In his declining age, he had appointed as his associate his eldest son John, the second of the name. The corruptions of the church, divided between two popes, and the disputes of the clergy, afforded him ample scope for the exercise of his religious zeal, and it was to heal these ecclesiastical schisms that he undertook a voyage to Italy. But the downfall of his race and of the Grecian dynasty was approaching. At his decease (1448), there were five princes of the imperial house; but the death of Andronicus, and the monastic profession of Isidore, had reduced them to threeConstantine, Demetrius, and Thomas. Constantine ascended the vacant throne, the factious opposition of his brothers having been appeased by the interposition of the empress-mother, the senate, the soldiers, and the clergy, who allowed them the possession of the Morea.
The first act of the new emperor was to despatch an embassy to Georgia to bring home a princess whom he had chosen for his royal consort. His next care was to inquire into the state of public affairs, which had been completely neglected by the weakness or absence of his predecessor. But the imperial drama had reached its last act. The danger which had long brooded over the doomed house of the Palæologi was ready to burst in resistless fury upon the city of the Cæsars. Mohammed II. had vowed to become master of Constantinople, and vast were the preparations and the implements of war which he had provided for its capture or its destruction. The story of the siege need not here be told; nowhere has it been recorded with more picturesque and energetic brevity than in the glowing pages of Gibbon. Operations were carried on with unprecedented vigour and effect, rendered more terrible by the lavish use of gunpowder and artillery, then almost new elements in the art of war. Constantine did all that a Christian prince and a brave general could do. By his example he animated the courage of his soldiers, and revived the hearts of the citizens, sinking in despair. The scene on the day before the assault is thus described by an eye-witness:'The emperor and some faithful companions entered the dome of St Sophia, which in a few hours was to be converted into a mosque, and devoutly received with tears and prayers the sacrament of the holy communion. He reposed some moments in the palace, which resounded with cries and lamentations; solicited the pardon of all he might have injured; and mounted on horseback to visit the guards and explore the motions of the enemy.' But the dreaded 29th of May had come; the last hour of the city and the empire had struck. After a siege of fifty-three days, Constantinople, to use the words of Gibbon, 'which had defied the power of Chosroes, the chazan, and the caliphs, was irretrievably subdued by the arms of Mohammed II. Her empire only had been subverted by the Latins; her religion was trampled in the dust by the Moslem conquerors.'
Constantine had nobly done his duty. Amidst the swarms of the
enemy who had climbed the walls and were pursuing the flying Greeks through the streets, he was long seen with his bravest officers fighting round his person, and finally lost. His only fear was that of falling alive into the hands of the Infidels, and this fate he sought to avert by prudently casting away the purple. Amidst the tumult he was pierced by an unknown hand, and his body was buried under a mountain of the slain. The last words he was heard to utter was the mournful exclamation: 'Cannot there be found a Christian to cut off my head?' His death put an end to resistance and order, and left the capital to be sacked and pillaged by the victorious Turks. Truly has it been said, that the distress and fall of the last Constantine are more glorious than the long prosperity of the Byzantine Cæsars.
The difficulties and dying moments of the emperor have been faithfully and pathetically dramatised by Miss Joanna Baillie in her tragedy of Constantine Palæologus . She adheres closely to history, only she makes her hero receive his deathblow from the sword of a relenting Turk, who admires his bravery, and pronounces over him a farewell eulogy. All writers agree that the last of the imperial Palæologi was the best of his race; and had he not been so ill supported by his worthless subjects, and deserted by every Christian prince in Europe, he might have repelled the tide of Turkish invasion, though he would never have restored the glory of the empire. Yet gallantly did he front the storm, and perish as became the successor of a long line of kingsthe last of the Romans.
The fall of Constantine was the signal for the degradation and dispersion of his whole race. His two surviving brothers, Demetrius and Thomas, reigned as despots of the Morea in Greece; but the ruin of the empire was the gloomy prelude to their own misfortunes. Demetrius became the pensioner of the new Turkish emperor Mohammed, and received a city of Thrace and some adjacent islands for his own maintenance and that of his followers. In this state of humiliating dependence he remained until death released him from his ignominious servitude. Thomas, the other brother, was driven into exile by the invasion of his dominions. He fled to Corfu, and from thence to Italyaccording to Gibbon's account'with some naked adherents; his name, his sufferings, and the head of the apostle St Andrew, entitled him to the hospitality of the Vatican, and his misery was prolonged by a pension of 6000 ducats from the pope and cardinals.' He left two sons (he must have had a third, as will afterwards appear), Andrew and Manuel, who were educated in Italy. The eldest degraded himself by the looseness of his life and marriage, and died the inheritor of an empty title. Manuel was tempted to revisit his native country; and after spending the remainder of his life in safety and ease at Constantinople, he was gathered to his fathers, 'an honourable train of Christians and Moslems attending him to the grave.'