The contest for the papacy caused a schism among the knights; and as there were two competitors for the chair of St. Peter, so there were two grand masters, both arrogating to themselves the supreme command of the order. It was then that Bajazet, the son of Amurath, began his extraordinary career. One province after another was overrun and ravaged by his armies; from Europe he passed to Asia, and thence back again to Europe, attacking Christian and infidel alike in the very wantonness of success. Even the frontiers of Hungary were laid waste; and having taken some prisoners of that nation, he sent them back to king Sigismund, with the following insulting message: “Tell your master that I will pay him a visit next spring; and after driving him from the land, I will pass over into Italy, and plant my standards on the Capitol of Rome.” Indeed it was his common boast that his horse should eat his oats on the high altar of St. Peter’s. In 1395 the fatal battle of Nicopolis was fought, which seemed well-nigh to promise the fulfilment of this insolent threat. Sigismund of Hungary there found himself at the head of a hundred thousand men,—the army of a new crusade which had at length been raised through the exertions of Pope Boniface IX.,[5] who proclaimed a plenary indulgence for all who should repair to the rescue of Hungary and the neighbouring kingdoms. It was composed of the forces of France, Venice, Greece, Hungary, and the Knights of St. John. Sixty thousand horse (according to some writers), “all of tried courage and enterprise,” says the old chronicler, “the very flower of Christian chivalry, were there, led on by the Count de Nevers, a prince of the French blood-royal.” But the battle was lost with immense slaughter;[6] Sigismund escaping with the grand master, Philibert de Naillac, in a single galley, to Rhodes, and leaving (it is said) twenty thousand of his followers dead upon the field. Ten thousand Christian prisoners, among whom were three hundred of gentle birth, were led out on the morning after the conflict, with their hands bound behind them and halters round their necks, and butchered in cold blood before the eyes of Bajazet himself, who sat at the entrance of his tent from daybreak till four in the afternoon to enjoy the horrid spectacle, and forced his unhappy captive, the Count de Nevers, to stand by and witness the death-pangs of his comrades. They were offered the Koran or the sword; and as one by one they made profession of the Christian faith, they paid the penalty of their fidelity with their lives. “It was a cruel case for them,” says Froissart, “thus to suffer for the love of our Saviour Jesus Christ; and may He receive their souls!” This victory brought Bajazet to the walls of Constantinople. His generals overran Styria and the south of Hungary; the sultan himself lead his victorious armies into the north of Greece, while his lieutenants, crossing the isthmus of Corinth, subdued the whole of the Morea.