France, by the subtlety of Louis XI., has gained the mastery of all her great vassal lords. The English, it is true, still hold Calais, but no other possession on the Continent. And the boundary of France goes further north in 1500 than now, for it includes that count-ship, or province, of Flanders which had been brought into the possession of France's most powerful and dangerous vassal the Duke of Burgundy. Northward, again, Holland and Scandinavia (the present Norway and Sweden)--with Denmark, sometimes the most powerful of them all--did not take much part as nations in the great story, but, as we have seen, the Northmen came very largely into its making by reason of their sea-faring raids and settlements upon the coasts of all the Western world. From Normandy they came to England and they conquered. They established themselves as kings of Sicily. A Northman, Baldwin, became Eastern Emperor at Constantinople. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- {207} [Illustration: CONSTANTINOPLE. Fountain and Square of St. Sophia.] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Spain we have seen coming together, by the union of Castile and Aragon under Ferdinand and Isabella, {208} within its present boundaries of sea and mountains. It has finally overthrown the last stronghold of Mahommedan power in the western part of Europe by the conquest of Granada. Portugal ever since the time of the second Crusade has kept its independence. On the other, the eastern side of Europe, however, we find that another Mahommedan power, of quite different race from any of the Syrians, Arabians, and Africans who composed the mixed Moslem force which occupied Spain, has taken firm possession of Constantinople itself and of a vast area of Europe northward--the Turks. Constantine had been an Emperor of wise foresight when he surrounded with strong defensive walls the fine city which he built beside the older Byzantium. It was the gate commanding the narrow sea-way separating Europe from Asia. Its harbour, later known as the Golden Horn, was spacious and secure for ships of commerce or ships of war. Its importance was obvious. Long before its capture by the Crusaders at the beginning of the thirteenth century it had seen the barbarians from the north hammering at its walls. Already the growing nation which had Moscow for its chief city, and which was beginning to be called Russia, had commenced its attempts--of which there have been very many in later story--to reach down to Constantinople. Partly by fighting and partly by bribing, the Emperor of the East had succeeded in keeping the barbarians off, but the attack of the Crusaders, with the Venetian fleet to aid, prevailed as we have seen. Baldwin and his successors reigned at Constantinople for more than fifty years.