ROXALANA AND THE MURDER OF IBRAHIM
At the coming of spring Barbarossa was at sea again with thirty-two
ships ready for any eventuality, his crews aflame with ardour for
revenge against those by whom they had been so roughly handled. He
chose for the scene of operations a place on the coast of Majorca some
fifteen miles from Palma; from here he commanded the route of the
Spaniards from their country to the African coast, and it was against
this nation that he felt a great bitterness owing to recent events.
Eagerly did the corsair and his men watch for the Spanish ships, the
heavier vessels lying at anchor, but the light, swift galleys ranging
and questing afar so that none might be missed. Very soon the vigilance
of the Moslems was rewarded by the capture of a number of vessels,
sent by Bernard de Mendoza laden with Turkish and Moorish slaves,
destined to be utilised as rowers in the Spanish galleys. These men
were hailed as a welcome reinforcement, and joyfully joined the forces
of Kheyr-ed-Din when he moved on Minorca, captured the castle by a
surprise assault, raided the surrounding country, and captured five
thousand seven hundred Christians, amongst whom were eight hundred
men who had been wounded in the attack on Tunis—all these unfortunates
were sent to refill the bagnio of Algiers.
This private war of revenge was, however, destined soon to come to
an end, as Soliman the Magnificent in this year became involved in
disputes with the Venetian Republic, and recalled “that veritable
man of the sea,” as Barbarossa had been described by Ibrahim, to
Constantinople.
In this city by the sea there had taken place a tragedy which,
although it only involved the death of a single man, was nevertheless
far-reaching in its consequences; for the man was none other than that
great statesman Ibrahim, Grand Vizier, and the only trusted counsellor
of the Padishah. He who had been originally a slave had risen step by
step in the favour of his master until he arrived at the giddy eminence
which he occupied at the time of his death. It is a somewhat curious
commentary on the essentially democratic status of an autocracy that a
man could thus rise to a position second only to that of the autocrat
himself; and, in all probability, wielding quite as much power.
Ibrahim had for years been treated by Soliman more as a brother than
as a dependent, which, in spite of his Grand Viziership, he was in
fact. They lived in the very closest communion, taking their meals
together, and even sleeping in the same room, Soliman, a man of high
intelligence himself, and a ruler who kept in touch with all the
happenings which arose in his immense dominions, desiring always to
have at hand the man whom he loved; from whom, with his amazing grip
of political problems and endless fertility of resource, he was certain
of sympathy and sound advice. But in an oriental despotism there are
other forces at work besides those of _la haute politique_, and Ibrahim
had one deadly enemy who was sworn to compass his destruction. The
Sultana Roxalana was the light of the harem of the Grand Turk. This
supremely beautiful woman, originally a Russian slave, was the object
of the most passionate devotion on the part of Soliman; but she was as
ambitious as she was lovely, and brooked no rival in the affections of
Soliman, be that person man, woman, or child. In her hands the master
of millions, the despot whose nod was death, became a submissive slave;
the undisciplined passions of this headstrong woman swept aside from
her path all those whom she suspected of sharing her influence, in no
matter how remote a fashion. At her dictation had Soliman caused to be
murdered his son Mustafa, a youth of the brightest promise, because, in
his intelligence and his winning ways he threatened to eclipse Selim,
the son of Roxalana herself.
This woman possessed a strong natural intelligence, albeit she was
totally uneducated; she saw and knew that Ibrahim was all-powerful with
her lover, and this roused her jealousy to fever-heat. She was not
possessed of a cool judgment, which would have told her that Ibrahim
was a statesman dealing with the external affairs of the Sublime Porte,
and that with her and with her affairs he neither desired, nor had he
the power, to interfere. What, however, the Sultana did know was
that in these same affairs of State her opinion was dust in the balance
when weighed against that of the Grand Vizier.
Soliman had that true attribute of supreme greatness, the unerring
aptitude for the choice of the right man. He had picked out Ibrahim
from among his immense entourage, and never once had he regretted his
choice. As time went on and the intellect and power of the man became
more and more revealed to his master, that sovereign left in his hands
even such matters as despots are apt to guard most jealously. We have
seen how, in spite of the murmurings of the whole of his capital, and
the almost insubordinate attitude of his navy, he had persevered in the
appointment of Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa, because the judgment of Ibrahim
was in favour of its being carried out. This, to Roxalana, was gall
and wormwood; well she knew that, as long as the Grand Vizier lived,
her sovereignty was at best but a divided one. There was a point at
which her blandishments stopped short; this was when she found that her
opinion did not coincide with that of the minister. She was, as we have
seen in the instance of her son, not a woman to stick at trifles, and
she decided that Ibrahim must die.
There could be no hole-and-corner business about this; he must die,
and when his murder had been accomplished she would boldly avow to her
lover what she had done and take the consequences, believing in her
power over him to come scatheless out of the adventure. In those days,
when human life was so cheap, she might have asked for the death of
almost any one, and her whim would have been gratified by a lover who
had not hesitated to put to death his own son at her dictation. But
with Ibrahim it was another matter; he was the familiar of the Sultan,
his _alter ego_ in fact. It says much for the nerve of the Sultana that
she dared so greatly on this memorable and lamentable occasion.
On March 5th, 1536, Ibrahim, went to the royal seraglio, and, following
his ancient custom, was admitted to the table of his master, sleeping
after the meal at his side. At least so it was supposed, but none knew
save those engaged in the murder what passed on that fatal night; the
next day his dead body lay in the house of the Sultan.
Across the floor of jasper, in that palace which was a fitting
residence for one rightly known as “The Magnificent,” the blood of
Ibrahim flowed to the feet of Roxalana. The disordered clothing, the
terrible expression of the face of the dead man, the gaping wounds
which he had received, bore witness that there had taken place a
grim struggle before that iron frame and splendid intellect had been
levelled with the dust. This much leaked out afterwards, as such things
will leak out, and then the Sultana took Soliman into her chamber
and gazed up into his eyes. The man was stunned by the immensity of
the calamity which had befallen him and his kingdom, but his manhood
availed him not against the wiles of this Circe. Ibrahim had been
foully done to death in his own palace, and this woman clinging so
lovingly around his neck now was the murderess. The heart’s blood of
his best friend was coagulating on the threshold of his own apartment
when he forgave her by whom his murder had been accomplished. This was
the vengeance of Roxalana, and who shall say that it was not complete?
The Ottoman Empire was the poorer by the loss of its greatest man, the
jealousy of the Sultana was assuaged, the despot who had permitted
this unavenged murder was still on the throne, thrall to the woman
who had first murdered his son and then his friend and minister. But
the deed carried with it the evil consequences which were only too
likely to occur when so capable a head of the State was removed at so
critical a time. Renewed strife was in the air, and endless squabbles
between Venice and the Porte were taking place. With these we have no
concern, but, in addition to other complaints, there were loud and
continuous ones concerning the corsairs. Venice, “The Bride of the
Sea,” had neither rest nor peace; the pirates swarmed in Corfu, in
Zante, in Candia, in Cephalonia, and the plunder and murder of the
subjects of the Republic was the theme of perpetual representations to
the Sultan. The balance of advantage in this guerilla warfare was with
the corsairs until Girolame Canale, a Venetian captain, seized one of
the Moslem leaders known as “The Young Moor of Alexandria,” The victory
of Canale was somewhat an important one as he captured the galley of
“The Young Moor” and four others; two more were sunk, and three hundred
Janissaries and one thousand slaves fell into the hands of the Venetian
commander. There being an absence of nice feeling on the part of the
Venetians, the Janissaries were at once beheaded to a man.
The whole story is an illustration of the extraordinary relations
existing among the Mediterranean States at this time. Soliman
the Magnificent, Sultan of Turkey, had lent three hundred of his
Janissaries, his own picked troops, to assist the corsairs in
their depredations on Venetian commerce. Having done this, and the
Janissaries having been caught and summarily and rightly put to death
as pirates, the Sultan, as soon as he heard of what had occurred,
sent an ambassador, one Yonis Bey, to Venice to demand satisfaction
for the insult passed upon him by the beheading of his own soldiers
turned pirates. The conclusion of the affair was that the Venetians
released “The Young Moor of Alexandria” as soon as he was cured of the
eight wounds which he had received in the conflict, and sent him back
to Africa with such of his galleys as were left. There was one rather
comical incident in connection with this affair, which was that when
Yonis Bey was on his way from Constantinople to Venice he was chased by
a Venetian fleet, under the command of the Count Grandenico, and driven
ashore. The Count was profuse in his apologies when he discovered
that he had been chasing a live ambassador; but the occurrence so
exasperated Soliman that he increased his demands in consequence.
Barbarossa, who had spent his time harrying the Spaniards at sea ever
since the fall of Tunis, was shortly to appear on the scene again. He
received orders from the Sultan, and came as fast as a favouring wind
would bring him. Kheyr-ed-Din had been doing well in the matter of
slaves and plunder, but he knew that, with the backing of the Grand
Turk, he would once again be in command of a fleet in which he might
repeat his triumph of past years, and prove himself once more the
indispensable “man of the sea.”
Soon after his arrival his ambitions were gratified, and he found
himself with a fleet of one hundred ships. Since the death of Ibrahim,
and the incident which terminated with the despatch of Yonis Bey to
Venice, the relations between the Grand Turk and the Venetian Republic
had become steadily worse, and at last the Sultan declared war. On May
17th, 1537, Soliman, accompanied by his two sons, Selim and Mohammed,
left Constantinople. With the campaign conducted by the Sultan we are
not concerned here; it was directed against the Ionian Islands, which
had been in the possession of Venice since 1401. On August 18th Soliman
laid siege to Corfu, and was disastrously beaten, re-embarking his men
on September 7th, after losing thousands in a fruitless attack on the
fortress. He returned to Constantinople utterly discomfited. It was
the seventh campaign which the Sultan had conducted in person, but the
first in which the ever-faithful Ibrahim had not been by his side.
This defeat at the hands of the Venetians was not, however, the only
humiliation which he was destined to experience in this disastrous
year; for once again Doria, that scourge of the Moslem, was loose
upon the seas, and was making his presence felt in the immediate
neighbourhood of Corfu, where the Turks had been defeated. On July
17th Andrea had left the port of Messina with twenty-five galleys,
had captured ten richly laden Turkish ships, gutted and burned
them. Kheyr-ed-Din was at sea at the time, but the great rivals
were not destined to meet on this occasion. Instead of Barbarossa,
Andrea fell in with Ali-Chabelli, the lieutenant of Sandjak Bey of
Gallipoli. On July 22nd the Genoese admiral and the Turkish commander
from the Dardanelles met to the southward of Corfu, off the small
island of Paxo, and a smart action ensued. It ended in the defeat of
Ali-Chabelli, whose galleys were captured and towed by Doria into Paxo.
That veteran fighter was himself in the thickest of the fray, and,
conspicuous in his crimson doublet, had been an object of attention
to the marksmen of Chabelli during the entire action. In spite of the
receipt of a severe wound in the knee, the admiral refused to go below
until victory was assured. He was surrounded at this time by a devoted
band of nobles sworn to defend the person of their admiral or to die
in his defence. His portrait has been sketched for us at this time by
the Dominican Friar, Padre Alberto Gugliel-motto, author of “La guerra
dei Pirati e la marina Pontifica dal 1500 al 1560.” The description
runs thus: “Andrea Doria was of lofty stature, his face oval in shape,
forehead broad and commanding, his neck was powerful, his hair short,
his beard long and fan-shaped, his lips were thin, his eyes bright and
piercing.”
Once again had he defeated an officer of the Grand Turk; and it may be
remarked that Ibrahim was probably quite right in the estimation, or
rather in the lack of estimation, in which he held the sea-officers of
his master, as they seem to have been deficient in every quality save
that of personal valour, and in their encounters with Doria and the
knights were almost invariably worsted. For the sake of Islam, for the
prestige of the Moslem arms at sea, it was time that Barbarossa should
take matters in hand once more.
The autumn of this year 1537 proved that the old Sea-wolf had lost
none of his cunning, that his followers were as terrible as ever.
What did it seem to matter that Venetian and Catalan, Genoese and
Frenchman, Andalusian and the dwellers in the Archipelago, were
all banded together in league against this common foe? Did not the
redoubtable Andrea range the seas in vain, and were not all the efforts
of the Knights of Saint John futile, when the son of the renegado from
Mitylene and his Christian wife put forth from the Golden Horn? What
was the magic of this man, it was asked despairingly, that none seemed
able to prevail against him? Had it not been currently reported that
Carlos Quinto, the great Emperor, had driven him forth from Tunis
a hunted fugitive, broken and penniless, with never a galley left,
without one ducat in his pocket? Was he so different, then, from all
the rest of mankind that his followers would stick to him in evil
report as well as in the height of his prosperity? Men swore and women
crossed themselves at the mention of his name.
“Terrible as an army with banners,” indeed, was Kheyr-ed-Din in this
eventful summer: things had gone badly with the crescent flag, the
Padishah was unapproachable in his palace, brooding perchance on that
“might have been” had he not sold his honour and the life of his only
friend to gratify the malice of a she-devil; those in attendance on the
Sultan trembled, for the humour of the despot was black indeed.
But “the veritable man of the sea” was in some sort to console him
for that which he had lost; as never in his own history—and there
was none else with which it could be compared—had the Corsair King
made so fruitful a raid. He ravaged the coasts of the Adriatic and
the islands of the Archipelago, sweeping in slaves by the thousand,
and by the end of the year he had collected eighteen thousand in the
arsenal at Stamboul. Great was the jubilation in Constantinople when
the Admiralissimo himself returned from his last expedition against
the infidel; stilled were the voices which hinted disaffection—who
among them all could bring back four hundred thousand pieces of gold?
What mariner could offer to the Grand Turk such varied and magnificent
presents?
Upon his arrival Barbarossa asked permission to kiss the threshold
of the palace of the Sultan, which boon being graciously accorded to
him, he made his triumphal entry. Two hundred captives clad in scarlet
robes carried cups of gold and flasks of silver behind them came thirty
others, each staggering under an enormous purse of sequins; yet another
two hundred brought collars of precious stones or bales of the choicest
goods; and a further two hundred were laden with sacks of small coin.
Certainly if Soliman the Magnificent had lost a Grand Vizier he had
succeeded in finding an admiral!
All through the earlier months of 1538 the dockyards of Constantinople
hummed with a furious activity, for Soliman had decreed that the
maritime campaign of this year was to begin with no less than one
hundred and fifty ships. His admiral, however, did not agree with this
decision; to the Viziers he raged and stormed. “Listen,” he said, “O
men of the land who understand naught of the happenings of the sea.
By this time Saleh-Reis must have quitted Alexandria convoying to the
Bosphorus twenty sail filled with the richest merchandise; should he
fall in with the accursed Genoese, Doria, where then will be Saleh-Reis
and his galleys and his convoy? I will tell you: the ships in Genoa,
the galleys burned, Saleh-Reis and all his mariners chained to the
rowers’ bench.”
The Viziers trembled, as men did when Barbarossa stormed and turned
upon them those terrible eyes which knew neither fear nor pity. “We be
but men,” they answered, “and our lord the Sultan has so ordained it.”
“I have forty galleys,” replied the corsair; “you have forty more. With
these I will take the sea; but, mark you,” he continued, softening
somewhat, “you do right to fear the displeasure of the Sultan, and I
also have no wish to encounter it; but vessels raised and equipped
in a hurry will be of small use to me. In the name of Allah the
compassionate and his holy Prophet give me my eighty galleys and let me
go.”
In Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa sound strategical instinct went hand in hand
with the desperate valour of the corsair. To dally in the Golden
Horn while so rich a prey was at sea to be picked up by his Christian
foes was altogether opposed to his instincts: never to throw away a
chance in the game of life had ever been his guiding principle.
Soliman, great man as he undoubtedly was, had not the adamantine
hardness of character which enabled his admiral to risk all on the
hazards of the moment; or possibly the Grand Turk was deficient in that
clearness of strategical instinct which never in any circumstances
forgoes a present advantage for something which may turn out well in
a problematical future. Soliman, sore, sullen, and unapproachable,
dwelt in his palace brooding over the misfortunes which had been his
lot since the death of Ibrahim. Barbarossa, who so recently had lost
practically all that he possessed, and who had reached an age at which
most men have no hopes for the future, was as clear in intellect, as
undaunted in spirit, as if he had been half a century younger: to be
even once more with those by whom he had been defeated and dispossessed
was the only thing now in his mind. The capture of Saleh-Reis and
his convoy would be a triumph of which he could not bear to think.
Further, it would add to the demoralisation of the sea forces of the
Sultan, which were sadly in need of some striking success after the
defeats which had so recently been their portion. The Sultan had
decided that one hundred and fifty ships were necessary; his admiral
thought otherwise. There was too much at stake for him to dally at
Constantinople; his fiery energy swept all before it, and in the
end he had his way. On June 7th, 1538, he finally triumphed over the
hesitations of the Viziers and put to sea with eighty sail.
The Sultan, from his kiosk, the windows of which opened on the
Bosphorus, counted the ships.
“Only eighty sail; is that all?” he asked.
The trembling Viziers prostrated themselves before him.
“O our Lord, the Padishah,” they cried, “Saleh-Reis comes from
Alexandria with a rich convoy; somewhere lurking is Andrea Doria, the
accursed; it was necessary, O Magnificent, to send succour.”
There was a pause, in which the hearts of men beat as do those who know
not but that the next moment may be their last on earth.
The Sultan stared from his window at the retreating ships in a silence
like the silence of the grave. At last he turned:
“So be it,” he answered briefly; “but see to it that reinforcements do
not lag upon the road.”
If there had been activity in the dockyards before it was as nothing to
the strenuous work that was to be done henceforward.
Before starting on this expedition Kheyr-ed-Din had made an innovation
in the manning of some of the most powerful of his galleys, which
was of the utmost importance, and which was to add enormously to the
success of his future maritime enterprises. The custom had always been
that the Ottoman galleys had been rowed by Christians, captured and
enslaved; of course the converse was true in the galleys of their foes.
There were, for the size of the vessels, an enormous number of men
carried in the galleys of the sixteenth century, and an average craft
of this description would have on board some four hundred men; of
these, however, the proportion would be two hundred and fifty slaves
to one hundred and fifty fighting men. That which Kheyr-ed-Din now
insisted upon was that a certain proportion of his most powerful units
should be rowed by Moslem fighting men, so that on the day of battle
the oarsmen could join in the fray instead of remaining chained to
their benches, as was the custom with the slaves. It is, however, an
extraordinary testimony to the influence which the corsair had attained
in Constantinople that he had been able to effect this change in the
composition of some of his crews; it must have been done with the
active co-operation of the Sultan, as no authority less potent than
that of the sovereign himself could have induced free men to undertake
the terrible toil of rower in a galley. This was reserved for the
unfortunate slave on either side owing to the intolerable hardship of
the life, and results, in the pace at which a galley proceeded through
the water, were usually obtained by an unsparing use of the lash on the
naked bodies of the rowers.
This human material was used up in the most prodigal manner possible,
as those in command had not the inducement of treating the rowers well,
from that economic standpoint which causes a man to so use his beast of
burden as to get the best work from him. In the galley, when a slave
could row no more he was flung overboard and another was put in his
place.
The admiral, however, even when backed by the Padishah, could not
man a large fleet of galleys with Moslem rowers, and, as there was a
shortage in the matter of propelling power, his first business was to
collect slaves, and for this purpose he visited the islands of the
Archipelago. The lot of the unhappy inhabitants of these was indeed a
hard one. They were nearer to the seat of the Moslem power than any
other Christians; they were in those days totally unable to resist an
attack in force, and in consequence were swept off in their thousands.
Seven islands cover the entrance to the Gulf of Volo. The nearest
to the coast is Skiathos, which is also the most important; it was
defended by a castle built upon a rock. This castle was attacked by
Barbarossa, who bombarded it for six days, carried it by assault, and
massacred the garrison. He spared the lives of the inhabitants of the
island, and by this means secured three thousand four hundred rowers
for his galleys. He had to provide motor-power for the reinforcements
which he expected. In July he was reinforced from Constantinople by
ninety galleys, while from Egypt came Saleh-Reis, who had succeeded
in avoiding the terrible Doria, with twenty more; the fleet was thus
complete.
Barbarossa ravaged Skios, Andros, and other islands, putting them under
contribution, and in this manner raised some eight thousand ducats;
from a pen of guinea-fowl to a king’s ransom, nothing escaped the maw
of this most rapacious of corsairs. Candia and some other islands
yielded up some small spoil, but the sufferings of such insignificant
folk as the wretched islanders were soon lost to the sight of the
Christian world in the magnitude of the events which were now
impending.
Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa, Corsair, Admiral, and King, the scourge of
the Mediterranean, and Andrea Doria, Prince of Oneglia, Admiral of the
modern Cæsar, Charles V., Emperor and King, were at last to meet face
to face.