeared in Transylvania as imperial governor. In conjunction with Basta he defeated the superior Transylvanian forces at Gorosló, expelling Sigismund Báthory, who had again aspired to the crown, and taking one hundred and fifty flags and forty-five cannon. But at the moment of his returning prosperity Basta, who had quarrelled with him about the supreme command of the imperial forces, procured his murder on the 19th of August 1601. Not only had Michael succeeded in rolling back for a time the tide of Turkish conquest, but for the first and last time in modern history he united what once had been Trajan's Dacia, in its widest extent, and with it the whole Ruman race north of the Danube, under a single sceptre.
Michael's wife Florika and his son Nicholas were carried off into Tatar captivity, and Şerban or Sherban, of the Bassaraba family, was raised to the voivodeship of Walachia by imperialist influences, while Sigismund resumed the government of Transylvania. On his deposition by the Porte in 1610, there followed a succession of princes who, though still for the most part of Ruman origin, bought their appointment at Stambul. Walachian contingents were continually employed by the Turks in their Polish wars, and the settlement of Greeks in an official or mercantile capacity in the principality provoked grave discontent, which on one occasion took the form of a massacre.
The reign of the voivode Matthias Bassaraba (1633-54) was an interval of comparative prosperity. Matthias repulsed Matthias Bassaraba. his powerful rival, Basil the Wolf, the voivode of Moldavia and his Tatar and Cossack allies. His last days were embittered, however, by an outbreak of military anarchy. His illegitimate son and successor, Constantine Şerban (1654-58), was the last of the Bassaraba dynasty to rule over Walachia; and on his death the Turkish yoke again weighed heavier on his country. The old capital, Tîrgovishtea, was considered by the Divan to be too near the Transylvanian frontier, and the voivodes were accordingly compelled to transfer their residence to Bucharest, which was finally made the seat of government in 1698.
The mechanical skill of the Walachians was found useful by the Turks, who employed them as carpenters and pontonniers; Şerban Cantacuzene. and during the siege of Vienna in 1683 the Walachian contingent, which, under the voivode Şerban Cantacuzene, had been forced to co-operate with the Turks, was entrusted with the construction of the two bridges over the Danube above and below Vienna. The Walachian as well as the Moldavian prince, who had been also forced to bring his contingent, maintained a secret system of communication with the besieged, which was continued by Şerban after his return to Walachia. The emperor granted him a diploma creating him count of the empire and recognizing his descent from the imperial house of Cantacuzene, Şerban meanwhile collecting his forces for an open breach with the Porte. His prudence, however, perpetually postponed the occasion, and Walachia enjoyed peace to his death in 1688. This peaceful state of the country gave the voivode leisure to promote its internal culture, and in the year of his death he had the satisfaction of seeing the first part of a Walachian Bible issue from the first printing-press of the country, which he had established at Bucharest. He had also caused to be compiled a history of Walachia, and had called to the country many teachers of the Greek language, whose business it was to instruct the sons of the boiars in grammar, rhetoric and philosophy.
Immediately on Şerban's death the boiars, to prevent the Porte from handing over the office to the Greek adventurer who Constantine Brancovan. bid the highest, proceeded to elect his sister's son Constantine Brancovan. The Turkish envoy then in Bucharest was persuaded to invest Brancovan with the caftan, or robe of office, in token of Turkish approval, and the patriarch of Constantinople, who was also present, and the archbishop of Walachia, Theodosius, consecrated him together at the high altar of the cathedral, where he took the coronation oath to devote his whole strength to the good of his country and received the boiars' oath of submission. Brancovan, it is true, found it expedient to devote his predecessor's treasure to purchasing the confirmation of his title from the Divan, but the account of his coronation ceremony remains an interesting landmark in the constitutional history of the country. In his relations with the Habsburg power he displayed the same caution as the voivode Şerban. In spite of defeats inflicted on the Turks by the imperial troops at Pozharevats, Nish and Vidin, in 1689, it was only by an exercise of force that they secured winter quarters in Walachia; and though, after the battle of Poltava in 1709, Brancovan concluded a secret treaty with the tsar Peter the Great, he avoided giving open effect to it. The tranquillity which he thus obtained was employed by Brancovan as by his predecessor in furthering the internal well-being of the country, with what success is best apparent from the description of Walachia left by the Florentine Del Chiaro's description of Walachia. Del Chiaro, who visited the country in 1709 and spent seven years there. He describes the stoneless Walachian plain, with its rich pastures, its crops of maize and millet, and woods so symmetrically planted and carefully kept by Brancovan's orders that hiding in them was out of the question. Butter and honey were exported to supply the sultan's kitchen at Stambul; wax and cattle to Venice; and the red and white wine of Walachia, notably that of Pitesei, to Transylvania. The Walachian horses were in demand among the Turks and Poles. Near Ribnik and elsewhere were salt-mines which supplied all the wants of the Transdanubian provinces of Turkey; there were considerable copper mines at Maidan; and iron was worked near Tîrgovishtea. The gipsy community was bound to bring fifteen pounds weight of gold from the washings of the Argesh. Many of the boiars were wealthy, but the common people were so ground down with taxation that “of their ancient Roman valour only the name remained.” To avoid the extortion of their rulers numbers had emigrated to Transylvania and even to the Turkish provinces. The principal Walachian city was Bucharest, containing a population of about 50,000; but, except for two large hans or merchants' halls built by Brancovan and his
