Writing in 1402, the Regent of Constantinople, John VII, addressed the English court, and narrated the grim situation of the eastern Empire. Overrun by the Ottoman Turks, the tiny and disjointed state of Byzantium was on its knees, crippled by the costs of war and the destructive raiding of Sultan Bayezid I (r. 1389–1403). The yoke of the infidels was firmly about the Christians' necks. Hope of salvation rested with the west, and John VII sought to emphasise the precedent of English military aid, paying tribute to certain of Henry IV's noblemen who had already contributed to the defence of Constantinople. Striving as ‘the very best of men’, English knights were currently in the city, the ‘House of God’, populating the defences and distinguishing themselves with deeds of heroism. ‘It is nothing new,’ John claimed, ‘for illustrious England to produce such fruit.’ In the same vein, the Greek Emperor Manuel II spoke of the ‘British’ as the expected saviour of eastern Christendom. His famous visit to the Lancastrian court at Christmas 1401 sought to deepen diplomatic connections, and fire support for the anti-Turkish crusade. The emperor's references to ‘axe-wielding warriors of British race' recalled much older associations, invoking memories of Anglo-Saxon and Celtic soldiers in Byzantine armies of the tenth and eleventh centuries, as well as the faithfulness of English knights in more recent years. Aimed at cultivating sympathy, the historical allusions were not lost upon Henry IV's court.