The troops who remained faithful to the pretender attempted to prevent the landing of Murad and his native and foreign troops, but failed. Thereupon Mustafa fled. Murad took possession of Gallipoli and then followed the pretender to Adrianople with all possible speed. Mustafa hastened towards Wallachia on the approach of the sultan. A band of young soldiers followed and captured him. He was brought before the sultan, condemned, and hanged like an ordinary malefactor. Then the sultan thought himself strong enough to take up the task which Bajazed had undertaken when summoned by Timour. He decided at once to attempt the capture of Constantinople. He laid siege to it in the second week of June 1422 and ended in failure, as we have already seen, at the end of August in the same year. One at least of the reasons why the siege in 1422 had been abandoned was a rising against Murad on behalf of his younger brother named Mustafa. One of his two brothers, had been strangled by his orders, but Mustafa was saved by Elias Pasha. Murad had ordered Elias to bring the boy to Brousa. Elias, however, succeeded in having him recognised in that city and at Nicaea as sultan. The rebellion, therefore, had assumed alarming proportions. Murad with a trusty band of followers went to Nicaea, gained access to the city, and the boy Mustafa, who was only six years old, was bowstrung, possibly without the consent of his brother. Then Murad in great haste crossed again to Europe,[132] occupied Adrianople, and made it his European capital. We have now arrived at the period when many of those who were destined to be great actors in the tragedy of the Moslem conquest of Constantinople appear on the scene. The young emperor John, who had become co-emperor with his father in 1420 and who now alone possessed power, owing to the debility of his father, went, in 1423, to Hungary to seek help against the common enemy. He left his brother Constantine, who was destined to be the last Christian emperor of the city, in charge of the capital with the title of Despot. A few months later, Phrantzes, the historian of the conquest, and Lucas Notaras, afterwards made Grand Duke, who also took a prominent part in the events of 1453, were sent by Constantine to Murad and arranged terms of peace, subject to ratification by John, when he returned from Hungary. The associated emperor came back by sea to his capital in October and terms of peace were ratified by which the empire had to pay a heavy tribute and to surrender many towns on the Black Sea. In July 1425, Manuel died. He was seventy-seven years old and had reigned thirty-four years--or, counting the eighteen years when he was co-emperor with his father, fifty-two years. In his old age, he had become hopeless of saving the empire, or even the capital. He counselled John to make the best of the situation, to try to live on good terms with the sultan, and to be content to remain the vassal of Murad.