Orchan ruled from 1326 to 1360, achieved the conquest of Bithynia, and first led the Turks into Europe, and in 1353 established himself in the Chersonesus, and occupied Gallipoli, the key of the Hellespont.  Orchan was succeeded by Amurath I. (1389-1403).  Bajazet carried his victorious arms from the Danube to the Euphrates, and the Roman world became contracted to a corner of Thrace, between the Propontis and the Black Sea, about fifty miles in length and thirty in breadth, a space of ground not more extensive than the lesser principalities of Germany or Italy, if the remains of Constantinople had not still represented the wealth and populousness of a kingdom.

Under Manuel (1391-1425), the son and successor of John Palteologus, Constantinople would have fallen before the might of the Sultan Bajazet had not the Turkish Empire been oppressed by the revival of the Mogul power under the victorious Timour, or Tamerlane.  After achieving a conquest of Persia (1380-1393), of Tartary (1370-1383), and Hindustan (1398-1399), Timour, who aspired to the monarchy of the world, found himself at length face to face with the Sultan Bajazet.  Bajazet was taken prisoner in the war that followed.  Kept, probably only as a precaution, in an iron cage, Bajazet attended the marches of his conqueror, and died on March 9, 1403.  Two years later, Timour also passed away on the road to China.  Of his empire to-day nothing remains.  Since the reign of his descendant Aurungzebe, his empire has been dissolved (1659-1707); the treasures of Delhi have been rifled by a Persian robber; and the riches of their kingdom is now possessed by the Christians of a remote island in the northern ocean.

Far different was the fate of the Ottoman monarchy.  The massive trunk was bent to the ground, but no sooner did the hurricane pass away than it again rose with fresh vigour and more lively vegetation.  After a period of civil war between the sons of Bajazet (1403-1421), the Ottoman Empire was once more firmly established by his grandson, Amurath II. (1421-1451).

One of the first expeditions undertaken by the new sultan was the siege of Constantinople (1422), but the fortune rather than the genius of the Emperor Manuel prevented the attempt.  Amurath was recalled to Asia by a domestic revolt, and the siege was raised.

While the sultan led his Janizaries to new conquests, the Byzantine Empire was indulged in a servile and precarious respite of thirty years.  Manuel sank into the grave, and John Palaeologus II. (1425-1448) was permitted to reign for an annual tribute of 300,000 aspers and the dereliction of almost all that he held beyond the suburbs of Constantinople.

On November 1, 1448, Constantine, the last of the Roman emperors, assumed the purple of the Caesars.  For three years he was allowed to indulge himself in various private and public designs, the completion of which were interrupted by a Turkish war, and finally buried in the ruins of the empire.