Henry IV had personally great sympathy with the mission of Manuel; for in Africa he had borne arms against the Moslems with the cross upon his breast, and, until he succeeded Richard II, it had always been his dream to lead a crusade. He understood the peril of Constantinople, and in a letter from Westminster, in January, 1401, he called the attention of the Archbishop of Canterbury to the necessity of helping Manuel, in order that Constantinople might not be lost, and authorized a collection in all the churches of his realm.[603] But Henry was not secure upon his throne. In France, the Dukes of Burgundy and Orleans were still struggling for the power that the insane king was unable to wield. Manuel waited two years in western Europe. While he was making his heart sick with deferred hope, the great events that were to change the personal fortune of Bayezid, if not that of his family and his race, were shaping themselves in the East. It was a Moslem prince who was to afford a respite to Constantinople. After Manuel left for the west, only the small force of chevaliers under Châteaumorand, who had remained behind from the crusaders of Boucicaut, saved Constantinople. The inhabitants of the city were so hungry that they slipped over the walls by cords, and surrendered themselves to the Osmanlis. John did nothing. There was no money in the imperial treasury. The crusaders got their own provisions by raids on the Asiatic shore of the Bosphorus, and by intercepting galleys. After the shock of the fall of Sivas, Bayezid realized that he must expend the best of his force and energy in solidifying his conquests in Europe and Asia, and in raising a larger army to combat Timur, if he threatened again to invade Anatolia. Although the siege was not pushed with vigour, the city was on the point of yielding. The miserable John made a treaty to give up the city, should Bayezid beat Timur.[604] Even the patriarch Matthew was supposed to have an understanding with Bayezid to retain his position if the city were taken. In a proclamation, which vividly depicted the misery of the city, afflicted by six years of siege and famine, Matthew urged the inhabitants to repent of their crimes, and defended himself from the charge of having treated with Bayezid.[605] Not only against Constantinople was Bayezid preparing the final blow. In the Morea, the Greeks feared for the safety of Modon, where Manuel had left his family.[606] Since 1399, the Venetian Senate had been alarmed by the gradual Ottoman conquest of Albania, and finally for the safety of Corfu, because the Osmanlis had appeared in force in the Adriatic.[607] In the early spring of 1402, Ottoman activities ceased in the Balkan peninsula, and every soldier that could be mustered--Christian as well as Moslem--was hurried into Asia Minor; for a greater than Djenghiz Khan was marching westward. XV