to the defenders. Of the janissaries, the flower of the assailing army, upwards of a thousand were slain; while of the besiegers, who fought almost in safety from their walls, both killed and wounded did not exceed a hundred and thirty. The siege had been begun in the June of 1422, and lasted two months, and then the sultan, who under different circumstances would no doubt have prolonged it, was hurried back to Broussa by tidings of his brother's revolt. He did not again attack Constantinople. The emperor and sultan concluded a peace, the terms of which were fairly favourable to the former, who, though he had to pay a considerable tribute, still numbered among his possessions Thessalonica and some towns in Thrace. He lived to a good old age, and died in the year 1425, having, after the manner of the Palæologi, become a monk towards his life's close.
His son, John Palæologus II., had, it is said, during his father's lifetime shown signs of a rather enterprising disposition. These Manuel, as we have seen, decidedly discouraged, as ill-suited to the age and even pregnant with danger to the empire, which in his opinion could hope only for a very tame and quiet existence. John, from 1425 to 1448, reigned quite on sufferance as the vassal and tributary of the sultan. Whatever may have once been his thoughts and aspirations, he now contentedly acquiesced in the humble position of "a cautious steward of empire." At the Council of Florence, 1438, he and the patriarch of Constantinople, with the Greek bishops, submitted themselves to the Latin Church; but the ecclesiastics on their return had to repudiate this sub-
