



Produced by Turgut Dincer and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net  (This file was
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  Transcribers note:

  To improve the reading of the Vol. I, The Index at the end of the Vol. II.
  which covers both volumes has been copied to Vol. I. and The Errata has
  been corrected.
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  OGIER GHISELIN

  DE BUSBECQ

  VOL. I.

[Illustration: AVGERIVS GISLENVS BVSBEQVIVS.

  _Te voce, Augeri, mulcentem Cæsaris aures
      Laudauit plausis Austrius Ister aquis.
  Te Ducis Ismarij flectentem pectora verbis
      Thrax rapido obstupuit Bosphorus e pelago.
  Te gesfisfe domum pro nata Cæsaris, ingens
      Sequana conspexit, Parisÿq3 lares_

  _I. Lernutius._]




  THE

  LIFE AND LETTERS

  OF

  OGIER GHISELIN DE BUSBECQ

  SEIGNEUR OF BOUSBECQUE

  KNIGHT, IMPERIAL AMBASSADOR

  BY

  CHARLES THORNTON FORSTER, M.A.

  _Late Fellow of Jesus College, Cambridge: Vicar of Hinxton_

  AND

  F. H. BLACKBURNE DANIELL, M.A.

  _Late Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge: Barrister-at-Law_

  Πολλῶν ἀνθρώπων ἴδεν ἄστεα καὶ νόον ἔγνω

  _IN TWO VOLUMES_

  VOL. I.

  LONDON
  C. KEGAN PAUL & CO., 1 PATERNOSTER SQUARE
  1881


(_The rights of translation and of reproduction are reserved_)


  TO

  MONSIEUR JEAN DALLE

  MAIRE OF BOUSBECQUE

  AS A SLIGHT ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF HIS KINDNESS

  AND THE VALUABLE ASSISTANCE WE HAVE

  DERIVED FROM HIS RESEARCHES

  THESE VOLUMES ARE RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED




PREFACE.


We ask to be allowed to introduce the Reader to a kind and genial
cicerone, who can take him back, three centuries deep, into the Past,
and show him the Turk as he was when he dictated to Europe instead of
Europe dictating to him; or conjure once more into life Catherine de
Medici, Navarre, Alençon, Guise, Marguerite the fair and frail, and
that young Queen, whom he loved so well and served so faithfully.




CONTENTS

OF

THE FIRST VOLUME.


                           PAGE

  LIFE OF BUSBECQ             1

  TURKISH LETTER  I.         75

     ”      ”     II.       174

     ”      ”     III.      192

     ”      ”     IV.       315




_Errata._


The references in footnotes on pp. 105-250, to other passages in this
volume after p. 72, should be advanced by 2 pages, e.g. _for_ 163,
_read_ 165.


LIFE OF BUSBECQ.

[Illustration]




LIFE OF BUSBECQ.

_Introductory._


The days are now past when students were content to take their history
at second hand, and there is therefore the less reason to apologise for
introducing to the reader, in an English dress, the letters of one who
was an eyewitness and actor in some of the most important events in the
sixteenth century.

Several of the most striking passages in Robertson’s _History of
Charles V._ are taken from Busbecq; De Thou has borrowed largely from
his letters; and the pages of Gibbon, Coxe, Von Hammer, Ranke, Creasy,
and Motley, testify to the value of information derived from this
source. It must not, however, be supposed that all that is historically
valuable in his writings has found a place in the works of modern
authors. On the contrary, the evidence which Busbecq furnishes has
often been forgotten or ignored.

A remarkable instance of this neglect is to be found in Prescott’s
account of the capture of Djerbé,[1] or Gelves, by the Turks. The
historian of Philip II. has made up this part of his narrative from
the conflicting and vainglorious accounts of Spanish writers, and does
not even allude to the plain, unvarnished tale which Busbecq tells—a
tale which he must have heard from the lips of the commander of the
Christian forces, his friend Don Alvaro de Sandé, and which he had
abundant opportunities of verifying from other sources.

The revival of the Eastern Question has drawn attention in France[2]
to the career and policy of one who was so successful as an ambassador
at Constantinople, and the life of Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecq has been
the subject of two treatises at least since 1860, while a far more
important work dealing with our author’s life is about to issue from
the press. Of this last we have been allowed to see the proof-sheets,
and we take this opportunity of expressing our obligation to the
author, Monsieur Jean Dalle, Maire de Bousbecque. His book is a
perfect storehouse of local information, and must prove invaluable
to any future historian of the Flemings. It is entitled _Histoire de
Bousbecque_.

During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries hardly any author was
so popular as Busbecq. More than twenty editions[3] of his letters
were published in the literary capitals of Europe—Antwerp, Paris,
Bâle, Frankfort, Hanau, Munich, Louvain, Leipsic, London, Oxford and
Glasgow. His merits as a recorder of contemporary history are briefly
sketched by a writer of that period, who thus describes his despatches
to Rodolph: ‘C’est un portrait au naturel des affaires de France sous
le régne de Henri III. Il raconte les choses avec une naïveté si grande
qu’elles semblent se passer à nos yeux. On ne trouve point ailleurs
tant de faits historiques en si peu de discours. Les grands mouvemens,
comme la conspiration d’Anvers, et les petites intrigues de la cour
y sont également bien marquées. Les attitudes (pour ainsi dire) dans
lesquelles il met Henri III., la Reine Mere, le duc d’Alen