From the picture by Jan Cornelis Vermeyen, in the possession of Her Majesty Queen Victoria. Reproduction by Maclure & Macdonald.] [Illustration: LANDING OF CHARLES V. From the picture by Jan Cornelis Vermeyen, in the possession of Her Majesty Queen Victoria. Reproduction by Maclure & Macdonald.] [Illustration: BATTLE BETWEEN TUNIS AND GOLETTA. From the picture by Jan Cornelis Vermeyen, in the possession of Her Majesty Queen Victoria. Reproduction by Maclure & Macdonald.] [Illustration: TAKING OF TUNIS BY CHARLES V. From the picture by Jan Cornelis Vermeyen, in the possession of Her Majesty Queen Victoria. Reproduction by Maclure & Macdonald.] The story of the Spanish invasion of the kingdom of the Beni Hafs has been written by at least a score of Moorish and Spanish annalists. The voluminous records of the Knights of St. John contain the minutest details of the great enterprise. In the carefully preserved archives of the Order I discovered the original MS. instructions issued by the Grand Master to the captains of the Maltese contingent.[18] In the public library I happened to light on a brief but curious narrative of the expedition compiled by a French knight in 1612. “Mouley Muhamed, king of Tunis,” writes the Chevalier Boyssat, “died in 1533. He was, it is believed, poisoned by one of his wives, by name Geisa, who desired to secure the throne for her son, Mouley Assem (Hasan), and who at once put twenty-two of his brothers to death. One alone, by name Rascit (Rachid), contrived to escape, who took refuge with the corsair Kheir-ed-Din at Algiers. They went together to Constantinople, and there the Captain Pacha proposed to the Sultan Suleiman the conquest of Tunis, under the pretext of the restoration of Rascit. A fleet was at once prepared, but when it was on the point of sailing Rascit mysteriously disappeared. Kheir-ed-Din, however, reached Tunis, and took it almost without a blow. It was not till he arrived in the very midst of the _castel_ of Tunis that he confessed to the absence of Rascit, and boldly proclaimed the downfall of the Beni Hafs and the authority of the Grand Signor. Mouley Assem then fled to Europe and asked the powerful aid of the Emperor Charles.” The Emperor agreed to assist him. He found in this romantic enterprise the means of carrying out a project he had long before contemplated, and of furthering his ideas of becoming the Defender of Christendom. “Charles,” says Sir W. Stirling-Maxwell, “stood between the days of chivalry which were going out, and the days of printing which were coming in,—respecting the traditions of the one, and fulfilling many of the requirements of the other. Men of the sword found in him a bold cavalier. Like his ancestors, with lance in rest, he led knights against the Moorish hosts amongst the olives of Goletta.”