Home life in Hellas, Greece and the Greeks - eBooks4Greeks.gr

on the spur of a red crag atTHE ISLES 73Santorin, the castleof Andros on a rock in the harbour joined to theland by a high-flung arch, those of Melos andSiphnos, that of Amorgos which displays thesuccessive work of Hellene, Roman, and Frank,were built by the feudal barons, who came tobetter their fortunes as Englishmen go to a newcolony. Sometimes they paid allegiance to theDuchy of Naxos, sometimes they threw it off,according to mood and opportunity. The Dukesof Naxos were great personages, held in highesteem both in Venice and at the Vatican. Oneof them, Giovanni I, came to England in 1404 toseek aid from Henry IV against the Infidel. 1Butas the Duchy outlasted the short-lived LatinEmpire of the East from which it sprang, thebaronies outlasted the Duchy. Their history isfull of incident, of plot and passion. They werenot particular as to how they obtained theirPioneers seldom are.ends.But in the presence of theirstrongholds they are very real personages. 21Henry IV always cherished the idea of a new crusade.Shakespeare indulged in no poetic licence in putting into hismouth the words " We would, dear lords, unto the Holy Land."Henry V inherited the desire. As he lay dying, he stopped theclergy who were reciting the penitential psalms at the words"Walls of Jerusalem," and solemnly declared that had he beenspared, it was his steadfast purpose to have won back the HolyCity for Christendom. He had sent Gilbert de Lannoy to reporton the country, with a view to a campaign.2 In Miller's Latins of the Levant there is an amusing passagereferring to the genealogical pretensions of these nobles. TheQuirini claimed kinship with the Roman Emperor Galba. TheSanudi traced back to Livy. The Crispi, not to be Outdone,