CHRONOLOGY.

757

A. M. A. D.

300,000 aqiers a year tribute, which he is obligedto submit to,

5454 1 450 Rouen, and several other places in Normandy, reco- ■

vered by the french irom the English,

Amuratlill. the Turkisli sultan, dies, and is succeed-ed by his son Mohammed 11. surnamed The ,Great, who upon his coming to the throne stran-gled all his brothers. lie built a castle about fivemiles from Constantinople, called by the Greeks'Neo Castram, and repaiied another over against itcalled Aspocastron ; these two commanded thestraits of the Bosphorus, and shut up Constantino-ple, from whence the garrisons made frequent ex-'cursions. This begot a quarrel ; Mohammedsends Caracia, who takes what places the empe-ror had on the Euxine sea, and besieged Con-stantinople, took St. Stephen’s tower by assault,and put the garrison to the sword ; and otherforts submitted: Solybria only held out, which atlast overcome by frequent assaul's, was taken, andevery man put to the sword.

5455 1451 The whole duchy of Normandy is yielded up to the

French by means of the queen, the duke of So-merset, &c. which causes much trouble and de-bate in England, and a destructive war.

5457 1453 On the 6th of April Mohammed II. sits down before

the imperial city of Constantinople with an armyof 300,000 men ; the besieged behaved them-selves with the utmost bravery, and by frequentsallies cut off vast numbers of the enemy, and de-stroyed their works. Mohammed increasedhis army by continual reinforcements to 400,000men, and battered the walls both night and day,and a fleet of 300 ships blocked the city up bysea; but four Genoese and one Greek ship sail-ing into the midst of them, sunk some, disabledothers, and made dreadful havoc of the whole,and brought the city relief of corn, &c. The be-sieged being tired out, the emperor sends to the sul -tan, offering to acknowledge himself his vassal,and pay a yearly tribute, if he would raise thesiege and go away ; to which the sultan answered,he was determined to have the city, but if hewould deliver it up immediately, he would yieldPeloponnesus to him, and other provinces to hisbrothers, which Constantine refuses. On Tues-day the 29th of May, the 'l urks began the attackat three in the morning, and after a prodigiousnumber was killed, the enemy took the city bystorm, put the emperor, nobles, and inhabitants,all to the sword, and plundered it for three dayssuccessively, when Mohammed entered it intriumph, and chose it for the seat of his empire,and promised all the natives that would stay orcome there the free exercise of the Christian re-ligion. Thus ended the Greek empire at Con-stantinople, 1089 years after the division of theRoman empire into the east and west, 977 yearsafter the dissolution of the Roman empire in thewest, and 192 years after the expulsion of the La-tins from Constantinople. At this siege wereused such great guns as were never before seen.One is described to have been of such a mon-strous size that it was drawn by seventy yoke ofoxen and by three thousand men. The greatestof all discharged a ball of the weight of 300ounds, and the report of this cannon is said toave been so great, that the whole country wasshaken by it to the distance of five miles.

5459 1455 The battle of St. Albans, between the Lancastriansand Yorkists, in which king Henry VI. of Eng-land was taken prisoner.

Calixtus III. succeeds Nicholas V. in the popedom.

George Castriot, otherwise named Scajiderberg, isnow famous for his victories over the Tinks.vol, L— no. 48.

A. M.A. D.

5461 1457 A French fleet arrives off Sandwich, and injures the

town considerably.

5462 1458 Tineas Sylvius, a man of great learning and eloquence,

is made bishop-of Rome, and named Pius 11.

5464 1460 Battle of Northampton, in which the king’s party is

defeated, July 19.

Battle of Wakefield, in which the king’s party is vic-torious, Dec. 31.

5465 1461 Battle near St. Alban’s, on Shrove Tuesday, bv

wliii h king Henry regained his liberty.

Henry VI. deposed by his fourth cousin Edward IV.March 5, who reigns over England in his stead. ■

5466 1462 Mohammed 11. sultan of the 'l urks, besieges and'

takes Trabezond, and murders all the royal fa-mily of Comnemis, and thereby puts an end tothe empire of Trabezond, 258 years after itserection.

5468 1464 Paul II. succeeds Pins II. in the popedom.

Peloponnesus and Pont us subdued by Mohammed II..Battle of Hexham, in which Ilenry VI. is defeated.11 an attempt to recover the crown of England.

5469 1465 Now coin issued in England by Edward IV. viz.

royals, half-royals, angels, half-angels,, groats, andfarthings.

5470 1466 The bishop of Rome condemns the king of Boliemia-

for an heretic, and deprives him of his king-dom.

5473 1 1469 Stiria invaded and pillaged by the Turks.

5474 1470 Mohammed 11. invades the island of Euboea, and de-

stroys Nigropont; and soon after Isaac, his ge-neral, enters Hungary and Croatia, and takes agreat number of prisoners.

Henry VI. is restored to the kingdom of England,Oct. 6, but is taken prisoner again by Edward IV.April 11, following, and murdered in the tower70 davs after.

5475 1471 Sixtus IV. succeeds Paul II. in the popedom.

5476 1472 Matthias, king of Hungary, is chosen king of Bo-

hemia.

5478 1474 Mohammed II. is defeated in two great battles bv

Cassanus, king of Persia; but the Turks soon af-ter getting llie upper hand, a treaty of alliance isconcluded between the two powers.

5479 1475 The Jubilee which was before kept by the papists

ever} 1 fiftieth year, is now ordered by the Romanbishop to be observed eyery 25th year.

5482 1478 George, duke of Clarence, brother to king Edward

of England, was secretly put to death bv beinwdrowned in a butt of Malmsey w-ine, within dieTower of London.

5483 1479 Mohammed II. the Turkish sultan, besieges Rhodes,

which was so ably defended, that he was obligedto raise the siege, after having lost a great number,of his soldiers.

5485 14S1 Mohammed II. with a very great army invades

Italy, and soon after dies, after having subvertedtwelve kingdoms, and conquered two hundredcities, without including die Greek empires of.Constantinople and Trabezond. He is succeed*ed in the Turkish empire by his son Bajazet II.

5487 1483 Edward IV. of England, making great preparations

for war against the French, dies of an ague at-Westminster; and is succeeded by his son Ed-ward V..

Edward-V. king of England, is deposed and mur-dered, after a short reign of two months and thir-teen days, by his unde Richard, duke of Glou-cester, who afterwards usurped the crown, andwent by the name of Richard III,

Bajazet II- the l urKish sultan, conquers severaltowns in Walachia, and afterwards made warupon the sultan ot Egypt, by whom he is oftenvanquished with great slaughter.

5488 1484 Innocent VIII. succeeds Sixtus IV. in the popedom.

He was addicted tp drunkenness, and openly ad-9 G vauced