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+Project Gutenberg's Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 1 of 8, by Various
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 1 of 8
+       A series of pen and pencil sketches of the lives of more
+       than 200 of the most prominent personages in History
+
+Author: Various
+
+Editor: Charles F. Horne
+
+Release Date: August 27, 2008 [EBook #26421]
+[Last updated: March 30, 2014]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GREAT MEN, FAMOUS WOMEN, VOL. 1 ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Sigal Alon, Christine P. Travers and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This
+file was produced from images generously made available
+by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries)
+
+
+
+
+
+[Transcriber's note: Obvious printer's errors have been corrected, all
+other inconsistencies are as in the original. The author's spelling
+has been maintained.
+
+Captions marked with [TN] have been added while producing this file.]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: Attila, "The Scourge of God".]
+
+
+
+
+GREAT MEN AND FAMOUS WOMEN
+
+
+_A Series of Pen and Pencil Sketches of_
+
+THE LIVES OF MORE THAN 200 OF THE MOST PROMINENT PERSONAGES IN HISTORY
+
+
+VOL. I.
+
+
+
+
+Copyright, 1894, BY SELMAR HESS
+
+edited by Charles F. Horne
+
+[Illustration: Publisher's arm.]
+
+New-York: Selmar Hess Publisher
+
+
+Copyright, 1894, by SELMAR HESS.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS OF VOLUME I.
+
+
+  SUBJECT                         AUTHOR                          PAGE
+
+  ALARIC THE BOLD,            _Archdeacon Farrar, D.D., F.R.S._,    56
+  ALEXANDER THE GREAT,                                              10
+  MARC ANTONY,                                                      37
+  ATTILA,                     _Archdeacon Farrar, D.D., F.R.S._,    59
+  BELISARIUS,                 _Charlotte M. Yonge_,                 64
+  GODFREY DE BOUILLON,        _Henry G. Hewlett_,                   97
+  JULIUS CÆSAR,               _E. Spencer Beesly, M.A._,            32
+  CHARLEMAGNE,                _Sir J. Bernard Burke_,               75
+  CLOVIS THE FIRST,           _Thomas Wyatt, A.M._,                 61
+  GASPARD DE COLIGNI,         _Professor Creasy_,                  164
+  HERNANDO CORTES,            _H. Rider Haggard_,                  150
+  CYRUS THE GREAT,            _Clarence Cook_,                       5
+  DIOCLETIAN,                                                       50
+  SIR FRANCIS DRAKE,                                               176
+  EDWARD I. OF ENGLAND,       _Thomas Davidson_,                   109
+  EDWARD III. OF ENGLAND,                                          114
+  EDWARD, THE BLACK PRINCE,   _L. Drake_,                          119
+  BERTRAND DU GUESCLIN,                                            127
+  GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS,          _Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen_,            199
+  HANNIBAL,                   _Walter Whyte_,                       14
+  HENRY IV. OF FRANCE,                                             171
+  HENRY V. OF ENGLAND,        _G. P. R. James_,                    129
+  HERMANN,                                                          40
+  JOHN HUNIADES,              _Professor A. Vambéry_,              136
+  CAIUS MARIUS,               _James Anthony Froude, LL.D._,        25
+  CHARLES MARTEL,             _Henry G. Hewlett_,                   69
+  NEBUCHADNEZZAR,             _Clarence Cook_,                       1
+  PEPIN THE SHORT,            _Henry G. Hewlett_,                   72
+  FRANCISCO PIZARRO,          _J. T. Trowbridge_,                  156
+  SIR WALTER RALEIGH,                                              182
+  SALADIN,                    _Walter Besant_,                     106
+  SCIPIO AFRICANUS MAJOR,                                           18
+  MILES STANDISH,             _Elbridge S. Brooks_,                189
+  TRAJAN,                     _J. S. Reid, Litt. D._,               42
+  OLAF TRYGGVESON,            _Thomas Carlyle_,                     83
+  ALBRECHT VON WALLENSTEIN,   _Henry G. Hewlett_,                  194
+  WARWICK, THE KING-MAKER,                                         146
+  WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR,      _G. W. Prothero_,                     92
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+VOLUME I.
+
+
+PHOTOGRAVURES
+
+
+  ILLUSTRATION                           ARTIST              TO FACE PAGE
+
+  ATTILA, "THE SCOURGE OF GOD,"          _Ulpiano Checa_    _Frontispiece_
+  "AND HE WAS DRIVEN FROM MEN, AND DID
+    EAT GRASS AS OXEN,"                  _Georges Rochegrosse_       4
+  HANNIBAL CROSSING THE RHONE,           _Henri-Paul Motte_         14
+  HERMANN'S TRIUMPH OVER THE ROMANS,     _Paul Thumann_             40
+  ROME UNDER TRAJAN--A CHARIOT RACE,     _Ulpiano Checa_            48
+  THE VICTIMS OF GALERIUS,               _E. K. Liska_              54
+  ALARIC IN ATHENS,                      _Ludwig Thiersch_          56
+  CHARLEMAGNE AT WITIKIND'S BAPTISM,     _Paul Thumann_             78
+  HENRY V. REJECTS FALSTAFF,             _Eduard Grützner_         132
+  THE ADMIRAL OF THE SPANISH ARMADA
+    SURRENDERS TO DRAKE,                 _Seymour Lucas_           180
+  GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS BEFORE THE BATTLE OF
+    LUTZEN,                              _Ludwig Braun_            202
+
+
+
+
+WOOD-ENGRAVINGS AND TYPOGRAVURES
+
+
+  ALEXANDER DISCOVERING THE BODY OF
+    DARIUS,                              _Gustave Doré_             12
+  GENEROSITY OF SCIPIO,                  _Schopin_                  20
+  MARIUS ON THE RUINS OF CARTHAGE,       _John Vanderlyn_           32
+  THE IDES OF MARCH,                     _Carl Von Piloty_          36
+  THE LAST GLADIATORIAL CONTEST,         _J. Stallaert_             58
+  CLOVIS PUNISHING A REBEL,              _Alphonse De Neuville_     62
+  BELISARIUS RECEIVING ALMS,             _Jacques-Louis David_      68
+  CHARLES MARTEL AT TOURS,               _Charles Steuben_          72
+  PEPIN AFTER THE MURDER OF DUKE WAIFRE, _Th. Lybaert_              74
+  A NORSE RAID UNDER OLAF,               _Hugo Vogel_               84
+  WILLIAM AT HASTINGS,                   _P. J. De Loutherbourg_    94
+  GODFREY DE BOUILLON ENTERING
+    JERUSALEM,                           _Carl Von Piloty_         104
+  SALADIN,                               _Gustave Doré_            108
+  EDWARD III. AND THE BURGHERS OF
+    CALAIS,                              _Berthelemy_              118
+  BERTRAND DU GUESCLIN,                  _Alphonse De Neuville_    128
+  HUNIADES AT BELGRADE,                  _Gustave Doré_            146
+  YORK AND LANCASTER--THE RED AND WHITE
+    ROSES,                                                         148
+  PIZARRO EXHORTING HIS BAND AT GALLO,   _Lizcano_                 158
+  HENRY IV. OF FRANCE AT HOME,           _J. D. Ingres_            176
+  RALEIGH PARTING FROM HIS WIFE,         _E. Leutze_               188
+  DEPARTURE OF THE MAYFLOWER,            _A. W. Bayes_             192
+  WALLENSTEIN'S LAST BANQUET,            _J. Scholz_               198
+
+
+
+
+SOLDIERS AND SAILORS
+
+  Sleep, soldiers! still in honored rest
+      Your truth and valor wearing:
+  The bravest are the tenderest.
+      The loving are the daring.
+
+  --BAYARD TAYLOR
+
+
+
+
+NEBUCHADNEZZAR[1]
+
+By CLARENCE COOK
+
+(645-561 B.C.)
+
+         [Footnote 1: Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.]
+
+[Illustration: Nebuchadnezzar.]
+
+
+With the death of Sardanapalus, the great monarch of Assyria, and the
+taking of Nineveh, the capital city, by the Medes, the kingdom of
+Assyria came to an end, and the vast domain was parcelled out among
+the conquerors. At the time of the catastrophe, the district of
+Babylonia, with its capital city Babylon, was ruled as a dependent
+satrapy of Assyria by Nabopolassar. Aided by the Medes, he now took
+possession of the province and established himself as an independent
+monarch, strengthening the alliance by a marriage between the Princess
+Amuhia, the daughter of the Median king, and his son Nebuchadnezzar.
+
+In the partition of Assyria, the region stretching from Egypt to the
+upper Euphrates, including Syria, Phoenicia, and Palestine, had fallen
+to the share of Nabopolassar. But the tribes that peopled it were not
+disposed to accept the rule of the new claimant, and looked about for
+an ally to support them in their resistance. Such an ally they thought
+they had found in Egypt.
+
+Egypt was the great rival of Babylon, as she had been of Assyria. Both
+desired to control the highways of traffic connecting the
+Mediterranean with the farther East. Egypt had the advantage, both
+from her actual position on the Mediterranean and her nearer
+neighborhood to the coveted territory, and she used her advantage with
+audacity and skill. No sooner, however, did Nabopolassar feel himself
+firm on his throne than he resolved to check the ambition of Egypt and
+secure for himself the sovereignty of the lands in dispute.
+
+The task was not an easy one. Pharaoh Necho had been for three years
+in possession of the whole strip along the Mediterranean--Palestine,
+Phoenicia, and part of Syria--and was pushing victoriously on to
+Assyria, when he was met at the plain of Megiddo, commanding the
+principal pass in the range of Mount Carmel, by the forces of the
+petty kingdom of Judah, disputing his advance. He defeated them in a
+bloody engagement, in which Josiah, King of Judah, was slain, and then
+continued his march to Carchemish, a stronghold built to defend one of
+the few fordable passes of the upper Euphrates. This important place
+having been taken after a bloody battle, Necho was master of all the
+strategic points north and west of Babylonia.
+
+Nebuchadnezzar was now put in command of an army, to force Pharaoh to
+give up his prey. Marching directly upon Carchemish, he attacked the
+Egyptian and defeated him with great slaughter. Following up his
+victory, he wrested from Pharaoh, in engagement after engagement, all
+that he had gained in Syria, Phoenicia, and Palestine, and was in the
+midst of fighting in Egypt itself, when the news came of the death of
+his father; and he hastened home at once by forced marches to secure
+his possession of the throne. In his train were captives of all the
+nations he had conquered: Syrians, Phoenicians, Jews, and Egyptians.
+Among the Jewish prisoners was Daniel, the author of the book of the
+Old Testament called by his name, and to whom we owe the little
+personal knowledge we have of the great Babylonian monarch.
+
+Of all the conquests of Nebuchadnezzar in this long struggle with
+Egypt, that of the Jewish people is the most interesting to us. The
+Jews had fought hard for independence, but if they must be conquered
+and held in subjection, they preferred the rule of Egypt to that of
+Babylon. Even the long slavery of their ancestors in that country and
+the sufferings it had entailed, with the tragic memories of the exodus
+and the wanderings in the desert, had not been potent to blot out the
+traditions of the years passed in that pleasant land with its
+delicious climate, its nourishing and abundant food. Alike in
+prosperity and in evil days the hearts of the people of Israel yearned
+after Egypt, and the denunciations of her prophets are never so bitter
+as when uttered against those who turned from Jehovah to worship the
+false gods of the Nile. Three times did the inhabitants of Jerusalem
+rebel against the rule of Babylon, and three times did Nebuchadnezzar
+come down upon them with a cruel and unrelenting vengeance, carrying
+off their people into bondage, each time inflicting great damage upon
+the city and leaving her less capable of resistance; yet each time her
+rulers had turned to Egypt in the vain hope of finding in her a
+defence against the oppressor, but in every instance Egypt had proved
+a broken reed.
+
+Of the three successive kings of Judah whom Nebuchadnezzar had left to
+rule the city as his servants, and who had all in turn rebelled
+against him, one had been condemned to perpetual imprisonment in
+Babylon; a second had been carried there in chains and probably
+killed, while the third, captured in a vain attempt to escape after
+the taking of the city, had first been made to see his sons killed
+before his eyes, had then been cruelly blinded, and afterward carried
+in chains to Babylon, and cast into prison. The last siege of the
+city lasted eighteen months, and when it was finally taken by assault,
+its ruin was complete. By previous deportations Jerusalem had been
+deprived of her princes, her warriors, her craftsmen, and her smiths,
+with all the treasure laid up in the palace of her kings, and all the
+vessels of gold and silver consecrated to the worship of Jehovah.
+Little then was left for her to suffer, when the punishment of her
+latest rebellion came. Her walls were thrown down, her temple, her
+chief glory, was destroyed, the greater part of the inhabitants who
+had survived the prolonged siege were carried off to swell the crowd
+of exiles already in Babylon, and only a few of the humbler sort of
+folk, the vine-dressers and the small farmers, were left behind.
+
+When Nebuchadnezzar rested after his conquests, secure in the
+subjugation of his rivals, and in the possession of his vast kingdom,
+he gave himself up to the material improvement of Babylon and the
+surrounding country. The city as he left it, at the end of his reign
+of forty-three years, was built on both sides of the Euphrates, and
+covered a space of four hundred square miles, equal to five times the
+size of London. It was surrounded by a triple wall of brick; the
+innermost, over three hundred feet high, and eighty-five feet broad at
+the top, with room for four chariots to drive abreast. The walls were
+pierced by one hundred gate-ways framed in brass and with brazen
+gates, and at the points where the Euphrates entered and left the city
+the walls also turned and followed the course of the river, thus
+dividing the city into two fortified parts. These two districts were
+connected by a bridge of stone piers, guarded by portcullises, and
+ferries also plied between the quays that lined the river-banks, to
+which access was given by gates in the walls.
+
+Nebuchadnezzar's palace was a splendid structure covering a large
+space at one end of the bridge. In the central court were the Hanging
+Gardens, the chief glory of the city, and reckoned one of the wonders
+of the world. No clear idea can be formed of these gardens from any
+description that has come down to us, but it would appear that arches
+eighty feet high supported terraces of earth planted with all the
+skill for which the gardeners of the East were famous. We are told
+that they were built for the pleasure of Queen Amuhia, who, as a
+Median princess, missed her native mountains, but a more commonplace
+explanation is that they were carried so high to escape the mosquitoes
+that swarmed on the lower level.
+
+Various splendid edifices, chiefly religious, adorned the great
+squares of the city: the temple of the god Bel, enriched by the spoils
+of Tyre and Jerusalem, was the especial pride of Nebuchadnezzar. It
+rose in a succession of eight lofty stages, and supported on the top a
+golden statue of the god, forty feet high. Still another temple of Bel
+was built in seven stages, each faced with enamelled brick of one of
+the planetary colors; the topmost one of blue, the color dedicated to
+Mercury or Nebo, the patron god of Nabopolassar.
+
+But the most important of the civic undertakings of Nebuchadnezzar was
+the extension of the great system of canalization by which the barren
+wastes of the Babylonian plain were made to rival the valley of the
+Nile in fertility, and become the granary of the East. The whole
+territory was covered with a network of canals fed by the Tigris and
+Euphrates, and used for both irrigation and navigation. One branch had
+already connected Nineveh with Babylon, and another constructed by
+Nebuchadnezzar united Babylon to the Persian Gulf, running a distance
+of four hundred miles. This is still to be traced in a portion of its
+length.
+
+The fate of Nebuchadnezzar is one of the most tragic in the long list
+of calamities that have overtaken the great and powerful of the earth.
+According to Daniel, it was just after the king had spoken those words
+of exulting pride as he walked in the palace of the Kingdom of
+Babylon: "Is not this great Babylon that I have built," when he was
+attacked by that dreadful form of madness, called by the Greeks,
+lycanthropy (wolf-man), in which the victim fancies himself a beast:
+in its fiercer manifestations a beast of the forest, or in milder
+visitations a beast of the field. Nebuchadnezzar's madness became so
+violent that for four years he was exiled from his throne and from the
+company of men, and wandered in the fields, eating grass like oxen,
+"and his body was wet with the dews of heaven, and his hairs were
+grown like eagles' feathers, and his nails like birds' claws."
+Although no mention is made of this strange malady in any writing but
+the book of Daniel, yet it has a pathetic confirmation in one of the
+rock-cut inscriptions that record the acts of Nebuchadnezzar's reign.
+"For four years the seat of my kingdom did not rejoice my heart. In
+all my dominions I built no high place of power, nor did I lay up the
+precious treasure of my kingdom. In Babylon I erected no buildings for
+myself nor for the glory of my empire. In the worship of Bel-Merodach,
+my Lord, the joy of my heart, in Babylon the city of his worship and
+the seat of my empire, I did not sing his praise, nor did I furnish
+his altar with victims"--and then, as if returning to the thing that
+lay nearest him--"In four years I did not dig out the canals."
+
+[Illustration: "And he was driven from men, and did eat grass as
+oxen."]
+
+In time, the black cloud of the king's madness passed away and health
+and reason were restored to him. And if the words that Daniel puts
+into the king's mouth on his recovery are really his, we must
+recognize in this Eastern Despot a decided strain of religious
+sensibility, a trait that appears beside in his almost passionate
+expressions of affection for his god Merodach, and in his sympathy
+with Daniel and the youths who were his companions, in their own
+religious devotion. Although Daniel and the other youths whom the king
+had caused to be called out from the mass of the Jewish captives for
+his own particular service--boys distinguished from the rest by their
+personal beauty, their intelligence and aptitude--were too earnest in
+their religious convictions and too high-spirited to conform to the
+Babylonian religion or to conceal their sentiments under the cloak of
+policy, yet the king tolerated their adherence to their ritual and
+yielded only in part to the persistence of the Jew-baiters, who saw
+with angry eyes the promotion of the hated captives to places of power
+and authority over the heads of their captors. In spite of his enemies
+Daniel was allowed to exercise his own religion in peace; and the
+persecutors of his companions, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, were
+themselves destroyed in the furnace they had heated for their innocent
+victims, which the youths themselves were rescued from by the personal
+interposition of the king, who pretended to see--or in his religious
+exaltation did really see--the god himself standing guard over the
+victims in the midst of the flames.
+
+Of Nebuchadnezzar after the recovery of his reason we learn but
+little. The chronicle of Daniel passes abruptly from Nebuchadnezzar to
+Belshazzar, and the great king is not mentioned again. History, too,
+is silent. It tells us only that he left the throne to a son, whose
+name, Evil-Merodach, records the devotion of his father to the god of
+his people.
+
+[Signature of the author.]
+
+
+
+
+CYRUS THE GREAT[2]
+
+By CLARENCE COOK
+
+(REIGNED 558-529 B.C.)
+
+         [Footnote 2: Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.]
+
+[Illustration: Cyrus the Great.]
+
+
+The early life of Cyrus the Persian, like that of many another famous
+conqueror, is lost in a cloud of fable. According to Herodotus, to
+whom we owe the earliest account, Astyages the King of Media was
+warned in a dream that some danger threatened the kingdom from the
+offspring of his daughter Mandane, who as yet was unmarried. In order
+to remove the danger, whatever it might be, as far as possible from
+his throne, Astyages married his daughter to a Persian named Cambyses,
+who took her with him to his own country. But after his daughter's
+marriage Astyages had another dream, which was interpreted by the
+priests to mean that his daughter's child was destined to reign in his
+stead. Alarmed by this prophecy he sent for his daughter, and when in
+course of time she bore a son, he ordered his trusty lieutenant
+Harpagus to carry the child to his own house and kill it. Harpagus
+took the infant as he had been ordered to do, but moved by the
+pleadings of his wife he determined to commit the rest of his bloody
+instructions to other hands. He therefore called one of his herdsmen,
+and ordered him to expose the child on the bleakest part of the
+mountain and leave it to perish, threatening him with the most
+terrible penalties in case of disobedience. But the herdsman and his
+wife were no more proof against pity than Harpagus and his wife had
+been, and while they stood swayed between their wish to save the child
+and their fear of disobeying Harpagus, fortune happily provided an
+escape for them. The wife of the herdsman brought forth a dead child,
+and this they determined to substitute for the living infant, and to
+bring up the grandson of Astyages as their own. The exchange was
+accomplished, and after some days the servants of Harpagus, sent to
+inquire if their master's commands had been obeyed, were shown by the
+herdsman the body of a dead child exposed on the rocks and still
+wearing the rich clothes and ornaments in which it had been brought to
+his house. Harpagus was thus enabled to assure Astyages that he was
+safe from the threatened danger, and might enjoy his throne in peace.
+
+When the child of Mandane was ten years old an accident brought him to
+the knowledge of the king, and restored him to his birthright. One day
+he was playing with the children of his neighbors, and in a certain
+game where it was necessary to make one of the players king, Cyrus was
+chosen, and all the others, as his subjects, promised to obey his
+commands. But one of the boys, the son of a rich noble of the court of
+Astyages, refused to do as he was bid by Cyrus, and according to the
+rule of the game, he had to submit to a beating at the hand of the
+boy-king. Angry at this treatment, he complained to his father, who,
+indignant in his turn, went to Astyages, and reproached him with the
+blows his son had received at the hands of the son of one of the
+king's slaves. Cyrus was brought before the king; but when he was
+asked how he had dared to treat the son of a nobleman in such a way,
+the boy, nothing daunted, answered that he had done only what was
+right: the rules of the game were known to all who had joined in it:
+the other boys had submitted to the penalties: the son of the nobleman
+alone had refused, and he had been punished as he deserved. "If any
+wrong has been done by me," he said, "I am ready to suffer for it."
+Struck by the boldness of the lad, and by something in his looks,
+Astyages dismissed him for a time, and promised the nobleman that he
+should be satisfied for the insults offered to his son. He then sent
+for the herdsman Mitridates and wrung from him a confession of what he
+had done; and learning how Harpagus had deceived him he acquitted
+Mitridates, and turned all his vengeance upon Harpagus as the chief
+offender. How cruelly he punished him must not be told here, for pity,
+but it was such a barbarous revenge as could never be forgiven; and
+though Harpagus pretended to make light of it, yet it was only that by
+keeping fair with the king he might bide his time, and repay cruelty
+with cruelty.
+
+But now, as Cyrus in our story has grown to man's estate, and is ready
+to show the world of what stuff he is made, it will be well to explain
+in a few words, what was the state of things in that part of the
+world where he was to play his part.
+
+The mighty Kingdom of Assyria in its greatest estate had stretched
+from the Indus on the east, to the Mediterranean on the west. But when
+Nineveh, the capital and chief city of the empire, had been destroyed
+by the Medes--a subject people living on the north-eastern borders of
+the kingdom, but who had risen in rebellion against their
+rulers--Assyria was broken in pieces, and several minor kingdoms rose
+on her ruins.
+
+Of these the chief were Media and Babylonia in the east, and Lydia in
+the west. Babylonia rose to a great height of power and splendor under
+Nebuchadnezzar, as we have seen in our sketch of that king's life. The
+Medes, a brave and warlike people, never attained to so high a degree
+of civilization as the Babylonians, nor did they ever have a monarch
+whose fame equalled that of Sardanapalus, the King of Assyria; of
+Nebuchadnezzar; or of Croesus, King of Lydia; but under a succession
+of astute and hardy warriors, who held the throne for something over
+one hundred and fifty years, their dominion was gradually extended
+until it stretched from the Indus to the centre of Asia Minor. Their
+greatest achievement had been the destruction of Nineveh in B.C. 606.
+
+Lydia, the remaining province, touched the Median kingdom on the east,
+and on the west was only separated, in the beginning, from the
+Mediterranean by the narrow strip of territory occupied by the Greek
+colonies, which for a time acted as a bar to the encroachments of the
+Lydian monarchs and their conquerors.
+
+When Cyrus came to manhood, these kingdoms, the successors of the
+Assyrian monarchy, were all flourishing in wealth and power. Media was
+ruled by Astyages, his grandfather--to accept the legendary history as
+it has come down to us; Babylonia the greatest of the three was
+governed by Nebuchadnezzar, while Lydia was ruled by Croesus, a
+monarch wise above his peers, whose name has long been a synonym for
+unbounded wealth, and whose story, though not beyond the bounds of
+credibility, reads more like a fable of romance than a tale of sober
+fact.
+
+Croesus was the brother-in-law of Astyages, and in close alliance not
+only with the Medes, but with the Babylonians, the Egyptians, and the
+Greeks; and he was at the height of his power and was looking forward
+to still greater increase of his dominions, when in an evil hour he
+struck against the growing greatness of Cyrus, and was crushed in the
+encounter. Had he been less arrogant, the doom he wrought for himself
+might have been delayed, but it could not have been wholly averted.
+Nothing could have long withstood the greed of Cyrus for universal
+dominion.
+
+We have seen what good cause Harpagus had to hate Astyages. But he
+nursed his revenge with crafty wisdom, and knowing himself powerless
+to act openly and alone, he tried what stratagem might do to bring
+about his aim, which was no less than the overthrow of Astyages by
+means of the tyrant's grandson, Cyrus. He did not take open measures
+until he knew he had allies enough at his back, and could strike with
+a sure aim. He worked with the great Median chiefs in private,
+stirring them up against Astyages by appeals of all sorts: to their
+ambition, their greed, their discontent, their private wrongs; and
+when he had secured the consent of enough nobles to his plans, he
+called upon Cyrus, as one who had chiefly suffered from the tyranny
+and cruelty of the king, to lead the proposed revolt in person. He
+knew that Cyrus had been gradually strengthening his own kingdom of
+Persia in preparation for the ambitious schemes of conquest he was
+nursing, but there was danger in correspondence with one who stood to
+Astyages in the double relation of a feared and hated grandson, and
+the chief of a rival people; and if we may believe Herodotus, Harpagus
+had recourse to a strange expedient to communicate his design to
+Cyrus. Disembowelling a dead hare, he inserted a letter in the cavity,
+and sent the animal to Cyrus as a present. When the letter came to the
+hands of Cyrus he eagerly accepted the offers it contained of
+leadership in the proposed revolt, and joined his forces with those of
+the disaffected Medes. Astyages was overthrown and his kingdom taken
+possession of by Cyrus. Herodotus draws a striking picture of the
+exultation of Harpagus over the success of his revengeful projects,
+and of the disdain with which Astyages reproached him for having
+called on another to do what, trusted and confided in as he was by his
+monarch, he might have accomplished for himself, and reaped the
+harvest which he had surrendered to another. Cyrus had the wisdom to
+spare the life of Astyages, and to attach him to his person as
+councillor and friend. Harpagus he made his lieutenant, and much of
+his success was owing to this man's wisdom and bravery. After the
+defeat of Astyages, Cyrus advanced against the lesser tribes that had
+owed allegiance to the Median king, and having reduced them one by one
+to submission, the power of the once mighty empire of the Medians
+passed to the inheritance of the Persians in the year 559 B.C.
+
+When Croesus heard of the overthrow of his brother-in-law by the hands
+of Cyrus, and of the setting up a great new monarchy on the ruins of
+the fallen kingdom, his own ambitious projects were blown into fresh
+activity by the desire for private revenge. Misled by his own
+interpretation of the oracle he consulted as to the likelihood of
+success in an expedition against the Persians, he advanced to
+withstand the conquering march of Cyrus; and his first success was
+against the Syrians of Cappadocia, a people subject to Cyrus, as
+having formed a part of the Median Kingdom. Cyrus, with a powerful
+army, came at once to the assistance of his new subjects, and meeting
+the forces of Croesus on the plain of Cappadocia, a fiercely fought,
+but indecisive battle took place, which resulted in the retreat of
+Croesus to his capital, Sardis, to seek the assistance of his allies
+and prepare to meet Cyrus with a larger force. In overweening
+confidence in his own success, he dismissed his mercenary troops, and
+sent messengers to Babylon, to Egypt, and to Sparta, calling on them
+to come with troops to his assistance within five months. No sooner
+had he shut himself up in Sardis, and dismissed his mercenaries,
+depending upon his own forces until assistance should come from his
+allies, than Cyrus advanced against him so swiftly that there was no
+escape from a battle. Croesus, believing in his fortune, and trusting
+to the excellence of his cavalry, boldly took the field; but Cyrus,
+using stratagem where perhaps courage would not have availed, put his
+camels in front of his line, and massed his own horsemen behind them.
+The horses of Croesus, maddened by the unaccustomed smell of the
+camels, refused to advance; but the Lydians, dismounting, fought so
+bravely on foot with their spears, that it was not until after a long
+and fierce combat that they were forced to retreat and seek safety
+within the walls of Sardis. The army of Cyrus invested the city, but
+it was so strongly fortified on all sides but one as to be impregnable
+by assault and the side left unprotected by art was supposed to be
+amply protected by nature, since it abutted on the very edge of a
+steep precipice. But, after the siege had lasted fourteen days, a
+Persian sentinel saw one of the garrison descend the precipice to
+recover his helmet that had rolled down; and no sooner had he thus
+unwittingly showed the way, than the sentinel followed with a number
+of his fellow-soldiers and, reaching the top of the cliff in safety,
+attacked the guards, all unsuspicious, and gained an entrance to the
+city. The gates were opened to the Persians, and Croesus with all his
+vast store of treasure became the prey of the conqueror. The fall of
+Sardis and the Lydian monarchy was followed by the subjection of the
+Greek cities of Asia Minor, a task which Cyrus left to the hands of
+Harpagus, while he himself turned eastward to pursue his conquests in
+Upper Asia and in Assyria. His greatest achievement in this quarter
+was the taking of Babylon. This he accomplished in the reign of
+Belshazzar, one of the successors of Nebuchadnezzar, perhaps his son,
+by turning the Euphrates, which ran through the middle of the city,
+out of its course; and when its bed was dry he entered the city by
+this road and captured it with little resistance.
+
+Cyrus was now the sole master of the vast Assyrian Kingdom, once more
+in his hands brought back to something like the unity it had before
+the great Median revolt. But he was not content, nor was it perhaps
+possible for him to rest in the enjoyment of power and possessions
+extorted by force, and dependent on force to hold. The new empire,
+like the old one, was destined to break in pieces by its own weight.
+Cyrus was kept in constant activity by the necessity of resisting the
+inroads on his empire of the tribes in the north and farther east; and
+it was in endeavoring to repel invasion and to maintain order in the
+regions he had already conquered, that he met his death. After a reign
+of thirty years he was slain, in 529 B.C., in battle with the
+Massagetæ, a tribe of Central Asia. He left his kingdom to his son
+Cambyses.
+
+[Signature of the author.]
+
+
+
+
+ALEXANDER THE GREAT
+
+(356-323 B.C.)
+
+[Illustration: Alexander.]
+
+
+Alexander the Great, son of Philip of Macedon and Olympias, daughter
+of Neoptolemus of Epirus, was born at Pella, 356 B.C. His mind was
+formed chiefly by Aristotle, who instructed him in every branch of
+human learning, especially in the art of government. Alexander was
+sixteen years of age when his father marched against Byzantium, and
+left the government in his hands during his absence. Two years
+afterward, he displayed singular courage at the battle of Chæronea
+(338 B.C.), where he overthrew the Sacred Band of the Thebans. "My
+son," said Philip, as he embraced him after the conflict, "seek for
+thyself another kingdom, for that which I leave is too small for
+thee." The father and son quarrelled, however, when the former
+divorced Olympias. Alexander took part with his mother, and fled to
+Epirus, to escape his father's vengeance; but receiving his pardon
+soon afterward, he returned, and accompanied him in an expedition
+against the Triballi, when he saved his life on the field. Philip,
+being appointed generalissimo of the Greeks, was preparing for a war
+with Persia, when he was assassinated (336 B.C.), and Alexander, not
+yet twenty years of age, ascended the throne.
+
+After punishing his father's murderers, he marched on Corinth, and in
+a general assembly of the Greeks he caused himself to be appointed to
+the command of the forces against Persia. On his return to Macedon, he
+found the Illyrians and Triballi up in arms, whereupon he forced his
+way through Thrace, and was everywhere victorious. But now the Thebans
+had been induced, by a report of his death, to take up arms, and the
+Athenians, stimulated by the eloquence of Demosthenes, were preparing
+to join them. To prevent this coalition, Alexander rapidly marched
+against Thebes, which, refusing to surrender, was conquered and razed
+to the ground. Six thousand of the inhabitants were slain, and 30,000
+sold into slavery; the house and descendants of the poet Pindar alone
+being spared. This severity struck terror into all Greece. The
+Athenians were treated with more leniency.
+
+Alexander, having appointed Antipater his deputy in Europe, now
+prepared to prosecute the war with Persia. He crossed the Hellespont
+in the spring of 334 B.C. with 30,000 foot and 5,000 horse, attacked
+the Persian satraps at the River Granicus, and gained a complete
+victory, overthrowing the son-in-law of their king Darius with his own
+lance. As a result of the battle, most of the cities of Asia Minor at
+once opened their gates to the conqueror.
+
+Alexander restored democracy in all the Greek cities; and as he passed
+through Gordium, cut the Gordian-knot, which none should loose but the
+ruler of Asia. During a dangerous illness at Tarsus, brought on by
+bathing in the Cydnus, he received a letter insinuating that Philip,
+his physician, had been bribed by Darius to poison him. Alexander
+handed the letter to Philip, and at the same time swallowed the
+draught which the latter had prepared. As soon as he recovered, he
+advanced toward the defiles of Cilicia, in which Darius had stationed
+himself with an army of 600,000 men.
+
+He arrived in November, 333 B.C., in the neighborhood of Issus, where,
+on the narrow plain between the mountains and the sea, the unwieldy
+masses of the Persians were thrown into confusion by the charge of the
+Macedonians, and fled in terror. On the left wing, 30,000 Greek
+mercenaries held out longer, but they, too, were at length compelled
+to yield. All the treasures as well as the family of Darius fell into
+the hands of the conqueror, who treated them with the greatest
+magnanimity. Overtures for peace, made by Darius on the basis of
+surrendering to Alexander all Asia west of the Euphrates, were
+rejected.
+
+Alexander now turned toward Syria and Phoenicia. He occupied Damascus,
+where he found princely treasures, and secured to himself all the
+cities along the shores of the Mediterranean. Tyre, confident in its
+strong position, resisted him, but was conquered and destroyed, after
+seven months of incredible exertion (332 B.C.) Thence he marched
+victoriously through Palestine, where all the cities submitted to him
+except Gaza; it shared the same fate as Tyre. Egypt, weary of the
+Persian yoke, welcomed him as a deliverer; and in order to strengthen
+his dominion here, he restored all the old customs and religious
+institutions of the country, and founded Alexandria in the beginning
+of 331 B.C. Thence he marched through the Libyan Desert, in order to
+consult the oracle of Ammon, whose priest saluted him as a son of
+Zeus; and he returned with the conviction that he was indeed a god.
+
+He then again set out to meet Darius; in October, 331 B.C., a great
+battle was fought on the plain stretching eastward to Arbela.
+Notwithstanding the immense superiority of his adversary, who had
+collected a new army of more than a million men, Alexander was not for
+a moment doubtful of victory. Heading the cavalry himself, he rushed
+on the Persians, and put them to flight; then hastened to the
+assistance of his left wing, which, in the meanwhile, had been sorely
+pressed. He was anxious to make Darius a prisoner, but Darius escaped
+on horseback, leaving his baggage and all his treasures a prey to the
+conqueror. Babylon and Susa, the treasure-houses of the East, opened
+their gates to Alexander, who next marched toward Persepolis, the
+capital of Persia, which he entered in triumph.
+
+The marvellous successes of Alexander now began to dazzle his judgment
+and to inflame his passions. He became a slave to debauchery, and his
+caprices were as cruel as they were ungrateful. In a fit of
+drunkenness, and at the instigation of Thaïs, an Athenian courtesan,
+he set fire to Persepolis, the wonder of the world, and reduced it to
+a heap of ashes; then, ashamed of the deed, he set out with his
+cavalry in pursuit of Darius. Learning that Bessus, the Bactrian
+satrap, held him a prisoner, he hastened his march, in the hope of
+saving him, but he found him mortally wounded (330 B.C.). He mourned
+over his fallen enemy, and caused him to be buried with all the
+customary honors, while he hunted down Bessus, who himself aspired to
+the throne, chasing him over the Oxus to Sogdiana (Bokhara).
+
+Having discovered a conspiracy in which the son of Parmenio was
+implicated, he put both father and son to death, though Parmenio
+himself was innocent of any knowledge of the affair. This cruel
+injustice excited universal displeasure. In 329 he penetrated to the
+farthest known limits of Northern Asia, and overthrew the Scythians on
+the banks of the Jaxartes. In the following year he subdued the whole
+of Sogdiana, and married Roxana, whom he had taken prisoner. She was
+the daughter of Oxyartes, one of the enemy's captains, and was said to
+be the fairest of all the virgins of Asia. The murder of his
+foster-brother, Clitus, in a drunken brawl, was followed, in 327 B.C.,
+by the discovery of a fresh conspiracy, in which Callisthenes, a
+nephew of Aristotle, was falsely implicated. For challenging
+Alexander's divinity, he was cruelly tortured and hanged.
+
+In 327 B.C., proceeding to the conquest of India, hitherto known only
+by name, Alexander crossed the Indus near to the modern Attock, and
+pursued his way under the guidance of a native prince to the Hydaspes
+(Jhelum). He there was opposed by Porus, another native prince, whom
+he overthrew after a bloody contest, and there he lost his charger
+Bucephalus; thence he marched as lord of the country, through the
+Punjab, establishing Greek colonies. He then wished to advance to the
+Ganges, but the general murmuring of his troops obliged him, at the
+Hyphasis (modern Sutlej), to commence his retreat. On regaining the
+Hydaspes, he built a fleet, and sent one division of his army in it
+down the river, while the other followed along the banks, fighting its
+way through successive Indian armies. At length, having reached the
+ocean, he ordered Nearchus, the commander of the fleet, to sail thence
+to the Persian Gulf, while he himself struck inland with one division
+of his army, in order to return home through Gedrosia (Beluchistan).
+During this march his forces suffered fearfully from want of food and
+water. Of all the troops which had set out with Alexander, little more
+than a fourth part arrived with him in Persia (325 B.C.).
+
+[Illustration: Alexander discovering the Body of Darius.]
+
+At Susa he married Stateira, the daughter of Darius, and he bestowed
+presents on those Macedonians (some ten thousand in number) who had
+married Persian women, his design being to unite the two nations. He
+also distributed liberal rewards among his soldiers. Soon afterward he
+was deprived, by death, of his favorite Hephestion. His grief was
+unbounded, and he interred the dead man with kingly honors. As he was
+returning from Ecbatana to Babylon, it is said that the Magi
+foretold that the latter city would prove fatal to him; but he
+despised their warnings. On the way, he was met by ambassadors from
+all parts of the world--Libya, Italy, Carthage, Greece, the Scythians,
+Celts, and Iberians.
+
+At Babylon he was busy with gigantic plans for the future, both of
+conquest and civilization, when he was suddenly taken ill after a
+banquet, and died eleven days later, 323 B.C., in the thirty-second
+year of his age, and the thirteenth of his reign. His body was
+deposited in a golden coffin at Alexandria, by Ptolemæus, and divine
+honors were paid to him, not only in Egypt, but in other countries. He
+had appointed no heir to his immense dominions; but to the question of
+his friends, "Who should inherit them?" he replied, "The most worthy."
+After many disturbances, his generals recognized as Kings the
+weak-minded Aridæus--a son of Philip by Philinna, the dancer--and
+Alexander's posthumous son by Roxana, Alexander Ægus, while they
+shared the provinces among themselves, assuming the title of satraps.
+Perdiccas, to whom Alexander had, on his death-bed, delivered his
+ring, became guardian of the kings during their minority. The empire
+of Alexander soon broke up, and his dominions were divided among his
+generals.
+
+Alexander was more than a conqueror. He diffused the language and
+civilization of Greece wherever victory led him, and planted Greek
+kingdoms in Asia, which continued to exist for some centuries. At the
+very time of his death, he was engaged in devising plans for the
+drainage of the unhealthy marshes around Babylon, and a better
+irrigation of the extensive plains. It is even supposed that the fever
+which he caught there, rather than his famous drinking-bout, was the
+real cause of his death. To Alexander, the ancient world owed a vast
+increase of its knowledge in geography, natural history, etc. He
+taught Europeans the road to India, and gave them the first glimpses
+of that magnificence and splendor which has dazzled and captivated
+their imagination for more than two thousand years. See Freeman's
+"Historical Essays" (2d series, 1873), and Mahaffy's "Alexander's
+Empire" (1887).
+
+The wonderful element in the campaigns of Alexander, and his tragical
+death at the height of his power, threw a rare romantic interest
+around his figure. It is ever the fate of a great name to be enshrined
+in fable, and Alexander soon became the hero of romantic story,
+scarcely more wonderful than the actual, but growing from age to age
+with the mythopoeic spirit which can work as freely in fact as
+fiction. The earliest form of the story which we know is the great
+romance connected with the name of Callisthenes, which, under the
+influence of the living popular tradition, arose in Egypt about 200
+A.D., and was carried through Latin translations to the West, through
+Armenian and Syriac versions to the East. It became widely popular
+during the middle ages, and was worked into poetic form by many
+writers in French and German. Alberich of Besançon wrote in Middle
+High German an epic on the subject in the first half of the twelfth
+century, which was the basis of the German "Pfaffe" Lamprecht's
+"Alexanderbuch," also of the twelfth century. The French poets Lambert
+li Court and Alexandre de Bernay composed, between 1180 and 1190, a
+romance of Alexander, the twelve-syllable metre of which gave rise to
+the name _Alexandrines_. The German poem of Rudolf of Ems was based on
+the Latin epic of Walter of Châtillon, about 1200, which became
+henceforward the prevailing form of the story. In contrast with it is
+the thirteenth century Old English epic of Alexander (in vol. i. of
+Weber's "Metrical Romances," 1810), based on the Callisthenes version.
+The story appears also in the East, worked up in conjunction with
+myths of other nationalities, especially the Persian. It appears in
+Firdusi, and among later writers, in Nizami. From the Persians both
+the substance of the story and its form in poetical treatment have
+extended to Turks and other Mohammedans, who have interpreted
+Alexander as the _Dsulkarnein_ ('two horned') of the Koran, and to the
+Hindus, which last had preserved no independent traditions of
+Alexander.
+
+
+
+
+HANNIBAL
+
+By WALTER WHYTE
+
+(247-183 B.C.)
+
+[Illustration: Hannibal.]
+
+
+Hannibal (the grace of Baal, the Hanniel of Scripture) was the son of
+the great Carthaginian general Hamilcar Barca, and was born in 247
+B.C. It is said that in his ninth year his father led him to an altar
+and bade him swear eternal enmity to Rome. From the age of nine to
+eighteen he was trained in war and diplomacy under Hamilcar in Spain;
+and from his eighteenth to his twenty-fifth year he was the chief
+agent in carrying out the plans by which his brother-in-law,
+Hasdrubal, extended and consolidated the Carthaginian dominion in the
+Peninsula. On the death of Hasdrubal, in 221 B.C., the soldiers with
+one voice chose Hannibal, then in his twenty-sixth year, as their
+general. Forthwith he crossed the Tagus, and in two years reduced all
+Spain up to the Ebro, with the exception of the Greek colony of
+Saguntum. That town, which claimed the protection of Rome, fell in 218
+B.C., and the Second Punic War, or, as the Romans justly called it,
+"the War of Hannibal," began. Garrisoning Libya with Spaniards, and
+Spain with Libyans (a precaution against treachery), Hannibal set
+out on his march for Rome. In the summer of 218 B.C. he left New
+Carthage with 90,000 foot, 12,000 horse, and 37 elephants, crossed the
+Pyrenees, and gained the Rhone, where his passage was barred by a host
+of Gauls. The general thereupon sent part of his troops two days'
+journey up-stream, with orders to cross the Rhone and fall on the rear
+of the barbarians. His orders were executed by Hanno, and the passage
+of the river was safely effected. He crossed the Alps in fifteen days,
+in the face of obstacles which would have proved insuperable to almost
+any other commander. His troops, reared under African and Spanish
+suns, perished in thousands amid ice and snow. The native tribes
+threatened the annihilation of his force, and were only dispersed by
+his matchless courage and address. The beasts of burden fell over
+precipices, or stuck fast and were frozen to death. In places, rocks
+had to be shattered and roads constructed to enable the men to creep
+round projecting crags. When he gained the valley of Aosta, Hannibal
+had but 20,000 foot and 6,000 horse to attempt the conquest of a power
+which had lately shown that she could put an army of 170,000
+unrivalled soldiers into the field.
+
+[Illustration: Hannibal crossing the Rhone.]
+
+After allowing his men to recruit in the villages of the friendly
+Insubres, he overcame the Taurini, besieging and taking Turin, and
+forced the Ligurian and Celtic tribes on the Upper Po to serve in his
+army. At the Ticinus, a stream which enters the Po near Pavia, he
+encountered the Romans under Scipio, the father of Scipio Africanus.
+The cavalry of both armies joined battle, Hannibal's Numidian horse
+proved their superiority, and Scipio fell back beyond the Po. The
+Carthaginians crossed the river, and the first great battle of the
+campaign was fought in the plain of the Trebia. Placing Mago in ambush
+with 2,000 men, Hannibal enticed the Romans across the stream. His
+light troops retired before the legionaries, and as Scipio was
+pressing on to fancied victory he was taken in flank by the terrible
+Numidian horse, Mago came down in the rear, and the 40,000 men of the
+consular army were either cut to pieces or scattered in flight.
+Wintering in the valley of the Po, in the early spring Hannibal
+crossed the Apennines and pushed through a region of lakes, flooded by
+the melting of the snow, to Fæsulæ. The beasts of burden perished in
+vast numbers amid the morasses; the Gauls, disheartened by the perils
+of the journey, had to be driven forward by Mago's horsemen, and the
+general lost an eye. Quitting Fæsulæ, Hannibal wasted Etruria with
+fire and sword, and marched toward Rome, leaving behind him two
+consular armies of 60,000 men. He awaited the consul Flaminius by the
+Lake Trasimene, where the hills, retiring in a semicircle from the
+shore, inclose a plain entered by two narrow passes. Concealing the
+main body of his army amid the hills, he placed his Numidians in
+ambush at the pass by which the Romans must enter; while he stationed
+part of his infantry in a conspicuous position near the other defile.
+The Romans pushed into the valley; the pass in their rear was secured
+by the Carthaginians who had lain in ambush; Hannibal's men charged
+from the heights, and the army of Flaminius was annihilated. Six
+thousand infantry cut their way through the farther pass, but these
+were overtaken by the horse under Maherbal and forced to yield on the
+following day.
+
+After recruiting his men in the champaign country of Picenum, where
+the Numidian horses, we are told, were groomed with old Italian wine,
+Hannibal marched through Apulia and ravaged Campania, dogged by the
+dictator Quintus Fabius Maximus, whom he vainly endeavored to entice
+into an engagement. He wintered at Gerontium, and in the spring took
+up a position at Cannæ, on the Aufidus. A Roman army of 80,000 men,
+under the consuls L. Æmilius Paulus and P. Terentius Varro, marched
+against him. Hannibal flung his troops (he had but 30,000) into a
+space inclosed on the rear and wings by a loop of the river. He placed
+his Spanish infantry in the centre, with the African foot on either
+flank. His Numidian horse, now reduced to 2,000 men, he posted on the
+right wing; while Hasdrubal, with 8,000 heavy cavalry, was opposed to
+the Roman cavalry on the left. The legionaries pressed into the loop,
+and Hannibal drew back his centre before them. Hasdrubal, on the left,
+broke the Roman cavalry, swept round to the left wing of the Romans,
+drove the second detachment of Roman horse into flight, and then came
+thundering in the rear of the legionaries. The Libyans, who had by the
+general's orders fallen back as the Romans pressed after the retiring
+Spanish infantry, now closed on the enemy's flanks. Packed together so
+closely that they could not use their weapons, assailed in front,
+flank, and rear, the legionaries were hewn down through eight hours of
+carnage, till 50,000 lay dead on the field. The battle became a
+butchery. Nearly 20,000 men were taken prisoners. The consul Paulus,
+the proconsul Servilius, the master of the horse Minucius, 21 military
+tribunes, and 60 senators lay amid the slain. On his side Hannibal
+lost but 5,700 men. "Send me on with the horse, general," said
+Maherbal, "and in five days thou shalt sup in the Capitol."
+
+But the general was wiser than the fiery captain of the horse. It has
+been common to censure Hannibal for neglecting to march on Rome after
+the battle of Cannæ. But his dazzling triumph did not for a moment
+unsettle his clear judgment. He knew that his forces were unequal to
+the task of storming a walled city garrisoned by a population of
+fighting men. An attack which he had made on Spoletium had proved the
+inadequacy of the small Carthaginian army to carry a strongly
+fortified town. Had he followed the advice of Maherbal, he would in
+all likelihood have dashed his army to pieces against the walls of
+Rome. His aim was to destroy the common oppressor by raising the
+Italian allies against her; and the hope was partly justified by the
+revolt of Lucania and Bruttium, Samnium and Apulia. The soundness of
+judgment, the patience and self-control which he evinced in this hour
+of intoxicating success, are hardly less marvellous than the genius by
+which the success had been won. After the battle of Cannæ the
+character of the war changes. Hitherto Hannibal had swept everything
+before him. Rivers and mountains and morasses had been powerless to
+thwart his progress. Army after army, vastly superior in numbers and
+composed of the best fighting men the ancient world ever saw, had come
+against him to be broken, scattered, and destroyed. His career through
+Italy had been, in the words of Horace, as the rush of the flames
+through a forest of pines. But after Cannæ the tide turned. His
+niggardly, short-sighted countrymen denied him the support without
+which success was impossible. As his veterans were lost to him he had
+no means of filling their places, while the Romans could put army
+after army into the field. But through the long years during which he
+maintained a hopeless struggle in Italy he was never defeated. Nor did
+one of his veterans desert him; never was there a murmur of
+disaffection in his camp. It has been well said that his victories
+over his motley followers were hardly less wonderful than his
+victories over nature and over Rome.
+
+Hannibal spent the winter of 216-215 B.C. at Capua, where his men are
+said to have been demoralized by luxurious living. When he again took
+the field the Romans wisely avoided a pitched battle, though the
+Carthaginians overran Italy, capturing Locri, Thurii, Metapontum,
+Tarentum, and other towns. In 211 B.C. he marched on Rome, rode up to
+the Colline gate, and, it is said, flung his spear over the walls. But
+the fall of Capua smote the Italian allies with dismay, and ruined his
+hopes of recruiting his ever-diminishing forces from their ranks. In
+210 B.C. he overcame the prætor Fulvius at Herdonea, and in the
+following year gained two battles in Apulia. Thereafter, he fell upon
+the consuls Crispinus and Marcellus, both of whom were slain and their
+forces routed, while he almost annihilated the Roman army which was
+besieging Locri. In 207 B.C. his brother Hasdrubal marched from Spain
+to his aid, but was surprised, defeated, and slain at the Metaurus by
+the consul Nero. By the barbarous commands of Nero, Hasdrubal's head
+was flung into the camp of Hannibal, who had been till then in
+ignorance of his brother's doom. The battle of the Metaurus sealed the
+fate of "the lion's brood"--of the great house of Hamilcar. But for
+four years Hannibal stood at bay in the hill-country of Bruttium,
+defying with his thinned army every general who was sent against him,
+till in 202 B.C., after an absence of fifteen years, he was recalled
+to Africa to repel the Roman invasion. In the same year he met Scipio
+at Zama; his raw levies fled, and in part went over to the enemy; his
+veterans were cut to pieces where they stood, and Carthage was at the
+mercy of Rome. So ended the Second Punic War--the war, as Arnold so
+truly said, of a man with a nation, and the war which is perhaps the
+most wonderful in all history. Three hundred thousand Italians had
+fallen, and three hundred towns had been destroyed in the struggle.
+
+Peace being made, Hannibal turned his genius to political toils. He
+amended the constitution, cut down the power of the ignoble oligarchy,
+checked corruption, and placed the city's finances on a sounder
+footing. The enemies whom he made by his reforms denounced him to the
+Romans, and the Romans demanded that he should be surrendered into
+their hands. Setting out as a voluntary exile, Hannibal visited Tyre,
+the mother-city of Carthage, and then betook himself to the court of
+Antiochus, at Ephesus. He was well received by the king, who
+nevertheless rejected his advice to carry the war with Rome into
+Italy. On the conclusion of peace, to avoid being given up to the
+Romans, he repaired to Prusias, king of Bithynia, for whom he gained a
+naval victory over the king of Pergamus. The Romans again demanding
+that he should be surrendered, he baffled his enemies by taking
+poison, which, we are told, he carried about with him in a ring, and
+died at Lybyssa about the year 183 B.C.
+
+In judging of the character and achievements of Hannibal, it must
+never be forgotten, that for all we know of him, we are indebted to
+his implacable enemies. No Carthaginian record of that astounding
+career has come down to us. The Romans did all that unscrupulous
+malignity can, to blacken the fame and belittle the deeds of the most
+terrible of their foes. Yet, though calumny has done its bitterest
+against him, Hannibal not only dazzles the imagination, but takes
+captive the heart. He stands out as the incarnation of magnanimity and
+patriotism and self-sacrificing heroism, no less than of incomparable
+military genius. Napoleon, the only general who could plausibly
+challenge the Carthaginian's supremacy, had throughout the greater
+part of his career an immense superiority to his adversaries in the
+quality of the forces which he wielded. He had the enthusiasm of the
+Revolution behind him, and he was unhampered by authorities at home.
+Hannibal, on the contrary, saw his plans thwarted and finally wrecked
+by the sordid merchant-nobles of the city he strove so hard to save.
+He had not, like Alexander, to lead picked troops against effeminate
+Asiatics. He had to mould his little army out of raw and barbarous
+levies. He had no reinforcements to fall back on. With a motley army
+of Libyans, Gauls, and Spaniards he had to encounter a nation in
+arms--a nation of the stoutest and most highly trained warriors of
+ancient times. There is not in all history so wonderful an example of
+what a single man of genius may achieve against the most tremendous
+odds, as the story of the Phoenician hero--the greatest captain that
+the world has seen.
+
+
+
+
+SCIPIO AFRICANUS MAJOR
+
+(235-183 B.C.)
+
+[Illustration: Scipio.]
+
+
+P. Cornelius Scipio, Africanus Major, was the son of that P. Cornelius
+Scipio who was defeated by Hannibal at the Ticinus. If it be true that
+at the age of seventeen Scipio fought in this battle, and rescued his
+wounded father, he must have been born in B.C. 235. He was in the
+battle of Cannæ (B.C. 216) as a tribune, and was among those who,
+after the defeat, escaped to Canusium. Here the chief command of the
+remaining troops was unanimously entrusted to him and another. On this
+occasion it was owing to his presence of mind that the remnants of the
+Roman army did not, in their despair, quit Italy.
+
+In B.C. 212, Scipio was curule ædile, though he had not yet attained
+the legitimate age. The tribunes of the people endeavored to prevent
+his election, but they were obliged to give up their opposition, for
+the people, who seem to have perceived the extraordinary abilities of
+the young man, elected him almost unanimously. In B.C. 211 his father
+and uncle fell in Spain, and the Carthaginians again took possession
+of the country, which they had almost entirely lost. When Capua had
+fallen again into their hands, and Italy no longer required their
+exclusive attention, the Romans determined to act with more energy
+against the Carthaginians in Spain. On the day of the election, no one
+ventured to come forward to undertake the command in this war. Young
+Scipio, then scarcely twenty-four years of age, at last offered to
+take the command of the army in Spain. The people were struck with
+admiration at the courage of the young man, and gave him command, with
+proconsular power, which was afterward prolonged to him for several
+years (B.C. 210-206).
+
+The extraordinary power which young Scipio exercised over his
+contemporaries was perhaps partly owing to superstition, for he was
+believed to be a favorite of the gods. Ever since he had risen to
+manhood, he went every morning into the Capitol, where he spent some
+hours in solitude and meditation. Hence all he did was considered by
+the people to be the result of his intercourse with the gods. Scipio
+himself partook in this opinion, and cherished it; and the
+extraordinary success of all his enterprises must have strengthened
+his belief.
+
+Toward the end of the summer, in B.C. 210, or, as Livy says, at the
+beginning of spring, Scipio set out for Spain with an army of 11,000
+men, landed at the mouth of the Iberus, and undertook the command of
+the whole Roman forces in Spain. He was accompanied by his friend,
+Lælius. His first object was to gain possession of New Carthage, where
+the Carthaginians kept their Spanish hostages. Lælius made the attack
+with the fleet from the seaside, while Scipio conducted the operations
+on land. The town soon fell into the hands of the Romans, and the
+generosity with which Scipio treated the Spanish hostages gained over
+a great number of Spaniards. The hostages of those tribes who declared
+themselves allies of the Romans were sent home without ransom. It is
+also related that a very beautiful maiden having fallen to his special
+lot in the division of the booty, Scipio finding her sad, inquired the
+cause, and learning that she was betrothed to a neighboring chief,
+sent for the lover, and personally restored the maid in all honor to
+his arms. A short time after the conquest of this place Scipio went to
+Tarraco, where he received embassies from various Spanish tribes, who
+offered to become the allies of the Romans or to recognize their
+supremacy.
+
+Scipio is said not to have set out against Hasdrubal until the year
+following, but it can scarcely be conceived why the Carthaginians
+should have been so long inactive, and it is a probable supposition
+that the battle with Hasdrubal, which Livy and Polybius assign to the
+year B.C. 209, was fought very soon after the taking of New Carthage.
+In this battle Scipio gained a great victory; 8,000 Carthaginians were
+slain, and 22,000, with their camp, fell into the hands of the victor.
+Many of the Spaniards now wished to proclaim Scipio their king, but he
+refused the honor.
+
+Hasdrubal fled with the remainder of his army toward the Tagus and the
+Pyrenees. Scipio did not follow him, partly because he thought his
+enemy too much weakened to be dangerous, and partly because he feared
+lest he might expose himself to the combined attacks of the two other
+Carthaginian generals, Mago, and Hasdrubal, son of Gisco. Hasdrubal
+Barcas, the defeated general, however, had carried considerable wealth
+with him in his flight, and with these means he raised an army in
+Spain, to lead into Italy to the assistance of his brother Hannibal,
+hoping thus to bring the war to an end in Italy. During these
+preparations of Hasdrubal, Scipio was engaged against the two other
+Carthaginian generals, one of whom (Mago) was defeated, in B.C. 208,
+by the proprætor Silanus, in the country of the Celtiberians, and
+Hanno, who came with an auxiliary army from Africa, was taken
+prisoner. After this success of the proprætor, Scipio united his
+forces with those of Silanus to attack Hasdrubal, son of Gisco. But as
+this general had retired to the south of Spain, and had distributed
+his army in the fortified places on the Bætis as far as Gades, Scipio
+(through his brother Lucius) only took the important town of Oringis,
+and then gradually returned across the Iberus. The power of the
+Carthaginians in Spain was, however, already broken, and in the year
+following (B.C. 207) Scipio gained possession of nearly all Spain by a
+victory, the place of which is not clearly ascertained, some calling
+it Silpia or Bæcula, some Ilipa, and others Carmo.
+
+Scipio, now in the almost undisputed possession of Spain, began to
+turn his eyes to Africa, and, accompanied by his friend Lælius, he
+ventured to pay a visit to King Syphax, with whom Lælius had already
+commenced negotiations. Here Scipio is said to have met Hasdrubal, son
+of Gisco, and to have made a very favorable impression on Syphax as
+well as on Hasdrubal. After a short stay in Africa, Scipio returned to
+Spain, where he first punished several towns for their faithlessness,
+and subdued some of the Spanish chiefs who ventured to claim their
+former independence. During these occupations Scipio was attacked by a
+severe illness, from which, however, he recovered in time to quell an
+insurrection of 8,000 Roman soldiers, who were discontented from not
+having derived from their conquests those advantages which they had
+expected, and who are said also to have been bribed by the
+Carthaginians. Mago had in the meantime withdrawn to the Balearic
+Islands, and thence to Liguria. Gades, the last place which the
+Carthaginians possessed in Spain, was now taken from them, and thus
+the war in Spain was at an end.
+
+[Illustration: Generosity of Scipio.]
+
+Toward the close of the year B.C. 206, Scipio surrendered the command
+of the Roman forces in Spain to the proconsuls L. Lentulus and L.
+Manlius Acidinus, and returned to Rome. He delivered to the ærarium
+the immense treasures which he brought from Spain. He evidently
+wished for a triumph, but the senate paid no attention to his wishes,
+for no one had ever triumphed at Rome before he had held the
+consulship. In the year B.C. 205, Scipio was made consul with P.
+Licinius Crassus, who was at the same time pontifex maximus, and was
+consequently not allowed to leave Italy. If, therefore, a war was to
+be carried on abroad, the command necessarily devolved upon Scipio.
+His wish was immediately to sail with an army to Africa, but the more
+cautious senators, and especially Q. Fabius, were decidedly opposed to
+his plan, partly because Hannibal, as long as he was in Italy,
+appeared too formidable to be neglected, and partly because they were
+influenced by jealousy.
+
+All that Scipio could obtain was that Sicily should be assigned to him
+as his province, with thirty vessels, and with permission to sail over
+to Africa in case he should think it advantageous to the republic. But
+he did not obtain from the Senate permission to levy an army, and he
+therefore called upon the Italian allies to provide him with troops
+and other things necessary for carrying on the war. As they were all
+willing to support the conqueror of the Carthaginians in Spain, he was
+soon enabled to sail to Sicily with nearly seven thousand volunteers
+and thirty ships. Soon after his arrival in Sicily he sent his friend
+Lælius with a part of his fleet to Africa, partly to keep up the
+connection which he had formed there, on his visit from Spain, with
+Syphax and Massinissa (for to the latter Scipio had sent back a nephew
+who had been taken prisoner in the battle of Bæcula), and partly to
+show to his timid opponents at Rome how groundless their fears were.
+He himself employed his time in Sicily most actively, in preparing and
+disciplining his new army.
+
+Massinissa, dissatisfied with the Carthaginians, was anxious for the
+arrival of Scipio in Africa, but Syphax had altered his policy, and
+again joined the Carthaginians. The enemies of Scipio at Rome at last
+got an opportunity of attacking him, and they nearly succeeded in
+depriving him of his post. Without being authorized by the Senate,
+Scipio had taken part in the conquest of Locri, in Southern Italy, and
+had left his legate, Q. Flaminius, as commander of the Roman garrison
+in that place. The legate treated the Locrians with such severity and
+cruelty that they sent an embassy to Rome to lay their complaints
+before the Senate. As Scipio, although acquainted with the conduct of
+Flaminius, had nevertheless left him in command, his enemies attacked
+him on this and other grounds, and Fabius Maximus even proposed that
+he should be recalled. A commission was sent out to inquire into the
+state of affairs and to bring Scipio home, if the charges against him
+were found true. Scipio proved that his army was in the best possible
+condition; and the commissioners were so surprised at what they saw,
+that instead of recalling the consul, they bade him sail to Africa as
+soon as he might think it proper, and to adopt any measures that he
+might think useful.
+
+Scipio, in consequence of this, sailed in B.C. 204 as proconsul, with
+a large army, from Lilybæum to Africa, and landed in the neighborhood
+of Utica. Here he made successful incursions into the neighboring
+country, and Hasdrubal, who attempted to prevent them, suffered a
+great defeat. But Scipio could not gain possession of Utica, which was
+of the greater importance to him and his fleet as the winter was
+approaching, and he was obliged to spend the season on a piece of land
+extending into the sea, which he fortified as well as he could. Toward
+the close of the winter the Carthaginians, united with Syphax,
+intended to make a general attack on Scipio's army and fleet, but
+being informed of their plans, he surprised the camps of Hasdrubal and
+Syphax in the night, and only a small number of the enemy escaped.
+Syphax withdrew into his own dominions, but was defeated by Massinissa
+and Lælius, and taken prisoner with his wife and one of his sons.
+Massinissa married Sophonisba, the wife of Syphax, who had formerly
+been engaged to him, but had been given to Syphax for political
+reasons. Scipio, fearing the influence she might have on Massinissa
+(for she was a Carthaginian), claimed her as a prisoner belonging to
+the Romans, and Massinissa poisoned her, to save her from the
+humiliation of captivity.
+
+The fears and apprehensions of the Carthaginians now increased to such
+a degree that they thought it necessary to recall Hannibal from Italy,
+and at the same time they sued for peace. The terms which Scipio
+proposed would have concluded the war in a manner honorable to the
+Romans. The Carthaginians, however, whose only object was to gain
+time, made no objections to the conditions, but only concluded a truce
+of forty-five days, during which an embassy was to be sent to Rome.
+Before this truce was at an end, the Carthaginian populace plundered
+some Roman vessels with provisions, which were wrecked off Carthage,
+and even insulted the Roman envoys who came to demand reparation.
+Scipio did not resent this conduct and allowed the Carthaginian
+ambassadors, on their return from Rome, to pass on to Carthage
+unmolested. About this time (it was the autumn of the year B.C. 203)
+Hannibal arrived in Africa, and soon collected an army in numbers far
+exceeding that of Scipio. He first made a successful campaign against
+Massinissa. Scipio was at this time informed that the consul Tib.
+Claudius Nero would come with an army to co-operate with him against
+Hannibal.
+
+Scipio, who wished to bring the war to a conclusion, and was unwilling
+to share the glory with anyone else, determined to bring Hannibal to a
+decisive battle. The Carthaginian at first avoided an engagement; but
+when Scipio, in order to deceive the enemy, hastily retreated as if he
+intended to take to flight, Hannibal followed him with his cavalry and
+lost a battle in the neighborhood of Zama. A tribune of Scipio soon
+afterward cut off a large convoy of provisions which was on its way to
+the camp of Hannibal, and this suddenly threw him into such
+difficulties that he began to negotiate with Scipio for peace. The
+conditions, however, which Scipio now proposed were so humiliating,
+that the Carthaginians would not accept them. Hannibal, therefore,
+though he saw the impossibility of gaining any further advantages, was
+compelled to decide the affair by a last and desperate effort. In a
+personal interview between the two generals Scipio was inexorable as
+to the conditions. Hannibal's army was in a bad condition; and in the
+ensuing battle, to the west of Zama, the victory of Scipio was
+complete. This defeat (in B.C. 202) was the death-blow to Carthage.
+
+Scipio, on his return to Italy, was received with the greatest
+enthusiasm; he entered Rome in triumph, and was henceforward
+distinguished by the name of Africanus. He now for several years
+continued to live at Rome, apparently without taking any part in
+public affairs. In B.C. 199 he obtained the office of censor with P.
+Ælius Pætus, and in B.C. 194 he was made consul a second time with
+Tib. Sempronius Longus, and princeps senatus, a distinction with which
+he had already been honored in B.C. 196, and which was conferred upon
+him for the third time in B.C. 190. In B.C. 193, during one of the
+disputes between the Carthaginians and Massinissa, Scipio was sent
+with two other commissioners to mediate between the parties; but
+nothing was settled, though, as Livy observes, Scipio might easily
+have put an end to the disputes. Scipio was the only Roman who thought
+it unworthy of the republic to support those Carthaginians who
+persecuted Hannibal; and there was a tradition that Scipio, in B.C.
+193, was sent on an embassy to Antiochus, and that he met Hannibal in
+his exile, who in the conversation which took place, declared Scipio
+the greatest of all generals. Whether the story of the conversation be
+true or not, the judgment ascribed to Hannibal is just; for Scipio as
+a general was second to none but Hannibal himself.
+
+In the year B.C. 190, some discussions arose in the Senate as to what
+provinces should be assigned to the two consuls, Lælius and L.
+Cornelius Scipio, brother of the great Africanus. Africanus, although
+he was princeps senatus, offered to accompany his brother, as legate,
+if the Senate would give him Greece as his province, for this province
+conferred upon Lucius the command in the war against Antiochus. The
+offer was accepted, and the two brothers set out for Greece, and
+thence for Asia. Africanus took his son with him on this expedition,
+but by some unlucky chance the boy was taken prisoner, and sent to
+Antiochus. The king offered to restore him to freedom, and to give a
+considerable sum of money, if the father would interpose his influence
+to obtain favorable terms for the king. Africanus refused; but the
+king, notwithstanding, soon after sent the boy back to his father, who
+just then was suffering from illness, and was absent from the camp. To
+show his gratitude, Africanus sent a message to Antiochus, advising
+him not to engage in a battle until he himself had returned to the
+Roman camp. After the great battle near Mount Sipylus, Antiochus again
+applied to Scipio for peace, and the latter now used his influence
+with his brother Lucius and the council of war, on behalf of the king.
+The conditions of the peace were tolerably mild, but they were
+afterward made much more severe when the peace was ratified at Rome.
+
+The enemies of Africanus at Rome had now another charge against him.
+The peace with Antiochus, and the conditions proposed by Africanus and
+his brother Lucius, were regarded by the hostile party as the result
+of bribes from Antiochus, and of the liberation of the son of
+Africanus. A charge was therefore brought against the two brothers, on
+their return to Rome, of having accepted bribes of the king, and of
+having retained a part of the treasures which they ought to have
+delivered up to the ærarium. At the same time they were called upon to
+give an account of the sums of money they had taken from Antiochus.
+Lucius was ready to obey; but his brother Africanus with indignation
+snatched the accounts from the hands of his brother and tore them to
+pieces before the Senate. The tribune of the people, C. Minucius
+Augurinus, however, fined Lucius; and when he was going to be thrown
+into prison until he should pay the heavy fine, Africanus dragged him
+away; and the tribune Tib. Gracchus, though disapproving of the
+violence of Africanus, liberated Lucius from imprisonment. Africanus
+himself was now summoned before the people by the tribune M. Nævius;
+but instead of answering the charges he reminded the people that it
+was the anniversary of his victory at Zama, and bade them rather thank
+the gods for such citizens as he.
+
+After these troubles he withdrew to his villa near Liternum, and it
+was owing to the interposition of Tib. Gracchus that he was not
+compelled to obey another summons. The estates of his brother Lucius,
+however, were confiscated (B.C. 187), but the sum produced by their
+sale did not make up the amount of the fine. His friends and clients
+not only offered to make up the sum, but their generosity would even
+have made him richer than he had been before; but he refused to accept
+anything beyond what was absolutely necessary for his support.
+Africanus never returned from his voluntary exile, and he spent the
+last years of his life in quiet retirement at his villa. He is said to
+have wished to be buried on his estate; but there was, as Livy says, a
+tradition that he died at Rome, and was buried in the tomb of his
+family near the Porta Capena, where statues of him, his brother
+Lucius, and their friend Q. Ennius, were erected. The year of his
+death is not quite certain; for, according to Polybius, he died in the
+same year with Hannibal and Philopoemen (B.C. 183); according to
+others, two years earlier (B.C. 185).
+
+In judging of Scipio Africanus as a general, we may adopt the judgment
+ascribed to Hannibal; but as a Roman citizen he is very far from
+deserving such praise. His pride and haughtiness were intolerable, and
+the laws of the constitution were set at nought whenever they opposed
+his own views and passions. As a statesman he scarcely did anything
+worth mentioning. By his wife Æmilia, daughter of Æmilius Paullus, he
+had two daughters, one of whom married P. Cornelius Scipio Nasica
+Corculum, the other, the celebrated Cornelia, married Tib. Sempronius
+Gracchus, and was the mother of the two Gracchi, the tribunes of the
+people.
+
+
+
+
+CAIUS MARIUS
+
+Extracts from "Cæsar, a Sketch," by JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE, LL.D.
+
+(157-86 B.C.)
+
+[Illustration: Caius Marius.]
+
+
+Caius Marius was at this time forty-eight years old.[3] Two-thirds of
+his life were over, and a name which was to sound throughout the world
+and be remembered through all ages, had as yet been scarcely heard of
+beyond the army and the political clubs in Rome. He was born at
+Arpinum, a Latin township, seventy miles from the capital, in the year
+157 B.C. His father was a small farmer, and he was himself bred to the
+plough. He joined the army early, and soon attracted notice by his
+punctual discharge of his duties. In a time of growing looseness,
+Marius was strict himself in keeping discipline and in enforcing it as
+he rose in the service. He was in Spain when Jugurtha[4] was there,
+and made himself especially useful to Scipio; he forced his way
+steadily upward, by his mere soldierlike qualities, to the rank of
+military tribune. Rome, too, had learnt to know him, for he was chosen
+tribune of the people the year after the murder of Caius Gracchus.
+Being a self-made man, he belonged naturally to the popular party.
+While in office he gave offence in some way to the men in power, and
+was called before the Senate to answer for himself. But he had the
+right on his side, it is likely, for they found him stubborn and
+impertinent, and they could make nothing of their charges against him.
+He was not bidding at this time, however, for the support of the mob.
+He had the integrity and sense to oppose the largesses of corn; and he
+forfeited his popularity by trying to close the public granaries
+before the practice had passed into a system. He seemed as if made of
+a block of hard Roman oak, gnarled and knotted, but sound in all its
+fibres. His professional merit continued to recommend him. At the age
+of forty he became prætor, and was sent to Spain, where he left a mark
+again by the successful severity by which he cleared the province of
+banditti. He was a man neither given himself to talking, nor much
+talked about in the world; but he was sought for wherever work was to
+be done, and he had made himself respected and valued in high circles,
+for after his return from the Peninsula he had married into one of the
+most distinguished of the patrician families.
+
+         [Footnote 3: B.C. 109.]
+
+         [Footnote 4: King of Numidia. He successfully withstood the
+         Romans during several years.]
+
+Marius by this marriage became a person of social consideration. His
+father had been a client of the Metelli; and Cæcilius Metellus, who
+must have known Marius by reputation and probably in person, invited
+him to go as second in command in the African campaign. He was
+moderately successful. Towns were taken, battles were won: Metellus
+was incorruptible, and the Numidians sued for peace. But Jugurtha
+wanted terms, and the consul demanded unconditional surrender.
+Jugurtha withdrew into the desert; the war dragged on; and Marius,
+perhaps ambitious, perhaps impatient at the general's want of vigor,
+began to think that he could make quicker work of it. The popular
+party were stirring again in Rome, the Senate having so notoriously
+disgraced itself. There was just irritation that a petty African
+prince could defy the whole power of Rome for so many years; and
+though a democratic consul had been unheard of for a century, the name
+of Marius began to be spoken of as a possible candidate. Marius
+consented to stand. The law required that he must be present in person
+at the election, and he applied to his commander for leave of absence.
+Metellus laughed at his pretensions, and bade him wait another twenty
+years. Marius, however, persisted, and was allowed to go. The
+patricians strained their resources to defeat him, but he was chosen
+with enthusiasm. Metellus was recalled, and the conduct of the
+Numidian war was assigned to the new hero of the "Populares."
+
+A shudder of alarm ran, no doubt, through the Senate house, when the
+determination of the people was known. A successful general could not
+be disposed of so easily as oratorical tribunes. Fortunately, Marius
+was not a politician. He had no belief in democracy. He was a soldier,
+and had a soldier's way of thinking on government and the methods of
+it. His first step was a reformation in the army. Hitherto the Roman
+legions had been no more than the citizens in arms, called for the
+moment from their various occupations, to return to them when the
+occasion for their services was past. Marius had perceived that fewer
+men, better trained and disciplined, could be made more effective and
+be more easily handled. He had studied war as a science. He had
+perceived that the present weakness need be no more than an accident,
+and that there was a latent force in the Roman state, which needed
+only organization to resume its ascendency. "He enlisted," it was
+said, "the worst of the citizens," men, that is to say, who had no
+occupation, and who became soldiers by profession; and as persons
+without property could not have furnished themselves at their own
+cost, he must have carried out the scheme proposed by Gracchus, and
+equipped them at the expense of the state. His discipline was of the
+sternest. The experiment was new; and men of rank who had a taste for
+war in earnest, and did not wish that the popular party should have
+the whole benefit and credit of the improvements, were willing to go
+with him; among them a dissipated young patrician, called Lucius
+Sulla, whose name also was destined to be memorable.
+
+By these methods, and out of these materials, an army was formed, such
+as no Roman general had hitherto led. It performed extraordinary
+marches, carried its water-supplies with it in skins, and followed the
+enemy across sandy deserts hitherto found impassable. In less than two
+years the war was over. The Moors, to whom Jugurtha had fled,
+surrendered him to Sulla; and he was brought in chains to Rome, where
+he finished his life in a dungeon.
+
+Marius had formed an army barely in time to save Italy from being
+totally overwhelmed. A vast migratory wave of population had been set
+in motion behind the Rhine and the Danube. The German forests were
+uncultivated. The hunting and pasture grounds were too straight for
+the numbers crowded into them, and two enormous hordes were rolling
+westward and southward in search of some new abiding-place. Each
+division consisted of hundreds of thousands. They travelled, with
+their wives and children, their wagons, as with the ancient Scythians
+and with the modern South African Dutch, being at once their
+conveyance and their home. Gray-haired priestesses tramped along among
+them, barefooted, in white linen dresses, the knife at their girdle;
+northern Iphigenias, sacrificing prisoners as they were taken, to the
+gods of Valhalla. On they swept, eating up the country, and the people
+flying before them. In 113 B.C. the skirts of the Cimbri had
+encountered a small Roman force near Trieste, and destroyed it. Four
+years later another attempt was made to stop them, but the Roman army
+was beaten and its camp taken. The Cimbrian host did not, however,
+turn at that time upon Italy. Their aim was the south of France. They
+made their way through the Alps into Switzerland, where the Helvetii
+joined them and the united mass rolled over the Jura and down the bank
+of the Rhone. Roused at last into the exertion, the Senate sent into
+Gaul the largest force which the Romans had ever brought into the
+field. They met the Cimbri at Orange, and were simply annihilated.
+Eighty thousand Romans and forty thousand camp-followers were said to
+have fallen. The numbers in such cases are generally exaggerated, but
+the extravagance of the report is a witness to the greatness of the
+overthrow. The Romans had received a worse blow than at Cannæ. They
+were brave enough, but they were commanded by persons whose
+recommendations for command were birth or fortune; "preposterous men,"
+as Marius termed them, who had waited for their appointment to open
+the military manuals.
+
+Had the Cimbri chosen at this moment to recross the Alps into Italy,
+they had only to go and take possession, and Alaric would have been
+antedated by five centuries. In great danger it was the Senate's
+business to suspend the constitution. The constitution was set aside
+now, but it was set aside by the people themselves, not by the Senate.
+One man only could save the country, and that man was Marius. His
+consulship was over, and custom forbade his re-election. The Senate
+might have appointed him Dictator, but would not. The people, custom
+or no custom, chose him consul a second time--a significant
+acknowledgment that the Empire, which had been won by the sword, must
+be held by the sword, and that the sword itself must be held by the
+hand that was best fitted to use it. Marius first triumphed for his
+African victory, and, as an intimation to the Senate that the power
+for the moment was his and not theirs, he entered the Curia in his
+triumphal dress. He then prepared for the barbarians who, to the
+alarmed imagination of the city, were already knocking at its gates.
+Time was the important element in the matter. Had the Cimbri come at
+once after their victory at Orange, Italy had been theirs. But they
+did not come. With the unguided movements of some wild force of
+nature, they swerved away through Aquitaine to the Pyrenees. They
+swept across the mountains into Spain. Thence, turning north, they
+passed up the Atlantic coast and round to the Seine, the Gauls flying
+before them; thence on to the Rhine, where the vast body of the
+Teutons joined them, and fresh detachments of the Helvetii. It was as
+if some vast tide-wave had surged over the country and rolled through
+it, searching out the easiest passages. At length, in two divisions,
+the invaders moved definitely toward Italy, the Cimbri following their
+old tracks by the Eastern Alps toward Aquileia and the Adriatic, the
+Teutons passing down through Provence, and making for the road along
+the Mediterranean. Two years had been consumed in these wanderings,
+and Marius was by this time ready for them. The Senate had dropped the
+reins, and no longer governed or misgoverned; the popular party,
+represented by the army, was supreme. Marius was continued in office,
+and was a fourth time consul. He had completed his military reforms,
+and the army was now a professional service, with regular pay. Trained
+corps of engineers were attached to each legion. The campaigns of the
+Romans were thenceforward to be conducted with spade and pickaxe as
+much as with sword and javelin, and the soldiers learnt the use of
+tools as well as arms.
+
+The effect of the change was like enchantment. The delay of the
+Germans made it unnecessary to wait for them in Italy. Leaving
+Catulus, his colleague in the consulship, to check the Cimbri in
+Venetia, Marius went himself, taking Sulla with him, into the south of
+France. As the barbarian host came on, he occupied a fortified camp
+near Aix. He allowed the enormous procession to roll past him in their
+wagons toward the Alps. Then, following cautiously, he watched his
+opportunity to fall on them. The Teutons were brave, but they had no
+longer mere legionaries to fight with, but a powerful machine, and the
+entire mass of them, men, women, and children, in numbers which,
+however uncertain, were rather those of a nation than an army, were
+swept out of existence. The Teutons were destroyed on the 20th of
+July, 102. In the year following, the same fate overtook their
+comrades. The Cimbri had forced the passes through the mountains. They
+had beaten the unscientific patrician Catulus, and had driven him back
+on the Po. But Marius came to his rescue. The Cimbri were cut to
+pieces near Mantua, in the summer of 101, and Italy was saved.
+
+The victories of Marius mark a new epoch in Roman history.[5] The
+legions were no longer the levy of the citizens in arms, who were
+themselves the state for which they fought. The legionaries were
+citizens still. They had votes, and they used them; but they were
+professional soldiers with the modes of thought which belong to
+soldiers; and besides, the power of the hustings was now the power of
+the sword. The constitution remained to appearance intact, and means
+were devised sufficient to encounter, it might be supposed, the new
+danger. Standing armies were prohibited in Italy. Victorious generals
+returning from campaigns abroad were required to disband their legions
+on entering the sacred soil. But the materials of these legions
+remained a distinct order from the rest of the population, capable of
+instant combination, and in combination, irresistible, save by
+opposing combinations of the same kind.
+
+         [Footnote 5: He was ranked with Romulus and Camillus and
+         given the title of the third founder of Rome.]
+
+The danger from the Germans was no sooner gone than political anarchy
+broke loose again. Marius, the man of the people, was the saviour of
+his country. He was made consul a fifth time, and a sixth. The party
+which had given him his command shared, of course, in his
+pre-eminence. The elections could be no longer interfered with or the
+voters intimidated. The public offices were filled with the most
+violent agitators, who believed that the time had come to revenge the
+Gracchi, and carry out the democratic revolution, to establish the
+ideal Republic, and the direct rule of the citizen assembly. This,
+too, was a chimera. If the Roman Senate could not govern, far less
+could the Roman mob govern. Marius stood aside, and let the voices
+rage. He could not be expected to support a system which had brought
+the country so near to ruin. He had no belief in the visions of the
+demagogues, but the time was not ripe to make an end of it all. Had he
+tried, the army would not have gone with him; so he sat still, till
+faction had done its work. The popular heroes of the hour were the
+tribune Saturninus and the prætor Glaucia. They carried corn laws and
+land laws--whatever laws they pleased to propose. The administration
+remaining with the Senate, they carried a vote that every senator
+should take an oath to execute their laws under penalty of fine and
+expulsion. Marius did not like it, and even opposed it, but let it
+pass at last.
+
+Marius was an indifferent politician. He perceived as well as any one
+that violence must not go on, but he hesitated to put it down. He knew
+that the aristocracy feared and hated him. Between them and the
+people's consul no alliance was possible. He did not care to alienate
+his friends, and there may have been other difficulties which we do
+not know, in his way. The army itself was perhaps divided. On the
+popular side there were two parties: a moderate one, represented by
+Memmius, who, as tribune, had impeached the senators for the
+Jugurthine infamies; the other, the advanced radicals, led by Glaucia
+and Saturninus. Memmius and Glaucia were both candidates for the
+consulship; and as Memmius was likely to succeed, he was murdered.
+
+Above the tumults of the factions in the Capitol a cry rising into
+shrillness began to be heard from Italy. Caius Gracchus had wished to
+extend the Roman franchise to the Italian states, and the suggestion
+had cost him his popularity and his life. The Italian provinces had
+furnished their share of the armies which had beaten Jugurtha, and had
+destroyed the German invaders. They now demanded that they should have
+the position which Gracchus designed for them: that they should be
+allowed to legislate for themselves, and no longer lie at the mercy of
+others, who neither understood their necessities, nor cared for their
+interests. They had no friends in the city, save a few far-sighted
+statesmen. Senate and mob had at least one point of agreement, that
+the spoils of the Empire should be fought for among themselves; and at
+the first mention of the invasion of their monopoly a law was passed
+making the very agitation of the subject punishable by death.
+
+The contrast of character between two classes of population, became at
+once uncomfortably evident. The provincials had been the right arm of
+the Empire. Rome, a city of rich men with families of slaves, and of a
+crowd of impoverished freemen without employment to keep them in
+health and strength, could no longer bring into the field a force
+which could hold its ground against the gentry and peasants of
+Samnium. The Senate enlisted Greeks, Numidians, any one whose services
+they could purchase. They had to encounter soldiers who had been
+trained and disciplined by Marius, and they were taught, by defeat
+upon defeat, that they had a worse enemy before them than the Germans.
+Marius himself had almost withdrawn from public life. He had no heart
+for the quarrel, and did not care greatly to exert himself. At the
+bottom, perhaps, he thought that the Italians were in the right. The
+Senate discovered that they were helpless, and must come to terms if
+they would escape destruction. They abandoned the original point of
+difference, and they offered to open the franchise to every Italian
+state south of the Po, which had not taken arms, or which returned
+immediately to its allegiance. The war had broken out for a definite
+cause. When the cause was removed no reason remained for its
+continuance.
+
+The panting Senate was thus able to breathe again. The war continued,
+but under better auspices. Sound material could now be collected again
+for the army. Marius being in the background, the chosen knight of the
+aristocracy, Lucius Sulla, whose fame in the Cimbrian war had been
+only second to that of his commander's, came at once to the front. Too
+late the democratic leaders repented of their folly in encouraging the
+Senate to refuse the franchise to the Italians. The Italians, they
+began to perceive, would be their surest political allies. Caius
+Gracchus had been right after all. The Roman democracy must make haste
+to offer the Italians more than all which the Senate was ready to
+concede to them. Together they could make an end of misrule, and place
+Marius once more at their head.
+
+Much of this was perhaps the scheming passion of revolution; much of
+it was legitimate indignation, penitent for its errors and anxious to
+atone for them. Marius had his personal grievances. The aristocrats
+were stealing from him even his military reputation, and claiming for
+Sulla the capture of Jugurtha. He was willing, perhaps anxious, to
+take the Eastern command. Sulpicius Rufus, once a champion of the
+Senate and the most brilliant orator in Rome, went over to the people
+in the excitement. Rufus was chosen tribune, and at once proposed to
+enfranchise the remainder of Italy.
+
+But Sulla was not so easily got rid of. It was no time for nice
+considerations. He had formed an army in Campania out of the legions
+which had served against the Italians. He had made his soldiers
+devoted to him. They were ready to go anywhere and do anything which
+Sulla bade them. After so many murders, and so many commotions, the
+constitution had lost its sacred character; a popular assembly was, of
+all conceivable bodies, the least fit to govern an empire; and in
+Sulla's eyes the Senate, whatever its deficiencies, was the only
+possible sovereign of Rome. The people were a rabble, and their voices
+the clamor of fools, who must be taught to know their masters. His
+reply to Sulpicius and to the vote for his recall, was to march on the
+city. He led his troops within the circle which no legionary in arms
+was allowed to enter, and he lighted his watch-fires in the Forum
+itself. The people resisted; Sulpicius was killed; Marius, the saviour
+of his country, had to fly for his life, pursued by assassins, with a
+price set upon his head.[6] Twelve of the prominent popular leaders
+were immediately executed without trial; and in hot haste, swift,
+decisive measures were taken, which permanently, as Sulla hoped, or if
+not permanently, at least for the moment, would lame the limbs of the
+democracy.
+
+         [Footnote 6: According to legend Marius took refuge among the
+         ruins of Carthage, comparing his own fallen greatness to that
+         of the city. His dignity in misfortune awed the soldiers who
+         came to seize him, and they left him in peace.]
+
+He was no sooner out of Italy than the democratic party rose, with
+Cinna at their head, to demand the restoration of the old
+constitution. Cinna had been sworn to maintain Sulla's reforms, but no
+oath could be held binding which was extorted at the sword's point. A
+fresh Sulpicius was found in Carbo, a popular tribune. A more valuable
+supporter was found in Quintus Sertorius, a soldier of fortune, but a
+man of real gifts, and even of genius. Disregarding the new obligation
+to obtain the previous consent of the Senate, Cinna called the
+assembly together to repeal the acts which Sulla had forced on them.
+
+The wounds of the social war were scarcely cicatrized, and the peace
+had left the allies imperfectly satisfied. Their dispersed armies
+gathered again about Cinna and Sertorius. Old Marius, who had been
+hunted through marsh and forest, and had been hiding with difficulty
+in Africa, came back at the news that Italy had risen again; and six
+thousand of his veterans flocked to him at the sound of his name. The
+Senate issued proclamations. The limitations on the Italian franchise
+left by Sulla were abandoned. Every privilege which had been asked for
+was conceded. It was too late. Concessions made in fear might be
+withdrawn on the return of safety. Marius and Cinna joined their
+forces. The few troops in the pay of the Senate deserted to them. They
+appeared together at the gates of the city, and Rome capitulated.
+
+There was a bloody score to be wiped out. Marius bears the chief blame
+for the scenes which followed. Undoubtedly he was in no pleasant
+humor. A price had been set on his head, his house had been destroyed,
+his property had been confiscated, he himself had been chased like a
+wild beast, and he had not deserved such treatment. He had saved Italy
+when but for him it would have been wasted by the swords of the
+Germans. His power had afterward been absolute, but he had not abused
+it for party purposes. The Senate had no reason to complain of him. He
+had touched none of their privileges, incapable and dishonest as he
+knew them to be. His crime in their eyes had been his eminence. They
+had now shown themselves as cruel as they were worthless; and if
+public justice was disposed to make an end of them, he saw no cause
+for interference.
+
+Thus the familiar story repeated itself: wrong was punished by wrong,
+and another item was entered on the bloody account which was being
+scored up year after year. The noble lords and their friends had
+killed the people in the Forum. They were killed in turn by the
+soldiers of Marius. Fifty senators perished, not those who were
+specially guilty, but those who were most politically marked as
+patrician leaders. With them fell a thousand equites, commoners of
+fortune, who had thrown in their lot with the aristocracy. From
+retaliatory political revenge the transition was easy to pillage and
+wholesale murder; and for many days the wretched city was made a prey
+to robbers and cut-throats.
+
+So ended the year 87, the darkest and bloodiest which the guilty city
+had yet experienced. Marius and Cinna were chosen consuls for the year
+ensuing, and a witches' prophecy was fulfilled, that Marius should
+have a seventh consulate. But the glory had departed from him. His sun
+was already setting, redly, among crimson clouds. He lived but a
+fortnight after his inauguration, and he died in his bed on the 13th
+of January, at the age of seventy-one.
+
+"The mother of the Gracchi," said Mirabeau, "cast the dust of her
+murdered sons into the air, and out of it sprang Caius Marius."
+
+
+
+
+JULIUS CÆSAR
+
+By E. SPENCER BEESLY, M.A.
+
+(100-44 B.C.)
+
+[Illustration: Julius Cæsar.]
+
+
+Rome solved the great political problem of the ancient world in the
+best practicable, if not in the best conceivable, way. To Cæsar it
+fell to put the crowning stroke to that work. The several states of
+modern Europe have all contributed, though in different degrees, to
+political progress, and therefore no one of them has the unique
+importance and glory that belongs to Rome. For the same reason, no
+modern statesman stands on a level with Cæsar. He remains, in
+Shakespeare's phrase, "the foremost man of all this world." It was the
+high fortune of Rome that, in the principal crisis of her history, she
+possessed a citizen so splendidly endowed in intellect, character, and
+heart. Free to an extraordinary degree from the prejudices belonging
+to his age and country, with piercing and far-sweeping vision, he saw
+as from some superior height, the political situation of his own time
+in its relation to the past and the future of the ancient world. If
+Rome had till then carried out the work of conquest with considerable
+method, and upon the whole, with steadiness, she had very inadequately
+satisfied the need for incorporation. Her oligarchical constitution,
+admirably adapted for the first task, could not easily reconcile
+itself to the second. In its best days, and while Carthage and Macedon
+were still formidable, the Senate had from time to time, prudently
+though grudgingly, extended the privilege of citizenship to some of
+the subject Italian states. But the great mass of Italians had only
+extorted it by rebellion during the boyhood of Cæsar, and outside
+Italy, the conquered nations were still on the footing of subject
+allies, trampled upon and fleeced for the benefit of Rome, or rather
+of the Roman nobles and capitalists. If the great dominion was to be
+maintained in some tolerable degree of well-being for all its members,
+or even maintained at all, it was absolutely necessary that the
+so-called Republican constitution, always oppressive for the
+provinces, and now shamefully corrupt, should be replaced by personal
+government. For a complete incorporation of the subject peoples was
+not to be expected from the suffrages of a dominant people, to even
+the poorest of whom, it would mean the cessation of highly prized
+privileges and immunities. The provinces would from the earliest
+moment of their subjection have welcomed such a change. The time was
+more than ripe for it when the Roman world lay at the feet of Sulla.
+Sulla had all the ability, self-reliance, prestige, and opportunity
+that were needed. But his moral nature was below the task. He had
+neither the insight, nor the sympathy, nor the noble ambition of
+Cæsar, and he preferred to re-establish the senatorial oligarchy.
+
+[Illustration: Marius on the ruins of Carthage.]
+
+When Sulla crushed the Marian party Cæsar had just arrived at manhood.
+Though of an old patrician house, he had yet a family connection with
+the democratic party, Marius having married his aunt. He himself had
+married a daughter of the democratic leader Cinna, and for refusing to
+divorce her he was proscribed by Sulla, but managed to keep in hiding
+till the storm was past. After the death of the great reactionist
+(B.C. 78), he seized every opportunity of reviving the spirit of the
+popular party; as, for instance, by publicly honoring the memory of
+Marius, bringing to justice murderers of the proscription, and
+courageously raising his single voice in the Senate against the
+illegal execution of Catiline's partisans (B.C. 63). Clearly seeing
+the necessity for personal government, at a time when his own services
+and distinctions were not such as to entitle him to aspire to it,
+Cæsar did his best to secure it for Pompey, then far the foremost man
+in Rome, by strenuously supporting measures which virtually placed the
+empire at his absolute disposal for an indefinite period. A fairly
+good soldier, but a most vain, unreliable, and incompetent statesman,
+Pompey after five years let these powers slip through his hands.
+
+[Illustration: Julius Cæsar.]
+
+Cæsar was by this time thirty-eight (B.C. 62). He had steadily risen
+in influence and official rank; and it was, no doubt, now that he
+determined to take the great task into his own hands. He was the
+recognized chief of the popular party, which aimed at concentrating
+Republican government in the hands of a single person, as the only
+means of bridling the oligarchy. But this was not to be accomplished
+merely by popular votes, as many a democratic leader had found to his
+cost. Cæsar needed an army and a military reputation, and with rare
+patience he set himself to acquire both. By a coalition with
+Pompey--now obliged to treat him as an equal--he obtained the
+consulship (B.C. 59), which on its expiration entitled him to a great
+military command.
+
+Roman generals had of late preferred to extend their conquests
+eastward, and to win comparatively easy and lucrative triumphs in
+Asia, over people who had possessed for long ages a type of
+civilization suited to them, and who therefore could never thoroughly
+assimilate Western manners and institutions. All this time Gaul, lying
+at the gates of Italy, was neglected (only the district between the
+Cevennes and the Alps having been reduced), because the people were
+more warlike, and less booty was to be gained. Yet, till that conquest
+should be effected, Rome's work of civilizing the world was standing
+still; nay, it was always menaced by northern invasions. This field of
+action, then, Cæsar marked out for himself, in which he could prepare
+the means for assuming power at home, and at the same time render the
+highest service to his country and humanity. His ardent spirit, his
+incredible energy in all circumstances of his life, astonished his
+contemporaries. Time pressed, for he was no longer young. While he was
+absent from Rome, what revolutions might not mar his plans! Yet, ten
+continuous years did he devote to this great task, which, if he had
+achieved nothing else, would make his name one of the greatest in
+history. In those ten years he conquered Gaul, from the Pyrenees to
+the Rhine and the British Channel; conquered her so thoroughly, and
+treated her so sensibly, that when the fierce struggle was over, she
+frankly and even proudly accepted her new position. The culture, the
+institutions, even the language of the victors, were eagerly adopted.
+The grandsons of the men who had fought so gallantly against Cæsar,
+won full citizenship, took their seats in the Senate, and commanded
+Roman armies.
+
+These ten years decided the future of the West, and therefore of
+Humanity. It is not merely the central position and natural advantages
+of France, nor yet the admirable qualities of her people, which have
+made her throughout mediæval and modern history, the foremost of
+European states. It is even more the result of her rapid and thorough
+acceptance of Roman civilization. This made her the heir of Rome. This
+enabled her, long afterward, to Romanize Germany and England in some
+degree, and as it were at second-hand, by the arms of Charlemagne and
+William.
+
+It had been arranged between Cæsar and Pompey, that during the absence
+of the former in Gaul, the latter should act with the popular party,
+and keep the nobility in the condition of impotence to which it had
+been reduced in the consulship of Cæsar. Partly from jealousy of
+Cæsar, partly from sheer incapacity, Pompey, after much vacillation
+and duplicity, finally allied himself with the nobles, thinking with
+their aid to crush his rival and thereafter to be supreme. The nobles,
+for their part, thought they would know how to deal with Pompey if
+once Cæsar was out of the way. In the negotiations which preceded the
+civil war, Cæsar showed a moderation and fairness in striking contrast
+with the unscrupulous and headstrong violence of the nobles, who had
+not even formal legality on their side. But when he was finally
+summoned to hand over his province and army to a nominee of the
+Senate, on pain of being declared a public enemy, and when the
+tribunes who had reversed the resolution of the Senate were obliged to
+fly for their lives to his camp, he suddenly crossed the river
+Rubicon, the boundary of his province, and marched on Rome (B.C. 49).
+
+He had but one legion with him; the bulk of his army was far away in
+its Gallic cantonments. The forces of Pompey were overwhelmingly
+superior in numbers. But the rapid and daring advance of Cæsar
+prevented their concentration. He came, not merely the adored general
+of a veteran army, but the long-tried and consistent leader of the
+liberal party, who had never swerved from his principles, never
+betrayed his friends, never flinched from dangers. Fascinated by his
+success and encouraged by his clemency, towns everywhere opened their
+gates and Pompeian levies joined him, swelling his army at every stage
+as he swept down Italy.
+
+Pompey, for his part, was not sorry to have a pretext for moving
+eastward toward the scene of his early triumphs, where his military
+prestige and his personal influence would cause all the client states
+to rally round him, and the sulky and suspicious nobles would find
+themselves overshadowed. So he crossed the Adriatic, leaving the large
+veteran army in Spain, which was under his orders, to take care of
+itself. Thither Cæsar proceeded as soon as he had secured Italy, bent
+on making sure of the West before doing anything else. When the
+Spanish legions were beaten, he lost no time in following Pompey, who
+had found the respite all too short for drilling his large but raw
+force of Romans, and organizing the masses of Asiatics whom he had
+summoned to his standard. In the campaign that ensued, the conqueror
+of the East fully maintained his old military reputation; but at
+length, driven by the clamor of the nobles to risk a pitched battle,
+he suffered a crushing defeat on the field of Pharsalia (B.C. 48).
+Flying to Egypt, still an independent kingdom, he was assassinated by
+order of the government.
+
+The beaten party rallied again, first in Africa, then in Spain; and of
+the three years and nine months of life that remained to Cæsar, much
+the greater portion was spent at the head of his army. He, therefore,
+had not time to give any complete organization to his new government.
+But his intentions are clearly discernible in outline. Supreme power,
+legislative as well as executive, was to be vested in a single ruler,
+governing not by divine right, but as the representative of the
+community, and in its interest. This was indeed an ideal by no means
+novel to Romans. Scipio had brooded over it. Caius Gracchus had for a
+moment realized it. The oldest institutions and traditions told of it.
+It was the power of the ancient kings theoretically continued to, and
+in grave emergencies actually exercised by, the magistrates of the
+Republic during its best days. It had been increasingly overshadowed
+by the Senate. That body was now to be reduced to its original
+consultative office. The functions of the executive had been gradually
+divided among several magistrates. They were now to be re-concentrated.
+Above all, annual election--the cherished institution of all
+oligarchies, open or disguised--was to be replaced by life-tenure,
+with power to name a successor. The subjects of Rome were to be
+admitted to citizenship, wherever and whenever fit for it; and there
+is reason to believe that Cæsar intended to move much faster in this
+direction than his successor did. Rome itself, from the mistress of
+the Empire, was to become its capital and most dignified municipality.
+All old parties--Cæsar's own included--were to consider themselves at
+an end. "To the victors the spoils!" was a cry rebuked from the first.
+For the vanquished of Pharsalia there was not only amnesty, but
+admission to the highest grades of the public service, if they would
+bury their old grudge and recognize the government. Pauperism among
+the lower class, and insolvency among the upper--ulcers not admitting
+of a radical cure--were treated with judicious palliatives. Taxation
+was reduced, expenditure was increased, and yet the balance in the
+treasury at Cæsar's death was tenfold what it had ever been before--a
+proof of the frightful waste and corruption from which the Roman world
+was rescued by the overthrow of the oligarchy.
+
+Of the administrative work of Cæsar it is impossible here to give any
+adequate idea. A reform of the calendar, which served the West till
+1582, and serves Russia still; a recasting of the whole provincial
+administration; a codification of Roman law; a census of the Empire; a
+uniform gold coinage; a public library; a metropolitan police;
+building regulations; sanitary regulations; an alteration of the
+course of the Tiber, which would have drained the marshes--all these
+grand projects, and more, some carried to completion, some only
+sketched out, teemed from the active brain of the great organizer, in
+the brief moments he could spare from military cares in these last
+months of his life--a devouring activity, an all-embracing capacity,
+such as perhaps never shone forth in man before or since. What Roman
+incorporation meant for the ancient world was at last revealed. The
+war havoc of seven centuries had found its justification.
+
+[Illustration: The Ides of March.]
+
+In the midst of this glorious and beneficent career, at the age of
+fifty-five (57?), Cæsar, whose frank and fearless spirit disdained
+suspicion or precaution, was assassinated by a knot of rancorous,
+perfidious aristocrats, whom he had pardoned and promoted. Their
+purblind spite was powerless to avert the inevitable advent of
+monocracy. What they did effectually extinguish for more than a
+century, was the possibility of amnesty, conciliation, and mutual
+confidence. Careless as usual of historical truth, the great English
+poet has glorified the murderers of Cæsar. Dante, never forgetting the
+moral responsibility of art, has reserved the lowest circle of hell
+for Brutus, Cassius, and Judas Iscariot.
+
+It imports little to the greatness of such a one as Cæsar, to add that
+in an age of oratory he stood in the first rank of orators; that his
+historical writings are an unrivalled model of vigor, lucidity, and
+elegance; that he carried his scientific culture to a point very
+unusual among his countrymen; and that his personal prowess and feats
+of endurance were the admiration of veteran soldiers. Women loved him,
+and he loved them. Enjoying life thoroughly, he was temperate in all
+things. To no man has it been given to approach more nearly to the
+perfection of human nature--complete, evenly balanced, and
+self-controlled.
+
+
+
+
+MARC ANTONY
+
+(83-30 B.C.)
+
+[Illustration: Marc Antony.]
+
+
+Marcus Antonius, or Marc Antony, grandson of Antonius the orator, and
+son of Antonius Creticus, seems to have been born about 83 B.C. While
+still a child he lost his father, whose example however, had he been
+spared, would have done little for the improvement of his character.
+Brought up under the influence of the disreputable Cornelius Lentulus
+Sura, whom his mother had married, Antony spent his youth in
+profligacy and extravagance. For a time he co-operated with the
+reprobate Clodius in his political plans, chiefly, it is supposed,
+through hostility to Cicero, who had caused Lentulus, his stepfather,
+to be put to death as one of the Catiline conspirators; but he soon
+withdrew from the connection, on account of a disagreement which,
+appropriately enough, arose in regard to his relations to his
+associate's wife, Flavia. Not long after, in 58 B.C., he fled to
+Greece, to escape the importunity of his creditors; and at length,
+after a short time spent in attendance on the philosophers at Athens,
+found an occasion for displaying some of the better features of his
+character, in the wars that were being carried on by Gabinius against
+Aristobulus in Palestine, and in support of Ptolemy Auletes in Egypt.
+
+A new chapter in his life was opened by the visit which he made to
+Julius Cæsar in Gaul (54 B.C.). Welcomed by the victorious general as
+a valuable assistant in his ambitious designs, and raised by his
+influence to the offices of quæstor, augur, and tribune of the plebes,
+he displayed admirable boldness and activity in the maintenance of his
+patron's cause, in opposition to the violence and intrigues of the
+oligarchical party. At length his antagonists prevailed, and expelled
+him from the curia; and the political contest became a civil war. The
+Rubicon was crossed; Cæsar was victorious, and Antony shared in his
+triumph. Deputy-governor of Italy during Cæsar's absence in Spain
+(49), second in command in the decisive battle of Pharsalia (48), and
+again deputy-governor of Italy while Cæsar was in Africa (47), Antony
+was now inferior in power only to the dictator himself, and eagerly
+seized the opportunity of indulging in the most extravagant excesses
+of luxurious licentiousness--excesses which Cicero depicted in the
+"Philippics" with all the elaborate eloquence of political hatred. In
+46 he seems to have taken offence at Cæsar, because he insisted on
+payment for the property of Pompey which Antony professedly had
+purchased, but had merely appropriated. But the estrangement was not
+of long continuance, for we find Antony meeting the dictator at Narbo
+the following year, and rejecting the advances of Trebonius, who
+endeavored to discover if there was any hope of getting Antony to join
+in the conspiracy that was already on foot. In 44 he was consul along
+with Cæsar, and seconded his ambition by the famous offer of the crown
+on the 15th of February, thus unconsciously preparing the way for the
+tragedy on the 15th of March. To the sincerity of his adherence to
+Cæsar, the conspirators themselves bore witness on that memorable day,
+by the care which they took to keep him engaged without, while the
+daggers were doing their work within.
+
+This was the second great epoch in Antony's life. A brighter prospect
+than ever was then opened to his ambition. By his eloquence--a
+hereditary gift--he managed to stir up the minds of the populace
+against the assassins of Cæsar, and drove them from the city. He made
+peace with the remaining representatives of the senatorial party, and
+seemed almost to have succeeded to the power and position of his
+unfortunate patron. But the youthful Octavius, whom Cæsar had adopted
+as his son, arrived from Illyria, and claimed the inheritance of his
+"father." Agreement was impossible, and war ensued. Octavius obtained
+the support of the Senate and of Cicero; and the veteran troops of the
+dictator flocked to his standard. Antony was denounced as a public
+enemy; and the city gave its loudest applause to the tirades of his
+most eloquent accuser. His cause gradually lost ground, and seemed to
+be totally ruined when his army was defeated in the siege of Mutina
+(43 B.C.). But escaping to Cisalpine Gaul, he formed a junction with
+Lepidus, and they marched toward Rome with 17 legions and 10,000
+cavalry.
+
+The wily Octavius now betrayed his party, and entered into terms with
+Antony and Lepidus. It was agreed that they three should adopt the
+title--so beautifully ironical--of _Triumviri reipublicæ
+constituendæ_, and share the power and the provinces among them. Gaul
+was to be Antony's; Spain fell to the lot of Lepidus, and Africa,
+Sardinia, and Sicily were to belong to Octavius. A conjunct
+proscription followed, each of the partners in the villanous design
+bartering the life of his friends, for the pleasure of destroying his
+foes. The detested author of the "Philippics" was given up to Antony's
+revenge; and, according to Appian, the number of the victims amounted
+to 300 senators and 2,000 knights. In the following year Antony and
+Octavius proceeded against the conspirators, Cassius and Brutus, who
+still maintained themselves in Macedonia; and, in the battles of
+Philippi, stamped out the last embers of republican Rome.
+
+While Octavius returned to Italy, Antony proceeded to Greece, and
+thence to Asia Minor, for the sake of recruiting his funds, completing
+the subjugation of the Eastern provinces, and obtaining satisfaction
+about the conduct of the Egyptian queen during the recent contest. On
+his passage through Cilicia, in 41, he was visited by Cleopatra, who
+came to answer the charges in person. She sailed up the Cydnus in a
+gorgeous bark, with a fantastic and brilliant equipage, and brought
+all her allurements to bear on the heart of the voluptuous Roman. Her
+success was complete; and he who was to have been her judge, was led
+captive to Alexandria as her slave. All was forgotten in the
+fascination and delight of the passing hour; and feasting and revelry
+found perpetual and ever-varying renewal.
+
+At length Antony was aroused by the Parthian invasion of Syria, and
+the report of an outbreak between Fulvia, his wife, and Lucius, his
+brother, on the one hand, and Octavius on the other. On arriving in
+Italy he found that the war was over, and Octavius the victor; and the
+chief cause of disagreement being soon after removed by the death of
+Fulvia, a reconciliation was speedily effected between the triumvirs,
+and cemented by the marriage of Antony with Octavia, the sister of his
+colleague. A new division of the Roman world was agreed on at
+Brundusium, Lepidus receiving Africa, Octavius the West, and Antony
+the East.
+
+Returning to his province, Antony was for a time successful; his
+general, Ventidius, beating the Parthians, and Socius capturing
+Jerusalem and conquering Antigonus. But after another visit to Italy,
+during which the triumvirate was prolonged for five years, Antony sent
+away his wife, yielded himself completely to the evil influence of
+Cleopatra, indulged not only in licentiousness, but in tyranny, and
+allowed his affairs to be neglected or delayed. An expedition against
+the Parthians was a failure; but for this, his success against
+Artavasdes, the Armenian king, in some measure compensated. Octavius
+at length determined to get rid of Antony, and had little need of
+invention to bring charges sufficient against him. About two years
+were spent in preparations and delays on both sides, and it was not
+till the year 31 that the fate of Antony was decided by the battle of
+Actium.
+
+Defeated and deserted, he once more sought refuge and repose in the
+society of Cleopatra, but was followed even there by his relentless
+rival. At first he made a gallant effort to defend himself, and
+partially succeeded. But convinced of the hopelessness of his
+position, and assured of the suicide of his mistress, he followed the
+example which he was falsely informed she had given (30 B.C.). Antony
+had been married in succession to Fadia, Antonia, Fulvia, and Octavia,
+and left behind him a number of children. A short but vivid sketch of
+Antony is given by De Quincey in his "Essay on the Cæsars."
+
+
+
+
+HERMANN
+
+(16 B.C.-21 A.D.)
+
+[Illustration: Hermann.]
+
+
+Hermann, the Arminius of the Roman historians, the son of Sigimer,
+chief of the Cherusci, was born about B.C. 16 or 17. Being sent in
+early youth as a hostage to Rome, probably in consequence of the
+victories of Drusus, which had established the supremacy of Rome over
+the Catti, Cherusci, and other tribes of North Germany, he obtained
+the favor of Augustus, and was inscribed among the Roman knights. On
+his return to his native country, he resolved to deliver it from the
+Romans, whose oppression had become intolerable. Quintilius Varus, a
+rapacious man, was then the Roman governor in Germany. He had held
+office in Syria, where he had ruled with great harshness; and fancying
+that he might act in the same way toward the fierce tribes of the
+North, he roused among them a bitter hatred of the Romans.
+
+[Illustration: Hermann's triumph over the Romans.]
+
+They found in Hermann a leader of extraordinary bravery and resource.
+He laid his plans with the chiefs of the Catti, Bructeri, and other
+tribes that lived between the Rhine and the Albis (Elbe), some of
+which broke out into insurrection. Hermann then offered Varus his
+assistance in reducing them to subjection, and thus led him to advance
+some distance from the Rhine into the interior. Varus began his march
+with three legions, six cohorts, and a body of cavalry, and Hermann
+served him as a guide through the wilds. The Romans were thus drawn
+into an ambuscade in the Teutoburg forest, and found themselves all at
+once surrounded by numerous bodies of Germans, who were directed by
+Hermann himself. The Romans fought desperately; but being
+unacquainted with the localities, and unable to form their ranks owing
+to the thickness of the forests and the marshy nature of the ground,
+they were defeated after a three days' battle, by the Germans, who
+destroyed them in detail. At last, Varus, being wounded and seeing no
+chance of escape, fell upon his sword, and the other chief officers
+followed his example.
+
+The legions were entirely destroyed, and the cavalry alone cut their
+way through the enemy and regained the banks of the Rhine. By this
+defeat the Romans lost all their conquests beyond that river; and
+although Germanicus some years after again carried their arms to the
+Weser, they never established anything like a solid dominion over
+those regions. The defeat of Varus occurred, according to various
+chronologists, in the year 763 of Rome (A.D. 9). The scene of the
+defeat is conjectured to have been in the country of the Bructeri,
+near the sources of the Ems and the Lippe. The news of this calamity,
+the greatest that had befallen the Roman arms since the defeat of
+Crassus, was received with universal amazement and terror. The
+despairing cry of Augustus, "Varus, Varus, give me back my legions!"
+testified to the consternation even at Rome, where it was expected
+that the barbarians would take a terrible revenge for the wrongs they
+had suffered.
+
+The fears of invasion, however, were not realized. L. Asprena guarded
+the banks of the Rhine, and the Germans were too little united among
+themselves to attack the Empire. Augustus in the following year sent
+Tiberius to the Rhine with a fresh army; but he does not seem to have
+effected anything of importance. Hermann meantime quarrelled with
+Segestes, chief of the Catti, whose daughter Tusnelda, he had carried
+off and married against her father's consent. When Germanicus, after
+the death of Augustus, marched into the interior of Germany to avenge
+the defeat of Varus, he was assisted by Segestes, and also by the
+Chauci and other tribes. In the first battle against Hermann, his wife
+Tusnelda, was taken prisoner by the Romans, and she afterward figured
+in the triumph of Germanicus. Germanicus, having reached the scene of
+Varus's defeat, paid funeral honors to the remains of the legions; but
+Hermann, who was hovering about his line of march, without coming to a
+pitched battle, harassed him in his retreat, and occasioned a great
+loss to Cæcina, the lieutenant of Germanicus.
+
+In the following year, Germanicus advanced again as far as the
+Visurgis, or Weser, where he found Hermann encamped ready for battle.
+A desperate fight took place, in which Hermann, after performing
+prodigies of valor, was defeated, and escaped with difficulty. But the
+victory was gained at such cost that Germanicus and his army had to
+take refuge in their ships, nor did the Romans ever again attempt the
+conquest of the fiercer German tribes.
+
+When Tiberius recalled Germanicus, he observed that the Cherusci,
+Bructeri, and other unsubdued tribes, might be left to their own
+internal dissensions. He seems to have guessed right.
+
+No sooner had the Romans been driven off, than Hermann had to protect
+his people against an internal danger. Maroboduus, the chief of the
+Marcomanni, a man of great ambition, had by treachery or by open
+fighting, made himself master of several neighboring tribes. Hermann
+began to fear his designs, and after the defeat of Varus, warned him
+of his peril by sending him the Roman general's head. When Germanicus
+finally left the country, Hermann declared war against Maroboduus,
+and, being joined by the Semnones and Longobards, defeated him on the
+borders of the Hercynian forest, broke up his kingdom, and drove him
+from Germany. The fugitive applied to Rome for assistance. Tiberius
+then sent his son Drusus into the Illyricum; but the Romans did not
+advance beyond the Danube, and Hermann remained unmolested in Northern
+Germany. Shortly after, however, Hermann was killed by his own
+relatives, being accused, as it would seem, of aspiring to absolute
+dominion. He died at the age of thirty-seven, in the twenty-first year
+of our era, after being for twelve years the leader and champion of
+Germany.
+
+
+
+
+TRAJAN
+
+By J. S. REID, Litt.D.
+
+(53-117)
+
+[Illustration: Trajan.]
+
+
+The Roman Empire reached its greatest extent under Marcus Ulpius
+Traianus, the fourteenth emperor. Of him it was said that he "built
+the world over," and the Romans themselves regarded him as the best,
+and perhaps the greatest of their emperors. He was a native of
+Italica, in Spain. The family to which he belonged was probably
+Italian, and not Iberian, by blood. His father began life as a common
+legionary soldier, and fought his way up to the consulship and the
+governorship of Asia. He was one of the hardest fighters in Judæa
+under Vespasian and Titus; he served, too, against the Parthians, and
+won the highest military distinction open to a subject, the grant of
+the triumphal insignia. Thus he acquired a prominent place among the
+brand new patricians created by the Flavians as substitutes for the
+nobles of old descent who had succumbed to the cruelty and rapacity of
+the emperors from Tiberius to Nero.
+
+The younger Trajan was rigorously trained by his father, and deeply
+imbued with the same principles and tastes. He was a soldier born and
+bred. No better representative of the true old hardy Roman type,
+little softened either by luxury or education, had come to the head
+of affairs since the days of Marius. The date of his birth was
+probably 53 A.D. His training was almost exclusively military, but his
+experience as an officer gave him an acquaintance with almost every
+important province of the empire, which was of priceless value to him
+when he came to the throne. For ten years he held a commission as
+military tribune, which took him to many lands far asunder; then he
+filled important posts in Syria and Spain. How much actual warfare
+Trajan saw in those days we can hardly tell; he certainly went through
+some severe service under his father's command against the Parthians.
+By the year 89 he had achieved a considerable reputation. At that time
+L. Antonius Saturninus headed a rebellion in Germany, which threatened
+seriously to bring Domitian's rule to an end. Trajan was ordered in
+hot haste from Farther Spain to the Rhine. Although he carried his
+troops over that long and arduous march with almost unexampled
+rapidity, he only arrived after the insurrection had been put down.
+But his promptitude raised him higher in the favor of Domitian, and he
+was advanced to the consulship in 91. Of the next five years of his
+life we know nothing positively. It is not unlikely that they were
+spent at Rome or in Italy in the fulfilment of some official duties.
+
+When the revolution of 96 came, and Nerva replaced the murdered
+Domitian, Trajan had conferred upon him one of the most important
+posts in the Empire, that of consular legate of Upper Germany. An
+officer whose nature, as the event showed, was interpenetrated with
+the spirit of legality, was a fitting servant of a revolution whose
+aim it was to substitute legality for personal caprice, as the
+dominant principle of affairs. The short reign of Nerva really did
+start the Empire on a new career, which lasted more than
+three-quarters of a century. But it also demonstrated how impossible
+it was for any one to govern at all who had no claim, either personal
+or inherited, to the respect of the legions. Nerva saw that if he
+could not find an Augustus to control the army, the army would find
+another Domitian to trample the Senate under foot. In his difficulties
+he took counsel with L. Licinius Sura, a lifelong friend of Trajan,
+and in October, 97, he ascended the Capitol, and with all due
+solemnity proclaimed that he adopted Trajan as his son.
+
+The Senate confirmed the choice, and acknowledged the emperor's
+adopted son as his successor. In a letter which Nerva sent at once to
+Trajan, he quoted most significantly a line from the beginning of the
+"Iliad," where Chryses, insulted by Achilles, prays to Apollo: "May
+thy shafts afford me vengeance on the Greeks for my tears." After a
+little hesitation Trajan accepted the position, which was marked by
+the titles of Imperator, Cæsar, and Germanicus, and by the tribunician
+authority. He immediately proceeded to Lower Germany, to assure
+himself of the fidelity of the troops in that province, and while at
+Cologne he received news of Nerva's death (January, 98).
+
+The authority of the new emperor was recognized at once all the Empire
+over. The novel fact that a master of the Romans should have been born
+on Spanish soil seems to have passed with little remark, and this very
+absence of notice is significant. Trajan's first care as emperor was
+to write to the Senate an assurance like that which had been given by
+Nerva, that he would neither kill nor degrade any senator. He ordered
+the establishment of a temple and cult in honor of his adoptive
+father, but he did not present himself at Rome for nearly two years
+after his accession. Possibly he had taken measures before Nerva's
+death to secure the revenge which Nerva craved, but probably did not
+live to see. In his dealings with the mutinous prætorians the strength
+of the new emperor's hand was shown at once. He ordered a portion of
+the force to Germany. They did not venture to disobey, and were
+distributed among the legions there. Those who remained at Rome were
+easily overawed and reformed. It is still more surprising that the
+soldiers should have quietly submitted to a reduction in the amount of
+the donative or gift which it was customary for them to receive from a
+new emperor, though the civil population of the capital were paid
+their largess (_congiarium_) in full. By politic management Trajan was
+able to represent the diminution as a sort of discount for immediate
+payment, while the civilians had to wait a considerable time before
+their full due was handed to them.
+
+The secret of Trajan's power lay in his close personal relations with
+the officers and men of the army, and in the soldierly qualities which
+commanded their esteem. He possessed courage, justice, and frankness
+to a high degree. Having a good title to military distinction himself,
+he could afford, as the unwarlike emperors could not, to be generous
+to his officers. The common soldiers, on the other hand, were
+fascinated by his personal prowess and his somewhat ostentatious
+_camaraderie_. His features were firm and clearly cut; his figure was
+tall and soldierly, and exhibited the sinewy hard health of a veteran
+campaigner. His hair was already gray before he came to the throne,
+though he was not more than forty-four years old. The stoutness of the
+emperor's arm had been proved in the face of his men in many a hard
+fight. When on service he used the mean fare of the common private,
+dining on salt pork, cheese, and sour wine. Nothing pleased him better
+than to take part with the centurion, or the soldier in fencing or
+other military exercise, and he would applaud any shrewd blow which
+fell upon his own helmet. He loved to display his acquaintance with
+the career of distinguished veterans, and to talk with them of their
+battles and their wounds. Probably he lost nothing of his popularity
+with the army by occasional free indulgence in sensual pleasures, with
+which, as Bacon remarks, the soldier is apt to pay himself for the
+perils he encounters. Yet every man felt and knew that no detail of
+military duty, however minute, escaped the emperor's eye, and that any
+relaxation of discipline would be rigidly punished, yet with
+unwavering justice.
+
+Trajan emphasized at once his personal control and the
+constitutionality of his sway, by bearing on his campaigns the actual
+title of "proconsul," which no other emperor had done. All things
+considered, it is not surprising that he was able, without serious
+opposition from the army, to remodel the whole military institutions
+of the empire, and to bring them into a shape from which there was
+comparatively little departure so long as the army lasted. In
+disciplinary matters no emperor since Augustus had been able to keep
+so strong a control over the troops. Pliny rightly praises Trajan as
+the lawgiver and the founder of discipline, and Vegetius classes
+Augustus, Trajan, and Hadrian together as restorers of the _morale_ of
+the army. The confidence which existed between Trajan and his army
+finds expression in some of the coins of his reign.
+
+For nearly two years after his election Trajan did not appear in Rome.
+He had decided already what the great task of his reign should be--the
+establishment of security upon the dangerous north-eastern frontier.
+Before visiting the capital he determined to put affairs in train for
+the attainment of this great object. He made a thorough inspection of
+the great lines of defence between the Danube and the Rhine, and
+framed, and partly carried out, a vast scheme for strengthening and
+securing them. The policy of opposing uncivilized tribes by the
+construction of the _limes_, a raised embankment of earth or other
+material, intersected here and there by fortifications, was not his
+invention, but it owed in great measure its development to him. This
+grand work, which would have excited the envy of Augustus, is
+traceable in its main extent at the present day. Among a people of
+roadmakers, Trajan was one of the greatest, and we have definite
+evidence from inscriptions that some of the military roads in this
+region were constructed by him. The more secure control which the
+Romans now maintained over the territory within the _limes_, tended to
+its rapid civilization, and the Roman influence, if not the Roman
+arms, soon began to affect powerfully the regions beyond.
+
+After his careful survey of the Rhine end of the great defensive
+barrier, Trajan proceeded to consider it and plan it from the Danube.
+From the age of Tiberius onward, the Romans possessed the whole
+southern bank of the river from its source to the Euxine. But the
+precarious tenure of their possession, had been deeply impressed on
+them by the disasters and humiliations they had undergone in these
+districts during the reign of Domitian. A prince had arisen among the
+Dacians, Decebalus by name, worthy to be placed at the head of all the
+great barbarian antagonists of Rome. Like Maroboduus, he was able to
+combine the forces of tribes commonly hostile to each other, and his
+military ability almost went the length of genius. After he had swept
+the province of Moesia bare, he was defeated by one of Domitian's
+lieutenants, but the position of affairs on the Danubio-Rhenish border
+was still so threatening, that the emperor was glad to conclude a
+treaty which conferred extraordinary advantages on his foe. Not only
+did the Romans stipulate to pay to Decebalus an annual subsidy, which
+he must have regarded as a tribute, but they agreed to supply him with
+engineers and craftsmen skilled in all kinds of construction, but
+particularly in the erection of fortifications and defensive works.
+During the nine or ten years which had elapsed since the conclusion of
+this remarkable treaty, the Dacian prince had immensely strengthened
+the approaches to his kingdom from the Roman side. He had also
+equipped and drilled his formidable army after the Roman fashion. It
+was impossible for a soldier like Trajan to endure the conditions
+laid down by Domitian; but the conquest of Dacia had become one of the
+most formidable tasks that had ever confronted the Empire. Trajan, no
+doubt, planned a war before he left the Danube for Rome late in 99.
+
+The arrival of the emperor had been awaited in the capital with an
+impatience which is expressed by Pliny and by Martial. All that had
+happened since Trajan's elevation to the throne had raised high at
+Rome the hope of a prosperous and glorious reign. As he entered the
+city and went on foot to the Capitol, the plaudits of the people were
+unmistakably genuine. During his stay in the city he riveted more
+firmly still the affections both of the Senate and of the people. The
+reconciliation of the Empire with liberty, inaugurated, as Tacitus
+says, by Nerva, seemed now to be securely achieved. Trajan was
+absolutely open and simple, and lived with men at Rome as he had lived
+with his soldiers while on service. He realized the Senate's ideal of
+the citizen ruler. The assurance that no senator should suffer was
+renewed by oath. All the old republican formalities were most
+punctiliously observed--even those attendant on the emperor's election
+to the consulate, so far as they did not involve a restoration of the
+old order of voting at the comitia. The veneration for republican
+tradition is curiously attested by the reproduction of many republican
+types of coin struck by senatorial officers.
+
+Trajan seized every opportunity for emphasizing his view that the
+_princeps_ was merely the greatest of the magistrates, and so was not
+above but under the laws. He was determined, he said, to be to his
+subjects such a ruler as he had desired for himself when a subject.
+There is a pretty story to the effect that he handed the commander of
+the prætorians his sword, and said, "Use it for me if I do well, but
+against me if I do ill." Martial, who had called Domitian his lord and
+his god, now cried, "In him we have no lord, but an imperator!" Real
+power and influence were accorded to the Senate, which had now, by the
+incorporation of members whose origin was provincial, become in a
+manner representative of the whole empire. Trajan associated with the
+senators on equal terms, and enjoyed in their company every kind of
+recreation. All pomp was distasteful to him, and discarded by him.
+There was practically no court, and no intrigues of any kind were
+possible. The approach to his house was free, and he loved to pass
+through the city unattended, and to pay unexpected visits to his
+friends. He thirsted for no senator's blood, and used severity against
+the _delatores_ alone. There was but one insignificant conspiracy
+against him during his whole reign.
+
+Though not literary himself, Trajan conciliated the literary men, who
+at all times had close relations with the Senate. His intimate, M.
+Licinius, played an excellent Mæcenas to his Augustus. In his efforts
+to win the affections of Roman society, Trajan was excellently aided
+by his wife Plotina, who was as simple as her husband, benevolent,
+pure in character, and entirely unambitious. The hold which Trajan
+acquired over the people was no less firm than that which he
+maintained upon the army and the Senate. His largesses, his
+distributions of food, his public works, and his spectacles were all
+on a generous scale. The exhibitions in the arena were perhaps at
+their zenith during his tenure of power. Though, for some unexplained
+reason, he abolished the mimes, so beloved of the populace, at the
+outset of his reign, he availed himself of the occasion of his first
+triumph to restore them again. The people were delighted by the
+removal of the imperial _exedra_ in the circus, whereby five thousand
+additional places were provided. Taxation was in many directions
+reduced, and the financial exactions of the imperial officers
+controlled by the erection of a special court. Elaborate precautions
+were taken to save Italy from famine; it is said that corn for seven
+years' consumption at the capital was retained in the granaries.
+Special encouragement was given to merchants to import articles of
+food. The corporation of bakers was organized, and made more effective
+for the service of the public. The internal trade of Italy was
+powerfully stimulated by the careful maintenance and extension of the
+different lines of road.
+
+But the most striking evidence of Trajan's solicitude for his people's
+welfare is found in his institution of the _alimenta_, whereby means
+were provided for the rearing of poor and orphan children in Italy.
+The method had been sketched out by Nerva, but its great development
+was due to Trajan. The moneys allotted by the emperor were in many
+cases supplemented by private benevolence. As a soldier, Trajan
+realized the need of men for the maintenance of the Empire against the
+outer barbarians, and he preferred that these men should be of Italian
+birth. He was only carrying a step further the policy of Augustus, who
+by a system of rewards and penalties had tried to encourage marriage
+and the nurture of children. The annual effect of Trajan's regulations
+is hard to measure; they were probably more effectual for their object
+than those of Augustus. The foundations were confiscated by Pertinax,
+after they had existed less than a century.
+
+Toward the end of 100, or early in 101, Trajan left Rome for the
+Danube. Pretexts for a Dacian war were not difficult to find. Although
+there was no lack of hard fighting, victory in this war depended
+largely on the work of the engineer. The great military road
+connecting the posts in Upper Germany with those on the Danube, which
+had been begun by Tiberius, was now extended along the right bank of
+the river as far as the modern Orsova. The year 101 was spent mainly
+in roadmaking and fortification. In the following campaign, after
+desperate fighting to the north of the Danube in the mountainous
+region of Transylvania, such as Cæsar never encountered in all his
+Gaulish wars, the capital of Decebalus was taken, and he was forced to
+terms. He agreed to raze all fortresses, to surrender all weapons,
+prisoners, and Roman deserters, and to become a dependent prince under
+the suzerainty of Rome. Trajan came back to Italy with Dacian envoys,
+who in ancient style begged the Senate to confirm the conditions
+granted by the commander in the field. The emperor now enjoyed his
+first Dacian triumph, and assumed the title of Dacicus. At the same
+time he royally entertained the people, and no less royally rewarded
+his brave officers.
+
+But the Dacian chief could not school his high spirit to endure the
+conditions of the treaty, and Trajan soon found it necessary to
+prepare for another war. A massive stone bridge was built across the
+Danube, near the modern Turn Severin, by Apollodorus, the gifted
+architect who afterward designed the forum of Trajan. In 105 began the
+new struggle, which on the side of Decebalus could now only lead to
+victory or to destruction. The Dacians fought their ground inch by
+inch, and their army as a whole may be said to have bled to death. The
+prince put an end to his own life. His kingdom became an imperial
+province; in it many colonies were founded, and peopled by settlers
+drawn from different parts of the empire. The work done by Trajan in
+the Danubian regions left a lasting mark upon their history. The
+emperor returned to the capital in 106, laden with captured treasure.
+His triumph outdid in splendor all those that went before it. Games
+are said to have been held continuously for four months. The chariot
+races were the grandest ever seen. Ten thousand gladiators contended
+in the arena, and eleven thousand beasts were killed in the contests.
+Congratulatory embassies came from all lands, even from India. The
+grand and enduring monument of the Dacian wars is the noble pillar
+which still stands on the site of Trajan's forum at Rome. The end of
+the Dacian wars was followed by seven years of peace.
+
+Many details in the administration of the law, and particularly of the
+criminal law, were improved. To cure corruption in the Senate the
+ballot was introduced at elections to magistracies. The finances of
+the state were economically managed, and taxpayers were most carefully
+guarded from oppression. Trajan never lacked money to expend on great
+works of public utility; as a builder, he may fairly be compared with
+Augustus. His forum and its numerous appendages were constructed on a
+magnificent scale. Many regions of Italy and the provinces, besides
+the city itself, benefited by the care and munificence which the
+emperor bestowed on such public improvements. His attitude toward
+religion was, like that of Augustus, moderate and conservative. The
+famous letter to Pliny about the Christians is, according to Roman
+ideas, merciful and considerate. It was impossible, however, for a
+Roman magistrate of the time to rid himself of the idea that all forms
+of religion must do homage to the civil power. Hence the conflict
+which made Trajan appear in the eyes of Christians like Tertullian,
+the most infamous of monsters. On the whole, Trajan's civil
+administration was sound, careful, and sensible, rather than brilliant
+or epoch-making.
+
+[Illustration: Rome under Trajan--A chariot race.]
+
+In 113 or 114 Trajan left Italy to make war in the East. The
+never-ending Parthian problem confronted him, and with it were more or
+less connected a number of minor difficulties. Already by 106 the
+position of Rome in the East had been materially improved by the
+peaceful annexation of districts bordering on the province of Syria.
+The district of Damascus, hitherto a dependency, and the last
+remaining fragment of the Jewish kingdom, were incorporated with
+Syria; Bostra and Petra were permanently occupied, and a great portion
+of the Nabathæan kingdom was constituted the Roman province of Arabia.
+Rome thus obtained mastery of the most important positions lying on
+the great trade-routes from East to West. These changes could not but
+affect the relations of the Roman with the Parthian empire, and the
+affairs of Armenia became, in 114, the occasion of war. Trajan's
+campaigns in the East ended in complete though brilliant failure.
+In the retreat from Ctesiphon (117), the old emperor tasted for almost
+the first time the bitterness of defeat in the field. He attacked the
+desert city of Hatra, westward of the Tigris, whose importance is
+still attested by grand ruins. The want of water made it impossible to
+maintain a large force near the city, and the brave Arabs routed the
+Roman cavalry. Trajan, who narrowly escaped being killed, was forced
+to withdraw.
+
+A more alarming difficulty lay before him. Taking advantage of the
+absence of the emperor in the far East, and possibly by an
+understanding with the leaders of the rising in Armenia and the
+annexed portions of Parthia, the Jews all over the East had taken up
+arms at the same moment, and at a given signal. The massacres they
+committed were portentous. In Cyprus 240,000 men are said to have been
+put to death, and at Cyrene 220,000. At Alexandria, on the other hand,
+many Jews were killed. The Romans punished massacre by massacre, and
+the complete suppression of the insurrection was long delayed, but the
+Jews made no great stand against disciplined troops. Trajan still
+thought of returning to Mesopotamia, and of avenging his defeat at
+Hatra, but he was stricken with sickness and compelled to take ship
+for Italy. His illness increasing, he landed in Cilicia, and died at
+Selinus in that country about the end of July, 117.
+
+Trajan, who had no children, had continually delayed to settle the
+succession to the throne, though Pliny, in the "Panegyric" had
+pointedly drawn his attention to the matter, and it must have caused
+the Senate much anxiety. Whether Hadrian, the cousin of Trajan, was
+actually adopted by him or not, is impossible to determine; certainly
+Hadrian had not been advanced to any great honors by Trajan. Even his
+military service had not been distinguished. Plotina asserted the
+adoption, and it was readily and most fortunately accepted, if not
+believed, as a fact.
+
+The Senate had decreed to Trajan as many triumphs as he chose to
+celebrate. For the first time a dead general triumphed. When Trajan
+was deified, he appropriately retained, alone among the emperors, a
+title he had won for himself in the field, that of "Parthicus." He was
+a patient organizer of victory rather than a strategic genius. He
+laboriously perfected the military machine, which when once set in
+motion went on to victory. Much of the work he did was great and
+enduring, but the last year of his life forbade the Romans to
+attribute to him that _felicitas_ which they regarded as an inborn
+quality of the highest generals. Each succeeding emperor was saluted
+with the wish that he might be "better than Trajan and more fortunate
+than Augustus." Yet the breach made in Trajan's _felicitas_ by the
+failure in the East was no greater than that made in the _felicitas_
+of Augustus by his retirement from the right bank of the Rhine.
+
+
+
+
+DIOCLETIAN
+
+(245-313)
+
+[Illustration: Circus scene. [TN]]
+
+
+Caius Valerius Diocletianus, one of the most famous of the Roman
+emperors, was, as De Quincey says, "doubtless that man of iron whom
+the times demanded." He was born at Dioclea, in Dalmatia, some say at
+Salona, about A.D. 245 according to some, but others make him ten
+years older. His original name was Diocles, which he afterward changed
+into Diocletianus. He is said by some to have been the son of a
+notary, by others the freedman of a senator named Anulinus. He entered
+the army at an early age, and rose gradually to rank; he served in
+Gaul, in Moesia, under Probus, and was present at the campaign against
+the Persians, in which Carus, then emperor, perished in a mysterious
+manner. Diocletian commanded the household or imperial body-guards
+when young Numerianus, the son of Carus, was secretly put to death by
+Aper his father-in-law, while travelling in a close litter on account
+of illness, on the return of the army from Persia. The death of
+Numerianus being discovered after several days by the soldiers near
+Calchedon, they arrested Aper and proclaimed Diocletian emperor, who
+addressing the soldiers from his tribunal in the camp, protested his
+innocence of the death of Numerianus, and then upbraiding Aper for the
+crime, plunged his sword into the traitor's body.
+
+The new emperor observed to a friend that "he had now killed the
+boar," punning on the word Aper, which means a boar, and alluding to
+the prediction of a soothsayer in Gaul, who had told him that he would
+become emperor after having killed a boar (Vopiscus, in "Hist. Aug.").
+Diocletian, self-composed and strong-minded in other respects, was all
+his life an anxious believer in divination, which superstition led him
+probably to inflict summary punishment upon Aper with his own hands.
+He made his solemn entrance into Nicomedia in September, 284, which
+town he afterward chose for his favorite residence.
+
+Carinus, the other son of Carus, who had remained in Italy, having
+collected a force to attack Diocletian, the two armies met at Margum,
+in Moesia, where the soldiers of Carinus had the advantage at first,
+but Carinus himself being killed during the battle by his officers,
+who detested him for his cruelty and debauchery, both armies joined
+in acknowledging Diocletian emperor in 285. Diocletian was generous
+after his victory, and, contrary to the common practice, there were no
+executions, proscriptions, or confiscations of property; he even
+retained most of the officers of Carinus in their places.
+
+Diocletian, on assuming the imperial power, found the Empire assailed
+by enemies in various quarters--on the Persian frontiers, on the side
+of Germany and of Illyricum, and in Britain; besides which a serious
+revolt had broken out in Gaul among the rural population, under two
+leaders who had assumed the title of emperor. To quell the disturbance
+in Gaul, Diocletian sent his old friend Maximianus, a native of
+Pannonia, and a brave but rude uncultivated soldier. Maximianus
+defeated the Bagaudi, for such was the name the rustic insurgents had
+assumed. In the year 286, Diocletian chose Maximianus as his colleague
+in the Empire, under the name of Marcus Valerius Maximianus Augustus,
+and it is to the credit of both that the latter continued ever after
+faithful to Diocletian and willing to follow his advice. Maximianus
+was stationed in Gaul and on the German frontier to repel invasion;
+Diocletian resided chiefly in the East to watch the Persians, though
+he appears to have visited Rome in the early part of his reign. About
+287 the revolt of Carausius took place. In the following year
+Maximianus defeated the Germans near Treviri, and Diocletian himself
+marched against other tribes on the Rhætian frontier; the year after
+he defeated the Sarmatians on the lower Danube. In the same year, 289,
+peace was made between Carausius and the two emperors, Carausius being
+allowed to retain possession of Britain. In 290 Maximianus and
+Diocletian met at Milan to confer together on the state of the Empire,
+after which Diocletian returned to Nicomedia. The Persians soon after
+again invaded Mesopotamia and threatened Syria; the Quinquegentiani, a
+federation of tribes in the Mauritania Cæsariensis, revolted; another
+revolt under one Achillæus broke out in Egypt; another in Italy under
+a certain Julianus.
+
+Diocletian thought it necessary to increase the number of his
+colleagues in order to face the attacks in the various quarters. On
+the 1st of March, 292, or 291, according to some chronologists, he
+appointed Galerius as Cæsar, and presented him to the troops at
+Nicomedia. At the same time Maximianus adopted on his part Constantius
+called Chlorus. The two Cæsars repudiated their respective wives;
+Galerius married Valeria, Diocletian's daughter, adding to his name
+that of Valerianus; and Constantius married Theodora, daughter of
+Maximianus. Galerius was a native of Dacia, and a good soldier, but
+violent and cruel; he had been a herdsman in his youth, for which he
+has been styled, in derision, Armentarius. The two Cæsars remained
+subordinate to the two Augusti, though each of the four was entrusted
+with the administration of a part of the Empire. Diocletian kept to
+himself Asia and Egypt; Maximianus had Italy and Africa; Galerius,
+Thrace and Illyricum; and Constantius had Gaul and Spain. But it was
+rather an administrative than a political division. At the head of the
+edicts of each prince were put the names of all the four, beginning
+with that of Diocletian.
+
+Diocletian resorted to this arrangement probably as much for reasons
+of internal as of external policy. For nearly a hundred years before,
+ever since the death of Commodus, the soldiers had been in the habit
+of giving or selling the imperial crown, to which any general might
+aspire. Between thirty and forty emperors had been thus successively
+made and unmade many of whom only reigned a few months. By fixing upon
+four colleagues, one in each of the great divisions of the Empire,
+each having his army, and all mutually checking one another,
+Diocletian put a stop to military insolence and anarchy. The Empire
+was no longer put up to sale, the immediate and intolerable evil was
+effectually cured, though another danger remained, that of disputes
+and wars between the various sharers of the imperial power; still it
+was a smaller danger and one which did not manifest itself so long as
+Diocletian remained at the helm. Writers have been very free of their
+censure upon this emperor for parcelling, as they call it, the Empire;
+but this was the only chance there was of preventing its crumbling to
+pieces. Italy, and Rome in particular, lost by the change: they no
+longer monopolized the wealth and power of the world, but the other
+provinces gained. The Empire was much too large for one single man or
+a single central administration, under the dwindled influence of the
+Roman name, and amidst the numerous causes of local dissension and
+discontent, private ambition, social corruption, and foreign
+hostility, that had accumulated for three centuries, since the time of
+Augustus.
+
+[Illustration: Army on horse. [TN]]
+
+The new Cæsars justified Diocletian's expectations. Constantius
+defeated the Franks and the Alemanni, and soon after reconquered
+Britain. Galerius subjugated the Carpi, and transported the whole
+tribe into Pannonia. In the year 296, the Persians, under their king
+Narses, again invaded Mesopotamia and part of Syria. Galerius marched
+against them, but being too confident was defeated by superior
+numbers, and obliged to retire. On his meeting Diocletian, the emperor
+showed his dissatisfaction by letting Galerius walk for a mile, clad
+in purple as he was, by the side of his car. The following year
+Galerius again attacked the Persians, and completely defeated them,
+taking an immense booty. The wives and children of Narses, who were
+among the prisoners, were treated by Galerius with humanity and
+respect. Narses sued for peace, which was granted by Diocletian on
+condition of the Persians giving up all the territory on the right or
+western bank of the Tigris. This peace was concluded in 297, and
+lasted forty years.
+
+At the same time Diocletian marched into Egypt against Achillæus, whom
+he besieged in Alexandria, which he took after a siege of eight
+months, when the usurper and his chief adherents were put to death.
+Diocletian is said to have behaved on this occasion with unusual
+sternness. Several towns of Egypt, among others Busiris and Coptos,
+were destroyed. Constantine, the son of Constantius, who was educated
+at Nicomedia, accompanied the emperor in this expedition. Diocletian
+fixed the limits of the Empire on that side at the island of
+Elephantina, where he built a castle, and made peace with the
+neighboring tribes, called by some Nubæ and by others Nabatæ, to whom
+he gave up the strip of territory which the Romans had conquered, of
+seven days' march above the first cataract, on condition that they
+should prevent the Blemmyes and Ethiopians from attacking Egypt.
+Maximianus in the meantime was engaged in putting down the revolt in
+Mauritania, which he effected with full success.
+
+For several years after this the empire enjoyed peace, and Diocletian
+and his colleagues were chiefly employed in framing laws and
+administrative regulations, and in constructing forts on the
+frontiers. Diocletian kept a splendid court at Nicomedia, which town
+he embellished with numerous structures. He, or rather Maximianus by
+his order, caused the magnificent Thermæ at Rome to be built, the
+remains of which still bear Diocletian's name, and which contained,
+besides the baths, a library, a museum, public walks, and other
+establishments.
+
+In February, 303, Diocletian issued an edict against the Christians,
+ordering their churches to be pulled down, their sacred books to be
+burnt, and all Christians to be dismissed from offices civil or
+military, with other penalties, exclusive however of death. Various
+causes have been assigned for this measure. It is known that Galerius
+had always been hostile to the Christians, while Diocletian had openly
+favored them, had employed them in his armies and about his person;
+and Eusebius speaks of the prosperity, security, and protection which
+the Christians enjoyed under his reign. They had churches in most
+towns, and one at Nicomedia in particular under the eye of the
+emperor. Just before the edict was issued, Galerius had repaired to
+Nicomedia to induce Diocletian to proscribe the Christians. He filled
+the emperor's mind with reports of conspiracies and seditions. The
+imperial palace took fire, Constantine ("Oratio ad Coetum Sanctorum")
+says, from lightning, and Galerius suggested to the emperor that it
+was a Christian plot.
+
+The heathen priests on their part exerted themselves for the same
+purpose. It happened that on the occasion of a solemn sacrifice in
+presence of the emperor, while priests were consulting the entrails of
+the victims, the Christian officers in the imperial retinue crossed
+themselves; upon which the priests declared that the presence of
+profane men prevented them from discovering the auspices. Diocletian,
+who was very anxious to pry into futurity, became irritated, and
+ordered all his Christian officers to sacrifice to the gods under pain
+of flagellation and dismissal, which many of them underwent. Several
+oracles which he consulted gave answers unfavorable to the Christians.
+The church of Nicomedia was the first pulled down by order of the
+emperor. The rashness of a Christian who publicly tore down the
+imperial edict exasperated Diocletian still more: the culprit was put
+to a cruel death. Then came a second edict, ordering all magistrates
+to arrest the Christian bishops and presbyters, and compel them to
+sacrifice to the gods. This was giving to their enemies power over
+their lives, and it proved, in fact, the beginning of a cruel
+persecution, whose ravages were the more extensive in proportion to
+the great diffusion of Christianity during a long period of
+toleration. This was the last persecution under the Roman Empire, and
+it has been called by the name of Diocletian. But that emperor issued
+the two edicts reluctantly and after long hesitation, according to
+Lactantius's acknowledgment: he fell ill a few months after, and on
+recovering from his long illness he abdicated. Galerius, who had
+instigated the persecution, was the most zealous minister of it; the
+persecution raged with most fury in the provinces subject to his rule,
+and he continued it for several years after Diocletian's abdication,
+so that it might with more propriety be called the Galerian
+persecution. Legend says that he died of a horrible disease, filled
+with remorse and imagining himself haunted by the martyred spirits.
+The countries under the government of Constantius suffered the least
+from it.
+
+In November of that year (303) Diocletian repaired to Rome, where he
+and Maximianus enjoyed the honor of a triumph, followed by festive
+games. This was the last triumph that Rome saw. The populace of that
+city complained of the economy of Diocletian on the occasion, who
+replied that moderation and temperance were most required when the
+censor was present. They vented their displeasure in jibes and
+sarcasms, which so hurt Diocletian that he left Rome abruptly in the
+month of December for Ravenna, in very cold weather. In this journey
+he was seized by an illness which affected him the whole of the
+following year, which he spent at Nicomedia. At one time he was
+reported to be dead. He rallied, however, in the spring of 305, and
+showed himself in public, but greatly altered in appearance. Galerius
+soon after came to Nicomedia, and it is said that he persuaded
+Diocletian to abdicate. Others say that Diocletian did it
+spontaneously.
+
+On the 1st of May he repaired with his guards to a spot three miles
+out of Nicomedia, where he had thirteen years before proclaimed
+Galerius as Cæsar, and there addressing his officers and court, he
+said that the infirmities of age warned him to retire from power, and
+to deliver the administration of the state into stronger hands. He
+then proclaimed Galerius as Augustus, and Maximinus Daza as the new
+Cæsar. Constantine, who has given an account of the ceremony, which is
+quoted by Eusebius in his life of that prince, was present, and the
+troops fully expected that he would be the new Cæsar; when they heard
+another mentioned, they asked each other whether Constantine had
+changed his name. But Galerius did not leave them long in suspense; he
+pushed forward Maximinus and showed him to the assembly, and
+Diocletian clothed him with the purple vest, after which the old
+emperor returned privately in his carriage to Nicomedia, and
+immediately after set off for Salona in Dalmatia, near which he built
+himself an extensive palace by the sea-shore, in which he lived for
+the rest of his life, respected by the other emperors, without cares
+and without regret.
+
+[Illustration: The Victims of Galerius.]
+
+Part of the external walls which inclosed the area belonging to his
+palace and other buildings still remain, with three of the gates,
+as well as a temple, which is now a church at Spalatro, or Spalato, in
+Dalmatia, a comparatively modern town, grown out of the decay of the
+ancient Salona, and built in great part within the walls of
+Diocletian's residence, from the name of which, "Palatium," it is
+believed that "Spalato" is derived.
+
+At the same time that Diocletian abdicated at Nicomedia, Maximianus,
+according to an agreement between them, performed a similar ceremony
+at Milan, proclaiming Constantius as Augustus, and Severus as Cæsar.
+Both Severus and Maximinus Daza were inferior persons, and creatures
+of Galerius, who insisted upon their nomination in preference to that
+of Maxentius and Constantine, whom Diocletian had at first proposed.
+Maximianus retired to his seat in Lucania, but not being endowed with
+the firmness of Diocletian he tried some time after to recover his
+former power, and wrote to his old colleague to induce him to do the
+same. "Were you but to come to Salona," answered Diocletian, "and see
+the vegetables which I grow in my garden with my own hands, you would
+no longer talk to me of empire." In his retirement he used to observe
+to his associates how difficult it is, even for the best-intentioned
+man, to govern well, as he cannot see everything with his own eyes,
+but must trust to others, who often deceive him.
+
+Once only he left his retirement to meet Galerius in Pannonia for the
+purpose of appointing a new Cæsar, Licinius, in the place of Severus,
+who had died. Licinius, however, did not prove grateful, for after the
+death of Galerius, in 311, he ill-treated his widow, Valeria,
+Diocletian's daughter, who then, with her mother, Prisca, took refuge
+in the territories of Maximinus Daza. The latter offered to marry
+Valeria, but on her refusal exiled both her and her mother into the
+deserts of Syria, and put to death several of their attendants.
+Diocletian remonstrated in favor of his wife and daughter, but to no
+purpose, and his grief on this occasion probably hastened his death,
+which took place at his residence near Salona in July, 313. In the
+following year his wife and daughter were put to death by order of
+Licinius.
+
+Diocletian ranks among the most distinguished emperors of Rome; his
+reign of twenty-one years was upon the whole prosperous for the
+empire, and creditable to the Roman name. He was severe, but not
+wantonly cruel, and we ought to remember that mercy was not a Roman
+virtue. His conduct after his abdication shows that his was no common
+mind. The chief charge against him is his haughtiness in introducing
+the Oriental ceremonial of prostration into the Roman court. The
+Christian writers, and especially Lactantius, have spoken unfavorably
+of him; but Lactantius cannot be implicitly trusted. Of the regular
+historians of his reign we have only the meagre narratives of
+Eutropius and Aurelius Victor, the others being now lost; but notices
+of Diocletian's life are scattered about in various authors, Libanius,
+Vopiscus, Eusebius, Julian in his "Cæsars," and the contemporary
+panegyrists, Eumenes and Mamertinus. His laws or edicts are in the
+"Code." Among other useful reforms, he abolished the _frumentarii_, or
+licensed informers, who were stationed in every province to report
+any attempt at mutiny or rebellion, and who basely enriched themselves
+by working on the fears of the inhabitants. He also reformed and
+reduced the number of the insolent Prætorians, who were afterward
+totally disbanded by Constantine.
+
+
+
+
+ALARIC THE BOLD
+
+By ARCHDEACON FARRAR, D.D., F.R.S.
+
+(360-410)
+
+[Illustration: Men on a river raft. [TN]]
+
+
+Alaric, the "All-ruler," surnamed the Baltha, or Bold, was born, about
+360, on an island in the delta of the Danube. As long as the great
+Theodosius lived, the Goths continued in his pay; but when he died in
+395, and Alaric was elevated on the shield as king of the Visigoths,
+he determined to lead his nation to independent victory. In 395 and
+396 he invaded Greece,[7] and Stilicho, the Vandal general of the
+Western Emperor, advanced against him. The strategy of Stilicho was
+masterly, and it would probably have gone hard with Alaric had not
+Stilicho been suddenly bidden by the Eastern Emperor, Arcadius, to
+withdraw his western troops. Again, in 396, Stilicho penned Alaric in
+the Peloponnesus, but for some unknown reason allowed him to escape
+into Illyricum. The Gothic chief had, however, struck deadly terror
+into the Eastern Empire; and by way of pacifying him Arcadius made him
+Master-General of Illyricum.
+
+         [Footnote 7: In this first invasion he overran all Greece,
+         and took Athens with little resistance. He spared her art
+         treasures, and acted with great moderation and humanity. Our
+         illustration "Alaric in Athens" represents him seated among
+         the inhabitants, who welcomed him as a conqueror, with every
+         demonstration of reverence.]
+
+Alaric had already found the way to Italy when he accompanied
+Theodosius in his campaign against the usurper Maximus in 394. In 400
+he descended into Italy, not with an army only, but with the migration
+of his entire people. He defeated the Romans under the walls of
+Aquileia, and in 401 besieged Honorius in Milan. In 402 a vast army
+under Stilicho met him at Pollentia; and when an old chieftain advised
+him to retire, Alaric, with fierce indignation, silenced his timid
+counsellor, and told him that he had been assured by a voice which
+came from the grave and said to him, "_Thou shalt penetrate to the
+City_" (_ad Urbem_). But the oracle on this occasion had "paltered"
+with him in a double sense. He penetrated indeed _ad Urbem_, not
+however "to the _City_" but to the little river _Urbis_ (or Borbo),
+near Pollenzo. On Good Friday, April 4, 402, the Western army, under a
+dwarfish Hun chieftain named Saulus, attacked and routed Alaric,
+recovering the splendid spoils of Greece, freeing his captives, and
+winning back the purple robes which the Emperor Valens had lost in the
+battle of Adrianople. In that disastrous defeat even the wife of
+Alaric, if we may believe the poet Claudian, was taken prisoner.
+
+[Illustration: Alaric in Athens.]
+
+Alaric retreated through Lombardy, and the feeble Emperor Honorius--"a
+crowned nothingness"--celebrated at Rome, in 404, that triumph which
+was signalized by the last display of the brutal gladiatorial games.
+No sooner had the first blood been shed than the Eastern monk
+Telemachus sprang down into the arena to part the combatants. His life
+paid the price of his glorious temerity. He was hewn and stoned to
+death. But that death was not in vain. The horrid massacres, at which
+not only men but women gazed in demoniac pleasure and excitement, had
+been condemned centuries before by the genius of Christianity. It was
+monstrous that an emperor calling himself a Christian should preside
+at such a spectacle. But the martyrdom of Telemachus at last touched
+the callous and torpid consciences of nominal Christians. Thenceforth
+the games of the amphitheatre were abolished. But it was too late for
+repentance. Alike "the incomparable wickedness and the incomparable
+splendor" of the Imperial City were doomed to destruction. Even the
+blood of a Christian martyr voluntarily shed would not atone for the
+blood of hundreds of brave barbarians who, in that huge Flavian
+amphitheatre, had been
+
+  "Butchered to make a Roman holiday."
+
+The day was near at hand when the Goths would arise and glut their
+ire.
+
+Alaric, though he had retreated, was still in a position to dictate
+terms to Stilicho. He fixed his camp at Æmona, and was promised large
+pay and the government of a Western province under nominal allegiance
+to the Western Emperor. But the pledges made to him were broken, and
+their fulfilment delayed. In 408 the promise of the oracle was
+fulfilled, for he led his troops under the walls of Rome. The feeble
+and timid Honorius had retired to Ravenna, where he was safe behind
+the marshes, the pine-woods, and the stone walls against which Alaric
+said that he did not fight. In 408 the wretched court filled to the
+full the brimming cup of its iniquities--first by a massacre of
+barbarian auxiliaries at Pavia, and then by the foul, ungrateful
+murder of Stilicho himself, at the command of Honorius. No army barred
+the path of Alaric, but an Italian hermit denounced on him the wrath
+of heaven. This might have awoke the superstitious terrors of the
+Gothic soldiers if Alaric had not assured them, with confidence, that
+he was obeying a divine and irresistible command. The Goths encamped
+under the walls which for six hundred and nineteen years had never
+been threatened by a foreign enemy. The wealthy, effeminate, corrupted
+nobles, and people of the Eternal City thought to terrify Alaric back
+by boasts of their numbers. His scornful answer simply was, "The
+thicker the hay, the easier it is mowed." He demanded all their gold,
+silver, movables, and barbarian slaves. "What then, O King, will you
+leave us?" He grimly said, "Your lives."
+
+He was content, however, this time to accept a ransom, of which the
+most curious element was three thousand pounds of pepper.
+
+The folly, pride, and braggadocio of Honorius, or rather of his
+miserable court, brought Alaric a second time to Rome in 409. The city
+capitulated, and he raised Attalus to the purple as a rival to
+Honorius. But Attalus proved utterly incompetent, and the next year
+Alaric publicly and insultingly degraded him to a private position. In
+410 a fresh insult and wrong inflicted on the Goths by Honorius
+brought Alaric once more to Rome. He burst in by the Salarian gate,
+and sacked the city, which was only saved from irretrievable
+destruction by the respect of the Goths for the churches, which they
+regarded as inviolable asylums. The pillage and conflagration of Rome,
+and the resultant ruin and misery, came on the world like a shock of
+earthquake; but the Pagans saw that the catastrophe would have been
+yet more awful if the conquerors had not been Christians as well as
+the conquered.
+
+It seemed as if even the Imperial City could not fall without some
+circumstance of irony and insult. Paganism may be said to have
+perished in two bursts of laughter: one when in Alexandria the
+Christian mob burst into merriment to see the rats scurry out of the
+rotten head of the shattered statue of Serapis; and again when
+Theodosius and his soldiers laughed at the golden thunderbolts torn
+from the uplifted arms of the menacing statue of Jupiter. And Honorius
+managed to invest even the fall of Rome with ludicrous associations.
+He was a great fancier of fowls, and had a particularly large hen,
+which, out of compliment, he called _Roma_. When the agitated eunuch
+entered to tell him that "Rome had perished," "What!" cried the
+Emperor, in a voice of deep concern, "why, she was feeding out of my
+hand only an hour ago!" "It is the _city_ of Rome that has fallen,
+sire!" "Oh, my friend," said the Emperor, with a sigh of relief, "but
+I thought you meant that my _hen_ 'Roma' had died."
+
+Laden with spoils of priceless value, the creaking wagons of the Gauls
+went southward. Alaric meant to lead them to the conquest first of
+Sicily, then of Africa. But death overtook him amid the schemes of his
+ambition. He died after a short illness, and was buried in the bed of
+the river which washes the walls of Cosentia. The captives who reared
+the tomb were massacred, that none might know where the hero lay. The
+Visigothic kingdom of Spain, founded by the warrior tribe which he
+first led into the West, is one of the most permanent results of his
+invasion.
+
+[Illustration: The Last Gladiatorial Contest.]
+
+
+
+
+ATTILA
+
+By ARCHDEACON FARRAR, D.D., F.R.S.
+
+(REIGNED 434-453)
+
+[Illustration: Attila.]
+
+
+The Goths were "improvable barbarians;" but the Huns whom Attila led
+to ravage the fair peninsula were mere Tartar savages of the lowest
+stamp.
+
+All the other invaders of Italy were of Teutonic origin, but the Huns
+were Mongols--of such perfect hideousness that Jornandes regarded them
+as the offspring of witches and demons. Attila, son of Mundzuk, "the
+scourge of God," resembled his soldiers in his flat, swarthy features,
+deep-set, fierce, rolling black eyes, and stunted figure. The Huns
+were uncivilizable savages, who might harry a continent, but neither
+under Attila, nor Genghis, nor Timour, could ever found an organized
+kingdom. This terrific and brutal little Kalmuck, with his bead-like
+eyes, this skin-clad devourer of raw flesh, delighted to lay waste
+whole empires with fire and sword, and to terrify the world. In 434 he
+became king of the Huns with his brother Bleda. In 445 Bleda died,
+possibly by murder; and in 445 Attila, now sole king of the Huns,
+invaded the Eastern Empire, and ravaged it even to the gates of
+Constantinople. He was only bought off from destroying it by an
+enormous tribute. The infamous plot to assassinate him by the
+treachery of Edecon, who was one of his counsellors, was discovered
+and foiled, and Attila sent message after message filled with insults
+to Theodosius II. In 451 his vast army moved westward, and devastated
+Gaul. It was met in the Mauriac plain and defeated by Ætius in the
+tremendous battle of Chalons, after a carnage among the most frightful
+that the world has ever seen. The Huns were only saved from final
+destruction by the heroic boldness of Attila. He had a vast hill of
+saddles and other spoils erected, and declared his determination to
+burn himself alive rather than be taken captive. He led back his
+shattered host to Pannonia, and there in his wooden palace meditated
+revenge. In the one authentic glimpse which we get of his mode of
+life, we see him at a banquet, while his nobles and warriors caroused
+and burst into peals of laughter at the buffooneries of an idiot and a
+jester. But the Hunnish king sat grave and silent, caressing the
+cheeks of the boy Ernak, his favorite son, whom the augur pointed out
+as the heir of his destinies.
+
+In 452 he once more put his myriads in motion and invaded Italy. Every
+where the land was as the garden of Eden before him; behind him it
+was a desolate wilderness. Encouraged by the omen of some storks
+leaving their nest, he stormed and destroyed Aquileia, and, razing
+city after city into heaps of blackened ruins, advanced to Milan,
+boasting that "where his horses' hoofs trod the grass never grew."
+Rome awaited with trembling a fate which seemed to threaten
+unprecedented catastrophe. But in this awful crisis the Pope, Leo I.,
+showed himself the true _Defensor civitatis_. He headed a splendid
+embassy to the camp of Attila. Already Leo had helped to trace with
+firm hand the deep lines of Christian orthodoxy which were accepted by
+the Church at the fourth great OEcumenical Council of Chalcedon in 451
+as her final utterance as to the true Godhead, the perfect Manhood,
+the invisible yet distinct union of both Godhead and Manhood, in the
+person of her Lord. Now Leo showed what miracle could be achieved by
+the irresistible might of weakness. Attila's god was a naked iron
+sword of gigantic size, which had been accidentally found by a
+herdsman and presented to him, but which he palmed off on his nation
+as the authentic sword of the Scythian war-god. Yet he was easily
+overawed by the majesty of religion. He scorned the guilty, corrupt
+courtiers of Constantinople, but he almost trembled before a holy man.
+Already in 451 he had spared the defenceless city of Troyes at the
+entreaty of its bishop, St. Lupus, and had asked the benefit of his
+prayers. And when he gazed on the calm countenance, noble presence,
+and dauntless demeanor of Pope Leo, an awful dread fell upon him.
+Alaric had conquered Rome, but Alaric had died immediately afterward.
+How if it would be so with Attila? He yielded, he retired; he said--or
+perhaps he said--that he could conquer _men_, but that the wolf
+(Lupus) and the lion (Leo) had learnt how to conquer him. The tide of
+brutal and barbarous invasion was rolled back again, and the world and
+the city saw that while the Emperor Valentinian had been ready to fly,
+the Pope Leo was not afraid to advance, and that "when the successor
+of Cæsar had been proved useless, the successor of St. Peter had been
+a very present help." Indirectly Attila was the strengthener of the
+Papacy, and the founder of Venice. That stately and gorgeous city owes
+its origin to the Italians who fled in terror before the brutal Huns
+from ruined Padua to the islands and lagoons at the mouth of the
+Piave.
+
+In retiring, Attila had demanded once more the hand and dower of
+Honoria, the disgraced sister of Theodosius II. But in 453 he added a
+beautiful maiden, Ildico, to his innumerable wives. He retired from
+the banquet after a deep carouse, and in the morning was found dead
+amid a flood of gore by which he had been suffocated, while Ildico sat
+weeping beneath her veil by the dead king's bedside. He died as a fool
+dieth; and his warriors gashed their cheeks and wept tears of blood,
+and gave him a splendid burial. And his name passed into legend as the
+King Etzel of the Niebelungen Lied, and Alti of the Saga. But his
+"loutish sons" quarrelled among themselves. The Teutons, Goths,
+Gepidæ, Alani, and Heruli reasserted their independence in the great
+victory of Netad in Pannonia in 454; and though the Huns left their
+name in Hungary, henceforth the empire of Attila became mere
+"drift-wood, on its way to inevitable oblivion."
+
+
+
+
+CLOVIS THE FIRST
+
+By THOMAS WYATT, A.M.
+
+(465-511)
+
+[Illustration: Clovis on horse. [TN]]
+
+
+The honor of having established the French monarchy and the French
+nation, of having raised himself from his position as chief of a petty
+and turbulent tribe to be the ruler of a powerful and permanent
+kingdom, unquestionably belongs to Clovis the First, who was born in
+the year 465. The multitude of petty kingdoms subsisting in Gaul at
+this time, forms, says an illustrious historian, one of the greatest
+difficulties in the ancient history of France. In a manuscript work,
+still preserved in the King's library at Paris, it is imputed to the
+disorders which prevailed after the expulsion of Childeric, father of
+Clovis, when such as were sufficiently powerful took advantage of the
+anarchy in which the nation was involved, to establish independent
+monarchies of their own. Clovis ascended the throne at the age of
+fifteen, and at the early age of twenty began to show his jealousy
+toward those whom he considered usurpers of his territories. His
+courtiers, ever ready to fan into a flame the spark they had
+discovered in the breast of their master, incited him to challenge
+Syagrius, a Roman who still had possession of Soissons and a part of
+the adjacent country.
+
+The challenge was accepted by this self-made prince, and a bloody
+battle was the result. Syagrius saved himself by flight, taking refuge
+among the Visigoths; but Alaric II., then king, fearing the threats of
+Clovis delivered the refugee into his power, who caused him to be
+beheaded.
+
+The Frankish leader was now a man of note in the world; but he was
+still nothing more than the leader of a band of warriors, often
+retaining his authority only by brute force. At one time, his band
+having stormed the Christian city of Rheims and carried off from its
+church a vase "of marvellous size and beauty," the bishop sent word to
+their leader entreating him to return it. "That will I," responded
+Clovis to the envoy, "if when we divide our spoil the vase falls to my
+lot." In his desire to gratify the bishop, who was an old friend, the
+chieftain went a step beyond his promise and requested his companions
+to give him the great vase as his share. Then cried one of their
+number, striking the trophy angrily with his axe, "No, you shall draw
+lots with the rest of us, and take what comes honestly to you." His
+comrades, however, felt that this was going too far. The vase was
+given to their leader, and by him returned to Rheims. A year passed,
+and Clovis gave no sign that he remembered the affront. Then, having
+called his band together for a review, he passed them one by one,
+examining and approving their arms, till, last of all, he reached the
+warrior who had opposed him; and he eyed this man sternly. "Your
+weapons suit you poorly," he said, "none of them are fit for service."
+And, snatching the man's axe from him he threw it to the ground. The
+other stooped to recover it, when, whirling up his own axe, Clovis
+crashed it through the rebel's skull. "'Twas so you struck my vase,"
+he cried.
+
+Such a leader, who could so long await a fitting opportunity, and then
+so sternly avenge an insult to his power, was well calculated to wield
+great authority among these stern and hardy warriors. He had enjoyed
+several years of uninterrupted tranquillity, when Basinus, King of
+Thuringia, made a sudden irruption into that part of the dominions of
+Clovis situated beyond the Rhine. Clovis was no sooner informed of
+this invasion, than he assembled his army, and entering the enemy's
+country, laid it waste with fire and sword, and imposed a perpetual
+tribute on the offending monarch.
+
+Clovis now bent his thoughts on the formation of an alliance by
+marriage with some of the neighboring princes. He accordingly
+despatched his ambassadors to the King of Burgundy, asking for the
+hand of the Princess Clotildis, his niece, the accounts of whose
+extraordinary piety and beauty had made a deep impression on his
+heart. The court of Burgundy, fearful of offending a young and
+powerful prince, whose arms had hitherto been everywhere victorious,
+complied with his request.
+
+Great preparations were made for the departure of the queen elect, and
+she began her journey in a kind of wagon, called _basterne_, drawn by
+oxen, which was the most elegant vehicle then in use. The marriage was
+celebrated at Soissons, amid the joyful acclamations of the people.
+
+Heaven smiled on this propitious union; Clotildis became mother of a
+prince, who received baptism with the king's consent, and was named
+Ingomer. The subsequent death of this child, on whom Clovis had so
+firmly set his affections, inspired him, notwithstanding the prayers
+and remonstrances of his affectionate and pious princess, with an
+aversion to the Christian religion. He was prevailed on, however, to
+suffer his second son to undergo the ceremony of baptism. He also was
+attacked by a severe indisposition, but the prayers of this pious
+woman were heard and answered, the young prince restored to health,
+and the anxiety of his father dispelled.
+
+[Illustration: Clovis punishing a rebel.]
+
+The conversion to Christianity of Clovis, soon after this, is thus
+related by historians: The Germans had commenced preparing for
+incursions into the dominions of Clovis; he, being apprised of their
+intentions, hastened to impede their progress, and met them on the
+plains of Tolbiac, not far from Cologne, where a bloody battle was
+fought. Clovis, perceiving that the strength of his army was
+diminishing, lifted up his eyes to Heaven, and exclaimed, "God of my
+Queen Clotildis, grant me victory, and I here vow to worship none
+other than you." He immediately rallied his yielding forces, again led
+the charge, pierced with irresistible ardor the enemy's battalions,
+and entirely put them to flight. He then followed them into Germany,
+where he dispersed the remains of the vanquished army, reduced to
+obedience a nation hitherto invincible, and compelled them to pay him
+an annual tribute.
+
+Faithful to his vow, he requested to be made acquainted with the
+mysteries of the Christian religion; and on Christmas-day, 496,
+received baptism at the church of St. Martin, in Paris, from Remigius,
+Bishop of Rheims, a prelate equally distinguished for his birth and
+piety. His sister Albofleda, and about three thousand of his subjects,
+followed his example. An improbable legend prevails, that during the
+ceremony of the baptism of Clovis, a dove descended from Heaven,
+bringing a phial of balsam, with which he was consecrated. This is
+what is now called _La Sainte Ampoule_, the Holy Phial; which was kept
+with extreme care, and contained the oil used by the monarchs of
+France at their coronation.
+
+The conversion of Clovis had not repressed his warlike ambition.
+Brabant, the country of Liege, and that part of Flanders which was
+situated on the sea-coast, had not yet submitted to the new conqueror
+of Gaul.
+
+The most considerable of these small states was the Arborici, a
+Christian nation, firmly attached to the Christian religion, and
+thence maintaining an enmity against the French, who were pagans. But
+the recent conversion to Christianity of Clovis and so many of his
+subjects, diminished the aversion of the people of this peaceful
+nation; they were induced to consent to an alliance with him,
+acknowledge him for their sovereign, and became subjects of the French
+kingdom. The Roman garrisons, following the example, capitulated and
+gave up all the places that were still in their possession, toward the
+ocean and on the banks of the Rhine.
+
+Clovis did not as yet consider his victories complete; the conquest of
+Brittany was soon followed by that of Alaric II., King of the
+Visigoths. Before the French set out on this latter expedition, they
+made a vow not to shave themselves till they had subdued their
+enemies. Vows of this kind were very common at that period. It was the
+custom of those times to draw an omen from the verse that was
+chanting, when a person entered the church. The king's envoys, at
+their entrance into the church of St. Martin, heard these words from
+the Psalms: "Thou hast endued me with strength for the wars; thou hast
+supplanted those that had risen up against me; and hast put mine
+enemies to flight." This fortunate prognostic was confirmed on the
+banks of the Vienne. The army was at a loss where to pass that river,
+when a hind plunged into the stream in sight of the whole camp, and
+showed them a ford which still retains the name of the Passage of the
+Hind.
+
+The two armies met in the plains of Vouille, near Poictiers. Soon
+after the commencement of the battle, the monarchs of either nation
+perceiving each other, rushed forward at the same instant, and
+engaged in single combat, when the superior skill and strength of
+Clovis decided the victory in his favor; he dismounted his adversary,
+and slew him on the spot. Nothing now remained to impede the progress
+of the conqueror, who extended his empire from the banks of the Loire
+to the Pyrenean mountains. Clovis then withdrew to Paris, and fixed
+his residence in a palace in the southern part of the capital, which
+had formerly been inhabited by the emperors Julian and Valentinian the
+First. Success had hitherto attended all the plans of Clovis, and
+allowing for the ferocious and martial spirit which then prevailed, he
+had preserved his fame from any material pollution.
+
+The assembling of the Council of Orleans was the last remarkable event
+of the reign of Clovis, who died the same year, A.D. 511, at the age
+of forty-five, and was buried in the church of Saint Peter and Saint
+Paul, which he had caused to be built. It has been a subject of
+dispute with historians, whether the military or the political talents
+of this prince were the most eminent. Gaul, subdued by his arms,
+preserved by his prudence, affords a proof that he was equally
+skillful in the cabinet and formidable in the field.
+
+
+
+
+BELISARIUS[8]
+
+By CHARLOTTE M. YONGE
+
+(505-565)
+
+         [Footnote 8: Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.]
+
+
+Few men have performed greater achievements than this general, to whom
+it was given to be conqueror again and again over nations hitherto
+invincible, and to arrest, during his own lifetime, the disintegration
+of the Roman Empire. He lived in the early part of the sixth century
+of the Christian era, though the date of his birth is not certainly
+known, and he was in the prime of life about 530. He is believed to
+have been the son of a peasant of Thrace, probably of Slavonian
+descent, as his name, stripped of its classical form, would belong to
+that language and would be Beli-than, or the White Prince. Apparently
+he began life as a common soldier, and gradually rose by courage and
+ability. His master, the Emperor Justinian, was an equally remarkable
+personage, capable of conceiving and accomplishing magnificent
+designs, yet withal of a mean, ungenerous, ungrateful character. The
+codification under Christian conditions of the old Roman law, so as to
+serve as the foundation of jurisprudence to all the European nations
+except the English; the building of the church of St. Sophia, and the
+rolling back for a time the flood that on all sides was overwhelming
+the ancient Empire of Rome were all due to this prince.
+
+For the last two centuries the East and the West had been separated,
+though sometimes coalescing under one head, but in 476, the last
+titular Emperor of the West had been deposed. Italy had been the prey
+of successive swarms of Teutonic nations. Vandals and Ostro-or Eastern
+Goths had burst upon Rome, and while the Vandals proceeded to
+devastate the great Roman province of Northern Africa and set up a
+kingdom there, the Goths had established another in Italy.
+Constantinople still held its ground as the magnificent capital of the
+Eastern Empire, maintaining the old civilization, but her dominions
+were threatened by the vigorous Persians on the east, and on the north
+by the Bulgarians, a nation chiefly Slavonic and very savage and
+formidable.
+
+[Illustration: Man carrying a child. [TN]]
+
+This was the inheritance to which Justinian succeeded, in right of his
+uncle Justin, a successful soldier. He was forty-five years old at the
+time, 527, having had an entirely civil and literary training, and
+though warfare continued through the thirty-eight years of his reign,
+he never once appeared at the head of his armies. Yet his foresight
+and ambition were great, and he had not long been on the throne before
+he decided on an endeavor to recover the African provinces. The
+Vandals were Arian heretics, denying the Godhead and Eternity of our
+Blessed Lord, and they had cruelly persecuted and constantly oppressed
+the Catholics, who entreated the Eastern Empire to deliver them, so
+that religious zeal added strength to Justinian's ambition. The
+luxuries of Carthage and the other African cities had in a couple of
+generations done much to destroy the vigor of the Vandals, so that the
+conjuncture was favorable.
+
+Belisarius had proved his abilities in a dangerous retreat in the
+Persian war, but he probably owed his appointment to the African
+expedition to his wife Antonina. She was the daughter of a charioteer
+in the exhibitions of the hippodrome, which were loved to a
+passionate, almost incredible degree, by the people of the Eastern
+cities; and Theodora, the wife of the emperor was likewise the child
+of one of these competitors in the races. Both ladies were devotedly
+loved by their husbands, though scarcely worthy of their affection,
+and it was thus that Belisarius obtained the opportunity for his
+career, a curious parallel in this, as in other respects, to the great
+Duke of Marlborough.
+
+Belisarius only took on this expedition 10,000 foot and 6,000 horse,
+picked men, with carefully selected officers, bred in the old Roman
+discipline, for he much preferred a small army whom he could trust,
+to a large and unwieldy host; and his fleet amounted to 500 vessels of
+different sizes.
+
+The expedition sailed from Heraclea in June, 533, and one of the first
+acts of the general showed his sternness of discipline. A murder was
+committed in a drunken fit by two Huns, and he immediately hung them
+both, and silenced the murmurs of the rest by a speech in which he
+declared that Roman arms must be carried in pure hands, and that no
+courage would obtain pardon for violence or insubordination.
+
+He landed in September at Caput Vadas, five days' distance from
+Carthage, without opposition and with an eager welcome from the
+natives, who rejoiced to be delivered from the Vandal oppression, and
+Belisarius preserved their goodwill by hindering his soldiers from
+committing any act of plunder or violence. Indeed Gelimer, king of the
+Vandal horde, was only like an enemy occupying the place; there had
+been no amalgamation, and persecution had sown seeds of bitter hatred.
+Gelimer, however, marched out to meet the invaders, and at ten miles
+from Carthage was totally defeated, and his brother and nephew killed.
+He fled into the deserts of Numidia, recalling his brother who was
+putting down a revolt in Sardinia, and leaving the city to Belisarius,
+who entered on the feast of the great Carthaginian martyr, St.
+Cyprian, amid the extreme joy of the populace. When the brother of
+Gelimer returned from Sardinia there was still another battle to
+fight, but as usual Belisarius conquered. Gelimer submitted and
+received an estate in Galatia, and lived there in honor and prosperity
+for the rest of his days. The bravest of his warriors took service in
+the Roman army under their victor! Gelimer had, however, first to
+march in the triumph of Belisarius, the only one ever held at
+Constantinople! Justinian had recalled the general, though it would
+have been far wiser to have left him to consolidate his conquest; but
+no Roman emperor could be free from the suspicion that a victorious
+general might become his rival, nor could the scrupulous loyalty of
+Belisarius disarm him. It is said that Gelimer marched along,
+repeating, "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity."
+
+The next scheme of Justinian was the recovery of Italy from the Goths.
+This people had never shown the same savage cruelty as the Vandals,
+but had settled amicably among the Italians, and adopted much of their
+civilization and learning. They had recently had a truly great
+monarch, Theodoric, who deserves to rank with Alfred or Charlemagne,
+but he had left only a daughter, Amalasanta, a noble woman, and an
+ally of Justinian. She was stifled in her bath by Theodatus, the
+husband whom she had raised to the throne. The Gothic kingdom was
+convulsed by the crime, and Justinian saw both motive and opportunity
+for conquest. Yet he only gave Belisarius 4,500 horse and 3,000
+infantry when this great enterprise was begun in 535, besides some
+choice troops of the imperial guard.
+
+Sailing to Sicily he met no resistance except at Panormis (Palermo),
+but observing that his masts overtopped the walls, he hung up small
+rafts full of archers, whose arrows disconcerted the inhabitants so
+that they surrendered, and the whole island was restored to the Roman
+power. Theodatus tried to treat with Justinian, and while the
+negotiations were going on, Belisarius crossed over to the African
+province, which was threatened by the Moors of Mount Atlas. Strong
+measures were needed, but for the time the incursions were repressed,
+and by the time the bad faith of Theodatus had disgusted the Greeks,
+Belisarius was ready to cross into Italy and besiege Naples. As usual,
+the native inhabitants were his friends, but were in terror of the
+Gothic garrison, and these, on their side, were afraid of treating
+with the Greek general because Theodatus had their wives and children
+as hostages.
+
+Theodatus, however, shut himself up in Rome and gave no aid to Naples,
+and Belisarius had made up his mind to raise the siege and attack Rome
+itself, when one of his soldiers came to tell him that in exploring an
+aqueduct which had been stopped, he had found that the passage for the
+water could easily be enlarged so as to admit armed men. Once more he
+summoned the native magistrates, but the inhabitants would not submit,
+and he sent on the bravest of his men, with two trumpets and with
+lanterns, while he made an attack to divert the attention of the
+Goths. The way was long, and the soldiers found themselves in the very
+heart of Naples, in a basin with very steep sides, impossible, as it
+seemed, to climb. One man however, scrambled up and found himself in a
+hovel, where he obtained a rope and pulled up his companions. The
+Goths who were resisting the escalade, threw down their arms when they
+were attacked from behind. Belisarius did his utmost to stop slaughter
+and plunder, but could not entirely succeed, for many of his soldiers
+were savage Huns, barely kept under restraint at any time.
+
+Theodatus remained in Rome, and appointed a brave general called
+Vetiges by the Greeks, but whose name was probably Wittich, to the
+command. The army suspected treachery, raised Wittich on their shields
+and proclaimed him king. Theodatus fled, and was murdered on his way,
+in 536. Wittich thought it better to draw off to Ravenna to reorganize
+his army, so the way to Rome was left open to Belisarius, who had only
+to summon a small garrison to submit. He gained it in the March of
+537, and immediately repaired the defences; and indeed there was need,
+for Wittich besieged him there for a whole year, and he had terrible
+difficulties to contend with. The Roman populace had lost all their
+spirit of patriotism, and murmured from the first that with a mere
+handful of soldiers, he should bring down the Goths upon them, and
+when the distresses of a protracted siege came on them, they loudly
+complained, though all the useless mouths were safely sent off by sea
+to the fertile fields about Naples.
+
+It is impossible to dwell at length on the events of the siege and the
+gallant deeds on either side. The Goths, under Wittich, were gallant
+enemies, but the diseases of the Campagna reduced their numbers, and
+finally, late in the March of 538, Wittich broke up his camp and
+retreated to Ravenna. There he called the Franks to his assistance,
+but they were mere barbarians, who plundered Goths as well as Italians
+and added to the general misery of the country. At last, in 539,
+Wittich yielded Ravenna to Belisarius who sent him to Constantinople,
+where he lived in honor and prosperity.
+
+Justinian recalled his general, always fearing the result of his
+success. The city of Pavia was still left to the Goths, and here they
+chose as king, a kinsman of Wittich, called Totila, young, gallant,
+and generous. The utter incapacity and greed of Justinian's governors
+left the country open to him, and he traversed the whole peninsula
+collecting Goths again to his standard, till their kingdom was
+restored. Indeed the whole of the land was so desolate that hardly any
+opposition was offered. In 544 Justinian was obliged to send
+Belisarius back to Italy, but most insufficiently supplied with men
+and money. He had in the meantime been fighting on the Persian
+frontier, with the great King Chosroës, and with more success than
+could have been hoped for with such means as were at his disposal. He
+came to Ravenna, but his forces were too scanty to enable him to
+undertake any enterprise, and where he did not command in person, the
+so-called Roman captains were uniformly beaten. Totila occupied Rome
+in 546, and tried to destroy it, overthrowing the walls and beginning
+to ruin the ancient buildings. Belisarius wrote to him a remonstrance,
+telling him how after-ages would regard such destruction, and he
+actually thanked the great general for his advice and spared the
+churches and monuments, but carried off all the inhabitants, so that
+when, forty days later, Belisarius re-entered the city not a man was
+found there. He tried to rebuild the defences, but Justinian would not
+send him money or men, and when Totila again advanced, he was forced
+to abandon the beloved and honored city. Justinian then recalled him,
+preferring to leave Italy to its fate rather than trust to his
+unswerving loyalty. An unwarlike despot, who knew that the will of an
+army might at any time raise a popular captain in his stead, could
+hardly fail to dread the one man who was beloved by his soldiers and
+always successful. The Empress Theodora was dead, and no honors
+awaited Belisarius, only undeserved suspicion.
+
+Once again, however, the great man was called for. The Bulgarians were
+desolating Thrace. There was an outcry that none but Belisarius could
+save the Empire. He was placed at the head of only 300 old soldiers,
+and found the peasants helpless and incapable, yet he succeeded in
+repulsing the enemy and driving them beyond the Danube. The outcries
+of admiration alarmed the emperor, now in his eightieth year, and the
+notion that Belisarius, almost as old, must be a traitor, haunted him.
+There was a real conspiracy, and the enemies of the general accused
+him of sharing in it. The acts of accusation were read to the old man,
+but he stood, listening and not answering a single word, no doubt in
+his disdain. The emperor caused the brave old man's eyes to be put
+out, and he was stripped of all his possessions. It is said that he
+stood in front of his former palace with a wooden dish for alms.
+"_Date obolum Belisario_," give a penny to Belisarius, has become a
+proverb. However, Justinian seems to have repented, and he restored to
+Belisarius his wealth and his palace, in which, shortly after, the old
+man died on the 13th of March, 565, only eight months before his
+ungrateful sovereign.
+
+[Signature of the author.]
+
+[Illustration: Belisarius receiving alms.]
+
+
+
+
+CHARLES MARTEL
+
+By HENRY G. HEWLETT
+
+(694-741)
+
+[Illustration: Fight on horses. [TN]]
+
+
+Toward the close of the seventh century of our era, the kingdom which
+we now name France was peopled by a half-barbarous, professedly
+Christian race, of mixed tribes, the ruling portion of which
+originally sprang from Germany. The Frankish kingdom, as it was
+called, had risen upon the ruins of the Roman Empire, and for about a
+century was remarkable for the ability of its sovereigns. But after
+the death of King Dagobert I., in A.D. 638, the royal family seemed
+devoid of any mental or moral strength whatsoever, and the kings of
+this line have been always known as _fainéants_--weak idlers. The real
+power of the government was held by a succession of chief officers of
+the household, styled "Mayors of the Palace." The most distinguished
+of these noblemen was Pepin d'Héristal, who, from the year 688 to his
+death in 715, was virtually king of France--the nominal sovereigns
+being but puppets in his hands. The country was then divided into two
+great districts--the eastern, known as Austrasia; and the western, as
+Neustria. At his death Pepin left the reins of government to his
+grandson, Theodebald, an infant under the guardianship of his mother,
+Plectrude. The lawful king, Dagobert III., was also a child. It was
+clear that a fierce race of warriors required a strong arm to keep
+them in check, and could not long brook an infant's sway. The
+Neustrians commenced the revolt by expelling Theodebald and his
+mother, and choosing for their ruler a Mayor of the Palace named
+Raginfred. They then attacked Austrasia, which had not joined in the
+revolt. It was without fitting defences, and had no able man to direct
+its resistance against this assault. What course should the
+Austrasians take? Pepin, as we have said, left the government of
+France to a grandson; but he had a natural son, Charles, then in the
+flower of his youth. Whether on account of his not having been born in
+wedlock, or his having offended Pepin by some misconduct, Charles had
+been slighted, and even hated, by his father, who banished him to a
+monastery at Cologne, far from the intrigues of statecraft and the
+tumult of war. "Here," said the Austrasians, "is the likeliest man for
+our leader; a son of the wisest and firmest ruler the kingdom has yet
+acknowledged." It was agreed, therefore, by the people, that he should
+be invited to come, and a summons was sent from Metz, the then
+capital of the district, to the cloister at Cologne. Young and brave,
+pining in uncongenial society, and debarred from the employment of his
+talents, Charles seized this opportunity of release. Eagerly accepting
+the invitation, he hastened to return with the messengers, and soon,
+amidst the shouts of the delighted Austrasians, put himself at their
+head, under the title of Duke. The family of Pepin was not royal, and
+Charles doubtless saw the wisdom of yielding to the popular reverence
+for the ancient race of kings. The Neustrians had the same prejudice;
+and, accordingly, while Charles in the one district, and Raginfred in
+the other, virtually governed, their respective tools were Clothaire
+IV., King of Austrasia, and Chilperic II., King of Neustria, two
+descendents of the old dynasty. These events took place in A.D. 716.
+
+The two countries now prepared for war. The Franks of Neustria were
+not so thoroughly and habitually warlike as their brethren of
+Austrasia, whose military system was better developed, in consequence
+of their position near the Rhine continually exposing them to
+conflicts with bands of Germans, which crossed the river in hopes of
+conquest. Nevertheless, the Austrasian Franks were now at a
+disadvantage, by reason of the unprepared state in which the Neustrian
+attack found them. Charles and Raginfred collected each an army, and
+marched at its head. The encounter was for some time doubtful, but the
+Neustrians gained a considerable advantage in the first campaign, and
+Charles was obliged to seek an asylum in the forests of the Ardennes
+region. Here, however, he did not long remain in concealment. Issuing
+forth at the head of a fresh body of men, he came upon the Neustrian
+army by surprise. A fearful slaughter took place, which he followed up
+by a vigorous pursuit. The Neustrians made a stand at Vincy, near
+Cambray. Charles met them here, and after a gallant struggle
+completely routed the force of Raginfred. This victory decided the
+fate of Neustria, and the crown of both countries was, in the year
+719, placed on the head of Chilperic II. Either from motives of policy
+or of generosity, Charles did not abuse his success by the punishment
+of his rival, Raginfred, on whom he conferred the earldom and province
+of Anjou. He himself was content to remain sole Mayor of the Palace,
+under a show of obedience to a powerless king.
+
+A brave, iron-willed man, this Charles Martel appears to us--dimly as
+the light of historic tradition permits us to behold him. He made his
+army the sole engine of his power, and cultivated it to the fullest
+extent then possible to him. Even the Church was not able to resist
+him; and at his pleasure he seized on benefices which he deemed too
+important to be placed in priestly hands, and bestowed them on his
+warriors. A rebellion among the nobles of Aquitaine demanded his
+attention; and thither he marched with ruthless determination,
+stemming revolt and establishing order. But he had a work to do in his
+generation far more important to Europe than any he had yet performed.
+
+The Arab tribes, which in the last century had been converted, by the
+genius of Mohammed, from idolatry to the worship of God, and from
+lawless bandits into disciplined soldiers, were at this period
+pursuing their career of religious conquest into the heart of
+Christendom. The Gothic monarchy of Spain, under its last king,
+Roderick, had fallen beneath the invading force, which now threatened
+France. The Duchy of Aquitaine, which considered itself independent of
+France, but which Charles had reduced to comparative submission,
+opposed the only barrier to Arabian aggression. Eudes (or Eudin), then
+Duke, was a gallant prince, and did all that in him lay to resist the
+claim which the new lords of Spain asserted to his province of
+Septimania (Languedoc). He defeated one invading army before Toulouse
+in the year 721; but the tide of invasion still flowed in. He then
+tried intrigue, and bestowed his daughter on Musa, a revolted general
+of the great Arabian leader, Abd-er-rahman. But all was in vain. In
+732 the Moslem once more appeared, in tremendous force, all over the
+south of France, ravaging as they came, finally besieging Arles and
+defeating its relieving army.
+
+The wives and children of the invaders followed in their train, as
+though they intended to settle in the country. Abd-er-rahman was
+advancing yet farther on his victorious way, when Eudes, as a last
+resource, applied for aid to his enemy, Charles. What were personal
+enmities now? This common, national danger must be averted at all
+hazards. So thought Eudes when he sent to Charles. So thought Charles
+when he quickly summoned an army, and marched toward the plains
+between Poitiers and Tours, where the Arabs were quartered. The
+importance of the struggle that ensued cannot well be over-estimated.
+Christianity and Mohammedanism were at issue for the possession of
+Europe. The difficulties that lay in the way of the success of Charles
+were very great. The Arabs were animated with the fanatical zeal of a
+new faith, and a greedy desire of domination. The Franks, on the other
+hand, were probably not at all conscious of, or concerned for, the
+religious interests which were at stake, and aimed at no more than a
+vigorous rebuff of an unprovoked assault. They had the advantage of
+familiarity with the country and climate; but were outmatched, beyond
+comparison, in numbers. The old monkish chronicles tell us that the
+battle lasted seven days. The Arab army was mainly composed of cavalry
+and bowmen, and the Franks suffered greatly from the charges of the
+former and the unerring shots of the latter. But on the seventh day
+the combatants closed with each other. Heavily fell the iron hands of
+the sturdy Franks upon the sinewy, but slender frames of their Asiatic
+opponents. Nevertheless, Charles had no cavalry; and the swift steeds
+of Arabia, with their daring riders, trampled down his battalions.
+Suddenly there was a cry in the rear of the Moslem army that the
+infidels were spoiling the camp. More eager to save their treasure
+than to slay their foes, the Arabs turned in this direction. Skilfully
+interpreting the movement as a flight, Charles cheered on his men to
+pursue. The crisis was fatal to Abd-er-rahman. He tried to rally his
+cavalry. It was too late; and he fell, pierced through with many a
+Frankish spear. Night separated the contestants, and when in the
+morning the Franks would have renewed the battle, they found that
+their foes had stolen away in the night, fled, leaving their treasure
+and their dead upon the field. The incredible number of 300,000 Arabs
+is said to have fallen in this memorable defeat. The remainder fled
+through Aquitaine before the avenging sword of Charles. Well was he
+named "Martel," from the hammer-like might of his good arm! Who can
+say whether France and Germany, ay, England and all Europe, might not
+at this hour be sunk in such poverty and degradation of moral and
+intellectual life as Turkey now exhibits, had Charles Martel and his
+bold Franks fought less valiantly and enduringly at Tours?
+
+History tells us but little more of Charles. He carried his arms into
+the Netherlands, conquered the Frisians and other tribes which then
+dwelt there, made them Christians by force, and vassals of the
+Frankish crown. In Saxony, and other parts of Germany also, his power
+was feared and obeyed. Pope Gregory II. offered to transfer to him the
+allegiance due from Rome to the Greek emperor, but the scheme was
+ended by the death of Charles. After the decease of King Chilperic
+II., in 720, Thierry IV. reigned in the same feeble manner as the
+other kings of his degenerate race. On his death, in 736, the people
+did not care to appoint a successor, being satisfied with the
+government which Charles continued to exercise under the title of
+"Duke of the Franks." He died in 741, at the age of forty-seven,
+leaving the monarchy to his three sons, Pepin, Carloman, and Griffo.
+Of the elder of these, we shall hear more anon. Charles Martel is the
+first hero who succeeded in stamping his image upon the surface of
+European history, after the chaos of the broken Roman empire had in
+some measure yielded to the spirit of order. He was chieftain of an
+unruly tribe, rather than king of a settled state. In this light we
+must regard him if we would judge his character fairly; and thus
+considered, he may be said to have governed France wisely and well. If
+his memory cannot be cleared from the reproach of certain deeds of
+violence, we can afford to pardon him when we remember the good
+service that his strong hammer once wrought for Europe.
+
+
+
+
+PEPIN THE SHORT
+
+By HENRY G. HEWLETT
+
+(714-768)
+
+[Illustration: Charles Martel at Tours.]
+
+
+Charles Martel, as we have seen, was never king of the Franks, and his
+sons were too politic to assume the title on his death. Griffo, the
+third son, may be dismissed from our notice at once, as he was from
+the government of the kingdom, his brothers, Carloman and Pepin,
+taking advantage of his weakness to dispossess him. After this act of
+supremacy they were for some time content to act as Mayors of the
+Palace, in the districts of Neustria and Austrasia respectively, under
+the nominal sovereignty of Childeric III., the last of the _fainéant_
+kings, whom they set up as a puppet. Carloman distinguished himself by
+attacking the Saxons and other tribes which threatened aggression;
+and in 744 Pepin severely punished a revolt of his father's old enemy
+(Eudes, Duke of Aquitaine), who, as already stated, had been compelled
+to do homage to the Frankish crown. Pepin soon had no sharer in his
+power or fame. Carloman was not made for a soldier, and, under the
+sudden impulse of devotional feeling, resigned his office in 747, and
+retired into a Roman monastery.
+
+[Illustration: Ox carriage in a forest. [TN]]
+
+Pepin, thus left sole lord of France, did not hastily attempt to cut
+prejudice against the grain. Feeling his way gradually, he sounded
+popular opinion for three years, on the subject of changing the royal
+dynasty, and placing the crown on the head of one who had a good right
+arm to defend it. Finding himself strong enough at last to take
+decided measures, he quietly dethroned Childeric III.; and shaving off
+his long hair, the symbol of royalty among the early Frankish kings,
+sent him to one monastery at St. Omer, and his son Thierry to another
+at Fontenelle. This accomplished, Pepin proceeded to obtain
+justification for his acts from the Pope. This was a novel step; for
+although the bishops of Rome had great spiritual influence over
+Christendom, in virtue of their alleged descent from St. Peter, their
+temporal authority was by no means admitted out of their own diocese.
+Pepin was a wise man in his generation, though short-sighted as far as
+posterity was concerned. He saw clearly enough that no sanction which
+he could obtain for his acts was likely to be so binding upon the
+minds of his subjects, and the world at large, as that pronounced by a
+power which had already fastened its yoke on the soul and conscience.
+The Pope, Zachariah, was not insensible to the importance of the
+Frankish monarchy, being at the time of Pepin's accession especially
+in need of help against Astolpho, king of the Lombards, who threatened
+to seize on the Eternal City itself. When, therefore, Pepin's envoys
+arrived at Rome, and conveyed their master's application, the pontiff
+did not hesitate to answer that it was truly fitting for one to be
+king in name who was king in deed. Thus fortified against opposition,
+Pepin proceeded to fulfil all the ceremonies attaching to the kingly
+dignity. He and his queen, Bertha, were duly crowned and consecrated
+by Boniface, the "Apostle of Germany," and Bishop of Mainz. This rite
+was performed at Soissons, in 752, with all the pomp that the Jewish
+kings had been wont to employ on such occasions. The national assembly
+was summoned; and in presence of the great Frank nobles Boniface
+produced a phial of oil, announcing it as that which had fallen from
+heaven on the day when the first king of the Franks (Clovis) had
+received baptism. The sacred oil was then poured upon the head of
+Pepin, and amid the acclamations of nobles, soldiers, and peasants, he
+was crowned their king.
+
+He was a man, like his father, well fitted to rule over a warlike and
+rude people. What was most admired in a king at that period was
+personal courage, and, what was most needed, strength of will. Pepin
+had both; but he had one defect which, though to us it may seem a
+trifle, to men who prized the body far more than soul or mind, was a
+serious matter. He was of small stature, and acquired the name of "the
+Short" in consequence. Fully conscious that this was a disadvantage to
+him, and, indeed, hearing his name once derided by his courtiers,
+Pepin took a speedy opportunity of proving that what he lacked in
+height he more than made up in strength and bravery. It was common in
+those days to exhibit animal fights at the Frankish court, as indeed,
+to her shame be it spoken, is common in Spain to this day. On one of
+these occasions a lion and a bull were engaged in a savage and mortal
+struggle. Pepin and his courtiers were seated round the arena looking
+on, when suddenly the king started up, and cried: "Who will dare to
+separate those beasts?" There was a dead silence. The attempt was
+madness--certain destruction. Unsheathing his sword, and glancing
+scornfully round upon his courtiers, Pepin leapt into the arena, and
+drew the attention of the combatants upon himself. Raging with fury,
+they turned to attack him; but with cool and measured steps he evaded
+their onset, and by a succession of well-aimed blows struck off, one
+after the other, the heads of lion and bull. Then, throwing down his
+streaming sword, he accosted the astonished courtiers: "Am I worthy to
+be your king?" A deafening shout was the reply, and the name of "Pepin
+the Short" was no longer a term of derision but of honor.
+
+Having thus established his reputation for those qualities which were
+most essential to his influence, Pepin took measures to render it
+permanent by acts of wisdom and liberality. He frequently called
+together the national assemblies, and included in the summons bishops
+as well as chieftains. Consulting with them as to the most prudent
+course of action, he preserved their affection to his person and
+obedience to his orders. He especially courted the favor of the
+Church, and showed his gratitude for the sanction which Pope Zachariah
+had given to his accession, by assisting the next Pope, Stephen III.,
+in a serious contest which broke out in 753 with the Lombards. Their
+king, Astolpho, took an active part in the great religious quarrel
+which then agitated Christendom, with respect to the worship of
+images, espousing the cause of the image-breakers, while Pope Stephen
+supported the opposite side. Threatened with invasion, the Pope flew
+to the court of Pepin, who received him with much reverence, and in
+return was crowned king for the second time. Stephen even pronounced
+sentence of excommunication against all who should dare to choose a
+king of France from any other than Pepin's family. At the Pope's
+request the king assembled an army, and marched against Astolpho. The
+war lasted for two years, but eventually terminated in the success of
+Pepin, who compelled Astolpho to yield up to the Pope the exarchate of
+Ravenna, the last relic of the great Roman empire in Italy, and of
+which the Lombards had deprived the Eastern emperors.
+
+[Illustration: Pepin after the murder of Duke Waifre.]
+
+Pepin, however, had in view a more national war than this. The duchy
+of Aquitaine was perpetually in a state of resistance to the authority
+of the Frankish kings. This was owing, in some measure, to the
+difference of language and civilization which prevailed between the
+people of the duchy and those of the kingdom. A spirit of hostility
+was also fostered by the increase of population which Aquitaine
+obtained from the Gascons, a tribe from the Pyrenees, not subject to
+the Franks. After a long period of uncertain warfare, Pepin determined
+to decide the struggle by active operations. He accordingly, in 759,
+took advantage of a rising of the people of Septimania against their
+Arabian rulers. He made himself master of Narbonne and other towns,
+and freed the Septimanians. Then turning upon Waifre, Duke of
+Aquitaine, he summoned him to disgorge the spoils which he had seized
+from the Aquitanian lands of certain churches of France. Waifre
+replied in defiant terms, and for nine years resisted the attempts of
+Pepin to reduce him to submission. It was a sanguinary and desolating
+war. The fairest districts of Auvergne, Limousin, and Berry, were laid
+waste and burnt by Pepin; and in the Frankish territories Waifre
+levied an equally terrible retribution. He was murdered at last by
+some of his own subjects, at the instigation of the Frankish king.
+This is the one instance of actual crime which we find recorded
+against Pepin; and legend tells that its shadow rested heavily upon
+his mind. Aquitaine was annexed to the kingdom.
+
+It was Pepin's last achievement. He did not, as we might have expected
+he would, die in harness on the battle-field, but of dropsy, at the
+age of fifty-four. This event occurred in 768, at St. Denis. Long
+before his death he had obtained the coronation of his two sons,
+Charles and Carloman, jointly with his own, and directed his
+territories to be divided between them.
+
+To be the successful founder of a new dynasty demands a genius which
+we may justly entitle heroic, expressive as that word is of strength
+of character merely, without regard to moral worth. Pepin, however,
+was not devoid of the latter, to a limited extent, and has left a
+memory which, if not remarkable for virtue, is at least not disfigured
+by vice.
+
+
+
+
+CHARLEMAGNE
+
+By SIR J. BERNARD BURKE
+
+(742-814)
+
+
+The birthplace of Charlemagne is unknown, but from various data we may
+infer that he was born somewhere about the year 742, nearly seven
+years before his father, Pepin the Short, assumed the title of king.
+His mother was Bertha, daughter of Charibert, Count of Leon.
+
+Of his boyhood we know as little as of his birth, but he seems at an
+early age to have mingled in the real business of life, for when only
+twelve years old we find him despatched to receive and welcome the
+sovereign pontiff who came to implore his father's aid against the
+barbarians that threatened Rome. From the usual habits of the Franks,
+it is also probable that he accompanied Pepin in his campaigns at an
+early age; but the first time that we really see him in the field, is
+on the renewal of the war with the rebellious Duke of Aquitaine.
+
+[Illustration: Charlemagne.]
+
+Upon the death of Pepin, 768, Charlemagne and his younger brother,
+Carloman, succeeded to equal portions of one of the most powerful
+European kingdoms, bounded by the Pyrenees, the Alps, the
+Mediterranean, and the ocean. But this would hardly have enabled the
+monarchs, even had they been united, to resist successfully the
+incursions of the barbarous tribes on the German frontiers of France,
+which had commenced with the first establishment of the Frankish
+dominion in Gaul; and which was kept alive by the constant pouring out
+of fresh hordes from the overpopulated North. The situation of
+Charlemagne was rendered yet more perilous by the passive enmity of
+his brother, and the rebellion of Hunald, the turbulent Duke of
+Aquitaine. But fortunately, Charlemagne had a genius equal to the
+difficulties of his situation; though his brother refused to aid him,
+he defeated Hunald; and no less illustrious by his clemency than by
+his valor and military skill, he forgave the vanquished rebel.
+
+Desiderius, the king of Lombardy, had made large encroachments upon
+the states of the Roman pontiff, whose cause was taken up by
+Charlemagne. This led to feuds, which Bertha, the mother of the
+Frankish king, endeavored to appease by bringing about a union between
+her son and the daughter of the Lombard. But Charlemagne soon took a
+disgust to the wife thus imposed upon him, and repudiated her, that he
+might marry Hildegarde, the daughter of a noble family in Suabia.
+
+In 771 Carloman died, and Charlemagne was elected to the vacant
+throne, to the exclusion of his nephews, whose extreme youth, indeed,
+made them incapable of wearing the crown in such troubled times.
+Gilberga, the widow of Carloman, immediately fled, and sought an
+asylum with Desiderius, the common place of refuge for all who were
+hostile to the Frankish monarch. But the attention of Charlemagne was
+called off to a more immediate danger from the Saxons, of whom the
+Frisons were either a branch or the perpetual allies. Had the tribes
+of which this people were composed been united under one head, instead
+of being governed by various independent chiefs, the result would
+probably have been fatal to France. Such a day, however, might come; a
+second Attila might arise; and with a full conviction of these
+perils, Charlemagne, when he marched against the barbarians,
+determined to put them down effectually. He took and destroyed the
+famous temple of the Irminsule, the great idol of their nation--that
+is, the Hermansaule, or Pillar of Hermann, which had originally been
+raised to commemorate the defeat of the Roman Varus by that hero,
+though in time the name had got corrupted, and the cause of its
+erection been forgotten. The Saxons were too wise to meet their
+powerful opponent in the field, and when, as often happened, they were
+brought to bay, they made a feigned submission, and obtained mercy by
+vows they never meant to keep. Meanwhile events had been taking place
+in another quarter, that called away Charlemagne, and obliged him to
+leave his generals to watch over them.
+
+The Lombard king, Desiderius, had made use of his absence to plunder
+the papal see, to which Adrian had now succeeded. With some difficulty
+the Pope contrived to give his friend notice of his danger, when
+Charlemagne assembled a vast army, one division of which he himself
+led into Italy over the Alps by Mount Cenis, while the other was
+conducted to the same ground by his uncle, Duke Bernard, over the Mons
+Jovis, or Mount Joux, which from this event received the name it has
+borne ever since, of the Great Saint Bernard. Although surprised by an
+invasion from a quarter so unexpected, Desiderius marched out to meet
+his enemy, but his flank being turned, he fled hastily to Pavia,
+without having struck a blow; Charlemagne pursued the fugitives, but
+finding the city too strong to be taken by storm, he blockaded it with
+one portion of his army, while with the other he proceeded against
+Verona, having reduced which, he returned to the siege of Pavia. Month
+after month passed, till at length Easter approached, when, leaving
+the city blockaded as before, he determined to visit Rome in his
+capacity of patrician or governor. His march through the Italian towns
+was one of uninterrupted triumph; everywhere he was met with
+acclamations, and at Rome he was received by the Pope, as well as the
+people, with the liveliest expressions of gratitude for having freed
+them from the tyranny of the Lombards. The friendship then cemented
+between Adrian and his young deliverer lasted through the remainder of
+their lives without any serious interruption.
+
+Having thus asserted his rights of Patrician or Exarch, Charlemagne
+was liberal in his donations to the Church, and soon afterward
+returned to the siege of Pavia, which it now became important for him
+to bring to a speedy conclusion, the Saxons having again taken
+advantage of his absence to ravage his frontiers. About the middle of
+the year, the city surrendered, and he was crowned with the iron crown
+of Lombardy. He then marched against the Saxons, defeating them
+whenever they ventured to make a stand, till they found their best
+resource was in submission.
+
+It was not long before a fresh revolt amongst the Lombards recalled
+him to their country. Once more he was victorious and once more he was
+summoned from his career of conquest to meet the Saxons. As usual,
+they were beaten out of the field, and so completely, that many of
+them, seeming to have lost all faith in their gods, from repeated
+defeats, presented themselves with their wives and children to receive
+baptism.
+
+Amid all these fatigues and battles, which might appear sufficient to
+have occupied the attention of any one man, Charlemagne retained in
+his own hands the general government of the state. The local
+administration was distributed among twelve provincial officers, with
+the title of Dukes, each of them having the command of a county.
+Subordinate to these officers were the Counts, who, in fact, were the
+judges of the land, and had full authority to decide and punish within
+their jurisdiction. To secure the faithful performance of their duties
+by these Dukes and Counts, certain officers, under the name of Missi
+Dominici, were sent in visitations from time to time to inquire into
+their conduct. In great ecclesiastical questions, or those affecting
+the more powerful vassals of the crown, either the king himself, or
+the count of his palace, sat as judge.
+
+Spain next demanded his attention. That country had been subdued by
+the Arabs, but the descendants of the first conquerors quarrelled
+among themselves, and Ibn al Arabi, a powerful chief, sought aid of
+Charlemagne, who marched thither, and being, as usual, victorious,
+secured to himself a barrier against the Saracens and Gascons. This
+was seen with ill-will by Lupo, Duke of Gascony, who when the Frankish
+king was leaving Spain to meet fresh dangers on the Rhine,
+treacherously laid an ambush for his destruction in the gorges of the
+Pyrenees. The monarch himself was allowed to pass with the first
+division of his army, the second was assailed and destroyed in the
+valley of Roncesvalles, and the conquerors secreting themselves in
+their mountain fastnesses, presented no object for the vengeance of
+the indignant monarch. Besides, the barbarians were again ravaging his
+frontiers, under the command of Witikind, with a fierceness that went
+far beyond even the worst of their earlier incursions. Their cruelty,
+however, was retaliated by their almost total annihilation while
+attempting to retreat across the Adern, and in the ensuing season
+Charlemagne reduced them, as it seemed, to a state of total
+submission. But no sooner had he set out for Italy, whither he was
+called by many pressing affairs, than Witikind, the great leader of
+the Westphalians, started forth from his retreat in Denmark and
+stimulated all Saxony to a renewed contest. The time was well chosen.
+Witikind, who appears to have been as superior to the generals of
+Charlemagne as he was inferior to the king himself, gave the Franks a
+complete overthrow.
+
+[Illustration: Charlemagne at Witikind's baptism.]
+
+When these tidings were brought to Charlemagne, he returned in all
+haste to the northern frontiers. The scene was at once reversed. Cowed
+by his name alone, they had recourse, as usual, to submission,
+guaranteed by oaths which they never meant to keep, and by hostages
+who did not hesitate to incur the fatal penalty attached to the
+certain faithlessness of their countrymen. But this time the king
+would listen to no terms short of ample vengeance. He demanded that
+four thousand of the most hostile and turbulent should be delivered up
+to him, all of whom he had executed in one day, in order to do by
+intimidation what he had failed to do by kindness. His severity,
+however, failed in producing the desired effect. It was not long
+before the Saxons again flew to arms, when they sustained so signal a
+defeat that very few of all their host escaped from the bloody field.
+Yet still the spirit of the barbarians, supported by an indomitable
+passion for war and plunder, continued as little quelled as ever.
+Witikind and Albion, their most popular chiefs, still maintained the
+contest, even when suffering nothing but disasters, until at length,
+their conqueror, subduing them more by policy than by arms, won them
+over to the Christian faith, which was then embraced by all Saxony.[9]
+This, for the time, produced a better feeling, though the truce was
+not of long duration.
+
+         [Footnote 9: Witikind was baptized with solemn ceremony by
+         the great bishops of the realm, in presence of his conqueror.
+         Paul Thumann has vividly portrayed the scene in the painting
+         here copied.]
+
+Hildegarde, the wife of Charlemagne, had now been dead some short
+time, when he married Fastrada, the daughter of a Frankish noble. It
+is said that from this union there arose a spirit of discontent among
+some of the leading men of his nation, who in consequence rebelled
+against him; but, finding themselves too weak to contend with him,
+dispersed, and endeavored to find safety in concealment. They did not,
+however, escape their merited punishment. Being sooner or later taken,
+some had their eyes put out, others were degraded from their rank,
+none were condemned to death, but all to exile. Even these severe
+examples did not prevent the rise of many petty revolts, the different
+parts of which the Frankish kingdom was composed not being as yet
+sufficiently amalgamated; but they were suppressed by the united
+wisdom and vigor of the monarch.
+
+The short interval of peace now allowed him, Charlemagne employed in
+endeavoring to educate and civilize his people. He made a tour through
+his dominions, spreading local and general improvement, reforming
+laws, advancing knowledge, and building churches and monasteries,
+Christianity being one of the chief means to which he trusted for the
+attainment of his grand objects. In this he was no less successful
+than he had before been in war. With the exception of the Eastern
+Empire, France was now the most cultivated nation in Europe, even Rome
+herself sending thither for skilful workmen, while commerce, roads,
+and mechanics must have been much advanced, as we may infer from the
+facility with which marble columns and immense stone crosses were
+often carried through the whole extent of France upon carriages of
+native construction. Luxury, too, with its attendant arts, had made
+considerable strides. Vases of gold and silver richly carved, silver
+tables brightly wrought, bracelets, rings, and table-cloths of fine
+linen, might be seen in the houses of the nobles. The people must have
+been dexterous in working iron, for their superiority in this respect
+is evinced by the severe laws forbidding the exportation of arms.
+
+The calm, thus wisely employed, did not last long. Charlemagne was
+soon aroused from his peaceful occupations to put down a revolt of
+Tassilo, Duke of Bavaria, as well as a meditated attack upon Italy by
+Adalgisus, the son of the deposed Lombard king, Desiderius, who was
+assisted underhand by the Greek empress, Irene, and had besides formed
+a secret alliance with the Duke of Beneventum. Tassilo, being seized,
+was condemned to death by the great council. He appealed to the
+clemency of the king, who, ever averse to shed blood, mitigated the
+sentence into a lifelong seclusion from the world in a cloister.
+Adalgisus was met by the Duke of Beneventum, not to assist him, as he
+had expected, but to oppose him, for the duke had in good time
+discovered that loyalty was more likely to prosper than treason. He
+therefore joined the army of France under Grimwold, and in the battle
+which succeeded the Greek forces were entirely routed, and Adalgisus
+disappears from the busy scene.
+
+The empire of Charlemagne was next to be assailed by the Huns, not the
+same people whose fathers had fought under Attila, though probably
+descended from the same stock. Upon the death of that ferocious
+conqueror, the tribes whom his talents had kept united, again
+sundered. Shortly afterward a warlike nation, calling themselves
+Avars, approached the northern parts of Europe, having been driven
+from their native country by the Turks. They spread rapidly, acquiring
+territory and power, until they were invited by Tassilo to aid him in
+his meditated treachery. They lost more than one battle against the
+Franks, but neither their own defeat, nor the total overthrow of their
+ally, made any change in their purposes. They persisted; fought a hard
+battle, and were so utterly routed, that they drew back and remained
+quiet for a while, in order to collect their strength before venturing
+upon a fresh contest with their tremendous adversary, who, on his
+part, was no less desirous of a respite for the same object. Little
+rest, however, was allowed him. No sooner had he beaten back these
+Huns, than he had to contend with a new enemy, the Weletabes, a
+Slavonian tribe inhabiting the northern part of Germany, near
+Brandenburg and Pomerania, from the Elbe to the Baltic. In themselves
+they might not have excited much alarm, but, if they met with only a
+temporary success, their example might have been fatal, by rousing the
+Saxons, who still with reluctance submitted to the yoke imposed upon
+them. The king, therefore, without loss of time, met and defeated the
+Weletabes; when he received them into grace, and ever afterward found
+them faithful.
+
+Having freed himself from this peril, Charlemagne next found that he
+must turn his arms against the Huns of Hungary, which appears to have
+been defended by them after a singular fashion. The whole country was
+surrounded by nine circles of double palisading, formed of trunks of
+trees twenty feet in height. The interstices of the palisade were
+twenty feet wide, filled with stone and lime compacted, the top being
+covered with earth, and planted with shrubs. At the distance of twenty
+Teutonic, or forty Italian miles, was a second fortified line of the
+same kind; and thus the circles were repeated, the circumference
+always narrowing till you came to the innermost, or ring, in which the
+Avars kept all their wealth, the accumulation of centuries of rapine.
+Such, at least, is the account, however improbable, handed down to us
+by an historian of the day.
+
+In the outset fortune favored Charlemagne as usual. He took the first
+three of the defensive circles sword in hand, and laid waste the
+country to the junction of the Raab with the Danube, while his son
+Pepin had met and routed their army in another quarter. But unhappily
+a pestilential disease broke out among the horses, who died by
+thousands, and he was obliged to retreat, unpursued, however, by the
+Avars, their surprise and terror not having yet subsided.
+
+In the doubtful lull that followed, a conspiracy was raised against
+the life and throne of the monarch, in which his natural son, Pepin
+the Hunchback, was implicated. It was discovered in time, and all the
+conspirators were put to death, with the exception of Pepin, who was
+confined for life within a monastery.
+
+Scarcely had the king escaped this danger, than he was alarmed by news
+that the Saxons had revolted, and uniting themselves with the Huns,
+had given a bloody defeat to his cousin, Theodoric. Close upon this
+came other tidings of equally evil import. In the late campaign
+against the Huns, Charlemagne had called to his aid his son Pepin,
+King of Italy, who, notwithstanding he was himself embroiled with
+Grimbald, Duke of Beneventum, did not hesitate to obey. To reward this
+prompt obedience, Charlemagne early in the winter had despatched
+another son, Louis, King of Aquitaine, to the help of his brother,
+when the Saracens took advantage of the latter's absence to attack his
+frontiers, and even penetrated to Narbonne before any forces were
+ready to oppose them. From this expedition they returned home laden
+with plunder, and satisfied with this success, remained for a while in
+quiet. Charles therefore had a brief respite to turn against the
+Saxons; and as he had hitherto found all his precautions unavailing to
+keep them within the bounds of good order, he broke up the nation, and
+transported an immense number of the most turbulent to a distance from
+their own country. Multitudes of men, women, and children were
+dispersed over France, and not a few were transported to Brabant and
+various parts of Flanders.
+
+About this time, 793, the first collision took place between the
+Franks and the piratical Northmen.
+
+It would be alien from our present purpose to follow Charlemagne step
+by step in his march of conquest and civilization. We need only say in
+general terms, that he drove back the Arabs, reduced the Huns, became
+the friend of Haroun al Raschid, his only rival in the paths of
+greatness, and effectually protected his long line of coast from the
+attempted incursion of the Northmen. It is said that upon one occasion
+he arrived at a certain port just as the pirates were preparing to
+land; but the moment they by some means learnt the presence of the
+monarch, they immediately fled in terror at his mere name. He remained
+gazing on the departing vessels, while the tears rolled down his
+cheeks. His nobles could not help showing surprise at such unusual
+emotion in the monarch, which being observed by him he exclaimed, "I
+weep not, my friends, because I myself fear these miserable savages;
+but I weep that they should dare to show themselves upon my coast
+while I am living, for I foresee the evils they will bring upon my
+people when I am dead."
+
+It was always an object of first importance with Charlemagne to
+support the papal authority, as holding out the only means of
+spreading Christianity, which he justly considered the most effectual
+instrument he could employ to enlighten and civilize the world. An
+attempt had been made to mutilate the Pope, and thus disqualify him
+for his office, by Campulus and Paschal, two disappointed aspirants
+to the papacy; but he escaped from their hands and brought his
+complaints before Charlemagne. The conspirators then attempted to
+justify the deed, by accusing the Pope of atrocious crimes; and the
+king calling to his aid certain of the Roman prelates, proceeded to
+sit in judgment on him. The prelates, however, declared that by all
+the canonical rules they could not judge their superior; and Leo
+therefore was allowed, according to an old custom, to purge himself,
+by a solemn oath, of the crimes which had been laid to his charge.
+
+Many motives of policy at this time induced the Pope to set up an
+emperor of the West in opposition to the Eastern Empire. It was
+Christmas-day, when, with the rest of the Catholic world, Charlemagne
+presented himself in the church of St. Peter. At the desire of the
+Romans he was dressed in the long robe of the patrician, and
+unsuspicious, it is said, of the honor intended him, knelt at the high
+altar; but, just as he was about to rise, Leo advanced, and suddenly
+placed upon his head the crown of the Western world, amidst the
+popular acclamations, "Long life and victory to Charles Augustus,
+crowned by God, great and pacific Emperor of the Romans!"
+
+To end the long-existing feuds between the Western and Eastern
+Empires, Charlemagne now proposed to marry Irene, who, having deposed
+her son and put out his eyes, had usurped the throne of
+Constantinople. Irene herself was not unwilling to accept the offer;
+but she was overruled by a faction, and a treaty of peace was
+substituted for a treaty of marriage. But while the negotiations were
+going on, Irene herself was deposed by the great treasurer,
+Nicephorus, who even refused to grant her the smallest pittance, so
+that the degraded empress was obliged to support herself by the labors
+of the distaff. He was, however, glad to conclude a peace with
+Charlemagne.
+
+Though troubled from time to time by disputes among the neighboring
+barbarians, the Frankish monarch might now be said to enjoy peace; and
+while still in the possession of robust health, he resolved to prepare
+for death, by allotting among his children such portions of territory
+as he wished them to possess when he should be removed from the scene.
+Both his sons and the people willingly consented to the proposed
+arrangements, which, indeed, bore the stamp of his usual wisdom and
+justice. But the advanced age which he attained, brought with it the
+usual evils of protracted life. He saw his friends and children swept
+away before him. His son Louis alone remained to inherit his vast
+dominions. With this single drawback the remainder of his time was as
+prosperous as his earlier career had been; till at length, being
+suddenly attacked with pleurisy, he expired, after a short illness, in
+the seventy-second year of his age and the forty-seventh of his reign,
+January 28, 814.
+
+
+
+
+OLAF TRYGGVESON
+
+Extracts from "Early Kings of Norway," by THOMAS CARLYLE
+
+(955-1000)
+
+[Illustration: Boat on the sea. [TN]]
+
+
+Olaf Tryggveson also makes a great figure in the Faröer Saga, and
+recounts there his early troubles, which were strange and many. He is
+still reckoned a grand hero of the North, though his _vates_ now is
+only Snorro Sturrleson of Iceland. Tryggveson had indeed many
+adventures in the world. His poor mother, Astrid, was obliged to fly
+with him, on murder of her husband[10] by Gunhild--to fly for life,
+three months before her little Olaf was born. She lay concealed in
+reedy island, fled through trackless forests, reached her father's
+with the little baby in her arms, and lay deep-hidden there; tended
+only by her father himself; Gunhild's pursuit being so incessant and
+keen as with sleuth-hounds. Poor Astrid had to fly again deviously to
+Sweden, to Esthland (Esthonia), to Russia. In Esthland she was sold as
+a slave, quite parted from her boy, who also was sold, and again sold;
+but did at last fall in with a kinsman high in the Russian service;
+did from him find redemption and help, and so rose, in a distinguished
+manner, to manhood, victorious self-help, and recovery of his kingdom
+at last. He even met his mother again, he as King of Norway, she as
+one wonderfully lifted out of darkness into new life, and happiness
+still in store.
+
+         [Footnote 10: Tryggve, one of the Norwegian sub-kings, slain
+         by order of Gunhild, Queen of Norway.]
+
+Grown to manhood, Tryggveson, now become acquainted with his birth,
+and with his, alas! hopeless claims, left Russia for the one
+profession open to him, that of sea-robbery; and did feats without
+number in that questionable line in many seas and scenes,--in England
+latterly, and most conspicuously of all. In one of his courses
+thither, after long labors in the Hebrides, Man, Wales, and down the
+western shores to the very Land's End and farther, he paused at the
+Scilly Islands for a little while. He was told of a wonderful
+Christian hermit living strangely in these sea-solitudes; had the
+curiosity to seek him out, examine, question, and discourse with him;
+and, after some reflection, accepted Christian baptism from the
+venerable man. In Snorro the story is involved in miracle, rumor, and
+fable; but the fact itself seems certain, and is very interesting; the
+great, wild, noble soul of fierce Olaf opening to this wonderful
+gospel of tidings from beyond the world, tidings which infinitely
+transcended all else he had ever heard or dreamt of! It seems certain
+he was baptized here; date not fixable; shortly before poor
+heart-broken Dunstan's death, or shortly after; most English churches,
+monasteries especially, lying burnt, under continual visitation of the
+Danes. Olaf, such baptism notwithstanding, did not quit his viking
+profession; indeed, what other was there for him in the world as yet?
+
+We mentioned his occasional copartneries with Svein of the
+Double-beard, now become King of Denmark, but the greatest of these,
+and the alone interesting at this time, is their joint invasion of
+England, and Tryggveson's exploits and fortunes there some years after
+that adventure of baptism in the Scilly Isles. Svein and he "were
+above a year in England together," this time: they steered up the
+Thames with three hundred ships and many fighters; siege, or at least
+furious assault, of London was their first or main enterprise, but it
+did not succeed. The "Saxon Chronicle" gives date to it, A.D. 994, and
+names expressly, as Svein's copartner, "Olaus, King of Norway,"--which
+he was as yet far from being; but in regard to the Year of Grace the
+"Saxon Chronicle" is to be held indisputable, and, indeed, has the
+field to itself in this matter. But finding London impregnable for the
+moment (no ship able to get athwart the bridge, and many Danes
+perishing in the attempt to do it by swimming), Svein and Olaf turned
+to other enterprises; all England in a manner lying open to them, turn
+which way they liked. They burnt and plundered over Kent, over
+Hampshire, Sussex; they stormed far and wide; world lying all before
+them where to choose. Wretched Ethelred, as the one invention he could
+fall upon, offered them Danegelt (£16,000 of silver this year, but it
+rose in other years as high as £48,000); the desperate Ethelred, a
+clear method of quenching fire by pouring _oil_ on it! Svein and Olaf
+accepted; withdrew to Southampton--Olaf at least did--till the money
+was got ready. Strange to think of, fierce Svein of the Double-beard,
+and conquest of England by him; this had at last become the one
+salutary result which remained for that distracted, down-trodden, now
+utterly chaotic and anarchic country. A conquering Svein, followed by
+an ably and earnestly administrative, as well as conquering, Knut
+(whom Dahlmann compares to Charlemagne), were thus by the mysterious
+destinies appointed the effective saviours of England.
+
+[Illustration: A Norse raid under Olaf.]
+
+Tryggveson, on this occasion, was a good while at Southampton; and
+roamed extensively about, easily victorious over everything, if
+resistance were attempted, but finding little or none; and acting now
+in a peaceable or even friendly capacity. In the Southampton country
+he came in contact with the then Bishop of Winchester, afterward
+Archbishop of Canterbury, excellent Elphegus, still dimly decipherable
+to us as a man of great natural discernment, piety, and inborn
+veracity; a hero-soul, probably of real brotherhood with Olaf's own.
+He even made court visits to King Ethelred; one visit to him at
+Andover of a very serious nature. By Elphegus, as we can discover, he
+was introduced into the real depths of the Christian faith. Elphegus,
+with due solemnity of apparatus, in presence of the king, at Andover
+baptized Olaf anew, and to him Olaf engaged that he would never
+plunder in England any more; which promise, too, he kept. In fact, not
+long after, Svein's conquest of England being in an evidently forward
+state, Tryggveson (having made, withal, a great English or Irish
+marriage,--a dowager princess, who had voluntarily fallen in love with
+him,--see Snorro for this fine romantic fact!) mainly resided in our
+island for two or three years, or else in Dublin, in the precincts of
+the Danish Court there in the Sister Isle. Accordingly it was in
+Dublin, as above noted, that Hakon's spy found him; and from the
+Liffey that his squadron sailed, through the Hebrides, through the
+Orkneys, plundering and baptizing in their strange way, toward such
+success as we have seen.[11]
+
+         [Footnote 11: Hakon, now King of Norway, sent a spy to learn
+         if Olaf thought of regaining his inheritance. Guided by the
+         spy, Olaf did sail with his fleet for Norway, found the
+         people there in unexpected rebellion against Hakon's tyranny,
+         set himself at their head, easily overthrew the king,
+         executed him amid general rejoicing and established himself
+         upon the throne.]
+
+Tryggveson made a stout, and, in effect, victorious and glorious
+struggle for himself as king. Daily and hourly vigilant to do so,
+often enough by soft and even merry methods,--for he was a witty,
+jocund man, and had a fine ringing laugh in him, and clear pregnant
+words ever ready,--or if soft methods would not serve, then by hard,
+and even hardest, he put down a great deal of miscellaneous anarchy in
+Norway; was especially busy against heathenism (devil-worship and its
+rites): this, indeed, may be called the focus and heart of all his
+royal endeavor in Norway, and of all the troubles he now had with his
+people there. For this was a serious, vital, all-comprehending matter:
+devil-worship, a thing not to be tolerated one moment longer than you
+could by any method help! Olaf's success was intermittent, of varying
+complexion; but his effort, swift or slow, was strong and continual;
+and on the whole he did succeed. Take a sample or two of that
+wonderful conversion process:
+
+At one of his first Things he found the Bonders all assembled in arms;
+resolute to the death seemingly, against his proposal and him.
+Tryggveson said little; waited impassive, "What your reasons are, good
+men?" One zealous Bonder started up in passionate parliamentary
+eloquence; but after a sentence or two broke down; one, and then
+another, and still another, and remained all three staring in
+open-mouthed silence there! The peasant-proprietors accepted the
+phenomenon as ludicrous, perhaps partly as miraculous withal, and
+consented to baptism this time.
+
+On another occasion of a Thing, which had assembled near some heathen
+temple to meet him,--temple where Hakon Jarl had done much repairing,
+and set up many idol figures and sumptuous ornaments, regardless of
+expense, especially a very big and splendid Thor, with massive gold
+collar round the neck of him, not the like of it in Norway,--King
+Tryggveson was clamorously invited by the Bonders to step in there,
+enlighten his eyes, and partake of the sacred rites. Instead of which
+he rushed into the temple with his armed men; smashed down, with his
+own battle-axe, the god Thor prostrate on the floor at one stroke, to
+set an example; and in a few minutes had the whole Hakon Pantheon
+wrecked; packing up, meanwhile, all the gold and preciosities
+accumulated there (not forgetting Thor's illustrious gold collar, of
+which we shall hear again), and victoriously took the plunder home
+with him for his own royal uses and behoof of the state.
+
+By unwearied industry of this and better kinds, Tryggveson had
+trampled down idolatry, so far as form went,--how far in substance may
+be greatly doubted. But it is to be remembered withal, that always on
+the back of these compulsory adventures there followed English
+bishops, priests, and preachers; whereby to the open-minded,
+conviction, to all degrees of it, was attainable, while silence and
+passivity became the duty or necessity of the unconvinced party.
+
+In about two years Norway was all gone over with a rough harrow of
+conversion. Heathenism at least constrained to be silent and outwardly
+conformable. Tryggveson next turned his attention to Iceland, sent one
+Thangbrand, priest from Saxony, of wonderful qualities, military, as
+well as theological, to try and convert Iceland. Thangbrand made a few
+converts; for Olaf had already many estimable Iceland friends, whom he
+liked much, and was much liked by; and conversion was the ready road
+to his favor. Thangbrand, I find, lodged with Hall of Sida (familiar
+acquaintance of "Burnt Njal," whose Saga has its admirers among us
+even now). Thangbrand converted Hall and one or two other leading men;
+but in general he was reckoned quarrelsome and blusterous rather than
+eloquent and piously convincing. Two skalds of repute made biting
+lampoons upon Thangbrand, whom Thangbrand, by two opportunities that
+offered, cut down and did to death because of their skaldic quality.
+Another he killed with his own hand, I know not for what reason. In
+brief, after about a year, Thangbrand returned to Norway and King
+Olaf, declaring the Icelanders to be a perverse, satirical, and
+inconvertible people, having himself, the record says, been "the death
+of three men there." King Olaf was in high rage at this result; but
+was persuaded by the Icelanders about him to try farther, and by a
+milder instrument. He accordingly chose one Thormod, a pious, patient,
+and kindly man, who, within the next year or so, did actually
+accomplish the matter; namely, get Christianity, by open vote,
+declared at Thingvalla by the general Thing of Iceland there; the roar
+of a volcanic eruption at the right moment rather helping the
+conclusion, if I recollect. Whereupon Olaf's joy was no doubt great.
+
+One general result of these successful operations was the discontent,
+to all manner of degrees, on the part of many Norse individuals,
+against this glorious and victorious, but peremptory and terrible king
+of theirs. Tryggveson, I fancy, did not much regard all that; a man of
+joyful, cheery temper, habitually contemptuous of danger. Another
+trivial misfortune that befell in these conversion operations, and
+became important to him, he did not even know of, and would have much
+despised if he had. It was this: Sigrid, queen-dowager of Sweden,
+thought to be among the most shining women of the world, was also
+known for one of the most imperious, revengeful, and relentless, and
+had got for herself the name of Sigrid the Proud. In her high
+widowhood she had naturally many wooers; but treated them in a manner
+unexampled.
+
+In spite of which, however, there went from Tryggveson, who was now a
+widower, some incipient marriage proposals to this proud widow; by
+whom they were favorably received; as from the brightest man in all
+the world, they might seem worth being. Now, in one of these
+anti-heathen onslaughts of King Olaf's on the idol temples of
+Hakon--(I think it was that case where Olaf's own battle-axe struck
+down the monstrous refulgent Thor, and conquered an immense gold ring
+from the neck of him, or from the door of his temple)--a huge gold
+ring, at any rate, had come into Olaf's hands; and this he bethought
+him might be a pretty present to Queen Sigrid, the now favorable,
+though the proud. Sigrid received the ring with joy; fancied what a
+collar it would make for her own fair neck; but noticed that her two
+goldsmiths, weighing it on their fingers, exchanged a glance. "What is
+that?" exclaimed Queen Sigrid. "Nothing," answered they, or endeavored
+to answer, dreading mischief. But Sigrid compelled them to break open
+the ring; and there was found, all along the inside of it, an occult
+ring of copper, not a heart of gold at all! "Ha," said the proud
+queen, flinging it away, "he that could deceive in this matter can
+deceive in many others!" And was in hot wrath with Olaf; though, by
+degrees, again she took milder thoughts.
+
+Milder thoughts, we say; and consented to a meeting next autumn at
+some half-way station, where their great business might be brought to
+a happy settlement and betrothment. Both Olaf Tryggveson and the high
+dowager appear to have been tolerably of willing mind at this meeting;
+but Olaf interposed, what was always one condition with him, "Thou
+must consent to baptism, and give up thy idol-gods." "They are the
+gods of all my forefathers," answered the lady; "choose thou what gods
+thou pleasest, but leave me mine." Whereupon an altercation; and
+Tryggveson, as was his wont, towered up into shining wrath, and
+exclaimed at last, "Why should I care about thee then, old faded
+heathen creature?" And impatiently wagging his glove, hit her, or
+slightly switched her, on the face with it, and contemptuously turning
+away, walked out of the adventure. "This is a feat that may cost thee
+dear one day," said Sigrid. And in the end it came to do so, little as
+the magnificent Olaf deigned to think of it at the moment.
+
+Olaf Tryggveson, though his kingdom was the smallest of the Norse
+Three, had risen to a renown over all the Norse world which neither he
+of Denmark nor he of Sweden could pretend to rival. A magnificent,
+far-shining man; more expert in all "bodily exercises," as the Norse
+called them, than any man had ever been before him, or after was.
+Could keep five daggers in the air, always catching the proper fifth
+by its handle, and sending it aloft again; could shoot supremely,
+throw a javelin with either hand; and, in fact, in battle usually
+threw two together. These, with swimming, climbing, leaping, were the
+then admirable Fine Arts of the North; in all which Tryggveson appears
+to have been the Raphael and the Michael Angelo at once. Essentially
+definable, too, if we look well into him, as a wild bit of real
+heroism, in such rude guise and environment; a high, true, and great
+human soul. A jovial burst of laughter in him, too; a bright, airy,
+wise way of speech; dressed beautifully and with care; a man admired
+and loved exceedingly by those he liked; dreaded as death by those he
+did not like. "Hardly any king," says Snorro, "was ever so well
+obeyed, by one class out of zeal and love, by the rest out of dread."
+His glorious course, however, was not to last long.
+
+King Svein of the Double-beard had not yet completed his conquest of
+England,--by no means yet, some thirteen horrid years of that still
+before him!--when, over in Denmark, he found that complaints against
+him and intricacies had arisen, on the part principally of one
+Burislav, King of the Wends (far up the Baltic), and in a less degree
+with the King of Sweden and other minor individuals. Svein earnestly
+applied himself to settle these, and have his hands free. Burislav, an
+aged heathen gentleman, proved reasonable and conciliatory; so, too,
+the King of Sweden, and Dowager Queen Sigrid, his managing mother.
+Bargain in both these cases got sealed and crowned by marriage. Svein,
+who had become a widower lately, now wedded Sigrid; and might think,
+possibly enough, he had got a proud bargain, though a heathen one.
+Burislav also insisted on marriage with Princess Thyri, the
+Double-beard's sister. Thyri, inexpressibly disinclined to wed an aged
+heathen of that stamp, pleaded hard with her brother; but the
+Double-bearded was inexorable; Thyri's wailings and entreaties went
+for nothing. With some guardian foster-brother, and a serving-maid or
+two, she had to go on this hated journey. Old Burislav, at sight of
+her, blazed out into marriage feast of supreme magnificence, and was
+charmed to see her, but Thyri would not join the marriage party,
+refused to eat with it or sit with it at all. Day after day, for six
+days, flatly refused; and after nightfall of the sixth, glided out
+with her foster-brother into the woods, into by-paths and
+inconceivable wanderings; and, in effect, got home to Denmark. Brother
+Svein was not for the moment there; probably enough gone to England
+again. But Thyri knew too well he would not allow her to stay here, or
+anywhere that he could help, except with the old heathen she had just
+fled from.
+
+Thyri, looking round the world, saw no likely road for her, but to
+Olaf Tryggveson in Norway; to beg protection from the most heroic man
+she knew of in the world. Olaf, except by renown, was not known to
+her; but by renown he well was. Olaf, at sight of her, promised
+protection and asylum against all mortals. Nay, in discoursing with
+Thyri Olaf perceived more and more clearly what a fine handsome being,
+soul and body, Thyri was; and in a short space of time winded up by
+proposing to Thyri, who, humbly, and we may fancy with what secret
+joy, consented to say yes, and become Queen of Norway. In the due
+months they had a little son, Harald; who, it is credibly recorded,
+was the joy of both his parents; but who, to their inexpressible
+sorrow, in about a year died, and vanished from them. This, and one
+other fact now to be mentioned, is all the wedded history we have of
+Thyri.
+
+The other fact is, that Thyri had, by inheritance or covenant, not
+depending on her marriage with old Burislav, considerable properties
+in Wendland, which she often reflected might be not a little
+behooveful to her here in Norway, where her civil-list was probably
+but straitened. She spoke of this to her husband; but her husband
+would take no hold, merely made her gifts, and said, "Pooh, pooh,
+can't we live without old Burislav and his Wendland properties?" So
+that the lady sank into ever deeper anxiety and eagerness about this
+Wendland object; took to weeping; sat weeping whole days; and when
+Olaf asked, "What ails thee, then?" would answer, or did answer once,
+"What a different man my father Harald Gormson was" (vulgarly called
+Blue-tooth), "compared with some that are now kings! For no King Svein
+in the world would Harald Gormson have given up his own or his wife's
+just rights!" Whereupon Tryggveson started up, exclaiming, in some
+heat, "Of thy brother Svein I never was afraid; if Svein and I meet in
+contest, it will not be Svein, I believe, that conquers;" and went off
+in a towering fume. Consented, however, at last, had to consent, to
+get his fine fleet equipped and armed, and decide to sail with it to
+Wendland to have speech and settlement with King Burislav.
+
+Tryggveson had already ships and navies that were the wonder of the
+North. Especially in building war-ships--the Crane, the Serpent, last
+of all the Long Serpent--he had, for size, for outward beauty, and
+inward perfection of equipment, transcended all example.
+
+This new sea expedition became an object of attention to all
+neighbors; especially Queen Sigrid the Proud and Svein Forkbeard, her
+now king, were attentive to it.
+
+"This insolent Tryggveson," Queen Sigrid would often say, and had long
+been saying, to her Svein, "to marry thy sister without leave had or
+asked of thee; and now flaunting forth his war navies, as if he, king
+only of paltry Norway, were the big hero of the North! Why do you
+suffer it, you kings really great?"
+
+By such persuasions, and reiterations, King Svein of Denmark, King
+Olaf of Sweden, and Jarl Eric,[12] now a great man there, grown rich
+by prosperous sea-robbery and other good management, were brought to
+take the matter up, and combine strenuously for destruction of King
+Olaf Tryggveson on this grand Wendland expedition of his. Fleets and
+forces were with best diligence got ready; and, withal, a certain Jarl
+Sigwald of Jomsburg, chieftain of the Jomsvikings, a powerful,
+plausible, and cunning man, was appointed to find means of joining
+himself to Tryggveson's grand voyage; of getting into Tryggveson's
+confidence, and keeping Svein Forkbeard, Eric, and the Swedish king
+aware of all his movements.
+
+         [Footnote 12: Eric, son of King Hakon.]
+
+King Olaf Tryggveson, unacquainted with all this, sailed away in
+summer, with his splendid fleet; went through the Belts with
+prosperous winds, under bright skies, to the admiration of both
+shores. Such a fleet, with its shining Serpents, long and short, and
+perfection of equipment and appearance, the Baltic never saw before.
+Jarl Sigwald joined with new ships by the way. "Had," he too, "a visit
+to King Burislav to pay; how could he ever do it in better company?"
+and studiously and skilfully ingratiated himself with King Olaf. Old
+Burislav, when they arrived, proved altogether courteous, handsome,
+and amenable; agreed at once to Olaf's claims for his now queen, did
+the rites of hospitality with a generous plenitude to Olaf; who
+cheerily renewed acquaintance with that country, known to him in early
+days (the cradle of his fortunes in the viking line), and found old
+friends there still surviving, joyful to meet him again. Jarl Sigwald
+encouraged these delays, King Svein & Co. not being yet quite ready.
+"Get ready!" Sigwald directed them, and they diligently did. Olaf's
+men their business now done, were impatient to be home, and grudged
+every day of loitering there; but, till Sigwald pleased, such his
+power of flattering and cajoling Tryggveson, they could not get away.
+
+At length, Sigwald's secret messengers reporting all ready on the part
+of Svein & Co., Olaf took farewell of Burislav and Wendland, and all
+gladly sailed away. Svein, Eric, and the Swedish king, with their
+combined fleets, lay in wait behind some cape in a safe little bay of
+some island, then called Svolde, but not in our time to be found: the
+Baltic tumults in the fourteenth century having swallowed it, as some
+think, and leaving us uncertain whether it was in the neighborhood of
+Rugen Island or in the Sound of Elsinore. There lay Svein, Eric & Co.
+waiting till Tryggveson and his fleet came up, Sigwald's spy
+messengers daily reporting what progress he and it had made. At
+length, one bright summer morning, the fleet made appearance, sailing
+in loose order, Sigwald, as one acquainted with the shoal places,
+steering ahead, and showing them the way.
+
+Snorro rises into one of his pictorial fits, seized with enthusiasm at
+the thought of such a fleet, and reports to us largely in what order
+Tryggveson's winged Coursers of the Deep, in long series, for perhaps
+an hour or more, came on, and what the three potentates, from their
+knoll of vantage, said of each as it hove in sight. Svein thrice over
+guessed this and the other noble vessel to be the Long Serpent; Eric
+always correcting him: "No, that is not the Long Serpent yet" (and
+aside always), "Nor shall you be lord of it, King, when it does come."
+The Long Serpent itself did make appearance. Eric, Svein, and the
+Swedish king hurried on board, and pushed out of their hiding-place
+into the open sea. Treacherous Sigwald, at the beginning of all this,
+had suddenly doubled that cape of theirs, and struck into the bay out
+of sight, leaving the foremost Tryggveson ships astonished, and
+uncertain what to do, if it were not simply to strike sail and wait
+till Olaf himself with the Long Serpent arrived.
+
+Olaf's chief captains, seeing the enemy's huge fleet come out, and how
+the matter lay, strongly advised King Olaf to elude this stroke of
+treachery, and, with all sail, hold on his course, fight being now on
+so unequal terms. Snorro says, the king, high on the quarter-deck
+where he stood, replied, "Strike the sails! never shall men of mine
+think of flight. I never fled from battle. Let God dispose of my
+life; but flight I will never take." And so the battle arrangements
+immediately began, and the battle with all fury went loose, and lasted
+hour after hour, till almost sunset, if I well recollect. "Olaf stood
+on the Serpent's quarter-deck," says Snorro, "high over the others. He
+had a gilt shield and a helmet inlaid with gold; over his armor he had
+a short red coat, and was easily distinguished from other men."
+Snorro's account of the battle is altogether animated, graphic, and so
+minute that antiquaries gather from it, if so disposed (which we but
+little are), what the methods of Norse sea-fighting were; their
+shooting of arrows, casting of javelins, pitching of big stones,
+ultimately boarding, and mutual clashing and smashing, which it would
+not avail us to speak of here. Olaf stood conspicuous all day,
+throwing javelins, of deadly aim, with both hands at once;
+encouraging, fighting, and commanding like a highest sea-king.
+
+The Danish fleet, the Swedish fleet, were, both of them, quickly dealt
+with, and successively withdrew out of shot-range. And then Jarl Eric
+came up, and fiercely grappled with the Long Serpent, or, rather, with
+her surrounding comrades; and gradually, as they were beaten empty of
+men, with the Long Serpent herself. The fight grew ever fiercer, more
+furious. Eric was supplied with new men from the Swedes and Danes;
+Olaf had no such resource, except from the crews of his own beaten
+ships; and at length this also failed him; all his ships, except the
+Long Serpent, being beaten and emptied. Olaf fought on unyielding.
+Eric twice boarded him, was twice repulsed. Olaf kept his
+quarter-deck; unconquerable, though left now more and more hopeless,
+fatally short of help. A tall young man, called Einar Tamberskelver,
+very celebrated and important afterward in Norway, and already the
+best archer known, kept busy with his bow. Twice he nearly shot Jarl
+Eric in his ship. "Shoot me that man," said Jarl Eric to a bowman near
+him; and, just as Tamberskelver was drawing his bow the third time, an
+arrow hit it in the middle and broke it in two. "What is this that has
+broken?" asked King Olaf. "Norway from thy hand, King," answered
+Tamberskelver. Tryggveson's men, he observed with surprise, were
+striking violently on Eric's; but to no purpose; nobody fell. "How is
+this?" asked Tryggveson. "Our swords are notched and blunted, King;
+they do not cut." Olaf stept down to his arm-chest; delivered out new
+swords; and it was observed as he did it, blood ran trickling from his
+wrist; but none knew where the wound was. Eric boarded a third time.
+Olaf, left with hardly more than one man, sprang overboard (one sees
+that red coat of his still glancing in the evening sun), and sank in
+the deep waters to his long rest.
+
+Rumor ran among his people that he still was not dead; grounding on
+some movement by the ships of that traitorous Sigwald, they fancied
+Olaf had dived beneath the keels of his enemies, and got away with
+Sigwald, as Sigwald himself evidently did. "Much was hoped, supposed,
+spoken," says one old mourning Skald; "but the truth was, Olaf
+Tryggveson was never seen in Norseland more." Strangely he remains
+still a shining figure to us; the wildly beautifullest man, in body
+and in soul, that one has ever heard of in the North.
+
+
+
+
+WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR
+
+By G. W. PROTHERO
+
+(1027-1087)
+
+[Illustration: William the Conqueror.]
+
+
+William I., King of England, surnamed the Conqueror, was born in 1027
+or 1028. He was the son of Robert, Duke of Normandy and Herleva,
+daughter of Fulbert, a tanner of Falaise. When he was about seven
+years old his father, intending to go on pilgrimage and having no
+legitimate sons, proposed him as his heir. The great men of the duchy
+did homage to the child, and a year later (1035) his father's death
+left him to make good his claim. Anarchy was the natural result of a
+minority. William's life was on more than one occasion in danger, and
+several of his guardians perished in his service. At the earliest
+possible age he received knighthood from the hands of Henry I. of
+France, and speedily began to show signs of his capacity for
+government.
+
+In 1042 he insisted that the "truce of God" should be proclaimed and
+observed in Normandy. When he was about twenty years old his authority
+was threatened by a general conspiracy, which spread through the
+western half of his duchy. An attempt was made to seize him at
+Valognes, and he only escaped by riding hard all night to his own
+castle at Falaise. Bessin and Cotentin, the most Norman parts of
+Normandy, rose in rebellion. William sought and obtained aid from King
+Henry, and completely defeated the rebels at Val-es-Dunes near Caen
+(1047). The battle was but a combat of horse, but it decided the fate
+of the war and left William master of his duchy. The debt which he
+owed to Henry was repaid next year. War broke out between Geoffrey,
+Count of Anjou, and Henry (1048), and William came to his suzerain's
+assistance. Alençon, one of the chief border fortresses between
+Normandy and Maine, which had received an Angevin garrison, was
+captured by the duke. The inhabitants had taunted him with his birth,
+and William, who had dealt leniently with the rebels after
+Val-es-Dunes, took a cruel revenge. Soon afterward Domfront, another
+important border fortress, fell into his hands.
+
+In 1051 William visited England. Two years later he married Matilda,
+daughter of Baldwin, Earl of Flanders, and a descendant of Alfred. The
+marriage had been forbidden by a council at Rheims as uncanonical, and
+was opposed by Lanfranc, Prior of Bec. This produced a quarrel between
+Lanfranc and William, who ravaged the lands of the abbey and ordered
+the banishment of its prior. Lanfranc, however, soon came to terms
+with the duke, and engaged to obtain a dispensation from Rome, which,
+however, was not granted till 1059.
+
+Strengthened by this alliance with Flanders, William showed himself
+more than a match for all his enemies. Henry, who had hitherto been
+for the most part friendly, now turned against him. After the
+suppression of some isolated revolts, William was threatened in 1054
+by a great confederacy. His dominions were invaded by the forces of
+the French king, in combination with those of Geoffrey of Anjou,
+Theobald of Blois, and others. William remained at first on the
+defensive; then, falling suddenly on one of the French armies at
+Mortemer, in the north-eastern corner of his duchy, he cut it to
+pieces. This blow put an end to the war; Henry made peace (1055), and
+William took the opportunity of extending his dominions in a southerly
+direction. He built fresh fortresses and exacted homage from Count
+Geoffrey of Mayenne.
+
+In 1058 Henry and Count Geoffrey made a final effort to crush their
+dangerous neighbor; but the effort failed, like those which preceded
+it. William again allowed the allies to enter and ravage his
+territory; but, while the French army was crossing the Dive at
+Varaville, he attacked and completely destroyed their rear-guard,
+which was cut off from the van by the advancing tide. Henry again made
+peace, and soon afterward died (1060). The death of Geoffrey of Anjou
+in the same year relieved William of his most formidable rival for the
+possession of Maine. Herbert Wake-Dog, the lawful ruler of that
+territory, who had been dispossessed by Geoffrey, recovered his
+dominions on the latter's death. He at once "commended" himself to
+William, thus making the duke his heir. On his death in 1063, William
+took possession of Le Mans and the county of which it was the
+capital--an acquisition which extended his southern frontier nearly to
+the Loire, almost severed Brittany from the rest of France, and paved
+the way for the subsequent junction with Anjou.
+
+It was apparently soon after this event, in the year 1064, that
+Harold, then Earl of Wessex, visited Normandy, and, according to
+legend, was entrapped into an oath to support William as heir to the
+English throne. When Harold was elected and crowned King of England
+(1066), William's first step was to send an embassy to him demanding
+the fulfilment of his promise. The purport of the demand is as
+uncertain as that of the pledge; but, whatever it was, Harold rejected
+it. The duke thereupon summoned a council of his supporters, who
+advised him to call together an assembly representing the whole duchy.
+This assembly, a typical feudal parliament, met at Lillebonne. While
+acting together it appears to have opposed the scheme for the conquest
+of England which William laid before it, but its members were won over
+singly. He then made a compact with Tostig, the banished brother of
+Harold; he came to terms with the Emperor Henry; he conciliated
+Philip, King of France, by offering to hold England as his vassal;
+and--most important of all--he obtained the sanction of Rome.
+
+Pope Alexander II., not only issued a bull declaring William to be the
+rightful heir to the throne, but sent him a ring and a banner as
+symbols that the blessing of heaven was on his claim. Embarking at St.
+Valéry, William landed, on 28th of September, at Pevensey. The battle
+of Senlac or Hastings (October 14, 1066), was a decisive victory for
+the Duke of Normandy; but it took five years more to complete the
+conquest of England.
+
+Early in 1067 William made a progress through the eastern and central
+parts of his new dominions. All that had as yet submitted to him was
+comprised in the old kingdoms of Wessex and East Anglia, and a small
+portion of Mercia. He at once secured his hold over these districts by
+the erection of fortresses in London, Norwich, and elsewhere. He
+received homage from the great men; he confiscated the lands of those
+who had resisted him; and, while keeping a large number of manors for
+himself, he granted others to his followers. Even those who had not
+resisted were regarded as having legally forfeited their title and had
+to submit to a re-grant on less advantageous terms. In March, 1067,
+William returned to Normandy, taking with him as hostages the Earls
+Eadwine, Morkere, and Waltheof.
+
+The revolts which broke out in the north and southwest compelled him
+to return to England in December. Early in 1068 he marched on Exeter,
+as the centre of the western revolt. He took the town and built a
+castle, after which he subdued Cornwall, and then marching northward
+forced Bristol to submit. In the summer of 1068 there was a general
+rising of the North, of which Eadgar was the nominal head; but Eadwine
+and Morkere were the moving spirits. The insurgents were aided by
+Malcolm, King of Scotland. William had, however, only to show himself
+in order to put down the insurrection. He journeyed northward, by way
+of Warwick and Nottingham, to York, received the submission of
+Eadwine, Morkere, and Malcolm, and returned by way of Lincoln and
+Cambridge. His march was accompanied by heavy confiscations, and great
+castles, rising in places of vantage, rendered the Norman power at
+once visible and secure.
+
+In the spring of 1069 a fresh revolt broke out. Robert of Comines, the
+newly appointed Earl of Northumberland, was slain at Durham; a Danish
+fleet entered the Humber, and a Danish army, joined by Eadgar and
+Waltheof, seized and burned York. The sons of Harold attacked Devon,
+while other isolated outbreaks took place in the west. These were
+speedily put down by William's lieutenants; and in the autumn the king
+himself, going northward a second time, recovered York, and harried
+Northumberland with ruthless deliberation. Returning to keep Christmas
+at York, he set out again in January, 1070, to oppose Malcolm, who had
+crossed the border in aid of the insurgents. He forced Waltheof to
+submit, and drove the Scottish king back into his own country; then,
+marching over pathless fells in the depth of winter, he reached
+Chester, took the town, and founded another castle.
+
+[Illustration: William at Hastings.]
+
+Northumbria, exhausted and ruined, gave up the struggle, and the
+omission of the northern counties from the Domesday survey throws a
+grim light on the completeness of the Conquest. In one district only,
+the fens of Cambridgeshire, where Hereward still held out, the spirit
+of resistance survived. In April, 1071, William arrived at Cambridge
+and commenced a regular blockade. Advancing cautiously by means of a
+causeway through the fens, he entered Ely in October, and therewith
+the last flicker of independence died out. The conquest of England was
+completed. To guard against any fresh incitements to rebellion from
+Scotland, William in 1072 invaded that country and forced Malcolm to
+do him homage--an event which had an important effect on the
+subsequent relations of the two countries.
+
+Henceforward such trouble as William met with came, not from the
+English, but from his Norman vassals or his own family. In 1073 the
+citizens of Le Mans took advantage of his absence to set up a
+"commune," and invited Fulk of Anjou to protect them. William was soon
+in the field, this time assisted by English troops. He harried the
+country, recovered Le Mans, and made an advantageous peace with the
+count. By a skilful compromise he recognized Fulk as overlord of
+Maine, but kept actual possession of the district, for which his son
+Robert did homage. A year later a formidable revolt broke out in
+England. Two of William's great vassals, Ralph, Earl of Norfolk, and
+Roger, Earl of Hereford, rebelled, and a Danish fleet, probably in
+alliance with them, appeared in the Humber. William returned at once
+to England and put down the insurrection. A great meeting of the witan
+was summoned to try Roger and Waltheof, for the latter, though he took
+no part in the rebellion, had undoubtedly been privy to it. Roger was
+imprisoned for life and Waltheof was condemned to death.
+
+This was the last instance of opposition to William in England; but
+the remaining ten years of his life were occupied with almost
+continuous troubles on the Continent. In 1076 he was engaged in a war
+with Brittany, which the interference of Philip of France forced him
+to bring to an unsuccessful conclusion. Next year he quarrelled with
+his son Robert. Matilda took the young man's side against her husband,
+and Philip lent him his assistance. In 1080 William was at open war
+with his son. While besieging him at Gerberoi he received a wound and
+was forced to raise the siege. A temporary reconciliation followed,
+soon to give way to another and a final quarrel. Three years later
+Matilda died, and troubles thickened upon William. A rebellious
+vassal, Hubert of Beaumont, seems to have held him at bay for nearly
+three years. Rival claims to Vexin, a district on the eastern frontier
+of Normandy, involved him in another war with France. He was growing
+old and weary, and, as he lay sick at Rouen in the summer of 1087, the
+French army harried his territories with impunity. When he had
+recovered sufficiently to take the field, he invaded Vexin and burned
+the town of Mantes. But his horse, plunging in the burning cinders,
+inflicted on him an internal injury, which proved his death-wound He
+was carried to St. Gervais, where, on September 9, 1087, he died. His
+body was conveyed to Caen and buried in the great minster which he had
+built.
+
+The career of William as a warrior and conqueror occupies of necessity
+the largest space in his life; but his fame as a statesman and
+administrator is not less than that which he won on the battle-field.
+This is not the place to discuss the results of the Conquest, but the
+policy of the Conqueror in regard to Church and State cannot be
+overlooked. An orthodox churchman, a supporter of union under the
+successor of Peter against the schismatic tendencies of the English
+Church, he nevertheless repelled any claim on the part of Rome to
+interference with his political sovereignty. He allowed Peter's pence
+to be collected, but refused to pay tribute to the Pope. While
+recognizing him as head of the Church, he declined to hold his kingdom
+as his vassal, nor would he permit papal bulls to enter England or
+excommunications to be issued against any of his subjects without his
+leave. He controlled all appointments to important ecclesiastical
+dignities; he made laws for the Church; he dealt justice to
+ecclesiastics, high and low, in his own courts. At the same time he
+had no desire to humiliate the Church; on the contrary, he sought to
+elevate it to a higher position in the State, to make it a more potent
+agent of civilization. A weaker statesman might have seen his own
+advantage in encouraging the rivalry between Canterbury and York;
+William strengthened the Church by forcing the younger to give way to
+the elder see. With the same object, that of increasing the efficiency
+of ecclesiastical organization, he severed the temporal and spiritual
+jurisdictions and furthered the enforcement of clerical celibacy.
+Finally, the trust which he reposed in Lanfranc from the time of his
+appointment to the see of Canterbury in 1070 shows not only his
+insight into character but his respect for the head of the English
+Church.
+
+In regard to temporal affairs William was rather an administrator than
+a lawgiver. His reign is not marked by a series of legislative acts
+like those of Henry II. or Edward I.; but his work was the
+indispensable preliminary to theirs, for a strong monarchy was the
+first requisite of the state. To establish the power of the crown was
+William's principal care. The disintegrating tendencies of feudalism
+had already been visible under the Anglo-Saxon kings. William, while
+he established fully developed feudalism as a social, territorial, and
+military system in his new dominions, took measures to prevent it from
+undermining his own authority. He scattered the estates of his great
+vassals, so as to hinder them from building up provincial
+principalities; he maintained the higher popular courts against the
+encroachments of manorial jurisdictions; he prevented the claims of
+feudal lordship from standing between himself and the mass of his
+subjects, by exacting an oath from every landholder at the meeting of
+Salisbury plain; finally, by the great survey which resulted in
+"Domesday Book" he not only asserted his right to make a general
+inquisition into property, but laid the firm basis of knowledge which
+was indispensable to centralized government and taxation.
+
+The care which he took to maintain English laws and institutions is
+part of the same policy. He balanced the two nationalities over which
+he ruled, and obliged each to depend upon him as its leader or
+protector against the other. He ruled as an English king; his feudal
+council was the witenagemot with a new qualification; but at the same
+time he was lord of the land as no king had been before him, and he
+enjoyed not only all the income of his predecessors but in addition
+all the dues which came to him as feudal sovereign. He was thus
+perhaps the strongest and most absolute monarch that has ever sat upon
+the English throne.
+
+In character William was stern, self-reliant, and imperious in a high
+degree. He was not naturally cruel; but he was ruthless if it served
+his purpose, and could take pitiless vengeance for an insult or a
+wrong. He was too strong to prefer deceit when force would serve as
+well, but his diplomacy was subtle and guileful, and no scruple turned
+him aside from his aim. His temper, originally forgiving, was soured
+by opposition toward the end of his life, and his tyrannical
+tendencies were strengthened by the long exercise of uncontrolled
+power. His passionate devotion to the chase is only too clearly shown
+in the harshness of his forest laws. In private life he displayed
+domestic virtues, and his fidelity to his wife was exceptional in the
+annals of his house and time.
+
+
+
+
+GODFREY DE BOUILLON
+
+By HENRY G. HEWLETT
+
+(1060-1100)
+
+[Illustration: Crusaders. [TN]]
+
+
+In the year 1094 the Turks besieged the Holy City of Jerusalem, then
+ruled by the Fatimite caliphs, and took it. Pilgrims were then
+subjected to every form of violence and insult. The Greek emperor
+Alexius Comnenus, whom the Turks had recently defeated, implored the
+assistance of the great Christian states against this new and
+formidable foe. Pope Urban, to whom the letter was addressed, summoned
+a council of nobles and prelates in Auvergne and, with solemn and
+weighty words, appealed to the princes and soldiers of France who were
+seated before him. He reminded them of the national exploits of their
+fathers, whom Charles Martel and Charlemagne led against the Saracens,
+and called on the sons of such fathers to achieve yet greater deeds.
+As the burning words dropped from his lips they lighted a flame in
+every heart, and the whole assembly suddenly rose, and shouted with
+one voice, "It is God's will! It is God's will!" Urban caught up the
+cry: "Yes, without doubt, it is God's will. He has dictated to you
+the words, let them be your war-cry, and be this your badge!" As he
+spoke he held up a crucifix. The great meeting was moved like one man;
+and, falling on their knees, all confessed their sins, received
+absolution, and took vows of service in the Holy War. A red cross,
+embroidered on the right shoulder, was the common sign assumed by all
+the soldiers, who thence acquired the name of "Crusaders." Estates
+were pawned and sold to obtain money for the expenses of the
+undertaking, and many commercial cities purchased important liberties
+from their lords at this favorable opportunity. The chief of one of
+three great divisions into which the Christian army was formed was a
+man whom we have taken as the very type and model of a true
+Crusader,--Godfrey de Bouillon.
+
+[Illustration: Godfrey de Bouillon. [TN]]
+
+He was the son of Gustavus, Count of Bouillon, or Boulogne, in the
+district of Ardennes and province of Luxembourg, and was born about
+the year 1060. His profession had been from his youth that of arms,
+and his earliest services in the field were rendered to his lord, the
+Emperor of Germany. In the war of Investiture he had taken an active
+part against Gregory VII., and bore the Imperial standard at the
+battle of Merseberg. By his hand the usurper, Rudolph, Duke of Suabia,
+fell in that decisive encounter. Godfrey's sword, swayed by his young
+and powerful wrist, is said to have shorn off the right arm of Rudolph
+at a single stroke. For this valiant deed, Henry IV. created Godfrey
+Duke of his province of Bouillon; or, according to some historians,
+Lower Lorraine. At the subsequent siege of Rome, Godfrey made himself
+again prominent by scaling the city walls among the first. This action
+colored his whole life. All his contemporaries portray his nature as
+displaying the loftiest integrity and deepest piety. Sound and clear
+as his intellect was, he yet shared in the superstition of his times,
+and was led by reflection to believe that, in bearing arms against
+God's vicegerent, and attacking a city where so many apostles and
+martyrs lay buried, he had been guilty of a heinous sin. Remorse
+worked on his mind so heavily that he took a vow to join in the
+Crusade, from a conviction that his glaring crime could only be
+blotted out by a heroism equally conspicuous. His noble birth, and yet
+nobler character, won for him so high a place in the estimation of his
+fellows, that, on announcing his intention of undertaking the Crusade,
+hundreds flocked to his standard. A worthy general, truly, of soldiers
+thus ardent in a cause which they deemed divine! To the qualities of
+bodily strength and beauty, which in those days were chiefly valued in
+the head of an army, Godfrey happily united the more durable strength
+of intellect and beauty of soul. His knightly heart and statesman's
+mind never ran counter, and whatever generous policy the one dictated,
+was carried into effect by the wisdom of the other. Although averse to
+distinction, it was thrust upon him by the votes of his fellow-chiefs,
+and their decision was gladly hailed by the common soldiers, who loved
+Godfrey as a father. He would not, therefore, refuse the post of
+general, but applied himself to its duties with activity. He first set
+an example of unselfish zeal to his brother nobles, by disposing of
+his duchy for the purpose of his expedition,--an example faithfully
+followed by the leading nobility of France and the Rhine. He then
+summoned his army to join him in August, 1096, on the banks of the
+rivers Meuse and Moselle. At the appointed time, a force of 80,000
+foot and 10,000 horse assembled under his banner, and set out on its
+march through Germany,--the two other divisions of the Christian army
+taking a different route. On reaching Hungary, Carloman, who then
+ruled that country, showed some signs of objection to the passage of
+so formidable a body,--remembering the licentious excesses that had
+been committed by the rabble which followed Peter the Hermit. Here
+Godfrey's wisdom was admirably displayed. By his firm measures of
+restraint on the impetuosity of his troops he first proved that they
+were under the influence of strict discipline. Then, confiding himself
+to the justice and good faith of Carloman, he disarmed that monarch's
+suspicions by frankness and simplicity. The result was that, instead
+of opposition, the Hungarian prince gave him help, and escorted the
+Crusaders with a body of cavalry into the territories of Greece.
+Alexius Comnenus was by this time alarmed at the eagerness with which
+the Christian states had responded to his appeal for aid against the
+infidel. He mistrusted, not without reason, the intentions of some of
+the chiefs of the expedition,--mere adventurers, like the Norman
+Bohemond of Tarentum for example, who was his avowed foe,--and
+therefore deemed it politic to guard against danger to himself by
+demanding homage from all the Crusaders who entered his dominions. The
+two other divisions of the Christian army were now on their way to
+Constantinople, by a different road from that taken by Godfrey. One of
+the French nobles, the Count de Vermandois, was shipwrecked on the
+coast of Epirus, and Alexius unjustifiably detained him as a prisoner
+or hostage for the good faith of the other leaders. On learning these
+tidings, Godfrey, who was now in Thrace, sent to the emperor,
+requiring the count's release. This was not accorded, and Godfrey
+therefore treated the country as hostile, levying contributions on the
+people as he marched through. The emperor immediately saw his error,
+and promised to grant the count's release on the arrival of the French
+army. This promise satisfied Godfrey, and his march was once more
+peaceful. The wily emperor, in the meanwhile, obtained from his
+prisoner an oath of homage, hoping to induce the other Crusaders to
+follow the example. Godfrey, on his arrival, at first refused this,
+as unbecoming the rank and character which he bore; but, finding that
+the act would appease the jealousies which had already broken out
+between the Greeks and Franks, and put a check on the schemes of those
+leaders in the crusading ranks whom Alexius especially dreaded, he at
+last consented. The other chieftains made a like submission; and this
+sacrifice of pride, by healing internal discords, served for a season
+to promote the success of the Crusade.
+
+After a sojourn of some time at Constantinople, the Crusaders, now
+formed into one army, crossed the Bosphorus, and entered Bithynia.
+Here the sight of the carnage which the Turks had inflicted on the
+weak and disorderly body that Peter had led forth, stimulated the zeal
+and indignation of the Christian host. Its passage through the Turkish
+kingdom of Roum was not unresisted. David, then Sultan, a valiant
+prince, had already prepared an army, and fortified his capital of
+Nice,--a position of great natural strength.
+
+The Crusaders advanced in excellent order, and, after twice routing
+the Turkish army of defence, commenced the siege. Godfrey is said to
+have distinguished himself by a feat of skill on one occasion during
+this assault. A gigantic Turk, who was the hero of the Moslem army,
+had greatly harassed the Christians by his wondrous success in the use
+of the javelin. Having spent his shafts one day, he ascended a tower,
+and showered masses of rock on the besiegers, whom he at the same time
+abused and defied to combat. The Christian archers played upon his
+person, without bringing him down; until Godfrey grasped a cross-bow,
+and at one shot pierced the giant's heart. The siege lasted seven
+weeks; and was prosecuted with such vigor and ingenuity by the
+Crusaders that the Turks were on the point of yielding, when Alexius,
+who had sent a body of Greeks with the army, craftily procured to
+himself the glory of conquest by instructing his general to intrigue
+with the enemy secretly, and persuade them to yield to his power, on
+condition of protection. The Greek general so worked upon the fears
+and hopes of the garrison, that his advice was accepted; and, to the
+surprise and anger of the Franks, the emperor's flag one day appeared
+on the towers of Nice, and the city surrendered. This act of perfidy
+reopened the jealousy between the Eastern and Western Christians,
+which Godfrey had labored to extinguish; and from this time may be
+dated the rise of those internal divisions which eventually proved so
+fatal to the Crusaders.
+
+Leaving Nice, the Crusaders advanced in two divisions, both without
+guides, and through a hostile and desert country. The Turks, in great
+numbers, followed in their rear. Godfrey and the Count of Toulouse
+headed one division; Bohemond, Prince of Tarentum, and Robert, Duke of
+Normandy (son of William the Conqueror), the other. The latter body
+had separated from the former at some distance, and was traversing the
+plains near Dorylæum, in Phrygia, when a sudden attack was made upon
+it by a powerful army of Turks. The Christians were taken by surprise,
+while exhausted with heat and fatigue, and in an unfavorable
+situation. In spite of the heroic valor of Bohemond, Robert, and other
+knights, the battle was turning against them, when Godfrey's division,
+to which a message had been despatched, came up. He shouted aloud the
+Crusaders' war-cry: "It is God's will!" and the whole army, echoing
+the shout, by a gallant charge retrieved the fortunes of the day and
+completely routed the Turks. After this success the Crusaders resolved
+to march in a single body, and thus prevent a recurrence of the hazard
+which they had escaped. The Turks preceded them, burning the crops as
+they went, and the Christians, in consequence, suffered fearful
+privations from famine during the march. Hundreds perished from
+exhaustion. The horses died for want of sufficient food and water; and
+knights were seen either walking on foot, or riding on oxen and asses,
+carrying their own armor. In passing through Pisidia, an anecdote is
+related of Godfrey which is characteristic of his courage and
+gallantry. He was wandering among the recesses of a forest in pursuit
+of game, which was needed for the supply of the troops, when he came
+upon a private soldier of the army, who was defending himself from the
+attack of a bear. Godfrey struck at the beast, which at once turned on
+its new assailant, inflicting a deep wound in his thigh. Another
+stroke from the skilful hunter's arm terminated the contest; but the
+blood streamed from his wound so rapidly, that he scarcely reached the
+camp alive. The grief of his soldiers was intense, as they beheld
+their beloved leader stretched on a litter, and borne into his tent as
+if dead. The skill of his physicians and a long interval of rest
+triumphed over the weakness occasioned by the loss of blood, and
+Godfrey once more appeared at the head of his army.
+
+Antiochetta, the capital of Pisidia, attempted no resistance; and here
+the main body of the Christians recruited for some time. Meanwhile, a
+party of Crusaders, headed by Baldwin, brother of Godfrey, and a
+famous knight named Tancred, had been sent forward to clear a passage
+for the army. Tancred subdued the city of Tarsus; but his victory was
+usurped by Baldwin, whose ambitions and covetous nature bore no
+resemblance to that of his brother. Tancred, a man after Godfrey's
+heart, surrendered this conquest for the sake of peace; but, when
+Baldwin showed symptoms of repeating his injustice, resisted by force.
+Tancred was defeated, but a reconciliation took place between the
+combatants. Baldwin, who had no real interest in the success of the
+Crusade, soon afterwards turned aside into Mesopotamia, where he made
+himself master of Edessa, and formed a Christian state there. Though
+founded by merely personal ambition, this eventually proved of great
+assistance to the Crusaders, by checking the progress of the Turkish
+arms in Asia.
+
+The main body now crossed the Taurus, after a tedious and painful
+passage, and presented itself before the walls of Antioch, then ruled
+by an independent Turkish emir named Accien. This city was especially
+dear to the Christians, as the first in which their title had been
+assumed; and the sight of its walls roused their flagging spirits.
+Some of the generals advised that the siege should be deferred for
+some months, until reinforcements arrived, and the winter was over;
+but the majority of the chiefs, among whom Godfrey was conspicuous,
+confident of success, and dreading the depressing influences of delay,
+urged an immediate attack, which was accordingly made. The Turks
+adopted the stratagem of apparently neglecting to defend the city; and
+the Christians, falling into the snare, scattered their forces. The
+licentiousness of some of their number, moreover, proved fatal to
+their vigilance, and a sudden sortie of the garrison inflicted deadly
+havoc. The siege was then commenced in earnest; but the city was so
+strongly guarded, that months elapsed without any impression being
+made upon its walls; and disease, famine, and the inclemency of the
+season, united with the missiles of the Turks to weaken the Christian
+force. Many of the leaders (Robert, Duke of Normandy, among them),
+withdrew in cowardly disgust at the failure of the siege and the
+pressure of want; while despair drove many of those who remained to
+courses of reckless vice. Godfrey, firm to his duty and strong in
+faith, aided the exertions of the clergy in encouraging the spirits of
+his troops, and restraining their profligate excesses. A timely supply
+of provisions from some of the Armenian monasteries, and a brilliant
+victory obtained by Bohemond and the Count of Toulouse over an army
+which the Sultans of Aleppo and Damascus had sent to the succor of
+Antioch, rewarded Godfrey's confidence and infused new vigor into the
+hearts of his army. This was needed to sustain the brunt of a
+desperate encounter which shortly afterward took place between the
+besieged and their besiegers. A reinforcement of Italian Crusaders
+having arrived, it was suddenly attacked by a large Turkish force, and
+thrown into disorder. Godfrey, who had been engaged on the siege,
+rapidly marshalled his men, and fell upon the enemy. A sortie of the
+garrison was immediately made, and a fearful conflict ensued under the
+walls of the city. The Turks were put to flight with immense loss, and
+the Christians pursued them up to the very gates. In this scene of
+carnage, Godfrey's recorded feats of valor approached the incredible.
+His sword clave the stoutest armor asunder at a blow. A gigantic Arab
+horseman offered him single combat, and broke his shield by way of
+challenge. Godfrey rose in his stirrups, and smote the Arab on the
+shoulder with such tremendous force as to split his whole body in
+twain; half of which, with the head, fell into the river Orontes,
+while the remainder, yet clinging to the terrified horse, was carried
+back into the city.
+
+Notwithstanding all these exploits, the Turks held out, and were only
+defeated at last by stratagem. This was achieved by the skill of
+Bohemond, who intrigued with Phirous, one of the leaders of the
+garrison, for the surrender of the city, upon favorable terms to
+himself. Bohemond stipulated with his fellow-chiefs that the
+principality of Antioch should be granted him in return for his
+services; and, after some opposition, this was conceded. Phirous
+managed the perilous task of admitting the Crusaders with the utmost
+adroitness. At the dead of night the walls were scaled by Bohemond and
+his followers, and Antioch was taken, in June, 1098, after a siege of
+eight months. Accien, its prince, and 6,000 Turks, are said to have
+fallen on this eventful night.
+
+The Crusaders had no sooner obtained this signal success than they
+were in their turn besieged by an army raised by the Sultans of
+Mossoul and other cities. Antioch had just sustained so long a siege,
+that the Christians found scarcely any provisions on their entrance,
+and their besiegers now cut off all supplies from without. Famine soon
+raged in the city to such an extent, that horses, roots, leaves,
+leathern shoes, and even human bodies, were eagerly devoured by the
+starving soldiers. Godfrey shared his scanty meals with his comrades,
+and is related to have slain his last charger for food. Desertion from
+the ranks now occurred in great numbers, and despair led many to
+blaspheme who were ashamed to fly. To add to the misery of the
+Christians, they learned that the Emperor Alexius, who was advancing
+with reinforcements, had judged their case hopeless, and retraced his
+steps. The city was now scarcely defended, and many proposed to
+surrender it, even on degrading terms, so that their lives were
+spared.
+
+Godfrey and the clergy again exerted themselves successfully. They
+ventured to challenge the Turkish army to a combat of picked troops;
+and when the proposal was spurned, boldly advanced to attack the whole
+force. The appearance of the Crusaders, as they marched out of the
+city, must have been indeed pitiable. Privations had so reduced them,
+that many had no clothing. Some were nearly fainting from weakness.
+The barons and knights proceeded chiefly on foot, and camels and asses
+supplied the place of horses to most of those who rode. Yet the
+burning zeal of the Christians made the march seem like a triumphal
+procession; and while the clergy sang hymns of consolation and
+victory, the soldiers responded with the war-cry, "It is God's will!
+It is God's will!" The Turkish general, fearing nothing from an army
+so scantily provided with the means of war, was taken by surprise, but
+hastily arranged his troops in order of battle. The sight of several
+natural prodigies, such as the sudden appearance of a meteor, and the
+favorable direction of the wind, acting upon the superstitious fancy
+of the Christians, impelled them to extraordinary exertions. The
+Moslem forces, on the other hand, were weakened by the existence of
+rivalries and discords in their midst, and lacked the stimulus which
+the Christians derived from desperation. The attack was commenced by a
+volley of arrows, followed by a charge of the Turkish and Arabian
+archers, which the Crusaders not only steadily sustained, but
+vigorously returned. Godfrey, who commanded their right wing, broke
+the left wing of the Moslem; but the latter had encompassed the river
+with a large force, and attacked the Christians in the rear. In spite
+of the heroism of Godfrey and Tancred, who slaughtered all that
+ventured to compete with them, and the brave resistance of the whole
+army, the enemy was evidently gaining ground, when (according to the
+historians) three horsemen, in brilliant armor, suddenly appeared at
+the head of a reinforcement descending from the adjacent mountains.
+Some of the clergy seized on this circumstance to reanimate the
+Crusaders. "Behold your heavenly succor!" cried a bishop. "Heaven has
+sent the holy martyrs, George, Demetrius, and Theodore to fight for
+you!" As he spoke, the whole army seemed inspired with irresistible
+strength; and, shouting the well-known war-cry, made another vigorous
+charge which broke the Moslem ranks. The Sultan of Mossoul fled, and
+his immense force dispersed in the utmost disorder. The extravagant
+number of 100,000 is said to have fallen in this engagement.
+
+The Crusaders, instead of proceeding at once to Jerusalem, remained
+for several months in Antioch, employing the time in re-establishing
+Christianity in that city, and sending to their brethren in the West
+for further aid. The delay was prejudicial, as the disputes between
+the rival chiefs, which the din of war had silenced, again broke out,
+and disease committed terrible ravages in the camp. Certain
+expeditions, however, were made in the neighborhood, and several towns
+fell into the hands of the Christians. Meantime, news arrived that an
+army of Egyptian Arabs--who acknowledged the Fatimite caliphs, and had
+as yet resisted the attempt of the Turks to usurp dominion over all
+the followers of the Prophet--had captured Jerusalem. The Crusaders,
+filled with indignation, resumed their march to the Holy City,
+conquering on their way several towns. Embassadors were sent from the
+Caliph of Cairo with superb presents to the Christian leaders, and
+proposals of peace between them and the Egyptians. But Godfrey would
+not be bribed to accept the humiliating terms proposed; one of which
+was, that only unarmed Christians should be admitted into the city.
+The embassadors were sent back with the answer that the Crusaders were
+on their march, and, if opposed, might extend their conquests even to
+the Nile.
+
+By daybreak on June 10, 1099, the Christian army came in sight of
+Jerusalem. The spectacle transported all with mingled feelings of joy,
+reverence, and remorse. Some fell on their knees and prayed; others
+kissed the sacred soil; many wept for their sins; and the air ever and
+anon resounded with the shout: "It is God's will!" The siege was
+commenced at once, Godfrey fixing his camp on Mount Calvary. The
+Egyptians had prepared for a protracted defence, by strengthening the
+fortifications and furnishing the garrison with ample provisions. They
+had likewise ravaged the neighboring country, and filled up the
+cisterns so as to harass the besiegers as much as possible. Owing to
+these impediments the Christians made slow progress. After various
+disappointments, however, they at length manufactured engines of great
+size and strength, shaped like towers, which were to be wheeled up to
+the walls, so as to enable the besiegers to enter by means of
+drawbridges. On July 14, 1099, at daybreak, the Crusaders were in
+arms, and at the same moment the assault was made on various points.
+Godfrey stood on his wooden tower, which was stationed near one of the
+gates, and by voice and action stimulated his soldiers to deeds of
+daring. His death-dealing javelin never missed its aim. The Egyptians
+employed every possible agent of defence,--showering down boiling oil,
+combustible materials, and various descriptions of missile, on the
+heads of their assailants. During the first day the Crusaders were
+repulsed at every point; but on the morrow fortune turned. The first
+half of the day was with the Egyptians, who cast lighted torches
+against the wooden engines of the Crusaders, and effected the
+destruction of many. Godfrey was, as usual, conspicuous, and became
+the mark of repeated attacks,--the cross of gold which surmounted his
+tower especially enraging the Moslem. An incident, supposed to be
+supernatural, was the immediate cause of the Christians' success.
+Godfrey and the Count of Toulouse at the same time observed the figure
+of a knight on the Mount of Olives, who with his buckler signalled to
+the Christians that they should enter the city. The two leaders,
+animated by a common feeling, cried out, "Behold St. George!" The
+enthusiasm of the Crusaders from this moment was irresistible.
+Godfrey's tower was first pushed close beside the walls, and in spite
+of flame and missile the drawbridge was lowered. Then, accompanied by
+several of his bravest knights, he dashed into the city. Others
+followed at the same point; the gates were broken down, and Jerusalem
+was taken. A horrible carnage of the Moslem ensued, in which Godfrey,
+although unable to check, refused to share. His first act was to
+retire from his comrades, and with three attendants to repair, unarmed
+and barefooted, to the Church of the Sepulchre. His vow was
+accomplished, and the desecration of one holy site atoned for by the
+preservation of another yet holier. This act of devotion, so worthy of
+the true Crusader, recalled from carnage those who had forgotten their
+vows in the thirst for vengeance, and the whole army, led by the
+clergy, followed him to the same church in penitential procession.
+
+[Illustration: Godfrey De Bouillon entering Jerusalem.]
+
+Godfrey's work was now nearly ended, and his reward came. The leaders
+of the army, soon after the capture of the city, held a council for
+the purpose of deciding to whom should be given the crown of
+Jerusalem. No decision was arrived at; so many various opinions being
+expressed, and so many interests at stake. Ten of the most esteemed
+chiefs were then formed into an elective body, and proceeded to make
+careful inquiries into the fitness of those who were proposed for the
+kingly office. Godfrey took no part, it would seem, in either
+discussion or inquiry, and displayed no sort of anxiety as to his own
+claims. But the clergy and the mass of the soldiers were devoted to
+him,--endeared as he was by a thousand memories of his piety, courage,
+and generosity. On all hands the electors heard his praises sounded,
+and, to the joy of the whole army, they concluded their labors by
+announcing the choice to have fallen upon him. But, to the surprise of
+all, he declined the offered rank. "I will not wear a golden crown,"
+said he, "in a city where my king and Saviour has been only crowned
+with thorns." All that his fellow-chiefs could persuade him to accept
+was the title of Defender and Baron of the Holy Sepulchre, though he
+did not deem it right to refuse the kingly authority. He soon had
+occasion to exert his power, for the Caliph of Cairo had by this time
+collected a large army, and was on his march to Jerusalem. The
+Crusaders, though unfitted for a fresh campaign, prepared to defend
+their conquest, and, at the head of his troops, Godfrey advanced
+toward Ascalon, where the enemy was stationed. A battle took place on
+the adjoining plains, in which the Moslem force was routed with
+terrific slaughter. The city itself would have fallen but for the
+covetous spirit displayed by the Count of Toulouse, who, unable to
+obtain a promise that the possession of the place should be given him,
+deserted Godfrey with all his men. A quarrel ensued between the two
+leaders, but was terminated through the influence of their brothers in
+arms,--Godfrey being ready to forgive any injury to himself for the
+sake of the common cause.
+
+The Crusade was now completed, but Godfrey's duties as king were yet
+to commence. He set about fulfilling them with activity, fortifying
+various important positions, subduing revolts of hostile tribes,
+dividing the conquered territories equally among his generals,
+according to the feudal system, and summoning an Assize, or Assembly
+of his wisest councillors to draw up a code of laws. This code, which
+long remained in operation, amply testified to the legislative wisdom
+of the Crusaders. But the new state was not long favored with his
+presence to enforce and exemplify its constitution. In returning from
+a successful expedition against some Arabs of Galilee, he was met by
+the Emir of Cæsarea, who offered him a present of fruits. Godfrey
+tasted a cedar apple, and immediately was seized with illness. He
+died, not without suspicion of poison having been thus administered,
+shortly after reaching Jerusalem, commending to his comrades the care
+of the holy places, and the state which he had founded. His age
+scarcely exceeded forty years.
+
+One of the most celebrated and beautiful Italian poems, the "Jerusalem
+Delivered" of Tasso, has "the pious Godfrey" for the presiding hero of
+the glorious scenes which it narrates. But there are no grounds for
+supposing that his fame belongs to romance rather than history.
+Contemporary writers have painted his portrait in no less flattering
+colors than Tasso has used, and the poet's affectionate fancy has
+scarcely exaggerated the tribute which the soberest historian may feel
+warranted in rendering to the memory of the great and good Crusader,
+Godfrey de Bouillon.
+
+
+
+
+SALADIN[13]
+
+By WALTER BESANT
+
+(1137-1192)
+
+         [Footnote 13: Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.]
+
+
+There are two great names in the tangled and somewhat tedious story of
+Islam which stand out, deathless, from the crowd of sultans, viziers,
+and Moslem conquerors--the names of Haroun al Raschid and Saladin. The
+former has become the accepted type of a good and just despot; the
+latter is the Bayard of his religion, the knight and captain, king and
+magistrate, _sans peur et sans reproche_; whose enemies respected and
+trusted him as much as his own people loved him. His conquest of
+Jerusalem and overthrow of the Latin kingdom were but episodes, and
+from his point of view, not the most important episodes in his thirty
+years of war and victory. The History of Egypt, the History of Syria,
+the History of the Mohammedan faith, contain more pages filled with
+the achievements of Saladin than even the History of the Crusades.
+Everyone has read of the battle of Hattin;[14] but of the healing of
+the great schism and the restoration of Egypt to orthodoxy--a step
+thought to be impossible and of the highest importance to Islam--very
+few know anything. Let us endeavor to present the history of this
+great man with some attempt to show the true proportions of his
+achievements in the eyes of the East, if not the West.
+
+         [Footnote 14: In the battle of Tiberias, or Hattin, Saladin
+         completely overthrew the Christians and conquered their
+         kingdom.]
+
+Yûssuf ibn Ayûb--Joseph the son of Job--was by descent a Kurd. His
+father was a retainer or follower of the celebrated Nûr-ed-Din (Light
+of Religion), Sultan of Syria, the prince who, after many years of
+humiliation, recovered some of the lost prestige of the Mohammedan
+name, wrested many of their outlying strongholds from the Christians,
+and prepared the way for his more illustrious successor.
+
+[Illustration: Saladin and Christians. [TN]]
+
+The caliphate was then divided into the Fatimite line, which reigned
+at Cairo, and the Abbaside, which reigned at Baghdad. Both branches
+had by this time fallen into a mere semblance of authority. The
+bitterness of theological differences survived, and though for the
+re-establishment of Moslem power, it was absolutely necessary that the
+schism should cease, there seemed no likelihood whatever of any
+change. The weaker of the two, since the rise of Nûr-ed-Din, was
+undoubtedly the Egyptian house. The last of the Fatimite caliphs were
+mere tools in the hands of rival ministers, and passed their ignoble
+lives--_Rois Fainéants_--in their luxurious palaces. Syria, which had
+been theirs, was lost to them, and occupied partly by Mohammedans of
+the rival sect, and partly by the Christians. Their final fall,
+however, was caused by internal dissensions and the quarrels of two
+candidates for the post of Grand Vizier. Their names were Shawer and
+Dargham. The former, unable to contend against his rival, applied for
+assistance to Nûr-ed-Din, offering for reward a third of the Egyptian
+revenues. The expedition which was sent in reply was the first chance
+of distinction which young Yûssuf had obtained. The army, commanded by
+his uncle Shirkoh, easily defeated Dargham and reinstated Shawer. Then
+followed the reluctance to keep the terms of the agreement which is so
+common in history; and when Shirkoh in return seized the city of
+Balbek and held it as security, Shawer sent to Amaury, King of
+Jerusalem, for succor. Amaury, the bravest if not the wisest of the
+Crusader kings, thinking that here was a chance of striking a double
+blow, readily acceded, and joining the Fatimite army forced Shirkoh to
+retire. It was, however, only in order to collect new forces. Next
+year he was back again. Alexandria was taken by his nephew, and held
+for three months against the combined forces of Christians and
+Fatimites. At last a peace was agreed upon: both Christians and
+Damascenes were to retire, each party to have a share in the revenues
+of Egypt. The first part of the contract was faithfully carried out;
+the second part neither Syrian nor Christian expected to be obeyed.
+And now the same ambition possessed the mind both of Amaury and of
+Nûr-ed-Din. This was nothing less than the conquest of Egypt. Both
+perceived that the Fatimite power was gone. Both realized the fact
+that the country could easily be overrun. As for the Christian king,
+he had dreams of a splendid and luxurious capital, grander than his
+own narrow city set in the midst of the mountains; his knights,
+orientals now and fallen from the old western rudeness, looked on with
+envy at the luxuries of these weak Mohammedans; it would be a fine
+thing to transfer the capital of the Christian kingdom in the East to
+Cairo, leaving Jerusalem as a Christian Mecca, a city for the priests.
+And the Syrian sultan, for his part, would restore the unity of Islam,
+would unite Egypt with Syria, and by the strength of that union would
+destroy the Christian and recover the Holy Places. These were schemes
+worthy of statesman or of soldier. The only question was--how were
+they to be realized?
+
+The point which Amaury failed to understand was this. He who moved
+first was bound to lose. For he would draw upon himself the other two.
+Amaury moved first. We cannot follow the Christian king on his
+disastrous attempt. It is sufficient to say that Shirkoh, after a
+brief struggle, remained master of the field and of Egypt, and that
+the fall of the Latin kingdom, thus rendered possible, was only
+delayed until the consolidation of the new power was complete.
+
+Immediately after his final victory Shirkoh died, and was succeeded by
+his nephew Yûssuf ibn Ayûb, now called Salah-ed-Din (Shield of
+Religion), el Melek el Mansûr (the Victorious King), and Emir el
+Jayûsh (Commander-in-chief of the Forces). The Fatimite caliph, not
+yet deposed, made him Grand Vizier. In other words this soldier of
+fortune was master of Egypt and of the Fatimite caliphate. More
+important still, if the King of Jerusalem understood the importance of
+the fact, he acknowledged himself to be the vassal of Nûr-ed-Din,
+Sultan of Syria.
+
+The first step taken by Saladin, a _coup d'état_ which restored Egypt
+to the orthodox sect, was the substitution of the Abbaside caliph's
+name for that of their own prince in the Friday prayers. This was done
+without the slightest opposition; contempt for the head of their
+religion could not be more effectually shown; Saladin therefore boldly
+proclaimed the name of the Baghdad caliph. It was received so quietly,
+as the Arab historian says, "that not a brace of goats butted over
+it." The last of the Fatimite caliphs died a few days after: it was
+one of those deaths, so frequent in history, which occur so exactly at
+the moment most convenient. Did Saladin order him to be bowstrung?
+Probably. Such an act would be regarded as perfectly legitimate and in
+accordance with the rules of the game.
+
+[Illustration: Saladin.]
+
+How the victorious emir, on the death of Nûr-ed-Din, succeeded in
+making himself master of Syria and succeeding his lord; how he carried
+on the war with the Christians unceasingly, would require in the
+telling volumes. Many volumes indeed have been devoted to this
+history. His two great achievements were the reunion of Islam and the
+destruction of the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem. The latter at least, he
+effectually accomplished. Western Europe was incapable of a second
+effort so great as that mighty wave of enthusiasm which won back the
+Holy Land and covered the plains of Asia Minor with the bones of
+Crusaders. Richard Coeur de Lion and Philip Augustus, Frederick II.,
+the kings of Cyprus, the Knights of St. John, carried on the long,
+interminable struggle, but Jerusalem was lost.
+
+Of the chivalry and honor of Saladin his biographers are never weary.
+When, for instance, the Christians took Jerusalem they slaughtered
+every soul in the place; their horses were knee-deep in blood. When
+Saladin took the city he suffered none to be slain; when there was no
+more money for ransom he suffered thousands to go free; to the weeping
+widows and fatherless girls he gave purses of money and suffered no
+outrage to be done to them. He divided them into three bands and
+assigned an escort to each company. And then was seen the strange
+spectacle, when the women and children grew fatigued, of the victors
+placing them on their horses and walking afoot, or even carrying the
+children in their arms. Again, why has no one painted that famous
+scene when Richard Coeur de Lion wanted no oaths, but instead gave his
+hand to Saladin in token of respect for his enemy and his own loyalty?
+
+Such is the brief history of Saladin, a soldier first, always a
+soldier, spending his whole life on the battle-field; the perfect
+knight of the Mohammedans, fierce in fight, generous in victory,
+faithful to his word, true to his religion, of a larger heart and
+nobler soul than Coeur de Lion, the only antagonist who can be named
+with him; one of the few out of the countless millions of humanity,
+whose name lives and whose memory will never die; his life an example;
+his history a monument.
+
+[Signature of the author.]
+
+
+
+
+EDWARD I. OF ENGLAND
+
+By THOMAS DAVIDSON
+
+(1239-1307)
+
+
+Edward I., King of England, was the elder of the two sons of Henry
+III., by his queen, Eleanor, daughter of Count Raymond Berenger of
+Provence, and was born at Westminster, June 17, 1239. His name was
+given him by his father out of reverence for the memory of Edward the
+Confessor, and in its English sound, as well as in the honest English
+temper, no less than the yellow hair and stalwart figure with which
+the young prince grew up, Englishmen might well have read the promise,
+that once more, after two hundred years, England would be ruled by a
+native English king. Edward was brought up at Windsor, was given by
+his father in 1252 the government of Gascony, and in 1254 married, in
+the monastery of Las Huelgas, Eleanor, sister of Alfonso X. of
+Castile, receiving immediately thereafter from his father Gascony,
+Ireland, and the Welsh march betwixt the Conway and the Dee, where, in
+fighting with the turbulent Welshmen, he learned his first lessons in
+warfare.
+
+[Illustration: Edward I. of England. [TN]]
+
+At the Parliament of Oxford (1258) he took part with his father in his
+contest with his troublesome nobles, but thereafter appears to have at
+first sided with the great Earl Simon de Montfort, the leader of the
+barons or national party, without, however, impairing his own personal
+loyalty and affection for his father, with whom ere long he was
+reconciled. It was his rash eagerness in pursuing an advantage gained
+over the Londoners, who were devoted to the party of Simon, that lost
+the battle of Lewes (1264), one immediate consequence of which was the
+prince's imprisonment as a hostage for his father's pledges.
+Conditions for his liberation, discussed at Simon's famous parliament
+of 1265, were frustrated through Edward's escape by a stratagem from
+Hereford Castle; and at the final battle at Evesham (August 4), where
+Simon recognized in the skilful disposition of his enemy's forces a
+fatal lesson learned from himself, the struggle practically ended with
+the great popular champion's death on the battle-field. Edward gained
+much influence by the wise prudence and moderation with which he
+stamped out the last embers of rebellion.
+
+In 1270 he started, at the instigation of Louis IX. of France, to join
+the last of the Crusades, but when he reached Tunis, found that king
+dead, and the expedition already desperate of success. He went on to
+Acre, and won great renown as a knight, but failed to save the
+Frankish kingdom in the East from its inevitable fate. In June, 1272,
+while sitting alone on his bed, his own strength and energy saved him
+from being murdered by one of the infamous sect of the Assassins.
+Hastily guarding himself with his arms, and receiving a desperate
+wound, from which he afterward suffered much, he tore the knife from
+his assailant's hand, and buried it in his heart. The ancient story
+that his queen Eleanor, who had followed him in his pilgrimage, saved
+his life at the risk of her own by sucking the poison from the wound,
+unfortunately lacks historical support, but fits well with the
+romantic temper of the times, as well as with the deep affection that
+survived throughout life betwixt husband and wife.
+
+Two months later he started for home, and at Capua, in the January of
+1273, heard of his father's death two months before. Meantime he had
+been quietly proclaimed king, and as things went well in England, he
+visited the pope, did homage at Paris for his French provinces, and
+did not return to his kingdom till the August of 1274. At his
+coronation he received the homage of Alexander III. of Scotland for
+his lands in England, but Prince Llewelyn of Wales neglected the
+summons to attend, and only did his homage in 1276, under the combined
+terrors of excommunication and the royal army. Edward at once
+commenced that wise and large policy of domestic consolidation and
+financial as well as legal reform, that has shed such lustre upon the
+reign of the English Justinian, as he has been called, and made it
+almost the most important epoch in the constitutional history of
+England.
+
+His first warfare was with the turbulent and disaffected Welshmen, who
+had profited by the intestine turmoil of the preceding reign, and
+intrigued perpetually with the rebellious nobles of Henry III. for
+their own ends. The forced peace of 1277, and the national
+dissatisfaction at the stringent terms granted by Edward, which was
+not abated by the personal favors he heaped upon the princes Llewelyn
+and his brother David, were but the preludes to the final struggle
+which commenced three years later, and ended in the complete
+suppression of Welsh nationalism, with the defeat and death of
+Llewelyn, near Builth, in Brecknockshire, and the cruel execution of
+David at Shrewsbury, as a traitor, in 1284. By the famous Statute of
+Wales in the same year, the ancient principality was finally annexed
+to the English crown, while English laws and English institutions were
+forced upon the conquered people.
+
+Edward devoted the next year to legislation, then went abroad to
+mediate, without success, in the quarrel between France and Aragon. He
+had soon to return to quell fresh disturbances in Wales, and even in
+England, where the great Statute of Winchester, which had been passed
+in 1285 to place the defence of the country on a really national
+basis, had not yet had time to effect its end. Finding that most of
+his judges had been corrupting justice, he punished them with an iron
+hand, next banished in 1290 all the Jews to the number of over sixteen
+thousand from the kingdom, on the plea of extortionate usury. Earlier
+in the reign he had hanged 280 for money-clipping and forgery.
+
+Just at this time the death of the young Scottish queen, the Maid of
+Norway, whom Edward had caused to be betrothed to his eldest surviving
+son, Edward of Caernarvon, opened up a fatal contest for the Scottish
+crown, which gave Edward his opportunity to assert anew the old but
+somewhat shadowy claim of the English crown to the over-lordship of
+Scotland. The southern half of that composite kingdom was inhabited by
+people of English blood and English institutions; its southeastern
+part, the Lothians, had undoubtedly once formed part of the Anglian
+kingdom of Northumbria; while its southwestern, Strathclyde or
+Scottish Cumbria, the population of which was in great part Celtic,
+had in 945 been given by the English king Edmund I. to Malcolm as a
+fief. The northern portion of the kingdom was purely Celtic in blood,
+and had at no time been subject to English influences, but though the
+reigning family was itself of Celtic origin, its authority hardly
+extended effectively beyond the region inhabited by men of English
+blood. Undoubtedly the Scottish king in 921 chose Edward the Elder "to
+father and to lord," and the right then acknowledged was claimed
+successively by William the Conqueror, Rufus, and other English kings.
+Moreover, from the twelfth century it had been customary for the
+Scottish kings or their sons to receive English earldoms, and do
+homage for them, but it continued to remain somewhat vague whether
+such homage was understood to be extended beyond these earldoms, so as
+to include the Lowland provinces and the whole Scottish kingdom.
+William the Lion, taken prisoner at Alnwick in 1174, for his freedom
+acknowledged the supremacy of Henry II. in the treaty concluded at
+Felaise on December 7; but on his return found his subjects
+ill-disposed to accede to his cowardly submission; and fifteen years
+later the claim founded on this special act of submission was formally
+renounced for a sum of 10,000 merks by Richard I., who was eager to
+raise money for his Crusade. Such was the ill-defined position of this
+ancient controversy, when fate seemed to fling into Edward's hands the
+opportunity of defining it anew with all the clearness dear to his
+legal mind. It was easy for him to secure a recognition of his
+superiority from the selfish and eager candidates for the crown, and
+meantime he secured the Scottish castles, and after a deliberate
+examination of the rival claims, decided in favor of John Baliol, who,
+on his accession, paid homage distinctly for the whole kingdom of
+Scotland. He soon found his position as a vassal-king intolerable,
+betwixt the unruly turbulence of his subjects and the imperious
+demands of his overlord, who allowed appeals to be led from Baliol's
+subjects to himself.
+
+Meantime the ambitious projects of the new King of France, Philip IV.,
+involved Edward in anxieties for the safety of Guienne and his other
+possessions in France. Ere long the high-handed conduct of the French
+king made war necessary, and Edward, with characteristic energy, at
+once began his preparations, and summoned in 1295 an assembly of the
+estates of the realm, which was practically the beginning of the
+modern parliaments.
+
+The ever-increasing exasperation of the Scots at length broke out into
+open warfare in 1296. Edward at once marched northward, captured
+Berwick, and carried his victorious arms as far north as Aberdeen,
+Banff, and Elgin, taking the great castles on the way, formally
+accepted Baliol's surrender of the crown at Montrose, and returned to
+Berwick (August 22), carrying with him the famous coronation-stone
+from Scone, after having subdued the whole kingdom in about five
+months. Here, six days later, he received the fealty of the clergy,
+barons, and gentry of Scotland, whose names fill the thirty-five skins
+of parchment known as the "Ragman Roll."
+
+At length he was at liberty to turn to France, but the great cost of
+his late expenditure had already driven him to make such heavy demands
+upon the revenues of the Church, that the clergy now refused fresh
+subsidies, headed by Archbishop Winchelsea and supported by the bull
+"Clericis Laicos" of Pope Boniface VIII. The king retaliated by
+placing the clergy of the kingdom in outlawry. At the Salisbury
+parliament in February, 1297, the great barons also refused to take
+part in foreign war, while the merchants were exasperated because
+their wool had been seized. A compromise was soon effected with the
+clergy, and a temporary illegal grant for the immediate purposes of
+the war was procured from the nobles and commons who were with him.
+Edward sailed for Flanders, and at Ghent confirmed the Charter with
+such supplementary clauses as were demanded by his refractory nobles,
+thus finally establishing the right of the people themselves to
+determine taxation.
+
+This is only second in importance to Magna Charta itself as a landmark
+in the history of England. The suspicious fears of his people
+compelled Edward to repeat the confirmation at London in 1300, and
+again at Lincoln in 1301--an insult to his honesty which the king
+never forgave, and to which his subsequent banishment of Winchelsea
+was due. In 1303, and again the year after, Edward, in desperate
+straits for money, levied, by agreement with the foreign merchants,
+some new customs--the beginning of import duties, without consent of
+the estates, and collected a _tallage_ from the royal demesne; and
+again, in 1305, he obtained from Clement V. a formal absolution from
+the obligations of 1297. It is true that the first two measures were
+contrary to the spirit rather than the letter of his promise, and that
+he never sought to avail himself of the dangerous power granted him by
+the papal absolution, yet these three facts, says Bishop Stubbs,
+"remain on record as illustrations of Edward's chief weakness, the
+legal captiousness, which was the one drawback on his greatness."
+
+It was the dangerous aspect of affairs in Scotland that forced the
+king to submit so easily to the demands of his barons. Already, in the
+spring of 1297, Wallace, without any countenance from the Scottish
+nobility, had commenced a guerilla warfare, and his handful of
+desperate men soon increased into an army, which completely defeated
+Earl Warenne and Cressingham at Cambuskenneth (Stirling Bridge), in
+September, 1297, and ravaged England, with the most atrocious
+cruelties, from Newcastle to Carlisle. Edward's expedition to Flanders
+had been a failure, but he hastened to conclude a truce, so as to find
+time to chastise the Scots, cementing it by his betrothal to Philip's
+sister Margaret. The good Queen Eleanor had been already dead nine
+years.
+
+Meantime, Wallace's success had merely earned him the bitter jealousy
+of the Scottish nobles, and his power was finally broken in the
+disastrous defeat by Edward's army at Falkirk in July, 1298. The king
+had two of his ribs broken by a kick from his horse on the morning of
+the battle, but rode throughout the day as if unhurt. The struggle
+lingered on some years under various leaders, as Edward found his
+energy paralyzed the while by the intrigues of Philip, and the
+constitutional struggle with his barons. Pope Boniface, in 1301, put
+forth a claim to the over-lordship of Scotland, which was repudiated
+by the whole body of the estates at Lincoln. It was not till the June
+of 1303 that the king was able to resume his conquest. Accompanied by
+a fleet carrying his supplies, he penetrated again into the far North,
+tarried a while in Dunfermline, and settled the kingdom after the
+reduction of Stirling, the last place of strength that held out. In
+1305 Wallace was betrayed into his hands, sent to London, and cruelly
+executed as a traitor. The fate of this noble-hearted patriot is a
+fatal blot upon his conqueror's memory, but it should not be forgotten
+that Edward was profoundly convinced of the legality of his own claims
+over Scotland, and that Wallace to him was merely a pestilent rebel,
+who had earned his doom by treason to his lord and by the cruelties he
+had inflicted upon Englishmen. The same year the king prepared a new
+constitution for the conquered kingdom, divided it into sheriffdoms
+like the English counties, and made arrangements for the
+representation of the Scots in the English parliament--a measure
+which, had it been successful, might have anticipated by four
+centuries the benefits of the union.
+
+It might now have been expected that Scotland was effectively subdued,
+but ere long Robert Bruce, who had hitherto played a dubious game,
+raised a revolt in the beginning of 1306, got rid of the regent Comyn,
+his most serious rival, by a foul murder in Dumfries church, was
+crowned king at Scone, and kept up an incessant but varying struggle
+during the winter of 1306 and the spring of 1307. The treachery of
+those who had sworn fealty to him, and whom he had trusted implicitly,
+roused Edward to the pitch of exasperation, and at the knighting of
+Prince Edward at Westminster, he swore a solemn vow to be revenged
+upon Bruce. He at once despatched a force to Scotland, and though now
+old and infirm, began preparations for his fourth expedition; but he
+was attacked with dysentery on the march, and his malady increased so
+much upon him that he died on the 7th of July, 1307, at
+Burgh-on-Sands, near Carlisle, within sight of Scotland, leaving for
+his son Edward the dying command not to bury his body till he had
+utterly subdued the Scots, but to carry his bones with the army until
+the victory was complete. Eleven days later the young prince reached
+Carlisle, but returned a few weeks after to London, and buried his
+father's body in Westminster, where it still rests under a slab, with
+the simple but truly descriptive inscription: "Eduardus primus,
+Scotorum malleus, hic est."
+
+
+
+
+EDWARD III. OF ENGLAND
+
+(1312-1377)
+
+
+Edward III., King of England, the eldest son of Edward II. and of
+Isabella, was born at Windsor, November 13, 1312. He was appointed
+guardian of the kingdom, October 26, 1326, and received the crown
+February 1, 1327. On January 24, 1328, he was married to Philippa,
+daughter of the Count of Hainault. During his minority the government
+of the kingdom was intrusted to a body of guardians with Henry of
+Lancaster at their head, but was virtually usurped by Roger Mortimer,
+until the king, irritated by his arrogance, caused him to be seized at
+Nottingham on October 15, 1330, and conveyed to the Tower. He was
+executed at Tyburn on November 29.
+
+[Illustration: Edward III. of England. [TN]]
+
+The overthrow of Mortimer made Edward, at the age of eighteen, a king
+in fact as well as in name. In person he was graceful; and his face
+was 'as the face of a god.' His manners were courtly and his voice
+winning. He was strong and active, and loved hunting, hawking, the
+practice of knightly exercises, and, above all, war itself.
+Considerable care must have been spent on his education, for he
+certainly spoke English as well as French, and evidently understood
+German. He was fearless in battle, and, though over-fond of pleasure
+was, until his later years, energetic in all his undertakings.
+Although according to modern notions his ambition is to be reckoned a
+grave defect in his character, it seemed in his day a kingly quality.
+Nor were his wars undertaken without cause, or indeed, according to
+the ideas of the time, without ample justification. His attempts to
+bring Scotland under his power were at first merely a continuation of
+an inherited policy that it would have been held shameful to
+repudiate, and later were forced upon him by the alliance between that
+country and France. And the French War was in the first instance
+provoked by the aggressions of Philip, though Edward's assumption of
+the title of King of France, a measure of political expediency,
+rendered peace impossible. He was liberal in his gifts, magnificent in
+his doings, profuse in his expenditure, and, though not boastful,
+inordinately ostentatious. No sense of duty beyond what was then held
+to become a knight influenced his conduct. Although the early glories
+of his reign were greeted with applause, he never won the love of his
+people; they groaned under the effects of his extravagance, and fled
+at his coming lest his officers should seize their goods. His
+commercial policy was enlightened, and has won him the title of the
+"father of English commerce" but it was mainly inspired by selfish
+motives, and he never scrupled to sacrifice the interests of the
+English merchants, to obtain a supply of money or secure an ally. In
+foreign politics he showed genius; his alliances were well devised and
+skilfully obtained, but he seems to have expected more from his allies
+than they were likely to do for him, for England still stood so far
+apart from continental affairs, that her alliance was not of much
+practical importance, except commercially. As a leader in war Edward
+could order a battle and inspire his army with his own confidence, but
+he could not plan a campaign; he was rash, and left too much to
+chance. During the first part of his reign he paid much attention to
+naval administration; he successfully asserted the maritime supremacy
+of the country, and was entitled by parliament the "king of the sea;"
+he neglected the navy in his later years. Little as the nation owed
+him in other respects, his achievements by sea and land made the
+English name respected.
+
+It is said to have been chiefly through Mortimer's influence that, on
+April 24, 1328, a peace was concluded between England and Scotland,
+the chief provisions of which were that the Scots agreed to pay the
+sum of £20,000, and that Edward agreed to recognize the independence
+of the Scotch crown.
+
+The treaty was very unpopular in England, and it is not surprising,
+therefore, that, when Edward Baliol in 1332 made his attempt to mount
+the Scotch throne, Edward III. gave him indirect assistance, and that
+after Baliol's dethronement in 1333 an invasion of Scotland was
+resolved on. On July 19 Edward defeated the Scots at the battle of
+Halidon Hill. His army was in great danger, and was hemmed in by the
+sea, the Tweed, the garrison of Berwick, and the Scottish host, which
+far outnumbered the English. On the 20th he drew up his men in four
+battles, placing his archers on the wings of each; all fought on foot,
+and he himself in the van. The English archers began the fight; the
+Scots fell in great numbers, and others fled, the rest charged up the
+hill and engaged the enemy hand to hand. They were defeated with
+tremendous loss; many nobles were slain, and it was commonly said in
+England that the war was over, for that there was not a Scot left to
+raise a force or lead it to battle. Edward ordered a general
+thanksgiving for this victory. Receiving as the result of his victory
+the submission of the principal Scotch nobles, he annexed the whole of
+Scotland south of the Forth to his own crown, and allowed Baliol to
+reign over the remainder as titular king. Soon after, Baliol was again
+a fugitive, but was again aided by Edward to mount a nominal throne.
+
+After a short period of peace Edward, in July, 1336, ravaged and
+burned Scotland as far as Aberdeen, but growing complications with
+France compelled him in the same year to return to England. Though he
+professed to have a claim, through his mother, on the French throne
+against Philip of Valois, that claim was left in abeyance until
+several acts of aggression on the part of Philip brought about a
+rupture between the two kings. The Count of Flanders, at Philip's
+instigation, had broken off commercial relations with England; French
+privateers were daily committing ravages on English commerce;
+Aquitaine was continually threatened by desultory attacks; and Philip,
+though he hesitated to accept the responsibility of being the first to
+declare war, scarcely attempted to conceal his endeavors to throw that
+responsibility on Edward. Edward sailed for Flanders July 16, 1338,
+and at Coblentz held a conference with the Emperor Louis V., at which
+the latter appointed him his vicar-general, and gave orders for all
+the princes of the Low Countries to follow him in war for the space of
+seven years. In 1339 Edward laid siege to Cambrai, but soon afterward
+raised the siege and invaded France. Philip advanced to meet him, but
+declined battle, and Edward concluded his first campaign without
+achieving anything to compensate him for its cost.
+
+In 1340 he defeated the French fleet before Sluys. The French fleet of
+one hundred and ninety galleys and great barges was superior to his
+in strength, for many of his ships were small. Nineteen of their ships
+were the biggest that had ever been seen, and grandest of all was the
+Christopher that had been taken from the English. Edward's fleet seems
+to have been "to the leeward and westward" of the enemy, and about
+noon he ordered his ships to sail on the starboard tack, so as to get
+the wind which presumably was north-east, and avoid having the sun in
+the faces of the archers. Then, having made their tack and got the
+wind, his ships entered the port and engaged just inside it. The
+French ships seem to have hugged the shore, and could not manoeuvre,
+for they were lashed together in four lines. All in three of the lines
+were taken or sunk, the Christopher and other English ships being
+retaken; the fourth line escaped in the darkness, for the battle
+lasted into the night. The king's victory was complete, and the naval
+power of France was destroyed.
+
+Shortly after his return to England a great tournament was held by him
+at Windsor in memory of King Arthur. In 1346 he set sail on the
+expedition which resulted in the great victory of Crécy[15] and the
+capture of Calais. It was a strong place, and the inhabitants had done
+much harm to the English and Flemings by their piracies. He built a
+regular town before the walls, sent for a fleet to blockade the
+harbor, and laid siege to the town with about thirty thousand men.
+Meanwhile the Scots, who at Philip's instance had invaded England,
+were routed at Neville's Cross, Durham, on October 17, and King David
+was taken prisoner and confined in the Tower. In April some stores
+were brought into Calais by sea, and after this Edward ordered a
+stricter blockade; his fleet dispersed a convoy of forty-four ships
+laden with provisions on June 25, and the next day a letter was
+intercepted from the governor to the French king informing him of the
+starving condition of the garrison, and asking for relief. Edward sent
+the letter on to Philip, bidding him come to the relief of the town.
+In July Philip led an army toward Calais. A portion of it sent to
+dislodge the Flemings, who were acting with Edward at Quesnoy was
+defeated. He appeared at Sangatte on the 27th. He was unable to get at
+the English who were securely posted behind the marshes, and
+challenged Edward to come out to battle. It is said that Edward
+declared that he accepted the challenge; but it is probable that he
+answered more wisely. Anyway, two days later, on August 2, the French
+decamped. The next day the town surrendered at discretion. The
+garrison came forth with swords reversed, and a deputation of the
+townsmen with bare heads and ropes about their necks, prostrated
+themselves before Edward, offering him the keys of the city. He at
+first intended, or made as though he intended, to put the inhabitants
+to the sword as a punishment for their piracies, but spared them at
+the intercession of his queen. During the summer his army suffered
+much sickness, arising from lack of good water. With some few
+exceptions he banished the people of Calais; and sent over to England
+offering grants and privileges to those who would colonize the town.
+After agreeing to a truce for nine months, he returned home with his
+wife and son, and after a stormy passage, landed at Sandwich on
+October 12. All England was filled with the spoils of Edward's
+expedition, so that there was not a woman who did not wear some
+ornament, or have in her house fine linen or some goblet, part of the
+booty the king sent home from Caen or brought back from Calais.
+
+         [Footnote 15: See Edward the Black Prince for this battle, as
+         also for the great sea-fight with the Spaniards.]
+
+One more great sea-fight there was in 1349, when the Spanish fleet was
+defeated, and now, indeed, the English were masters of the sea. From
+this time Edward, as a warrior, retires somewhat into the background,
+his place being taken by the Prince of Wales, who in 1356 won the
+battle of Poitiers, and took King John prisoner. In 1359 Edward again
+invaded France, and in 1360 he signed the peace of Bretigny, according
+to which the French agreed to pay for King John a ransom of three
+million crowns, and Edward renounced his title to the throne of
+France, but retained his full sovereignty over the whole of the
+ancient duchy of Aquitaine, the counties of Ponthieu and Guignes, and
+the town of Calais. Peace was again broken in 1369 by Charles of
+France, and when he concluded a truce with England in 1375 all of
+France that remained in Edward's hands was Bayonne and Bordeaux in the
+south, and Calais in the north. The last years of Edward's reign form
+a sad and gloomy close to a career which had had a vigorous and
+energetic commencement, and had afterward been rendered illustrious by
+great achievements. His empire in France was virtually overthrown; the
+vast expenditure which had had such a fruitless result was sorely
+burdening his subjects, and awakening increasing discontent; and he
+himself, through the gradual decay of his mental faculties, had become
+a mere tool in the hands of Anne Travers, and of ministers whose only
+aim was their own aggrandizement. In 1367 the "Good Parliament"
+virtually seized the helm of the state from the hands of the king and
+his ministers. The Black Prince was the chief agent in urging these
+reforms, but his death, in the midst of the Parliament's
+deliberations, for a time rendered almost abortive the good work he
+had begun. Edward died June 21, 1377. Both in his home and foreign
+relations he showed considerable prudence and sagacity, and he may be
+allowed the merit of having endeavored as much as possible to keep on
+good terms with his subjects. His expeditions were planned on a scale
+of great magnificence, but he entered on his campaigns without any
+definite aim, and his splendid victories were mere isolated
+achievements, won partly by good fortune, but chiefly by the valor of
+Welsh and Irish yeomen and the skill of English archers.
+
+It has been observed, in regard to Edward III., by Sir James
+Mackintosh, that "though his victories left few lasting acquisitions,
+yet they surrounded the name of his country with a lustre which
+produced strength and safety; which perhaps also gave a loftier tone
+to the feelings of England, and a more vigorous activity to her
+faculties."
+
+[Illustration: Edward III. and the burghers of Calais.]
+
+"During a reign of fifty years," it is added, "Edward III. issued
+writs of summons, which are extant to this day, to assemble seventy
+parliaments or great councils: he thus engaged the pride and passions
+of the parliament and the people so deeply in support of his projects
+of aggrandizement, that they became his zealous and enthusiastic
+followers. His ambition was caught by the nation, and men of the
+humblest station became proud of his brilliant victories. To form and
+keep up this state of public temper was the mainspring of his domestic
+administration, and satisfactorily explains the internal tranquillity
+of England during the forty years of his effective reign. It was the
+natural consequence of so long and watchful a pursuit of popularity
+that most grievances were redressed as soon as felt, that
+parliamentary authority was yearly strengthened by exercise, and that
+the minds of the turbulent barons were exclusively turned toward a
+share in their sovereign's glory. Quiet at home was partly the fruit
+of fame abroad."
+
+
+
+
+EDWARD THE BLACK PRINCE
+
+By L. DRAKE
+
+(1330-1376)
+
+[Illustration: The black Prince's seal. [TN]]
+
+
+Edward, Prince of Wales, commonly called the Black Prince, was born in
+1330. He was the eldest son of Edward III., and a model of the highest
+virtues of his times, a loyal son, and a brave, yet merciful, warrior.
+He sailed with his father to attack the French in 1346, and though
+only sixteen was knighted by the king immediately on reaching France.
+He "made a right good beginning," for he rode with a small force on a
+daring foray, and then distinguished himself at the taking of Caen and
+in the engagement with the force under Gondemar du Fay, which
+endeavored to prevent the English army from crossing the Somme. King
+Edward and his small army compelled to face a far larger French force,
+made some of the most daring and successful marches on record in the
+annals of warfare.
+
+At length they encamped in a forest, a little to the west of the small
+town of Crécy. The French army, outnumbering them some say as four,
+some say as twelve to one, was not far distant; but, confident in his
+troops and himself, and animated by the memory of many triumphs, the
+English king resolved to make a stand. The field of Crécy, from the
+capabilities of the ground, was made choice of for the expected
+battle; and the plan being drawn out by Edward and his counsellors,
+the king, as the greatest and most chivalrous favor he could confer,
+determined to yield the place of danger and of honor to the prince,
+and in his own words, "to let the day be his."
+
+To insure his success, most of the famous knights were placed in the
+division which the Black Prince (as he was now called, from the sable
+suit of armor he usually wore) was to command; while the Earl of
+Warwick and the celebrated Sir John Chandos were ordered not to quit
+his side, but be ever ready to direct and aid him.
+
+Early on the morning of August 26, 1346, the trumpets sounded, and the
+army marched to take up the position which had been selected on the
+previous day. The ground was an irregular slope, looking toward the
+south and east--the quarters from which the army were expected. The
+prince's division, composed of 800 men-at-arms, 4,000 archers, and
+6,000 Welsh foot, was stationed nearly at the bottom of the hill; the
+archers, as usual, in front, the light troops next, and then the
+men-at-arms, in the midst of whom was the prince himself, with twelve
+earls and lords, as his staff. To the left of this, and higher on the
+slope, appeared the second division, of about 7,000 men, commanded by
+the Earls of Arundel and Northampton. On a rising ground, surmounted
+by a windmill, aloof from the rest, was King Edward himself, with
+12,000 men, as a reserve. The wagons and baggage were in the rear of
+the prince, under the charge of a small body of archers. As the battle
+was to be fought entirely on foot, all the horses were also left with
+these.
+
+Mounted on a palfrey, with a white staff in his hand, the king, with a
+smiling and cheerful countenance, rode from rank to rank. By noon he
+had passed through all the lines exhorting the men to do their duty
+gallantly, and defend his honor and right.
+
+The soldiers now had permission to refresh themselves, while waiting
+the enemy's approach. They accordingly ate and drank at ease, and
+afterward lay down in ranks on the long grass, with their bows and
+steel caps beside them.
+
+Meantime the French army had approached very near. Four knights had
+ridden forward, and observed King Edward's plan of battle; when,
+having seen how fresh and vigorous the English troops appeared, they
+advised Philip, the French king, to delay the engagement till next
+day, by which time his troops, now hungry and wearied, would be
+refreshed. Philip at once saw the wisdom of this counsel, and one of
+his marshals immediately galloped to the front, and the other to the
+rear.
+
+"Halt your banners, in the name of God, the king, and St. Denis!" was
+the command given to the leaders. The advanced troops instantly
+obeyed; but the others pressed on, hoping to be among the foremost.
+This obliged the soldiers in front to move on again. In vain the king
+commanded, and the marshals threatened; hurrying forward in
+disgraceful confusion, the French, passing through a small wood,
+suddenly found themselves in the presence of the English. The surprise
+caused the first line to fall back, and thus increase the confusion.
+
+The English soldiers now rose steadily from the grass, and stood in
+fair and martial order on the hillside, with the standard of the Black
+Prince in their front.
+
+The sky had by this time become clouded; a thunder-storm came on, and
+torrents of rain soon fell--slackening the strings of the cross-bows
+of the Genoese archers, who had advanced to break the firm front of
+the English bowmen. The clouds cleared quickly away, and the western
+sun soon shone out bright and clear, full in the faces of the French.
+At the moment the Genoese drew their arbalists, and commenced their
+discharge, each English archer stepped forward a single pace, as he
+took his bow from the case in which it had been protected from the
+rain; and a flight of arrows fell among the Genoese, piercing their
+heads, arms, and faces, and causing them instantly to retreat in
+confusion among the horsemen in their rear.
+
+The passionate French king, instead of trying to rally the fugitives,
+at once ordered the men-at-arms to fall upon them. The cavalry, the
+heavy troops, and the cross-bow men, soon formed a wild and reeling
+crowd, amid which the English poured a continued flight of unerring
+arrows, and not a single bowstring was drawn in vain.
+
+Meantime the Count of Alençon, dividing his men into two parties,
+swept round on one side of this scene of confusion; while the Count of
+Flanders did the same on the other side, and, avoiding the archers,
+furiously attacked the men-at-arms around the prince. England's
+chivalry, headed by the gallant boy, met the impetuous charge with
+equal valor and with greater success; and as each headlong effort of
+the French deranged the ranks for a moment, they were formed anew,
+each man fighting where he stood, none quitting his place to make a
+prisoner, while growing piles of dead told of their courage and vigor.
+The two counts were slain, and terror began to spread through their
+troops. A large body of German cavalry now bore down on the prince's
+archers, and, in spite of the terrible flight of arrows, cut their way
+through, and charged the men-at-arms. By this time nearly forty
+thousand men were pressing round the little English phalanx; but the
+combat was renewed, hand to hand, with more energy than ever, while
+the Earls of Northampton and Arundel moved up with their division, to
+repel the tremendous attack.
+
+King Edward still remained with his powerful reserve, viewing the
+battle from the windmill above. The Earl of Warwick now called a
+knight, named Thomas of Norwich, and despatched him to the king.
+
+"Sir Thomas," demanded Edward, "is my son killed, or overthrown, or
+wounded beyond help?"
+
+"Not so, my liege," answered the knight; "yet he is in a rude shock of
+arms, and much does he need your aid."
+
+"Go back, Sir Thomas, to those who sent you," rejoined the king, "and
+tell them from me, that whatever happens, to require no aid from me,
+so long as my son is in life. Tell them, also, that I command them to
+let the boy win his spurs; for, God willing, the day shall be his, and
+the honor shall rest with him, and those into whose charge I have
+given him."
+
+The prince, and those around him, seemed inspired with fresh courage
+by this message; and efforts surpassing all that had preceded were
+made by the English soldiers. The French men-at-arms, as they still
+dashed down on the ranks, met the same fate as their predecessors;
+and, hurled wounded from their dying horses, were thrust through by
+the short lances of the half-armed Welshmen, who rushed hither and
+thither through the midst of the fight. Charles of Luxembourg, who led
+the German cavalry, seeing his banner down, his friends slain, his
+troops routed, and himself wounded severely in three places, fled,
+casting off his rich surcoat, to avoid recognition.
+
+This prince's father, the veteran King of Bohemia, was seated on
+horseback at a little distance from the fight. The old man had fought
+in almost every quarter of Europe; but, though still full of valor, he
+was now blind. Unable himself to mark the progress of the fight, he
+continued to inquire anxiously, and soon discovered that the day was
+lost.
+
+"My son," demanded the veteran monarch of his attendants; "my
+son!--can you still see my son?"
+
+"The King of the Romans is not in sight, sire," was the reply; "but
+doubtless he is somewhere engaged in the _mêlée_."
+
+"Lords," continued the old king,--drawing his own conclusions from
+what he heard, and resolved not to quit the field alive--"Lords, you
+are my vassals, my friends, and my companions; and on this day, I
+command and beseech you to lead me forward so far that I may deal one
+blow of my sword in the battle."
+
+They linked their horses' bridles to one another, and placing their
+venerable lord in the centre, galloped down into the field. Entering
+the thickest strife, they advanced directly against the Prince of
+Wales. Here the blind monarch was seen fighting valiantly for some
+time; but at length his banner went down. Next day he was found dead
+on the field of Crécy--his friends around him--their horses still
+linked to each other by the bridles.
+
+It was growing dark ere the angry Philip could force his way through
+the confusion he had himself chiefly caused by the imprudent command
+he gave at the commencement of the battle. The unremitting arrows of
+the English still continued to pour like hail; and his followers fell
+thickly around him. Many fled, leaving him to his fate; and presently
+his own horse was killed by an arrow.
+
+One of his attendants, John of Hainault, who had remained by his side
+the whole day, mounted him on one of his own chargers, and entreated
+him to quit the field. Philip refused; and, making his way into the
+thickest battle, fought for some time with great courage. At
+length--his troops almost annihilated, himself wounded in two
+places--he suffered John to half force him from the field; and, with a
+few of his lords, and only sixty men-at-arms, reached his nearest
+castle of Broye in safety. At midnight he again set out, and did not
+slacken his flight till he reached Amiens.
+
+The gallant Prince of Wales still held his station firmly in the
+battle; the utmost efforts of the French had not made him yield a
+single step. By degrees, as night fell, the assailants decreased in
+numbers, the banners disappeared, and the shouts of the knights and
+the clang of arms died away. Silence at last crept over the field, and
+told that victory was completed by the flight of the enemy. Torches
+were then lighted, in immense numbers, along the English lines to
+dispel the darkness.
+
+King Edward now first quitted his station on the hill; he hastily
+sought his conquering boy, and clasped him proudly to his bosom.
+
+"God give you perseverance in your course, my child!" cried the king,
+as he still held him. "You are indeed my son! Nobly have you acquitted
+yourself, and worthy are you of the place you hold!"
+
+The youthful hero had hitherto, in the excitement and energy of the
+battle, felt only the necessity of immense exertion, and had been
+unmindful of all but the immediate efforts of the moment; but now, the
+thought of his great victory--which his father's praise seemed first
+to bring fully to his mind--overcame him, and he sank on his knees
+before the king, and entreated his blessing, after a day of such glory
+and peril. And thus ended the battle of Crécy.
+
+The prince had now fully established his character as a warrior. Two
+or three years afterward, he showed that he could display equal
+courage at sea as on land; this was in an engagement with the
+Spaniards.
+
+Peter the Cruel--as he was termed--was at that time King of Castile,
+and encouraged, to a great extent, the pirates who infested the
+English seas. His own fleet even, in passing through the British
+Channel, had captured a number of English merchantmen, returning from
+Bordeaux, and after putting into Sluys, were preparing to sail back in
+triumph with the prizes and merchandise.
+
+King Edward determined to oppose their return, and collected his fleet
+off the coast of Sussex, near Winchelsea. When he heard that the
+Spaniards were about putting to sea, he immediately embarked to
+command the expedition in person. The Black Prince, now in his
+twentieth year, accompanied him, and commanded one of the largest
+vessels. The day on which the Spanish fleet would make its appearance
+had been nicely calculated. Edward waited impatiently for its
+approach, and, to beguile the time, made the musicians play an air
+which the famous Chandos, who was now with him, had brought from
+Germany. During the concert, the king, from time to time, turned his
+eye to the watcher at the masthead. In a short time the music was
+interrupted by the cry of--"A sail!" Ordering wine to be brought,
+Edward drank one cup with his knights, and, throwing off the cap he
+had worn till now, put on his casque, and closed his visor for the
+day.
+
+The Spanish ships came on in gallant trim. The number of fighting men
+which they contained was, compared with the English, as ten to one;
+and their vessels were of a much greater size. They had also large
+wooden towers on board, filled with cross-bowmen, and were further
+provided with immense bars of iron, with which to sink the ships of
+their opponents. They approached, with their tops filled with
+cross-bowmen and engineers, the decks covered with men-at-arms, and
+with the banners and pennons of different knights and commanders
+flying from every mast. They came up, in order of battle, a few hours
+before night. King Edward immediately steered direct against a large
+Spanish ship; endeavoring, according to the custom of ancient naval
+warfare, to run her down with his prow. The vessel, which was much
+superior to his own in magnitude, withstood the tremendous shock--both
+ships recoiling from each other. The king now found his ship had
+sprung a leak, and was sinking fast. In the confusion the Spanish
+vessel passed on; but Edward immediately ordering his ship to be
+lashed to another of the enemy, after a desperate struggle, made
+himself master of a sound vessel.
+
+The battle now raged on all sides. Showers of bolts and quarrels from
+the cross-bows, and immense stones, hurled by powerful engines, were
+poured upon the English. The Black Prince, imitating the example of
+his father, had fixed on one of the largest ships of the enemy; but,
+while steering toward her, the missiles she discharged pierced his own
+vessel in several places. The speedy capture of his enemy was now
+necessary; for, as he came alongside, his barque was absolutely
+sinking. The sides of his opponent's vessel being much higher than his
+own rendered the attempt very hazardous; and while, sword in hand, he
+attempted to force his way, bolts and arrows poured on his head from
+every quarter. The Earl of Lancaster, sweeping by to engage one of the
+enemy, saw the situation of the prince, and immediately dashed to the
+other side of the antagonist, and after a fierce but short struggle,
+the Spanish ship remained in the hands of the prince; and scarcely had
+he and his crew left their own vessel, before she filled and went
+down.
+
+Twenty-four of the enemy's ships had by this time been captured; the
+rest were sunk, or in full flight; and, night having fallen, King
+Edward measured back the short distance to the shore. Father and son,
+then mounting horse, rode to the Abbey of Winchelsea, where Queen
+Philippa had been left, and soon turned the suspense she had suffered,
+since darkness had hidden the battle from her sight, into joy and
+gratitude.
+
+The French king, Philip, was now dead, and had been succeeded by his
+eldest son John. Some proceedings, on the part of the new monarch,
+were regarded as a signal to break the truce which had subsisted for a
+short time between the English and the French. Various displays of
+hostilities followed, and many negotiations were entered into without
+success. The Black Prince, being appointed captain-general, sailed for
+Bordeaux in August, 1355, and arrived there after an easy passage. His
+first movements were always successful; and, even when winter set in,
+the judicious manner in which he employed his troops enabled him to
+add five fortified towns and seventeen castles to the English
+possessions.
+
+Spring and summer passed by--the prince still continuing active. At
+length, the French king collected an immense army, and marched to
+intercept him. Though well aware that John was endeavoring to cut off
+his retreat, the Black Prince was ignorant of the exact position of
+the French army, until, one day, a small foraging party fell in with a
+troop of three hundred horsemen, who, pursuing the little band across
+some bushes, suddenly found themselves under the banner of the Black
+Prince. After a few blows they surrendered, and from them the prince
+learned that King John was a day's march in advance of him.
+
+A party, despatched to reconnoitre, brought back intelligence that an
+army of eight times his force lay between him and Poitiers. Though
+without fear, the prince felt all the difficulties of his situation;
+yet his simple reply was--"God be our help!--now let us think how we
+may fight them to the best advantage."
+
+A high ground, commanding the country toward Poitiers, defended by the
+hedges of a vineyard, and accessible from the city only by a hollow
+way scarcely wide enough to admit four men abreast, presented to him a
+most defensible position. Here he encamped, and early next morning,
+disposed his troops for battle. He dismounted his whole force; placed
+a body of archers, drawn up in the form of a harrow, in front, the
+men-at-arms behind, and stationed strong bodies of bowmen along the
+hedges, on each side of the hollow way. Thus, while climbing the hill,
+the French would be exposed to the galling flights of arrows, while
+the nature of the ground would further render their superiority in
+numbers of little avail.
+
+The French host now began to advance;--yet, as its ocean of waving
+plumes rolled up the hill, the prince, in the same firm tone which had
+declared the day before, that England should never have to pay his
+ransom, now spoke the hope of victory.
+
+Three hundred chosen horsemen soon reached the narrow way, and,
+putting their horses at full gallop, poured in to charge the harrow of
+archers. The instant they were completely within the banks, the
+English bowmen along the hedges poured a flight of arrows, which threw
+them at once into confusion.
+
+The bodies of the slain men and horses soon blocked up the way; but a
+considerable number, forcing a path through every obstacle, nearly
+approached the first line of archers. A gallant knight, named James
+Audley, with his four squires, rushed against them; and thus, almost
+single-handed, he fought during the whole day, hewing a path through
+the thickest of the foe, until late in the evening; when, covered with
+many wounds, and fainting from loss of blood, he was borne from the
+field.
+
+Meantime the shower of arrows continued to pour death, while the
+English men-at-arms, passing between the lines of the archers, drove
+back the foremost of the enemy, and the hollow soon became one scene
+of carnage. One of Edward's officers, named the Captal de Buch, at the
+same time issued from a woody ravine situated near the foot of the
+hill,--where, with three hundred men-at-arms and three hundred archers
+on horseback, he had lain concealed,--and attacked the flank of one of
+the divisions of the French army, commanded by the Dauphin, as it
+commenced the ascent. This, with the confusion in front, and a rumor
+that part of the army was beaten, carried terror into the rear ranks,
+and vast numbers, who had hardly seen an enemy, galloped madly from
+the field. The arrows discharged by the horse-archers now began to
+tell on the front line of the enemy:--the quick eye of Sir John
+Chandos marked it waver and open.
+
+"Now, sir," he exclaimed, turning to the prince, "ride forward, and
+the day is yours. Let us charge right upon the King of France, for
+there lies the fate of the day. His courage, I know well, will not let
+him fly; but he shall be well encountered."
+
+"On! on! Chandos," replied the prince, "you shall not see me tread one
+step back, but ever in advance. Bear on my banner! God and St. George
+be with us!"
+
+The horses had been kept in readiness; and each man now springing into
+saddle, the army bore down on the enemy with levelled lances, the
+Captal de Buch forcing his way onward to regain the main body. The
+hostile forces met with a terrible shock, while the cries of "Denis
+Mountjoye!" "St. George, Guienne!" mingled with the clashing of steel,
+the shivering of lances, and the sound of the galloping steeds. The
+sight of the conflict struck terror into a body of sixteen thousand
+men, who had not yet drawn a sword. Panic seemed to seize them; and
+these fresh troops, instead of aiding their companions, fled
+disgracefully with their commander, the Duke of Orleans. This probably
+decided the day.
+
+King John was now seen advancing with his reserve, in numbers still
+double the force of the English at the commencement of the battle. He
+saw his nobles flying, but though indignant, felt no alarm; then,
+dismounting with all his men, he led them, battle-axe in hand, against
+the English charge. The black armor of the young leader of the English
+rendered him also conspicuous; and, while the French king did feats of
+valor enough to win twenty battles if courage could have done all, the
+prince was seen raging like a young lion amid the thickest of the
+enemy. Knight to knight, and hand to hand, the battle was now fought.
+The French were driven back, step by step, till John found himself
+nearly at the gates of Poitiers, now shut against him. While, however,
+the oriflamme waved over his head, he would not believe the day lost;
+but, at length it went down, and his hopes fell with it. Surrounded on
+every side by foes eager to make him prisoner, he still wielded his
+battle-axe, clearing at each stroke the space around him and his
+little son, who had accompanied him through the fatal field. A knight
+of Artois, of gigantic height, who had been outlawed and had taken
+service with England, seeing that the monarch's life would be lost if
+he protracted his resistance, suddenly rushed into the circle.
+
+"Yield, sire, yield!" he exclaimed in French.
+
+"Who art thou?" inquired John.
+
+"I am Denis de Mortbec, a poor knight of Artois," answered the outlaw,
+"but now in the service of England, because a banished man from my own
+country."
+
+"Well, I yield me to you," cried the king, giving him in sign of
+surrender, his right gauntlet.
+
+By this time nothing was seen but dead and dying on the field, with
+groups of prisoners, and parties of fugitives escaping over the
+distant country. The prince, by the advice of Chandos, now pitched his
+banner on a high spot; and, while the trumpets sounded a recall to the
+standard he dismounted, and, unbracing his helmet, took a draught of
+wine with the band of knights who had accompanied him throughout the
+arduous day.
+
+The unfortunate French king was soon brought to him by the Earl of
+Warwick and Lord Cobham. The prince received his vanquished adversary
+with deep and touching respect. Bending his knee before John, he
+called for wine, and, with his own hands, presented the cup to the
+unhappy king.
+
+By mid-day the battle was over; but, as the pursuing parties did not
+return till evening, it was only then that the prince learned the
+greatness of his victory. With eight thousand men he had vanquished
+more than sixty thousand, and the captives were double the number of
+the conquerors.
+
+At night a sumptuous entertainment was served in the tent of the Black
+Prince to the King of France and the principal prisoners. John, his
+son, and six of his chief nobles, were seated at a table raised higher
+than the rest; but no place was reserved for the prince himself. Great
+was the surprise when the victor appeared to officiate as page. This
+in the days of chivalry implied no degradation, though it showed the
+generous humility of the young hero. John repeatedly entreated the
+prince to seat himself beside him, and could scarcely be persuaded to
+taste the food while his vanquisher remained standing, or handed him
+the cup on bended knee. The respectful manner in which the prince
+conducted himself, and the feeling he expressed for the misfortunes of
+his foe, so touched John, that at last the tears burst from his eyes,
+and mingled with the marks of blood on his checks.
+
+The example of their leader was followed throughout the English camp;
+every one treating his prisoners as friends, and admitting them to
+ransom on terms named, in most cases, by the vanquished themselves.
+
+After this event the prince again distinguished himself in France, for
+the claims of his father, which the treaty had in part recognized,
+were again disputed. Many battles were fought, and much negotiation
+was carried on, extending over several years; while in the midst of
+these harassments, the prince, who had long been ill, became worse.
+His surgeons advised his return to England. He complied; but day after
+day his strength failed him, and fainting fits of long continuance
+often led those around him to suppose him dead. At length, on Sunday,
+June 8, 1376, he closed a life which for years had been one sad scene
+of suffering. He was interred with due pomp in Canterbury Cathedral,
+his favorite suit of black armor being suspended over his tomb. Thus,
+scarcely past his prime, died "the valiant and gentle Prince of Wales,
+the flower of all chivalry in the world at that time."
+
+
+
+
+BERTRAND DU GUESCLIN
+
+(1314-1380)
+
+[Illustration: Bertrand du Guesclin. [TN]]
+
+
+Bertrand du Guesclin, Constable of France, the most famous French
+warrior of his age, was born of an ancient but undistinguished family,
+at the castle of La Motte-Broon, near Rennes, about 1314. The date is
+doubtful, the authorities varying between 1311 and 1324. The name is
+spelt in various ways in contemporary records, _e.g._, Claquin,
+Klesquin, Guescquin, Glayaquin, etc. The familiar form is found on his
+monument at St. Denis, and in some legal documents of the time. In his
+boyhood Bertrand was a dull learner, spending his time in open-air
+sports and exercises, and could never read or write. He was remarkable
+for ugliness, and was an object of aversion to his parents. He first
+made himself a name as a soldier at the tournament held at Rennes in
+1338 to celebrate the marriage of Charles of Blois with Jeanne de
+Penthièvere, at which he unseated the most famous competitors.
+
+But this playing at fighting was not enough for his ambition; and in
+the war which followed between Charles of Blois and John de Montfort,
+for the possession of the Duchy of Brittany, he served his
+apprenticeship as a soldier. As he was not a great baron with a body
+of vassals at his command, he put himself at the head of a band of
+adventurers, and fought on the side of Charles and of France. He
+distinguished himself by a brilliant action at the siege of Vannes in
+1342; and after that he disappears from history for some years. In
+1351, having shortly before been made a knight, he was sent into
+England with the lords of Brittany to treat for the ransom of Charles
+of Blois, who had been defeated and captured by the English in 1347.
+When Rennes was besieged by the Duke of Lancaster, in 1356, Du
+Guesclin forced his way with a handful of men into the town, and
+successfully defended it till June, 1357, when the siege was raised in
+pursuance of the truce of Bordeaux. For this service he was rewarded
+with the lordship of Roche d'Airien.
+
+At the expiration of the truce he distinguished himself by the defence
+of Dinan, and here he engaged in single combat with Sir Thomas
+Canterbury. Shortly afterward he married; and about the same time he
+passed into the service of France, and greatly distinguished himself
+at the siege of Melun (1359). In April, 1364, in conjunction with
+Boucicault, he recovered Mantes and Meulan from the King of Navarre;
+and in May he defeated the Navarrese under Captal de Buch at Cocherel,
+and took their leader prisoner. The king now created him Marshal of
+Normandy and Count of Longueville. At the battle of Auray, in
+September of the same year, Charles of Blois was defeated and killed,
+and Du Guesclin taken prisoner, by Sir John Chandos.
+
+The grand companies beginning, after the close of the war, to play the
+part of brigands in France, it was necessary to get rid of them. Du
+Guesclin was ransomed for 100,000 crowns, and was charged to lead them
+out of France. He marched with them into Spain, visiting Avignon on
+the way, and extorting from the Pope a large sum of money and his
+absolution. Du Guesclin now supported Henry of Trastamare against
+Peter the Cruel, set the former upon the throne of Castile (1366), and
+was made Constable of Castile and Count of Trastamare. In the
+following year he was defeated and captured by the Black Prince, ally
+of Peter the Cruel, at Najara, but was soon released for a heavy
+ransom. Once more he fought for Henry, reinstated him on the throne
+(1369), and was created Duke of Molinas.
+
+[Illustration: Bertrand du Guesclin.]
+
+In May, 1370, at the command of Charles V., who named him Constable of
+France, he returned to France. War had just been declared against
+England, and Du Guesclin was called to take part in it. For nearly ten
+years he was engaged in fighting against the English in the south and
+the west of France, recovering from them the provinces of Poitou,
+Guienne, and Auvergne, and thus powerfully contributing to the
+establishment of a united France. In 1373, when the Duke of Brittany
+sought English aid against a threatened invasion by Charles V., Du
+Guesclin was sent at the head of a powerful army to seize the duchy,
+which he did; and two years later he frustrated, by a defensive
+policy, the attempt of the duke with an English army to recover it.
+Finding, in 1379, that the king entertained suspicions of his fidelity
+to him, he resolved to give up his constable's sword and retire to
+Spain. His resolution was at first proof against remonstrance; but
+ultimately he received back the sword, and continued in the service of
+France.
+
+In 1380 he was sent into Languedoc to suppress disturbances and
+brigandage provoked by the harsh government of the Duke of Anjou. His
+first act was to lay siege to the fortress of Châteauneuf-Randou, held
+by the English, strongly garrisoned and well provisioned. A day was
+fixed conditionally for capitulation. Meanwhile the great warrior was
+smitten with a mortal illness, and died, July 13, 1380. The commander
+led out the garrison and deposited the keys of the castle on the
+coffin of the hero. Du Guesclin lost his first wife in 1371, and
+married a second in 1373. His remains were interred, by order of the
+king, in the church of St Denis.
+
+
+
+
+HENRY V. OF ENGLAND
+
+Extracts from "Memoirs of Great Commanders," by G. P. R. JAMES
+
+(1388-1422)
+
+[Illustration: Ritter's arms. [TN]]
+
+
+Henry, the fifth English monarch of that name, was born at Monmouth,
+on the banks of the pleasant Wye, in the year 1388. He was the eldest
+son of Henry, Earl of Derby, and of Mary de Bohun, daughter of the
+Earl of Hereford. During his infancy reverses and successes passed
+rapidly over his father's head, and at the age of thirteen years he
+found himself the eldest son of the King of England, and was created
+by his father Prince of Wales, Duke of Cornwall, and Earl of Chester.
+The early education of Henry the Fifth is unknown; but it may be
+inferred, that during the life of his mother, principles of high honor
+and virtue had been instilled into his bosom, which became dormant,
+though not extinct, as rising toward manhood, evil companions took
+advantage of idleness and indulgence to call into action the passions
+of the young prince, in order to lead him to their own purposes.
+
+The tales of his debauchery, and the depravity of his taste, while a
+youth, have been doubted and contradicted, but not disproved by modern
+historians; but the positive assertions of older writers, whose means
+of information was great and immediate, must always be more valuable
+than the theoretical doubts of persons who live when a thousand
+sources of knowledge have been buried under the lumber of ages. It is
+therefore more than probable that, in his youth, Henry the Fifth gave
+himself up to low companions, unworthy a prince and a gentleman, and
+yielded to his passions indulgences which were forbidden by his
+reason. Nevertheless, through the whole course of his youthful errors,
+as portrayed by those least favorable in their account, there is to be
+seen the gleaming forth of those better principles, that nobler soul,
+which rendered him in after years one of the greatest and best of
+English monarchs.
+
+Out of a multitude of events which might be brought forward to prove
+this fact, one of the best authenticated, and the most striking, is
+his submission to Chief-justice Gascoigne. Henry, it would appear, had
+entered the Court of Justice in support of one of his dissolute
+companions, who had rendered himself amenable to the laws of his
+country. Notwithstanding the presence and influence of the prince, the
+magistrate did his duty toward the offender, without fear or favor,
+and in the heat of the moment, Henry struck the judge upon the
+judgment-seat. Still unmoved and unruffled, the chief-justice, without
+a hesitation on the score of the prince's rank or power, at once
+committed him for contempt of court.
+
+Time had been given for the better spirit to assume her influence, and
+struck with the conscientious courage of the judge, the heir-apparent
+of the British throne submitted to the punishment he had merited, and
+suffered himself without opposition to be led to prison, thus setting
+a noble example of obedience to the laws. His father was of a mind
+well qualified to appreciate the conduct both of his son and of his
+son's judge, and when the news was brought him--probably by those who
+sought to inflame the monarch's mind against the punisher of his
+son--he exclaimed, with joy: "Blessed is the king whose magistrates
+possess courage to execute the laws upon such an offender; and still
+more happy is he who has for a son a prince willing to endure such
+wholesome chastisement."
+
+Although from all accounts it would appear that many parts of the
+prince's conduct gave great pain and offence to his father, yet we
+find that Henry IV. never scrupled to entrust to his care some of the
+greatest and most important military operations of his reign. Whether
+the prince had already displayed the qualities of a soldier, in a
+degree sufficient to attract the notice of his father, or whether the
+king sought only to habituate him early to that inevitable career of
+arms which was in those days one of the misfortunes of royalty, we are
+not informed; but so early as his sixteenth or seventeenth year he
+fought at the battle of Shrewsbury, in which Henry Hotspur was slain.
+What was the part assigned to the prince on this occasion I do not
+find stated precisely; but all accounts agree that he proved of
+infinite assistance and service to his father, and fought long in the
+thickest of the battle, after having been severely wounded by an arrow
+in the face.
+
+The death of Percy spread dismay among his soldiers and allies, and
+after a fight of nearly four hours the party of Northumberland fled,
+leaving the king master of the field of battle, and a number of noble
+prisoners. Many of these were executed either at Shrewsbury or London;
+and the Earl of Northumberland, the chief support of the rebellion,
+made his peace for the time to meditate his rebellions.
+
+Owen Glendower, however, one of the confederates, was still in arms in
+Wales; and while Henry IV. returned in triumph to London, he
+despatched his eldest son, at the head of considerable forces, to
+reduce the Principality to obedience. The unhappy Glendower, unable to
+oppose the army led against him, was forced to fly, and, abandoned by
+his friends and followers, is said to have died of starvation among
+the caves and wildernesses in which he sought refuge. In the meanwhile
+the Prince of Wales conducted his expedition with skill and wisdom;
+the whole country submitted to his power; and having re-established
+order and tranquillity, he returned to London with honor and praise.
+
+Little further occurs in the history of Henry as Prince of Wales which
+is interesting in itself, if stripped of the embellishments added to
+it by the fancy of our great poet. A project of marriage between the
+heir of the British crown and a daughter of the Duke of Burgundy, was
+entertained for some time, but died away, and the opposite, or Orleans
+party in France, was afterward supported by the English Crown. At
+length Henry the Fourth, on the eve of an expedition to the Holy Land,
+undertaken, it is said, in expiation of his usurpation of the throne,
+was struck with apoplexy; and a tale, in regard to his death, is
+current among the historians of the period, on which Shakespeare has
+founded one of the most beautiful scenes in his historical dramas. The
+poet, however, is far more indebted for the splendor of his materials
+to his own imagination, than any historical record. The facts, as
+related by the best authorities, are simply as follows.
+
+After the first attack of apoplexy the king was carried to a chamber
+in the house of the Abbot of Westminster, and put to bed, and at his
+own desire the crown was laid upon his pillow. He languished in a
+state of great weakness for some time, and at length, after a second
+attack, appeared to those who were watching him to have yielded the
+spirit. The chamberlain immediately spread a linen cloth over the face
+of the king, and hastened to communicate his supposed death to the
+heir-apparent, who, entering the room to take a last look at his
+father's body, removed the crown from his pillow, and carried it into
+another apartment. After a short time the monarch revived, and sending
+for his son demanded, angrily, why he had removed the crown. The
+prince replied that all men had thought him dead, and therefore he had
+taken the symbol of royalty as his by right.
+
+"What right I have to it myself, God knows," replied the king, "and
+how I have enjoyed it."
+
+"Of that," replied the prince, "it is not for me to judge; but if you
+die king, my father, I will have the garland, and will defend it with
+my sword against all enemies as you have done."
+
+Not long after this conversation Henry IV. expired, and his son, the
+Prince of Wales, was immediately proclaimed king by the title of Henry
+V. But his change was not alone in name or station; his vices and his
+follies he cast from him, as an unworthy garment, and assumed with
+royalty a royal mind. The debauched companions of his youth were
+banished from his presence and his counsels, and forbidden to approach
+within ten miles of his dwelling. But at the same time we are assured
+that they were not left in indigence or necessity. Wisdom and virtue
+became the only recommendations which raised any one to his service,
+and those who had proved themselves most worthy, under the government
+of the former monarch, found themselves most readily welcomed by the
+new king.
+
+No sooner was the truce at an end which then existed between France
+and England, than Henry himself proceeded to Southampton to take the
+command of his army in person. The English armament put to sea, and
+notwithstanding great preparations which had been made for defending
+the French coast, Henry landed his troops in safety at the mouth of
+the Seine, and immediately laid siege to Harfleur, at that time the
+principal sea-port of Normandy.
+
+The Dauphin himself advanced to Vernon on the Seine, and the famous
+Marshal Boucicault, one of the most celebrated knights of his time,
+gathered together a large force, and advanced toward the English army.
+
+Nevertheless Henry did not suffer his courage to fail, and the siege
+was continued with unabated vigor. At length the means of defence
+began to fail within the town. Two wagons of powder, which the French
+attempted to introduce, fell into the hands of the English; the walls
+were ruined by the effects of the artillery, and at length the
+governor agreed to surrender, if he remained unrelieved at the end of
+three days. The three days expired without succor, and Harfleur was
+surrendered to the King of England.
+
+     [Here follows a long and glowing account of Henry's retreat in
+     the face of the overwhelming French forces, and of his greatest
+     victory, the famous battle of Agincourt.]
+
+Shortly after his return to England, Henry was visited by Sigismund,
+Emperor of Germany, accompanied by French ambassadors commissioned to
+treat for peace under his mediation. But while Henry continued to
+exact severe terms, the French gave him constant excuses for
+proceeding in the war, by their efforts to recover Harfleur, which,
+however, were constantly defeated by the activity of the English
+monarch and his officers.
+
+[Illustration: Henry V. rejects Falstaff.]
+
+To conquer the former patrimony of the British kings seemed the
+monarch's first object, and in a very short time he made himself
+master of almost all the principal cities of the duchy. Caen, indeed,
+resisted with devoted courage, and, after a severe siege, was taken by
+assault; but the governors of the other fortified places in Normandy,
+divided between the Armagnac and the Burgundian parties, had no
+confidence in their soldiers or each other, and one after another
+submitted to the power of the conqueror. Nor, indeed, did Henry spare
+any means to obtain his purpose in such a bloodless manner. All his
+proclamations announced that those who submitted should be safe in
+person and property; and his address to all the French people holds
+out to them that prospect of peace and protection which had long been
+unknown amongst the dissensions of their nobles. The first person
+of great influence, however, who joined the forces of the English
+king, was the Duke of Brittany; and, though Henry exacted no very
+great exertions from his new ally, the example of such a defection
+from the crown of France was greatly in behalf of the invader. Rouen,
+the capital of Normandy, however, still resolutely closed her gates
+against the English.
+
+The attack and capture of the Pont de l'Arche announced to the people
+of Rouen, and to the King of France, that the war was about to
+approach the gates of the Norman capital, and every exertion was made,
+both by the Burgundian faction, who now held the king in their hands,
+and the burghers of the city itself, to repel the English in the
+attempt. A number of famous knights and commanders were thrown into
+the city, which was, besides, garrisoned by upward of four thousand
+men-at-arms, and fifteen thousand armed citizens, all eager in the
+cause.
+
+Immense efforts were now made by the English to force an entrance, but
+the defences of the place were so strong, and the defenders so
+resolute, that no hope appeared of effecting a practicable breach in
+the walls. Many a sally took place, and many an assault, and many a
+feat of arms was performed between the two armies. But in the
+meanwhile the provisions of the people of the town began to decrease,
+and a smaller and smaller portion of food became the allowance of each
+day. At length the inhabitants, by murmurs and threats, compelled the
+garrison to treat; and, after a long and painful negotiation, Rouen
+capitulated, upon terms which could hardly be called unfavorable, in
+the situation to which its defenders were reduced.
+
+The news of the fall of Rouen had the greatest effect on the rest of
+Normandy, and twenty-seven towns, or castles, immediately made
+submission to the King of England, without even being summoned to
+surrender. Nor was this immediate benefit the only advantage which
+followed from the capture of Rouen. Dismay and doubt spread through
+all France, and thoughts of peace and concession were entertained by
+those who had hitherto breathed nothing but war and defiance to the
+King of England.
+
+Pontoise was almost immediately taken by surprise, Gisors and Chateau
+Gaillard fell after a short siege, and the terrific news of the
+advance of the English reached Paris, and induced the King, the Queen,
+and the Duke of Burgundy to abandon the capital and retire to Troyes.
+
+Henry's ambassadors, according to the desire of the French court, were
+instantly sent to Troyes--where the weak king remained under the
+guidance of his evil wife and her counsellors--and they soon sketched
+out a treaty by which, on marrying the Princess Catharine, the English
+monarch should be declared heir to the crown of France, to the
+exclusion of the Dauphin and his lineage. This hasty treaty was as
+hastily ratified, and Henry, with fifteen thousand men departed from
+Rouen, and marching with all speed to Troyes, put the seal to an
+arrangement which conveyed to him the throne for which he had fought,
+by marrying the daughter of the French monarch. To the first articles
+proposed was now added, at the request of Henry, that the Regency of
+the kingdom, to the government of which Charles was totally
+incompetent, should be entrusted to him, and no sooner was the
+solemnity of his marriage completed, than he instantly took the field
+against the Dauphin, leading the unhappy King of France and his whole
+court against the natural heir to his throne. The town of Sens first
+fell before the arms of England and Burgundy, and immediately after
+siege was laid to Montereau, where the assassination of John the Bold
+had been committed.
+
+Henry also now took upon him the whole executive power of the
+government. The governors of towns, the officers of state, the
+magistrates and the dignitaries, were placed and displaced at his
+pleasure. The currency of the country was altered at his suggestion,
+and his counsels swayed everything in France. However, England was
+still at his heart, and leaving a country that his sword and his
+policy had conquered, as soon as he could do so with any security, he
+carried his beautiful bride to be crowned in London.
+
+The moment, however, that his foot was out of France, his interests in
+that country declined; and the rashness of his officers brought
+confusion and ruin into his affairs. Town after town was taken by the
+Dauphin; and at length the Duke of Clarence, the English monarch's
+brother, with all the chivalry that accompanied him, were defeated at
+Baugé, in Anjou, and the duke himself, as well as three thousand of
+his men, remained dead upon the field. This news, accompanied by the
+further tidings that the Dauphin was advancing to besiege Chartres,
+called upon the king imperatively to return to France; and leaving the
+queen to follow at a future time, Henry set out for Calais accompanied
+by four thousand men-at-arms and twenty-four thousand archers.
+
+His coming gave new courage to the Burgundian faction, and struck fear
+into the followers of the Dauphin. Scarcely pausing at all in the
+capital, the English monarch advanced direct toward Chartres, before
+which the Dauphin had already been encamped three weeks; but long ere
+the English reached the town the gates were free, and the adverse army
+with all speed retreated toward Touraine. Thither the English monarch
+followed, breathing revenge for the death of his brother. Dreux and
+Beaugency-sur-Loire were conquered by the way; but after pursuing the
+Dauphin ineffectually for some time, the scarcity of provisions
+obliged him to return toward Normandy. On his march back, he is said
+to have fallen in with a party of the Armagnac faction, who retreated
+before him into a castle called Rougemont, which was instantly
+assailed and taken by the English. All who were within, the French
+historians assert, to the number of sixty persons, were, by the king's
+order, drowned in the Loire, a fact which accords too well with the
+manners of the time and some parts of the monarch's own character. The
+town of Meaux was the next object of attack, and a long and courageous
+defence was made by the Dauphinois within.
+
+The fall of Meaux, like that of Rouen, brought with it the surrender
+of an immense number of other places, but this was the last great
+military undertaking which Henry conducted in person. From Meaux he
+went direct to Vincennes to meet his queen, who was at this time on
+her journey from Calais, and thence proceeded with the King and Queen
+of France to Paris, where various transactions took place relative to
+the internal policy of the country. The court soon removed thence to
+Senlis, where Henry continued to make his principal abode, till news
+from the banks of the Loire roused him from inactivity.
+
+[Illustration: Arms. [TN]]
+
+The Dauphin, now finding the English monarch removed from his
+immediate neighborhood, again advanced with all the forces he could
+gather, and laid siege to Cône-sur-Loire, then garrisoned by the
+troops of Burgundy. The town, hard pressed, was obliged to treat, and
+agreed to surrender, without the Duke of Burgundy should give battle
+to the Dauphin in its defence, before the sixteenth day of August
+ensuing. The tidings were communicated to the duke by the garrison,
+and at the same time a herald from the Dauphin defied him to the field
+the day named. The duke instantly accepted the challenge, and sent to
+all his allies, as customary on such occasions, begging their aid and
+support in the day of battle. Among the rest he demanded the
+assistance of forces from the King of England, to be led by such of
+his famous leaders as he could well spare. Henry, however, though
+already unwell, declared that he would send no one to the aid of his
+good cousin of Burgundy, but go himself, and, accordingly, commanding
+his brother the Duke of Bedford, to lead his troops from Paris and
+that neighborhood, he himself set out from Senlis on horseback. At
+Melun, however, his sickness had so far increased, that, no longer
+able to sit on his horse, he attempted to proceed on a litter, but at
+length was obliged to turn toward Vincennes, where each day brought
+him nearer to the tomb.
+
+The Duke of Bedford, led the English forces to Cône, from which the
+Dauphin had already retreated, and the English prince returned just in
+time to witness the death of his brother.
+
+Henry already felt his danger, and calling his relations around him,
+made those dispositions which he thought necessary for securing his
+dominions to his child. He then insisted upon his physicians informing
+him how long he had to live, and being told that his life could not
+last much more than two hours, he prepared to meet death with the same
+courage which he had evinced during life. After going through all the
+ceremonial duties of the Catholic religion, he commanded some
+particular psalms to be sung in his chamber, and died very nearly the
+time his physicians had predicted.
+
+Henry V. was a great conqueror, and a wise, prudent, and politic
+prince. His two greatest faults seem to have been ambition and
+cruelty; the first was an inheritance, and the second, perhaps, was
+less an effect of a harsh nature than of hasty passion. We seldom find
+that he committed any deliberate act of barbarity, and those things
+which most stain his name were generally done under feelings of great
+irritation. His conduct to the Earl of March, the heir of Richard II.,
+and the respect he paid to the memory of that unhappy king himself,
+are proofs of a generous nature; and of all his conquests, the
+greatest he ever achieved was the first--that over himself.
+
+
+
+
+JOHN HUNIADES[16]
+
+By PROFESSOR A. VAMBÉRY
+
+(1388-1456)
+
+         [Footnote 16: Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.]
+
+[Illustration: John Huniades. [TN]]
+
+
+Of his grandfather we do not know even the name; his father was a
+Wallach, a common soldier; yet he himself was the greatest of
+Hungarian heroes, the Grand Marshal, and later on the "Governor" or
+Regent of Hungary; and his son king of that country. At the present
+day, in the age of democracy, such rapid elevation is no such rare
+phenomenon, but in the aristocratic middle ages it was really a
+miracle, one that points to exceptional circumstances and an
+exceptional man.
+
+In Europe at that time the circumstances were indeed exceptional. A
+new power pulsating with youthful life had arrived from somewhere in
+the interior of Asia with the intention of conquering the world. This
+power was the Turk--not merely a single nation, but a whole group of
+peoples clustered round a nation, inspired by one single idea which
+urged them ever forward. "There is no God but God, and Mohammed is the
+Apostle of God."
+
+The Mohammedan flood already beat upon the bounds of Catholic
+Christendom, in the forefront of which stood Hungary. Hungary's king,
+Sigismund, was able for a moment in 1396 to unite the nations of
+Europe against the common danger, but the proud array of mail-clad
+knights were swept away like chaff before the steady ranks of the
+janissaries.
+
+And herewith began the long series of desolating inroads into Hungary,
+for the Turk was wont to suck the blood of the nation he had marked
+down as his prey. He took the country by surprise, secretly, suddenly,
+like a summer storm, appearing in overwhelming numbers, burning,
+murdering, robbing, especially, men in the hopes of a rich ransom, or
+children whom they might bring up as Mohammedans and janissaries. This
+body, the flower of the Turkish armies, owed its origin for the most
+part to the Christian children thus stolen from their parents and
+their country. This infantry of the janissaries was the first standing
+army in Europe. Living constantly together under a common discipline,
+like the inmates of a cloister, they rushed blindly forward to the cry
+of "God and his Prophet" like some splendid, powerful wild beast,
+eager for prey. The Turkish sultans published the proud order:
+"Forward, let us conquer the whole world, wheresoever we tie up our
+horses' heads that land is our own."
+
+To resist such a nation, that would not listen to negotiation, but
+only thirsted for war and conquest, seemed already an impossibility.
+Europe trembled with fear at the reports of the formidable attacks
+designed against her, and listened anxiously for news from distant
+Hungary which lay, so to say, in the lion's very mouth.
+
+Against such an enemy a soldier of the modern type was useless, one
+who slays only in defence of his own life and at the word of command,
+whose force consists in the high development of the military art and
+the murderous instruments of modern technical science. What was wanted
+was an heroic soul, inspired by a burning faith like to that which
+impelled the Mohammedan soldier.
+
+This heroic soul, this burning faith, united to the tenacious energy
+of youth, were all found united in the greatest Hungarian hero, John
+Huniades, accompanied withal by a singular talent for leadership in
+war. He could not rely for support upon the haughty magnates who could
+trace their descent back for centuries and despised the parvenu with a
+shorter pedigree and a smaller estate. He was consequently obliged to
+cast in his lot with the mass of the lesser nobility, individually
+weaker, it is true, but not deficient in spirit and a consciousness of
+their own worth. Of this class he soon became the idolized leader.
+Around him gathered the hitherto latent forces of Hungarian society,
+especially from Transylvania and South Hungary and the Great Hungarian
+Plain (_Alföld_), which suffered most from the incursions of the Turks
+and were therefore most impressed with the necessity of organizing a
+system of defence. It was these who were the first to be inspired by
+Huniades' heroic spirit.
+
+Before commencing his career as independent commander he, following
+his father's example, attached himself to the court of Sigismund, the
+Emperor-king, in whose train he visited the countries of Western
+Europe, Germany, England, and Italy, till he at length returned home,
+his mind enriched by experience but with the fervor of his first faith
+unchilled.
+
+He had thus passed the flower of his age when nearly sixty years old,
+he repaired at his sovereign's command to the south of Hungary to
+organize the resistance to the Turks. At first he was appointed Ban of
+Severin, and as such had the chief command of the fortified places
+built by the Hungarians for the defence of the Lower Danube. After
+that he became Voyvode of Transylvania, the civil and military
+governor of the southeastern corner of the Hungarian kingdom.
+
+Before, however, he had reached these dignities he had fought a
+succession of battles and skirmishes with such success that for the
+fanatical Turkish soldiery his form, nay, his very name was an object
+of terror. It was Huniades alone whom they sought to slay on the field
+of battle, well persuaded that he once slain they would easily deal
+with the rest of Hungary. Thus in 1442 a Turkish leader, named Mezid
+Bey, burst into Transylvania at the head of 80,000 men in pursuance of
+the sultan's commands, with no other aim than to take Huniades dead or
+alive.
+
+Nor indeed did Huniades keep them waiting for him. He hurried at the
+head of his troops to attack the Turkish leader who was laying siege
+to Hermannstadt. Upon this Mezid Bey, calling his bravest soldiers
+around him, described to them once more Huniades' appearance, his
+arms, his dress, his stature, and his horse, that they might certainly
+recognize him. "Slay him only," he exclaimed; "and we shall easily
+deal with the rest of them; we shall drive them like a flock of sheep
+into the presence of our august master."
+
+On that occasion was seen with what self-sacrificing enthusiasm his
+soldiers loved their heroic leader. When they learned from their spies
+the purpose of the Turks, they took all possible measures to secure
+his precious life. One of their number, Simon Kemeny, who bore a
+striking resemblance to Huniades, determined to sacrifice himself for
+his leader. He announced that he would put on Huniades' clothes and
+armor. The Turks would then attack him under the belief that he was
+the celebrated chief, and while they were thus engaged the real
+Huniades would fall upon them unexpectedly and put them to flight. At
+first Huniades would by no means consent to this plan, as he did not
+wish to expose Kemeny to such mortal danger; but at last seeing the
+great military advantages likely to accrue from it he consented.
+
+And so indeed it fell out. As soon as the battle began, the Turks,
+perceiving Simon Kemeny in the garb of Huniades, directed all their
+force against him. Kemeny, after a stout defence, fell together with a
+great number of his followers, and the Turks, seeing him fall, set up
+a general cry of triumph and exultation. Just at this critical moment
+they were hotly attacked in the flank by the genuine Huniades. Thus
+attacked in the very moment when they imagined that they had already
+gained the day, the Turks were thrown into confusion and took wildly
+to flight. Twenty thousand corpses were left on the battle-field;
+among them were Mezid Bey himself, together with his sons.
+
+Fearful was the rage of the Turkish sultan when he heard of the defeat
+and death of Mezid Bey, and he at once despatched another army against
+Huniades, which like the first numbered 80,000 men. This time,
+however, Huniades did not let them enter Transylvania, but waited for
+them at the pass, known as the Iron Gate, among the high mountains on
+the southern boundary of Hungary.
+
+The Hungarian army was not more than 15,000 men, so that the Turks
+were at least five times as strong. But the military genius of
+Huniades made up for the small number of his followers. He posted them
+in a strong position in the rough pass, and attacked the enemy in
+places where it was impossible for him to make use of his strength.
+Thus more than half the Turkish army perished miserably in the battle.
+Again their commander-in-chief fell on the field together with six
+subordinate commanders, while two hundred horse-tail standards fell
+into Huniades' hands as trophies of his victory.
+
+These two splendid victories filled all Europe with joy and
+admiration. Christendom again breathed freely; for she felt that a
+champion, sent by a special Providence, had appeared, who had both the
+courage and the ability to meet and to repel the haughty and
+formidable foe. But Huniades was not content with doing so much. He
+thought that by this time he might carry the war into the enemy's
+country. The plan of operations was exceptionally daring, yet Huniades
+had not resolved on it without careful consideration. In the meantime
+through Huniades' exertions, Vladislaus, the young King of Poland, had
+been elected King of Hungary. Huniades gained the new king over to his
+plans, and by this means secured the co-operation of the higher
+aristocracy and the armed bands which they were bound to lead into the
+field at the king's summons. Huniades counted besides on the
+assistance of Europe; in the first place on the Popes, who were
+zealous advocates of the war against the Mohammedans; next on Venice,
+which as the first commercial city and state at that time had suffered
+severe losses owing to the spread of Turkish dominions; on the gallant
+Poles whose king now wore the Hungarian crown; and lastly upon the
+peoples of Christendom in general, whose enthusiasm for a war against
+the infidels had been quickened by the report of Huniades' victories.
+And indeed at his request the Pope sent some small sums of money, the
+Poles furnished an auxiliary force, while numerous volunteers from the
+rest of Europe flocked to serve under his banner. Although the
+assistance thus furnished was comparatively unimportant, it
+nevertheless served to increase his zeal for the daring undertaking.
+He and his heroic companions were not only proud of defending their
+own native country, but felt that they were the champions of all
+Christendom against Ottoman aggression, and their religious enthusiasm
+kept pace with their patriotism. If they did not get regiments sent to
+their aid, they felt that the eyes of all Europe were upon them, ready
+to grieve at their possible ill success, while their victories would
+be celebrated by _Te deums_ in the cathedrals of every capital in
+Europe.
+
+The aggressive campaign was commenced without delay; Huniades'
+resolves were at once translated into fact; he would not allow the
+beaten foe time to recover breath. His plan was to cross the Danube,
+and penetrate through the passes of the Balkan to Philippopolis, at
+that time the capital of the sultan's dominions, where he kept the
+main body of his army. About Christmas, a season in which the Turk
+does not like to fight, amid heavy snow and severe cold, the Hungarian
+army of about thirty thousand men pressed forward. Huniades marched in
+advance with the vanguard of 12,000 picked men; after him the king and
+the Pope's legate, with the rest of the army. The sultan, however,
+with a large body of men had occupied the passes of the Balkans and
+prevented their farther advance. This impediment, coupled with the
+cold and severe weather, depressed the spirits of the troops, worn out
+with fatigue. Huniades, however, raised their spirits by gaining a
+victory; lighting one night upon a body of the enemy, 20,000 in
+number, he attacked them at once and after a few hours' struggle
+succeeded in dispersing them. Later on he took two large towns with
+their citadels; and in three engagements triumphed over three separate
+divisions of the enemy. Learning that a still larger body of Turks was
+attempting to cut off his communications with the king's army he
+attacked that also and put it to flight. After that he joined his
+corps with the main army under the king; and indeed none too soon.
+Sultan Murad suddenly arrived with the main body of his forces, which
+he strongly intrenched in the narrowest passes of the Balkans.
+Huniades saw that these intrenchments could not be forced, and did all
+he could to entice his enemy down into the plain. This he succeeded in
+doing. In the battle that ensued the king too played a conspicuous
+part and received a wound. In the end, however, the Hungarians gained
+the victory, and the younger brother of the Grand Vizier was taken
+prisoner. So much success was sufficient for Huniades for the time,
+especially as the natural obstacles had proved insurmountable. The
+Hungarian army returned home in good order, and the young king made a
+triumphal entry into his capital, preceded by a crowd of Turkish
+prisoners and captured Turkish ensigns. These last trophies of victory
+were deposited in the Coronation Church in the fortress of Buda.
+
+And now something happened which had hitherto been deemed incredible;
+the Sultan sued for peace, a true believer and a sovereign, from an
+unbelieving giaour. The peace was concluded, and Hungary again became
+possessed of those dependent (South Slavonic) provinces, which lay
+between the territories of the Sultan and the kingdom of Hungary in
+the narrower sense of the word. In three short years Huniades had
+undone the work of years on the part of the Turks. The Sultan,
+however, soon repented of what he had done, and continually delayed
+the fulfilment of his promise to evacuate certain frontier fortresses.
+For this cause the young king, especially incited thereto by the Pope,
+determined to renew the war. Huniades at first opposed the king's
+resolution, and wished to wait; later on he was gained over to the
+king's view, and took up the matter with his whole soul. The
+opportunity was inviting, for the Sultan with his main army was
+engaged somewhere in Asia, and the Venetians promised to prevent with
+their fleet his return to Europe across the narrow seas in the
+neighborhood of Constantinople.
+
+The Hungarian army indeed set out (1444) on its expedition, and
+continually expecting the arrival of the troops of their allies--the
+Emperor of Constantinople and the Princes of Albania--penetrated ever
+farther and farther into the hostile territory. They were to be joined
+by their allies at the town of Varna on the shores of the Black Sea.
+When, however, the Hungarians had arrived at that town, they found no
+trace of their expected allies, but on the contrary learned with
+certainty that the Sultan had succeeded in eluding the vigilance of
+the Venetians, had brought his army in small boats over into Europe,
+and was now following fast on their track.
+
+Thus all hope of aid from allies was at an end, the brave general and
+his small Hungarian force had to rely on their own resources,
+separated as they were by some weeks' journey from their own country,
+while the enemy would be soon upon them in numbers five times their
+own. Yet even so Huniades' faith and courage did not desert him. The
+proverb says: "If thy sword be short, lengthen it by a step forward."
+And Huniades boldly, but yet with the caution that behoved a careful
+general, took up his position before the Sultan's army. Both he and
+his Hungarians fought with dauntless courage, availing themselves of
+every advantage and beating back every assault. Already victory seemed
+to be assured. A few hours after the battle had begun both the
+Turkish wings had been broken, and even the Sultan and the brave
+janissaries were thinking of flight, when the young king, the Pole
+Vladislaus, whom Huniades had adjured by God to remain in a place of
+safety, until the combat should be decided, was persuaded by his
+Polish suite to fling himself with the small band in immediate
+attendance upon him right on the centre of the janissaries, so that he
+too might have a share in the victory and not leave it all to
+Huniades. The janissaries wavered for a moment under this new and
+unexpected attack, but soon perceiving that they had to do with the
+King of Hungary they closed round his band which had penetrated far
+into their ranks. The king's horse was first hamstrung, and, as it
+fell, the king's head was severed from his body, stuck upon the point
+of a spear and exposed to the view of both armies. The Hungarians,
+shocked at the unexpected sight, wavered and, feeling themselves lost,
+began to fly. All the entreaties and exhortations of Huniades were in
+vain. Such was the confusion that he could be neither seen nor heard,
+and in a few minutes the whole Hungarian army was in confused flight.
+
+Huniades, left to himself, had too to seek safety in flight. Alone,
+deserted by all, he had to make his way from one place of concealment
+to another till after some weeks' wandering he arrived in Hungary. The
+bad news had preceded him; and in consequence everything was in
+confusion. Again arose that difficult question: Who should be the new
+king under such difficult circumstances? The Sultan's army had,
+however, suffered so much in the battle of Varna that for the time he
+left the Hungarians unmolested.
+
+The nation was disposed to choose for its king the child, Ladislaus,
+son of King Albert, the predecessor of Vladislaus. The child, however,
+was in the power of the neighboring prince, Frederick, the Archduke of
+Austria, who was not disposed to let him go out of his hands without a
+heavy ransom. Under these circumstances the more powerful nobles in
+Hungary took advantage of the confusion to strengthen each his own
+position at the expense of the nation. At first the government of the
+country was entrusted to a number of captains, but this proved so
+evidently disastrous that the better sort of people succeeded in
+having them abolished and Huniades established as sole governor. For
+all that, however, Huniades had a good deal of trouble with the chief
+aristocrats, Garay, Czillei, Ujlaki, who, envying the parvenu his
+sudden promotion and despising his obscure origin, took up arms to
+resist his authority. Thus Huniades, instead of blunting the edge of
+his sword upon foreign foes, had to bridle the insubordination of his
+own countrymen. Luckily it did not take long to force the discontented
+to own the weight of his arm and his superiority as a military leader.
+
+Order being thus to some extent re-established at home, Huniades was
+again able to turn his attention to the Turks. He felt that he had in
+fact gained the battle of Varna, which was only lost through the
+jealous humor of a youthful king; that it behoved him not to stop half
+way; that it was his duty to continue offensive operations. But in so
+doing he had to rely upon his own proper forces. It is true that he
+was governor of the country, but for the purpose of offensive warfare
+beyond the frontier he could not gain the consent of the great nobles.
+
+Luckily his private property had enormously increased by this time.
+The Hungarian Constitution ordered the king to bestow the estates of
+such noblemen, as died without male heirs or had been condemned for
+any offence, on such noblemen as had approved themselves valiant
+defenders of the country. Now where could be found a more worthy
+recipient of such estates than Huniades, to whom the public treasury
+was besides a debtor on account of the sums he disbursed for the
+constant warfare he maintained against the Turks? Especially in the
+south of Hungary a whole series of lordly estates, many of them
+belonging to the crown, had come into Huniades' hands, either as
+pledges for the repayment of the money he had paid his soldiers, or as
+his own private property.
+
+The yearly revenue arising from these vast estates was employed by
+Huniades not in personal expenditure but in the defence of his
+country. He himself lived as simply as anyone of his soldiers, and
+recognized no other use of money than as a weapon to be used for the
+defence of Christendom against Islam. In the early morn while all his
+suite still slept he passed hours in prayer before the altar in the
+dimly lighted church, imploring the help of the Almighty for the
+attainment of his sole object in life--the destruction of the Turkish
+power. At last (1448) he set out against the Sultan with a picked army
+of 24,000 of his most trusty soldiers.
+
+This time it was on the frontier of Servia, on the so-called Field of
+Blackbirds, that Huniades encountered Sultan Murad, as before with an
+army of 150,000 men--more than five times the number of the
+Christians. Huniades at first withdrew himself into his intrenched
+camp, but in a few days felt himself strong enough to engage with the
+enemy on the open field. The battle lasted without interruption for
+two days and a night. Huniades himself was several times in deadly
+peril. Once his horse was shot under him. He was to be found wherever
+assistance, support, encouragement were needed. At last on the morning
+of the third day as the Turks who had received reinforcements were
+about to renew the attack, the Voyvode of Wallachia passed over to the
+side of the Turks. The voyvode belonged to the Orthodox Eastern
+Church. He had joined Huniades on the way, and his desertion
+transferred 6,000 men from one side to the other, and decided the
+battle in favor of the Turks. The Hungarians, worn out by fatigue,
+fell into a discouragement, while Huniades had no fresh troops to
+bring up to their support. The battle came to a sudden end. Seventeen
+thousand Hungarian corpses strewed the field, but the loss of the
+Turks was more than 30,000 men.
+
+Huniades again left to himself had again to make his escape. At first
+he only dismissed his military suite; afterwards he separated from his
+faithful servant in the hope that separately they might more easily
+baffle their pursuers. Next he had to turn his horse adrift, as the
+poor animal was incapable of continuing his journey. Thus he made his
+way alone and on foot toward the frontiers of his native land. After a
+while looking down from the top of a piece of elevated ground he
+perceived a large body of Turks from whom he hid himself in a
+neighboring lake. He thus escaped this danger, but only to encounter
+another. At a turn of the road he came so suddenly upon a party of
+Turkish plunderers as to be unable to escape from them, and thus
+became their prisoner. But the Turks did not recognize him, and
+leaving him in the hands of two of their number the rest went on in
+search of more prey. His two guards soon came to blows with one
+another about a heavy gold cross which they had found on the person of
+their captive, and, while they were thus quarrelling, Huniades
+suddenly wrenched his sword out of the hand of one of the two Turks
+and cut off his head, upon which the other took to flight, and
+Huniades was again free.
+
+In the meantime, however, George, the Prince of Servia, who took part
+with the aristocratic malcontents, and out of pure hatred to Huniades
+had, in spite of his being a Christian, gone over to the side of the
+Turks, had given strict orders that all Hungarian stragglers were to
+be apprehended and brought before him. In this way Huniades fell into
+the hands of some Servian peasants who delivered him to their prince.
+Nor did he regain his liberty without the payment of a heavy ransom,
+leaving his son, Ladislaus, as hostage in his stead.
+
+He thus returned home amid a thousand perils and with the painful
+experience that Europe left him to his own resources to fight as he
+best could against the ever-advancing Turks. The dependencies of the
+Hungarian crown, Servia and Wallachia, on whose recovery he had spent
+so much blood and treasure, instead of supporting him as might be
+expected of Christian countries threw themselves in a suicidal manner
+into the arms of the Turks. They hoped by their ready submission to
+find favor in the eyes of the irresistible conquerors, by whom,
+however, they were a little later on devoured.
+
+After these events Huniades continued to act as Governor or Regent of
+Hungary for five years more, by which time the young Ladislaus, son of
+King Albert, attained his majority. In 1453 he finally laid down his
+dignity as governor, and gave over the power into the hands of the
+young king, Ladislaus V., whom Huniades had first to liberate by force
+of arms from his uncle, Frederick of Austria, before he could set him
+on the throne of Hungary. The young king, of German origin had,
+however, hardly become emancipated from his guardian, when he fell
+under the influence of his other uncle, Ulric Czillei. This Czillei
+was a great nobleman of Styria, but was withal possessed of large
+estates in Hungary. As a foreigner and as a relative of King
+Sigismund, he had long viewed with an evil eye Huniades' elevation. On
+one occasion Huniades had to inflict punishment on him. He
+consequently now did everything he could to induce the young king, his
+nephew, to hate the great captain as he himself did. He sought to
+infuse jealousy into his mind and to lead him to believe that Huniades
+aimed at the crown. His slanders found the readier credence in the
+mind of the youthful sovereign as he was completely stupefied by an
+uninterrupted course of debauchery. At last the king was brought to
+agree to a plan for ensnaring the great man who so often jeoparded his
+life and his substance in the defence of his country and religion.
+They summoned him in the king's name to Vienna, where Ladislaus as an
+Austrian prince was then staying, with the intention of waylaying and
+murdering him. But Huniades got wind of the whole plot, and, when he
+arrived at the place of ambush, it was at the head of 2,000 picked
+Hungarian warriors. Thus it was Czillei who fell into the snare.
+"Wretched creature!" exclaimed Huniades; "thou hast fallen into the
+pit thou diggedst for me; were it not that I regard the dignity of the
+king and my own humanity, thou shouldst suffer a punishment
+proportioned to thy crime. As it is, I let thee off this time, but
+come no more into my sight or thou shalt pay for it with thy life."
+
+Such magnanimity, however, did not disarm the hostility of those who
+surrounded the king. On the pretence of treason against the king
+Huniades was deprived of all his offices and all his estates. The
+document is still to be seen in the Hungarian State Archives, in which
+the king, led astray by the jealousies that prevailed among his
+councillors, represents every virtue of the hero as a crime, and
+condemns him to exile.
+
+Fortunately Czillei himself soon fell into disfavor; the Germans
+themselves overthrew him; and the king, now better informed, replaced
+Huniades in the post of Captain-General of the Kingdom.
+
+Huniades, who had been living meanwhile retired in one of his castles,
+now complied with the king's wish without difficulty or hesitation,
+and again assumed the highest military command. Instead of seeking how
+to revenge himself after the manner of ordinary men, he only thought
+of the great enemy of his country, the Turk. And indeed, as it was,
+threatening clouds hung over the horizon in the southeast.
+
+A new sultan had come to the throne, Mohammed II., one of the greatest
+sovereigns of the house of Othman. He began his reign with the
+occupation of Constantinople (1453), and thus destroyed the last
+refuge of the Byzantine Empire. At the news of this event all Europe
+burst into a chorus of lamentation. The whole importance of the
+Eastern Question at once presented itself before the nations of
+Christendom. It was at once understood that the new conqueror would
+not remain idle within the crumbling walls of Constantinople. And
+indeed in no long time was published the proud _mot d'ordre_ "As there
+is but one God in heaven, so there shall be but one master upon
+earth."
+
+Huniades looked toward Constantinople with heavy heart. He foresaw the
+outburst of the storm which would in the first place fall upon his own
+country, threatening it with utter ruin. Huniades, so it seemed, was
+again left alone in the defence of Christendom.
+
+The approaching danger was delayed for a few years, but in 1456
+Mohammed, having finally established himself in Constantinople, set
+out with the intention of striking a fatal blow against Hungary. On
+the borders of that country, on the bank of the Danube, on what was,
+properly speaking Servian territory, stood the fortress of Belgrade.
+When the danger from the Turks became imminent, the kings of Hungary
+purchased the place from the despots of Servia, giving them in
+exchange several extensive estates in Hungary, and had at great
+expense turned it into a vast fortress, at that time supposed to be
+impregnable. Mohammed determined to take the place, and to this end
+made the most extensive preparations. He led to the walls of Belgrade
+an army of not less than 150,000 men. The approach of this immense
+host so terrified the young king that he left Hungary and took refuge
+in Vienna along with his uncle and counsellor, Czillei.
+
+Huniades alone remained at his post, resolute like a lion attacked.
+The energy of the old leader--he was now sixty-eight years old--was
+only steeled by the greatness of the danger; his forethought and his
+mental resources were but increased. As he saw that it would be
+impossible to do anything with a small army, he sent his friend, John
+Capistran, an Italian Franciscan, a man animated by a burning zeal
+akin to his own, to preach a crusade against the enemies of
+Christendom through the towns and villages of the Great Hungarian
+Plain. This the friar did to such effect that in a few weeks he had
+collected 60,000 men, ready to fight in defence of the Cross. This
+army of Crusaders--the last in the history of the nations--had for its
+gathering cry the bells of the churches, for its arms, scythes and
+axes, Christ for its leader, and John Huniades and John Capistran for
+his lieutenants.
+
+The two greatest leaders in war of that day contended for the
+possession of Belgrade. The same army now surrounded that fortress
+which a few years before had stormed Constantinople reputed
+impregnable. The same hero defended it who had so often in the course
+of a single decennium defeated the Turkish foe in an offensive war,
+who now, regardless of danger, with a small but faithful band of
+followers, was prepared to do all that courage, resolution, and
+prudence might effect.
+
+Many hundred large cannon began to break down the stone ramparts; many
+hundred boats forming a river flotilla covered the Danube, so as to
+cut off all communication between the fortress and Hungary. During
+this time Huniades' son Ladislaus, and his brother-in-law Michael
+Szilágyi, were in command in the fortress. Huniades' first daring plan
+was to force his way through the blockading flotilla, and enter
+Belgrade before the eyes of the whole Turkish army, taking with him
+his own soldiers and Capistran's crusaders. The plan completely
+succeeded. With his own flotilla of boats he broke through that of the
+Turks and made his entrance into the fortress in triumph. After this
+the struggle was continued with equal resolution and ability on both
+sides; such advantage as the Christians derived from the protection
+afforded by the fortifications being fully compensated by the enormous
+superiority in numbers both of men and cannon on the part of the
+Turks. Without example in the history of the storming of fortresses
+was the stratagem practised by Huniades when he permitted the picked
+troops of the enemy, the janissaries, to penetrate within the
+fortification and there destroyed them in the place they thought they
+had taken. Ten thousand janissaries had already swarmed into the town
+and were preparing to attack the bridges and gates of the citadel,
+when Huniades ordered fagots soaked in pitch and sulphur and other
+combustibles to be flung from the ramparts into the midst of the
+crowded ranks of the janissaries. The fire seized on their loose
+garments, and in a short time the whole body was a sea of fire. Every
+one sought to fly. Then it was that Huniades sallied out with his
+picked band, while Capistran with a tall cross in his hand and the cry
+of "Jesus" on his lips followed with his crowd of fanatics, the cannon
+of the fortress played upon the Turkish camp, the Sultan himself was
+wounded and swept along by the stream of fugitives. Forty thousand
+Turks were left dead upon the field, four thousand were taken
+prisoners and three thousand cannon were captured.
+
+According to the opinion of Huniades himself the Turks had never
+suffered such a severe defeat. Its value as far as the Hungarians were
+concerned was heightened by the fact that the ambitious Sultan was
+personally humiliated. There was now great joy in Europe. At the news
+of the brilliant victory _Te deum_ was sung in all the more important
+cities throughout Europe, and the Pope wished to compliment Huniades
+with a crown.
+
+Alas! a crown of another character awaited him--that of his Redeemer,
+in whose name he lived, fought, and fell. The exhalations from the
+vast number of unburied or imperfectly buried bodies, festering in the
+heat of summer, gave rise to an epidemic in the Christian camp, and to
+this the great leader fell a victim. Huniades died August 11, 1456, in
+the sixty-eighth year of his age. He died amid the intoxication of his
+greatest victory, idolized by his followers, having once more
+preserved his country from imminent ruin. Could he have desired a more
+glorious death?
+
+He went to his last rest with the consciousness that he had fulfilled
+his mission, having designed great things and having accomplished
+them.
+
+And the result of his lifelong efforts survived him. His great enemy
+the Turk for half a century after his death could only harass the
+frontier of his native land; and his country, a few years after his
+death placed on the royal throne his son Matthias.
+
+[Signature of the author.]
+
+
+
+
+WARWICK, THE KING-MAKER
+
+(1420-1471)
+
+
+Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, called the king-maker, eldest son of
+Richard, Earl of Salisbury and Alice Montacute, was born November 22,
+1428. The history of this mighty peer is that of the whole of the
+contest between the two houses of York and Lancaster. The house of
+Neville had been built up by a series of wealthy marriages, and
+Richard made no exception to the rule. While yet a boy he was married
+to Anne, daughter of the Earl of Warwick, and through her, after the
+death of her brother and niece, he took his place at the age of
+twenty-one among the chief earls of the English realm. By this time
+the English rule in France had broken down, bringing the reigning
+house of Lancaster into great unpopularity, and throwing a
+correspondingly greater influence into the hands of the leader of the
+opposition, Richard Plantagenet, Duke of York. He was brother-in-law
+to the Earl of Salisbury, and so attached to his party the powerful
+influence of the Nevilles.
+
+[Illustration: Huniades at Belgrade.]
+
+The Duke of York at first made no claim to the throne, demanding only
+that he should have his place in the councils of the king, and even
+when swords were drawn the Yorkists swore their allegiance to the
+king, Henry VI., while fighting against his advisers. Of these
+favorites of the king, the chief was the Earl of Somerset, whom many
+suspected of a design to establish himself as the successor to the
+throne. It was between these two factions of York and Somerset, that
+the white and red roses were first employed as distinguishing badges.
+
+[Illustration: Warwick. [TN]]
+
+  _Plantagenet._ Let him, that is a true born gentleman,
+                 And stands upon the honor of his birth,
+                 If he suppose that I have pleaded truth,
+                 From off this brier pluck a white rose with me.
+
+  _Somerset._    Let him that is no coward, nor no flatterer,
+                 But dare maintain the party of the truth,
+                 Pluck a red rose from off this thorn with me.
+
+  _Warwick._     I love no colors; and, without all color
+                 Of base insinuating flattery,
+                 I pluck this white rose with Plantagenet.
+                                         --_Shakespeare: I Henry VI._
+
+The Wars of the Roses began with the battle of St. Albans (1455), in
+which Somerset was killed. The victory was gained to the Yorkists
+chiefly by the help of Warwick. By a sudden sally into the streets of
+the town he routed the royal forces, and gained for himself that
+character of daring and courage which he maintained to the end. He was
+rewarded with the post of Captain of Calais, which he retained
+throughout the changes of the parties. In this position he was
+practically independent, and scoured the Channel at his pleasure.
+
+In 1458 he attacked some vessels which were under a treaty of peace
+with England, and being summoned to London to answer before the king,
+was violently attacked by the followers of Somerset and barely escaped
+with his life. In 1459 the civil war finally broke out. In the first
+campaign the Yorkists failed, owing to their inactivity. The leaders
+fled to the coast of Devon, where they hired five men to carry them to
+Bristol. As soon as they left land, Warwick, stripped to the doublet,
+took the helm, and steered straight for Calais, where he arrived in a
+few days. When Somerset, son of the earl slain at St. Albans, came to
+claim the keys of the stronghold, he had the mortification to find
+Warwick there before him.
+
+Warwick was next in England on June 27, 1460, when he landed at
+Sandwich with fifteen hundred men. In four days he was before the
+walls of London, having marched in that time a distance of seventy
+miles. According to some accounts, the common people so flocked to his
+standard, that in those four days his force had swelled to forty
+thousand. The city threw open its gates and joyfully welcomed him,
+while Henry fled to the north. In the beginning of July the battle of
+Northampton was fought. The Yorkists gained a complete victory, and
+took Henry prisoner. Before the fight Warwick issued the command to
+spare the common people but to slay the nobles, judging the quarrel to
+be more especially theirs; and it is significant that throughout the
+Wars of the Roses the proportion of leaders slain far exceeds that in
+any other war.
+
+Up to this time Warwick's conception of the war was merely the natural
+struggle of the one party with the other for power, using as their
+means the rude arguments of the time. He still maintained his loyalty
+to King Henry, and when the Duke of York, after the battle of
+Northampton, presented his claim to the throne Warwick opposed him,
+and prevailed upon him to waive it till the death of the king. But
+naturally such a state of things could not long endure. Warwick, while
+respecting the person of the king, was fighting against his orders,
+and so, while professing loyalty, was actually a rebel.
+
+Soon the struggle blazed out anew, and in December, 1460, the Duke of
+York was defeated and slain at Wakefield. Early in 1461 Warwick was
+defeated in the second battle of St. Albans, but the royalists not
+taking advantage of their victory, Edward, son of the Duke of York,
+accompanied by Warwick, marched on London, and was proclaimed king as
+Edward IV. Soon after the Yorkists gained a complete victory at Towton
+(1461), the bloodiest field of the whole war. Nearly all the
+Lancastrian chiefs were slain, Henry's cause was lost, and ere long he
+was captured by Warwick and lodged in the Tower. The credit of the
+crowning victory of Towton does not rest with Warwick alone, for he
+had the help of young Edward, perhaps as great a military genius as
+himself. Little is known of the details of the fighting, but we are
+told that wherever the Earl of Warwick was, there the fight raged
+hottest.
+
+[Illustration: York and Lancaster--The White and Red Roses.]
+
+The earl was now the greatest man in England. His extended connections
+and immense possessions were joined to the most distinguished personal
+qualities, intrepidity, decision, and all the military virtues,
+eloquence and general talent, an affability and frankness of bearing
+that captivated equally all classes, a boundless hospitality and
+magnificence that enthroned him in the hearts of the commons. Wherever
+he resided, we are told he kept open house, and the number of people
+daily fed at his various mansions, when he was at the height of his
+prosperity, exceeded thirty thousand. "When he came to London," says
+Stowe in his "Chronicle," "he held such an house that six oxen were
+eaten at a breakfast, and every tavern was full of his meat; for
+who that had any acquaintance in that house he should have had as much
+sodden and roast as he might carry upon a long dagger."
+
+But now, when Warwick might have expected to reap the reward of his
+labors, new troubles arose. King Edward began to feel jealous of his
+power, his unique influence, and vast popularity. It is said that
+Warwick was sent to France to arrange a treaty with Louis, and to
+propose a marriage between Edward and his wife's sister. On his return
+he found the king married to Elizabeth Woodville, daughter of Lord
+Rivers, and an alliance made with the enemy of Louis, the Duke of
+Burgundy. Edward now lavished all his kindness on the Woodvilles,
+intending to use them as a counterfoil to the Nevilles, and for this
+purpose he deprived the Nevilles of some of their posts. By a series
+of deliberate insults Warwick was driven farther and farther away from
+the king, till he was forced into open revolt.
+
+In July, 1468, his forces defeated the royalists with great slaughter
+at Edgecote, and a few days later he made Edward his prisoner. The
+Lancastrians at once rose again in favor of the aged King Henry; but
+Warwick, maintaining his allegiance to his royal captive, suppressed
+all revolts with an iron hand, and, having received renewed pledges of
+good faith, soon after restored Edward to his throne.
+
+Two years later the king declared Warwick a rebel; and he was
+compelled to flee to France. Louis XI. used his influence in bringing
+Warwick and Margaret, wife of King Henry, together, and they agreed to
+forget their differences in the face of a common enemy. Clarence, the
+new king's brother, had previously married Warwick's daughter, and
+joined his party.
+
+Once more the king-maker landed in England and advanced on London.
+Edward fled to Holland and Henry was again placed upon the throne. But
+ere long Edward secretly landed in England, raised an army, not
+without difficulty, and met Warwick at Barnet. The faithless Clarence
+had in the meantime deserted Warwick and joined his brother's army.
+The army of Warwick was composed of strangely different elements--old
+enemies fighting side by side as friends. The battle was lost mainly
+through a grievous blunder. In the heavy mist which hung around, the
+party of the Earl of Oxford were mistaken for the enemy and were
+attacked by their own friends. The cry of treachery was raised, and
+the whole army broke into utter rout. Warwick resisted till all hope
+was gone. He had fought on foot throughout the battle, and his heavy
+armor did not suffer him to escape. He was surrounded and slain,
+fighting manfully, April 14, 1471.
+
+Thus fell on the field of battle Richard, Earl of Warwick, in the
+prime of his life, after sixteen years of deep intrigue and desperate
+fighting. Had he been born in a more peaceful time he would have been
+a great statesman, and have done much for the good of his country, for
+his talents were more political than military, and almost alone among
+the self-seeking rivals of the time, he shows something of the
+instincts of patriotism. Cast as he was in the troublous times of the
+Wars of the Roses, he stands out in character and genius above all
+those of his generation. He was the best beloved man in the kingdom.
+When he was away from England, says Hall, the common people thought
+the sun had gone out of the heavens. His personality cast a charm over
+even Louis XI. The heart of the Yorkist party, he was true to its
+cause till he found that his service was no longer desired. He was not
+the man to sit quietly under insult, and when it came from King
+Edward, who owed all that he was to him, it was more than he could
+endure. Yet it was only when he found his every project thwarted, and
+especially those that were dearest to his heart, that he was driven
+into open warfare with the king. His treason is capable of much
+justification: he cannot be accused of forsaking his master. He had in
+him the making of a great king, and how great and useful might have
+been his career had fortune placed him over the councils of a Charles
+VII. or a Henry VI.! As it is, he stands in worth and character far
+above any of his time, a figure that commands not merely admiration
+but affection.
+
+
+
+
+HERNANDO CORTES[17]
+
+By H. RIDER HAGGARD
+
+(1485-1547)
+
+         [Footnote 17: Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.]
+
+[Illustration: Hernando Cortes. [TN]]
+
+
+Among the millions that from age to age are born into this world there
+arise in every generation one or two pre-eminent men and women who are
+objects of the wonder and the envy, the admiration and the hatred of
+their contemporaries, and whose names, after their deaths, stand out
+as landmarks by which we shape a course across the dark and doubtful
+seas of history. Cæsar and Cromwell, Mahomet and Napoleon, to mention
+no others, were such men, and such a man was Hernando Cortes, the
+conqueror of Mexico. They have been called, and well called, Men of
+Destiny, since it is impossible in studying their lives and tracing
+their vast influence upon human affairs, to avoid the conclusion that
+they were raised up and endowed with great talents and opportunities
+in order that by their agency the ends of Providence might be shaped.
+
+Hernando Cortes was born of a good family, at the town of Medellin in
+Spain, in 1485, and educated at the college of Salamanca. At the age
+of nineteen having proved himself unfit to follow the profession of
+the law to which his parents had destined him, he emigrated to the
+Indian Island of Hispaniola where he was appointed notary of the town
+of Acua, and in 1511 assisted in the conquest of Cuba under the
+command of Velasquez. Here after many curious adventures and
+vacillations he married a lady named Catalina Xuarez, and being
+created _alcade_ of the settlement of St. Jago realized a moderate
+fortune by the practice of agriculture and mining. In 1518 there came
+to Cuba news of the discoveries made by Grijalva in Yucatan on the
+coast of the country now known as Mexico, and the Governor, Velasquez,
+determined to despatch a force to explore this new land. After much
+intriguing and in consideration of the payment of a considerable sum
+of money toward the expenses, Cortes whose ambitious spirit had
+already wearied of a life of peace and indolence, contrived to
+persuade Velasquez to appoint him Captain General of the expedition.
+Before the ships sailed, however, Velasquez repented him of the
+appointment, for in Cortes he recognized a servant who might well
+become his master, and made arrangements to invest some other hidalgo
+with the leadership of the expedition. Now it was that Cortes showed
+what manner of man he was. Many in his position on learning the wishes
+of their superior would have tamely yielded up their posts. Not so
+Cortes, who on the first hint that he was to be deprived of his
+authority, collected his men, and all unprepared as was his squadron,
+weighed anchor while the governor slept. At the town of Trinidad he
+landed to collect stores and volunteers, treating with contempt the
+orders that reached the commander of the town from Velasquez to depose
+him from his command and detain his person. Here it was that Cortes
+made his famous address to the volunteers, wherein he shows that
+although his instructions were to undertake a trading voyage and
+acquire information of the country, his real aim was far different,
+since he promises unimagined wealth to those who are true to him, and
+by a curious flash of prescience prophesies immortal renown to their
+enterprise. On February 10, 1519, he sailed to the conquest of Mexico,
+accompanied by some six hundred and fifty white men and a few Indians.
+Cortes was in his thirty-fourth year when he entered on this the
+greatest of his enterprises. He was pale faced and dark eyed, somewhat
+slender in build, but of an iron strength and constitution. In temper
+he was patient though liable to fits of passion, and in disposition
+frank, merry, and generous, but most determined. He dressed richly and
+was constant in his religious exercises. Such was the great captain, a
+man suited by circumstances and nature to the desperate undertaking
+which it was his destiny to bring to a successful issue.
+
+Having touched at the island of Cozumel on the coast of Yucatan,
+Cortes sailed up the Tabasco River and began his work of conquest by
+attacking a great army of Indians in the neighborhood of that town.
+For a while the natives held their own notwithstanding their dismay at
+the sound and effects of fire-arms; but the appearance of the
+horsemen, whom they took to be strange animals, caused them to flee in
+terror leaving many hundreds of their warriors dead upon the field. On
+the morrow they made their submission, bringing women and other gifts
+as a peace-offering. Among these women was one named Malinche, or by
+the Spaniards Marina, whom Cortes took as a mistress and who is
+described by Camargo as having been "beautiful as a goddess." It was
+this lady, born to be the evil genius of her country, who instructed
+her lord and master in the habits, traditions, and history of the
+Aztecs, and of the land of Anahuac which they inhabited together with
+other tribes. She was Cortes' interpreter and confidante, whose
+business it was to gain information from the Indians, which he could
+use, and whose wit and devotion more than once saved him from
+disaster. So invaluable were her services to Cortes that it is
+doubtful if without her aid he would have succeeded in conquering
+Mexico, and it was from her that he acquired the name of Malinche by
+which he was known among the Indian races. Her reward, when she had
+served his purpose and he was weary of her, was to be given by him in
+marriage to another man.
+
+Leaving Tabasco Cortes sailed along the coast till he reached the spot
+where the city of Vera Cruz now stands, whence he opened
+communications with Montezuma, Emperor of the Aztecs. In due course
+envoys arrived from the monarch laden with magnificent gifts, who
+delivered a civil but none the less peremptory message requesting the
+Spaniards to return whence they came. By this time Cortes had learned
+that although the Aztecs were the greatest power in Anahuac, their
+supremacy was not acknowledged by all the tribes; notably was it
+contested by the Tlascalans and their allies the Otomies. The
+Tlascalans were republicans having their home in the mountains almost
+midway between Mexico and the coast. For fifty years or more they had
+been at bitter enmity with the Aztecs, who again and again had vainly
+attempted to subjugate them. To this people Cortes despatched an
+embassy asking for a safe passage through their territories on his
+road to Mexico, for his political insight told him that they might
+prove valuable allies. No answer was returned by the Tlascalans who
+when the Spaniards advanced attacked them furiously, only to be
+defeated by Cortes in several engagements, till, discouraged and
+believing the white men to be invincible, they sued for peace, and
+from enemies were converted into firm allies. From Tlascala the
+Spaniards proceeded to the neighboring city of Cholula where Marina
+discovered a plot to put them to death. For this offence Cortes took a
+terrible vengeance. Falling on the inhabitants of the city when they
+were unprepared he butchered vast numbers of them, giving their houses
+and temples to sack. Having thus established the terror of his name he
+marched on to Mexico accompanied by a body of about five thousand
+Tlascalan allies. Meanwhile the counsels of the Aztecs were darkened
+with doubt. The Spaniards might easily have been kept out of Mexico by
+force, but the arm of Montezuma was paralyzed by superstitious fears.
+Prophecy foretold that the children of the white god Quetzalcoatl
+should rise from the sea to possess the land, and in the Spaniards he
+beheld the fate fulfilled. To him they were not mortal but divine and
+when diplomacy had failed to keep them at a distance he feared to lift
+a sword against them. Thus it came about that without a blow being
+struck to drive them back Cortes and his little band of adventurers
+found themselves established at the heart of the strange and rich
+civilization that they had discovered, not as enemies, but as the
+guests of the king. They were not slow to avail themselves of the
+opportunities of their position in order to advance their ends which
+were, first plunder, secondly conquest, and, thirdly the extension of
+the authority of Spain and of the Christian religion. In pursuit of
+these ends upon some slight pretext Cortes seized the person of
+Montezuma, the great emperor, and imprisoned him in one of his own
+palaces whence, however, he was still allowed to direct the government
+and issue his commands.
+
+Meanwhile reports of Cortes' doings and success had reached Velasquez
+the Governor of Cuba, who determined to despatch an expedition to
+conquer or capture him as a traitor. Accordingly eighteen vessels
+containing nearly a thousand white men were placed under the command
+of Panfilo de Narvaez, and reached Vera Cruz in April, 1520. When
+Cortes heard of the arrival of this armament and its object which was
+to punish him for his supposed rebellion, he marched from Mexico,
+leaving the little garrison and the person of Montezuma in charge of
+his comrade Alvarado. Although he had with him but two hundred and
+fifty men in all, he did not hesitate to hazard a night attack upon
+Narvaez who was strongly encamped at Cempoalla. It was completely
+successful; Narvaez was wounded, captured, and sent in chains to Vera
+Cruz, while the army that had come to conquer him swore allegiance to
+Cortes as Captain-General and marched with him back to Mexico. Here
+great events were in progress. Moved to the deed by fear or by the
+discovery of some real or fancied plot against the Spaniards,
+Alvarado, the deputy of Cortes, had fallen upon the unarmed Aztec
+nobles while they were celebrating a feast in the courtyard of the
+great temple, and butchered some six hundred of them with every
+circumstance of brutality. Then at last the patient Aztecs rose and
+until the womanly Montezuma begged them to desist, attacked the palace
+where the Spaniards were quartered, with fury. At the intervention of
+their monarch the attack was turned to a blockade and Cortes arrived
+from his victory over Narvaez to find his companions in desperate
+straits. Reinforced by fresh soldiers the Spaniards carried on the war
+with activity. They assaulted and captured the great pyramid, putting
+to the sword the priests of human sacrifice and burning the
+blood-stained temples of the gods. Also they made several sallies into
+the city and repelled onslaughts upon the palace. It was in the course
+of one of these attacks that Montezuma received the wound that brought
+about his death. Mounting the central tower of the palace he implored
+his subjects to cease from attacking his friends the Spaniards,
+whereupon in their fury they overwhelmed him with a shower of darts
+and stones, inflicting injuries from which in course of a few days he
+died. Surrounded as he was on every side by thousands of fierce
+enemies determined to stretch every Spaniard upon the stone of
+sacrifice, Cortes saw the impossibility of maintaining the unequal
+fight and determined on retreat. Accordingly on the night of July 1,
+1520, the Spaniards and their native allies sallied from the fortress,
+and laden with gold from Montezuma's treasury, took the route of
+Tlacopan. Soon their escape was detected and instantly a fierce attack
+was made upon them from every quarter. The bridge that they had
+brought with them to span the gaps in the causeway became fixed in the
+mud, so that their only path across the canals lay over the bodies of
+their comrades. At length they won through, but out of their small
+force there had perished, or been taken captive as victims for
+sacrifice, some four hundred and fifty Spaniards and four thousand
+native allies. It is said that when the shattered army reached a place
+of safety outside the city, Cortes sat down beneath an ancient
+cedar-tree which is still shown to travellers, and wept. Yet within a
+week fortune smiled on him again, for he and the few comrades who
+remained to him fought and won the battle of Otompan against thousands
+of the Indians, Cortes killing their chief Cihuaca with his own hand.
+
+The Aztecs rejoiced at the departure of the Spaniards from their
+capital Mexico or Tenoctitlan, but their joy was premature. First the
+small-pox, introduced into the country by the white men, fell upon the
+city and swept away thousands, among them Cuitlahua, the emperor who
+succeeded to Montezuma, and then came the news that the indomitable
+Cortes was marching upon them with a great army of native allies and
+large reinforcements of Spaniards from overseas. Guatimozin, the new
+emperor, made every possible preparation for defence and the siege
+began, a siege as cruel as that of Jerusalem and perhaps more bloody.
+First Cortes laid waste the cities about Mexico, then he attacked the
+Queen of the Valley herself--attacked it again and again till at
+length it was a ruin and tens of thousands of its inhabitants were
+dead by starvation, by pestilence, and by the sword. On either side
+the combat was one of desperate courage, but notwithstanding
+occasional successes on the part of the Aztecs, such as that when they
+captured and sacrificed some sixty Spaniards, from the first the
+genius of Cortes made the end inevitable. When nothing remained of
+Tenoctitlan and its people save some blackened walls and a few
+thousand wretches reduced to skeletons by hunger, the capture of
+Guatimozin while attempting to escape in a canoe, made an end of the
+fighting in August, 1521. Cortes promised honorable treatment to the
+fallen king, but before long he put him and some of his companions to
+the torture in order to force the discovery of hidden treasure. This
+brutality proved ineffectual, but taken together with the subsequent
+hanging of Guatimozin upon an unproved charge of conspiracy against
+the Spaniards, it constitutes the blackest blot upon the fame of
+Cortes. It is fair to add, however, that he was not by nature a harsh
+man, and that he was driven to the commission of these cruelties by
+the clamor of his soldiers who were infuriated at finding so little
+treasure in the devastated city. With the capture of Mexico the
+fortunes of Cortes culminated. He was appointed Captain-General of the
+land of New Spain in October, 1522, and the next few years he occupied
+in rebuilding the city, and in bringing the surrounding territories
+under the rule of Spain. Wearying of these comparatively peaceful
+occupations, in 1524 he undertook an expedition of discovery and
+conquest to Honduras, upon which he was absent until May, 1526, when
+he returned after enduring much hardship and suffering, to find that
+enemies had been plotting against him in Mexico. This discovery and
+the desire of clearing himself with the emperor, caused him to
+determine to visit Spain where he arrived in May, 1528. Charles the
+Fifth received him with much favor creating him Marquis of the Valley
+of Oaxaca and military commander of New Spain, and endowing him with
+vast estates in the lands that he had conquered. In 1530 he returned
+to Mexico accompanied by his second wife, a lady of good family whom
+he had married while in Spain. Very soon he entered on a course of
+expeditions of discovery and maritime adventures which involved him in
+great pecuniary losses and a quarrel with the viceroy Mendoza; and in
+1540 he sailed a second time for Spain to obtain redress from the
+emperor. But Cortes was no longer the power that he had been; his
+youth was gone and his work was done, therefore his prayers and
+remonstrances were treated with cold neglect. For nearly four years he
+pressed his suit and in February, 1544, we find him writing a letter
+to the emperor begging him to direct the Council of the Indies to come
+to a decision upon it. This letter in which pathetically enough, he
+speaks of himself as "old and poor and indebted," produced no result
+and once again, worn out and bitterly disappointed, its writer turned
+his face toward the land that he had won for Spain. But he was never
+to behold it more. At Seville he was seized with dysentery and passed
+away December 2, 1547, being then in his sixty-third year. His body
+was taken to Mexico for burial.
+
+In Hernando Cortes died one of the great men of the world, though how
+much of his greatness was due to chance is difficult to determine. It
+is certain that again and again fortune stood his friend in a manner
+that was little short of miraculous, as in the instances of the
+unexpected victory over Narvaez and of the death of the general at the
+battle of Otampan. But if chance or fate gave him opportunities it was
+Cortes' own genius and unconquerable will that enabled him to avail
+himself of them. These qualities were the most striking
+characteristics of the man. He showed them when having determined on
+the conquest of Mexico he burnt his ships that there might be no
+escape from the decision; when he hit upon the expedient of using
+rival tribes to accomplish the overthrow of the Aztecs; when, driven
+from Mexico with the loss of the half of his army he returned to the
+attack; and in many another time and place. He had great good
+qualities, he was a true friend, and according to his lights, an
+honorable and even a religious man, and his faults were those of his
+time and training, or at worst such as are not inconsistent with a
+generous nature. His cruelties may be urged against him, but no
+Spaniard of his age thought it cruel to slaughter enemies of the Faith
+who practised human sacrifice; also having once embarked upon his
+colossal undertaking he and his companions must either slay or be
+slain. There is evidence to show that personally he was not a cruel
+man. Thus when called upon to sign the death-warrant of a soldier he
+lamented that he had ever been taught to write, and there are passages
+in his will which show his conscience to have been troubled by
+questions as to the right to enslave human beings. With a handful of
+followers Cortes overthrew the fabric of the Aztec Empire, broke the
+spirit of its people so effectually that to this day it has not
+recovered itself, and swept away its religion. Whether for good or
+evil this was a stupendous achievement and one that must make his name
+immortal.
+
+[Signature of the author.]
+
+
+
+
+FRANCISCO PIZARRO[18]
+
+By J. T. TROWBRIDGE
+
+(1471-1541)
+
+         [Footnote 18: Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.]
+
+[Illustration: Francisco Pizarro. [TN]]
+
+
+The old Spanish province of Estremadura, though distant from the sea,
+shut in by mountain-chains, furnished numerous adventurers for the
+expeditions of discovery, conquest, and plunder that followed Columbus
+to the New World; two of whom achieved astonishing renown. One was the
+conqueror of Mexico; the other, the conqueror of Peru.
+
+Of the early life of Francisco Pizarro not much is known with
+certainty. He was born about the year 1471; but even that date is a
+matter of conjecture, so little care was had of the coming into the
+world of the actor who was to play so stirring a part in it. The
+family from which he inherited his name must have been one of some
+note in its day. His kinsman and great rival in fame, Cortes, was a
+Pizarro on his mother's side.
+
+Francisco was the second of four brothers, all of whom were men of
+ability and valor, and all of whom fought in the Peruvian wars. Their
+father was Colonel Gonzalo Pizarro, concerning whom little is known,
+save that he was a soldier of Spain, and that he served creditably in
+Italy and Navarre.
+
+The mother of Francisco was Francisca Gonzales, a woman of low
+condition, from whom he seems to have received hardly more parental
+care than from his father, by whom he was utterly neglected. The story
+told by Gomara, and quoted by Prescott, that, abandoned as a
+foundling, he was nursed by a sow, though as mythical as that of
+Romulus and the wolf, which probably suggested it, indicates
+nevertheless the degradation of his childhood. He grew up in ignorance
+and vagabondage. Of what the world calls education he had not the
+first rudiments; to the day of his death he could neither read nor
+write. The only occupation in which we hear of his being engaged in
+his boyhood, was that of a swineherd.
+
+At what age he escaped from this mean employment is not known. The
+claim set up for him by his descendants, that he served with his
+father in Italy, hardly deserves consideration. He was about
+twenty-one years old when all Spain began to ring with the discoveries
+of Columbus and his companions beyond the western seas. Pizarro left
+his employer and his pigs, ran away to Seville, and embarked in one of
+the early expeditions that sailed from that port to the New World.
+
+Of his years of apprenticeship in the stern warfare of the times we
+have no trustworthy details, until at Hispaniola, in 1510, he joined,
+as second in command, Ojeda's disastrous expedition to Uraba, on the
+main coast. Sanguinary fights with swarms of savages armed with
+poisoned arrows, marked the fortunes of the adventurers. And when
+Ojeda returned to the islands for assistance, which he did not bring,
+Pizarro remained in command of the starving colony, amid hardships and
+horrors from which only his resolute daring brought off a remnant
+alive.
+
+He was with Balboa in his famous march across the mountains to the
+Pacific, which no European eyes had hitherto beheld; and shared with
+him the joy of that discovery, which Keats wrongly ascribes to Cortes,
+when the hardy band, first beholding the unknown ocean outspread
+before them--
+
+  "Looked at each other with a wild surmise,
+   Silent, upon a peak in Darien."
+
+He remained with Balboa on the isthmus until the death of that valiant
+commander, when he united his fortunes with those of the governor,
+Pedrarias, and headed various expeditions along the Pacific coast and
+to the islands beyond, in quest of pearls and gold. He was occupied in
+this way, or in cultivating with the aid of Indian slaves a malarious
+tract of land he had acquired near Panama, when a new career invited
+him.
+
+Rumors of a rich empire far to the south, where gold was as common
+with the natives as iron was with the Spaniards, had long inflamed the
+imaginations of the colonists; then news came of the prodigious
+exploits of Cortes in Mexico. Pizarro burned to emulate his kinsman.
+Having formed a partnership with Diego de Almagro, a soldier of
+experience, and Hernando de Luque, a priest supplied with worldly
+means, he secured an old vessel that had been designed by Balboa for a
+similar expedition, refitted it with Luque's money, and with a hundred
+adventurers sailed from the port of Panama in November, 1524; leaving
+Almagro to follow in a smaller vessel.
+
+Pizarro was then more than fifty years old, but still in possession of
+all his masterful qualities. And he had need of all, amid the perils
+of sea and land, the tempests, swamps, battles, sickness, and famine,
+which rendered his first voyage down the coast a deplorable failure.
+Almagro met with no better success. Both returned to the isthmus
+buffeted, baffled, humiliated, but too stout of heart to be cast down.
+They brought back but little gold, but with that little they had
+gathered evidence of the indubitable existence of the opulent empire
+they sought.
+
+The governor was hugely dissatisfied with the results of the
+expedition, of which he had expected to share some of the profits; and
+his consent to another could hardly have been obtained, but for the
+persuasive eloquence of the priest, backed by the offer of a sum in
+ready cash. For a thousand pesos de oro Pedrarias gave his consent,
+and signed away his right to the spoils of an empire.
+
+A new contract was entered into by the three partners, and an
+elaborate and solemn document was drawn up, in sonorous Spanish, which
+is curious reading at this day. Father Luque signed it with his own
+hand, and the two soldiers by the hands of witnesses, since neither
+Pizarro nor Almagro could write his name. About one hundred and sixty
+men were enlisted, and again the two chiefs set sail from Panama in
+separate ships.
+
+They made their first landing at the mouth of the Rio San Juan, where
+by the plunder of a small village, they secured some ornaments of gold
+and a few prisoners. Almagro hastened to carry the treasure back to
+Panama, as a bait to other followers, while Pizarro and his pilot Ruiz
+remained to explore the interior and the coast. Ruiz sailed as far
+south as the equator, and after a memorable voyage of some weeks,
+returned to his chief with a cheering report. He had fallen in with
+what seemed at first a ship at sea, where no European ship had ever
+been, and found it to be an Indian _balsa_, a huge raft across which
+was stretched a sail of cotton-cloth. It had a rudder and a keel. On
+board were men and women clad in a curious sort of woollen stuff,
+skilfully woven, and beautifully dyed and embroidered. They were
+making a voyage of traffic along the coast. They wore ornaments of
+gold, and had with them, besides vessels and mirrors of burnished
+silver, balances for weighing the precious metals, which by signs they
+assured Ruiz were common in their country.
+
+Pizarro in the meanwhile vainly endeavored to pass the yawning gorges,
+bottomless swamps, and dense dark forests that lay between him and the
+snow-covered peaks of the Cordilleras. Entangled vines and trees of a
+luxuriant tropical vegetation, huge boas coiling in the branches,
+ready to spring upon their prey, screaming parrots, chattering and
+grimacing monkeys, mosquitoes, alligators, prowling savages,--amid
+such scenes as these he and his band had once more confronted famine
+and death in the absence of Almagro and Ruiz.
+
+Ruiz came opportunely with his good news, and Almagro returned with
+eighty recruits. The expedition re-embarked and proceeded southward.
+The aspect of the coast became more inviting as they advanced. There
+were signs of an extensive civilization; fields cultivated with maize,
+cacao, and potatoes; many villages; and at length a town of more than
+two thousand houses, laid out with streets, and thronging with
+inhabitants. Among the Spaniards wild enthusiasm prevailed. But it was
+quickly checked by the hostile demonstrations with which they were
+met, when they attempted to gain a foothold on the soil of the Incas.
+It was useless to make front against such numbers as opposed them.
+Divided counsels and a violent quarrel between the two captains
+ensued, and the expedition sailed back northward. Once more Almagro
+returned to Panama for more men, while Pizarro and his followers
+remained to starve on the barren isle of Gallo.
+
+[Illustration: Pizarro exhorting his band at Gallo.]
+
+Instead of permitting any more of his people to depart on what seemed
+so foolhardy and fatal a business, Rios, the new governor of Panama,
+despatched to the island two vessels, under a commander named Tafur,
+with orders to bring away every Spaniard left alive there. Then
+occurred the famous episode that decided so dramatically the
+fortunes of Pizarro and the fate of Peru. Tafur had brought supplies
+of provisions to the famished and emaciated, but now jubilant
+soldiers; and all except Pizarro appeared eager to abandon their
+barren adventure and return in the ships. Pizarro alone refused
+obedience to the governor's agent. Drawing a line on the sand with his
+sword, he cried: "Comrades! on that side lie hunger and hardship; on
+this side, ease and safety. There lies Peru with its riches; here,
+Panama and poverty. Choose, every man for himself, like brave
+Castilians. For me, I go to the south."
+
+He stepped across the line. There was a minute of dismay and silence.
+Then Ruiz followed, and after him twelve others went over, an act of
+as desperate and resolute courage as ever inspired a forlorn band.
+
+They saw the ships containing their comrades sail away without them;
+Ruiz also returned, pledged to bring assistance to his companions left
+behind; while Pizarro remained with his twelve Spaniards, and three or
+four Indian captives whom he had made friends, on the desolate island.
+
+Not even a ship was left them, and they had to build a raft to convey
+them to a less inhospitable island, that of Gorgona, farther north.
+There they lived seven months, subsisting on small game brought down
+by their cross-bows, and shell-fish found on the shores, until Ruiz,
+after weary delays, returned in a small vessel, bringing supplies, but
+not the expected reinforcement of troops.
+
+In this frail craft the dauntless rovers put to sea. Pizarro pursued
+his explorations southward, beyond the point where he afterward
+founded Truxillo, named after his native town; visited several
+Peruvian ports, and learned much of the country he proposed to
+subjugate. He then returned to Panama, which he reached after an
+absence of eighteen months. The reappearance of the little group of
+wanderers bringing news of their discoveries, was the cause of great
+astonishment in the colony, and of joyful enthusiasm among their
+friends, who had long given them up for dead.
+
+The governor, however, resenting Pizarro's disobedience of his orders
+at the isle of Gallo, refused to sanction another expedition; and
+Pizarro resolved upon the bold course of returning to Spain and
+appealing to the Crown. This was in the spring of 1528.
+
+Arriving at Seville, he was immediately thrown into prison for a debt
+incurred at Darien. But he was released by order of the emperor,
+Charles V., who received him graciously at Toledo, heard the wondrous
+story of his wanderings, which Pizarro knew how to tell, and saw the
+vessels of gold and silver, the fine fabrics, the llamas, and other
+evidences of the Peruvian civilization, which were displayed before
+his royal eyes. He was also, no doubt influenced by the recent
+achievements of Cortes, who was then at court, and who perhaps spoke
+for his kinsman a friendly word.
+
+The monarch turned over Pizarro and his enterprise, with his
+recommendation, to the Council of the Indies. Yet a year passed, and
+nothing was done. Pizarro was fast sinking into obscurity, and he
+would likewise have sunk into despair, if he had been less stout of
+heart. Then, as Queen Isabella had aided Columbus, so the queen of
+Charles V. came to the assistance of Pizarro, and caused to be
+executed the extraordinary instrument which bestowed on him, with the
+rights of discovery and conquest, the titles of Governor and
+Captain-General of New Castile, as Peru was then called, and a salary
+of 725,000 maravedis, to be drawn however from the conquered country.
+Almagro and Luque were also provided for, but in a more modest way,
+which proved the beginning of a long, bitter, and deadly feud between
+Almagro and his chief. Nor did the instrument fail to make the usual
+provision for the conversion to Christianity of the nations to be
+subjugated and plundered.
+
+In mustering his recruits Pizarro had the satisfaction of revisiting
+his native town of Truxillo, where he had lived in degradation, and to
+which he now returned a renowned discoverer and soldier, and a titled
+magnate. There he found his three brothers, the Pizarros, all poor and
+proud and eager for adventure; and a fourth brother, on his mother's
+side. With these and other followers, hardly exceeding one hundred, he
+sailed from Seville, in January, 1530; and a year later, namely, in
+January, 1531, after a solemn consecration of his enterprise in the
+cathedral of Panama, he put forth from that port with one hundred and
+eighty men and twenty-seven horses, on his fourth, last, and finally
+successful expedition, to overthrow a populous empire.
+
+That empire lay in the bosom and on both sides of the mighty ranges of
+the Andes, occupying thirty-seven degrees of the coast south of the
+equator, and extending eastward far over the valleys of the Amazon and
+its numerous tributaries. It was under the rule of the Incas, a
+parental despotism, which spread an iron network of laws over millions
+of subjects of different races and languages. Its mountain slopes,
+table-lands, sea-coasts, and plains comprised every variety of climate
+and almost every diversity of physical features. Its capital was
+Cuzco, where dwelt the adored Incas; there also was the famous Temple
+of the Sun, with its gorgeous decorations of gold and gems. Canals,
+aqueducts, complete systems of irrigation for the rainless regions;
+magnificent mountain roads, built to endure for centuries; fine
+textile fabrics, utensils of clay and copper, vessels and ornaments of
+silver and gold; bridges, fortresses, and edifices of a rude but massy
+and symmetrical architecture, well adapted to the climate and the
+needs of the inhabitants; armies, magistrates, courts of
+justice,--such were some of the tokens of a wide semi-civilized
+prosperity, which less than two hundred Spanish adventurers were
+proceeding ruthlessly to destroy.
+
+With incredible difficulties still to overcome, Pizarro had in his
+favor a circumstance of immense importance. The country was at that
+time distracted by civil war. Two brothers, Huascar and Atahualpa,
+sons of the last Inca, were engaged in a fratricidal strife for the
+imperial power, and their armies were turned against each other.
+
+Pizarro resolved to strike his first blow at Tumbez; but was
+constrained by baffling winds to put into the Bay St. Matthew. There
+he landed his force, and soon fell upon a peaceful village, putting
+the inhabitants to flight and pillaging their dwellings. A
+considerable treasure thus obtained was sent back to Panama, where it
+had the desired effect of rallying new recruits for the conquest. A
+most welcome reinforcement was headed by Hernando de Soto, afterwards
+famed as the discoverer of the Mississippi, who sailed to join Pizarro
+with one hundred men and a number of horses.
+
+De Soto arrived in time to aid in extricating him from a harassing
+situation on the island of Puna. Pizarro had been so indiscreet as to
+get into a quarrel with the inhabitants, whom he had defeated in
+battle and slaughtered in large numbers, and from whose incessant
+attacks he was suffering great annoyance.
+
+He now felt himself strong enough to invade the interior. The story of
+that invasion is one of the most astonishing in history. It has been
+many times told, but nowhere else so effectively as in the full,
+flowing, and lucid narrative of Prescott. It can be but briefly
+sketched here.
+
+Having established near the sea-coast a settlement which he named San
+Miguel, to serve as a key of communication between him and his ships,
+Pizarro set out boldly on his march, having with him but one hundred
+and seventy-seven men, nine of whom showing signs of sinking courage,
+were soon sent back to the settlement. By pretences of a friendly
+mission to their Inca, he won his way among such of the surprised
+inhabitants as were not frightened from their villages by his
+approach; and penetrated the wild defiles of the Cordilleras, behind
+which, near Caxamalca--now Caxamarca--the Inca Atahualpa, with an
+immense army lay encamped. He was fresh from a great and decisive
+victory over his elder brother, and was resting, and enjoying the warm
+baths near the city,--the "baths of the Incas," as they are called to
+this day.
+
+Instead of disputing the passage of the strangers in the mountain
+fortresses, and hurling destruction upon them from a thousand crags,
+the monarch sent to exchange gifts with them, and assurances of
+friendship; and awaited them in his camp, the pavilions of which
+whitened the wide hillsides for miles.
+
+On a dull afternoon in November, 1532, Pizarro entered Caxamalca, and
+undismayed by the innumerable host that confronted him, went to pay a
+visit of courtesy to the Inca. He was gloomily received by Atahualpa,
+who chanced to be observing a fast, but who promised to return his
+visit on the following day.
+
+Pizarro felt that a crisis in his audacious business was close at
+hand; and endured the deepest anxiety until late the next afternoon,
+that of November 16th, when, after long delays and apparent waverings
+on the part of the Inca, which severely tried the patience of the
+Spaniards lying in wait with their heavy armor on, he at length
+appeared, borne in a gorgeous palanquin, and accompanied by an immense
+and magnificent procession.
+
+With ferocious satisfaction Pizarro beheld his august victim advancing
+to his doom. The procession entered the grand plaza of Caxamalca, on
+three sides of which, under cover of low buildings opening into it,
+spearmen and horsemen stood to their arms. Not a Spaniard was to be
+seen, until a priest with interpreters advanced to meet the monarch,
+and to confuse him with an astonishing harangue concerning the true
+faith and the supremacy of Spain. Pizarro saw that his opportunity
+had come. He waved his scarf; from the fortress sounded a signal-gun;
+and with fierce battle-cries the Spaniards rushed from all sides upon
+the Peruvians.
+
+The shouts, the blaze and smoke of fire-arms, the terrible
+detonations, the sight of plunging horses and their riders, with the
+sudden fury of the onset, paralyzed with terror the multitude of
+unarmed attendants, who fell the victims of a horrible massacre. The
+Inca was seized and borne off a captive. And yet the pursuit and
+slaughter did not cease until thousands of the panic-stricken and
+defenceless Peruvians had been slain, and more prisoners had been
+taken than were required to provide every Spaniard with a retinue of
+servants.
+
+Pizarro treated his captive with the consideration due to a great but
+fallen potentate; he granted him ample apartments, and the society of
+his favorite wives and nobles. He at the same time endeavored to save
+his soul, by enforcing upon his mind the truths of the Catholic faith.
+Atahualpa accepted with dignity the fortunes of war; and as a ransom
+offered to fill a large room in which he one day was, with vessels of
+gold, as high as he could reach. Pizarro agreed to the proposal, and
+by the Inca's orders messengers were despatched to Cuzco and other
+important cities of the empire, for the required booty.
+
+This arrangement reached the ears of Huascar, then a prisoner in the
+hands of his younger brother's adherents; he thereupon sent word to
+the Spaniards that he would pay a much larger reward if they would
+espouse his cause and set him free. Unfortunately for both him and
+Pizarro, the offer reached the ears of Atahualpa, who secretly caused
+Huascar to be put to death.
+
+The golden treasure soon began to come in, borne on the backs of
+Indians,--goblets, vases, salvers, massy plates and tiles from the
+walls of palaces and temples, and images of plants and animals. Some
+of these objects weighed individually several pounds; and the art
+displayed in their manufacture was often admirable. But they were all
+ruthlessly melted down into ingots, to be divided among the
+conquerors. Gold to the value of more than seventeen million dollars,
+measured by our modern standard, was thus secured, besides a vast
+amount of silver. Certainly no prince in all the world's history had
+ever paid such a ransom.
+
+The treasure was a long while coming in; and Pizarro had ample time to
+consider how he should keep his part of the contract. He could never
+have had any intention of giving the Inca his liberty; nor was he deep
+enough in his craft to perceive the immense advantage he might gain by
+holding him a captive. He resolved upon his death. The unhappy prince
+was tried by a military court of his enemies, charged with the
+usurpation of the empire, with the murder of his brother, and with
+attempts to incite an insurrection against the Spaniards. He was
+condemned, received as a convert to the Catholic faith, baptized, and
+executed. This event occurred August 29, 1533.
+
+Meanwhile Almagro had arrived with a much-needed reinforcement; and
+adventurers of all sorts, from Spain and her western colonies, soon
+began to flock to the newly opened land of gold. Pizarro marched upon
+Cuzco, which he took after a fierce battle, and pillaged of what gold
+had not been already removed for Atahualpa's ransom. He caused Manco
+Capae, a young prince of the royal blood, to be proclaimed Inca; drove
+him by his oppressions to revolt; and was besieged by him in Cuzco.
+The Peruvians assaulted the city in countless numbers, set fire to the
+houses with flaming arrows and red-hot stones, and might have starved
+or destroyed the Spaniards, had not they themselves been forced by
+starvation to raise the siege.
+
+In June, 1538, the old feud between Pizarro and Almagro culminated in
+a battle between their two factions, and Almagro was defeated and
+killed. Pizarro now ruled the country with red-handed despotism. The
+benignant laws of the Incas were replaced by the rapine of the
+conquerors. Not only gold and silver, but the land itself and its
+former peaceful occupants, were apportioned among them; and slavery
+and concubinage prevailed in their most revolting forms. The rumors of
+these wrongs reached Spain, and a commissioner was sent out to inquire
+into them; but before his arrival Pizarro died by violence in his own
+Ciudad de los Reyes, "City of the Kings,"--now Lima,--which he had
+founded in 1535.
+
+His death was worthy of his life. Attacked in his own house by the
+avengers of Almagro, he fought furiously, and cut down three of his
+assailants; but fell, overcome by numbers, and pierced by as many
+blades as met in the body of Cæsar. His last word was "Jesu!" and his
+last act, to stoop and kiss the symbol of a cross which he traced with
+his finger on the bloody floor.
+
+Thus lived and died one of the most extraordinary men of his time,
+indeed of all times. It is hard to sum up briefly the good and evil of
+such a character. He was said to be of a pleasing and dignified
+presence, simple and self-reliant. We know that he was possessed of
+indomitable courage, endurance, and persistency of purpose;
+avaricious, perfidious, devout; and conspicuous for his cruelty even
+in a cruel age. Greedy as he was of gold, he spent little of it upon
+himself, and seemed to desire it chiefly for the power and honor it
+would command. He founded settlements and cities, and was lavish in
+his expenditures upon public works; no doubt ambitious of building up
+a new empire on the ruins of the one he had destroyed. But he
+exhibited none of the great qualities of a born ruler and lawgiver; in
+the coarseness of his moral nature, a swineherd to the last. He never
+married, but by a daughter of Atahualpa he had a daughter, who
+survived him. In his native town of Truxillo her descendants are still
+to be found, with the mingled blood of the conqueror and of the last
+of the Incas in their veins.
+
+[Signature of the author.]
+
+
+
+
+GASPARD DE COLIGNI
+
+By PROFESSOR CREASY
+
+(1517-1572)
+
+[Illustration: Burning of a house. [TN]]
+
+
+There was a time, when the doctrines of the Reformation seemed
+destined to achieve far ampler conquests over the dominion of Papal
+Rome than they have ultimately realized. France, in particular, at the
+commencement of the second half of the sixteenth century, appeared to
+be almost won over to Protestantism. The Huguenots (as the followers
+of the Reformed Faith in that country were termed) formed the most
+influential, if not the largest part of the population of many of the
+principal provinces, and of nearly all the provincial capitals; they
+were numerous in Paris; nor was there a single district or town in
+France in which they had not obtained converts and power, before the
+war of 1562.
+
+The history of the Reformation in France is a mournful one; but it
+presents names to our notice which every good heart must delight to
+honor; and foremost of these is the name of Gaspard de Coligni, the
+statesman, the soldier, and the saint; who long was the stoutest
+champion of the Protestant cause, and finally became the most glorious
+of its many martyrs. Unlike his comrade Condé, he was proof against
+the vicious blandishments of the enemy's court, as well as against the
+terrors of their camps. Familiar with defeat, he never learned
+despair. Hallam has well compared his indomitable energy to the
+
+  "Atrocem animam Catonis;"
+
+but the Huguenot chief, while fully equal to the ancient Roman in
+probity, in self-reliance, and in unflinching fortitude, was far
+superior to him in comprehensiveness of judgment and in fertility of
+resources; and moreover, the affectionate gentleness which marked the
+private life of Coligni, contrasts favorably with the stoic coarseness
+by which the character of Cato was deformed.
+
+The father of Coligni was head of an ancient and noble house, and was
+the seigneur of Châtillon-sur-Lion. At his death, in 1522, he left
+three sons, then of tender years, all of whom became eminent in French
+history, and all of whom embraced the Protestant doctrines, though
+trained up in the Romish Church. The elder brother, who is known as
+the Cardinal de Châtillon, was raised to that high ecclesiastical
+dignity by Clement VII., in 1533. Chiefly through the influence which
+his younger brother exerted over him, he became a convert to the
+tenets of the Reformers in his middle age, and took part in the early
+scenes of the civil wars. After the reverse which his party sustained
+at the battle of St. Denys, he fled to England, where he died in 1571.
+The younger brother, Dandelot, was the first of the three who became a
+Protestant. He was a skilful and gallant soldier, and signalized
+himself repeatedly by his enterprise, his inexhaustible resources, and
+undaunted spirit, as a commander of the Huguenot forces from the first
+outbreak of the religious wars until his death soon after the battle
+of Jarnac, in 1569. Gaspard, the great Coligni, or the Admiral (as he
+is often termed, from having held the titular office of Admiral of
+France), was the middle one of the three brothers, and was born at
+Châtillon-sur-Lion, February 16, 1517. He served with distinction in
+the later wars of Francis I. against Spain; and with his brother
+Dandelot received knighthood on the field of battle at Cerisoles. He
+was afterward raised to the important post of colonel-general of the
+French infantry, and in 1552 was nominated by Henry II. Admiral of
+France. He was taken prisoner at St. Quentin by the Spaniards, and
+underwent a long captivity in Spain before he regained his liberty by
+payment of a heavy ransom.
+
+During the long hours of solitude and compulsory inaction which he
+passed in his Spanish prison, he meditated deeply and earnestly on
+religious subjects; and after his return to France, the conversation
+of his brother Dandelot, who had already joined the Huguenots,
+confirmed the bias to the Protestant doctrines, which his own studies
+and deliberations had created. Coligni now resigned all his
+appointments and preferments, except the nominal rank of admiral, and
+retired to his estates, where he passed his time in fervent devotion,
+and in the enjoyment of the calm happiness of domestic life. But the
+cry of suffering which rose from his fellow-Protestants, against whom
+the pernicious influence of the Princes of Lorraine in the French
+court kindled the fires of persecution throughout France, soon drew
+him from his blameless and cherished repose. He at first sought to
+provide for them a refuge from oppression, by founding colonies of
+French Protestants in America; but his projects proved unsuccessful;
+and as the tyranny of the violent party among the French Catholics
+grew more and more alarming, Coligni deemed that both honor and
+conscience required him to stand openly forward in behalf of his
+co-religionists.
+
+No class of men ever were more long-suffering, or showed more
+unwillingness to rise in arms against their domestic tyrants, than the
+much-calumniated Huguenots of France. When we read the hideous edicts
+that were promulgated against them, and which were not mere empty
+threats, but were carried into execution throughout the land with
+unrelenting and strenuous ferocity, we feel that if ever the right of
+self-defence can make an appeal to arms justifiable, it was so in
+their instance. Extermination or apostasy formed the only choice that
+their rulers offered them. Mackintosh, in his "History of the English
+Revolution of 1688," has truly termed the question of when subjects
+are justified in making war on their sovereign, "a tremendous
+problem." But the same admirable writer has bequeathed to us a full
+and luminous code of the rules and principles of immutable morality,
+by which this awful issue must be tried, and no one who is familiar
+with these principles can hesitate in pronouncing that the war on the
+part of the French Huguenots was lawful and laudable before God and
+man.
+
+Coligni is peculiarly free from the heavy imputation, which
+insurrectionary leaders incur, however great their provocation, who
+introduce the appeal of battle in civil controversy, and, to use the
+emphatic language of Milton, "let loose the sword of intestine war,
+soaking the land in her own gore," before every other possible mode of
+obtaining protection from further enormous wrong has been attempted,
+and attempted in vain. He was wholly unconnected with the enterprise
+(known in French history as the conspiracy of Amboise) by which some
+of the Protestant chiefs designed to withdraw the young king, Francis
+II., forcibly from the influence of the Guises, and which may be
+considered the first overt act of insurrection. Not that Condé is to
+be condemned for that effort, but the Admiral's exceeding loyalty is
+proved by his having kept aloof from it. Coligni continued to seek
+security for his co-religionists by peaceable means, for two years
+after that unsuccessful enterprise, from the savage reprisals of the
+Court upon its authors. He seemed at one time to be successful in his
+blameless exertions; and in the Assembly of Notables, held in January,
+1562, an edict was issued, called the "Edict of Pacification," giving
+a partial toleration of the Protestant creed, and suspending all penal
+proceedings on the ground of religion.
+
+This was all that Coligni strove for. He said at the time to some of
+his adherents: "If we have our religion, what do we want more?" But
+those who had made this concession were treacherous as they were
+cruel, and the fair promise which France seemed to have acquired of
+tranquillity was destined to be soon destroyed.
+
+Two powerful parties were arrayed against the Huguenots, one of which
+consisted of their avowed and implacable enemies. This was headed by
+the Guises, with whom the Constable Montmorenci, and the Maréchal St.
+André had been induced to enter into league. Less fanatically violent,
+but far more formidable, through its false show of moderation and
+favor, was the party of the Queen-mother, Catherine de Medici.
+Catherine dreaded the power of the house of Guise; and was often glad
+to avail herself of the Protestant interest as a counterpoise against
+them. But though the jealousy which animated herself and her sons
+against the Princes of Lorraine was great, their hatred of the
+Huguenots was greater; and their occasional simulation of friendship
+enabled them to wreak it more malignantly and more completely.
+
+They had sided with Coligni and Condé and the other Protestant chiefs
+in enacting the Edict of Pacification, and had thereby given a check
+to the power of the Duke of Guise and his confederates. But when their
+temporary purpose was served, the wise provisions of that edict were
+set at naught; the Protestants were again exposed to outrage and
+slaughter at the hands of their foes, nor could any redress be
+obtained from the royal tribunals. At length occurred the massacre of
+Vassi, where the armed followers of the Duke of Guise attacked a
+defenceless body of Protestants, while engaged in the services of
+their church, and slaughtered several hundreds of them under the eye
+of Guise, if not by his orders. Reeking from this carnage, the bands
+of the Lorraines entered Paris, where they were enthusiastically
+received by the fanatic populace, which was devoted to the Catholic
+cause.
+
+Condé now left the capital, and summoned the Protestant nobility and
+gentry to rally round him in defence of their lives and their creed.
+Coligni long delayed joining him, and evinced a hesitation and a
+reluctance to embark in civil war, which emphatically attest the
+goodness while they in no degree detract from the greatness of his
+character. His wife, who naturally thought that anxiety on her account
+aided in restraining him, exhorted him in words of more than Roman
+magnanimity to arm in defence of the thousand destined victims, who
+looked up to him for guidance and protection. Coligni urged on her and
+on the friends who thronged round him, the fearful risks of the
+enterprise, and his earnest desire to wait in patience for better
+times, and rest upon the public faith rather than justify persecution
+by having recourse to violence. Unconvinced and undaunted, the heroine
+renewed her entreaties to the lingering hero. She told him that such
+prudence was not wisdom toward God. D'Aubigné professes to report this
+remarkable conversation from the lips of those who were present; and
+he states that she proceeded to urge on him these words:--
+
+"God has bestowed on you the genius of a great captain--will you
+refuse the use of it to his children? You have confessed to the
+justice of their cause--is not the knightly sword you bear pledged to
+the defence of the oppressed? Sir, my heart bleeds for our slaughtered
+brethren--and their blood cries out to God and Heaven against you as
+the murderer of those whom you might have saved."
+
+"Since," replied the Admiral, "the reasons which I have this evening
+alleged against an ineffectual resistance have made so little
+impression upon your mind, lay your hand upon your heart and answer me
+this question, Could you, without murmuring against Providence and the
+husband to whom Heaven has united you, receive the news of a general
+defeat? Are you prepared to endure the opprobrium of your enemies--the
+reproaches of your friends--the treachery of partisans--the curses of
+the people--confiscation, flight, exile--the insolence of the English,
+the quarrels of the Germans--shame, nakedness, hunger--and, what is
+worse, to suffer all this in your children? Are you prepared to see
+your husband branded as a rebel and dragged to a scaffold; while your
+children, disgraced and ruined, are begging their bread at the hands
+of their enemies? I give you eight days to reflect upon it, and when
+you shall be well prepared for such reverses, I will be ready to set
+forward, and perish with you and our mutual friends."
+
+"The eight days are already expired!" she cried. "Go, sir, where your
+duty calls you. Heaven will not give the victory to our enemies. In
+the name of God, I call upon you to resist no longer, but to save our
+brethren, or die in the attempt."
+
+On the next morning Coligni was on horseback, with all his retainers
+round him; and with a heavy heart but a clear conscience, he rode on
+his way to join Condé at Meaux, which was now, in the early spring of
+1562, the head-quarters of the insurgent Huguenots.
+
+The high rank of the Prince of Condé, as well as his brilliant
+abilities and chivalrous courage, caused him to be acknowledged as
+chief of the Protestant party; but Coligni was looked on by friends
+and foes as the main pillar of their cause; and it was he that gave
+organization to the volunteers who flocked around himself and the
+prince, first at Meaux, and afterward in greater numbers at Orleans,
+when toward the end of March they succeeded in occupying that
+important city, and making it a centre of operations for the Huguenot
+confederacy. Like Cromwell in after times, Coligni relied on the
+religious enthusiasm as well as the natural bravery of his troops. He
+exercised them by preaching and prayer as well as by drilling and
+manoeuvring. He inspired them with his own spirit of austere devotion
+to their cause; and the Huguenot army was in its first campaigns as
+conspicuous for good order and morality as for valor; though by
+degrees it became tainted with a tendency to marauding and to brutal
+violence.
+
+The Roman Catholic party now sought support from Philip II. of Spain,
+from the Duke of Savoy, the emperor and other foreign princes of their
+creed, and the Huguenots, to the deep regret of Coligni, were
+compelled to strengthen themselves by similar negotiations. The
+English queen, Elizabeth, promised succors in men and money, on
+condition of Havre (which city, like most of the other strong places
+in Normandy, was devoted to the Protestant cause) being placed in her
+power as a security for repayment. The German Lutheran princes
+permitted a large auxiliary force of lansquenets and heavy-armed
+cavalry to be raised among their subjects in behalf of the French
+Protestants; and Dandelot was despatched into Germany to place himself
+at their head, and lead them across the Rhine; a difficult operation,
+which he accomplished with great skill, and joined his brothers and
+Condé at Pluviers, near Orleans, late in the year, and at a crisis
+when the fortunes of the Protestant party appeared reduced to a very
+low ebb, as in the interval which had elapsed since the commencement
+of the war, though there had been no engagement between the main
+armies, the Royalists had gained numerous advantages, and had captured
+many towns, both in the South and in Normandy, which had originally
+declared for the insurgents.
+
+Coligni and Condé with their own troops and their German allies now
+(December, 1562) marched upon Paris; but finding it hopeless to
+attempt the storm or siege of the capital, they led their army toward
+Normandy, desiring to form a junction with the English troops at
+Havre. The Royal forces, commanded nominally by the Constable
+Montmorenci and the Maréchal de St. André, but in which the Duke of
+Guise was also present, marched for some days on their flank, till the
+two armies came into collision on December 19th at Dreux, where the
+first battle of the civil wars was fought. In this action, after many
+vicissitudes of fortune, the Duke of Guise secured the victory for the
+Roman Catholics, and Condé was taken prisoner. Coligni led the remains
+of the Protestant army back to Orleans; whither the Duke of Guise, at
+the head of a largely recruited army, flushed by their recent victory,
+soon advanced, with the intention of crushing insurrection and
+Protestantism, by the capture of their stronghold.
+
+Coligni's situation now seemed desperate. His German mercenaries in
+arrear of pay, threatened to desert him; the funds which he had been
+able to collect for the conduct of the war were exhausted; and he was
+utterly unable to encounter the numerous and well-appointed forces of
+Guise. In this emergency he formed the bold plan of leaving his
+brother, Dandelot, with the bulk of the infantry to defend Orleans,
+while he himself led the cavalry and a few companies of foot again to
+Normandy, and again attempted to avail himself of the English supplies
+of money and troops. In spite of the mutinous murmurings of the German
+reisters, in spite of the attempts which the Roman Catholic commanders
+made to intercept him, Coligni executed his daring scheme. Havre was
+reached. The English subsidies were secured, and the rich and powerful
+city of Caen voluntarily placed itself in Coligni's power. Meanwhile
+Orleans had been well defended by Dandelot; and the great chief of the
+Roman Catholics, the Duke of Guise, had died by the hand of an
+assassin. Some attempts were made to implicate Coligni in the guilt of
+this murder, but the Admiral indignantly denied the charge; nor is
+there any ground for believing him to have had the least cognizance of
+Poltrot's crime.
+
+The death of Guise made a temporary pacification easy; and the edict
+of Amboise, on March 19, 1563, by which a narrow and restricted
+permission for the exercise of the Protestant religion was allowed,
+closed the first war.
+
+This peace on the part of the Royalists was only a hollow and a
+treacherous truce. Fresh communications with Philip II. were opened;
+and an interview took place in 1564 at Bayonne, between Catherine, her
+son Charles IX., and the Duke of Alva. There is every reason to
+believe that at that meeting the destruction of the Protestants by
+craft or by force was concerted. The treaty of Amboise was now openly
+and repeatedly violated by the fanatic party of the French Roman
+Catholics; and the Huguenots were again driven to take up arms in
+self-defence. Condé and Coligni advanced upon Paris, and fought on
+November 10, 1567, the sanguinary battle of St. Denys against the
+Royalist forces. The Huguenots were beaten, but Coligni rallied them,
+and marching toward the Meuse, effected a junction with fresh bands of
+German auxiliaries. The war now raged with redoubled horror in every
+district of France. Alarmed at the strength of the Huguenot army,
+Catherine tried and successfully exerted her powers of persuasion and
+deceit over Condé, and a second faithless peace, called the treaty of
+Longjumeau, was concluded; but when the Huguenot forces were
+disbanded, and their German auxiliaries dismissed, the Royalists
+renewed the war.
+
+In 1569, the indiscreet spirit of Condé brought the Protestants into
+action at Jarnac, under heavy disadvantages, against the flower of the
+Catholic army. Condé was killed in the battle, and a large part of his
+forces routed with heavy slaughter; but Coligni was again the Ajax of
+the cause, covered the retreat, and reorganized the fugitives for
+fresh exertions. But the waves of calamity were not yet spent. The
+hostile armies met again at Moncontour, and the Protestants sustained
+the most complete and murderous overthrow that had been dealt to them
+throughout the war. Coligni's brother, the gallant Dandelot, was
+mortally wounded in this disastrous field; many of his stanchest
+friends had fallen; many abandoned him; and he found himself a
+fugitive, with only a few bands of mutineers around him, the wreck of
+the gallant army that he had lately led.
+
+But it was in this depth of gloom that the true heroic lustre of his
+soul was seen. Fearless himself of what man could do unto him, he
+calmed the panic of his followers, and inspired them with his own
+energy. He who has innate strength to stand amid the storm, will soon
+find others flock around and fortify him while they seek support for
+themselves. When it was known that Coligni's banner still was flying,
+the Protestants of France and Eastern Germany, who at first had been
+stunned by the report of Moncontour, thronged to him as to a strong
+tower in the midst of trouble. While the Royalists were exulting at
+the fancied annihilation of their foe, they suddenly learned that
+Coligni was approaching the capital, at the head of the largest army
+that the Huguenots had yet sent into the field. Again the device of a
+treacherous pacification was attempted, and again it prevailed.
+Coligni was warned of the personal danger that he incurred by trusting
+the faith of a Medici and a Guise; but he replied that he would rather
+lay down his life, than see France continue the victim of the woes of
+civil war.
+
+The treaty of St. Germains was signed on August 8, 1570, and on August
+24, 1572, the Massacre of St. Bartholomew attested with what worse
+than Punic faith the crowned conspirators of the French Court had
+planned it. In the interval, the most detestable and elaborate
+hypocrisy was employed to lull the suspicions of the Huguenot chiefs,
+and to bring them defenceless into the power of their enemies. At
+last, in the summer of 1572, they were collected in Paris, under the
+pretence of being the honored guests of the French king, at the
+nuptials of his sister with Henry of Navarre. An attempt was made on
+the life of Coligni by an assassin, in which the Admiral was severely
+wounded. The king and his courtiers affected the utmost indignation at
+this crime, and the warmest sympathy with the suffering veteran. But
+in the early dawn of the day appointed for the most unchristian
+carnage that ever defiled the earth, a party of murderers, headed by
+the young Duke of Guise himself, broke open the doors of the house
+where Coligni lay, and Besme, one of the duke's domestics, entered
+with a drawn sword, into the room where the Admiral was sitting in an
+arm-chair.
+
+"Young man," said he, undisturbed, "you ought to respect my gray
+hairs; but do as you please, you can only shorten my life a few days."
+
+Besme thrust him through in many places, and then threw his body,
+still breathing, out of the window into the court, where it fell at
+the feet of the Duke of Guise. The minions of the Louvre flocked
+around in hideous glee, to insult the lifeless form of him, before
+whom they had so long quailed and trembled. They gibbeted their own
+infamy in vainly seeking to dishonor the illustrious dead. His memory
+is at once the glory and the shame of France: and the very land of the
+St. Bartholomew is, to some extent, hallowed by having been the
+birthplace of Coligni, and the scene of his heroic career.
+
+I do not pause to describe the tardy homage which his countrymen
+afterward paid to the name and relics of the fallen great. These
+obsequies and panegyrics may be looked on as some small expiation for
+the national guilt of France, but Coligni needed them not.
+
+
+
+
+HENRY IV. OF FRANCE
+
+(1553-1610)
+
+[Illustration: Henry IV. [TN]]
+
+
+Henry IV., the most celebrated, the most beloved, and perhaps, in
+spite of his many faults, the best of the French monarchs, was born at
+Pau, the capital of Béarn, in 1553. His parents were Antoine de
+Bourbon, Duke of Vendôme, and in right of his wife, titular king of
+Navarre, and Jeanne d'Albert, the heiress of that kingdom. On the
+paternal side he traced his descent to Robert of Clermont, fifth son
+of Louis IX., and thus, on the failure of the elder branches, became
+heir to the crown of France. Educated by a Protestant mother in the
+Protestant faith, he was for many years the rallying point and leader
+of the Huguenots. In boyhood the prince of Béarn displayed sense and
+spirit above his years. Early inured to war, he was present and
+exhibited strong proofs of military talent at the battle of Jarnac,
+and that of Moncontour, both fought in 1569. In the same year he was
+declared chief of the Protestant League. The treaty of St. Germain,
+concluded in 1570, guaranteed to the Huguenots the civil rights for
+which they had been striving; and, in appearance, to cement the union
+of the two parties, a marriage was proposed between Henry, who, by the
+death of his mother, had just succeeded to the throne of Navarre, and
+Margaret of Valois, sister of Charles IX. This match brought Condé,
+Coligni, and all the leaders of their party, to Paris. The ceremony
+took place August 17, 1572, and a week later came the massacre of St.
+Bartholomew. For three years afterward Henry, who to save his life had
+conformed to the established religion, was kept as a kind of
+state-prisoner. He escaped in 1576, and put himself at the head of the
+Huguenot party. In the war which ensued, with the sagacity and fiery
+courage of the high-born general, he showed the indifference to
+hardships of the meanest soldier. Content with the worst fare and
+meanest lodging, in future times the magnificent monarch of France
+could recollect when his wardrobe could not furnish him with a change
+of linen. He shared all fortunes with his followers, and was rewarded
+by their unbounded devotion.
+
+Upon the extinction of the house of Valois, by the assassination of
+Henry III. in 1589, Henry of Navarre became the rightful owner of the
+French throne. But his religion interfered with his claims. The League
+was strong in force against him: he had few friends, few fortresses,
+no money, and a small army. But his courage and activity made up for
+the scantiness of his resources. With five thousand men he withstood
+the Duc de Mayenne, who was pursuing him with twenty-five thousand,
+and gained the battle of Arques, in spite of the disparity. This
+extraordinary result may probably be ascribed in great measure to the
+contrast of personal character in the two generals. Mayenne was slow
+and indolent. Of Henry it was said, that he lost less time in bed than
+Mayenne lost at table; and that he wore out very little broad-cloth,
+but a great deal of boot-leather. A person was once extolling the
+skill and courage of Mayenne in Henry's presence. "You are right,"
+said Henry, "he is a great captain, but I have always five hours'
+start of him." Henry got up at four in the morning, and Mayenne about
+ten.
+
+The battle of Arques was fought in the year of his accession. In the
+following year, 1590, he gained a splendid victory at Ivri, over the
+Leaguers commanded by Mayenne, and a Spanish army superior in numbers.
+On this occasion he made that celebrated speech to his soldiers before
+the battle: "If you lose sight of your standards, rally round my white
+plume; you will always find it in the path of honor and glory." Nor is
+his exclamation to his victorious troops less worthy of record: "Spare
+the French!"
+
+Paris was soon blockaded, but the Parliament swore on the Gospels, in
+the presence of the Legate and the Spanish Ambassador, to refuse all
+proposals of accommodation. The siege was pushed to such extremities,
+and the famine became so cruel, that bread was made of human bones
+ground to powder. That Henry did not then master the capital, where
+two hundred thousand men were maddened with want, was owing to his own
+lenity. He declared that he had rather lose Paris, than gain
+possession of it by the death of so many persons. He gave a free
+passage through his lines to all who were not soldiers, and allowed
+his own troops to send in refreshments to their friends. By this
+paternal kindness he lost the fruit of his labors to himself; but he
+also prolonged the civil war, and the calamities of the kingdom at
+large.
+
+The approach of the Duke of Parma with a Spanish army obliged Henry to
+raise the siege of Paris. It was not the policy of the Spanish court
+to render the Leaguers independent of its assistance, and the duke,
+satisfied with having relieved the metropolis, avoided an engagement,
+and returned to his government in the Low Countries, followed by Henry
+as far as the frontiers of Picardy. In 1591 Henry received succors
+from England and Germany, and laid siege to Rouen; but his prey was
+again snatched from him by the Duke of Parma. Again battle was offered
+and declined; and the retiring army passed the Seine in the night on a
+bridge of boats; a retreat the more glorious, as Henry believed it to
+be impossible. The duke once said of his adversary, that other
+generals made war like lions or wild boars; but that Henry hovered
+over it like an eagle.
+
+During the siege of Paris, some conferences had been held between the
+chiefs of the two parties, which ended in a kind of accommodation. The
+Catholics of the king's party began to complain of his perseverance in
+Calvinism; and some influential men who were of the latter persuasion,
+especially his confidential friend and minister Rosny, represented to
+him the necessity of a change. Even some of the reformed ministers
+softened the difficulty, by acknowledging salvation to be possible in
+the Roman Church. In 1593 the ceremony of abjuration was performed at
+St. Denis, in presence of a multitude of the Parisians. If, as we
+cannot but suppose, the monarch's conversion was owing to political
+motives, the apostacy must be answered for at a higher than any human
+tribunal; politically viewed, it was perhaps one of the most
+beneficial steps ever taken toward the pacification and renewal of
+prosperity of a great kingdom. In the same year he was crowned at
+Chartres, and in 1594 Paris opened her gates to him. He had just been
+received into the capital, where he was conspicuously manifesting his
+beneficence and zeal for the public good, when he was wounded in the
+throat by John Châtel, a young fanatic. When the assassin was
+questioned, he avowed the doctrine of tyrannicide, and quoted the
+sermons of the Jesuits in his justification. That society therefore
+was banished by the Parliament.
+
+For two years after his ostensible conversion, the king was obliged
+daily to perform the most humiliating ceremonies, by way of penance;
+and it was not till 1594 that he was absolved by Clement VIII. The
+Leaguers then had no further pretext for rebellion, and the League
+necessarily was dissolved. Its chiefs exacted high terms for their
+submission; but the civil wars had so exhausted the kingdom, that
+tranquillity could not be too dearly purchased; and Henry was faithful
+to all his promises, even after his authority was so firmly
+established, that he might have broken his word with safety to all but
+his own conscience and honor. Although the obligations which he had to
+discharge were most burdensome, he found means to relieve his people,
+and make his kingdom prosper. The Duke de Mayenne, in Burgundy, and
+the Duke de Mercoeur in Brittany, were the last to protract an
+unavailing resistance; but the former was reduced in 1596, and the
+latter in 1598, and thenceforth France enjoyed almost uninterrupted
+peace till Henry's death. But the Protestants gave him almost as much
+uneasiness as the Catholic Leaguers. He had granted liberty of
+conscience to the former; a measure which was admitted to be
+necessary by the prudent even among the latter. Nevertheless, either
+from vexation at his having abjured their religion, from the violence
+of party zeal, or disgust at being no longer the objects of royal
+preference, the Calvinists preferred their demands in so seditious a
+tone, as stopped little short of a rebellious one. While on the road
+to Brittany, he determined to avoid greater evils by timely
+compromise. The edict of Nantes was then promulgated, authorizing the
+public exercise of their religion in several towns, granting them the
+right of holding offices, putting them in possession of certain places
+for eight years, as pledges for their security, and establishing
+salaries for their ministers. The clergy and preachers demurred, but
+to no purpose; the Parliament ceased to resist the arguments of the
+Prince, when he represented to them as magistrates, that the peace of
+the state and the prosperity of the Church must be inseparable. At the
+same time he endeavored to convince the bigots among the priesthood on
+both sides, that the love of country and the performance of civil and
+political duties may be completely reconciled with difference of
+worship.
+
+But it would be unjust to attribute these enlightened views to Henry,
+without noticing that he had a friend as well as minister in Rosny,
+best known as the Duke de Sully, who probably suggested many of his
+wisest measures, and at all events superintended their execution, and
+did his best to prevent or retrieve his sovereign's errors by
+uncompromising honesty of advice and remonstrance. The allurements of
+pleasure were powerful over the enthusiastic and impassioned
+temperament of Henry; it was love that most frequently prevailed over
+the claims of duty. The beautiful Gabrielle d'Estrées became the
+absolute mistress of his heart; and he entertained hopes of obtaining
+permission from Rome to divorce Margaret de Valois, from whom he had
+long lived in a state of separation. Had he succeeded time enough, he
+contemplated the dangerous project of marrying the favorite; but her
+death saved him both from the hazard and disgrace. The sentence of
+divorce, so long solicited, was at last granted, and the king married
+Mary de Medici, who bore Louis XIII. to him in 1601. The match,
+however, contributed little to his domestic happiness.
+
+While France was flourishing under a vigilant and paternal
+administration, while her strength was beginning to keep pace with her
+internal happiness, new conspiracies were incessantly formed against
+the king. Henriette d'Entragues, another favorite, not only
+exasperated the Queen's peevish humor against him, but was ungrateful
+enough to combine with her father, the Count d'Auvergne, and the
+Spanish Court, in a plot which was timely discovered. Spite of the
+many virtues and conciliatory manners of Henry, the fanatics could
+never pardon his former attachment to the Protestant cause. He was
+continually surrounded with traitors and assassins; almost every year
+produced some attempt on his life, and he fell at last by the weapon
+of a misguided enthusiast.
+
+Shortly before his untimely end, Henry is said by some historians to
+have disclosed a project for forming a Christian republic. The
+proposal is stated to have been, to divide Europe into fifteen fixed
+powers, none of which should be allowed to make any new acquisition,
+but should together form an association for maintaining a mutual
+balance, and preserving peace. This political reverie, impossible to
+be realized, is not likely ever to have been actually divulged, even
+if meditated by Henry, nor is there any trace of it to be found in the
+history, or among the state-papers of England, Venice, or Holland, the
+supposed co-operators in the scheme. His more rational design in
+arming went no further than to set bounds to the ambition and power of
+the house of Austria, both in Germany and Italy. Whatever may have
+been the motive, his means of success were imposing. He was to march
+into Germany at the head of forty thousand excellent troops. The army,
+provisions, and every other necessary were in readiness. Money no
+longer failed; Sully had laid up forty millions of livres in the
+treasury, which were destined for this war. His alliances were already
+assured, his generals had been formed by himself, and all seemed to
+forebode such a storm as must probably have overwhelmed an emperor
+devoted to the search after the philosopher's stone, and a king of
+Spain under the dominion of the Inquisition. Henry was impatient to
+join his army; but his mind had become harassed with sinister
+forebodings, and his chagrin was increased by a temporary alienation
+from his faithful minister. He was on his way to pay a visit of
+reconciliation to Sully, when his coach was entangled as it passed
+along the street. His attendants left the carriage to remove the
+obstruction, and during the delay thus caused he was stabbed to the
+heart by Francis Ravaillac, a native of Angoulême. This calamitous
+event took place on May 14, 1610, in the fifty-seventh year of his
+age. The Spaniards, who had the strongest interest in the catastrophe,
+were supposed to have been the instigators; but the fear of
+implicating other powers, and plunging France into greater evils than
+those from which their hero had rescued them, deterred not only
+statesmen, but even the judges on Ravaillac's trial, from pressing for
+the names of accomplices. Hardouin de Perefixe, in his "History of
+Henry the Great," says, "If it be asked who inspired the monster with
+the thought, history answers that she does not know; and that in so
+mysterious an affair, it is not allowable to vent suspicions and
+conjectures as assured truths; that even the judges who conducted the
+examinations opened not their mouths, and spoke only with their
+shoulders."
+
+The assertions of Ravaillac, as far as they have any weight,
+discountenance the belief of an extended political conspiracy. The
+house of Austria, Mary de Medici his wife, Henriette d'Entragues his
+mistress, as well as the Duke d'Epernon, have been subjected to the
+hateful conjectures of Mazarin and other historians; but he who
+actually struck the blow invariably affirmed that he had no
+accomplice, and that he was carried forward by an uncontrollable
+instinct. If his mind were at all acted on from without, it was
+probably by the epidemic fanaticism of the times, rather than by
+personal influence.
+
+Henry left three sons and three daughters by Mary de Medici. Of no
+prince recorded in history, probably, are so many personal anecdotes
+related, as of Henry IV. These are for the most part well known, and
+of easy access. Among them stands out prominently the tale of the
+Spanish ambassador who to his astonishment, found Henry on the floor
+playing hobby-horse for his children. "Are you a father?" asked Henry,
+looking up without any apparent embarrassment. "Yes, your majesty."
+"Then we will finish our game," said the king. And he did so, before
+taking up his business with the ambassador.
+
+The whole tenor of Henry's life exhibits a lofty, generous, forgiving
+temper, the fearless spirit which loves the excitement of danger, and
+that suavity of feeling and manners, which, above all qualities, wins
+the affection of those who come within its sphere: it does not exhibit
+high moral or religious principle. But his weaknesses were those which
+the world most readily pardons, especially in a great man. If Henry
+had emulated the pure morals and fervent piety of his noble ancestor,
+Louis IX., he would have been a far better king, as well as a better
+man; yet we doubt whether in that case his memory would have been
+cherished with such enthusiastic attachment by his countrymen.
+
+[Illustration: Henry IV. of France at home.]
+
+
+
+
+SIR FRANCIS DRAKE
+
+(1540-1596)
+
+[Illustration: Francis Drake. [TN]]
+
+
+Francis Drake, the first British circumnavigator of the globe, was
+born in Devonshire, of humble parents. So much is admitted; with
+respect to the date of his birth, and the method of his nurture, the
+annalists, Camden and Stowe, are not agreed. By the latter we are told
+that Drake was born at Tavistock, about 1545, and brought up under the
+care of a kinsman, the well-known navigator, Sir John Hawkins. Camden,
+on the other hand, anticipates his birth by several years, and says
+that he was bound apprentice to a small shipowner on the coast of
+Kent, who, dying unmarried, in reward of his industry bestowed his
+bark upon him as a legacy. Both accounts agree that in 1567 he went
+with Hawkins to the West Indies on a trading voyage, which gave its
+color to the rest of his life. Their little squadron was obliged by
+stress of weather to put into St. Juan de Ulloa, on the coast of
+Mexico; where, after being received with a show of amity, it was beset
+and attacked by a superior force, and only two vessels escaped. To
+make amends for his losses in this adventure, in the quaint language
+of the biographer Prince, in his "Worthies of Devon," "Mr. Drake was
+persuaded by the minister of his ship that he might lawfully
+recover the value of the King of Spain by reprisal, and repair his
+losses upon him anywhere else. The case was clear in sea divinity; and
+few are such infidels as not to believe in doctrines which make for
+their profit. Whereupon Drake, though then a poor private man,
+undertook to revenge himself upon so mighty a monarch."
+
+In the years 1570-71 Drake made two voyages to the West Indies,
+apparently to gain a more precise acquaintance with the seas, the
+situation, strength, and wealth of the Spanish settlements. In 1572 he
+sailed with two ships, one of seventy-five tons, the other of
+twenty-five tons, their united crews mustering only seventy-three men
+and boys, all volunteers. His object was to capture the now ruined
+city of Nombre de Dios, situated on the Isthmus of Panama, a few miles
+east of Porto Bello, then the great repository of all the treasure
+conveyed from Mexico to Spain. Off this coast of America his little
+armament was augmented by an English bark, with thirty men on board;
+so that, deducting those whom it was necessary to leave in charge of
+the ships, his available force fell short of a hundred men. This
+handful of bold men attacked the town, which was unwalled, on the
+night of July 22d, and found their way to the marketplace, where the
+captain received a severe wound. He concealed his hurt until the
+public treasury was reached; but before it could be broken open, he
+became faint from loss of blood, and his disheartened followers
+abandoned the attempt, and carried him perforce on board ship. Such at
+least, is the account of the English; there is a Portuguese statement
+in "Hakluyt's Voyages," vol. iii., p. 525, less favorable both to the
+daring and success of the assailants.
+
+Failing in this attempt, Drake continued for some time on the coast,
+visiting Carthagena and other places, and making prize of various
+ships; and if we wonder at his hardihood in adventuring with such
+scanty means to remain for months in the midst of an awakened and
+inveterate enemy, how much more surprising is it that the wealthy,
+proud, and powerful monarchy of Spain should so neglect the care of
+its most precious colonies, as to leave them unable to crush so slight
+a foe! The English appear to have felt perfectly at their ease; they
+cruised about, formed an intimate alliance with an Indian tribe, named
+Symerons, the bond of union being a common hatred of the Spaniards,
+and built a fort on a small island of difficult access, at the mouth
+of a river, where they remained from September 24 to February 3, 1573.
+On the latter day, Drake set forth with one portion of his associates,
+under the conduct of the Symerons, to cross the isthmus. On the fourth
+day they reached a central hill, where stood a remarkable "goodly and
+great high tree, in which the Indians had cut and made divers steps to
+ascend up neere unto the top, where they had also made a convenient
+bower, wherein ten or twelve men might easily sitt; and from thence
+wee might without any difficulty plainly see the Atlantic Ocean,
+whence now wee came, and the South Atlantic (_i.e._, Pacific), so much
+desired. After our captain had ascended to this bower with the chief
+Symeron, and having, as it pleased God at that time, by reason of the
+brize, a very faire day, had seen that sea of which he had heard such
+golden reports, he besought Almighty God of his goodness to give him
+life and leave to sayle once in an English ship in that sea." We quote
+from a tract entitled "Sir Francis Drake Revived," written by some of
+Drake's companions, corrected, it is said, by himself, and published
+by his nephew in 1626, which contains a full and interesting account
+of this adventurous expedition. Drake's present object was to
+intercept a convoy of treasure on the way from Panama to Nombre de
+Dios. By this route the treasures of Peru and Chili, as well as
+Mexico, were brought to Europe, for the passage round Cape Horn was
+then unknown, and no ship but Magellan's had yet accomplished the
+passage round the world to Europe. Guided by the Symerons, the English
+approached Panama, learned that a valuable treasure was expected to
+pass, and beset the lonely forest road which it had to travel. But the
+haste of one drunken man gave a premature alarm, in consequence of
+which the march of the caravan was stopped; and Drake with his party,
+their golden hopes being thus defeated, forced their way through Venta
+Cruz, and returned by a shorter route to their encampment, after a
+toilsome and fruitless journey of three weeks. It was not till April
+1st, that the long-desired opportunity presented itself, on which day
+they took a caravan of mules laden with silver and a small quantity of
+gold. They carried off part of the spoil, and buried about fifteen
+tons of silver; but on returning for it, they found that it had been
+recovered by the Spaniards.
+
+Drake returned to England, August 9, 1573. In dividing the treasure he
+showed the strictest honor, and even generosity; yet his share was
+large enough to pay for fitting out three ships, with which he served
+as a volunteer in Ireland, under the Earl of Essex, and "did excellent
+service both by sea and land in the winning of divers strong forts."
+In 1577, he obtained a commission from Queen Elizabeth to conduct a
+squadron into the South Seas. What was the purport of the commission
+we do not find; it appears from subsequent passages that it gave to
+Drake the power of life and death over his followers; but it would
+seem from the queen's hesitation in approving his proceedings, that it
+was not intended to authorize (at least formally) his depradations on
+Spanish property.
+
+With five ships, the largest the Pelican, of one hundred tons burden,
+the smallest a pinnace of fifteen tons, manned in all with only 164
+men, Drake sailed from Plymouth, November 15, 1577, to visit seas
+where no English vessel had ever sailed. Without serious loss, or
+adventure worthy of notice, the fleet arrived at Port St. Julian, on
+the coast of Patagonia, June 20, 1578. Here the discoverer Magellan
+had tried and executed his second in command on the charge of mutiny,
+and the same spot did Drake select to perform a similar tragedy. He
+accused the officer next to himself, Thomas Doughty, of plots to
+defeat the expedition and take his life; plots undertaken, he said,
+before they had left England. "Proofs were required and alleged, so
+many and so evident, that the gentleman himself, stricken with
+remorse, acknowledged himself to have deserved death;" and of three
+things presented to him, either immediate execution, or to be set on
+shore on the main, or to be sent home to answer for his conduct, he
+chose the former; and having at his own request received the
+sacrament, together with Drake, and dined with him in further token
+of amity, he cheerfully laid his head on the block, according to the
+sentence pronounced by forty of the chiefest persons in the fleet.
+Such is the account published by Drake's nephew, in "The World
+Encompassed," of which we shall only observe, without passing judgment
+on the action, that Drake's conduct in taking out a person whom he
+knew to be ill affected to him, was as singular as is the behavior and
+sudden and acute penitence attributed to Doughty. But we have no
+account from any friend of the sufferer. It is fair to state the
+judgment of Camden, who says, "that the more unprejudiced men in the
+fleet thought Doughty had been guilty of insubordination, and that
+Drake in jealousy removed him as a rival. But some persons, who
+thought they could see farther than others, said that Drake had been
+ordered by the Earl of Leicester to take off Doughty, because he
+spread a report that Leicester had procured the death of the Earl of
+Essex."
+
+Having remained at Port St. Julian until August 15th, they sailed for
+the Straits, reached them August 20th, and passed safely into the
+Pacific, September 6th, with three ships, having taken out the men and
+stores, and abandoned the two smaller vessels. But there arose on the
+7th a dreadful storm, which dispersed the ships. The Marigold was no
+more heard of, while the dispirited crew of the Elizabeth returned to
+England, being the first who ever passed back to the eastward through
+Magellan's Strait. Drake's ship was driven southward to the
+fifty-sixth degree, where he ran in among the islands of the extreme
+south of America. He fixes the farthest land to be near the
+fifty-sixth degree of south latitude, and thus appears to claim the
+honor of having discovered Cape Horn. From September 7th to October
+28th, the adventurers were buffeted by one continued and dreadful
+storm; and in estimating the merits of our intrepid seamen, it is to
+be considered that the seas were utterly unknown, and feared by all,
+those who had tried to follow in Magellan's course having seldom
+succeeded, and then with much pain and loss, and little fruit of their
+voyage; that their vessels were of a class which is now hardly used
+for more than coasting service; and that the imperfection of
+instruments and observations laid them under disadvantages which are
+now removed by the ingenuity of our artists. Add to this, that as the
+Spaniards gave out that it was impossible to repass the Straits, there
+remained no known way to quit the hostile shores of America, but by
+traversing the unexplored Pacific.
+
+The storm at length ceased, and the lonely Pelican (which Drake,
+however, had renamed the Golden Hind) ran along the coast of Lima and
+Peru, reaping a golden harvest from the careless security of those who
+never thought to see an enemy on that side of the globe. There is
+something rather revolting, but very indicative of the temper of the
+age, in the constant reference to the guidance and protection of God,
+mixed with a quiet jocularity with which "Master Francis Fletcher,
+preacher in this employment," from whose notes the "World
+Encompassed," which is a narrative of this voyage, was compiled,
+speaks of acts very little different from highway robbery, such as
+would now be held disgraceful in open war; as for instance, on
+meeting a Spaniard driving eight llamas, each laden with one hundred
+pounds' weight of silver, "they offered their service without
+entreaty, and became drovers, not enduring to see a gentleman Spaniard
+turned carrier." Enriched by the most valuable spoil, jewels, gold,
+and silver, Drake steered to the northward, hoping to discover a
+homeward passage in that quarter. In the forty-eighth degree of north
+latitude, in what is now the State of Washington, he was stopped by
+the cold; and, determining to traverse the Pacific, he landed,
+careened his ship, and, in the queen's name, took possession of the
+country, which he named New Albion, September 29, 1579; he sailed
+again, and reached the Molucca Islands November 4th. In his passage
+thence to the island of Celebes, he incurred the most imminent danger
+of the whole voyage. The ship struck, as they were sailing before a
+fair wind, on a reef of rocks, so precipitous that it was impossible
+to lay out an anchor to heave her off. They stuck fast in this most
+hazardous situation for eight hours. At the end of that time the wind
+shifted, and the ship, lightened of part of her guns and cargo, reeled
+off into deep water, without serious injury. Had the sea risen, she
+must have been wrecked. This was Drake's last mishap. He reached
+Plymouth in the autumn of 1580, after nearly three years' absence.
+Accounts differ as to the exact date of his arrival.
+
+Since Drake had for this voyage the queen's commission, by which we
+must suppose the license to rob the Spaniards to have been at least
+tacitly conceded, he seems to have been rather hardly used, in being
+left from November to April in ignorance how his bold adventure was
+received at court. Among the people it created a great sensation, with
+much diversity of opinion; some commending it as a notable instance of
+English valor and maritime skill, and a just reprisal upon the
+Spaniards for their faithless and cruel practices; others styling it a
+breach of treaties, little better than piracy, and such as it was
+neither expedient nor decent for a trading nation to encourage. During
+this interval, Drake must have felt his situation unpleasant and
+precarious; but the queen turned the scale in his favor by going,
+April 4, 1581, to dine on board his ship at Deptford, on which
+occasion she declared her entire approbation of his conduct, and
+conferred on him the honor, and such it then was, of knighthood. His
+ship she ordered to be preserved as a monument of his glory. Having
+fallen to decay, it was at length broken up: a chair, made out of its
+planks, was presented to the University of Oxford, and probably is
+still to be seen in the Bodleian Library. Cowley wrote a Pindaric ode
+upon it.
+
+[Illustration: The admiral of the Spanish Armada surrenders to Drake.]
+
+Drake had now established his reputation as the first seaman of the
+day; and in 1585 the queen, having resolved on war, intrusted him with
+the command of an expedition against the Spanish colonies. He burnt or
+put to ransom the cities of St. Jago, near Cape Verde, St. Domingo,
+Carthagena, and others, and returned to England, having fully answered
+the high expectations which were entertained of him. He was again
+employed with a larger force of thirty ships, in 1587, with which he
+entered the port of Cadiz, burnt ten thousand tons of shipping, which
+were to form part of the Armada, took the castle of Cape St. Vincent,
+and sailing to the Azores, made prize of a large and wealthy ship
+on its way from the Indies. Still more eminent were his services
+against the Armada in the following year, in which he served as
+vice-admiral under Lord Howard of Effingham. But these are well-known
+passages of history, and we have shortened our account of them, to
+relate at more length the early incidents of Drake's adventurous life.
+
+In 1589 Sir Francis Drake and Sir John Norris were joined in the
+command of an expedition, meant to deliver Portugal from the dominion
+of Spain. This failed, as many expeditions have done in which the sea
+and land services were meant to act together; and as usual, each party
+threw the blame on the other. Drake's plan appears to have been most
+judicious: it was at least accordant with his character, downright and
+daring. He wished to sail straight for Lisbon and surprise the place;
+but Norris was bent on landing at Corunna, where he did indeed some
+harm to the Spaniards, but no service toward the real objects of the
+expedition. When the land forces did at last besiege Lisbon, Drake was
+unwilling or unable to force his way up the Tagus to co-operate with
+them, and for this he was afterward warmly blamed by Norris. He
+defended himself by stating that the time misspent by the English at
+Corunna, had been well employed by the Spaniards in fortifying Lisbon;
+and we fully believe that neither fear nor jealousy would have made
+him hesitate at anything which he thought to be for the good of the
+service. This miscarriage, though for a time it cast something of a
+cloud upon Drake's fame, did not prevent his being again employed in
+1595, when the queen, at the suggestion of himself and Sir John
+Hawkins, determined to send out another expedition against Spanish
+America, under those two eminent navigators, the expenses of which
+were in great part to be defrayed by themselves and their friends.
+Great hope was naturally conceived of this expedition, the largest
+which had yet been sent against that quarter, for it consisted of
+thirty vessels and 2,500 men. The chief object was to sail to Nombre
+de Dios, march to Panama, and there seize the treasure from Peru. But
+the blow, which should have been struck immediately, was delayed by a
+feint on the part of the Spaniards to invade England; the Plate fleet
+arrived in safety, and the Spanish colonies were forewarned. Hawkins
+died, it was said of grief at the ruined prospects of the expedition,
+November 12th, while the fleet lay before Porto Rico; and on the same
+evening Drake had a narrow escape from a cannon-ball, which carried
+the stool from under him as he sat at supper and killed two of his
+chief officers. Repulsed from Porto Rico, the admiral steered for the
+Spanish main, where he burnt several towns, and among them Nombre de
+Dios. He then sent a strong detachment of 750 men against Panama; but
+they found the capture of that city impracticable. Soon afterward he
+fell sick of a fever, and died January 28, 1596. His death, like that
+of his coadjutor, is attributed to mental distress, and nothing is
+more probable than that disappointment may have made that noxious
+climate more deadly. Hints of poisoning were thrown out, but this is a
+surmise easily and often lightly made. "Thus," says Fuller, in his
+"Holy State," "an extempore performance, scarce heard to be begun
+before we hear it is ended, comes off with better applause, or
+miscarries with less disgrace, than a long-studied and openly
+premeditated action. Besides, we see how great spirits, having mounted
+up to the highest pitch of performance, afterward strain and break
+their credits in trying to go beyond it. We will not justify all the
+actions of any man, though of a tamer profession than a sea-captain,
+in whom civility is often counted preciseness. For the main, we say
+that this our captain was a religious man toward God, and his houses,
+generally speaking, churches, where he came chaste in his life, just
+in his dealings, true of his word, and merciful to those that were
+under him, hating nothing so much as idleness." To these good
+qualities we may add that he was kind and considerate to his sailors,
+though strict in the maintenance of discipline; and liberal on fit
+occasions, though a strict economist. He cut a water-course from
+Buckland Abbey to Plymouth, a distance of seven miles in a straight
+line, and thirty by the windings of the conduit, to supply the latter
+town with fresh water, which before was not to be procured within the
+distance of a mile. He is honorably distinguished from the atrocious
+race of buccaneers, to whom his example in some sort gave rise, by the
+humanity with which he treated his prisoners. And it should be
+mentioned, as a proof of his judicious benevolence, that in
+conjunction with Sir John Hawkins, he procured the establishment of
+the Chest at Chatham for the relief of aged or sick seamen, out of
+their own voluntary contributions. The faults ascribed to him are
+ambition, inconstancy in friendship, and too much desire of
+popularity.
+
+In person Drake was low, but strongly made, "well favoured, fayre, and
+of a cheerefull countenance." He left no issue: his nephew was created
+a baronet by James I., and the title is still extant.
+
+
+
+
+SIR WALTER RALEIGH
+
+(1552-1618)
+
+
+Very little is known concerning the youth of Sir Walter Raleigh. He
+was a younger son, descended of an ancient family, and was born at a
+farm called Hayes, near the mouth of the river Otter, in Devonshire,
+in the year 1552. He went to Oriel College, Oxford, at an early age,
+and gained high praise for the quickness and precocity of his talents.
+In 1569 he began his military career in the civil wars of France, as a
+volunteer in the Protestant cause. It is conjectured that he remained
+in France for more than six years, and returned to England in 1576.
+Soon after he repaired to the Netherlands, and served as a volunteer
+against the Spaniards. In such schools, and under such leaders as
+Coligni and the Prince of Orange, Raleigh's natural aptitude for
+political and military science received the best nurture; but he was
+soon drawn from the war in Holland by a pursuit which had captivated
+his imagination from an early age--the prosecution of discovery in
+the New World. In conjunction with his half-brother, Sir Humphrey
+Gilbert, a man of courage and ability, and a skilful sailor, he made
+an unsuccessful attempt to establish a colony in North America.
+Returning home in 1579, he immediately entered the Queen's army in
+Ireland, and served with good esteem for personal courage and
+professional skill, until the suppression of the rebellion in that
+country. He owed his introduction to court, and the personal favor of
+Elizabeth, as is traditionally reported, to a fortunate and
+well-improved accident, which is too familiar to need repetition here.
+It is probable, however, that his name and talents were not unknown,
+for we find him employed almost immediately in certain matters of
+diplomacy.
+
+[Illustration: Walter Raleigh. [TN]]
+
+Among the cares and pleasures of a courtier's life, Raleigh preserved
+his zeal for American discovery. He applied his own resources to the
+fitting out of another expedition in 1583, under command of Sir
+Humphrey Gilbert, which proved more unfortunate than the former one;
+two out of five vessels returned home in consequence of sickness, and
+two were wrecked, including that in which the admiral sailed; and the
+only result of the enterprise was the taking possession of
+Newfoundland in the name of England. Still Raleigh's desire for
+American adventure was not damped. The continent northward of the Gulf
+of Florida was at this time unknown. But Raleigh, upon careful study
+of the best authorities, had concluded that there was good reason for
+believing that a considerable tract of land did exist in that quarter;
+and with the assent of the Queen in council, from whom he obtained
+letters patent, granting to himself and his heirs, under certain
+reservations, property in such countries as he should discover, with a
+right to provide for their protection and administration, he fitted
+out two ships, which sailed in April, 1584. The first land which they
+made was an island named Okakoke, running parallel to the coast of
+North Carolina. They were well received by the natives, and returned
+to England in the following autumn, highly pleased. Nor was less
+satisfaction felt by Raleigh, or even by the Queen, who conferred on
+him the honor of knighthood, a title which was then in high esteem,
+inasmuch as it was bestowed by that wise princess with a most frugal
+and just discrimination. She also gave him a very lucrative mark of
+favor, in the shape of a patent for licensing the selling of wine
+throughout the kingdom; and she directed that the new country, in
+allusion to herself, should be called Virginia. Raleigh did not think
+it politic, perhaps was not allowed, to quit the court to take charge
+in person of his undertaking; and those to whom he entrusted the
+difficult task of directing the infant colony, appear to have been
+unequal to their office. It is not necessary to pursue the history of
+an enterprise which proved unsuccessful, and in which Sir Walter
+personally bore no share. He showed his earnestness by fitting out
+several expeditions, which must have been a heavy drain upon his
+fortune. But he is said to have derived immense wealth from prizes
+captured from the Spaniards; and we may here observe that the lavish
+magnificence in dress, especially in jewels, for which Raleigh was
+remarkable, even in the gorgeous court of Elizabeth (his state dress
+is said to have been enriched with jewels to the value of £60,000),
+may be considered less as an extravagance, than as a safe and portable
+investment of treasure. A mind less active might have found employment
+more than enough in the variety of occupations which pressed upon it
+at home. He possessed a large estate, granted out of forfeited lands
+in Ireland; but this was always a source rather of expense than of
+profit, until, in 1601, he sold it to the Earl of Cork. He was
+Seneschal of the Duchies of Cornwall and Exeter, and held the
+wardenship of the Stannaries; and in 1586, as well as formerly in
+1584, we find that he possessed a seat in Parliament. In 1587, the
+formidable preparation of the Spanish Armada withdrew the mind of
+Raleigh, as of all Englishmen, from objects of minor importance, to
+the defence of their country. He was a member of the council of war
+directed to prepare a general scheme of defence, and held the office
+of Lieutenant-General of Cornwall, in addition to the charge of the
+Isle of Portland; but as on this occasion he possessed no naval
+command, he was not actively engaged in the destruction of that mighty
+armament. In 1589 he served as a volunteer in the expedition of Norris
+and Drake to Portugal, of which some account has been given in the
+life of the latter. Nor were his labors unrewarded even in that
+unfortunate enterprise; for he captured several prizes, and received
+the present of a gold chain from the Queen, in testimony of her
+approbation of his conduct.
+
+Soon after these events, Raleigh retired to his Irish property, being
+driven from court, according to some authorities, by the enmity of the
+Earl of Essex, then a young man just rising into favor. He there
+renewed a former intimacy with the poet Spenser, who, like himself,
+had been rewarded with a grant of land out of forfeited estates, and
+then resided at Kilcolman Castle. Spenser has celebrated the return of
+his friend in the beautiful pastoral, "Colin Clout's come home again;"
+and in that, and various passages of his works, has made honorable
+mention of the highly poetic spirit which enabled the "Shepherd of the
+Ocean," as he is there denominated, to appreciate the merit of the
+"Fairy Queen," and led him to promote the publication of it by every
+means in his power. The loss of Raleigh's court-favor, if such there
+were, could not have been of long duration on this occasion But he
+incurred more serious displeasure in consequence of a private marriage
+contracted with Elizabeth Throgmorton, one of the Queen's maids of
+honor, a lady of beauty and accomplishments, who proved her worth and
+fidelity in the long train of misfortunes which beset the latter years
+of Raleigh's life. In consequence of this intrigue, he was committed
+to the Tower. One or two amusing anecdotes are related of the devices
+which he employed to obtain forgiveness, by working on that vanity
+which was the Queen's chief foible. He succeeded in appeasing his
+indignant mistress so far as to procure his release; and about the
+same time, in 1594, she granted to him the valuable manor of
+Sherborne, in Dorsetshire; but though she requited his services, she
+still forbade his appearance at court, where he now held the office of
+Captain of the Yeomen of the Guard. Raleigh was peculiarly fitted to
+adorn a court by his imposing person, the graceful magnificence of his
+taste and habits, the elegance of his manners, and the interest of his
+conversation. These accomplishments were sure passports to the favor
+of Elizabeth; and he improved to the utmost the constant opportunities
+of intercourse with her which his post afforded, insomuch that, except
+the Earls of Leicester and Essex, no one ever seems to have stood
+higher in her graces. But Elizabeth's jealousy on the subject of her
+favorites' marriages is well known, and her anger was lasting, in
+proportion to the value which she set on the incense of Raleigh's
+flattery. He retired, on his disgrace, to his new estate, in the
+improvement and embellishment of which he felt great interest. But
+though deeply alive to the beauties of nature, he had been too long
+trained to a life of ambition and adventure to rest contented in the
+tranquil routine of a country life; and during this period of
+seclusion he again turned his thoughts to his favorite subject of
+American adventure, and laid the scheme of his first expedition to
+Guiana, in search of the celebrated El Dorado, the fabled seat of
+inexhaustible wealth. Having fitted out, with the assistance of other
+private persons, a considerable fleet, Raleigh sailed from Plymouth,
+February 6, 1595. He left his ships in the mouth of the river Orinoco,
+and sailed 400 miles into the interior in boats. It is to be recorded
+to his honor, that he treated the Indians with great kindness; which,
+contrasted with the savage conduct of the Spaniards, raised so
+friendly a feeling toward him, that for years his return was eagerly
+expected, and at length was hailed with delight. The hardships of the
+undertaking, and the natural advantages of the country which he
+explored, are eloquently described in his own account of the
+"Discovery of Guiana." But the setting in of the rainy season rendered
+it necessary to return, without having reached the promised land of
+wealth; and Raleigh reaped no other fruit of his adventure than a
+certain quantity of geographical knowledge, and a full conviction of
+the importance of colonizing and taking possession of the newly
+discovered region. This continued through life to be his favorite
+scheme; but neither Elizabeth nor her successor could be induced to
+view it in the same favorable light.
+
+On reaching England, he found the Queen still unappeased; nor was he
+suffered to appear at court, and he complains in pathetic terms of the
+cold return with which his perils and losses were requited. But he was
+invested with a high command in the expedition of 1596, by which the
+Spanish fleet was destroyed in the harbor of Cadiz; and to his
+judgment and temper in overruling the faulty schemes proposed by
+others, the success of that enterprise was chiefly due. Indeed, his
+services were perhaps too important, and too justly appreciated by the
+public, for his own interests; for the great and general praise
+bestowed on him on this occasion tended to confirm a jealousy of long
+standing on the part of the commander-in-chief, the Earl of Essex; and
+it was probably owing to that favorite's influence that Raleigh was
+still forbidden the Queen's presence. Essex, and the Secretary of
+State, Sir Robert Cecil, regarded each other with mutual distrust and
+dislike. Cecil and Raleigh were connected by ties of common interest,
+and, as the latter supposed, of friendship. Still Raleigh found the
+interest of the minister too weak to serve his purpose, while the
+interest of the favorite was employed against him; and, as the only
+method of effecting his own restoration to the Queen's favor, he
+undertook to work a reconciliation between these two powerful rivals.
+In this he succeeded, to the great admiration of all spectators; and
+the fruit of his policy was seen in his re-admission to the execution
+of his official duties at court, June 1, 1597. In the following August
+he was appointed Rear Admiral in the expedition called the Island
+Voyage, of which Essex held the chief command. The slight successes
+which were obtained were again due to the military talents of Raleigh;
+the main objects of the voyage were lost through the Earl's
+inexperience.
+
+From this time to the death of the Queen, Raleigh enjoyed an
+uninterrupted course of favor. Elizabeth was now old; Cecil took no
+steps to diminish the high esteem in which she held Sir Walter
+Raleigh, but he secretly labored to prejudice her successor against
+him, and he succeeded to his wish. Very soon after the accession of
+James I., Raleigh's post of captain of the guard was taken from him;
+and his patent of wines was revoked, though not without a nominal
+compensation being made. To complete his ruin, it was contrived to
+involve him in a charge of treason. Most writers have concurred in
+speaking of this passage of history as inexplicable; it is the opinion
+of the last historian of Raleigh, Mr. Tytler, that he has found
+sufficient evidence for regarding the whole plot as a device of Cecil,
+and he has supported this opinion by cogent arguments. Lord Cobham, a
+violent and ambitious but weak man, had engaged in private dealings
+with the Spanish ambassador, which brought him under the suspicion of
+the government. By a device of Cecil's (we here follow the account of
+Mr. Tytler) he was induced, in a fit of anger, and in the belief that
+Raleigh had given information against him, to accuse Sir Walter
+himself of being privy to a conspiracy against the government. This
+charge Cobham retracted, confirmed, and retracted again, behaving in
+so equivocal a manner, that no reliance whatever can be placed on any
+of his assertions. But as the King was afraid of Raleigh as much as
+the secretary hated him, this vague charge, unsupported by other
+evidence, was made sufficient to commit him to the Tower; and, after
+being plied with private examinations, in which nothing criminal could
+be elicited, he was brought to trial, November 17, 1603. For an
+account of that memorable scene we shall refer to Mr. Jardine's
+"Criminal Trials," Vol. I. It is reported to have been said by one of
+the judges who presided over it, on his death-bed, that "the justice
+of England had never been so degraded and injured as by the
+condemnation of Sir Walter Raleigh." The behavior of the victim
+himself was the object of universal admiration, for the tempered
+mixture of patience and noble spirit with which he bore the oppressive
+measure dealt to him. He had before been unpopular; but it was
+recorded by an eye-witness that "he behaved himself so worthily, so
+wisely, and so temperately, that in half a day the mind of all the
+company was changed from the extremest hate to the extremest pity."
+
+The sentence of death thus unfairly and disgracefully obtained was not
+immediately carried into execution. James was not satisfied with the
+evidence adduced on the trial; and believing at the same time that
+Raleigh had been plotting against him, he set his royal wit to dive
+into the mystery. Of the singular scene which the British Solomon
+devised it is not necessary to speak, since Raleigh was not an actor
+in it. But as no more evidence could be obtained against him, even by
+the King's sagacity, he was reprieved, and remanded to the Tower,
+where the next twelve years of his life were spent in confinement.
+Fortunately, he had never ceased to cultivate literature with a zeal
+not often found in the soldier and politician, and he now beguiled the
+tedium of his lot by an entire devotion to those studies which before
+had only served to diversify his more active and engrossing pursuits.
+Of his poetical talents we have already made short mention; to the end
+of life he continued the practice of pouring out his mind in verse,
+and there are several well-known and beautiful pieces expressive of
+his feelings in prison, and in the anticipation of immediate death;
+especially "The Lie," and the beautiful little poem called "The
+Pilgrimage." He also possessed a strong turn for mathematics, and
+studied them with much success in the society and under the guidance
+of his friend, Thomas Hariot, one of the most accomplished
+mathematicians of the age. Chemistry was another favorite pursuit, in
+which, according to the standard of his contemporaries, he made great
+progress. But the most important occupation of his imprisonment was
+the composition of the "History of the World." The work extends from
+the creation to the end of the second Macedonian war. Raleigh meant to
+bring it down to modern times; but the untimely death of Henry, Prince
+of Wales, for whose use it was composed, deprived him of the spirit to
+proceed with so laborious an undertaking. He enjoyed the confidence of
+that generous youth in a remarkable degree, and maintained a close
+correspondence with him on civil, military, and naval subjects.
+Several discourses on these topics, addressed to the prince, will be
+found in the editions of Raleigh's works. Henry repaid these services
+with sincere friendship and admiration; and we may presume that his
+adviser looked forward to that friendship, not only for a cessation of
+misfortune, but for a more brilliant period of favor and power than he
+had yet enjoyed. Fortunately, however, his patron's death was preceded
+by that of his arch-enemy, Cecil; and through the mediation of the
+Duke of Buckingham, Raleigh was released from the Tower in March,
+1615; and obtained permission to follow up his long-cherished scheme
+of establishing a colony in Guiana, and working a gold mine, of which
+he had ascertained the existence and situation.
+
+The results of this disastrous voyage must be shortly given. Raleigh
+sailed March 28, 1617, and reached the coast of Guiana in November
+following. Being himself disabled by sickness from proceeding farther,
+he despatched a party to the mine under the command of Captain Keymis,
+an officer who had served in the former voyage to Guiana. But during
+the interval which had elapsed since Raleigh's first discovery of
+that country, the Spaniards had extended their settlements into it,
+and in particular had built a town called Santa Thome in the immediate
+neighborhood of the mine in question. James, with his usual duplicity,
+while he authorized the expedition, revealed every particular
+connected with it to the Spanish ambassador. The English, therefore,
+were expected in the Orinoco, and preparation had been made for
+repelling them by force. Keymis and his men were unexpectedly attacked
+by the garrison of Santa Thome, and a sharp contest ensued, in which
+the English gained the advantage, and burnt the town. In this action
+Raleigh's eldest son was killed. The Spaniards still occupied the
+passes to the mine, and after an unsuccessful attempt to dislodge
+them, Keymis abandoned the enterprise and returned to the ships.
+Raleigh's correspondence expresses in affecting terms his grief and
+indignation at this double misfortune: the loss of a brave and
+promising son, and the destruction of the hopes which he had founded
+on this long-cherished adventure. On his return to England, he found
+himself marked out for a victim to appease the resentment of the
+Spanish Court, to which he had long been an object of fear and hatred.
+
+His conduct abroad had already been closely scrutinized, in the hope
+of finding some act of piracy, or unauthorized aggression against
+Spain, for which he might be brought to trial. Both these hopes
+failing, and his death, in compliment to Spain, being resolved on, it
+was determined to carry into effect the sentence passed fifteen years
+before, from which he had never been legally released; and a warrant
+was accordingly issued to the judges, requiring them to order
+execution. He insisted on the nature of his late commission, and on
+that plea being overruled, submitted with his usual calmness and
+dignity. The execution, with indecent haste, was ordered to take place
+on the following morning. In this last stage of life, his greatness of
+mind shone with even more than its usual lustre. Calm, and fearless
+without bravado, his behavior and speech expressed the piety and
+resignation of a Christian, with the habitual coolness of one who has
+braved death too often to shrink at its approach. His farewell to his
+faithful wife was manly, tender, and most affecting. The accounts of
+his deportment on the scaffold effectually refute the charges of
+irreligion and atheism, which some writers have brought against him,
+unless we make up our minds to believe him an accomplished hypocrite.
+He spoke at considerable length, and his dying words have been
+faithfully reported. They contain a denial of all the serious offences
+laid to his charge, and express his forgiveness of those even who had
+betrayed him under the mask of friendship. After delivering this
+address, and spending some time in prayer, he laid his head on the
+block, and breathing a short private prayer, gave the signal to the
+executioner. Not being immediately obeyed, he partially raised his
+head, and said, "What dost thou fear? Strike, man!" and underwent the
+fatal blow without shrinking or alteration of position. He died in his
+sixty-sixth year.
+
+[Illustration: Raleigh parting from his wife.]
+
+Raleigh sat in several Parliaments, and took an active part in the
+business of the house. His speeches, preserved in the Journals, are
+said by Mr. Tytler to be remarkable for an originality and freedom of
+thought far in advance of the time. His expression was varied and
+animated, and his powers of conversation remarkable. His person was
+dignified and handsome, and he excelled in bodily accomplishments and
+martial exercises. He was very fond of paintings, and of music; and,
+in literature as in art, he possessed a cultivated and correct taste.
+He was one of those rare men who seem qualified to excel in all
+pursuits alike; and his talents were set off by an extraordinary
+laboriousness and capacity of application. As a navigator, soldier,
+statesman, and historian, his name is intimately and honorably linked
+with one of the most brilliant periods of British history.
+
+
+
+
+MILES STANDISH[19]
+
+By ELBRIDGE S. BROOKS
+
+(1584-1656)
+
+         [Footnote 19: Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.]
+
+[Illustration: Relics of Miles Standish.]
+
+
+Three hundred years ago the house of Standish was a notable one in
+England. The family had numerous possessions; their Lancashire estate
+of Duxbury Hall, in the shadow of Rivington Pike and the Pennine
+Hills, was pleasant and extensive, and there they had lived for
+generations, as there they live to-day. Of this Lancashire home was
+that John Standish, "squire to the king," who killed Wat Tyler, the
+agitator, on that memorable June day of 1381 when the boy-king of
+England, Richard the Second, so pluckily faced his rebellious subjects
+on the plain of Smithfield; of it was that Sir John Standish who
+fought under the leopard-banner of King Edward at the stone mill of
+Crécy; and of it was that gallant soldier Miles Standish, the Puritan
+captain, the first commissioned military officer of New England,
+famous in American history, song, and story, as the stay and bulwark
+of the Pilgrims of Plymouth in their days of struggle and beginning.
+
+Miles Standish (or Myles, as the old spelling has it) was born in
+Lancashire, presumably in the family manor house of Duxbury Hall, in
+the year 1584. The story of his life is simple. The absolute facts
+upon which it is based are meagre, but enough is known to warrant the
+assertion that Miles Standish was heir to the name and estates of the
+Standishes of Lancashire, from which, by some device not on record, he
+was, as he sturdily maintained in his will, "surreptitiously"
+defrauded.
+
+At the beginning of the seventeenth century the provinces of the
+Netherlands were battling for life against the tyranny of Spain. The
+Protestant Elizabeth of England gave help and support to the
+Protestant Stadtholder Maurice, and many of her fighting men carried
+pike or arquebus at the sack of Cadiz, fought at Nieuport and Ostend,
+or served the guns in the great sea-fight off Gibraltar that, in 1607,
+broke the power of Spain. Among these fighting-men was young Miles
+Standish, and he fought so stoutly and to such good purpose that,
+before he was twenty-one he had attained the rank and title of
+captain, and was known to Englishmen in the Low Countries as a brave
+and gallant soldier. In 1609 came the twelve years' truce between
+tired Spain and not less wearied Holland, that gave way in 1621 to the
+stubborn and bloody Thirty Years' War. It was, probably, in the early
+years of this truce that Captain Miles Standish, a born fighter, went
+back to England to battle for his heritage. Not being the match for
+the law men in England that he was for Spanish dons in Holland, he was
+forced to retire from the unequal contest, defeated but not conquered.
+This belief in his rights to the inheritance of the Standishes he
+sturdily maintained to the last; for, dying forty years after in the
+new land his sword had helped to conquer and his wisdom to found, he
+left by his last will and testament unto his son and heir, Alexander:
+"Ormistic, Bonsconge, Wrightington, Maudeslay, and the estates in the
+Isle of Man"--none of which he nor his descendants were ever to occupy
+or hold.
+
+It was after this unsuccessful struggle for his heritage that he
+crossed again to Holland and, from some cause not apparent--perhaps
+his disgust at English law, perhaps the attractions of one who, later,
+became Mistress Rose Standish, may supply the motive--settled among
+the self-exiled English folk in Leyden who, because of religious
+differences with the established Church, had left their English homes
+and, calling themselves Pilgrims because of their wanderings, had made
+a settlement in the Dutch city of Leyden, "fair and beautiful and of a
+sweet situation."
+
+Although not of the religious faith and following of the Pilgrims of
+Leyden--indeed the story runs that the fiery little captain had been,
+at one time, a Romanist--he must have been settled among them for
+years, for, on the eve of their emigration to America, we find him as
+one of their leaders, accepted and commissioned as the military
+adviser of the colonists. The time of his life in Leyden was one of
+religious unrest in Europe; and in Holland, during that twelve years'
+truce with Spain, the theological disputes between Calvinists and
+Arminians ran so high as to bring John of Barneald to the scaffold,
+and to drive Grotius the scholar into exile. These days of stern
+dispute may have had their influence on the sturdy English soldier
+living in the midst of Dutch life and Dutch disputations, and made him
+lean to the side of Puritanism, even if never openly avowing it as his
+religious faith. It is, indeed, a singular fact that the mainstay and
+chief protector of the first Puritan colonists of America was neither
+of their communion nor of their connection, and is openly censured by
+Puritan writers as one who, so says Hubbard, "had been a soldier in
+the Low Countries and had never entered the school of our Saviour
+Christ or of John the Baptist." But his companions and associates seem
+not to have permitted the dissociation to have had special weight with
+them. They gladly welcomed Captain Standish and his wife, Rose, among
+the little company of exiles that set out from Delft Haven for
+Virginia, and gave their names place on that memorable passenger list
+of the little schooner Mayflower, which, leaving the harbor of old
+Plymouth, in England, in September, 1620, finally dropped anchor in
+the harbor of new Plymouth, in New England, in December following.
+
+From the outset of this novel "adventure"--itself a turning-point in
+American history--this soldier of fortune was given place and
+prominence in the councils of a community which seems to have enlisted
+his support, not so much on its religious as on its adventurous side;
+and to this "dissenter from dissent" was intrusted the defence of a
+company of religious enthusiasts, sailing upon what they deemed a
+divine mission, only in the practical side of which did their military
+adviser find occupation or interest.
+
+The up-bringing of Miles Standish had been such as to fit him for
+leadership, and this he assumed early in the history of the
+enterprise. Even on the deck of the Mayflower, he was recognized as
+one whose counsels were wise and whose actions were inspiring, and
+when in the cabin of the Mayflower, in the harbor of Provincetown, the
+famous compact was drawn up, said to be "the first written
+constitution in the world," the bold signature of "Myles Standish" was
+the clearest of the forty-one Pilgrim autographs that were affixed to
+that famous document. It was Captain Standish who, with his sixteen
+"well-armed men," made a thorough exploration of the Provincetown
+peninsula; he organized and headed the party of observation which,
+later, sailed the shallop and marched with watchful eyes along the
+shores of Cape Cod, seeking the best place for settlement; and, on
+December 6th following, he sailed with a picked party across
+Massachusetts Bay and, in much peril and with many adventures, spied
+out the land and determined upon the harbor of Plymouth as the best
+spot for permanent settlement. It was to Captain Standish's knowledge
+as to the best locations and to his skill as a surveyor, that the
+colonists were indebted for the selection of their town site and the
+laying-out of their town; as, later, the same skill came in play when
+were laid out the new towns that followed after the Plymouth
+beginnings. Through all that dreary and dreadful first winter, when
+half their number died, Captain Standish was their mainstay, as one
+whose word was ever reassuring and whose arm was as ready for
+protection as was his brain for planning methods of defence. Though
+his wife, Mistress Rose Standish, was one of the early victims of that
+bitter winter of death, his courage never faltered, his vigilance
+never slackened. And when, in the midst of all the peril and
+suffering, in February, 1621, Miles Standish was appointed military
+captain of the colony, confidence was restored and courage renewed in
+the bosoms of that suffering but heroic and indomitable band; so that
+when spring came and the Mayflower sailed for England, not one of the
+settlers returned in her, nor would desert the cause to which they had
+pledged themselves.
+
+It is customary to credit the final success of the Pilgrims of
+Plymouth to the religious element that held sway over them, making
+them patient, persistent, uncompromising, faithful, and earnest. But
+the wisdom of Carver, the genius of Bradford, the fervor of Brewster,
+the zeal of Winslow, would have been of small avail had they not been
+backed by the decision, the resolution, the courage, the constancy,
+and the forethought of their brave captain, Miles Standish, "the John
+Smith of New England" as he has been called, the man of helpful
+measures and of iron nerves, who could "hew down forests and live on
+crumbs."
+
+From first to last he was the loyal supporter and trusty defender of
+the Plymouth colony. No danger unnerved him, no duty staggered him.
+With but eight men he started out, in 1623, to overawe and subdue the
+Indians of Massachusetts--then an unknown and perplexing quantity;
+single-handed he checked the conspiracy at Weymouth and turned the
+tables upon the savage plotters, by himself assassinating the
+assassins--a deed that saved the colony from Indian massacre, but
+called forth the mild protest of the Pilgrim preacher at Leyden, Mr.
+Robinson, who wrote of it: "Concerning the killing of these poor
+Indians, oh! how happy a thing had it been, if you had converted some
+before you had killed any.... Let me be bold to exhort you seriously
+to consider of the disposition of your captain, whom I love. There is
+cause to fear that by occasion, especially of provocation, there may
+be wanting (in him) that tenderness of the life of man which is meet."
+But the Pilgrims of Plymouth seem not to have questioned the decisive
+measures of the man who knew when and how to act in their defence.
+Alone he faced the roystering Morton at Merrymount, unarming that
+vaporing rebel and putting his riotous colony upon its good behavior.
+He led out the forty men of Plymouth enlisted for the Pequot War,
+headed the expedition that in 1635, sailed against the encroaching
+French in Penobscot Bay, and, as late as 1653, when "very auncient and
+full of dolorous paines," expressed himself as ready to take the
+command intrusted to him when the colony forces were about to enter
+upon a struggle for the right of occupation of the Connecticut country
+with the Dutch colonists of Manhattan.
+
+He never refused any burden however heavy nor shirked any duty however
+onerous; he cheerfully yielded obedience to the civil power, never
+exceeding his orders, nor rashly assuming responsibilities, nor
+leading his men upon unwise ventures. While always the military
+commander of the colony, his counsel and help were counted as equally
+valuable in matters of administration. He served repeatedly as one of
+the governor's council; he was at one time assistant-governor or
+deputy, and, from 1644 to 1649, was treasurer of the Plymouth colony.
+He went to England as the envoy of the colonists in 1625, and in the
+midst of plague, of evil times and of bitter jealousies, withstood the
+tyranny of the London traders who owned the Pilgrims' labor; and
+braving both heavy debt and the possibility of censure, bought out the
+traders' rights in the name of his associates.
+
+[Illustration: Departure of the Mayflower.]
+
+The personal descriptions of this remarkable man that have come down
+to us, show him as a man of small stature, quick-tempered, choleric,
+sturdy and bluff. "As a little chimney is soon fired," wrote the
+Puritan historian Hubbard, "so was the Plymouth captain, a man of
+very little stature, yet of a very hot and angry temper." And yet his
+relations with such men as the noble Bradford, the blameless Brewster,
+the politic Winslow, were so close and of so personal a character that
+one can hardly accept unquestioningly the story of his hot and
+unreasoning temper. He was a soldier and a fighter; but he loved peace
+and quiet, and his life was full of friendly offices and of kindly
+deeds. On Nantasket Beach he built the first "house of refuge" and
+life-saving station in America. He was a gentle nurse in the winter of
+sickness, a friend and adviser to those in trouble or distress, a
+loving father in the days when parents were not unfrequently tyrants,
+and a forgiving spirit, as the old story of his famous "courtship"
+(with sufficient foundation to warrant its acceptance) amply proves.
+
+The communism of the early Pilgrim days gave place in time to personal
+possession and, as the colony grew, certain of those who had been
+leaders desired more extended holdings. Captain Standish was one of
+these, and despite his friend Bradford's protests, he moved across the
+bay and in 1632 occupied a large and fertile stretch north of
+Plymouth, to which, still clinging to his old claim of a stolen
+heritage, he gave the name of Duxbury. Here in the midst of peaceful
+pursuits, but ever ready to obey the colony's call for counsel or for
+leadership, he lived for over twenty years, dying October 3, 1656, at
+the age of seventy-two.
+
+A notable figure in American history, Miles Standish is a type of that
+mingled spirit of adventure, liberty, and distrust that impelled
+emigration across the sea and, combined with the uncompromising stand
+for freedom of conscience, founded and up-built the Pilgrim Colony of
+Plymouth.
+
+His existence among these Pilgrims is in itself an anomaly. But it is
+one of those strange associations and unfaltering friendships that
+have left their mark for good upon the world since the days when the
+Roman fighting-man stood stanchly by the side of the Christian
+proselyte even to the death.
+
+Tradition says that Miles Standish was buried between two pointed
+stones in the graveyard of South Duxbury, but the question of his
+burial-place is still unsettled. The tall shaft, rising from the crest
+of Captain's Hill in Duxbury, and surmounted with a statue of the
+famous colonial captain, fitly commemorates a life that has won a
+place in the American heart that only grows stronger and more enduring
+as time goes on.
+
+[Signature of the author.]
+
+
+
+
+ALBRECHT VON WALLENSTEIN
+
+By HENRY G. HEWLETT
+
+(1583-1634)
+
+[Illustration: Albrecht von Wallenstein. [TN]]
+
+
+The declaration of the great founder of Christianity that he "came not
+to bring peace, but a sword," receives its completest justification in
+the history of Europe during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
+Ignorant of the constitution of the human mind, and blind to the
+absurdity of attempting to enforce opinion, the adherents of the old
+and of the reformed faith, during these two hundred years, scarcely
+sheathed their swords. The offenders, it is just to say, were
+generally, but by no means invariably, the Catholics; and the
+retaliation of the Protestants was seldom inferior in ferocity to the
+offence received. The "Thirty Years' War" was the bloodiest, as
+happily it was the last, scene in this great religious tragedy. The
+greatest Catholic leader of this period was Wallenstein.
+
+After a term of peace, consequent on the Diet of Augsburg in 1555,
+which secured toleration to Protestantism in Germany, persecution
+recommenced in 1578, under the weak Emperor Rudolph II. His cousin
+Ferdinand, Duke of Styria, a pupil of the Jesuits, was the most deadly
+foe of Protestantism, which had taken deepest root in Bohemia and
+Transylvania. The incapacity and bigotry of the emperor at last
+provoked his subjects to bring about his deposition, and, in 1610, he
+was forced to abdicate in favor of his brother Matthias. He, though
+himself tolerant, unwisely committed the government to Ferdinand,
+whose tyranny in ordering the destruction of the Protestant churches
+in Bohemia, led to the expulsion of his officers and the Jesuits, in
+May, 1618, and the commencement of the Thirty Years' War. Matthias
+died in the following year, and Ferdinand was elected emperor.
+
+In 1619 the name of Wallenstein first became prominent. Albrecht von
+Waldstein, as he was properly called, was the third son of a Bohemian
+baron, of old family, and was born in September, 1583. As a boy, he
+displayed signs of a singularly proud and independent temper, and
+foreshowed his bent by the delight which he took in the society of
+military men. His family was Protestant; but having lost his parents
+when quite young, he was educated, by the wish of his guardians, at
+the Jesuit college of Olmutz, and soon changed his faith. In Italy,
+where he next studied, he made great advances in mathematics, law,
+languages, and the delusive science of astrology, in which he was a
+firm believer ever afterward. On his return to Germany, he fought in
+the imperial army against the Turks, who invaded Hungary. He had
+considerable estates in Bohemia, which were increased by his marriage,
+in 1606, with a rich Moravian widow, who died in 1614, and left him
+her property. In the peaceful occupation of farming he spent several
+years, and acquired great wealth by his skill and economy. In 1617, he
+took part in a campaign against the republic of Venice, with which
+Ferdinand had quarreled, and, on the termination of the war in the
+same year, was ennobled as Count. The lavish generosity of Wallenstein
+during this war greatly endeared him to the army.
+
+Such was his popularity that in 1619, on the Bohemian revolution
+breaking out, he was offered by the insurgents the command of their
+army, although a Catholic. But he steadily refused the offer, and
+warmly espoused the imperial cause, upon which the Bohemians
+confiscated his estates. He, however, soon retrieved his fortunes by a
+second rich marriage, and the favor of the emperor. The Bohemians,
+under their heroic leaders, the Counts von Mansfeldt and Thurn,
+ventured to march upon Vienna, and threaten Ferdinand in his capital;
+but Wallenstein, on June 10, 1619, gained a signal victory over their
+army, and saved his master's throne. In the following year the
+Bohemians and Hungarians formally renounced their allegiance; the
+former setting up Frederick, Elector-Count Palatine of the Rhine, as
+their king; and the latter, Bethlem Gabor, Prince of Transylvania.
+Frederick, who was the son-in-law of James I. of England, was as unfit
+to govern as his father-in-law, and spent his time in a frivolous
+parade of his rank. He obtained but a doubtful support from the
+Protestant princes in Germany, who were jealous of his popularity.
+Ferdinand, assisted by Spain and other Catholic powers, sent a large
+force into Bohemia, under the command of Maximilian, Duke of Bavaria,
+and totally routed Frederick's army at Prague,--the king fleeing to
+Breslau, and thence to Holland. The Palatinate was then declared
+forfeited to the Empire, and was devastated by the Spanish commander,
+Spinola. Wallenstein, during this campaign, spent his treasures in the
+imperial cause with the utmost readiness and liberality, and obtained
+as a reward the lordship of Friedland, which brought him a large
+revenue. To this he added by the purchase of several forfeited estates
+in Bohemia, and thus became possessed of immense wealth. In 1621-23 he
+distinguished himself by defeating Bethlem Gabor, the new King of
+Hungary, and forcing him to surrender his claim to the crown. For this
+service Wallenstein was created Duke of Friedland.
+
+A cruel persecution of the Protestants in Bohemia and Silesia
+dishonored the emperor's success; and the attempt of his officers in
+Austria to suppress Lutheranism by force, produced a revolution in
+1625. It was put down by the energy of Tilly and Pappenheim, two of
+the greatest generals of their day. The Count von Mansfeldt gallantly
+upheld the Protestant cause in Westphalia, and other parts of Germany,
+but was defeated by Tilly, who imposed Catholicism upon all the
+revolted provinces. In their despair the German Protestants applied
+for aid to their northern brethren. Gustavus Adolphus, the young and
+brave King of Sweden, an ardent champion of the Reformed faith, and
+Christian, King of Denmark, responded to their appeal,--the latter
+immediately invading the Empire. The imperial finances being
+considerably reduced by the war, Ferdinand was glad to avail himself
+of an offer made at this crisis by Wallenstein, to levy an army at his
+own cost. This offer was abundantly fulfilled. In a few months an army
+of 30,000 men was collected, as if by magic. Wallenstein was enviously
+suspected of being in league with the devil, but the secret of his
+sway was the fascination of his bold and generous nature. He
+maintained at once thorough toleration, and strict discipline in his
+ranks. These results, however, were not attained without injustice.
+Contributions were levied on the most fertile districts, as yet
+undesolated by war, to the extent, as it is said, of $60,000,000 in
+seven years. His popularity with the army procured him the jealousy of
+Tilly, who, in the campaign of 1625-26, outrivalled him, by
+successfully combating the invasion of Christian and his Danish
+forces, and driving them beyond the Elbe. Wallenstein, nevertheless,
+in the following campaign, won his laurels, both as a statesman and a
+general, by his intrigues and conquests. Displaying the greatest ardor
+in the cause of the Empire, he attempted to render it an absolute
+despotism. After routing Count Mansfeldt on the Elbe, he marched into
+Hungary, and defeated the united armies of the count and Bethlem
+Gabor. Christian of Denmark having assembled a new army in 1628,
+Wallenstein marched to meet it; and, by a series of brilliant
+successes, recaptured all the towns garrisoned by the Danes, and
+forced the king to sue for peace. At the Congress of Lubeck, in May,
+1629, this was accorded on favorable terms to Denmark. Wallenstein
+during these campaigns astonished his compeers, and excited their
+envy, by the wondrous rapidity of his movements, and the skill with
+which he surmounted difficulties that seemed insuperable. He was
+rewarded with the duchy of Mecklenburg, which was forfeited to the
+Empire by the treason of its former owner.
+
+The envious schemes of Tilly and Maximilian, Duke of Bavaria, induced
+Ferdinand to remove Wallenstein from his rank of commander in 1630. He
+had hardly withdrawn to his Bohemian estates, when Gustavus Adolphus,
+who had been hitherto prevented from affording active assistance to
+the Protestant party, landed in Pomerania with a small but highly
+disciplined army. This illustrious monarch, eminent for virtue and
+piety, no less than for political wisdom and military skill, was now
+the sole hope of the Reformation in Germany. The princes who professed
+its tenets were lukewarm and unready,--divided by jealousies among
+themselves, and careless of all but their own worldly interests. He,
+on the contrary, was devoted to the cause of his faith, and his solemn
+disavowal of personal ambition in undertaking its championship is
+stamped with sincerity.
+
+He soon commenced a career of conquest. New Brandenburg and other
+districts yielded to his arms, and he formed an alliance with France,
+now under the sway of Cardinal Richelieu, which the emperor had vainly
+negotiated to prevent. The rich city of Magdeburg declared for him,
+and was accordingly besieged by Tilly. The selfishness of the Lutheran
+leaders, the Electors of Brandenburg and Saxony, in not responding to
+the appeal of the Protestants in the city, led to its fall in 1631,
+before Gustavus could reach it. The most atrocious cruelties were
+perpetrated by the Catholics at the sack; no consideration of age or
+sex availing to prevent the massacre, which lasted for two days, and
+extended to 30,000 of the inhabitants. This monstrous crime was
+severely avenged by the indignant Gustavus. He forced the Electors of
+Brandenburg and Saxony to render him assistance, and, with an
+augmented army, hesitated not to give battle to Tilly at Leipsic, and
+defeated him September 7, 1631. The Protestants took courage and
+joined Gustavus in great numbers. He continued his victorious march,
+defeating the enemy at Merseberg, capturing Wurzburg, then advancing
+on the Rhine, and reducing on the way Frankfort-on-the-Main, Mentz,
+Spires, Mannheim, and other cities. He next turned to Bavaria, where
+Tilly and Maximilian entrenched themselves at Rain-on-the-Lech. The
+former was killed by a cannon-ball during the siege, in 1632. Gustavus
+marched through Augsburg, where the citizens did him homage, and
+besieged Munich, which speedily surrendered. He now threatened to
+subdue Bavaria and Austria, when his progress was stopped from an
+unexpected quarter.
+
+The emperor, justly mistrusting the loyalty of Maximilian, who was in
+league with France, now saw himself deprived of his ablest generals,
+and felt his power failing. He turned to Wallenstein as the only man
+who could save the Empire. That leader was meantime living in
+retirement, and secretly glad of the success of Gustavus. He refused
+at first to take the command of the imperial army, and only consented
+at last on condition of having sole and absolute authority, with the
+right of disposing as he pleased of his conquests. These humiliating
+terms were accepted by Ferdinand, and in a few months after the death
+of Tilly, Wallenstein was in the field with a large and powerful army,
+raised, as before, by his own exertions. He drove the Saxons from
+Bohemia, and thence marched to Leipsic, which capitulated. At
+Nuremberg, where Gustavus offered him battle, he wisely refused, and
+for three months the two camps remained close to each other, each
+general trying to exhaust the patience of his adversary, and relying
+on the destructive effects of famine and pestilence. Gustavus was
+forced to withdraw, after losing 20,000 men; a yet heavier loss,
+nevertheless, having befallen Wallenstein, whose numbers were better
+able to bear it.
+
+Gustavus marched southward, but soon returned to attack Wallenstein,
+who had moved northward, and was pillaging the neighborhood of
+Leipsic. The two armies met at Lutzen on November 6, 1632. A dense fog
+shrouded the movements of each side from the other, and created a
+fearful confusion. Wallenstein ranged his infantry in squares, having
+a ditch in front, and flanked by his cavalry. Gustavus headed his men
+and charged the enemy across the ditch. But his own infantry was borne
+down by the black cuirassiers of Wallenstein, and, as he turned to
+attack them, the thick fog concealed their approach. His horse was
+wounded, and he himself had his arm broken. In moving off the field he
+was shot in the back, and falling from his saddle was dragged in the
+stirrup. He fell into the hands of the cuirassiers, one of whom, as
+the Swedes came up to the succor of their king, shot him through the
+head. His corpse was discovered after the battle, and honorably
+buried. The death of their king caused the deepest affliction to the
+Swedes, but aroused instead of enfeebling their courage. A charge of
+the Duke of Weimar, one of the Protestant leaders, threw Wallenstein's
+infantry and cavalry into disorder. An attempt of the Imperialist
+General Pappenheim, who now came up with a reserve to retrieve the
+battle, was for a time successful. But as the tide of fortune seemed
+turning against the Swedes, a reserve of their own army made a last
+desperate charge, carried the ditch which protected Wallenstein's
+infantry, and won the day; the Imperialists fleeing in all directions
+and their great leader escaping into Bohemia.
+
+This defeat was the death-blow to Wallenstein's fortunate career. The
+Swedes continued to carry on the war successfully under the able
+minister of Gustavus, Oxenstiern, and the valiant Duke of Weimar.
+Meantime Wallenstein, after some slight victories in Saxony and
+Silesia, remained inactive. He at the same time assumed an air of
+extreme pride and self-sufficiency, which exasperated his enemies and
+gave occasion for their slanders. He was accused to Ferdinand of
+designing to seize the Empire,--a charge which seemed the more
+credible, on account of an offer having been made by France to assist
+him in obtaining the Bohemian crown. This proposition, however, he had
+firmly refused. The emperor's intention of removing him from the
+command of the army having reached his ears, he declared he would
+resign, but was persuaded to remain by his officers, who at a great
+banquet, all, with wild and perhaps drunken enthusiasm, signed a
+promise of inviolable attachment to his person. This, too, was
+interpreted by his enemies as a conspiracy against the emperor. His
+destruction was resolved on by the Duke of Bavaria and others, among
+whom an Italian mercenary general, named Piccolomini, was the most
+perfidious and savage. A plot was formed against him by certain
+traitors among his own officers,--the names of Devereaux, Butler,
+Gordon, and Leslie, to the shame of their nations, appearing in the
+list.
+
+On February 25, 1634, an entertainment was given to the whole body of
+officers by Gordon, who commanded the castle of Eger, where
+Wallenstein was residing. He himself being indisposed, had retired
+from the table to his chamber. He was roused by loud cries proceeding
+from the mess-room, where his faithful officers were being murdered by
+the traitors. He opened the window to inquire the cause of the
+disturbance, when Devereaux entered, with thirty Irishmen at his back.
+The cowards shrank at the sight of their great general, standing calm
+and stern, unarmed, and at their mercy. But Devereaux, a callous and
+brutal soldier, in a moment stepped forward, and cried: "Art thou the
+traitor who wilt ruin the Empire?" Wallenstein did not speak, but
+opened his arms, as if to accept the blow which was aimed at his
+heart. He was slain at the age of fifty-one. His wealth was chiefly
+shared among his enemies.
+
+[Illustration: Wallenstein's last banquet.]
+
+Though undoubtedly ambitious and intriguing, Wallenstein's alleged
+treachery to the emperor, whom he kept informed of all his schemes,
+has never been proved, and by many recent historians is disbelieved.
+He fell a victim to the jealousy of his rivals, which he augmented by
+his own pride. His fall, however, reflects lasting disgrace on the
+character of the Emperor Ferdinand, and was justly avenged by the
+subsequent humiliation of the German Empire.
+
+
+
+
+GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS[20]
+
+By HJALMAR HJORTH BOYESEN
+
+(1594-1632)
+
+         [Footnote 20: Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.]
+
+[Illustration: Gustavus Adolphus. [TN]]
+
+
+There is a theory which has much currency nowadays, that the great
+man, being a product of his century, exerts an influence upon his age
+which is but vanishing, compared to the influence which the age exerts
+upon him. The great man is, according to this view, personally of
+small account, except in so far as the tendencies and ideas which are
+fermenting in the age find their expression in him. He does not so
+much shape the events as he is shaped and moulded by them.
+
+There is scarcely a hero to be found in all the annals of history who
+is better qualified to refute this theory than the Swedish king,
+Gustavus Adolphus. It would be futile to assert, of course, that he
+was an isolated phenomenon, who sprang like Jonah's luxuriant gourd
+out of the arid sands of the desert. No, he had deep and intricate
+roots in the past of his race and in the soil of his fatherland. But
+yet, how far are all the influences which we can trace, from
+accounting for the forceful energy, the clear-sighted sagacity, and
+the dominant genius of the man! As far as we can judge at this
+distance, his personality was the mightiest element that entered into
+the dénouement of that bloody world-drama, the Thirty Years' War. Had
+he been other than he was, had he been a man of less heroic mould, it
+would seem that Protestantism must have perished in Central Europe, or
+been confined, at least, to England and the Scandinavian North. The
+rights of conscience and individual judgment, for which Luther and his
+co-reformers had fought so valiantly, would then have succumbed to the
+power of authority, as embodied in the Papacy and the Catholic
+League; and Germany, after its mighty effort at release, would have
+lapsed back into the Middle Ages. To few men the opportunity is
+offered to exercise such a far-reaching influence upon the history of
+mankind; but fewer still are those who see its full significance, and
+seeing it, seize it, and without one look behind march into the storm
+and stress of world-shaping events.
+
+Gustavus Adolphus was born December 9, 1594. He was the son of King
+Charles IX. of Sweden, and the grandson of the renowned Gustavus Vasa.
+He was a precocious child, and it is told (though it appears rather
+incredible) that at the age of twelve he spoke Latin, French, German,
+Dutch, and Italian with great fluency, besides having a superficial
+acquaintance with Polish and Russian. There can be no doubt, however,
+that he was well taught, and that he possessed a remarkable facility
+in acquiring languages. For all that, he was far from being a bookish
+boy. In riding, fencing, and all chivalrous accomplishments he took a
+lively interest and exhibited much skill. It was in stormy times that
+his boyhood fell, Sweden being at that time involved in frequent wars,
+and his father, in order to train him in the duties of a military
+commander, took him early into his camp and made him share his
+campaigns. Many of the famous captains of that day who had fought in
+the Low Countries and in France, were made welcome at the Swedish
+court; and the favorite pastime of the young Gustavus was to question
+them concerning the battles, sieges, and military exploits in which
+they had been engaged.
+
+When Charles IX. died, in 1611, Gustavus, being then seventeen years
+old, was declared to be of age and succeeded to the throne. There was
+need of an able and resolute man to cope with the many difficulties
+which sprang up round about him. In the first place there was one war
+with Denmark, already raging; the strained relations with Russia and
+Poland threatened to precipitate two more. Norway, which was then
+united with Denmark under the same king, was also jealous of Sweden;
+and the Norwegian peasantry destroyed at Kringelen, in Guldbrandsdal,
+an army of Scottish mercenaries, under the command of Colonel
+Sinclair, which was marching to the relief of Gustavus. The Danes had
+occupied two important Swedish cities, Calmar and Elfsborg, and being
+determined to utilize their advantages to the full, repelled all
+overtures for peace. It was of no avail that Gustavus renounced his
+title of King of the Laplanders, the assumption of which by his father
+had been one of the causes of the war. Christian IV., of Denmark,
+continued to push hostilities with unflagging vigor, and several
+battles were fought with varying fortunes. In 1612, he set sail with a
+fleet of thirty-six vessels for Stockholm, intending to capture the
+city. The Swedish fleet, being much inferior in numbers, was forced to
+retire under shelter of the fortress of Waxholm, which guards the
+access to the capital. In this dire dilemma, Gustavus strained every
+nerve to avert the threatened disaster. With a small force, chiefly of
+Dalecarlians, he marched day and night, and hastened to Waxholm in the
+hope of surprising the Danish fleet which had been detained by adverse
+winds. But the enemy, being probably informed of his approach, saw
+that their opportunity for capturing the capital was gone, and
+returned again to their own coast. Negotiations were now resumed and
+peace was concluded in 1613. The Danes were to surrender Calmar
+immediately and Elfsborg at the end of six years; the Swedes agreeing
+to pay a war indemnity of one million thalers.
+
+The war with Russia, which Gustavus had inherited from his father, had
+of late been in a state of suspension. The Swedes had occupied a large
+amount of Russian territory, in which were several strong fortresses.
+In the confusion which reigned as to the succession, after the
+extinction of the ancient house of Rurik, there was a capital chance
+of fishing in troubled waters. A strong party in Russia desired to
+elect a Swedish prince as sovereign, and actually sent an embassy to
+Stockholm to offer the throne to Charles Philip, a younger brother of
+Gustavus. But the king did not favor this plan. For four years he
+continued the war and secured important advantages. But what was more
+valuable than territorial gains, he acquired a wide experience in
+strategy and the conduct of campaigns, a habit of dealing promptly
+with large questions, and a sharpened judgment of men. In February,
+1617, the treaty of peace was signed, Russia ceding to Sweden a large
+territory on the east of the Baltic. Gustavus was now in a position to
+prosecute with greater energy the war with Poland. Sigismund III., of
+Poland, was the only son of King John III., of Sweden, and was,
+therefore, as a scion of the ancient royal house, the legitimate heir
+to the Swedish throne. But in the first place he was a Catholic; and
+in the second place, the house of Vasa, had by force of arms and with
+the support of the people, successfully asserted its right to the
+crown which Gustavus I. had won.
+
+After repeated extensions of the armistice which by common consent
+prevailed, the King of Sweden resumed hostilities in July, 1621; and
+the war raged with varying success until September, 1629, when another
+armistice was concluded for six years. The chief result of this
+exhausting warfare was the stipulation which was agreed to, that
+liberty of conscience should be granted to Protestants and Catholics,
+and that the commerce between Poland and Sweden was declared free.
+
+The renown of these wars, two of which had been brought to a
+triumphant issue, spread far over Europe; and the Protestant princes
+of Germany became aware that there was a great military captain of
+their own faith in the Scandinavian North. They were at that time
+sorely oppressed, the success of the imperial arms, under Tilly and
+Wallenstein, seeming to threaten the very existence of the Reformed
+Faith. The Emperor Ferdinand II. was carrying everything with a high
+hand after the defeat of King Christian IV. of Denmark, who, with more
+courage than success, had undertaken to champion the Protestant cause.
+It was in this desperate strait that all eyes turned toward the young
+King of Sweden. An appeal was sent to him for aid, in the name of
+their common religion; and Gustavus, after a brief hesitation,
+accepted the call. He had long watched with deep concern the war of
+devastation by which Wallenstein and the scarcely less terrible Tilly
+were seeking to destroy the fruits of the Reformation; and it is said
+that he had a clear presentiment that sooner or later he would be
+drawn into the struggle. Leaving his domestic affairs in the hands of
+his friend, the Chancellor Oxenstiern, he embarked in June, 1630, with
+a force of but fifteen thousand men, for Germany, and landed on
+midsummer day on the island of Usedom, on the coast of Pomerania.
+
+The Emperor Ferdinand professed to be much amused when he heard that
+Gustavus Adolphus had invaded his dominions.
+
+"So we have got another kingling on our hands," he exclaimed
+mockingly. He was far from foreseeing what trouble he was to have for
+eighteen years to come, in getting that kingling and his troops off
+his hands.
+
+Gustavus was the first to step upon the German soil, at the
+disembarkation; and in the sight of all his army he fell upon his
+knees and prayed for the blessing of God upon the vast enterprise
+which had been confided to him. As he arose from his prayer, he seized
+a spade and began instantly the work upon the intrenchments of the
+camp.
+
+If his troops were few in number, it is not to be denied that they
+were excellent in quality. Many were hardened veterans from the king's
+earlier campaigns; among his recently acquired mercenaries there was a
+Scotch brigade, from which he drew many of his best officers. We hear
+much during the following years, of Hepburn, Seaton, Leslie, Mackay,
+and Monroe, whose names betray their Caledonian origin. You would have
+supposed now that the Protestant princes, having secured the aid of
+Gustavus, would have made haste to identify themselves with his cause
+and to reinforce him with money and troops. But, strange to relate, no
+sooner had he landed than they began to grow afraid of him and to ask
+themselves whether they might not after all, be able to make more
+tolerable terms with the emperor by the sacrifice of their religion,
+than with this foreign invader, who, if he was victorious, might
+dictate his own terms. Had they not, in other words, jumped from the
+frying-pan into the fire?
+
+The two princes who had hitherto been the most prominent champions of
+Protestantism in Germany (though both half-hearted and pusillanimous
+shufflers) were Gustavus's brother-in-law, the Elector of Brandenburg,
+and the Elector of Saxony. They were now doing their best to wriggle
+out of their obligations, and by a shameful neutrality avert the
+emperor's displeasure. But they had reckoned without their host if
+they supposed that Gustavus would lend himself to such a scheme. The
+reply which he gave to Herr von Wilmerstorff, who had been sent to him
+by the Elector to urge an armistice, was refreshingly plain, while the
+argument which accompanied it was completely unanswerable. When
+nevertheless the Elector continued to resort to shilly-shallying and
+all sorts of ambiguous tactics, Gustavus lost his patience, marched
+his army to the gates of Berlin, and compelled him to make his choice
+of party once, for all. The treaty of alliance was then signed, on the
+Elector's part reluctantly and with a heavy heart; for these two
+brothers-in-law were so vastly different, that it was scarcely to be
+expected that they would be congenial. Gustavus, though he was not
+without personal ambition, was fired with noble zeal for the
+Protestant cause, and believed it worthy of any sacrifice, however
+great; while the Elector was only bent on saving his own precious
+skin and extricating himself with the least possible damage from the
+dangerous situation in which he had been caught.
+
+[Illustration: Gustavus Adolphus before the battle of Lutzen.]
+
+With the same promptness with which he had brought his brother-in-law
+of Brandenburg to terms, Gustavus forced the hand of the Elector of
+Saxony, who now overcame his scruples and sent him the needed
+reinforcements. An imperial army of forty thousand men, under the
+command of an Italian adventurer named Torquato Conti, had been sent
+against him, immediately on his landing in Pomerania, but no battle
+had been fought, and beyond laying waste the country the Imperialists
+had so far accomplished nothing. The emperor, who had predicted that
+"the Snow-king would melt under the rays of the Imperial sun," became
+alarmed at his successes and selected Tilly to stay his southward
+advance. This able and experienced general promptly assumed the
+command of the forces of the Catholic League, and in order to strike
+terror into the hearts of the Protestant princes, sacked and pillaged
+the city of Magdeburg in Lower Saxony, giving it over without
+restraint to devastation and ruin by the brutal soldiery. The horrors
+which were here enacted beggar description, and leave a hideous stain
+upon the page of history. Tilly himself, in announcing his success to
+the emperor, wrote: "Since the destruction of Troy and Jerusalem never
+has such a siege been seen."
+
+Gustavus had, indeed, come too late to relieve Magdeburg, but the
+report of the unspeakable atrocities which that unhappy city had
+witnessed, fired his generous heart with wrath and an eager
+determination to punish a general so devoid of humanity. And the
+opportunity was soon to present itself. Advancing rapidly into Saxony,
+he met Tilly on the plains of Breitenfeld, near Leipsic, September 7,
+1631; and not only defeated him, but utterly annihilated his army,
+scattering it like dust before the storm. He was now, until a new army
+could be raised, master of all Germany. Nothing apparently could have
+hindered him from marching on Vienna and dictating to the emperor his
+own terms of peace. It has been and is yet a matter of speculation,
+why Gustavus did not relentlessly follow up the results of this great
+victory, instead of going into winter quarters and affording Ferdinand
+and the discomfited princes of the League a chance of recovering from
+their utter demoralization. The answer is, no doubt, that he did not
+feel himself strong enough to lay siege to Vienna, without covering
+his rear and securing his base of supplies. He had always, like the
+good general he was, been careful to keep open a possible line of
+retreat. For the moment he was indeed irresistible. At Merseburg two
+thousand Imperialists were cut to pieces. Cities opened their gates to
+receive him. The Protestant population, in their ecstacy at his
+victories, were ready to worship him as a demigod. Proceeding
+southward to Nuremberg and Munich, he was met again by Tilly at the
+river Lech, where a brief battle was fought; Gustavus was again
+victorious and Tilly lost his life. This feat of crossing the Lech in
+the face of a hostile force is by military experts regarded as the
+greatest strategic feat of Gustavus.
+
+In the meanwhile the emperor had not been idle. There was but one man
+whose name was potent enough to summon an army adequate for so
+perilous a situation; and that man was Albrecht von Wallenstein. He
+was himself, too, fully aware of his preciousness and the terms which
+he exacted of Ferdinand were hard, not to say extortionate. Ferdinand
+II., however, had no choice but to accept them. It was not long before
+Gustavus became aware that Wallenstein, with an army which seemed to
+have risen out of the ground, was moving in his rear, resolved,
+apparently, to cut him off from his communication with Sweden. He had
+no alternative then but to return northward to face this new enemy. On
+the field of Lutzen in Saxony they met November 6, 1632. A thick mist
+covered the battle-field, and both armies tarried with the attack in
+the hope that it would lift. Toward noon, however, Gustavus made a
+brief address to his soldiers and knelt in prayer before them,
+whereupon all sang Luther's hymn, "Our God he is a fortress strong."
+Then the signal was given for the attack. The army of Gustavus,
+including his German allies, numbered from twenty to twenty-five
+thousand, and the Imperialists about thirty thousand. The king, who
+suffered from an imperfectly healed wound which he had received in the
+Polish war, found it painful to wear a cuirass; and on the morning of
+the day of Lutzen refused to put it on. "God is my armor," he said,
+and mounted his horse.
+
+It was this sublime confidence in divine Providence which led him
+perhaps to expose himself overmuch. He led the attack in person.
+Before the battle was far advanced, a report reached him that his left
+wing was wavering. With prompt resolution he started across the field,
+but, mistaking the direction in the fog, found himself in the midst of
+a detachment of imperial cuirassiers. A pistol shot pierced his arm;
+but he still pressed on. Growing faint from pain and loss of blood, he
+turned to one of the German princes who accompanied him and said:
+"Cousin, lead me out of this tumult; for I am hurt."
+
+But scarcely had he spoken, when a second shot hit him between the
+shoulders and he fell from his horse, dead.
+
+The rumor instantly spread through the Swedish army that the king had
+been taken prisoner. The troops rushed like an avalanche upon the
+Imperialists, who wavered and gave way. In the end the victory was
+claimed by both sides, the advantage remaining however with the
+Swedes.
+
+Gustavus Adolphus was a man of handsome appearance, tall of stature,
+and of most impressive presence. He was hot-tempered; but at the same
+time kindly, generous, and affable. He possessed all the qualities
+required of a military leader, and has justly been accounted one of
+the world's greatest generals. He was thirty-eight years old at the
+time of his death. Having no son, he was succeeded on the Swedish
+throne by his daughter Christina.
+
+[Signature of the author.]
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 1 of 8, by Various
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+<head>
+<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
+<title>The Project Gutenberg e-Book of Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 1. Editor: Charles F. Horne.</title>
+
+
+<style type="text/css">
+<!--
+
+body {font-size: 1em; text-align: justify; margin-left: 5%; margin-right: 5%;}
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+<pre>
+
+Project Gutenberg's Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 1 of 8, by Various
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 1 of 8
+       A series of pen and pencil sketches of the lives of more
+              than 200 of the most prominent personages in History
+
+Author: Various
+
+Editor: Charles F. Horne
+
+Release Date: August 27, 2008 [EBook #26421]
+[Last updated: March 30, 2014]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GREAT MEN, FAMOUS WOMEN, VOL. 1 ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Sigal Alon, Christine P. Travers and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This
+file was produced from images generously made available
+by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+<p class="tn">Transcriber's note: Obvious printer's errors have been corrected, all
+other inconsistencies are as in the original. The author's spelling
+has been maintained.</p>
+
+<a id="img001" name="img001"></a>
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/img001.jpg" width="600" height="300" alt="Attila, &quot;The Scourge of God&quot;." title="">
+</div>
+
+<h1>GREAT MEN AND FAMOUS WOMEN</h1>
+
+<p class="noindent center italic">A Series of Pen and Pencil Sketches of</p>
+
+<p class="center noindent">THE LIVES OF MORE THAN 200 OF THE MOST PROMINENT PERSONAGES IN HISTORY</p>
+
+<p class="center noindent">Vol. I.</p>
+
+<a id="img002" name="img002"></a>
+<div class="p2 figcenter">
+<img src="images/img002.jpg" width="400" height="481" alt="Frontpage." title="">
+</div>
+
+<p class="p4 noindent center"><span class="smaller">Copyright, 1894, BY SELMAR HESS</span><br>
+<span class="smcap">edited by Charles F. Horne</span></p>
+
+<p class="p4 center noindent smaller"><span class="smcap">New-York: Selmar Hess Publisher</span><br>
+Copyright, 1894, by <span class="smcap">Selmar Hess</span>.</p>
+
+<a id="toc" name="toc"></a>
+<h2><span class="pagenum"><a id="pageiii" name="pageiii"></a>(p. iii)</span> CONTENTS OF VOLUME I.</h2>
+
+<ul>
+<li>SUBJECT
+<span class="ralign85">AUTHOR</span> <span class="ralign95">PAGE</span></li>
+</ul>
+
+<ul>
+<li>ALARIC THE BOLD,
+<span class="ralign85 italic">Archdeacon Farrar, D.D., F.R.S.,</span>
+<span class="ralign95"><a href="#page056">56</a></span></li>
+
+<li>ALEXANDER THE GREAT,
+<span class="ralign95"><a href="#page010">10</a></span></li>
+
+<li>MARC ANTONY,
+<span class="ralign95"><a href="#page037">37</a></span></li>
+
+<li>ATTILA,
+<span class="ralign85 italic">Archdeacon Farrar, D.D., F.R.S.,</span>
+<span class="ralign95"><a href="#page059">59</a></span></li>
+
+<li>BELISARIUS,
+<span class="ralign85 italic">Charlotte M. Yonge,</span>
+<span class="ralign95"><a href="#page064">64</a></span></li>
+
+<li>GODFREY DE BOUILLON,
+<span class="ralign85 italic">Henry G. Hewlett,</span>
+<span class="ralign95"><a href="#page097">97</a></span></li>
+
+<li>JULIUS CÆSAR,
+<span class="ralign85 italic">E. Spencer Beesly, M.A.,</span>
+<span class="ralign95"><a href="#page032">32</a></span></li>
+
+<li>CHARLEMAGNE,
+<span class="ralign85 italic">Sir J. Bernard Burke,</span>
+<span class="ralign95"><a href="#page075">75</a></span></li>
+
+<li>CLOVIS THE FIRST,
+<span class="ralign85 italic">Thomas Wyatt, A.M.,</span>
+<span class="ralign95"><a href="#page061">61</a></span></li>
+
+<li>GASPARD DE COLIGNI,
+<span class="ralign85 italic">Professor Creasy,</span>
+<span class="ralign95"><a href="#page164">164</a></span></li>
+
+<li>HERNANDO CORTES,
+<span class="ralign85 italic">H. Rider Haggard,</span>
+<span class="ralign95"><a href="#page150">150</a></span></li>
+
+<li>CYRUS THE GREAT,
+<span class="ralign85 italic">Clarence Cook,</span>
+<span class="ralign95"><a href="#page005">5</a></span></li>
+
+<li>DIOCLETIAN,
+<span class="ralign95"><a href="#page050">50</a></span></li>
+
+<li>SIR FRANCIS DRAKE,
+<span class="ralign95"><a href="#page176">176</a></span></li>
+
+<li>EDWARD I. OF ENGLAND,
+<span class="ralign85 italic">Thomas Davidson,</span>,
+<span class="ralign95"><a href="#page109">109</a></span></li>
+
+<li>EDWARD III. OF ENGLAND,
+<span class="ralign95"><a href="#page114">114</a></span></li>
+
+<li>EDWARD, THE BLACK PRINCE,
+<span class="ralign85 italic">L. Drake,</span>
+<span class="ralign95"><a href="#page119">119</a></span></li>
+
+<li>BERTRAND DU GUESCLIN,
+<span class="ralign95"><a href="#page127">127</a></span></li>
+
+<li>GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS,
+<span class="ralign85 italic">Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen,</span>
+<span class="ralign95"><a href="#page199">199</a></span></li>
+
+<li>HANNIBAL,
+<span class="ralign85 italic">Walter Whyte,</span>
+<span class="ralign95"><a href="#page014">14</a></span></li>
+
+<li>HENRY IV. OF FRANCE,
+<span class="ralign95"><a href="#page171">171</a></span></li>
+
+<li>HENRY V. OF ENGLAND,
+<span class="ralign85 italic">G. P. R. James,</span>
+<span class="ralign95"><a href="#page129">129</a></span></li>
+
+<li>HERMANN,
+<span class="ralign95"><a href="#page040">40</a></span></li>
+
+<li>JOHN HUNIADES,
+<span class="ralign85 italic">Professor A. Vambéry,</span>
+<span class="ralign95"><a href="#page136">136</a></span></li>
+
+<li>CAIUS MARIUS,
+<span class="ralign85 italic">James Anthony Froude, LL.D.,</span>
+<span class="ralign95"><a href="#page025">25</a></span></li>
+
+<li>CHARLES MARTEL,
+<span class="ralign85 italic">Henry G. Hewlett,</span>
+<span class="ralign95"><a href="#page069">69</a></span></li>
+
+<li>NEBUCHADNEZZAR,
+<span class="ralign85 italic">Clarence Cook,</span>
+<span class="ralign95"><a href="#page001">1</a></span></li>
+
+<li>PEPIN THE SHORT,
+<span class="ralign85 italic">Henry G. Hewlett,</span>
+<span class="ralign95"><a href="#page072">72</a></span></li>
+
+<li>FRANCISCO PIZARRO,
+<span class="ralign85 italic">J. T. Trowbridge,</span>
+<span class="ralign95"><a href="#page156">156</a></span></li>
+
+<li>SIR WALTER RALEIGH,
+<span class="ralign95"><a href="#page182">182</a></span></li>
+
+<li>SALADIN,
+<span class="ralign85 italic">Walter Besant,</span>
+<span class="ralign95"><a href="#page106">106</a></span></li>
+
+<li>SCIPIO AFRICANUS MAJOR,
+<span class="ralign95"><a href="#page018">18</a></span></li>
+
+<li>MILES STANDISH,
+<span class="ralign85 italic">Elbridge S. Brooks,</span>
+<span class="ralign95"><a href="#page189">189</a></span></li>
+
+<li>TRAJAN,
+<span class="ralign85 italic">J. S. Reid, Litt. D.,</span>
+<span class="ralign95"><a href="#page042">42</a></span></li>
+
+<li>OLAF TRYGGVESON,
+<span class="ralign85 italic">Thomas Carlyle,</span>
+<span class="ralign95"><a href="#page083">83</a></span></li>
+
+<li>ALBRECHT VON WALLENSTEIN,
+<span class="ralign85 italic">Henry G. Hewlett,</span>
+<span class="ralign95"><a href="#page194">194</a></span></li>
+
+<li>WARWICK, THE KING-MAKER,
+<span class="ralign95"><a href="#page146">146</a></span></li>
+
+<li>WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR,
+<span class="ralign85 italic">G. W. Prothero,</span>
+<span class="ralign95"><a href="#page092">92</a></span></li>
+</ul>
+
+
+<h2><span class="pagenum"><a id="pageiv" name="pageiv"></a>(p. iv)</span> LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS</h2>
+
+<p class="center noindent">VOLUME I.</p>
+<p class="p2 noindent center">PHOTOGRAVURES</p>
+
+<table border="0" cellpadding="2" summary="Illustration list">
+<colgroup>
+    <col width="60%">
+    <col width="30%">
+    <col width="10%">
+</colgroup>
+<tr>
+<td>ILLUSTRATION</td>
+<td class="right">ARTIST</td>
+<td class="right">To face<br>page<td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td colspan="3">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>ATTILA, "THE SCOURGE OF GOD,"</td>
+<td class="italic right">Ulpiano Checa</td>
+<td class="italic right"><a href="#img001">Frontispiece</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>"AND HE WAS DRIVEN FROM MEN, AND DID EAT GRASS AS OXEN,"</td>
+<td class="italic right">Georges Rochegrosse</td>
+<td class="right"><a href="#img004">4</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>HANNIBAL CROSSING THE RHONE,</td>
+<td class="italic right">Henri-Paul Motte</td>
+<td class="right"><a href="#img009">14</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>HERMANN'S TRIUMPH OVER THE ROMANS,</td>
+<td class="italic right">Paul Thumann</td>
+<td class="right"><a href="#img019">40</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>ROME UNDER TRAJAN&mdash;A CHARIOT RACE,</td>
+<td class="italic right">Ulpiano Checa</td>
+<td class="right"><a href="#img021">48</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>THE VICTIMS OF GALERIUS,</td>
+<td class="italic right">E. K. Liska</td>
+<td class="right"><a href="#img024">54</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>ALARIC IN ATHENS,</td>
+<td class="italic right">Ludwig Thiersch</td>
+<td class="right"><a href="#img026">56</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>CHARLEMAGNE AT WITIKIND'S BAPTISM,</td>
+<td class="italic right">Paul Thumann</td>
+<td class="right"><a href="#img038">78</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>HENRY V. REJECTS FALSTAFF,</td>
+<td class="italic right">Eduard Grützner</td>
+<td class="right"><a href="#img055">132</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>THE ADMIRAL OF THE SPANISH ARMADA SURRENDERS TO DRAKE,</td>
+<td class="italic right">Seymour Lucas</td>
+<td class="right"><a href="#img068">180</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS BEFORE THE BATTLE OF LUTZEN,</td>
+<td class="italic right">Ludwig Braun</td>
+<td class="right"><a href="#img076">202</a></td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p class="p2 noindent center">WOOD-ENGRAVINGS AND TYPOGRAVURES</p>
+
+<table border="0" cellpadding="2" summary="Illustration list">
+<colgroup>
+    <col width="60%">
+    <col width="30%">
+    <col width="10%">
+</colgroup>
+
+<tr>
+<td>ALEXANDER DISCOVERING THE BODY OF DARIUS,</td>
+<td class="italic right">Gustave Doré</td>
+<td class="right"><a href="#img007">12</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>GENEROSITY OF SCIPIO,</td>
+<td class="italic right">Schopin</td>
+<td class="right"><a href="#img011">20</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>MARIUS ON THE RUINS OF CARTHAGE,</td>
+<td class="italic right">John Vanderlyn</td>
+<td class="right"><a href="#img014">32</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>THE IDES OF MARCH,</td>
+<td class="italic right">Carl Von Piloty</td>
+<td class="right"><a href="#img016">36</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>THE LAST GLADIATORIAL CONTEST,</td>
+<td class="italic right">J. Stallaert</td>
+<td class="right"><a href="#img027">58</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>CLOVIS PUNISHING A REBEL,</td>
+<td class="italic right">Alphonse De Neuville</td>
+<td class="right"><a href="#img030">62</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>BELISARIUS RECEIVING ALMS,</td>
+<td class="italic right">Jacques-Louis David</td>
+<td class="right"><a href="#img032">68</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>CHARLES MARTEL AT TOURS,</td>
+<td class="italic right">Charles Steuben</td>
+<td class="right"><a href="#img034">72</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>PEPIN AFTER THE MURDER OF DUKE WAIFRE,</td>
+<td class="italic right">Th. Lybaert</td>
+<td class="right"><a href="#img036">74</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>A NORSE RAID UNDER OLAF,</td>
+<td class="italic right">Hugo Vogel</td>
+<td class="right"><a href="#img040">84</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>WILLIAM AT HASTINGS,</td>
+<td class="italic right">P. J. De Loutherbourg</td>
+<td class="right"><a href="#img042">94</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>GODFREY DE BOUILLON ENTERING JERUSALEM,</td>
+<td class="italic right">Carl Von Piloty</td>
+<td class="right"><a href="#img045">104</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>SALADIN,</td>
+<td class="italic right">Gustave Doré</td>
+<td class="right"><a href="#img047">108</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>EDWARD III. AND THE BURGHERS OF CALAIS,</td>
+<td class="italic right">Berthelemy</td>
+<td class="right"><a href="#img050">118</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>BERTRAND DU GUESCLIN,</td>
+<td class="italic right">Alphonse De Neuville</td>
+<td class="right"><a href="#img053">128</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>HUNIADES AT BELGRADE,</td>
+<td class="italic right">Gustave Doré</td>
+<td class="right"><a href="#img058">146</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>YORK AND LANCASTER&mdash;THE RED AND WHITE ROSES,</td>
+<td>&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="right"><a href="#img060">148</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>PIZARRO EXHORTING HIS BAND AT GALLO,</td>
+<td class="italic right">Lizcano</td>
+<td class="right"><a href="#img063">158</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>HENRY IV. OF FRANCE AT HOME,</td>
+<td class="italic right">J. D. Ingres</td>
+<td class="right"><a href="#img067">176</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>RALEIGH PARTING FROM HIS WIFE,</td>
+<td class="italic right">E. Leutze</td>
+<td class="right"><a href="#img070">188</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>DEPARTURE OF THE MAYFLOWER,</td>
+<td class="italic right">A. W. Bayes</td>
+<td class="right"><a href="#img072">192</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>WALLENSTEIN'S LAST BANQUET,</td>
+<td class="italic right">J. Scholz</td>
+<td class="right"><a href="#img074">198</a></td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+
+<h2><span class="pagenum"><a id="page001" name="page001"></a>(p. 001)</span> SOLDIERS AND SAILORS</h2>
+
+<p class="poem30">
+  Sleep, soldiers! still in honored rest<br>
+<span class="add2em">Your truth and valor wearing:</span><br>
+  The bravest are the tenderest.<br>
+<span class="add2em">The loving are the daring.</span>
+<span class="jump smcap">&mdash;Bayard Taylor</span></p>
+
+
+<h3>NEBUCHADNEZZAR<a id="footnotetag1" name="footnotetag1"></a><a href="#footnote1" title="Go to footnote 1"><span class="small">[1]</span></a><br>
+By <span class="smcap">Clarence Cook</span><br>
+(645-561 B.C.)</h3>
+
+<a id="img003" name="img003"></a>
+<div class="floatleft">
+<img src="images/img003.jpg" width="250" height="329" alt="Nebuchadnezzar." title="">
+</div>
+
+<p>With the death of Sardanapalus, the great monarch of Assyria, and the
+taking of Nineveh, the capital city, by the Medes, the kingdom of
+Assyria came to an end, and the vast domain was parcelled out among
+the conquerors. At the time of the catastrophe, the district of
+Babylonia, with its capital city Babylon, was ruled as a dependent
+satrapy of Assyria by Nabopolassar. Aided by the Medes, he now took
+possession of the province and established himself as an independent
+monarch, strengthening the alliance by a marriage between the Princess
+Amuhia, the daughter of the Median king, and his son Nebuchadnezzar.</p>
+
+<p>In the partition of Assyria, the region stretching from Egypt to the
+upper Euphrates, including Syria, Ph&oelig;nicia, and Palestine, had
+fallen to the share of Nabopolassar. But the tribes that peopled it
+were not disposed to accept the rule of the new claimant, and looked
+about for an ally to support them in their resistance. Such an ally
+they thought they had found in Egypt.</p>
+
+<p>Egypt was the great rival of Babylon, as she had been of Assyria. Both
+desired to control the highways of traffic connecting the
+Mediterranean with the farther East. Egypt had the advantage, both
+from her actual position on the Mediterranean and her nearer
+neighborhood to the coveted territory, and she used her advantage with
+audacity and skill. No sooner, however, did Nabopolassar feel himself
+firm on his throne than he resolved to check the ambition of Egypt and
+secure for himself the sovereignty of the lands in dispute.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page002" name="page002"></a>(p. 002)</span> The task was not an easy one. Pharaoh Necho had been for
+three years in possession of the whole strip along the
+Mediterranean&mdash;Palestine, Ph&oelig;nicia, and part of Syria&mdash;and was
+pushing victoriously on to Assyria, when he was met at the plain of
+Megiddo, commanding the principal pass in the range of Mount Carmel,
+by the forces of the petty kingdom of Judah, disputing his advance. He
+defeated them in a bloody engagement, in which Josiah, King of Judah,
+was slain, and then continued his march to Carchemish, a stronghold
+built to defend one of the few fordable passes of the upper Euphrates.
+This important place having been taken after a bloody battle, Necho
+was master of all the strategic points north and west of Babylonia.</p>
+
+<p>Nebuchadnezzar was now put in command of an army, to force Pharaoh to
+give up his prey. Marching directly upon Carchemish, he attacked the
+Egyptian and defeated him with great slaughter. Following up his
+victory, he wrested from Pharaoh, in engagement after engagement, all
+that he had gained in Syria, Ph&oelig;nicia, and Palestine, and was in
+the midst of fighting in Egypt itself, when the news came of the death
+of his father; and he hastened home at once by forced marches to
+secure his possession of the throne. In his train were captives of all
+the nations he had conquered: Syrians, Ph&oelig;nicians, Jews, and
+Egyptians. Among the Jewish prisoners was Daniel, the author of the
+book of the Old Testament called by his name, and to whom we owe the
+little personal knowledge we have of the great Babylonian monarch.</p>
+
+<p>Of all the conquests of Nebuchadnezzar in this long struggle with
+Egypt, that of the Jewish people is the most interesting to us. The
+Jews had fought hard for independence, but if they must be conquered
+and held in subjection, they preferred the rule of Egypt to that of
+Babylon. Even the long slavery of their ancestors in that country and
+the sufferings it had entailed, with the tragic memories of the exodus
+and the wanderings in the desert, had not been potent to blot out the
+traditions of the years passed in that pleasant land with its
+delicious climate, its nourishing and abundant food. Alike in
+prosperity and in evil days the hearts of the people of Israel yearned
+after Egypt, and the denunciations of her prophets are never so bitter
+as when uttered against those who turned from Jehovah to worship the
+false gods of the Nile. Three times did the inhabitants of Jerusalem
+rebel against the rule of Babylon, and three times did Nebuchadnezzar
+come down upon them with a cruel and unrelenting vengeance, carrying
+off their people into bondage, each time inflicting great damage upon
+the city and leaving her less capable of resistance; yet each time her
+rulers had turned to Egypt in the vain hope of finding in her a
+defence against the oppressor, but in every instance Egypt had proved
+a broken reed.</p>
+
+<p>Of the three successive kings of Judah whom Nebuchadnezzar had left to
+rule the city as his servants, and who had all in turn rebelled
+against him, one had been condemned to perpetual imprisonment in
+Babylon; a second had been carried there in chains and probably
+killed, while the third, captured in a vain attempt to escape after
+the taking of the city, had first been made to see his sons killed
+before his eyes, had then been cruelly blinded, and afterward carried
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page003" name="page003"></a>(p. 003)</span> in chains to Babylon, and cast into prison. The last siege
+of the city lasted eighteen months, and when it was finally taken by
+assault, its ruin was complete. By previous deportations Jerusalem had
+been deprived of her princes, her warriors, her craftsmen, and her
+smiths, with all the treasure laid up in the palace of her kings, and
+all the vessels of gold and silver consecrated to the worship of
+Jehovah. Little then was left for her to suffer, when the punishment
+of her latest rebellion came. Her walls were thrown down, her temple,
+her chief glory, was destroyed, the greater part of the inhabitants
+who had survived the prolonged siege were carried off to swell the
+crowd of exiles already in Babylon, and only a few of the humbler sort
+of folk, the vine-dressers and the small farmers, were left behind.</p>
+
+<p>When Nebuchadnezzar rested after his conquests, secure in the
+subjugation of his rivals, and in the possession of his vast kingdom,
+he gave himself up to the material improvement of Babylon and the
+surrounding country. The city as he left it, at the end of his reign
+of forty-three years, was built on both sides of the Euphrates, and
+covered a space of four hundred square miles, equal to five times the
+size of London. It was surrounded by a triple wall of brick; the
+innermost, over three hundred feet high, and eighty-five feet broad at
+the top, with room for four chariots to drive abreast. The walls were
+pierced by one hundred gate-ways framed in brass and with brazen
+gates, and at the points where the Euphrates entered and left the city
+the walls also turned and followed the course of the river, thus
+dividing the city into two fortified parts. These two districts were
+connected by a bridge of stone piers, guarded by portcullises, and
+ferries also plied between the quays that lined the river-banks, to
+which access was given by gates in the walls.</p>
+
+<p>Nebuchadnezzar's palace was a splendid structure covering a large
+space at one end of the bridge. In the central court were the Hanging
+Gardens, the chief glory of the city, and reckoned one of the wonders
+of the world. No clear idea can be formed of these gardens from any
+description that has come down to us, but it would appear that arches
+eighty feet high supported terraces of earth planted with all the
+skill for which the gardeners of the East were famous. We are told
+that they were built for the pleasure of Queen Amuhia, who, as a
+Median princess, missed her native mountains, but a more commonplace
+explanation is that they were carried so high to escape the mosquitoes
+that swarmed on the lower level.</p>
+
+<p>Various splendid edifices, chiefly religious, adorned the great
+squares of the city: the temple of the god Bel, enriched by the spoils
+of Tyre and Jerusalem, was the especial pride of Nebuchadnezzar. It
+rose in a succession of eight lofty stages, and supported on the top a
+golden statue of the god, forty feet high. Still another temple of Bel
+was built in seven stages, each faced with enamelled brick of one of
+the planetary colors; the topmost one of blue, the color dedicated to
+Mercury or Nebo, the patron god of Nabopolassar.</p>
+
+<p>But the most important of the civic undertakings of Nebuchadnezzar was
+the extension of the great system of canalization by which the barren
+wastes of <span class="pagenum"><a id="page004" name="page004"></a>(p. 004)</span> the Babylonian plain were made to rival the valley
+of the Nile in fertility, and become the granary of the East. The
+whole territory was covered with a network of canals fed by the Tigris
+and Euphrates, and used for both irrigation and navigation. One branch
+had already connected Nineveh with Babylon, and another constructed by
+Nebuchadnezzar united Babylon to the Persian Gulf, running a distance
+of four hundred miles. This is still to be traced in a portion of its
+length.</p>
+
+<p>The fate of Nebuchadnezzar is one of the most tragic in the long list
+of calamities that have overtaken the great and powerful of the earth.
+According to Daniel, it was just after the king had spoken those words
+of exulting pride as he walked in the palace of the Kingdom of
+Babylon: "Is not this great Babylon that I have built," when he was
+attacked by that dreadful form of madness, called by the Greeks,
+lycanthropy (wolf-man), in which the victim fancies himself a beast:
+in its fiercer manifestations a beast of the forest, or in milder
+visitations a beast of the field. Nebuchadnezzar's madness became so
+violent that for four years he was exiled from his throne and from the
+company of men, and wandered in the fields, eating grass like oxen,
+"and his body was wet with the dews of heaven, and his hairs were
+grown like eagles' feathers, and his nails like birds' claws."
+Although no mention is made of this strange malady in any writing but
+the book of Daniel, yet it has a pathetic confirmation in one of the
+rock-cut inscriptions that record the acts of Nebuchadnezzar's reign.
+"For four years the seat of my kingdom did not rejoice my heart. In
+all my dominions I built no high place of power, nor did I lay up the
+precious treasure of my kingdom. In Babylon I erected no buildings for
+myself nor for the glory of my empire. In the worship of Bel-Merodach,
+my Lord, the joy of my heart, in Babylon the city of his worship and
+the seat of my empire, I did not sing his praise, nor did I furnish
+his altar with victims"&mdash;and then, as if returning to the thing that
+lay nearest him&mdash;"In four years I did not dig out the canals."</p>
+
+<a id="img004" name="img004"></a>
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/img004.jpg" width="400" height="652" alt="" title="">
+<p>"And he was driven from men, and did eat grass as
+oxen."</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>In time, the black cloud of the king's madness passed away and health
+and reason were restored to him. And if the words that Daniel puts
+into the king's mouth on his recovery are really his, we must
+recognize in this Eastern Despot a decided strain of religious
+sensibility, a trait that appears beside in his almost passionate
+expressions of affection for his god Merodach, and in his sympathy
+with Daniel and the youths who were his companions, in their own
+religious devotion. Although Daniel and the other youths whom the king
+had caused to be called out from the mass of the Jewish captives for
+his own particular service&mdash;boys distinguished from the rest by their
+personal beauty, their intelligence and aptitude&mdash;were too earnest in
+their religious convictions and too high-spirited to conform to the
+Babylonian religion or to conceal their sentiments under the cloak of
+policy, yet the king tolerated their adherence to their ritual and
+yielded only in part to the persistence of the Jew-baiters, who saw
+with angry eyes the promotion of the hated captives to places of power
+and authority over the heads of their captors. In spite of his enemies
+Daniel was allowed to exercise his own <span class="pagenum"><a id="page005" name="page005"></a>(p. 005)</span> religion in peace;
+and the persecutors of his companions, Shadrach, Meshach, and
+Abednego, were themselves destroyed in the furnace they had heated for
+their innocent victims, which the youths themselves were rescued from
+by the personal interposition of the king, who pretended to see&mdash;or in
+his religious exaltation did really see&mdash;the god himself standing
+guard over the victims in the midst of the flames.</p>
+
+<p>Of Nebuchadnezzar after the recovery of his reason we learn but
+little. The chronicle of Daniel passes abruptly from Nebuchadnezzar to
+Belshazzar, and the great king is not mentioned again. History, too,
+is silent. It tells us only that he left the throne to a son, whose
+name, Evil-Merodach, records the devotion of his father to the god of
+his people.<a href="#toc"><span class="small">[Back to Contents]</span></a></p>
+
+<a id="sig001" name="sig001"></a>
+<div class="p2 right">
+<img src="images/sig001.jpg" width="200" height="48" alt="Author signature." title="">
+</div>
+
+
+
+<h3>CYRUS THE GREAT<a id="footnotetag2" name="footnotetag2"></a><a href="#footnote2" title="Go to footnote 2"><span class="small">[2]</span></a><br>
+By <span class="smcap">Clarence Cook</span><br>
+(REIGNED 558-529 B.C.)</h3>
+
+<a id="img005" name="img005"></a>
+<div class="floatleft">
+<img src="images/img005.jpg" width="250" height="334" alt="Cyrus the Great." title="">
+</div>
+
+<p>The early life of Cyrus the Persian, like that of many another famous
+conqueror, is lost in a cloud of fable. According to Herodotus, to
+whom we owe the earliest account, Astyages the King of Media was
+warned in a dream that some danger threatened the kingdom from the
+offspring of his daughter Mandane, who as yet was unmarried. In order
+to remove the danger, whatever it might be, as far as possible from
+his throne, Astyages married his daughter to a Persian named Cambyses,
+who took her with him to his own country. But after his daughter's
+marriage Astyages had another dream, which was interpreted by the
+priests to mean that his daughter's child was destined to reign in his
+stead. Alarmed by this prophecy he sent for his daughter, and when in
+course of time she bore a son, he ordered his trusty lieutenant
+Harpagus to carry the child to his own house and kill it. Harpagus
+took the infant as he had been <span class="pagenum"><a id="page006" name="page006"></a>(p. 006)</span> ordered to do, but moved by
+the pleadings of his wife he determined to commit the rest of his
+bloody instructions to other hands. He therefore called one of his
+herdsmen, and ordered him to expose the child on the bleakest part of
+the mountain and leave it to perish, threatening him with the most
+terrible penalties in case of disobedience. But the herdsman and his
+wife were no more proof against pity than Harpagus and his wife had
+been, and while they stood swayed between their wish to save the child
+and their fear of disobeying Harpagus, fortune happily provided an
+escape for them. The wife of the herdsman brought forth a dead child,
+and this they determined to substitute for the living infant, and to
+bring up the grandson of Astyages as their own. The exchange was
+accomplished, and after some days the servants of Harpagus, sent to
+inquire if their master's commands had been obeyed, were shown by the
+herdsman the body of a dead child exposed on the rocks and still
+wearing the rich clothes and ornaments in which it had been brought to
+his house. Harpagus was thus enabled to assure Astyages that he was
+safe from the threatened danger, and might enjoy his throne in peace.</p>
+
+<p>When the child of Mandane was ten years old an accident brought him to
+the knowledge of the king, and restored him to his birthright. One day
+he was playing with the children of his neighbors, and in a certain
+game where it was necessary to make one of the players king, Cyrus was
+chosen, and all the others, as his subjects, promised to obey his
+commands. But one of the boys, the son of a rich noble of the court of
+Astyages, refused to do as he was bid by Cyrus, and according to the
+rule of the game, he had to submit to a beating at the hand of the
+boy-king. Angry at this treatment, he complained to his father, who,
+indignant in his turn, went to Astyages, and reproached him with the
+blows his son had received at the hands of the son of one of the
+king's slaves. Cyrus was brought before the king; but when he was
+asked how he had dared to treat the son of a nobleman in such a way,
+the boy, nothing daunted, answered that he had done only what was
+right: the rules of the game were known to all who had joined in it:
+the other boys had submitted to the penalties: the son of the nobleman
+alone had refused, and he had been punished as he deserved. "If any
+wrong has been done by me," he said, "I am ready to suffer for it."
+Struck by the boldness of the lad, and by something in his looks,
+Astyages dismissed him for a time, and promised the nobleman that he
+should be satisfied for the insults offered to his son. He then sent
+for the herdsman Mitridates and wrung from him a confession of what he
+had done; and learning how Harpagus had deceived him he acquitted
+Mitridates, and turned all his vengeance upon Harpagus as the chief
+offender. How cruelly he punished him must not be told here, for pity,
+but it was such a barbarous revenge as could never be forgiven; and
+though Harpagus pretended to make light of it, yet it was only that by
+keeping fair with the king he might bide his time, and repay cruelty
+with cruelty.</p>
+
+<p>But now, as Cyrus in our story has grown to man's estate, and is ready
+to show the world of what stuff he is made, it will be well to explain
+in a few <span class="pagenum"><a id="page007" name="page007"></a>(p. 007)</span> words, what was the state of things in that part of
+the world where he was to play his part.</p>
+
+<p>The mighty Kingdom of Assyria in its greatest estate had stretched
+from the Indus on the east, to the Mediterranean on the west. But when
+Nineveh, the capital and chief city of the empire, had been destroyed
+by the Medes&mdash;a subject people living on the north-eastern borders of
+the kingdom, but who had risen in rebellion against their
+rulers&mdash;Assyria was broken in pieces, and several minor kingdoms rose
+on her ruins.</p>
+
+<p>Of these the chief were Media and Babylonia in the east, and Lydia in
+the west. Babylonia rose to a great height of power and splendor under
+Nebuchadnezzar, as we have seen in our sketch of that king's life. The
+Medes, a brave and warlike people, never attained to so high a degree
+of civilization as the Babylonians, nor did they ever have a monarch
+whose fame equalled that of Sardanapalus, the King of Assyria; of
+Nebuchadnezzar; or of Cr&oelig;sus, King of Lydia; but under a succession
+of astute and hardy warriors, who held the throne for something over
+one hundred and fifty years, their dominion was gradually extended
+until it stretched from the Indus to the centre of Asia Minor. Their
+greatest achievement had been the destruction of Nineveh in <span class="smcap">B.C.</span> 606.</p>
+
+<p>Lydia, the remaining province, touched the Median kingdom on the east,
+and on the west was only separated, in the beginning, from the
+Mediterranean by the narrow strip of territory occupied by the Greek
+colonies, which for a time acted as a bar to the encroachments of the
+Lydian monarchs and their conquerors.</p>
+
+<p>When Cyrus came to manhood, these kingdoms, the successors of the
+Assyrian monarchy, were all flourishing in wealth and power. Media was
+ruled by Astyages, his grandfather&mdash;to accept the legendary history as
+it has come down to us; Babylonia the greatest of the three was
+governed by Nebuchadnezzar, while Lydia was ruled by Cr&oelig;sus, a
+monarch wise above his peers, whose name has long been a synonym for
+unbounded wealth, and whose story, though not beyond the bounds of
+credibility, reads more like a fable of romance than a tale of sober
+fact.</p>
+
+<p>Cr&oelig;sus was the brother-in-law of Astyages, and in close alliance
+not only with the Medes, but with the Babylonians, the Egyptians, and
+the Greeks; and he was at the height of his power and was looking
+forward to still greater increase of his dominions, when in an evil
+hour he struck against the growing greatness of Cyrus, and was crushed
+in the encounter. Had he been less arrogant, the doom he wrought for
+himself might have been delayed, but it could not have been wholly
+averted. Nothing could have long withstood the greed of Cyrus for
+universal dominion.</p>
+
+<p>We have seen what good cause Harpagus had to hate Astyages. But he
+nursed his revenge with crafty wisdom, and knowing himself powerless
+to act openly and alone, he tried what stratagem might do to bring
+about his aim, which was no less than the overthrow of Astyages by
+means of the tyrant's grandson, Cyrus. He did not take open measures
+until he knew he had allies <span class="pagenum"><a id="page008" name="page008"></a>(p. 008)</span> enough at his back, and could
+strike with a sure aim. He worked with the great Median chiefs in
+private, stirring them up against Astyages by appeals of all sorts: to
+their ambition, their greed, their discontent, their private wrongs;
+and when he had secured the consent of enough nobles to his plans, he
+called upon Cyrus, as one who had chiefly suffered from the tyranny
+and cruelty of the king, to lead the proposed revolt in person. He
+knew that Cyrus had been gradually strengthening his own kingdom of
+Persia in preparation for the ambitious schemes of conquest he was
+nursing, but there was danger in correspondence with one who stood to
+Astyages in the double relation of a feared and hated grandson, and
+the chief of a rival people; and if we may believe Herodotus, Harpagus
+had recourse to a strange expedient to communicate his design to
+Cyrus. Disembowelling a dead hare, he inserted a letter in the cavity,
+and sent the animal to Cyrus as a present. When the letter came to the
+hands of Cyrus he eagerly accepted the offers it contained of
+leadership in the proposed revolt, and joined his forces with those of
+the disaffected Medes. Astyages was overthrown and his kingdom taken
+possession of by Cyrus. Herodotus draws a striking picture of the
+exultation of Harpagus over the success of his revengeful projects,
+and of the disdain with which Astyages reproached him for having
+called on another to do what, trusted and confided in as he was by his
+monarch, he might have accomplished for himself, and reaped the
+harvest which he had surrendered to another. Cyrus had the wisdom to
+spare the life of Astyages, and to attach him to his person as
+councillor and friend. Harpagus he made his lieutenant, and much of
+his success was owing to this man's wisdom and bravery. After the
+defeat of Astyages, Cyrus advanced against the lesser tribes that had
+owed allegiance to the Median king, and having reduced them one by one
+to submission, the power of the once mighty empire of the Medians
+passed to the inheritance of the Persians in the year 559 <span class="smcap">B.C.</span></p>
+
+<p>When Cr&oelig;sus heard of the overthrow of his brother-in-law by the
+hands of Cyrus, and of the setting up a great new monarchy on the
+ruins of the fallen kingdom, his own ambitious projects were blown
+into fresh activity by the desire for private revenge. Misled by his
+own interpretation of the oracle he consulted as to the likelihood of
+success in an expedition against the Persians, he advanced to
+withstand the conquering march of Cyrus; and his first success was
+against the Syrians of Cappadocia, a people subject to Cyrus, as
+having formed a part of the Median Kingdom. Cyrus, with a powerful
+army, came at once to the assistance of his new subjects, and meeting
+the forces of Cr&oelig;sus on the plain of Cappadocia, a fiercely fought,
+but indecisive battle took place, which resulted in the retreat of
+Cr&oelig;sus to his capital, Sardis, to seek the assistance of his allies
+and prepare to meet Cyrus with a larger force. In overweening
+confidence in his own success, he dismissed his mercenary troops, and
+sent messengers to Babylon, to Egypt, and to Sparta, calling on them
+to come with troops to his assistance within five months. No sooner
+had he shut himself up in Sardis, and dismissed his mercenaries,
+depending upon his own forces until assistance should come from his
+allies, than Cyrus advanced against him so swiftly that there was no
+escape <span class="pagenum"><a id="page009" name="page009"></a>(p. 009)</span> from a battle. Cr&oelig;sus, believing in his fortune,
+and trusting to the excellence of his cavalry, boldly took the field;
+but Cyrus, using stratagem where perhaps courage would not have
+availed, put his camels in front of his line, and massed his own
+horsemen behind them. The horses of Cr&oelig;sus, maddened by the
+unaccustomed smell of the camels, refused to advance; but the Lydians,
+dismounting, fought so bravely on foot with their spears, that it was
+not until after a long and fierce combat that they were forced to
+retreat and seek safety within the walls of Sardis. The army of Cyrus
+invested the city, but it was so strongly fortified on all sides but
+one as to be impregnable by assault and the side left unprotected by
+art was supposed to be amply protected by nature, since it abutted on
+the very edge of a steep precipice. But, after the siege had lasted
+fourteen days, a Persian sentinel saw one of the garrison descend the
+precipice to recover his helmet that had rolled down; and no sooner
+had he thus unwittingly showed the way, than the sentinel followed
+with a number of his fellow-soldiers and, reaching the top of the
+cliff in safety, attacked the guards, all unsuspicious, and gained an
+entrance to the city. The gates were opened to the Persians, and
+Cr&oelig;sus with all his vast store of treasure became the prey of the
+conqueror. The fall of Sardis and the Lydian monarchy was followed by
+the subjection of the Greek cities of Asia Minor, a task which Cyrus
+left to the hands of Harpagus, while he himself turned eastward to
+pursue his conquests in Upper Asia and in Assyria. His greatest
+achievement in this quarter was the taking of Babylon. This he
+accomplished in the reign of Belshazzar, one of the successors of
+Nebuchadnezzar, perhaps his son, by turning the Euphrates, which ran
+through the middle of the city, out of its course; and when its bed
+was dry he entered the city by this road and captured it with little
+resistance.</p>
+
+<p>Cyrus was now the sole master of the vast Assyrian Kingdom, once more
+in his hands brought back to something like the unity it had before
+the great Median revolt. But he was not content, nor was it perhaps
+possible for him to rest in the enjoyment of power and possessions
+extorted by force, and dependent on force to hold. The new empire,
+like the old one, was destined to break in pieces by its own weight.
+Cyrus was kept in constant activity by the necessity of resisting the
+inroads on his empire of the tribes in the north and farther east; and
+it was in endeavoring to repel invasion and to maintain order in the
+regions he had already conquered, that he met his death. After a reign
+of thirty years he was slain, in 529 <span class="smcap">B.C.</span>, in battle with the
+Massagetæ, a tribe of Central Asia. He left his kingdom to his son
+Cambyses.<a href="#toc"><span class="small">[Back to Contents]</span></a></p>
+
+<div class="p2 right">
+<img src="images/sig001.jpg" width="200" height="48" alt="Author signature." title="">
+</div>
+
+
+
+<h3><span class="pagenum"><a id="page010" name="page010"></a>(p. 010)</span> ALEXANDER THE GREAT<br>
+(356-323 <span class="smcap">B.C.</span>)</h3>
+
+<a id="img006" name="img006"></a>
+<div class="floatleft">
+<img src="images/img006.jpg" width="250" height="278" alt="Alexander." title="">
+</div>
+
+<p>Alexander the Great, son of Philip of Macedon and Olympias, daughter
+of Neoptolemus of Epirus, was born at Pella, 356 <span class="smcap">B.C.</span> His mind was
+formed chiefly by Aristotle, who instructed him in every branch of
+human learning, especially in the art of government. Alexander was
+sixteen years of age when his father marched against Byzantium, and
+left the government in his hands during his absence. Two years
+afterward, he displayed singular courage at the battle of Chæronea
+(338 <span class="smcap">B.C.</span>), where he overthrew the Sacred Band of the Thebans. "My
+son," said Philip, as he embraced him after the conflict, "seek for
+thyself another kingdom, for that which I leave is too small for
+thee." The father and son quarrelled, however, when the former
+divorced Olympias. Alexander took part with his mother, and fled to
+Epirus, to escape his father's vengeance; but receiving his pardon
+soon afterward, he returned, and accompanied him in an expedition
+against the Triballi, when he saved his life on the field. Philip,
+being appointed generalissimo of the Greeks, was preparing for a war
+with Persia, when he was assassinated (336 <span class="smcap">B.C.</span>), and Alexander, not
+yet twenty years of age, ascended the throne.</p>
+
+<p>After punishing his father's murderers, he marched on Corinth, and in
+a general assembly of the Greeks he caused himself to be appointed to
+the command of the forces against Persia. On his return to Macedon, he
+found the Illyrians and Triballi up in arms, whereupon he forced his
+way through Thrace, and was everywhere victorious. But now the Thebans
+had been induced, by a report of his death, to take up arms, and the
+Athenians, stimulated by the eloquence of Demosthenes, were preparing
+to join them. To prevent this coalition, Alexander rapidly marched
+against Thebes, which, refusing to surrender, was conquered and razed
+to the ground. Six thousand of the inhabitants were slain, and 30,000
+sold into slavery; the house and descendants of the poet Pindar alone
+being spared. This severity struck terror into all Greece. The
+Athenians were treated with more leniency.</p>
+
+<p>Alexander, having appointed Antipater his deputy in Europe, now
+prepared <span class="pagenum"><a id="page011" name="page011"></a>(p. 011)</span> to prosecute the war with Persia. He crossed the
+Hellespont in the spring of 334 <span class="smcap">B.C.</span> with 30,000 foot and 5,000 horse,
+attacked the Persian satraps at the River Granicus, and gained a
+complete victory, overthrowing the son-in-law of their king Darius
+with his own lance. As a result of the battle, most of the cities of
+Asia Minor at once opened their gates to the conqueror.</p>
+
+<p>Alexander restored democracy in all the Greek cities; and as he passed
+through Gordium, cut the Gordian-knot, which none should loose but the
+ruler of Asia. During a dangerous illness at Tarsus, brought on by
+bathing in the Cydnus, he received a letter insinuating that Philip,
+his physician, had been bribed by Darius to poison him. Alexander
+handed the letter to Philip, and at the same time swallowed the
+draught which the latter had prepared. As soon as he recovered, he
+advanced toward the defiles of Cilicia, in which Darius had stationed
+himself with an army of 600,000 men.</p>
+
+<p>He arrived in November, 333 <span class="smcap">B.C.</span>, in the neighborhood of Issus, where,
+on the narrow plain between the mountains and the sea, the unwieldy
+masses of the Persians were thrown into confusion by the charge of the
+Macedonians, and fled in terror. On the left wing, 30,000 Greek
+mercenaries held out longer, but they, too, were at length compelled
+to yield. All the treasures as well as the family of Darius fell into
+the hands of the conqueror, who treated them with the greatest
+magnanimity. Overtures for peace, made by Darius on the basis of
+surrendering to Alexander all Asia west of the Euphrates, were
+rejected.</p>
+
+<p>Alexander now turned toward Syria and Ph&oelig;nicia. He occupied
+Damascus, where he found princely treasures, and secured to himself
+all the cities along the shores of the Mediterranean. Tyre, confident
+in its strong position, resisted him, but was conquered and destroyed,
+after seven months of incredible exertion (332 <span class="smcap">B.C.</span>) Thence he marched
+victoriously through Palestine, where all the cities submitted to him
+except Gaza; it shared the same fate as Tyre. Egypt, weary of the
+Persian yoke, welcomed him as a deliverer; and in order to strengthen
+his dominion here, he restored all the old customs and religious
+institutions of the country, and founded Alexandria in the beginning
+of 331 <span class="smcap">B.C.</span> Thence he marched through the Libyan Desert, in order to
+consult the oracle of Ammon, whose priest saluted him as a son of
+Zeus; and he returned with the conviction that he was indeed a god.</p>
+
+<p>He then again set out to meet Darius; in October, 331 <span class="smcap">B.C.</span>, a great
+battle was fought on the plain stretching eastward to Arbela.
+Notwithstanding the immense superiority of his adversary, who had
+collected a new army of more than a million men, Alexander was not for
+a moment doubtful of victory. Heading the cavalry himself, he rushed
+on the Persians, and put them to flight; then hastened to the
+assistance of his left wing, which, in the meanwhile, had been sorely
+pressed. He was anxious to make Darius a prisoner, but Darius escaped
+on horseback, leaving his baggage and all his treasures a prey to the
+conqueror. Babylon and Susa, the treasure-houses of the East, opened
+their gates to Alexander, who next marched toward Persepolis, the
+capital of Persia, which he entered in triumph.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page012" name="page012"></a>(p. 012)</span> The marvellous successes of Alexander now began to dazzle his
+judgment and to inflame his passions. He became a slave to debauchery,
+and his caprices were as cruel as they were ungrateful. In a fit of
+drunkenness, and at the instigation of Thaïs, an Athenian courtesan,
+he set fire to Persepolis, the wonder of the world, and reduced it to
+a heap of ashes; then, ashamed of the deed, he set out with his
+cavalry in pursuit of Darius. Learning that Bessus, the Bactrian
+satrap, held him a prisoner, he hastened his march, in the hope of
+saving him, but he found him mortally wounded (330 <span class="smcap">B.C.</span>). He mourned
+over his fallen enemy, and caused him to be buried with all the
+customary honors, while he hunted down Bessus, who himself aspired to
+the throne, chasing him over the Oxus to Sogdiana (Bokhara).</p>
+
+<p>Having discovered a conspiracy in which the son of Parmenio was
+implicated, he put both father and son to death, though Parmenio
+himself was innocent of any knowledge of the affair. This cruel
+injustice excited universal displeasure. In 329 he penetrated to the
+farthest known limits of Northern Asia, and overthrew the Scythians on
+the banks of the Jaxartes. In the following year he subdued the whole
+of Sogdiana, and married Roxana, whom he had taken prisoner. She was
+the daughter of Oxyartes, one of the enemy's captains, and was said to
+be the fairest of all the virgins of Asia. The murder of his
+foster-brother, Clitus, in a drunken brawl, was followed, in 327 <span class="smcap">B.C.</span>,
+by the discovery of a fresh conspiracy, in which Callisthenes, a
+nephew of Aristotle, was falsely implicated. For challenging
+Alexander's divinity, he was cruelly tortured and hanged.</p>
+
+<p>In 327 <span class="smcap">B.C.</span>, proceeding to the conquest of India, hitherto known only
+by name, Alexander crossed the Indus near to the modern Attock, and
+pursued his way under the guidance of a native prince to the Hydaspes
+(Jhelum). He there was opposed by Porus, another native prince, whom
+he overthrew after a bloody contest, and there he lost his charger
+Bucephalus; thence he marched as lord of the country, through the
+Punjab, establishing Greek colonies. He then wished to advance to the
+Ganges, but the general murmuring of his troops obliged him, at the
+Hyphasis (modern Sutlej), to commence his retreat. On regaining the
+Hydaspes, he built a fleet, and sent one division of his army in it
+down the river, while the other followed along the banks, fighting its
+way through successive Indian armies. At length, having reached the
+ocean, he ordered Nearchus, the commander of the fleet, to sail thence
+to the Persian Gulf, while he himself struck inland with one division
+of his army, in order to return home through Gedrosia (Beluchistan).
+During this march his forces suffered fearfully from want of food and
+water. Of all the troops which had set out with Alexander, little more
+than a fourth part arrived with him in Persia (325 <span class="smcap">B.C.</span>).</p>
+
+<a id="img007" name="img007"></a>
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/img007.jpg" width="600" height="431" alt="" title="">
+<p>Alexander discovering the Body of Darius.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>At Susa he married Stateira, the daughter of Darius, and he bestowed
+presents on those Macedonians (some ten thousand in number) who had
+married Persian women, his design being to unite the two nations. He
+also distributed liberal rewards among his soldiers. Soon afterward he
+was deprived, by death, of his favorite Hephestion. His grief was
+unbounded, and he interred the dead man with kingly honors. As he was
+returning from Ecbatana to Babylon, it is <span class="pagenum"><a id="page013" name="page013"></a>(p. 013)</span> said that the
+Magi foretold that the latter city would prove fatal to him; but he
+despised their warnings. On the way, he was met by ambassadors from
+all parts of the world&mdash;Libya, Italy, Carthage, Greece, the Scythians,
+Celts, and Iberians.</p>
+
+<p>At Babylon he was busy with gigantic plans for the future, both of
+conquest and civilization, when he was suddenly taken ill after a
+banquet, and died eleven days later, 323 <span class="smcap">B.C.</span>, in the thirty-second
+year of his age, and the thirteenth of his reign. His body was
+deposited in a golden coffin at Alexandria, by Ptolemæus, and divine
+honors were paid to him, not only in Egypt, but in other countries. He
+had appointed no heir to his immense dominions; but to the question of
+his friends, "Who should inherit them?" he replied, "The most worthy."
+After many disturbances, his generals recognized as Kings the
+weak-minded Aridæus&mdash;a son of Philip by Philinna, the dancer&mdash;and
+Alexander's posthumous son by Roxana, Alexander Ægus, while they
+shared the provinces among themselves, assuming the title of satraps.
+Perdiccas, to whom Alexander had, on his death-bed, delivered his
+ring, became guardian of the kings during their minority. The empire
+of Alexander soon broke up, and his dominions were divided among his
+generals.</p>
+
+<p>Alexander was more than a conqueror. He diffused the language and
+civilization of Greece wherever victory led him, and planted Greek
+kingdoms in Asia, which continued to exist for some centuries. At the
+very time of his death, he was engaged in devising plans for the
+drainage of the unhealthy marshes around Babylon, and a better
+irrigation of the extensive plains. It is even supposed that the fever
+which he caught there, rather than his famous drinking-bout, was the
+real cause of his death. To Alexander, the ancient world owed a vast
+increase of its knowledge in geography, natural history, etc. He
+taught Europeans the road to India, and gave them the first glimpses
+of that magnificence and splendor which has dazzled and captivated
+their imagination for more than two thousand years. See Freeman's
+"Historical Essays" (2d series, 1873), and Mahaffy's "Alexander's
+Empire" (1887).</p>
+
+<p>The wonderful element in the campaigns of Alexander, and his tragical
+death at the height of his power, threw a rare romantic interest
+around his figure. It is ever the fate of a great name to be enshrined
+in fable, and Alexander soon became the hero of romantic story,
+scarcely more wonderful than the actual, but growing from age to age
+with the mythop&oelig;ic spirit which can work as freely in fact as
+fiction. The earliest form of the story which we know is the great
+romance connected with the name of Callisthenes, which, under the
+influence of the living popular tradition, arose in Egypt about 200
+<span class="smcap">A.D.</span>, and was carried through Latin translations to the West, through
+Armenian and Syriac versions to the East. It became widely popular
+during the middle ages, and was worked into poetic form by many
+writers in French and German. Alberich of Besançon wrote in Middle
+High German an epic on the subject in the first half of the twelfth
+century, which was the basis of the German "Pfaffe" Lamprecht's
+"Alexanderbuch," also of the twelfth century. The French poets Lambert
+li Court and Alexandre de Bernay composed, between 1180 and 1190, a
+romance <span class="pagenum"><a id="page014" name="page014"></a>(p. 014)</span> of Alexander, the twelve-syllable metre of which
+gave rise to the name <span class="italic">Alexandrines</span>. The German poem of Rudolf of Ems
+was based on the Latin epic of Walter of Châtillon, about 1200, which
+became henceforward the prevailing form of the story. In contrast with
+it is the thirteenth century Old English epic of Alexander (in vol. i.
+of Weber's "Metrical Romances," 1810), based on the Callisthenes
+version. The story appears also in the East, worked up in conjunction
+with myths of other nationalities, especially the Persian. It appears
+in Firdusi, and among later writers, in Nizami. From the Persians both
+the substance of the story and its form in poetical treatment have
+extended to Turks and other Mohammedans, who have interpreted
+Alexander as the <span class="italic">Dsulkarnein</span> ('two horned') of the Koran, and to the
+Hindus, which last had preserved no independent traditions of
+Alexander.<a href="#toc"><span class="small">[Back to Contents]</span></a></p>
+
+
+<h3>HANNIBAL<br>
+By <span class="smcap">Walter Whyte</span><br>
+(247-183 <span class="smcap">B.C.</span>)</h3>
+
+<a id="img008" name="img008"></a>
+<div class="floatleft">
+<img src="images/img008.jpg" width="250" height="248" alt="Hannibal." title="">
+</div>
+
+<p>Hannibal (the grace of Baal, the Hanniel of Scripture) was the son of
+the great Carthaginian general Hamilcar Barca, and was born in 247
+<span class="smcap">B.C.</span> It is said that in his ninth year his father led him to an altar
+and bade him swear eternal enmity to Rome. From the age of nine to
+eighteen he was trained in war and diplomacy under Hamilcar in Spain;
+and from his eighteenth to his twenty-fifth year he was the chief
+agent in carrying out the plans by which his brother-in-law,
+Hasdrubal, extended and consolidated the Carthaginian dominion in the
+Peninsula. On the death of Hasdrubal, in 221 <span class="smcap">B.C.</span>, the soldiers with
+one voice chose Hannibal, then in his twenty-sixth year, as their
+general. Forthwith he crossed the Tagus, and in two years reduced all
+Spain up to the Ebro, with the exception of the Greek colony of
+Saguntum. That town, which claimed the protection of Rome, fell in 218
+<span class="smcap">B.C.</span>, and the Second Punic War, or, as the Romans justly called it,
+"the War of Hannibal," began. Garrisoning Libya with Spaniards, and
+Spain with Libyans (a precaution against treachery), Hannibal
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page015" name="page015"></a>(p. 015)</span> set out on his march for Rome. In the summer of 218 <span class="smcap">B.C.</span>
+he left New Carthage with 90,000 foot, 12,000 horse, and 37 elephants,
+crossed the Pyrenees, and gained the Rhone, where his passage was
+barred by a host of Gauls. The general thereupon sent part of his
+troops two days' journey up-stream, with orders to cross the Rhone and
+fall on the rear of the barbarians. His orders were executed by Hanno,
+and the passage of the river was safely effected. He crossed the Alps
+in fifteen days, in the face of obstacles which would have proved
+insuperable to almost any other commander. His troops, reared under
+African and Spanish suns, perished in thousands amid ice and snow. The
+native tribes threatened the annihilation of his force, and were only
+dispersed by his matchless courage and address. The beasts of burden
+fell over precipices, or stuck fast and were frozen to death. In
+places, rocks had to be shattered and roads constructed to enable the
+men to creep round projecting crags. When he gained the valley of
+Aosta, Hannibal had but 20,000 foot and 6,000 horse to attempt the
+conquest of a power which had lately shown that she could put an army
+of 170,000 unrivalled soldiers into the field.</p>
+
+<a id="img009" name="img009"></a>
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/img009.jpg" width="600" height="390" alt="" title="">
+<p>Hannibal crossing the Rhone.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>After allowing his men to recruit in the villages of the friendly
+Insubres, he overcame the Taurini, besieging and taking Turin, and
+forced the Ligurian and Celtic tribes on the Upper Po to serve in his
+army. At the Ticinus, a stream which enters the Po near Pavia, he
+encountered the Romans under Scipio, the father of Scipio Africanus.
+The cavalry of both armies joined battle, Hannibal's Numidian horse
+proved their superiority, and Scipio fell back beyond the Po. The
+Carthaginians crossed the river, and the first great battle of the
+campaign was fought in the plain of the Trebia. Placing Mago in ambush
+with 2,000 men, Hannibal enticed the Romans across the stream. His
+light troops retired before the legionaries, and as Scipio was
+pressing on to fancied victory he was taken in flank by the terrible
+Numidian horse, Mago came down in the rear, and the 40,000 men of the
+consular army were either cut to pieces or scattered in flight.
+Wintering in the valley of the Po, in the early spring Hannibal
+crossed the Apennines and pushed through a region of lakes, flooded by
+the melting of the snow, to Fæsulæ. The beasts of burden perished in
+vast numbers amid the morasses; the Gauls, disheartened by the perils
+of the journey, had to be driven forward by Mago's horsemen, and the
+general lost an eye. Quitting Fæsulæ, Hannibal wasted Etruria with
+fire and sword, and marched toward Rome, leaving behind him two
+consular armies of 60,000 men. He awaited the consul Flaminius by the
+Lake Trasimene, where the hills, retiring in a semicircle from the
+shore, inclose a plain entered by two narrow passes. Concealing the
+main body of his army amid the hills, he placed his Numidians in
+ambush at the pass by which the Romans must enter; while he stationed
+part of his infantry in a conspicuous position near the other defile.
+The Romans pushed into the valley; the pass in their rear was secured
+by the Carthaginians who had lain in ambush; Hannibal's men charged
+from the heights, and the army of Flaminius was annihilated. Six
+thousand infantry cut their way through the farther pass, but these
+were overtaken by the horse under Maherbal and forced to yield on the
+following day.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page016" name="page016"></a>(p. 016)</span> After recruiting his men in the champaign country of Picenum,
+where the Numidian horses, we are told, were groomed with old Italian
+wine, Hannibal marched through Apulia and ravaged Campania, dogged by
+the dictator Quintus Fabius Maximus, whom he vainly endeavored to
+entice into an engagement. He wintered at Gerontium, and in the spring
+took up a position at Cannæ, on the Aufidus. A Roman army of 80,000
+men, under the consuls L. Æmilius Paulus and P. Terentius Varro,
+marched against him. Hannibal flung his troops (he had but 30,000)
+into a space inclosed on the rear and wings by a loop of the river. He
+placed his Spanish infantry in the centre, with the African foot on
+either flank. His Numidian horse, now reduced to 2,000 men, he posted
+on the right wing; while Hasdrubal, with 8,000 heavy cavalry, was
+opposed to the Roman cavalry on the left. The legionaries pressed into
+the loop, and Hannibal drew back his centre before them. Hasdrubal, on
+the left, broke the Roman cavalry, swept round to the left wing of the
+Romans, drove the second detachment of Roman horse into flight, and
+then came thundering in the rear of the legionaries. The Libyans, who
+had by the general's orders fallen back as the Romans pressed after
+the retiring Spanish infantry, now closed on the enemy's flanks.
+Packed together so closely that they could not use their weapons,
+assailed in front, flank, and rear, the legionaries were hewn down
+through eight hours of carnage, till 50,000 lay dead on the field. The
+battle became a butchery. Nearly 20,000 men were taken prisoners. The
+consul Paulus, the proconsul Servilius, the master of the horse
+Minucius, 21 military tribunes, and 60 senators lay amid the slain. On
+his side Hannibal lost but 5,700 men. "Send me on with the horse,
+general," said Maherbal, "and in five days thou shalt sup in the
+Capitol."</p>
+
+<p>But the general was wiser than the fiery captain of the horse. It has
+been common to censure Hannibal for neglecting to march on Rome after
+the battle of Cannæ. But his dazzling triumph did not for a moment
+unsettle his clear judgment. He knew that his forces were unequal to
+the task of storming a walled city garrisoned by a population of
+fighting men. An attack which he had made on Spoletium had proved the
+inadequacy of the small Carthaginian army to carry a strongly
+fortified town. Had he followed the advice of Maherbal, he would in
+all likelihood have dashed his army to pieces against the walls of
+Rome. His aim was to destroy the common oppressor by raising the
+Italian allies against her; and the hope was partly justified by the
+revolt of Lucania and Bruttium, Samnium and Apulia. The soundness of
+judgment, the patience and self-control which he evinced in this hour
+of intoxicating success, are hardly less marvellous than the genius by
+which the success had been won. After the battle of Cannæ the
+character of the war changes. Hitherto Hannibal had swept everything
+before him. Rivers and mountains and morasses had been powerless to
+thwart his progress. Army after army, vastly superior in numbers and
+composed of the best fighting men the ancient world ever saw, had come
+against him to be broken, scattered, and destroyed. His career through
+Italy had been, in the words of Horace, as the rush of the flames
+through a forest of pines. But after Cannæ <span class="pagenum"><a id="page017" name="page017"></a>(p. 017)</span> the tide turned.
+His niggardly, short-sighted countrymen denied him the support without
+which success was impossible. As his veterans were lost to him he had
+no means of filling their places, while the Romans could put army
+after army into the field. But through the long years during which he
+maintained a hopeless struggle in Italy he was never defeated. Nor did
+one of his veterans desert him; never was there a murmur of
+disaffection in his camp. It has been well said that his victories
+over his motley followers were hardly less wonderful than his
+victories over nature and over Rome.</p>
+
+<p>Hannibal spent the winter of 216-215 <span class="smcap">B.C.</span> at Capua, where his men are
+said to have been demoralized by luxurious living. When he again took
+the field the Romans wisely avoided a pitched battle, though the
+Carthaginians overran Italy, capturing Locri, Thurii, Metapontum,
+Tarentum, and other towns. In 211 <span class="smcap">B.C.</span> he marched on Rome, rode up to
+the Colline gate, and, it is said, flung his spear over the walls. But
+the fall of Capua smote the Italian allies with dismay, and ruined his
+hopes of recruiting his ever-diminishing forces from their ranks. In
+210 <span class="smcap">B.C.</span> he overcame the prætor Fulvius at Herdonea, and in the
+following year gained two battles in Apulia. Thereafter, he fell upon
+the consuls Crispinus and Marcellus, both of whom were slain and their
+forces routed, while he almost annihilated the Roman army which was
+besieging Locri. In 207 <span class="smcap">B.C.</span> his brother Hasdrubal marched from Spain
+to his aid, but was surprised, defeated, and slain at the Metaurus by
+the consul Nero. By the barbarous commands of Nero, Hasdrubal's head
+was flung into the camp of Hannibal, who had been till then in
+ignorance of his brother's doom. The battle of the Metaurus sealed the
+fate of "the lion's brood"&mdash;of the great house of Hamilcar. But for
+four years Hannibal stood at bay in the hill-country of Bruttium,
+defying with his thinned army every general who was sent against him,
+till in 202 <span class="smcap">B.C.</span>, after an absence of fifteen years, he was recalled
+to Africa to repel the Roman invasion. In the same year he met Scipio
+at Zama; his raw levies fled, and in part went over to the enemy; his
+veterans were cut to pieces where they stood, and Carthage was at the
+mercy of Rome. So ended the Second Punic War&mdash;the war, as Arnold so
+truly said, of a man with a nation, and the war which is perhaps the
+most wonderful in all history. Three hundred thousand Italians had
+fallen, and three hundred towns had been destroyed in the struggle.</p>
+
+<p>Peace being made, Hannibal turned his genius to political toils. He
+amended the constitution, cut down the power of the ignoble oligarchy,
+checked corruption, and placed the city's finances on a sounder
+footing. The enemies whom he made by his reforms denounced him to the
+Romans, and the Romans demanded that he should be surrendered into
+their hands. Setting out as a voluntary exile, Hannibal visited Tyre,
+the mother-city of Carthage, and then betook himself to the court of
+Antiochus, at Ephesus. He was well received by the king, who
+nevertheless rejected his advice to carry the war with Rome into
+Italy. On the conclusion of peace, to avoid being given up to the
+Romans, he repaired to Prusias, king of Bithynia, for whom he gained a
+naval victory over the king of Pergamus. The Romans again demanding
+that he should be surrendered, he baffled <span class="pagenum"><a id="page018" name="page018"></a>(p. 018)</span> his enemies by
+taking poison, which, we are told, he carried about with him in a
+ring, and died at Lybyssa about the year 183 <span class="smcap">B.C.</span></p>
+
+<p>In judging of the character and achievements of Hannibal, it must
+never be forgotten, that for all we know of him, we are indebted to
+his implacable enemies. No Carthaginian record of that astounding
+career has come down to us. The Romans did all that unscrupulous
+malignity can, to blacken the fame and belittle the deeds of the most
+terrible of their foes. Yet, though calumny has done its bitterest
+against him, Hannibal not only dazzles the imagination, but takes
+captive the heart. He stands out as the incarnation of magnanimity and
+patriotism and self-sacrificing heroism, no less than of incomparable
+military genius. Napoleon, the only general who could plausibly
+challenge the Carthaginian's supremacy, had throughout the greater
+part of his career an immense superiority to his adversaries in the
+quality of the forces which he wielded. He had the enthusiasm of the
+Revolution behind him, and he was unhampered by authorities at home.
+Hannibal, on the contrary, saw his plans thwarted and finally wrecked
+by the sordid merchant-nobles of the city he strove so hard to save.
+He had not, like Alexander, to lead picked troops against effeminate
+Asiatics. He had to mould his little army out of raw and barbarous
+levies. He had no reinforcements to fall back on. With a motley army
+of Libyans, Gauls, and Spaniards he had to encounter a nation in
+arms&mdash;a nation of the stoutest and most highly trained warriors of
+ancient times. There is not in all history so wonderful an example of
+what a single man of genius may achieve against the most tremendous
+odds, as the story of the Phoenician hero&mdash;the greatest captain that
+the world has seen.<a href="#toc"><span class="small">[Back to Contents]</span></a></p>
+
+
+<h3>SCIPIO AFRICANUS MAJOR<br>
+(235-183 <span class="smcap">B.C.</span>)</h3>
+
+<p>P. Cornelius Scipio, Africanus Major, was the son of that P. Cornelius
+Scipio who was defeated by Hannibal at the Ticinus. If it be true that
+at the age of seventeen Scipio fought in this battle, and rescued his
+wounded father, he must have been born in <span class="smcap">B.C.</span> 235. He was in the
+battle of Cannæ (<span class="smcap">B.C.</span> 216) as a tribune, and was among those who,
+after the defeat, escaped to Canusium. Here the chief command of the
+remaining troops was unanimously entrusted to him and another. On this
+occasion it was owing to his presence of mind that the remnants of the
+Roman army did not, in their despair, quit Italy.</p>
+
+<a id="img010" name="img010"></a>
+<div class="floatright">
+<img src="images/img010.jpg" width="250" height="249" alt="Scipio." title="">
+</div>
+
+<p>In <span class="smcap">B.C.</span> 212, Scipio was curule ædile, though he had not yet attained
+the legitimate age. The tribunes of the people endeavored to prevent
+his election, but they were obliged to give up their opposition, for
+the people, who seem to have perceived the extraordinary abilities of
+the young man, elected him almost <span class="pagenum"><a id="page019" name="page019"></a>(p. 019)</span> unanimously. In <span class="smcap">B.C.</span> 211
+his father and uncle fell in Spain, and the Carthaginians again took
+possession of the country, which they had almost entirely lost. When
+Capua had fallen again into their hands, and Italy no longer required
+their exclusive attention, the Romans determined to act with more
+energy against the Carthaginians in Spain. On the day of the election,
+no one ventured to come forward to undertake the command in this war.
+Young Scipio, then scarcely twenty-four years of age, at last offered
+to take the command of the army in Spain. The people were struck with
+admiration at the courage of the young man, and gave him command, with
+proconsular power, which was afterward prolonged to him for several
+years (<span class="smcap">B.C.</span> 210-206).</p>
+
+<p>The extraordinary power which young Scipio exercised over his
+contemporaries was perhaps partly owing to superstition, for he was
+believed to be a favorite of the gods. Ever since he had risen to
+manhood, he went every morning into the Capitol, where he spent some
+hours in solitude and meditation. Hence all he did was considered by
+the people to be the result of his intercourse with the gods. Scipio
+himself partook in this opinion, and cherished it; and the
+extraordinary success of all his enterprises must have strengthened
+his belief.</p>
+
+<p>Toward the end of the summer, in <span class="smcap">B.C.</span> 210, or, as Livy says, at the
+beginning of spring, Scipio set out for Spain with an army of 11,000
+men, landed at the mouth of the Iberus, and undertook the command of
+the whole Roman forces in Spain. He was accompanied by his friend,
+Lælius. His first object was to gain possession of New Carthage, where
+the Carthaginians kept their Spanish hostages. Lælius made the attack
+with the fleet from the seaside, while Scipio conducted the operations
+on land. The town soon fell into the hands of the Romans, and the
+generosity with which Scipio treated the Spanish hostages gained over
+a great number of Spaniards. The hostages of those tribes who declared
+themselves allies of the Romans were sent home without ransom. It is
+also related that a very beautiful maiden having fallen to his special
+lot in the division of the booty, Scipio finding her sad, inquired the
+cause, and learning that she was betrothed to a neighboring chief,
+sent for the lover, and personally restored the maid in all honor to
+his arms. A short time after the conquest of this place Scipio went to
+Tarraco, where he received embassies from various Spanish tribes, who
+offered to become the allies of the Romans or to recognize their
+supremacy.</p>
+
+<p>Scipio is said not to have set out against Hasdrubal until the year
+following, but it can scarcely be conceived why the Carthaginians
+should have been so long <span class="pagenum"><a id="page020" name="page020"></a>(p. 020)</span> inactive, and it is a probable
+supposition that the battle with Hasdrubal, which Livy and Polybius
+assign to the year <span class="smcap">B.C.</span> 209, was fought very soon after the taking of
+New Carthage. In this battle Scipio gained a great victory; 8,000
+Carthaginians were slain, and 22,000, with their camp, fell into the
+hands of the victor. Many of the Spaniards now wished to proclaim
+Scipio their king, but he refused the honor.</p>
+
+<p>Hasdrubal fled with the remainder of his army toward the Tagus and the
+Pyrenees. Scipio did not follow him, partly because he thought his
+enemy too much weakened to be dangerous, and partly because he feared
+lest he might expose himself to the combined attacks of the two other
+Carthaginian generals, Mago, and Hasdrubal, son of Gisco. Hasdrubal
+Barcas, the defeated general, however, had carried considerable wealth
+with him in his flight, and with these means he raised an army in
+Spain, to lead into Italy to the assistance of his brother Hannibal,
+hoping thus to bring the war to an end in Italy. During these
+preparations of Hasdrubal, Scipio was engaged against the two other
+Carthaginian generals, one of whom (Mago) was defeated, in <span class="smcap">B.C.</span> 208,
+by the proprætor Silanus, in the country of the Celtiberians, and
+Hanno, who came with an auxiliary army from Africa, was taken
+prisoner. After this success of the proprætor, Scipio united his
+forces with those of Silanus to attack Hasdrubal, son of Gisco. But as
+this general had retired to the south of Spain, and had distributed
+his army in the fortified places on the Bætis as far as Gades, Scipio
+(through his brother Lucius) only took the important town of Oringis,
+and then gradually returned across the Iberus. The power of the
+Carthaginians in Spain was, however, already broken, and in the year
+following (<span class="smcap">B.C.</span> 207) Scipio gained possession of nearly all Spain by a
+victory, the place of which is not clearly ascertained, some calling
+it Silpia or Bæcula, some Ilipa, and others Carmo.</p>
+
+<p>Scipio, now in the almost undisputed possession of Spain, began to
+turn his eyes to Africa, and, accompanied by his friend Lælius, he
+ventured to pay a visit to King Syphax, with whom Lælius had already
+commenced negotiations. Here Scipio is said to have met Hasdrubal, son
+of Gisco, and to have made a very favorable impression on Syphax as
+well as on Hasdrubal. After a short stay in Africa, Scipio returned to
+Spain, where he first punished several towns for their faithlessness,
+and subdued some of the Spanish chiefs who ventured to claim their
+former independence. During these occupations Scipio was attacked by a
+severe illness, from which, however, he recovered in time to quell an
+insurrection of 8,000 Roman soldiers, who were discontented from not
+having derived from their conquests those advantages which they had
+expected, and who are said also to have been bribed by the
+Carthaginians. Mago had in the meantime withdrawn to the Balearic
+Islands, and thence to Liguria. Gades, the last place which the
+Carthaginians possessed in Spain, was now taken from them, and thus
+the war in Spain was at an end.</p>
+
+<a id="img011" name="img011"></a>
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/img011.jpg" width="600" height="408" alt="" title="">
+<p>Generosity of Scipio.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Toward the close of the year <span class="smcap">B.C.</span> 206, Scipio surrendered the command
+of the Roman forces in Spain to the proconsuls L. Lentulus and L.
+Manlius Acidinus, and returned to Rome. He delivered to the ærarium
+the immense treasures <span class="pagenum"><a id="page021" name="page021"></a>(p. 021)</span> which he brought from Spain. He
+evidently wished for a triumph, but the senate paid no attention to
+his wishes, for no one had ever triumphed at Rome before he had held
+the consulship. In the year <span class="smcap">B.C.</span> 205, Scipio was made consul with P.
+Licinius Crassus, who was at the same time pontifex maximus, and was
+consequently not allowed to leave Italy. If, therefore, a war was to
+be carried on abroad, the command necessarily devolved upon Scipio.
+His wish was immediately to sail with an army to Africa, but the more
+cautious senators, and especially Q. Fabius, were decidedly opposed to
+his plan, partly because Hannibal, as long as he was in Italy,
+appeared too formidable to be neglected, and partly because they were
+influenced by jealousy.</p>
+
+<p>All that Scipio could obtain was that Sicily should be assigned to him
+as his province, with thirty vessels, and with permission to sail over
+to Africa in case he should think it advantageous to the republic. But
+he did not obtain from the Senate permission to levy an army, and he
+therefore called upon the Italian allies to provide him with troops
+and other things necessary for carrying on the war. As they were all
+willing to support the conqueror of the Carthaginians in Spain, he was
+soon enabled to sail to Sicily with nearly seven thousand volunteers
+and thirty ships. Soon after his arrival in Sicily he sent his friend
+Lælius with a part of his fleet to Africa, partly to keep up the
+connection which he had formed there, on his visit from Spain, with
+Syphax and Massinissa (for to the latter Scipio had sent back a nephew
+who had been taken prisoner in the battle of Bæcula), and partly to
+show to his timid opponents at Rome how groundless their fears were.
+He himself employed his time in Sicily most actively, in preparing and
+disciplining his new army.</p>
+
+<p>Massinissa, dissatisfied with the Carthaginians, was anxious for the
+arrival of Scipio in Africa, but Syphax had altered his policy, and
+again joined the Carthaginians. The enemies of Scipio at Rome at last
+got an opportunity of attacking him, and they nearly succeeded in
+depriving him of his post. Without being authorized by the Senate,
+Scipio had taken part in the conquest of Locri, in Southern Italy, and
+had left his legate, Q. Flaminius, as commander of the Roman garrison
+in that place. The legate treated the Locrians with such severity and
+cruelty that they sent an embassy to Rome to lay their complaints
+before the Senate. As Scipio, although acquainted with the conduct of
+Flaminius, had nevertheless left him in command, his enemies attacked
+him on this and other grounds, and Fabius Maximus even proposed that
+he should be recalled. A commission was sent out to inquire into the
+state of affairs and to bring Scipio home, if the charges against him
+were found true. Scipio proved that his army was in the best possible
+condition; and the commissioners were so surprised at what they saw,
+that instead of recalling the consul, they bade him sail to Africa as
+soon as he might think it proper, and to adopt any measures that he
+might think useful.</p>
+
+<p>Scipio, in consequence of this, sailed in <span class="smcap">B.C.</span> 204 as proconsul, with
+a large army, from Lilybæum to Africa, and landed in the neighborhood
+of Utica. Here he made successful incursions into the neighboring
+country, and Hasdrubal, <span class="pagenum"><a id="page022" name="page022"></a>(p. 022)</span> who attempted to prevent them,
+suffered a great defeat. But Scipio could not gain possession of
+Utica, which was of the greater importance to him and his fleet as the
+winter was approaching, and he was obliged to spend the season on a
+piece of land extending into the sea, which he fortified as well as he
+could. Toward the close of the winter the Carthaginians, united with
+Syphax, intended to make a general attack on Scipio's army and fleet,
+but being informed of their plans, he surprised the camps of Hasdrubal
+and Syphax in the night, and only a small number of the enemy escaped.
+Syphax withdrew into his own dominions, but was defeated by Massinissa
+and Lælius, and taken prisoner with his wife and one of his sons.
+Massinissa married Sophonisba, the wife of Syphax, who had formerly
+been engaged to him, but had been given to Syphax for political
+reasons. Scipio, fearing the influence she might have on Massinissa
+(for she was a Carthaginian), claimed her as a prisoner belonging to
+the Romans, and Massinissa poisoned her, to save her from the
+humiliation of captivity.</p>
+
+<p>The fears and apprehensions of the Carthaginians now increased to such
+a degree that they thought it necessary to recall Hannibal from Italy,
+and at the same time they sued for peace. The terms which Scipio
+proposed would have concluded the war in a manner honorable to the
+Romans. The Carthaginians, however, whose only object was to gain
+time, made no objections to the conditions, but only concluded a truce
+of forty-five days, during which an embassy was to be sent to Rome.
+Before this truce was at an end, the Carthaginian populace plundered
+some Roman vessels with provisions, which were wrecked off Carthage,
+and even insulted the Roman envoys who came to demand reparation.
+Scipio did not resent this conduct and allowed the Carthaginian
+ambassadors, on their return from Rome, to pass on to Carthage
+unmolested. About this time (it was the autumn of the year <span class="smcap">B.C.</span> 203)
+Hannibal arrived in Africa, and soon collected an army in numbers far
+exceeding that of Scipio. He first made a successful campaign against
+Massinissa. Scipio was at this time informed that the consul Tib.
+Claudius Nero would come with an army to co-operate with him against
+Hannibal.</p>
+
+<p>Scipio, who wished to bring the war to a conclusion, and was unwilling
+to share the glory with anyone else, determined to bring Hannibal to a
+decisive battle. The Carthaginian at first avoided an engagement; but
+when Scipio, in order to deceive the enemy, hastily retreated as if he
+intended to take to flight, Hannibal followed him with his cavalry and
+lost a battle in the neighborhood of Zama. A tribune of Scipio soon
+afterward cut off a large convoy of provisions which was on its way to
+the camp of Hannibal, and this suddenly threw him into such
+difficulties that he began to negotiate with Scipio for peace. The
+conditions, however, which Scipio now proposed were so humiliating,
+that the Carthaginians would not accept them. Hannibal, therefore,
+though he saw the impossibility of gaining any further advantages, was
+compelled to decide the affair by a last and desperate effort. In a
+personal interview between the two generals Scipio was inexorable as
+to the conditions. Hannibal's army was in a bad condition; and in the
+ensuing battle, to the west of Zama, the victory <span class="pagenum"><a id="page023" name="page023"></a>(p. 023)</span> of Scipio
+was complete. This defeat (in <span class="smcap">B.C.</span> 202) was the death-blow to
+Carthage.</p>
+
+<p>Scipio, on his return to Italy, was received with the greatest
+enthusiasm; he entered Rome in triumph, and was henceforward
+distinguished by the name of Africanus. He now for several years
+continued to live at Rome, apparently without taking any part in
+public affairs. In <span class="smcap">B.C.</span> 199 he obtained the office of censor with P.
+Ælius Pætus, and in <span class="smcap">B.C.</span> 194 he was made consul a second time with
+Tib. Sempronius Longus, and princeps senatus, a distinction with which
+he had already been honored in <span class="smcap">B.C.</span> 196, and which was conferred upon
+him for the third time in <span class="smcap">B.C.</span> 190. In <span class="smcap">B.C.</span> 193, during one of the
+disputes between the Carthaginians and Massinissa, Scipio was sent
+with two other commissioners to mediate between the parties; but
+nothing was settled, though, as Livy observes, Scipio might easily
+have put an end to the disputes. Scipio was the only Roman who thought
+it unworthy of the republic to support those Carthaginians who
+persecuted Hannibal; and there was a tradition that Scipio, in <span class="smcap">B.C.</span>
+193, was sent on an embassy to Antiochus, and that he met Hannibal in
+his exile, who in the conversation which took place, declared Scipio
+the greatest of all generals. Whether the story of the conversation be
+true or not, the judgment ascribed to Hannibal is just; for Scipio as
+a general was second to none but Hannibal himself.</p>
+
+<p>In the year <span class="smcap">B.C.</span> 190, some discussions arose in the Senate as to what
+provinces should be assigned to the two consuls, Lælius and L.
+Cornelius Scipio, brother of the great Africanus. Africanus, although
+he was princeps senatus, offered to accompany his brother, as legate,
+if the Senate would give him Greece as his province, for this province
+conferred upon Lucius the command in the war against Antiochus. The
+offer was accepted, and the two brothers set out for Greece, and
+thence for Asia. Africanus took his son with him on this expedition,
+but by some unlucky chance the boy was taken prisoner, and sent to
+Antiochus. The king offered to restore him to freedom, and to give a
+considerable sum of money, if the father would interpose his influence
+to obtain favorable terms for the king. Africanus refused; but the
+king, notwithstanding, soon after sent the boy back to his father, who
+just then was suffering from illness, and was absent from the camp. To
+show his gratitude, Africanus sent a message to Antiochus, advising
+him not to engage in a battle until he himself had returned to the
+Roman camp. After the great battle near Mount Sipylus, Antiochus again
+applied to Scipio for peace, and the latter now used his influence
+with his brother Lucius and the council of war, on behalf of the king.
+The conditions of the peace were tolerably mild, but they were
+afterward made much more severe when the peace was ratified at Rome.</p>
+
+<p>The enemies of Africanus at Rome had now another charge against him.
+The peace with Antiochus, and the conditions proposed by Africanus and
+his brother Lucius, were regarded by the hostile party as the result
+of bribes from Antiochus, and of the liberation of the son of
+Africanus. A charge was therefore brought against the two brothers, on
+their return to Rome, of having accepted bribes of the king, and of
+having retained a part of the treasures which <span class="pagenum"><a id="page024" name="page024"></a>(p. 024)</span> they ought to
+have delivered up to the ærarium. At the same time they were called
+upon to give an account of the sums of money they had taken from
+Antiochus. Lucius was ready to obey; but his brother Africanus with
+indignation snatched the accounts from the hands of his brother and
+tore them to pieces before the Senate. The tribune of the people, C.
+Minucius Augurinus, however, fined Lucius; and when he was going to be
+thrown into prison until he should pay the heavy fine, Africanus
+dragged him away; and the tribune Tib. Gracchus, though disapproving
+of the violence of Africanus, liberated Lucius from imprisonment.
+Africanus himself was now summoned before the people by the tribune M.
+Nævius; but instead of answering the charges he reminded the people
+that it was the anniversary of his victory at Zama, and bade them
+rather thank the gods for such citizens as he.</p>
+
+<p>After these troubles he withdrew to his villa near Liternum, and it
+was owing to the interposition of Tib. Gracchus that he was not
+compelled to obey another summons. The estates of his brother Lucius,
+however, were confiscated (<span class="smcap">B.C.</span> 187), but the sum produced by their
+sale did not make up the amount of the fine. His friends and clients
+not only offered to make up the sum, but their generosity would even
+have made him richer than he had been before; but he refused to accept
+anything beyond what was absolutely necessary for his support.
+Africanus never returned from his voluntary exile, and he spent the
+last years of his life in quiet retirement at his villa. He is said to
+have wished to be buried on his estate; but there was, as Livy says, a
+tradition that he died at Rome, and was buried in the tomb of his
+family near the Porta Capena, where statues of him, his brother
+Lucius, and their friend Q. Ennius, were erected. The year of his
+death is not quite certain; for, according to Polybius, he died in the
+same year with Hannibal and Philop&oelig;men (<span class="smcap">B.C.</span> 183); according to
+others, two years earlier (<span class="smcap">B.C.</span> 185).</p>
+
+<p>In judging of Scipio Africanus as a general, we may adopt the judgment
+ascribed to Hannibal; but as a Roman citizen he is very far from
+deserving such praise. His pride and haughtiness were intolerable, and
+the laws of the constitution were set at nought whenever they opposed
+his own views and passions. As a statesman he scarcely did anything
+worth mentioning. By his wife Æmilia, daughter of Æmilius Paullus, he
+had two daughters, one of whom married P. Cornelius Scipio Nasica
+Corculum, the other, the celebrated Cornelia, married Tib. Sempronius
+Gracchus, and was the mother of the two Gracchi, the tribunes of the
+people.<a href="#toc"><span class="small">[Back to Contents]</span></a></p>
+
+
+<h3><span class="pagenum"><a id="page025" name="page025"></a>(p. 025)</span> CAIUS MARIUS<br>
+Extracts from "Cæsar, a Sketch," by <span class="smcap">James Anthony Froude</span>, LL.D.<br>
+(157-86 <span class="smcap">B.C.</span>)</h3>
+
+<a id="img012" name="img012"></a>
+<div class="floatleft">
+<img src="images/img012.jpg" width="250" height="282" alt="Caius Marius." title="">
+</div>
+
+<p>Caius Marius was at this time forty-eight years old.<a id="footnotetag3" name="footnotetag3"></a><a href="#footnote3" title="Go to footnote 3"><span class="small">[3]</span></a> Two-thirds of
+his life were over, and a name which was to sound throughout the world
+and be remembered through all ages, had as yet been scarcely heard of
+beyond the army and the political clubs in Rome. He was born at
+Arpinum, a Latin township, seventy miles from the capital, in the year
+157 <span class="smcap">B.C.</span> His father was a small farmer, and he was himself bred to the
+plough. He joined the army early, and soon attracted notice by his
+punctual discharge of his duties. In a time of growing looseness,
+Marius was strict himself in keeping discipline and in enforcing it as
+he rose in the service. He was in Spain when Jugurtha<a id="footnotetag4" name="footnotetag4"></a><a href="#footnote4" title="Go to footnote 4"><span class="small">[4]</span></a> was there,
+and made himself especially useful to Scipio; he forced his way
+steadily upward, by his mere soldierlike qualities, to the rank of
+military tribune. Rome, too, had learnt to know him, for he was chosen
+tribune of the people the year after the murder of Caius Gracchus.
+Being a self-made man, he belonged naturally to the popular party.
+While in office he gave offence in some way to the men in power, and
+was called before the Senate to answer for himself. But he had the
+right on his side, it is likely, for they found him stubborn and
+impertinent, and they could make nothing of their charges against him.
+He was not bidding at this time, however, for the support of the mob.
+He had the integrity and sense to oppose the largesses of corn; and he
+forfeited his popularity by trying to close the public granaries
+before the practice had passed into a system. He seemed as if made of
+a block of hard Roman oak, gnarled and knotted, but sound in all its
+fibres. His professional merit continued to recommend him. At the age
+of forty he became prætor, and was sent to Spain, where he left a mark
+again by the successful severity by which he cleared the province of
+banditti. He was a man neither given himself to talking, nor much
+talked about in the world; but he was sought for wherever work was to
+be done, and he had made himself respected and valued in high circles,
+for after his return from the Peninsula he had married into one of the
+most distinguished of the patrician families.</p>
+
+<p>Marius by this marriage became a person of social consideration. His
+father had been a client of the Metelli; and Cæcilius Metellus, who
+must have known Marius by reputation and probably in person, invited
+him to go as second in command <span class="pagenum"><a id="page026" name="page026"></a>(p. 026)</span> in the African campaign. He
+was moderately successful. Towns were taken, battles were won:
+Metellus was incorruptible, and the Numidians sued for peace. But
+Jugurtha wanted terms, and the consul demanded unconditional
+surrender. Jugurtha withdrew into the desert; the war dragged on; and
+Marius, perhaps ambitious, perhaps impatient at the general's want of
+vigor, began to think that he could make quicker work of it. The
+popular party were stirring again in Rome, the Senate having so
+notoriously disgraced itself. There was just irritation that a petty
+African prince could defy the whole power of Rome for so many years;
+and though a democratic consul had been unheard of for a century, the
+name of Marius began to be spoken of as a possible candidate. Marius
+consented to stand. The law required that he must be present in person
+at the election, and he applied to his commander for leave of absence.
+Metellus laughed at his pretensions, and bade him wait another twenty
+years. Marius, however, persisted, and was allowed to go. The
+patricians strained their resources to defeat him, but he was chosen
+with enthusiasm. Metellus was recalled, and the conduct of the
+Numidian war was assigned to the new hero of the "Populares."</p>
+
+<p>A shudder of alarm ran, no doubt, through the Senate house, when the
+determination of the people was known. A successful general could not
+be disposed of so easily as oratorical tribunes. Fortunately, Marius
+was not a politician. He had no belief in democracy. He was a soldier,
+and had a soldier's way of thinking on government and the methods of
+it. His first step was a reformation in the army. Hitherto the Roman
+legions had been no more than the citizens in arms, called for the
+moment from their various occupations, to return to them when the
+occasion for their services was past. Marius had perceived that fewer
+men, better trained and disciplined, could be made more effective and
+be more easily handled. He had studied war as a science. He had
+perceived that the present weakness need be no more than an accident,
+and that there was a latent force in the Roman state, which needed
+only organization to resume its ascendency. "He enlisted," it was
+said, "the worst of the citizens," men, that is to say, who had no
+occupation, and who became soldiers by profession; and as persons
+without property could not have furnished themselves at their own
+cost, he must have carried out the scheme proposed by Gracchus, and
+equipped them at the expense of the state. His discipline was of the
+sternest. The experiment was new; and men of rank who had a taste for
+war in earnest, and did not wish that the popular party should have
+the whole benefit and credit of the improvements, were willing to go
+with him; among them a dissipated young patrician, called Lucius
+Sulla, whose name also was destined to be memorable.</p>
+
+<p>By these methods, and out of these materials, an army was formed, such
+as no Roman general had hitherto led. It performed extraordinary
+marches, carried its water-supplies with it in skins, and followed the
+enemy across sandy deserts hitherto found impassable. In less than two
+years the war was over. The Moors, to whom Jugurtha had fled,
+surrendered him to Sulla; and he was brought in chains to Rome, where
+he finished his life in a dungeon.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page027" name="page027"></a>(p. 027)</span> Marius had formed an army barely in time to save Italy from
+being totally overwhelmed. A vast migratory wave of population had
+been set in motion behind the Rhine and the Danube. The German forests
+were uncultivated. The hunting and pasture grounds were too straight
+for the numbers crowded into them, and two enormous hordes were
+rolling westward and southward in search of some new abiding-place.
+Each division consisted of hundreds of thousands. They travelled, with
+their wives and children, their wagons, as with the ancient Scythians
+and with the modern South African Dutch, being at once their
+conveyance and their home. Gray-haired priestesses tramped along among
+them, barefooted, in white linen dresses, the knife at their girdle;
+northern Iphigenias, sacrificing prisoners as they were taken, to the
+gods of Valhalla. On they swept, eating up the country, and the people
+flying before them. In 113 <span class="smcap">B.C.</span> the skirts of the Cimbri had
+encountered a small Roman force near Trieste, and destroyed it. Four
+years later another attempt was made to stop them, but the Roman army
+was beaten and its camp taken. The Cimbrian host did not, however,
+turn at that time upon Italy. Their aim was the south of France. They
+made their way through the Alps into Switzerland, where the Helvetii
+joined them and the united mass rolled over the Jura and down the bank
+of the Rhone. Roused at last into the exertion, the Senate sent into
+Gaul the largest force which the Romans had ever brought into the
+field. They met the Cimbri at Orange, and were simply annihilated.
+Eighty thousand Romans and forty thousand camp-followers were said to
+have fallen. The numbers in such cases are generally exaggerated, but
+the extravagance of the report is a witness to the greatness of the
+overthrow. The Romans had received a worse blow than at Cannæ. They
+were brave enough, but they were commanded by persons whose
+recommendations for command were birth or fortune; "preposterous men,"
+as Marius termed them, who had waited for their appointment to open
+the military manuals.</p>
+
+<p>Had the Cimbri chosen at this moment to recross the Alps into Italy,
+they had only to go and take possession, and Alaric would have been
+antedated by five centuries. In great danger it was the Senate's
+business to suspend the constitution. The constitution was set aside
+now, but it was set aside by the people themselves, not by the Senate.
+One man only could save the country, and that man was Marius. His
+consulship was over, and custom forbade his re-election. The Senate
+might have appointed him Dictator, but would not. The people, custom
+or no custom, chose him consul a second time&mdash;a significant
+acknowledgment that the Empire, which had been won by the sword, must
+be held by the sword, and that the sword itself must be held by the
+hand that was best fitted to use it. Marius first triumphed for his
+African victory, and, as an intimation to the Senate that the power
+for the moment was his and not theirs, he entered the Curia in his
+triumphal dress. He then prepared for the barbarians who, to the
+alarmed imagination of the city, were already knocking at its gates.
+Time was the important element in the matter. Had the Cimbri come at
+once after their victory at Orange, Italy had been theirs. But they
+did not come. With the unguided <span class="pagenum"><a id="page028" name="page028"></a>(p. 028)</span> movements of some wild force
+of nature, they swerved away through Aquitaine to the Pyrenees. They
+swept across the mountains into Spain. Thence, turning north, they
+passed up the Atlantic coast and round to the Seine, the Gauls flying
+before them; thence on to the Rhine, where the vast body of the
+Teutons joined them, and fresh detachments of the Helvetii. It was as
+if some vast tide-wave had surged over the country and rolled through
+it, searching out the easiest passages. At length, in two divisions,
+the invaders moved definitely toward Italy, the Cimbri following their
+old tracks by the Eastern Alps toward Aquileia and the Adriatic, the
+Teutons passing down through Provence, and making for the road along
+the Mediterranean. Two years had been consumed in these wanderings,
+and Marius was by this time ready for them. The Senate had dropped the
+reins, and no longer governed or misgoverned; the popular party,
+represented by the army, was supreme. Marius was continued in office,
+and was a fourth time consul. He had completed his military reforms,
+and the army was now a professional service, with regular pay. Trained
+corps of engineers were attached to each legion. The campaigns of the
+Romans were thenceforward to be conducted with spade and pickaxe as
+much as with sword and javelin, and the soldiers learnt the use of
+tools as well as arms.</p>
+
+<p>The effect of the change was like enchantment. The delay of the
+Germans made it unnecessary to wait for them in Italy. Leaving
+Catulus, his colleague in the consulship, to check the Cimbri in
+Venetia, Marius went himself, taking Sulla with him, into the south of
+France. As the barbarian host came on, he occupied a fortified camp
+near Aix. He allowed the enormous procession to roll past him in their
+wagons toward the Alps. Then, following cautiously, he watched his
+opportunity to fall on them. The Teutons were brave, but they had no
+longer mere legionaries to fight with, but a powerful machine, and the
+entire mass of them, men, women, and children, in numbers which,
+however uncertain, were rather those of a nation than an army, were
+swept out of existence. The Teutons were destroyed on the 20th of
+July, 102. In the year following, the same fate overtook their
+comrades. The Cimbri had forced the passes through the mountains. They
+had beaten the unscientific patrician Catulus, and had driven him back
+on the Po. But Marius came to his rescue. The Cimbri were cut to
+pieces near Mantua, in the summer of 101, and Italy was saved.</p>
+
+<p>The victories of Marius mark a new epoch in Roman history.<a id="footnotetag5" name="footnotetag5"></a><a href="#footnote5" title="Go to footnote 5"><span class="small">[5]</span></a> The
+legions were no longer the levy of the citizens in arms, who were
+themselves the state for which they fought. The legionaries were
+citizens still. They had votes, and they used them; but they were
+professional soldiers with the modes of thought which belong to
+soldiers; and besides, the power of the hustings was now the power of
+the sword. The constitution remained to appearance intact, and means
+were devised sufficient to encounter, it might be supposed, the new
+danger. Standing armies were prohibited in Italy. Victorious generals
+returning from campaigns abroad were required to disband their legions
+on entering the sacred soil. But the materials of these legions
+remained a distinct order from the rest <span class="pagenum"><a id="page029" name="page029"></a>(p. 029)</span> of the population,
+capable of instant combination, and in combination, irresistible, save
+by opposing combinations of the same kind.</p>
+
+<p>The danger from the Germans was no sooner gone than political anarchy
+broke loose again. Marius, the man of the people, was the saviour of
+his country. He was made consul a fifth time, and a sixth. The party
+which had given him his command shared, of course, in his
+pre-eminence. The elections could be no longer interfered with or the
+voters intimidated. The public offices were filled with the most
+violent agitators, who believed that the time had come to revenge the
+Gracchi, and carry out the democratic revolution, to establish the
+ideal Republic, and the direct rule of the citizen assembly. This,
+too, was a chimera. If the Roman Senate could not govern, far less
+could the Roman mob govern. Marius stood aside, and let the voices
+rage. He could not be expected to support a system which had brought
+the country so near to ruin. He had no belief in the visions of the
+demagogues, but the time was not ripe to make an end of it all. Had he
+tried, the army would not have gone with him; so he sat still, till
+faction had done its work. The popular heroes of the hour were the
+tribune Saturninus and the prætor Glaucia. They carried corn laws and
+land laws&mdash;whatever laws they pleased to propose. The administration
+remaining with the Senate, they carried a vote that every senator
+should take an oath to execute their laws under penalty of fine and
+expulsion. Marius did not like it, and even opposed it, but let it
+pass at last.</p>
+
+<p>Marius was an indifferent politician. He perceived as well as any one
+that violence must not go on, but he hesitated to put it down. He knew
+that the aristocracy feared and hated him. Between them and the
+people's consul no alliance was possible. He did not care to alienate
+his friends, and there may have been other difficulties which we do
+not know, in his way. The army itself was perhaps divided. On the
+popular side there were two parties: a moderate one, represented by
+Memmius, who, as tribune, had impeached the senators for the
+Jugurthine infamies; the other, the advanced radicals, led by Glaucia
+and Saturninus. Memmius and Glaucia were both candidates for the
+consulship; and as Memmius was likely to succeed, he was murdered.</p>
+
+<p>Above the tumults of the factions in the Capitol a cry rising into
+shrillness began to be heard from Italy. Caius Gracchus had wished to
+extend the Roman franchise to the Italian states, and the suggestion
+had cost him his popularity and his life. The Italian provinces had
+furnished their share of the armies which had beaten Jugurtha, and had
+destroyed the German invaders. They now demanded that they should have
+the position which Gracchus designed for them: that they should be
+allowed to legislate for themselves, and no longer lie at the mercy of
+others, who neither understood their necessities, nor cared for their
+interests. They had no friends in the city, save a few far-sighted
+statesmen. Senate and mob had at least one point of agreement, that
+the spoils of the Empire should be fought for among themselves; and at
+the first mention of the invasion of their monopoly a law was passed
+making the very agitation of the subject punishable by death.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page030" name="page030"></a>(p. 030)</span> The contrast of character between two classes of population,
+became at once uncomfortably evident. The provincials had been the
+right arm of the Empire. Rome, a city of rich men with families of
+slaves, and of a crowd of impoverished freemen without employment to
+keep them in health and strength, could no longer bring into the field
+a force which could hold its ground against the gentry and peasants of
+Samnium. The Senate enlisted Greeks, Numidians, any one whose services
+they could purchase. They had to encounter soldiers who had been
+trained and disciplined by Marius, and they were taught, by defeat
+upon defeat, that they had a worse enemy before them than the Germans.
+Marius himself had almost withdrawn from public life. He had no heart
+for the quarrel, and did not care greatly to exert himself. At the
+bottom, perhaps, he thought that the Italians were in the right. The
+Senate discovered that they were helpless, and must come to terms if
+they would escape destruction. They abandoned the original point of
+difference, and they offered to open the franchise to every Italian
+state south of the Po, which had not taken arms, or which returned
+immediately to its allegiance. The war had broken out for a definite
+cause. When the cause was removed no reason remained for its
+continuance.</p>
+
+<p>The panting Senate was thus able to breathe again. The war continued,
+but under better auspices. Sound material could now be collected again
+for the army. Marius being in the background, the chosen knight of the
+aristocracy, Lucius Sulla, whose fame in the Cimbrian war had been
+only second to that of his commander's, came at once to the front. Too
+late the democratic leaders repented of their folly in encouraging the
+Senate to refuse the franchise to the Italians. The Italians, they
+began to perceive, would be their surest political allies. Caius
+Gracchus had been right after all. The Roman democracy must make haste
+to offer the Italians more than all which the Senate was ready to
+concede to them. Together they could make an end of misrule, and place
+Marius once more at their head.</p>
+
+<p>Much of this was perhaps the scheming passion of revolution; much of
+it was legitimate indignation, penitent for its errors and anxious to
+atone for them. Marius had his personal grievances. The aristocrats
+were stealing from him even his military reputation, and claiming for
+Sulla the capture of Jugurtha. He was willing, perhaps anxious, to
+take the Eastern command. Sulpicius Rufus, once a champion of the
+Senate and the most brilliant orator in Rome, went over to the people
+in the excitement. Rufus was chosen tribune, and at once proposed to
+enfranchise the remainder of Italy.</p>
+
+<p>But Sulla was not so easily got rid of. It was no time for nice
+considerations. He had formed an army in Campania out of the legions
+which had served against the Italians. He had made his soldiers
+devoted to him. They were ready to go anywhere and do anything which
+Sulla bade them. After so many murders, and so many commotions, the
+constitution had lost its sacred character; a popular assembly was, of
+all conceivable bodies, the least fit to govern an empire; and in
+Sulla's eyes the Senate, whatever its deficiencies, was the only
+possible sovereign of Rome. The people were a rabble, and their voices
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page031" name="page031"></a>(p. 031)</span> the clamor of fools, who must be taught to know their
+masters. His reply to Sulpicius and to the vote for his recall, was to
+march on the city. He led his troops within the circle which no
+legionary in arms was allowed to enter, and he lighted his watch-fires
+in the Forum itself. The people resisted; Sulpicius was killed;
+Marius, the saviour of his country, had to fly for his life, pursued
+by assassins, with a price set upon his head.<a id="footnotetag6" name="footnotetag6"></a><a href="#footnote6" title="Go to footnote 6"><span class="small">[6]</span></a> Twelve of the
+prominent popular leaders were immediately executed without trial; and
+in hot haste, swift, decisive measures were taken, which permanently,
+as Sulla hoped, or if not permanently, at least for the moment, would
+lame the limbs of the democracy.</p>
+
+<p>He was no sooner out of Italy than the democratic party rose, with
+Cinna at their head, to demand the restoration of the old
+constitution. Cinna had been sworn to maintain Sulla's reforms, but no
+oath could be held binding which was extorted at the sword's point. A
+fresh Sulpicius was found in Carbo, a popular tribune. A more valuable
+supporter was found in Quintus Sertorius, a soldier of fortune, but a
+man of real gifts, and even of genius. Disregarding the new obligation
+to obtain the previous consent of the Senate, Cinna called the
+assembly together to repeal the acts which Sulla had forced on them.</p>
+
+<p>The wounds of the social war were scarcely cicatrized, and the peace
+had left the allies imperfectly satisfied. Their dispersed armies
+gathered again about Cinna and Sertorius. Old Marius, who had been
+hunted through marsh and forest, and had been hiding with difficulty
+in Africa, came back at the news that Italy had risen again; and six
+thousand of his veterans flocked to him at the sound of his name. The
+Senate issued proclamations. The limitations on the Italian franchise
+left by Sulla were abandoned. Every privilege which had been asked for
+was conceded. It was too late. Concessions made in fear might be
+withdrawn on the return of safety. Marius and Cinna joined their
+forces. The few troops in the pay of the Senate deserted to them. They
+appeared together at the gates of the city, and Rome capitulated.</p>
+
+<p>There was a bloody score to be wiped out. Marius bears the chief blame
+for the scenes which followed. Undoubtedly he was in no pleasant
+humor. A price had been set on his head, his house had been destroyed,
+his property had been confiscated, he himself had been chased like a
+wild beast, and he had not deserved such treatment. He had saved Italy
+when but for him it would have been wasted by the swords of the
+Germans. His power had afterward been absolute, but he had not abused
+it for party purposes. The Senate had no reason to complain of him. He
+had touched none of their privileges, incapable and dishonest as he
+knew them to be. His crime in their eyes had been his eminence. They
+had now shown themselves as cruel as they were worthless; and if
+public justice was disposed to make an end of them, he saw no cause
+for interference.</p>
+
+<p>Thus the familiar story repeated itself: wrong was punished by wrong,
+and another item was entered on the bloody account which was being
+scored up year <span class="pagenum"><a id="page032" name="page032"></a>(p. 032)</span> after year. The noble lords and their friends
+had killed the people in the Forum. They were killed in turn by the
+soldiers of Marius. Fifty senators perished, not those who were
+specially guilty, but those who were most politically marked as
+patrician leaders. With them fell a thousand equites, commoners of
+fortune, who had thrown in their lot with the aristocracy. From
+retaliatory political revenge the transition was easy to pillage and
+wholesale murder; and for many days the wretched city was made a prey
+to robbers and cut-throats.</p>
+
+<p>So ended the year 87, the darkest and bloodiest which the guilty city
+had yet experienced. Marius and Cinna were chosen consuls for the year
+ensuing, and a witches' prophecy was fulfilled, that Marius should
+have a seventh consulate. But the glory had departed from him. His sun
+was already setting, redly, among crimson clouds. He lived but a
+fortnight after his inauguration, and he died in his bed on the 13th
+of January, at the age of seventy-one.</p>
+
+<p>"The mother of the Gracchi," said Mirabeau, "cast the dust of her
+murdered sons into the air, and out of it sprang Caius Marius."<a href="#toc"><span class="small">[Back to Contents]</span></a></p>
+
+
+<h3>JULIUS CÆSAR<br>
+By <span class="smcap">E. Spencer Beesly, M.A.</span><br>
+(100-44 <span class="smcap">B.C.</span>)</h3>
+
+<a id="img013" name="img013"></a>
+<div class="floatleft">
+<img src="images/img013.jpg" width="250" height="259" alt="Julius Cæsar." title="">
+</div>
+
+<p>Rome solved the great political problem of the ancient world in the
+best practicable, if not in the best conceivable, way. To Cæsar it
+fell to put the crowning stroke to that work. The several states of
+modern Europe have all contributed, though in different degrees, to
+political progress, and therefore no one of them has the unique
+importance and glory that belongs to Rome. For the same reason, no
+modern statesman stands on a level with Cæsar. He remains, in
+Shakespeare's phrase, "the foremost man of all this world." It was the
+high fortune of Rome that, in the principal crisis of her history, she
+possessed a citizen so splendidly endowed in intellect, character, and
+heart. Free to an extraordinary degree from the prejudices belonging
+to his age and country, with piercing and far-sweeping vision, he saw
+as from some superior height, the political situation of his own time
+in its <span class="pagenum"><a id="page033" name="page033"></a>(p. 033)</span> relation to the past and the future of the ancient
+world. If Rome had till then carried out the work of conquest with
+considerable method, and upon the whole, with steadiness, she had very
+inadequately satisfied the need for incorporation. Her oligarchical
+constitution, admirably adapted for the first task, could not easily
+reconcile itself to the second. In its best days, and while Carthage
+and Macedon were still formidable, the Senate had from time to time,
+prudently though grudgingly, extended the privilege of citizenship to
+some of the subject Italian states. But the great mass of Italians had
+only extorted it by rebellion during the boyhood of Cæsar, and outside
+Italy, the conquered nations were still on the footing of subject
+allies, trampled upon and fleeced for the benefit of Rome, or rather
+of the Roman nobles and capitalists. If the great dominion was to be
+maintained in some tolerable degree of well-being for all its members,
+or even maintained at all, it was absolutely necessary that the
+so-called Republican constitution, always oppressive for the
+provinces, and now shamefully corrupt, should be replaced by personal
+government. For a complete incorporation of the subject peoples was
+not to be expected from the suffrages of a dominant people, to even
+the poorest of whom, it would mean the cessation of highly prized
+privileges and immunities. The provinces would from the earliest
+moment of their subjection have welcomed such a change. The time was
+more than ripe for it when the Roman world lay at the feet of Sulla.
+Sulla had all the ability, self-reliance, prestige, and opportunity
+that were needed. But his moral nature was below the task. He had
+neither the insight, nor the sympathy, nor the noble ambition of
+Cæsar, and he preferred to re-establish the senatorial oligarchy.</p>
+
+<a id="img014" name="img014"></a>
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/img014.jpg" width="500" height="676" alt="" title="">
+<p>Marius on the ruins of Carthage.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>When Sulla crushed the Marian party Cæsar had just arrived at manhood.
+Though of an old patrician house, he had yet a family connection with
+the democratic party, Marius having married his aunt. He himself had
+married a daughter of the democratic leader Cinna, and for refusing to
+divorce her he was proscribed by Sulla, but managed to keep in hiding
+till the storm was past. After the death of the great reactionist
+(<span class="smcap">B.C.</span> 78), he seized every opportunity of reviving the spirit of the
+popular party; as, for instance, by publicly honoring the memory of
+Marius, bringing to justice murderers of the proscription, and
+courageously raising his single voice in the Senate against the
+illegal execution of Catiline's <span class="pagenum"><a id="page034" name="page034"></a>(p. 034)</span> partisans (<span class="smcap">B.C.</span> 63). Clearly
+seeing the necessity for personal government, at a time when his own
+services and distinctions were not such as to entitle him to aspire to
+it, Cæsar did his best to secure it for Pompey, then far the foremost
+man in Rome, by strenuously supporting measures which virtually placed
+the empire at his absolute disposal for an indefinite period. A fairly
+good soldier, but a most vain, unreliable, and incompetent statesman,
+Pompey after five years let these powers slip through his hands.</p>
+
+<a id="img015" name="img015"></a>
+<div class="floatright">
+<img src="images/img015.jpg" width="250" height="309" alt="Julius Cæsar." title="">
+</div>
+
+<p>Cæsar was by this time thirty-eight (<span class="smcap">B.C.</span> 62). He had steadily risen
+in influence and official rank; and it was, no doubt, now that he
+determined to take the great task into his own hands. He was the
+recognized chief of the popular party, which aimed at concentrating
+Republican government in the hands of a single person, as the only
+means of bridling the oligarchy. But this was not to be accomplished
+merely by popular votes, as many a democratic leader had found to his
+cost. Cæsar needed an army and a military reputation, and with rare
+patience he set himself to acquire both. By a coalition with
+Pompey&mdash;now obliged to treat him as an equal&mdash;he obtained the
+consulship (<span class="smcap">B.C.</span> 59), which on its expiration entitled him to a great
+military command.</p>
+
+<p>Roman generals had of late preferred to extend their conquests
+eastward, and to win comparatively easy and lucrative triumphs in
+Asia, over people who had possessed for long ages a type of
+civilization suited to them, and who therefore could never thoroughly
+assimilate Western manners and institutions. All this time Gaul, lying
+at the gates of Italy, was neglected (only the district between the
+Cevennes and the Alps having been reduced), because the people were
+more warlike, and less booty was to be gained. Yet, till that conquest
+should be effected, Rome's work of civilizing the world was standing
+still; nay, it was always menaced by northern invasions. This field of
+action, then, Cæsar marked out for himself, in which he could prepare
+the means for assuming power at home, and at the same time render the
+highest service to his country and humanity. His ardent spirit, his
+incredible energy in all circumstances of his life, astonished his
+contemporaries. Time pressed, for he was no longer young. While he was
+absent from Rome, what revolutions might not mar his plans! Yet, ten
+continuous years did he devote to this great task, which, if he had
+achieved nothing else, would make his name one of the greatest in
+history. In those ten years he conquered Gaul, from the Pyrenees to
+the Rhine and the British Channel; conquered her so thoroughly, and
+treated her so sensibly, that when the fierce struggle was over, she
+frankly and even proudly accepted her new position. The culture, the
+institutions, even the language of the victors, were eagerly adopted.
+The grandsons of the men who had fought so gallantly against Cæsar,
+won full citizenship, took their seats in the Senate, and commanded
+Roman armies.</p>
+
+<p>These ten years decided the future of the West, and therefore of
+Humanity. It is not merely the central position and natural advantages
+of France, nor yet the admirable qualities of her people, which have
+made her throughout mediæval and modern history, the foremost of
+European states. It is even more the result <span class="pagenum"><a id="page035" name="page035"></a>(p. 035)</span> of her rapid and
+thorough acceptance of Roman civilization. This made her the heir of
+Rome. This enabled her, long afterward, to Romanize Germany and
+England in some degree, and as it were at second-hand, by the arms of
+Charlemagne and William.</p>
+
+<p>It had been arranged between Cæsar and Pompey, that during the absence
+of the former in Gaul, the latter should act with the popular party,
+and keep the nobility in the condition of impotence to which it had
+been reduced in the consulship of Cæsar. Partly from jealousy of
+Cæsar, partly from sheer incapacity, Pompey, after much vacillation
+and duplicity, finally allied himself with the nobles, thinking with
+their aid to crush his rival and thereafter to be supreme. The nobles,
+for their part, thought they would know how to deal with Pompey if
+once Cæsar was out of the way. In the negotiations which preceded the
+civil war, Cæsar showed a moderation and fairness in striking contrast
+with the unscrupulous and headstrong violence of the nobles, who had
+not even formal legality on their side. But when he was finally
+summoned to hand over his province and army to a nominee of the
+Senate, on pain of being declared a public enemy, and when the
+tribunes who had reversed the resolution of the Senate were obliged to
+fly for their lives to his camp, he suddenly crossed the river
+Rubicon, the boundary of his province, and marched on Rome (<span class="smcap">B.C.</span> 49).</p>
+
+<p>He had but one legion with him; the bulk of his army was far away in
+its Gallic cantonments. The forces of Pompey were overwhelmingly
+superior in numbers. But the rapid and daring advance of Cæsar
+prevented their concentration. He came, not merely the adored general
+of a veteran army, but the long-tried and consistent leader of the
+liberal party, who had never swerved from his principles, never
+betrayed his friends, never flinched from dangers. Fascinated by his
+success and encouraged by his clemency, towns everywhere opened their
+gates and Pompeian levies joined him, swelling his army at every stage
+as he swept down Italy.</p>
+
+<p>Pompey, for his part, was not sorry to have a pretext for moving
+eastward toward the scene of his early triumphs, where his military
+prestige and his personal influence would cause all the client states
+to rally round him, and the sulky and suspicious nobles would find
+themselves overshadowed. So he crossed the Adriatic, leaving the large
+veteran army in Spain, which was under his orders, to take care of
+itself. Thither Cæsar proceeded as soon as he had secured Italy, bent
+on making sure of the West before doing anything else. When the
+Spanish legions were beaten, he lost no time in following Pompey, who
+had found the respite all too short for drilling his large but raw
+force of Romans, and organizing the masses of Asiatics whom he had
+summoned to his standard. In the campaign that ensued, the conqueror
+of the East fully maintained his old military reputation; but at
+length, driven by the clamor of the nobles to risk a pitched battle,
+he suffered a crushing defeat on the field of Pharsalia (<span class="smcap">B.C.</span> 48).
+Flying to Egypt, still an independent kingdom, he was assassinated by
+order of the government.</p>
+
+<p>The beaten party rallied again, first in Africa, then in Spain; and of
+the <span class="pagenum"><a id="page036" name="page036"></a>(p. 036)</span> three years and nine months of life that remained to
+Cæsar, much the greater portion was spent at the head of his army. He,
+therefore, had not time to give any complete organization to his new
+government. But his intentions are clearly discernible in outline.
+Supreme power, legislative as well as executive, was to be vested in a
+single ruler, governing not by divine right, but as the representative
+of the community, and in its interest. This was indeed an ideal by no
+means novel to Romans. Scipio had brooded over it. Caius Gracchus had
+for a moment realized it. The oldest institutions and traditions told
+of it. It was the power of the ancient kings theoretically continued
+to, and in grave emergencies actually exercised by, the magistrates of
+the Republic during its best days. It had been increasingly
+overshadowed by the Senate. That body was now to be reduced to its
+original consultative office. The functions of the executive had been
+gradually divided among several magistrates. They were now to be
+re-concentrated. Above all, annual election&mdash;the cherished institution
+of all oligarchies, open or disguised&mdash;was to be replaced by
+life-tenure, with power to name a successor. The subjects of Rome were
+to be admitted to citizenship, wherever and whenever fit for it; and
+there is reason to believe that Cæsar intended to move much faster in
+this direction than his successor did. Rome itself, from the mistress
+of the Empire, was to become its capital and most dignified
+municipality. All old parties&mdash;Cæsar's own included&mdash;were to consider
+themselves at an end. "To the victors the spoils!" was a cry rebuked
+from the first. For the vanquished of Pharsalia there was not only
+amnesty, but admission to the highest grades of the public service, if
+they would bury their old grudge and recognize the government.
+Pauperism among the lower class, and insolvency among the
+upper&mdash;ulcers not admitting of a radical cure&mdash;were treated with
+judicious palliatives. Taxation was reduced, expenditure was
+increased, and yet the balance in the treasury at Cæsar's death was
+tenfold what it had ever been before&mdash;a proof of the frightful waste
+and corruption from which the Roman world was rescued by the overthrow
+of the oligarchy.</p>
+
+<p>Of the administrative work of Cæsar it is impossible here to give any
+adequate idea. A reform of the calendar, which served the West till
+1582, and serves Russia still; a recasting of the whole provincial
+administration; a codification of Roman law; a census of the Empire; a
+uniform gold coinage; a public library; a metropolitan police;
+building regulations; sanitary regulations; an alteration of the
+course of the Tiber, which would have drained the marshes&mdash;all these
+grand projects, and more, some carried to completion, some only
+sketched out, teemed from the active brain of the great organizer, in
+the brief moments he could spare from military cares in these last
+months of his life&mdash;a devouring activity, an all-embracing capacity,
+such as perhaps never shone forth in man before or since. What Roman
+incorporation meant for the ancient world was at last revealed. The
+war havoc of seven centuries had found its justification.</p>
+
+<a id="img016" name="img016"></a>
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/img016.jpg" width="600" height="365" alt="" title="">
+<p>The Ides of March.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>In the midst of this glorious and beneficent career, at the age of
+fifty-five (57?), Cæsar, whose frank and fearless spirit disdained
+suspicion or precaution, <span class="pagenum"><a id="page037" name="page037"></a>(p. 037)</span> was assassinated by a knot of
+rancorous, perfidious aristocrats, whom he had pardoned and promoted.
+Their purblind spite was powerless to avert the inevitable advent of
+monocracy. What they did effectually extinguish for more than a
+century, was the possibility of amnesty, conciliation, and mutual
+confidence. Careless as usual of historical truth, the great English
+poet has glorified the murderers of Cæsar. Dante, never forgetting the
+moral responsibility of art, has reserved the lowest circle of hell
+for Brutus, Cassius, and Judas Iscariot.</p>
+
+<p>It imports little to the greatness of such a one as Cæsar, to add that
+in an age of oratory he stood in the first rank of orators; that his
+historical writings are an unrivalled model of vigor, lucidity, and
+elegance; that he carried his scientific culture to a point very
+unusual among his countrymen; and that his personal prowess and feats
+of endurance were the admiration of veteran soldiers. Women loved him,
+and he loved them. Enjoying life thoroughly, he was temperate in all
+things. To no man has it been given to approach more nearly to the
+perfection of human nature&mdash;complete, evenly balanced, and
+self-controlled.<a href="#toc"><span class="small">[Back to Contents]</span></a></p>
+
+
+<h3>MARC ANTONY<br>
+(83-30 <span class="smcap">B.C.</span>)</h3>
+
+<a id="img017" name="img017"></a>
+<div class="floatleft">
+<img src="images/img017.jpg" width="250" height="309" alt="Marc Antony." title="">
+</div>
+
+<p>Marcus Antonius, or Marc Antony, grandson of Antonius the orator, and
+son of Antonius Creticus, seems to have been born about 83 <span class="smcap">B.C.</span> While
+still a child he lost his father, whose example however, had he been
+spared, would have done little for the improvement of his character.
+Brought up under the influence of the disreputable Cornelius Lentulus
+Sura, whom his mother had married, Antony spent his youth in
+profligacy and extravagance. For a time he co-operated with the
+reprobate Clodius in his political plans, chiefly, it is supposed,
+through hostility to Cicero, who had caused Lentulus, his stepfather,
+to be put to death as one of the Catiline conspirators; but he soon
+withdrew from the connection, on account of a disagreement which,
+appropriately enough, arose in regard to his relations to his
+associate's wife, Flavia. Not long after, in 58 <span class="smcap">B.C.</span>, he fled to
+Greece, to escape the importunity of his creditors; and at length,
+after a short time spent in attendance on the philosophers at
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page038" name="page038"></a>(p. 038)</span> Athens, found an occasion for displaying some of the better
+features of his character, in the wars that were being carried on by
+Gabinius against Aristobulus in Palestine, and in support of Ptolemy
+Auletes in Egypt.</p>
+
+<p>A new chapter in his life was opened by the visit which he made to
+Julius Cæsar in Gaul (54 <span class="smcap">B.C.</span>). Welcomed by the victorious general as
+a valuable assistant in his ambitious designs, and raised by his
+influence to the offices of quæstor, augur, and tribune of the plebes,
+he displayed admirable boldness and activity in the maintenance of his
+patron's cause, in opposition to the violence and intrigues of the
+oligarchical party. At length his antagonists prevailed, and expelled
+him from the curia; and the political contest became a civil war. The
+Rubicon was crossed; Cæsar was victorious, and Antony shared in his
+triumph. Deputy-governor of Italy during Cæsar's absence in Spain
+(49), second in command in the decisive battle of Pharsalia (48), and
+again deputy-governor of Italy while Cæsar was in Africa (47), Antony
+was now inferior in power only to the dictator himself, and eagerly
+seized the opportunity of indulging in the most extravagant excesses
+of luxurious licentiousness&mdash;excesses which Cicero depicted in the
+"Philippics" with all the elaborate eloquence of political hatred. In
+46 he seems to have taken offence at Cæsar, because he insisted on
+payment for the property of Pompey which Antony professedly had
+purchased, but had merely appropriated. But the estrangement was not
+of long continuance, for we find Antony meeting the dictator at Narbo
+the following year, and rejecting the advances of Trebonius, who
+endeavored to discover if there was any hope of getting Antony to join
+in the conspiracy that was already on foot. In 44 he was consul along
+with Cæsar, and seconded his ambition by the famous offer of the crown
+on the 15th of February, thus unconsciously preparing the way for the
+tragedy on the 15th of March. To the sincerity of his adherence to
+Cæsar, the conspirators themselves bore witness on that memorable day,
+by the care which they took to keep him engaged without, while the
+daggers were doing their work within.</p>
+
+<p>This was the second great epoch in Antony's life. A brighter prospect
+than ever was then opened to his ambition. By his eloquence&mdash;a
+hereditary gift&mdash;he managed to stir up the minds of the populace
+against the assassins of Cæsar, and drove them from the city. He made
+peace with the remaining representatives of the senatorial party, and
+seemed almost to have succeeded to the power and position of his
+unfortunate patron. But the youthful Octavius, whom Cæsar had adopted
+as his son, arrived from Illyria, and claimed the inheritance of his
+"father." Agreement was impossible, and war ensued. Octavius obtained
+the support of the Senate and of Cicero; and the veteran troops of the
+dictator flocked to his standard. Antony was denounced as a public
+enemy; and the city gave its loudest applause to the tirades of his
+most eloquent accuser. His cause gradually lost ground, and seemed to
+be totally ruined when his army was defeated in the siege of Mutina
+(43 <span class="smcap">B.C.</span>). But escaping to Cisalpine Gaul, he formed a junction with
+Lepidus, and they marched toward Rome with 17 legions and 10,000
+cavalry.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page039" name="page039"></a>(p. 039)</span> The wily Octavius now betrayed his party, and entered into
+terms with Antony and Lepidus. It was agreed that they three should
+adopt the title&mdash;so beautifully ironical&mdash;of <span class="italic">Triumviri reipublicæ
+constituendæ</span>, and share the power and the provinces among them. Gaul
+was to be Antony's; Spain fell to the lot of Lepidus, and Africa,
+Sardinia, and Sicily were to belong to Octavius. A conjunct
+proscription followed, each of the partners in the villanous design
+bartering the life of his friends, for the pleasure of destroying his
+foes. The detested author of the "Philippics" was given up to Antony's
+revenge; and, according to Appian, the number of the victims amounted
+to 300 senators and 2,000 knights. In the following year Antony and
+Octavius proceeded against the conspirators, Cassius and Brutus, who
+still maintained themselves in Macedonia; and, in the battles of
+Philippi, stamped out the last embers of republican Rome.</p>
+
+<p>While Octavius returned to Italy, Antony proceeded to Greece, and
+thence to Asia Minor, for the sake of recruiting his funds, completing
+the subjugation of the Eastern provinces, and obtaining satisfaction
+about the conduct of the Egyptian queen during the recent contest. On
+his passage through Cilicia, in 41, he was visited by Cleopatra, who
+came to answer the charges in person. She sailed up the Cydnus in a
+gorgeous bark, with a fantastic and brilliant equipage, and brought
+all her allurements to bear on the heart of the voluptuous Roman. Her
+success was complete; and he who was to have been her judge, was led
+captive to Alexandria as her slave. All was forgotten in the
+fascination and delight of the passing hour; and feasting and revelry
+found perpetual and ever-varying renewal.</p>
+
+<p>At length Antony was aroused by the Parthian invasion of Syria, and
+the report of an outbreak between Fulvia, his wife, and Lucius, his
+brother, on the one hand, and Octavius on the other. On arriving in
+Italy he found that the war was over, and Octavius the victor; and the
+chief cause of disagreement being soon after removed by the death of
+Fulvia, a reconciliation was speedily effected between the triumvirs,
+and cemented by the marriage of Antony with Octavia, the sister of his
+colleague. A new division of the Roman world was agreed on at
+Brundusium, Lepidus receiving Africa, Octavius the West, and Antony
+the East.</p>
+
+<p>Returning to his province, Antony was for a time successful; his
+general, Ventidius, beating the Parthians, and Socius capturing
+Jerusalem and conquering Antigonus. But after another visit to Italy,
+during which the triumvirate was prolonged for five years, Antony sent
+away his wife, yielded himself completely to the evil influence of
+Cleopatra, indulged not only in licentiousness, but in tyranny, and
+allowed his affairs to be neglected or delayed. An expedition against
+the Parthians was a failure; but for this, his success against
+Artavasdes, the Armenian king, in some measure compensated. Octavius
+at length determined to get rid of Antony, and had little need of
+invention to bring charges sufficient against him. About two years
+were spent in preparations and delays on both sides, and it was not
+till the year 31 that the fate of Antony was decided by the battle of
+Actium.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page040" name="page040"></a>(p. 040)</span> Defeated and deserted, he once more sought refuge and repose
+in the society of Cleopatra, but was followed even there by his
+relentless rival. At first he made a gallant effort to defend himself,
+and partially succeeded. But convinced of the hopelessness of his
+position, and assured of the suicide of his mistress, he followed the
+example which he was falsely informed she had given (30 <span class="smcap">B.C.</span>). Antony
+had been married in succession to Fadia, Antonia, Fulvia, and Octavia,
+and left behind him a number of children. A short but vivid sketch of
+Antony is given by De Quincey in his "Essay on the Cæsars."<a href="#toc"><span class="small">[Back to Contents]</span></a></p>
+
+
+<h3>HERMANN<br>
+(16 <span class="smcap">B.C.-21 A.D.</span>)</h3>
+
+<a id="img018" name="img018"></a>
+<div class="floatleft">
+<img src="images/img018.jpg" width="250" height="216" alt="Hermann." title="">
+</div>
+
+<p>Hermann, the Arminius of the Roman historians, the son of Sigimer,
+chief of the Cherusci, was born about <span class="smcap">B.C.</span> 16 or 17. Being sent in
+early youth as a hostage to Rome, probably in consequence of the
+victories of Drusus, which had established the supremacy of Rome over
+the Catti, Cherusci, and other tribes of North Germany, he obtained
+the favor of Augustus, and was inscribed among the Roman knights. On
+his return to his native country, he resolved to deliver it from the
+Romans, whose oppression had become intolerable. Quintilius Varus, a
+rapacious man, was then the Roman governor in Germany. He had held
+office in Syria, where he had ruled with great harshness; and fancying
+that he might act in the same way toward the fierce tribes of the
+North, he roused among them a bitter hatred of the Romans.</p>
+
+<a id="img019" name="img019"></a>
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/img019.jpg" width="600" height="357" alt="" title="">
+<p>Hermann's triumph over the Romans.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>They found in Hermann a leader of extraordinary bravery and resource.
+He laid his plans with the chiefs of the Catti, Bructeri, and other
+tribes that lived between the Rhine and the Albis (Elbe), some of
+which broke out into insurrection. Hermann then offered Varus his
+assistance in reducing them to subjection, and thus led him to advance
+some distance from the Rhine into the interior. Varus began his march
+with three legions, six cohorts, and a body of cavalry, and Hermann
+served him as a guide through the wilds. The Romans were thus drawn
+into an ambuscade in the Teutoburg forest, and found themselves all at
+once surrounded by numerous bodies of Germans, who were directed by
+Hermann <span class="pagenum"><a id="page041" name="page041"></a>(p. 041)</span> himself. The Romans fought desperately; but being
+unacquainted with the localities, and unable to form their ranks owing
+to the thickness of the forests and the marshy nature of the ground,
+they were defeated after a three days' battle, by the Germans, who
+destroyed them in detail. At last, Varus, being wounded and seeing no
+chance of escape, fell upon his sword, and the other chief officers
+followed his example.</p>
+
+<p>The legions were entirely destroyed, and the cavalry alone cut their
+way through the enemy and regained the banks of the Rhine. By this
+defeat the Romans lost all their conquests beyond that river; and
+although Germanicus some years after again carried their arms to the
+Weser, they never established anything like a solid dominion over
+those regions. The defeat of Varus occurred, according to various
+chronologists, in the year 763 of Rome (<span class="smcap">A.D.</span> 9). The scene of the
+defeat is conjectured to have been in the country of the Bructeri,
+near the sources of the Ems and the Lippe. The news of this calamity,
+the greatest that had befallen the Roman arms since the defeat of
+Crassus, was received with universal amazement and terror. The
+despairing cry of Augustus, "Varus, Varus, give me back my legions!"
+testified to the consternation even at Rome, where it was expected
+that the barbarians would take a terrible revenge for the wrongs they
+had suffered.</p>
+
+<p>The fears of invasion, however, were not realized. L. Asprena guarded
+the banks of the Rhine, and the Germans were too little united among
+themselves to attack the Empire. Augustus in the following year sent
+Tiberius to the Rhine with a fresh army; but he does not seem to have
+effected anything of importance. Hermann meantime quarrelled with
+Segestes, chief of the Catti, whose daughter Tusnelda, he had carried
+off and married against her father's consent. When Germanicus, after
+the death of Augustus, marched into the interior of Germany to avenge
+the defeat of Varus, he was assisted by Segestes, and also by the
+Chauci and other tribes. In the first battle against Hermann, his wife
+Tusnelda, was taken prisoner by the Romans, and she afterward figured
+in the triumph of Germanicus. Germanicus, having reached the scene of
+Varus's defeat, paid funeral honors to the remains of the legions; but
+Hermann, who was hovering about his line of march, without coming to a
+pitched battle, harassed him in his retreat, and occasioned a great
+loss to Cæcina, the lieutenant of Germanicus.</p>
+
+<p>In the following year, Germanicus advanced again as far as the
+Visurgis, or Weser, where he found Hermann encamped ready for battle.
+A desperate fight took place, in which Hermann, after performing
+prodigies of valor, was defeated, and escaped with difficulty. But the
+victory was gained at such cost that Germanicus and his army had to
+take refuge in their ships, nor did the Romans ever again attempt the
+conquest of the fiercer German tribes.</p>
+
+<p>When Tiberius recalled Germanicus, he observed that the Cherusci,
+Bructeri, and other unsubdued tribes, might be left to their own
+internal dissensions. He seems to have guessed right.</p>
+
+<p>No sooner had the Romans been driven off, than Hermann had to protect
+his people against an internal danger. Maroboduus, the chief of the
+Marcomanni, a <span class="pagenum"><a id="page042" name="page042"></a>(p. 042)</span> man of great ambition, had by treachery or by
+open fighting, made himself master of several neighboring tribes.
+Hermann began to fear his designs, and after the defeat of Varus,
+warned him of his peril by sending him the Roman general's head. When
+Germanicus finally left the country, Hermann declared war against
+Maroboduus, and, being joined by the Semnones and Longobards, defeated
+him on the borders of the Hercynian forest, broke up his kingdom, and
+drove him from Germany. The fugitive applied to Rome for assistance.
+Tiberius then sent his son Drusus into the Illyricum; but the Romans
+did not advance beyond the Danube, and Hermann remained unmolested in
+Northern Germany. Shortly after, however, Hermann was killed by his
+own relatives, being accused, as it would seem, of aspiring to
+absolute dominion. He died at the age of thirty-seven, in the
+twenty-first year of our era, after being for twelve years the leader
+and champion of Germany.<a href="#toc"><span class="small">[Back to Contents]</span></a></p>
+
+
+<h3>TRAJAN<br>
+By <span class="smcap">J. S. Reid, Litt.D.</span><br>
+(53-117)</h3>
+
+<a id="img020" name="img020"></a>
+<div class="floatleft">
+<img src="images/img020.jpg" width="250" height="364" alt="Trajan." title="">
+</div>
+
+<p>The Roman Empire reached its greatest extent under Marcus Ulpius
+Traianus, the fourteenth emperor. Of him it was said that he "built
+the world over," and the Romans themselves regarded him as the best,
+and perhaps the greatest of their emperors. He was a native of
+Italica, in Spain. The family to which he belonged was probably
+Italian, and not Iberian, by blood. His father began life as a common
+legionary soldier, and fought his way up to the consulship and the
+governorship of Asia. He was one of the hardest fighters in Judæa
+under Vespasian and Titus; he served, too, against the Parthians, and
+won the highest military distinction open to a subject, the grant of
+the triumphal insignia. Thus he acquired a prominent place among the
+brand new patricians created by the Flavians as substitutes for the
+nobles of old descent who had succumbed to the cruelty and rapacity of
+the emperors from Tiberius to Nero.</p>
+
+<p>The younger Trajan was rigorously trained by his father, and deeply
+imbued with the same principles and tastes. He was a soldier born and
+bred. No better representative of the true old hardy Roman type,
+little softened either by luxury <span class="pagenum"><a id="page043" name="page043"></a>(p. 043)</span> or education, had come to
+the head of affairs since the days of Marius. The date of his birth
+was probably 53 <span class="smcap">A.D.</span> His training was almost exclusively military, but
+his experience as an officer gave him an acquaintance with almost
+every important province of the empire, which was of priceless value
+to him when he came to the throne. For ten years he held a commission
+as military tribune, which took him to many lands far asunder; then he
+filled important posts in Syria and Spain. How much actual warfare
+Trajan saw in those days we can hardly tell; he certainly went through
+some severe service under his father's command against the Parthians.
+By the year 89 he had achieved a considerable reputation. At that time
+L. Antonius Saturninus headed a rebellion in Germany, which threatened
+seriously to bring Domitian's rule to an end. Trajan was ordered in
+hot haste from Farther Spain to the Rhine. Although he carried his
+troops over that long and arduous march with almost unexampled
+rapidity, he only arrived after the insurrection had been put down.
+But his promptitude raised him higher in the favor of Domitian, and he
+was advanced to the consulship in 91. Of the next five years of his
+life we know nothing positively. It is not unlikely that they were
+spent at Rome or in Italy in the fulfilment of some official duties.</p>
+
+<p>When the revolution of 96 came, and Nerva replaced the murdered
+Domitian, Trajan had conferred upon him one of the most important
+posts in the Empire, that of consular legate of Upper Germany. An
+officer whose nature, as the event showed, was interpenetrated with
+the spirit of legality, was a fitting servant of a revolution whose
+aim it was to substitute legality for personal caprice, as the
+dominant principle of affairs. The short reign of Nerva really did
+start the Empire on a new career, which lasted more than
+three-quarters of a century. But it also demonstrated how impossible
+it was for any one to govern at all who had no claim, either personal
+or inherited, to the respect of the legions. Nerva saw that if he
+could not find an Augustus to control the army, the army would find
+another Domitian to trample the Senate under foot. In his difficulties
+he took counsel with L. Licinius Sura, a lifelong friend of Trajan,
+and in October, 97, he ascended the Capitol, and with all due
+solemnity proclaimed that he adopted Trajan as his son.</p>
+
+<p>The Senate confirmed the choice, and acknowledged the emperor's
+adopted son as his successor. In a letter which Nerva sent at once to
+Trajan, he quoted most significantly a line from the beginning of the
+"Iliad," where Chryses, insulted by Achilles, prays to Apollo: "May
+thy shafts afford me vengeance on the Greeks for my tears." After a
+little hesitation Trajan accepted the position, which was marked by
+the titles of Imperator, Cæsar, and Germanicus, and by the tribunician
+authority. He immediately proceeded to Lower Germany, to assure
+himself of the fidelity of the troops in that province, and while at
+Cologne he received news of Nerva's death (January, 98).</p>
+
+<p>The authority of the new emperor was recognized at once all the Empire
+over. The novel fact that a master of the Romans should have been born
+on Spanish soil seems to have passed with little remark, and this very
+absence of <span class="pagenum"><a id="page044" name="page044"></a>(p. 044)</span> notice is significant. Trajan's first care as
+emperor was to write to the Senate an assurance like that which had
+been given by Nerva, that he would neither kill nor degrade any
+senator. He ordered the establishment of a temple and cult in honor of
+his adoptive father, but he did not present himself at Rome for nearly
+two years after his accession. Possibly he had taken measures before
+Nerva's death to secure the revenge which Nerva craved, but probably
+did not live to see. In his dealings with the mutinous prætorians the
+strength of the new emperor's hand was shown at once. He ordered a
+portion of the force to Germany. They did not venture to disobey, and
+were distributed among the legions there. Those who remained at Rome
+were easily overawed and reformed. It is still more surprising that
+the soldiers should have quietly submitted to a reduction in the
+amount of the donative or gift which it was customary for them to
+receive from a new emperor, though the civil population of the capital
+were paid their largess (<span class="italic">congiarium</span>) in full. By politic management
+Trajan was able to represent the diminution as a sort of discount for
+immediate payment, while the civilians had to wait a considerable time
+before their full due was handed to them.</p>
+
+<p>The secret of Trajan's power lay in his close personal relations with
+the officers and men of the army, and in the soldierly qualities which
+commanded their esteem. He possessed courage, justice, and frankness
+to a high degree. Having a good title to military distinction himself,
+he could afford, as the unwarlike emperors could not, to be generous
+to his officers. The common soldiers, on the other hand, were
+fascinated by his personal prowess and his somewhat ostentatious
+<span class="italic">camaraderie</span>. His features were firm and clearly cut; his figure was
+tall and soldierly, and exhibited the sinewy hard health of a veteran
+campaigner. His hair was already gray before he came to the throne,
+though he was not more than forty-four years old. The stoutness of the
+emperor's arm had been proved in the face of his men in many a hard
+fight. When on service he used the mean fare of the common private,
+dining on salt pork, cheese, and sour wine. Nothing pleased him better
+than to take part with the centurion, or the soldier in fencing or
+other military exercise, and he would applaud any shrewd blow which
+fell upon his own helmet. He loved to display his acquaintance with
+the career of distinguished veterans, and to talk with them of their
+battles and their wounds. Probably he lost nothing of his popularity
+with the army by occasional free indulgence in sensual pleasures, with
+which, as Bacon remarks, the soldier is apt to pay himself for the
+perils he encounters. Yet every man felt and knew that no detail of
+military duty, however minute, escaped the emperor's eye, and that any
+relaxation of discipline would be rigidly punished, yet with
+unwavering justice.</p>
+
+<p>Trajan emphasized at once his personal control and the
+constitutionality of his sway, by bearing on his campaigns the actual
+title of "proconsul," which no other emperor had done. All things
+considered, it is not surprising that he was able, without serious
+opposition from the army, to remodel the whole military institutions
+of the empire, and to bring them into a shape from which there was
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page045" name="page045"></a>(p. 045)</span> comparatively little departure so long as the army lasted.
+In disciplinary matters no emperor since Augustus had been able to
+keep so strong a control over the troops. Pliny rightly praises Trajan
+as the lawgiver and the founder of discipline, and Vegetius classes
+Augustus, Trajan, and Hadrian together as restorers of the <span class="italic">morale</span> of
+the army. The confidence which existed between Trajan and his army
+finds expression in some of the coins of his reign.</p>
+
+<p>For nearly two years after his election Trajan did not appear in Rome.
+He had decided already what the great task of his reign should be&mdash;the
+establishment of security upon the dangerous north-eastern frontier.
+Before visiting the capital he determined to put affairs in train for
+the attainment of this great object. He made a thorough inspection of
+the great lines of defence between the Danube and the Rhine, and
+framed, and partly carried out, a vast scheme for strengthening and
+securing them. The policy of opposing uncivilized tribes by the
+construction of the <span class="italic">limes</span>, a raised embankment of earth or other
+material, intersected here and there by fortifications, was not his
+invention, but it owed in great measure its development to him. This
+grand work, which would have excited the envy of Augustus, is
+traceable in its main extent at the present day. Among a people of
+roadmakers, Trajan was one of the greatest, and we have definite
+evidence from inscriptions that some of the military roads in this
+region were constructed by him. The more secure control which the
+Romans now maintained over the territory within the <span class="italic">limes</span>, tended to
+its rapid civilization, and the Roman influence, if not the Roman
+arms, soon began to affect powerfully the regions beyond.</p>
+
+<p>After his careful survey of the Rhine end of the great defensive
+barrier, Trajan proceeded to consider it and plan it from the Danube.
+From the age of Tiberius onward, the Romans possessed the whole
+southern bank of the river from its source to the Euxine. But the
+precarious tenure of their possession, had been deeply impressed on
+them by the disasters and humiliations they had undergone in these
+districts during the reign of Domitian. A prince had arisen among the
+Dacians, Decebalus by name, worthy to be placed at the head of all the
+great barbarian antagonists of Rome. Like Maroboduus, he was able to
+combine the forces of tribes commonly hostile to each other, and his
+military ability almost went the length of genius. After he had swept
+the province of M&oelig;sia bare, he was defeated by one of Domitian's
+lieutenants, but the position of affairs on the Danubio-Rhenish border
+was still so threatening, that the emperor was glad to conclude a
+treaty which conferred extraordinary advantages on his foe. Not only
+did the Romans stipulate to pay to Decebalus an annual subsidy, which
+he must have regarded as a tribute, but they agreed to supply him with
+engineers and craftsmen skilled in all kinds of construction, but
+particularly in the erection of fortifications and defensive works.
+During the nine or ten years which had elapsed since the conclusion of
+this remarkable treaty, the Dacian prince had immensely strengthened
+the approaches to his kingdom from the Roman side. He had also
+equipped and drilled his formidable army after the Roman fashion. It
+was impossible for a soldier like Trajan to endure <span class="pagenum"><a id="page046" name="page046"></a>(p. 046)</span> the
+conditions laid down by Domitian; but the conquest of Dacia had become
+one of the most formidable tasks that had ever confronted the Empire.
+Trajan, no doubt, planned a war before he left the Danube for Rome
+late in 99.</p>
+
+<p>The arrival of the emperor had been awaited in the capital with an
+impatience which is expressed by Pliny and by Martial. All that had
+happened since Trajan's elevation to the throne had raised high at
+Rome the hope of a prosperous and glorious reign. As he entered the
+city and went on foot to the Capitol, the plaudits of the people were
+unmistakably genuine. During his stay in the city he riveted more
+firmly still the affections both of the Senate and of the people. The
+reconciliation of the Empire with liberty, inaugurated, as Tacitus
+says, by Nerva, seemed now to be securely achieved. Trajan was
+absolutely open and simple, and lived with men at Rome as he had lived
+with his soldiers while on service. He realized the Senate's ideal of
+the citizen ruler. The assurance that no senator should suffer was
+renewed by oath. All the old republican formalities were most
+punctiliously observed&mdash;even those attendant on the emperor's election
+to the consulate, so far as they did not involve a restoration of the
+old order of voting at the comitia. The veneration for republican
+tradition is curiously attested by the reproduction of many republican
+types of coin struck by senatorial officers.</p>
+
+<p>Trajan seized every opportunity for emphasizing his view that the
+<span class="italic">princeps</span> was merely the greatest of the magistrates, and so was not
+above but under the laws. He was determined, he said, to be to his
+subjects such a ruler as he had desired for himself when a subject.
+There is a pretty story to the effect that he handed the commander of
+the prætorians his sword, and said, "Use it for me if I do well, but
+against me if I do ill." Martial, who had called Domitian his lord and
+his god, now cried, "In him we have no lord, but an imperator!" Real
+power and influence were accorded to the Senate, which had now, by the
+incorporation of members whose origin was provincial, become in a
+manner representative of the whole empire. Trajan associated with the
+senators on equal terms, and enjoyed in their company every kind of
+recreation. All pomp was distasteful to him, and discarded by him.
+There was practically no court, and no intrigues of any kind were
+possible. The approach to his house was free, and he loved to pass
+through the city unattended, and to pay unexpected visits to his
+friends. He thirsted for no senator's blood, and used severity against
+the <span class="italic">delatores</span> alone. There was but one insignificant conspiracy
+against him during his whole reign.</p>
+
+<p>Though not literary himself, Trajan conciliated the literary men, who
+at all times had close relations with the Senate. His intimate, M.
+Licinius, played an excellent Mæcenas to his Augustus. In his efforts
+to win the affections of Roman society, Trajan was excellently aided
+by his wife Plotina, who was as simple as her husband, benevolent,
+pure in character, and entirely unambitious. The hold which Trajan
+acquired over the people was no less firm than that which he
+maintained upon the army and the Senate. His largesses, his
+distributions of food, his public works, and his spectacles were all
+on a generous scale. <span class="pagenum"><a id="page047" name="page047"></a>(p. 047)</span> The exhibitions in the arena were
+perhaps at their zenith during his tenure of power. Though, for some
+unexplained reason, he abolished the mimes, so beloved of the
+populace, at the outset of his reign, he availed himself of the
+occasion of his first triumph to restore them again. The people were
+delighted by the removal of the imperial <span class="italic">exedra</span> in the circus,
+whereby five thousand additional places were provided. Taxation was in
+many directions reduced, and the financial exactions of the imperial
+officers controlled by the erection of a special court. Elaborate
+precautions were taken to save Italy from famine; it is said that corn
+for seven years' consumption at the capital was retained in the
+granaries. Special encouragement was given to merchants to import
+articles of food. The corporation of bakers was organized, and made
+more effective for the service of the public. The internal trade of
+Italy was powerfully stimulated by the careful maintenance and
+extension of the different lines of road.</p>
+
+<p>But the most striking evidence of Trajan's solicitude for his people's
+welfare is found in his institution of the <span class="italic">alimenta</span>, whereby means
+were provided for the rearing of poor and orphan children in Italy.
+The method had been sketched out by Nerva, but its great development
+was due to Trajan. The moneys allotted by the emperor were in many
+cases supplemented by private benevolence. As a soldier, Trajan
+realized the need of men for the maintenance of the Empire against the
+outer barbarians, and he preferred that these men should be of Italian
+birth. He was only carrying a step further the policy of Augustus, who
+by a system of rewards and penalties had tried to encourage marriage
+and the nurture of children. The annual effect of Trajan's regulations
+is hard to measure; they were probably more effectual for their object
+than those of Augustus. The foundations were confiscated by Pertinax,
+after they had existed less than a century.</p>
+
+<p>Toward the end of 100, or early in 101, Trajan left Rome for the
+Danube. Pretexts for a Dacian war were not difficult to find. Although
+there was no lack of hard fighting, victory in this war depended
+largely on the work of the engineer. The great military road
+connecting the posts in Upper Germany with those on the Danube, which
+had been begun by Tiberius, was now extended along the right bank of
+the river as far as the modern Orsova. The year 101 was spent mainly
+in roadmaking and fortification. In the following campaign, after
+desperate fighting to the north of the Danube in the mountainous
+region of Transylvania, such as Cæsar never encountered in all his
+Gaulish wars, the capital of Decebalus was taken, and he was forced to
+terms. He agreed to raze all fortresses, to surrender all weapons,
+prisoners, and Roman deserters, and to become a dependent prince under
+the suzerainty of Rome. Trajan came back to Italy with Dacian envoys,
+who in ancient style begged the Senate to confirm the conditions
+granted by the commander in the field. The emperor now enjoyed his
+first Dacian triumph, and assumed the title of Dacicus. At the same
+time he royally entertained the people, and no less royally rewarded
+his brave officers.</p>
+
+<p>But the Dacian chief could not school his high spirit to endure the
+conditions of the treaty, and Trajan soon found it necessary to
+prepare for another war. A <span class="pagenum"><a id="page048" name="page048"></a>(p. 048)</span> massive stone bridge was built
+across the Danube, near the modern Turn Severin, by Apollodorus, the
+gifted architect who afterward designed the forum of Trajan. In 105
+began the new struggle, which on the side of Decebalus could now only
+lead to victory or to destruction. The Dacians fought their ground
+inch by inch, and their army as a whole may be said to have bled to
+death. The prince put an end to his own life. His kingdom became an
+imperial province; in it many colonies were founded, and peopled by
+settlers drawn from different parts of the empire. The work done by
+Trajan in the Danubian regions left a lasting mark upon their history.
+The emperor returned to the capital in 106, laden with captured
+treasure. His triumph outdid in splendor all those that went before
+it. Games are said to have been held continuously for four months. The
+chariot races were the grandest ever seen. Ten thousand gladiators
+contended in the arena, and eleven thousand beasts were killed in the
+contests. Congratulatory embassies came from all lands, even from
+India. The grand and enduring monument of the Dacian wars is the noble
+pillar which still stands on the site of Trajan's forum at Rome. The
+end of the Dacian wars was followed by seven years of peace.</p>
+
+<p>Many details in the administration of the law, and particularly of the
+criminal law, were improved. To cure corruption in the Senate the
+ballot was introduced at elections to magistracies. The finances of
+the state were economically managed, and taxpayers were most carefully
+guarded from oppression. Trajan never lacked money to expend on great
+works of public utility; as a builder, he may fairly be compared with
+Augustus. His forum and its numerous appendages were constructed on a
+magnificent scale. Many regions of Italy and the provinces, besides
+the city itself, benefited by the care and munificence which the
+emperor bestowed on such public improvements. His attitude toward
+religion was, like that of Augustus, moderate and conservative. The
+famous letter to Pliny about the Christians is, according to Roman
+ideas, merciful and considerate. It was impossible, however, for a
+Roman magistrate of the time to rid himself of the idea that all forms
+of religion must do homage to the civil power. Hence the conflict
+which made Trajan appear in the eyes of Christians like Tertullian,
+the most infamous of monsters. On the whole, Trajan's civil
+administration was sound, careful, and sensible, rather than brilliant
+or epoch-making.</p>
+
+<a id="img021" name="img021"></a>
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/img021.jpg" width="600" height="349" alt="" title="">
+<p>Rome under Trajan&mdash;A chariot race.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>In 113 or 114 Trajan left Italy to make war in the East. The
+never-ending Parthian problem confronted him, and with it were more or
+less connected a number of minor difficulties. Already by 106 the
+position of Rome in the East had been materially improved by the
+peaceful annexation of districts bordering on the province of Syria.
+The district of Damascus, hitherto a dependency, and the last
+remaining fragment of the Jewish kingdom, were incorporated with
+Syria; Bostra and Petra were permanently occupied, and a great portion
+of the Nabathæan kingdom was constituted the Roman province of Arabia.
+Rome thus obtained mastery of the most important positions lying on
+the great trade-routes from East to West. These changes could not but
+affect the relations of the Roman with the Parthian empire, and the
+affairs of Armenia became, in 114, the occasion of war. Trajan's
+campaigns in the East ended in complete <span class="pagenum"><a id="page049" name="page049"></a>(p. 049)</span> though brilliant
+failure. In the retreat from Ctesiphon (117), the old emperor tasted
+for almost the first time the bitterness of defeat in the field. He
+attacked the desert city of Hatra, westward of the Tigris, whose
+importance is still attested by grand ruins. The want of water made it
+impossible to maintain a large force near the city, and the brave
+Arabs routed the Roman cavalry. Trajan, who narrowly escaped being
+killed, was forced to withdraw.</p>
+
+<p>A more alarming difficulty lay before him. Taking advantage of the
+absence of the emperor in the far East, and possibly by an
+understanding with the leaders of the rising in Armenia and the
+annexed portions of Parthia, the Jews all over the East had taken up
+arms at the same moment, and at a given signal. The massacres they
+committed were portentous. In Cyprus 240,000 men are said to have been
+put to death, and at Cyrene 220,000. At Alexandria, on the other hand,
+many Jews were killed. The Romans punished massacre by massacre, and
+the complete suppression of the insurrection was long delayed, but the
+Jews made no great stand against disciplined troops. Trajan still
+thought of returning to Mesopotamia, and of avenging his defeat at
+Hatra, but he was stricken with sickness and compelled to take ship
+for Italy. His illness increasing, he landed in Cilicia, and died at
+Selinus in that country about the end of July, 117.</p>
+
+<p>Trajan, who had no children, had continually delayed to settle the
+succession to the throne, though Pliny, in the "Panegyric" had
+pointedly drawn his attention to the matter, and it must have caused
+the Senate much anxiety. Whether Hadrian, the cousin of Trajan, was
+actually adopted by him or not, is impossible to determine; certainly
+Hadrian had not been advanced to any great honors by Trajan. Even his
+military service had not been distinguished. Plotina asserted the
+adoption, and it was readily and most fortunately accepted, if not
+believed, as a fact.</p>
+
+<p>The Senate had decreed to Trajan as many triumphs as he chose to
+celebrate. For the first time a dead general triumphed. When Trajan
+was deified, he appropriately retained, alone among the emperors, a
+title he had won for himself in the field, that of "Parthicus." He was
+a patient organizer of victory rather than a strategic genius. He
+laboriously perfected the military machine, which when once set in
+motion went on to victory. Much of the work he did was great and
+enduring, but the last year of his life forbade the Romans to
+attribute to him that <span class="italic">felicitas</span> which they regarded as an inborn
+quality of the highest generals. Each succeeding emperor was saluted
+with the wish that he might be "better than Trajan and more fortunate
+than Augustus." Yet the breach made in Trajan's <span class="italic">felicitas</span> by the
+failure in the East was no greater than that made in the <span class="italic">felicitas</span>
+of Augustus by his retirement from the right bank of the Rhine.<a href="#toc"><span class="small">[Back to Contents]</span></a></p>
+
+
+<h3><span class="pagenum"><a id="page050" name="page050"></a>(p. 050)</span> DIOCLETIAN<br>
+(245-313)</h3>
+
+<a id="img022" name="img022"></a>
+<div class="floatleft">
+<img src="images/img022.jpg" width="300" height="229" alt="Circus scene." title="">
+</div>
+
+<p>Caius Valerius Diocletianus, one of the most famous of the Roman
+emperors, was, as De Quincey says, "doubtless that man of iron whom
+the times demanded." He was born at Dioclea, in Dalmatia, some say at
+Salona, about <span class="smcap">A.D.</span> 245 according to some, but others make him ten
+years older. His original name was Diocles, which he afterward changed
+into Diocletianus. He is said by some to have been the son of a
+notary, by others the freedman of a senator named Anulinus. He entered
+the army at an early age, and rose gradually to rank; he served in
+Gaul, in M&oelig;sia, under Probus, and was present at the campaign
+against the Persians, in which Carus, then emperor, perished in a
+mysterious manner. Diocletian commanded the household or imperial
+body-guards when young Numerianus, the son of Carus, was secretly put
+to death by Aper his father-in-law, while travelling in a close litter
+on account of illness, on the return of the army from Persia. The
+death of Numerianus being discovered after several days by the
+soldiers near Calchedon, they arrested Aper and proclaimed Diocletian
+emperor, who addressing the soldiers from his tribunal in the camp,
+protested his innocence of the death of Numerianus, and then
+upbraiding Aper for the crime, plunged his sword into the traitor's
+body.</p>
+
+<p>The new emperor observed to a friend that "he had now killed the
+boar," punning on the word Aper, which means a boar, and alluding to
+the prediction of a soothsayer in Gaul, who had told him that he would
+become emperor after having killed a boar (Vopiscus, in "Hist. Aug.").
+Diocletian, self-composed and strong-minded in other respects, was all
+his life an anxious believer in divination, which superstition led him
+probably to inflict summary punishment upon Aper with his own hands.
+He made his solemn entrance into Nicomedia in September, 284, which
+town he afterward chose for his favorite residence.</p>
+
+<p>Carinus, the other son of Carus, who had remained in Italy, having
+collected a force to attack Diocletian, the two armies met at Margum,
+in M&oelig;sia, where the soldiers of Carinus had the advantage at first,
+but Carinus himself being killed during the battle by his officers,
+who detested him for his cruelty and debauchery, <span class="pagenum"><a id="page051" name="page051"></a>(p. 051)</span> both armies
+joined in acknowledging Diocletian emperor in 285. Diocletian was
+generous after his victory, and, contrary to the common practice,
+there were no executions, proscriptions, or confiscations of property;
+he even retained most of the officers of Carinus in their places.</p>
+
+<p>Diocletian, on assuming the imperial power, found the Empire assailed
+by enemies in various quarters&mdash;on the Persian frontiers, on the side
+of Germany and of Illyricum, and in Britain; besides which a serious
+revolt had broken out in Gaul among the rural population, under two
+leaders who had assumed the title of emperor. To quell the disturbance
+in Gaul, Diocletian sent his old friend Maximianus, a native of
+Pannonia, and a brave but rude uncultivated soldier. Maximianus
+defeated the Bagaudi, for such was the name the rustic insurgents had
+assumed. In the year 286, Diocletian chose Maximianus as his colleague
+in the Empire, under the name of Marcus Valerius Maximianus Augustus,
+and it is to the credit of both that the latter continued ever after
+faithful to Diocletian and willing to follow his advice. Maximianus
+was stationed in Gaul and on the German frontier to repel invasion;
+Diocletian resided chiefly in the East to watch the Persians, though
+he appears to have visited Rome in the early part of his reign. About
+287 the revolt of Carausius took place. In the following year
+Maximianus defeated the Germans near Treviri, and Diocletian himself
+marched against other tribes on the Rhætian frontier; the year after
+he defeated the Sarmatians on the lower Danube. In the same year, 289,
+peace was made between Carausius and the two emperors, Carausius being
+allowed to retain possession of Britain. In 290 Maximianus and
+Diocletian met at Milan to confer together on the state of the Empire,
+after which Diocletian returned to Nicomedia. The Persians soon after
+again invaded Mesopotamia and threatened Syria; the Quinquegentiani, a
+federation of tribes in the Mauritania Cæsariensis, revolted; another
+revolt under one Achillæus broke out in Egypt; another in Italy under
+a certain Julianus.</p>
+
+<p>Diocletian thought it necessary to increase the number of his
+colleagues in order to face the attacks in the various quarters. On
+the 1st of March, 292, or 291, according to some chronologists, he
+appointed Galerius as Cæsar, and presented him to the troops at
+Nicomedia. At the same time Maximianus adopted on his part Constantius
+called Chlorus. The two Cæsars repudiated their respective wives;
+Galerius married Valeria, Diocletian's daughter, adding to his name
+that of Valerianus; and Constantius married Theodora, daughter of
+Maximianus. Galerius was a native of Dacia, and a good soldier, but
+violent and cruel; he had been a herdsman in his youth, for which he
+has been styled, in derision, Armentarius. The two Cæsars remained
+subordinate to the two Augusti, though each of the four was entrusted
+with the administration of a part of the Empire. Diocletian kept to
+himself Asia and Egypt; Maximianus had Italy and Africa; Galerius,
+Thrace and Illyricum; and Constantius had Gaul and Spain. But it was
+rather an administrative than a political division. At the head of the
+edicts of each prince were put the names of all the four, beginning
+with that of Diocletian.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page052" name="page052"></a>(p. 052)</span> Diocletian resorted to this arrangement probably as much for
+reasons of internal as of external policy. For nearly a hundred years
+before, ever since the death of Commodus, the soldiers had been in the
+habit of giving or selling the imperial crown, to which any general
+might aspire. Between thirty and forty emperors had been thus
+successively made and unmade many of whom only reigned a few months.
+By fixing upon four colleagues, one in each of the great divisions of
+the Empire, each having his army, and all mutually checking one
+another, Diocletian put a stop to military insolence and anarchy. The
+Empire was no longer put up to sale, the immediate and intolerable
+evil was effectually cured, though another danger remained, that of
+disputes and wars between the various sharers of the imperial power;
+still it was a smaller danger and one which did not manifest itself so
+long as Diocletian remained at the helm. Writers have been very free
+of their censure upon this emperor for parcelling, as they call it,
+the Empire; but this was the only chance there was of preventing its
+crumbling to pieces. Italy, and Rome in particular, lost by the
+change: they no longer monopolized the wealth and power of the world,
+but the other provinces gained. The Empire was much too large for one
+single man or a single central administration, under the dwindled
+influence of the Roman name, and amidst the numerous causes of local
+dissension and discontent, private ambition, social corruption, and
+foreign hostility, that had accumulated for three centuries, since the
+time of Augustus.</p>
+
+<a id="img023" name="img023"></a>
+<div class="floatleft">
+<img src="images/img023.jpg" width="300" height="169" alt="Army on horse." title="">
+</div>
+
+<p>The new Cæsars justified Diocletian's expectations. Constantius
+defeated the Franks and the Alemanni, and soon after reconquered
+Britain. Galerius subjugated the Carpi, and transported the whole
+tribe into Pannonia. In the year 296, the Persians, under their king
+Narses, again invaded Mesopotamia and part of Syria. Galerius marched
+against them, but being too confident was defeated by superior
+numbers, and obliged to retire. On his meeting Diocletian, the emperor
+showed his dissatisfaction by letting Galerius walk for a mile, clad
+in purple as he was, by the side of his car. The following year
+Galerius again attacked the Persians, and completely defeated them,
+taking an immense booty. The wives and children of Narses, who were
+among the prisoners, were treated by Galerius with humanity and
+respect. Narses sued for peace, which was granted by Diocletian on
+condition of the Persians giving up all the territory on the right or
+western bank of the Tigris. This peace was concluded in 297, and
+lasted forty years.</p>
+
+<p>At the same time Diocletian marched into Egypt against Achillæus, whom
+he besieged in Alexandria, which he took after a siege of eight
+months, when the <span class="pagenum"><a id="page053" name="page053"></a>(p. 053)</span> usurper and his chief adherents were put to
+death. Diocletian is said to have behaved on this occasion with
+unusual sternness. Several towns of Egypt, among others Busiris and
+Coptos, were destroyed. Constantine, the son of Constantius, who was
+educated at Nicomedia, accompanied the emperor in this expedition.
+Diocletian fixed the limits of the Empire on that side at the island
+of Elephantina, where he built a castle, and made peace with the
+neighboring tribes, called by some Nubæ and by others Nabatæ, to whom
+he gave up the strip of territory which the Romans had conquered, of
+seven days' march above the first cataract, on condition that they
+should prevent the Blemmyes and Ethiopians from attacking Egypt.
+Maximianus in the meantime was engaged in putting down the revolt in
+Mauritania, which he effected with full success.</p>
+
+<p>For several years after this the empire enjoyed peace, and Diocletian
+and his colleagues were chiefly employed in framing laws and
+administrative regulations, and in constructing forts on the
+frontiers. Diocletian kept a splendid court at Nicomedia, which town
+he embellished with numerous structures. He, or rather Maximianus by
+his order, caused the magnificent Thermæ at Rome to be built, the
+remains of which still bear Diocletian's name, and which contained,
+besides the baths, a library, a museum, public walks, and other
+establishments.</p>
+
+<p>In February, 303, Diocletian issued an edict against the Christians,
+ordering their churches to be pulled down, their sacred books to be
+burnt, and all Christians to be dismissed from offices civil or
+military, with other penalties, exclusive however of death. Various
+causes have been assigned for this measure. It is known that Galerius
+had always been hostile to the Christians, while Diocletian had openly
+favored them, had employed them in his armies and about his person;
+and Eusebius speaks of the prosperity, security, and protection which
+the Christians enjoyed under his reign. They had churches in most
+towns, and one at Nicomedia in particular under the eye of the
+emperor. Just before the edict was issued, Galerius had repaired to
+Nicomedia to induce Diocletian to proscribe the Christians. He filled
+the emperor's mind with reports of conspiracies and seditions. The
+imperial palace took fire, Constantine ("Oratio ad C&oelig;tum
+Sanctorum") says, from lightning, and Galerius suggested to the
+emperor that it was a Christian plot.</p>
+
+<p>The heathen priests on their part exerted themselves for the same
+purpose. It happened that on the occasion of a solemn sacrifice in
+presence of the emperor, while priests were consulting the entrails of
+the victims, the Christian officers in the imperial retinue crossed
+themselves; upon which the priests declared that the presence of
+profane men prevented them from discovering the auspices. Diocletian,
+who was very anxious to pry into futurity, became irritated, and
+ordered all his Christian officers to sacrifice to the gods under pain
+of flagellation and dismissal, which many of them underwent. Several
+oracles which he consulted gave answers unfavorable to the Christians.
+The church of Nicomedia was the first pulled down by order of the
+emperor. The rashness of a Christian who publicly tore down the
+imperial edict exasperated Diocletian still more: the culprit was put
+to a cruel death. Then came a second edict, ordering all magistrates
+to arrest <span class="pagenum"><a id="page054" name="page054"></a>(p. 054)</span> the Christian bishops and presbyters, and compel
+them to sacrifice to the gods. This was giving to their enemies power
+over their lives, and it proved, in fact, the beginning of a cruel
+persecution, whose ravages were the more extensive in proportion to
+the great diffusion of Christianity during a long period of
+toleration. This was the last persecution under the Roman Empire, and
+it has been called by the name of Diocletian. But that emperor issued
+the two edicts reluctantly and after long hesitation, according to
+Lactantius's acknowledgment: he fell ill a few months after, and on
+recovering from his long illness he abdicated. Galerius, who had
+instigated the persecution, was the most zealous minister of it; the
+persecution raged with most fury in the provinces subject to his rule,
+and he continued it for several years after Diocletian's abdication,
+so that it might with more propriety be called the Galerian
+persecution. Legend says that he died of a horrible disease, filled
+with remorse and imagining himself haunted by the martyred spirits.
+The countries under the government of Constantius suffered the least
+from it.</p>
+
+<p>In November of that year (303) Diocletian repaired to Rome, where he
+and Maximianus enjoyed the honor of a triumph, followed by festive
+games. This was the last triumph that Rome saw. The populace of that
+city complained of the economy of Diocletian on the occasion, who
+replied that moderation and temperance were most required when the
+censor was present. They vented their displeasure in jibes and
+sarcasms, which so hurt Diocletian that he left Rome abruptly in the
+month of December for Ravenna, in very cold weather. In this journey
+he was seized by an illness which affected him the whole of the
+following year, which he spent at Nicomedia. At one time he was
+reported to be dead. He rallied, however, in the spring of 305, and
+showed himself in public, but greatly altered in appearance. Galerius
+soon after came to Nicomedia, and it is said that he persuaded
+Diocletian to abdicate. Others say that Diocletian did it
+spontaneously.</p>
+
+<p>On the 1st of May he repaired with his guards to a spot three miles
+out of Nicomedia, where he had thirteen years before proclaimed
+Galerius as Cæsar, and there addressing his officers and court, he
+said that the infirmities of age warned him to retire from power, and
+to deliver the administration of the state into stronger hands. He
+then proclaimed Galerius as Augustus, and Maximinus Daza as the new
+Cæsar. Constantine, who has given an account of the ceremony, which is
+quoted by Eusebius in his life of that prince, was present, and the
+troops fully expected that he would be the new Cæsar; when they heard
+another mentioned, they asked each other whether Constantine had
+changed his name. But Galerius did not leave them long in suspense; he
+pushed forward Maximinus and showed him to the assembly, and
+Diocletian clothed him with the purple vest, after which the old
+emperor returned privately in his carriage to Nicomedia, and
+immediately after set off for Salona in Dalmatia, near which he built
+himself an extensive palace by the sea-shore, in which he lived for
+the rest of his life, respected by the other emperors, without cares
+and without regret.</p>
+
+<a id="img024" name="img024"></a>
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/img024.jpg" width="600" height="370" alt="The Victims of Galerius." title="">
+</div>
+
+<p>Part of the external walls which inclosed the area belonging to his
+palace <span class="pagenum"><a id="page055" name="page055"></a>(p. 055)</span> and other buildings still remain, with three of the
+gates, as well as a temple, which is now a church at Spalatro, or
+Spalato, in Dalmatia, a comparatively modern town, grown out of the
+decay of the ancient Salona, and built in great part within the walls
+of Diocletian's residence, from the name of which, "Palatium," it is
+believed that "Spalato" is derived.</p>
+
+<p>At the same time that Diocletian abdicated at Nicomedia, Maximianus,
+according to an agreement between them, performed a similar ceremony
+at Milan, proclaiming Constantius as Augustus, and Severus as Cæsar.
+Both Severus and Maximinus Daza were inferior persons, and creatures
+of Galerius, who insisted upon their nomination in preference to that
+of Maxentius and Constantine, whom Diocletian had at first proposed.
+Maximianus retired to his seat in Lucania, but not being endowed with
+the firmness of Diocletian he tried some time after to recover his
+former power, and wrote to his old colleague to induce him to do the
+same. "Were you but to come to Salona," answered Diocletian, "and see
+the vegetables which I grow in my garden with my own hands, you would
+no longer talk to me of empire." In his retirement he used to observe
+to his associates how difficult it is, even for the best-intentioned
+man, to govern well, as he cannot see everything with his own eyes,
+but must trust to others, who often deceive him.</p>
+
+<p>Once only he left his retirement to meet Galerius in Pannonia for the
+purpose of appointing a new Cæsar, Licinius, in the place of Severus,
+who had died. Licinius, however, did not prove grateful, for after the
+death of Galerius, in 311, he ill-treated his widow, Valeria,
+Diocletian's daughter, who then, with her mother, Prisca, took refuge
+in the territories of Maximinus Daza. The latter offered to marry
+Valeria, but on her refusal exiled both her and her mother into the
+deserts of Syria, and put to death several of their attendants.
+Diocletian remonstrated in favor of his wife and daughter, but to no
+purpose, and his grief on this occasion probably hastened his death,
+which took place at his residence near Salona in July, 313. In the
+following year his wife and daughter were put to death by order of
+Licinius.</p>
+
+<p>Diocletian ranks among the most distinguished emperors of Rome; his
+reign of twenty-one years was upon the whole prosperous for the
+empire, and creditable to the Roman name. He was severe, but not
+wantonly cruel, and we ought to remember that mercy was not a Roman
+virtue. His conduct after his abdication shows that his was no common
+mind. The chief charge against him is his haughtiness in introducing
+the Oriental ceremonial of prostration into the Roman court. The
+Christian writers, and especially Lactantius, have spoken unfavorably
+of him; but Lactantius cannot be implicitly trusted. Of the regular
+historians of his reign we have only the meagre narratives of
+Eutropius and Aurelius Victor, the others being now lost; but notices
+of Diocletian's life are scattered about in various authors, Libanius,
+Vopiscus, Eusebius, Julian in his "Cæsars," and the contemporary
+panegyrists, Eumenes and Mamertinus. His laws or edicts are in the
+"Code." Among other useful reforms, he abolished the <span class="italic">frumentarii</span>, or
+licensed informers, who were stationed in every province to <span class="pagenum"><a id="page056" name="page056"></a>(p. 056)</span>
+report any attempt at mutiny or rebellion, and who basely enriched
+themselves by working on the fears of the inhabitants. He also
+reformed and reduced the number of the insolent Prætorians, who were
+afterward totally disbanded by Constantine.<a href="#toc"><span class="small">[Back to Contents]</span></a></p>
+
+
+<h3>ALARIC THE BOLD<br>
+By <span class="smcap">Archdeacon Farrar, D.D., F.R.S.</span><br>
+(360-410)</h3>
+
+<a id="img025" name="img025"></a>
+<div class="floatleft">
+<img src="images/img025.jpg" width="350" height="194" alt="Men on a river raft." title="">
+</div>
+
+<p>Alaric, the "All-ruler," surnamed the Baltha, or Bold, was born, about
+360, on an island in the delta of the Danube. As long as the great
+Theodosius lived, the Goths continued in his pay; but when he died in
+395, and Alaric was elevated on the shield as king of the Visigoths,
+he determined to lead his nation to independent victory. In 395 and
+396 he invaded Greece,<a id="footnotetag7" name="footnotetag7"></a><a href="#footnote7" title="Go to footnote 7"><span class="small">[7]</span></a> and Stilicho, the Vandal general of the
+Western Emperor, advanced against him. The strategy of Stilicho was
+masterly, and it would probably have gone hard with Alaric had not
+Stilicho been suddenly bidden by the Eastern Emperor, Arcadius, to
+withdraw his western troops. Again, in 396, Stilicho penned Alaric in
+the Peloponnesus, but for some unknown reason allowed him to escape
+into Illyricum. The Gothic chief had, however, struck deadly terror
+into the Eastern Empire; and by way of pacifying him Arcadius made him
+Master-General of Illyricum.</p>
+
+<p>Alaric had already found the way to Italy when he accompanied
+Theodosius in his campaign against the usurper Maximus in 394. In 400
+he descended into Italy, not with an army only, but with the migration
+of his entire people. He defeated the Romans under the walls of
+Aquileia, and in 401 besieged Honorius <span class="pagenum"><a id="page057" name="page057"></a>(p. 057)</span> in Milan. In 402 a
+vast army under Stilicho met him at Pollentia; and when an old
+chieftain advised him to retire, Alaric, with fierce indignation,
+silenced his timid counsellor, and told him that he had been assured
+by a voice which came from the grave and said to him, "<span class="italic">Thou shalt
+penetrate to the City</span>" (<span class="italic">ad Urbem</span>). But the oracle on this occasion
+had "paltered" with him in a double sense. He penetrated indeed <span class="italic">ad
+Urbem</span>, not however "to the <span class="italic">City</span>" but to the little river <span class="italic">Urbis</span>
+(or Borbo), near Pollenzo. On Good Friday, April 4, 402, the Western
+army, under a dwarfish Hun chieftain named Saulus, attacked and routed
+Alaric, recovering the splendid spoils of Greece, freeing his
+captives, and winning back the purple robes which the Emperor Valens
+had lost in the battle of Adrianople. In that disastrous defeat even
+the wife of Alaric, if we may believe the poet Claudian, was taken
+prisoner.</p>
+
+<a id="img026" name="img026"></a>
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/img026.jpg" width="600" height="347" alt="" title="">
+<p>Alaric in Athens.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Alaric retreated through Lombardy, and the feeble Emperor Honorius&mdash;"a
+crowned nothingness"&mdash;celebrated at Rome, in 404, that triumph which
+was signalized by the last display of the brutal gladiatorial games.
+No sooner had the first blood been shed than the Eastern monk
+Telemachus sprang down into the arena to part the combatants. His life
+paid the price of his glorious temerity. He was hewn and stoned to
+death. But that death was not in vain. The horrid massacres, at which
+not only men but women gazed in demoniac pleasure and excitement, had
+been condemned centuries before by the genius of Christianity. It was
+monstrous that an emperor calling himself a Christian should preside
+at such a spectacle. But the martyrdom of Telemachus at last touched
+the callous and torpid consciences of nominal Christians. Thenceforth
+the games of the amphitheatre were abolished. But it was too late for
+repentance. Alike "the incomparable wickedness and the incomparable
+splendor" of the Imperial City were doomed to destruction. Even the
+blood of a Christian martyr voluntarily shed would not atone for the
+blood of hundreds of brave barbarians who, in that huge Flavian
+amphitheatre, had been</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+  "Butchered to make a Roman holiday."</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">The day was near at hand when the Goths would arise and glut their
+ire.</p>
+
+<p>Alaric, though he had retreated, was still in a position to dictate
+terms to Stilicho. He fixed his camp at Æmona, and was promised large
+pay and the government of a Western province under nominal allegiance
+to the Western Emperor. But the pledges made to him were broken, and
+their fulfilment delayed. In 408 the promise of the oracle was
+fulfilled, for he led his troops under the walls of Rome. The feeble
+and timid Honorius had retired to Ravenna, where he was safe behind
+the marshes, the pine-woods, and the stone walls against which Alaric
+said that he did not fight. In 408 the wretched court filled to the
+full the brimming cup of its iniquities&mdash;first by a massacre of
+barbarian auxiliaries at Pavia, and then by the foul, ungrateful
+murder of Stilicho himself, at the command of Honorius. No army barred
+the path of Alaric, but an Italian hermit denounced on him the wrath
+of heaven. This might have awoke the superstitious terrors of the
+Gothic soldiers if Alaric had not assured them, with confidence, that
+he was <span class="pagenum"><a id="page058" name="page058"></a>(p. 058)</span> obeying a divine and irresistible command. The Goths
+encamped under the walls which for six hundred and nineteen years had
+never been threatened by a foreign enemy. The wealthy, effeminate,
+corrupted nobles, and people of the Eternal City thought to terrify
+Alaric back by boasts of their numbers. His scornful answer simply
+was, "The thicker the hay, the easier it is mowed." He demanded all
+their gold, silver, movables, and barbarian slaves. "What then, O
+King, will you leave us?" He grimly said, "Your lives."</p>
+
+<p>He was content, however, this time to accept a ransom, of which the
+most curious element was three thousand pounds of pepper.</p>
+
+<p>The folly, pride, and braggadocio of Honorius, or rather of his
+miserable court, brought Alaric a second time to Rome in 409. The city
+capitulated, and he raised Attalus to the purple as a rival to
+Honorius. But Attalus proved utterly incompetent, and the next year
+Alaric publicly and insultingly degraded him to a private position. In
+410 a fresh insult and wrong inflicted on the Goths by Honorius
+brought Alaric once more to Rome. He burst in by the Salarian gate,
+and sacked the city, which was only saved from irretrievable
+destruction by the respect of the Goths for the churches, which they
+regarded as inviolable asylums. The pillage and conflagration of Rome,
+and the resultant ruin and misery, came on the world like a shock of
+earthquake; but the Pagans saw that the catastrophe would have been
+yet more awful if the conquerors had not been Christians as well as
+the conquered.</p>
+
+<p>It seemed as if even the Imperial City could not fall without some
+circumstance of irony and insult. Paganism may be said to have
+perished in two bursts of laughter: one when in Alexandria the
+Christian mob burst into merriment to see the rats scurry out of the
+rotten head of the shattered statue of Serapis; and again when
+Theodosius and his soldiers laughed at the golden thunderbolts torn
+from the uplifted arms of the menacing statue of Jupiter. And Honorius
+managed to invest even the fall of Rome with ludicrous associations.
+He was a great fancier of fowls, and had a particularly large hen,
+which, out of compliment, he called <span class="italic">Roma</span>. When the agitated eunuch
+entered to tell him that "Rome had perished," "What!" cried the
+Emperor, in a voice of deep concern, "why, she was feeding out of my
+hand only an hour ago!" "It is the <span class="italic">city</span> of Rome that has fallen,
+sire!" "Oh, my friend," said the Emperor, with a sigh of relief, "but
+I thought you meant that my <span class="italic">hen</span> 'Roma' had died."</p>
+
+<p>Laden with spoils of priceless value, the creaking wagons of the Gauls
+went southward. Alaric meant to lead them to the conquest first of
+Sicily, then of Africa. But death overtook him amid the schemes of his
+ambition. He died after a short illness, and was buried in the bed of
+the river which washes the walls of Cosentia. The captives who reared
+the tomb were massacred, that none might know where the hero lay. The
+Visigothic kingdom of Spain, founded by the warrior tribe which he
+first led into the West, is one of the most permanent results of his
+invasion.<a href="#toc"><span class="small">[Back to Contents]</span></a></p>
+
+<a id="img027" name="img027"></a>
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/img027.jpg" width="400" height="577" alt="" title="">
+<p>The Last Gladiatorial Contest.</p>
+</div>
+
+<h3><span class="pagenum"><a id="page059" name="page059"></a>(p. 059)</span> ATTILA<br>
+By <span class="smcap">Archdeacon Farrar, D.D., F.R.S.</span><br>
+(REIGNED 434-453)</h3>
+
+<a id="img028" name="img028"></a>
+<div class="floatleft">
+<img src="images/img028.jpg" width="250" height="346" alt="Attila." title="">
+</div>
+
+<p>The Goths were "improvable barbarians;" but the Huns whom Attila led
+to ravage the fair peninsula were mere Tartar savages of the lowest
+stamp.</p>
+
+<p>All the other invaders of Italy were of Teutonic origin, but the Huns
+were Mongols&mdash;of such perfect hideousness that Jornandes regarded them
+as the offspring of witches and demons. Attila, son of Mundzuk, "the
+scourge of God," resembled his soldiers in his flat, swarthy features,
+deep-set, fierce, rolling black eyes, and stunted figure. The Huns
+were uncivilizable savages, who might harry a continent, but neither
+under Attila, nor Genghis, nor Timour, could ever found an organized
+kingdom. This terrific and brutal little Kalmuck, with his bead-like
+eyes, this skin-clad devourer of raw flesh, delighted to lay waste
+whole empires with fire and sword, and to terrify the world. In 434 he
+became king of the Huns with his brother Bleda. In 445 Bleda died,
+possibly by murder; and in 445 Attila, now sole king of the Huns,
+invaded the Eastern Empire, and ravaged it even to the gates of
+Constantinople. He was only bought off from destroying it by an
+enormous tribute. The infamous plot to assassinate him by the
+treachery of Edecon, who was one of his counsellors, was discovered
+and foiled, and Attila sent message after message filled with insults
+to Theodosius II. In 451 his vast army moved westward, and devastated
+Gaul. It was met in the Mauriac plain and defeated by Ætius in the
+tremendous battle of Chalons, after a carnage among the most frightful
+that the world has ever seen. The Huns were only saved from final
+destruction by the heroic boldness of Attila. He had a vast hill of
+saddles and other spoils erected, and declared his determination to
+burn himself alive rather than be taken captive. He led back his
+shattered host to Pannonia, and there in his wooden palace meditated
+revenge. In the one authentic glimpse which we get of his mode of
+life, we see him at a banquet, while his nobles and warriors caroused
+and burst into peals of laughter at the buffooneries of an idiot and a
+jester. But the Hunnish king sat grave and silent, caressing the
+cheeks of the boy Ernak, his favorite son, whom the augur pointed out
+as the heir of his destinies.</p>
+
+<p>In 452 he once more put his myriads in motion and invaded Italy. Every
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page060" name="page060"></a>(p. 060)</span> where the land was as the garden of Eden before him; behind
+him it was a desolate wilderness. Encouraged by the omen of some
+storks leaving their nest, he stormed and destroyed Aquileia, and,
+razing city after city into heaps of blackened ruins, advanced to
+Milan, boasting that "where his horses' hoofs trod the grass never
+grew." Rome awaited with trembling a fate which seemed to threaten
+unprecedented catastrophe. But in this awful crisis the Pope, Leo I.,
+showed himself the true <span class="italic">Defensor civitatis</span>. He headed a splendid
+embassy to the camp of Attila. Already Leo had helped to trace with
+firm hand the deep lines of Christian orthodoxy which were accepted by
+the Church at the fourth great &OElig;cumenical Council of Chalcedon in
+451 as her final utterance as to the true Godhead, the perfect
+Manhood, the invisible yet distinct union of both Godhead and Manhood,
+in the person of her Lord. Now Leo showed what miracle could be
+achieved by the irresistible might of weakness. Attila's god was a
+naked iron sword of gigantic size, which had been accidentally found
+by a herdsman and presented to him, but which he palmed off on his
+nation as the authentic sword of the Scythian war-god. Yet he was
+easily overawed by the majesty of religion. He scorned the guilty,
+corrupt courtiers of Constantinople, but he almost trembled before a
+holy man. Already in 451 he had spared the defenceless city of Troyes
+at the entreaty of its bishop, St. Lupus, and had asked the benefit of
+his prayers. And when he gazed on the calm countenance, noble
+presence, and dauntless demeanor of Pope Leo, an awful dread fell upon
+him. Alaric had conquered Rome, but Alaric had died immediately
+afterward. How if it would be so with Attila? He yielded, he retired;
+he said&mdash;or perhaps he said&mdash;that he could conquer <span class="italic">men</span>, but that the
+wolf (Lupus) and the lion (Leo) had learnt how to conquer him. The
+tide of brutal and barbarous invasion was rolled back again, and the
+world and the city saw that while the Emperor Valentinian had been
+ready to fly, the Pope Leo was not afraid to advance, and that "when
+the successor of Cæsar had been proved useless, the successor of St.
+Peter had been a very present help." Indirectly Attila was the
+strengthener of the Papacy, and the founder of Venice. That stately
+and gorgeous city owes its origin to the Italians who fled in terror
+before the brutal Huns from ruined Padua to the islands and lagoons at
+the mouth of the Piave.</p>
+
+<p>In retiring, Attila had demanded once more the hand and dower of
+Honoria, the disgraced sister of Theodosius II. But in 453 he added a
+beautiful maiden, Ildico, to his innumerable wives. He retired from
+the banquet after a deep carouse, and in the morning was found dead
+amid a flood of gore by which he had been suffocated, while Ildico sat
+weeping beneath her veil by the dead king's bedside. He died as a fool
+dieth; and his warriors gashed their cheeks and wept tears of blood,
+and gave him a splendid burial. And his name passed into legend as the
+King Etzel of the Niebelungen Lied, and Alti of the Saga. But his
+"loutish sons" quarrelled among themselves. The Teutons, Goths,
+Gepidæ, Alani, and Heruli reasserted their independence in the great
+victory of Netad in Pannonia in 454; and though the Huns left their
+name in Hungary, henceforth the empire of Attila became mere
+"drift-wood, on its way to inevitable oblivion."<a href="#toc"><span class="small">[Back to Contents]</span></a></p>
+
+
+<h3><span class="pagenum"><a id="page061" name="page061"></a>(p. 061)</span> CLOVIS THE FIRST<br>
+By <span class="smcap">Thomas Wyatt, A.M.</span><br>
+(465-511)</h3>
+
+<a id="img029" name="img029"></a>
+<div class="floatleft">
+<img src="images/img029.jpg" width="250" height="326" alt="Clovis on horse." title="">
+</div>
+
+<p>The honor of having established the French monarchy and the French
+nation, of having raised himself from his position as chief of a petty
+and turbulent tribe to be the ruler of a powerful and permanent
+kingdom, unquestionably belongs to Clovis the First, who was born in
+the year 465. The multitude of petty kingdoms subsisting in Gaul at
+this time, forms, says an illustrious historian, one of the greatest
+difficulties in the ancient history of France. In a manuscript work,
+still preserved in the King's library at Paris, it is imputed to the
+disorders which prevailed after the expulsion of Childeric, father of
+Clovis, when such as were sufficiently powerful took advantage of the
+anarchy in which the nation was involved, to establish independent
+monarchies of their own. Clovis ascended the throne at the age of
+fifteen, and at the early age of twenty began to show his jealousy
+toward those whom he considered usurpers of his territories. His
+courtiers, ever ready to fan into a flame the spark they had
+discovered in the breast of their master, incited him to challenge
+Syagrius, a Roman who still had possession of Soissons and a part of
+the adjacent country.</p>
+
+<p>The challenge was accepted by this self-made prince, and a bloody
+battle was the result. Syagrius saved himself by flight, taking refuge
+among the Visigoths; but Alaric II., then king, fearing the threats of
+Clovis delivered the refugee into his power, who caused him to be
+beheaded.</p>
+
+<p>The Frankish leader was now a man of note in the world; but he was
+still nothing more than the leader of a band of warriors, often
+retaining his authority only by brute force. At one time, his band
+having stormed the Christian city of Rheims and carried off from its
+church a vase "of marvellous size and beauty," the bishop sent word to
+their leader entreating him to return it. "That will I," responded
+Clovis to the envoy, "if when we divide our spoil the vase falls to my
+lot." In his desire to gratify the bishop, who was an old friend, the
+chieftain went a step beyond his promise and requested his companions
+to give him the great vase as his share. Then cried one of their
+number, striking <span class="pagenum"><a id="page062" name="page062"></a>(p. 062)</span> the trophy angrily with his axe, "No, you
+shall draw lots with the rest of us, and take what comes honestly to
+you." His comrades, however, felt that this was going too far. The
+vase was given to their leader, and by him returned to Rheims. A year
+passed, and Clovis gave no sign that he remembered the affront. Then,
+having called his band together for a review, he passed them one by
+one, examining and approving their arms, till, last of all, he reached
+the warrior who had opposed him; and he eyed this man sternly. "Your
+weapons suit you poorly," he said, "none of them are fit for service."
+And, snatching the man's axe from him he threw it to the ground. The
+other stooped to recover it, when, whirling up his own axe, Clovis
+crashed it through the rebel's skull. "'Twas so you struck my vase,"
+he cried.</p>
+
+<p>Such a leader, who could so long await a fitting opportunity, and then
+so sternly avenge an insult to his power, was well calculated to wield
+great authority among these stern and hardy warriors. He had enjoyed
+several years of uninterrupted tranquillity, when Basinus, King of
+Thuringia, made a sudden irruption into that part of the dominions of
+Clovis situated beyond the Rhine. Clovis was no sooner informed of
+this invasion, than he assembled his army, and entering the enemy's
+country, laid it waste with fire and sword, and imposed a perpetual
+tribute on the offending monarch.</p>
+
+<p>Clovis now bent his thoughts on the formation of an alliance by
+marriage with some of the neighboring princes. He accordingly
+despatched his ambassadors to the King of Burgundy, asking for the
+hand of the Princess Clotildis, his niece, the accounts of whose
+extraordinary piety and beauty had made a deep impression on his
+heart. The court of Burgundy, fearful of offending a young and
+powerful prince, whose arms had hitherto been everywhere victorious,
+complied with his request.</p>
+
+<p>Great preparations were made for the departure of the queen elect, and
+she began her journey in a kind of wagon, called <span class="italic">basterne</span>, drawn by
+oxen, which was the most elegant vehicle then in use. The marriage was
+celebrated at Soissons, amid the joyful acclamations of the people.</p>
+
+<p>Heaven smiled on this propitious union; Clotildis became mother of a
+prince, who received baptism with the king's consent, and was named
+Ingomer. The subsequent death of this child, on whom Clovis had so
+firmly set his affections, inspired him, notwithstanding the prayers
+and remonstrances of his affectionate and pious princess, with an
+aversion to the Christian religion. He was prevailed on, however, to
+suffer his second son to undergo the ceremony of baptism. He also was
+attacked by a severe indisposition, but the prayers of this pious
+woman were heard and answered, the young prince restored to health,
+and the anxiety of his father dispelled.</p>
+
+<a id="img030" name="img030"></a>
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/img030.jpg" width="400" height="583" alt="" title="">
+<p>Clovis punishing a rebel.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>The conversion to Christianity of Clovis, soon after this, is thus
+related by historians: The Germans had commenced preparing for
+incursions into the dominions of Clovis; he, being apprised of their
+intentions, hastened to impede their progress, and met them on the
+plains of Tolbiac, not far from Cologne, where a bloody battle was
+fought. Clovis, perceiving that the strength of his <span class="pagenum"><a id="page063" name="page063"></a>(p. 063)</span> army
+was diminishing, lifted up his eyes to Heaven, and exclaimed, "God of
+my Queen Clotildis, grant me victory, and I here vow to worship none
+other than you." He immediately rallied his yielding forces, again led
+the charge, pierced with irresistible ardor the enemy's battalions,
+and entirely put them to flight. He then followed them into Germany,
+where he dispersed the remains of the vanquished army, reduced to
+obedience a nation hitherto invincible, and compelled them to pay him
+an annual tribute.</p>
+
+<p>Faithful to his vow, he requested to be made acquainted with the
+mysteries of the Christian religion; and on Christmas-day, 496,
+received baptism at the church of St. Martin, in Paris, from Remigius,
+Bishop of Rheims, a prelate equally distinguished for his birth and
+piety. His sister Albofleda, and about three thousand of his subjects,
+followed his example. An improbable legend prevails, that during the
+ceremony of the baptism of Clovis, a dove descended from Heaven,
+bringing a phial of balsam, with which he was consecrated. This is
+what is now called <span class="italic">La Sainte Ampoule</span>, the Holy Phial; which was kept
+with extreme care, and contained the oil used by the monarchs of
+France at their coronation.</p>
+
+<p>The conversion of Clovis had not repressed his warlike ambition.
+Brabant, the country of Liege, and that part of Flanders which was
+situated on the sea-coast, had not yet submitted to the new conqueror
+of Gaul.</p>
+
+<p>The most considerable of these small states was the Arborici, a
+Christian nation, firmly attached to the Christian religion, and
+thence maintaining an enmity against the French, who were pagans. But
+the recent conversion to Christianity of Clovis and so many of his
+subjects, diminished the aversion of the people of this peaceful
+nation; they were induced to consent to an alliance with him,
+acknowledge him for their sovereign, and became subjects of the French
+kingdom. The Roman garrisons, following the example, capitulated and
+gave up all the places that were still in their possession, toward the
+ocean and on the banks of the Rhine.</p>
+
+<p>Clovis did not as yet consider his victories complete; the conquest of
+Brittany was soon followed by that of Alaric II., King of the
+Visigoths. Before the French set out on this latter expedition, they
+made a vow not to shave themselves till they had subdued their
+enemies. Vows of this kind were very common at that period. It was the
+custom of those times to draw an omen from the verse that was
+chanting, when a person entered the church. The king's envoys, at
+their entrance into the church of St. Martin, heard these words from
+the Psalms: "Thou hast endued me with strength for the wars; thou hast
+supplanted those that had risen up against me; and hast put mine
+enemies to flight." This fortunate prognostic was confirmed on the
+banks of the Vienne. The army was at a loss where to pass that river,
+when a hind plunged into the stream in sight of the whole camp, and
+showed them a ford which still retains the name of the Passage of the
+Hind.</p>
+
+<p>The two armies met in the plains of Vouille, near Poictiers. Soon
+after the commencement of the battle, the monarchs of either nation
+perceiving each <span class="pagenum"><a id="page064" name="page064"></a>(p. 064)</span> other, rushed forward at the same instant,
+and engaged in single combat, when the superior skill and strength of
+Clovis decided the victory in his favor; he dismounted his adversary,
+and slew him on the spot. Nothing now remained to impede the progress
+of the conqueror, who extended his empire from the banks of the Loire
+to the Pyrenean mountains. Clovis then withdrew to Paris, and fixed
+his residence in a palace in the southern part of the capital, which
+had formerly been inhabited by the emperors Julian and Valentinian the
+First. Success had hitherto attended all the plans of Clovis, and
+allowing for the ferocious and martial spirit which then prevailed, he
+had preserved his fame from any material pollution.</p>
+
+<p>The assembling of the Council of Orleans was the last remarkable event
+of the reign of Clovis, who died the same year, <span class="smcap">A.D.</span> 511, at the age
+of forty-five, and was buried in the church of Saint Peter and Saint
+Paul, which he had caused to be built. It has been a subject of
+dispute with historians, whether the military or the political talents
+of this prince were the most eminent. Gaul, subdued by his arms,
+preserved by his prudence, affords a proof that he was equally
+skillful in the cabinet and formidable in the field.<a href="#toc"><span class="small">[Back to Contents]</span></a></p>
+
+
+<h3>BELISARIUS<a id="footnotetag8" name="footnotetag8"></a><a href="#footnote8" title="Go to footnote 8"><span class="small">[8]</span></a><br>
+By <span class="smcap">Charlotte M. Yonge</span><br>
+(505-565)</h3>
+
+
+<p>Few men have performed greater achievements than this general, to whom
+it was given to be conqueror again and again over nations hitherto
+invincible, and to arrest, during his own lifetime, the disintegration
+of the Roman Empire. He lived in the early part of the sixth century
+of the Christian era, though the date of his birth is not certainly
+known, and he was in the prime of life about 530. He is believed to
+have been the son of a peasant of Thrace, probably of Slavonian
+descent, as his name, stripped of its classical form, would belong to
+that language and would be Beli-than, or the White Prince. Apparently
+he began life as a common soldier, and gradually rose by courage and
+ability. His master, the Emperor Justinian, was an equally remarkable
+personage, capable of conceiving and accomplishing magnificent
+designs, yet withal of a mean, ungenerous, ungrateful character. The
+codification under Christian conditions of the old Roman law, so as to
+serve as the foundation of jurisprudence to all the European nations
+except the English; the building of the church of St. Sophia, and the
+rolling back for a time the flood that on all sides was overwhelming
+the ancient Empire of Rome were all due to this prince.</p>
+
+<p>For the last two centuries the East and the West had been separated,
+though <span class="pagenum"><a id="page065" name="page065"></a>(p. 065)</span> sometimes coalescing under one head, but in 476, the
+last titular Emperor of the West had been deposed. Italy had been the
+prey of successive swarms of Teutonic nations. Vandals and Ostro-or
+Eastern Goths had burst upon Rome, and while the Vandals proceeded to
+devastate the great Roman province of Northern Africa and set up a
+kingdom there, the Goths had established another in Italy.
+Constantinople still held its ground as the magnificent capital of the
+Eastern Empire, maintaining the old civilization, but her dominions
+were threatened by the vigorous Persians on the east, and on the north
+by the Bulgarians, a nation chiefly Slavonic and very savage and
+formidable.</p>
+
+<a id="img031" name="img031"></a>
+<div class="floatright">
+<img src="images/img031.jpg" width="350" height="387" alt="Man carrying a child." title="">
+</div>
+
+<p>This was the inheritance to which Justinian succeeded, in right of his
+uncle Justin, a successful soldier. He was forty-five years old at the
+time, 527, having had an entirely civil and literary training, and
+though warfare continued through the thirty-eight years of his reign,
+he never once appeared at the head of his armies. Yet his foresight
+and ambition were great, and he had not long been on the throne before
+he decided on an endeavor to recover the African provinces. The
+Vandals were Arian heretics, denying the Godhead and Eternity of our
+Blessed Lord, and they had cruelly persecuted and constantly oppressed
+the Catholics, who entreated the Eastern Empire to deliver them, so
+that religious zeal added strength to Justinian's ambition. The
+luxuries of Carthage and the other African cities had in a couple of
+generations done much to destroy the vigor of the Vandals, so that the
+conjuncture was favorable.</p>
+
+<p>Belisarius had proved his abilities in a dangerous retreat in the
+Persian war, but he probably owed his appointment to the African
+expedition to his wife Antonina. She was the daughter of a charioteer
+in the exhibitions of the hippodrome, which were loved to a
+passionate, almost incredible degree, by the people of the Eastern
+cities; and Theodora, the wife of the emperor was likewise the child
+of one of these competitors in the races. Both ladies were devotedly
+loved by their husbands, though scarcely worthy of their affection,
+and it was thus that Belisarius obtained the opportunity for his
+career, a curious parallel in this, as in other respects, to the great
+Duke of Marlborough.</p>
+
+<p>Belisarius only took on this expedition 10,000 foot and 6,000 horse,
+picked men, with carefully selected officers, bred in the old Roman
+discipline, for he <span class="pagenum"><a id="page066" name="page066"></a>(p. 066)</span> much preferred a small army whom he could
+trust, to a large and unwieldy host; and his fleet amounted to 500
+vessels of different sizes.</p>
+
+<p>The expedition sailed from Heraclea in June, 533, and one of the first
+acts of the general showed his sternness of discipline. A murder was
+committed in a drunken fit by two Huns, and he immediately hung them
+both, and silenced the murmurs of the rest by a speech in which he
+declared that Roman arms must be carried in pure hands, and that no
+courage would obtain pardon for violence or insubordination.</p>
+
+<p>He landed in September at Caput Vadas, five days' distance from
+Carthage, without opposition and with an eager welcome from the
+natives, who rejoiced to be delivered from the Vandal oppression, and
+Belisarius preserved their goodwill by hindering his soldiers from
+committing any act of plunder or violence. Indeed Gelimer, king of the
+Vandal horde, was only like an enemy occupying the place; there had
+been no amalgamation, and persecution had sown seeds of bitter hatred.
+Gelimer, however, marched out to meet the invaders, and at ten miles
+from Carthage was totally defeated, and his brother and nephew killed.
+He fled into the deserts of Numidia, recalling his brother who was
+putting down a revolt in Sardinia, and leaving the city to Belisarius,
+who entered on the feast of the great Carthaginian martyr, St.
+Cyprian, amid the extreme joy of the populace. When the brother of
+Gelimer returned from Sardinia there was still another battle to
+fight, but as usual Belisarius conquered. Gelimer submitted and
+received an estate in Galatia, and lived there in honor and prosperity
+for the rest of his days. The bravest of his warriors took service in
+the Roman army under their victor! Gelimer had, however, first to
+march in the triumph of Belisarius, the only one ever held at
+Constantinople! Justinian had recalled the general, though it would
+have been far wiser to have left him to consolidate his conquest; but
+no Roman emperor could be free from the suspicion that a victorious
+general might become his rival, nor could the scrupulous loyalty of
+Belisarius disarm him. It is said that Gelimer marched along,
+repeating, "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity."</p>
+
+<p>The next scheme of Justinian was the recovery of Italy from the Goths.
+This people had never shown the same savage cruelty as the Vandals,
+but had settled amicably among the Italians, and adopted much of their
+civilization and learning. They had recently had a truly great
+monarch, Theodoric, who deserves to rank with Alfred or Charlemagne,
+but he had left only a daughter, Amalasanta, a noble woman, and an
+ally of Justinian. She was stifled in her bath by Theodatus, the
+husband whom she had raised to the throne. The Gothic kingdom was
+convulsed by the crime, and Justinian saw both motive and opportunity
+for conquest. Yet he only gave Belisarius 4,500 horse and 3,000
+infantry when this great enterprise was begun in 535, besides some
+choice troops of the imperial guard.</p>
+
+<p>Sailing to Sicily he met no resistance except at Panormis (Palermo),
+but observing that his masts overtopped the walls, he hung up small
+rafts full of archers, whose arrows disconcerted the inhabitants so
+that they surrendered, and the whole island was restored to the Roman
+power. Theodatus tried to treat with <span class="pagenum"><a id="page067" name="page067"></a>(p. 067)</span> Justinian, and while
+the negotiations were going on, Belisarius crossed over to the African
+province, which was threatened by the Moors of Mount Atlas. Strong
+measures were needed, but for the time the incursions were repressed,
+and by the time the bad faith of Theodatus had disgusted the Greeks,
+Belisarius was ready to cross into Italy and besiege Naples. As usual,
+the native inhabitants were his friends, but were in terror of the
+Gothic garrison, and these, on their side, were afraid of treating
+with the Greek general because Theodatus had their wives and children
+as hostages.</p>
+
+<p>Theodatus, however, shut himself up in Rome and gave no aid to Naples,
+and Belisarius had made up his mind to raise the siege and attack Rome
+itself, when one of his soldiers came to tell him that in exploring an
+aqueduct which had been stopped, he had found that the passage for the
+water could easily be enlarged so as to admit armed men. Once more he
+summoned the native magistrates, but the inhabitants would not submit,
+and he sent on the bravest of his men, with two trumpets and with
+lanterns, while he made an attack to divert the attention of the
+Goths. The way was long, and the soldiers found themselves in the very
+heart of Naples, in a basin with very steep sides, impossible, as it
+seemed, to climb. One man however, scrambled up and found himself in a
+hovel, where he obtained a rope and pulled up his companions. The
+Goths who were resisting the escalade, threw down their arms when they
+were attacked from behind. Belisarius did his utmost to stop slaughter
+and plunder, but could not entirely succeed, for many of his soldiers
+were savage Huns, barely kept under restraint at any time.</p>
+
+<p>Theodatus remained in Rome, and appointed a brave general called
+Vetiges by the Greeks, but whose name was probably Wittich, to the
+command. The army suspected treachery, raised Wittich on their shields
+and proclaimed him king. Theodatus fled, and was murdered on his way,
+in 536. Wittich thought it better to draw off to Ravenna to reorganize
+his army, so the way to Rome was left open to Belisarius, who had only
+to summon a small garrison to submit. He gained it in the March of
+537, and immediately repaired the defences; and indeed there was need,
+for Wittich besieged him there for a whole year, and he had terrible
+difficulties to contend with. The Roman populace had lost all their
+spirit of patriotism, and murmured from the first that with a mere
+handful of soldiers, he should bring down the Goths upon them, and
+when the distresses of a protracted siege came on them, they loudly
+complained, though all the useless mouths were safely sent off by sea
+to the fertile fields about Naples.</p>
+
+<p>It is impossible to dwell at length on the events of the siege and the
+gallant deeds on either side. The Goths, under Wittich, were gallant
+enemies, but the diseases of the Campagna reduced their numbers, and
+finally, late in the March of 538, Wittich broke up his camp and
+retreated to Ravenna. There he called the Franks to his assistance,
+but they were mere barbarians, who plundered Goths as well as Italians
+and added to the general misery of the country. At last, in 539,
+Wittich yielded Ravenna to Belisarius who sent him to Constantinople,
+where he lived in honor and prosperity.</p>
+
+<p>Justinian recalled his general, always fearing the result of his
+success. The <span class="pagenum"><a id="page068" name="page068"></a>(p. 068)</span> city of Pavia was still left to the Goths, and
+here they chose as king, a kinsman of Wittich, called Totila, young,
+gallant, and generous. The utter incapacity and greed of Justinian's
+governors left the country open to him, and he traversed the whole
+peninsula collecting Goths again to his standard, till their kingdom
+was restored. Indeed the whole of the land was so desolate that hardly
+any opposition was offered. In 544 Justinian was obliged to send
+Belisarius back to Italy, but most insufficiently supplied with men
+and money. He had in the meantime been fighting on the Persian
+frontier, with the great King Chosroës, and with more success than
+could have been hoped for with such means as were at his disposal. He
+came to Ravenna, but his forces were too scanty to enable him to
+undertake any enterprise, and where he did not command in person, the
+so-called Roman captains were uniformly beaten. Totila occupied Rome
+in 546, and tried to destroy it, overthrowing the walls and beginning
+to ruin the ancient buildings. Belisarius wrote to him a remonstrance,
+telling him how after-ages would regard such destruction, and he
+actually thanked the great general for his advice and spared the
+churches and monuments, but carried off all the inhabitants, so that
+when, forty days later, Belisarius re-entered the city not a man was
+found there. He tried to rebuild the defences, but Justinian would not
+send him money or men, and when Totila again advanced, he was forced
+to abandon the beloved and honored city. Justinian then recalled him,
+preferring to leave Italy to its fate rather than trust to his
+unswerving loyalty. An unwarlike despot, who knew that the will of an
+army might at any time raise a popular captain in his stead, could
+hardly fail to dread the one man who was beloved by his soldiers and
+always successful. The Empress Theodora was dead, and no honors
+awaited Belisarius, only undeserved suspicion.</p>
+
+<p>Once again, however, the great man was called for. The Bulgarians were
+desolating Thrace. There was an outcry that none but Belisarius could
+save the Empire. He was placed at the head of only 300 old soldiers,
+and found the peasants helpless and incapable, yet he succeeded in
+repulsing the enemy and driving them beyond the Danube. The outcries
+of admiration alarmed the emperor, now in his eightieth year, and the
+notion that Belisarius, almost as old, must be a traitor, haunted him.
+There was a real conspiracy, and the enemies of the general accused
+him of sharing in it. The acts of accusation were read to the old man,
+but he stood, listening and not answering a single word, no doubt in
+his disdain. The emperor caused the brave old man's eyes to be put
+out, and he was stripped of all his possessions. It is said that he
+stood in front of his former palace with a wooden dish for alms.
+"<span class="italic">Date obolum Belisario</span>," give a penny to Belisarius, has become a
+proverb. However, Justinian seems to have repented, and he restored to
+Belisarius his wealth and his palace, in which, shortly after, the old
+man died on the 13th of March, 565, only eight months before his
+ungrateful sovereign.<a href="#toc"><span class="small">[Back to Contents]</span></a></p>
+
+<a id="sig002" name="sig002"></a>
+<div class="p2 right">
+<img src="images/sig002.jpg" width="200" height="54" alt="Author signature." title="">
+</div>
+
+<a id="img032" name="img032"></a>
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/img032.jpg" width="500" height="443" alt="" title="">
+<p>Belisarius receiving alms.</p>
+</div>
+
+<h3><span class="pagenum"><a id="page069" name="page069"></a>(p. 069)</span> CHARLES MARTEL<br>
+By <span class="smcap">Henry G. Hewlett</span><br>
+(694-741)</h3>
+
+<a id="img033" name="img033"></a>
+<div class="floatleft">
+<img src="images/img033.jpg" width="300" height="173" alt="Fight on horses." title="">
+</div>
+
+<p>Toward the close of the seventh century of our era, the kingdom which
+we now name France was peopled by a half-barbarous, professedly
+Christian race, of mixed tribes, the ruling portion of which
+originally sprang from Germany. The Frankish kingdom, as it was
+called, had risen upon the ruins of the Roman Empire, and for about a
+century was remarkable for the ability of its sovereigns. But after
+the death of King Dagobert I., in <span class="smcap">A.D.</span> 638, the royal family seemed
+devoid of any mental or moral strength whatsoever, and the kings of
+this line have been always known as <span class="italic">fainéants</span>&mdash;weak idlers. The real
+power of the government was held by a succession of chief officers of
+the household, styled "Mayors of the Palace." The most distinguished
+of these noblemen was Pepin d'Héristal, who, from the year 688 to his
+death in 715, was virtually king of France&mdash;the nominal sovereigns
+being but puppets in his hands. The country was then divided into two
+great districts&mdash;the eastern, known as Austrasia; and the western, as
+Neustria. At his death Pepin left the reins of government to his
+grandson, Theodebald, an infant under the guardianship of his mother,
+Plectrude. The lawful king, Dagobert III., was also a child. It was
+clear that a fierce race of warriors required a strong arm to keep
+them in check, and could not long brook an infant's sway. The
+Neustrians commenced the revolt by expelling Theodebald and his
+mother, and choosing for their ruler a Mayor of the Palace named
+Raginfred. They then attacked Austrasia, which had not joined in the
+revolt. It was without fitting defences, and had no able man to direct
+its resistance against this assault. What course should the
+Austrasians take? Pepin, as we have said, left the government of
+France to a grandson; but he had a natural son, Charles, then in the
+flower of his youth. Whether on account of his not having been born in
+wedlock, or his having offended Pepin by some misconduct, Charles had
+been slighted, and even hated, by his father, who banished him to a
+monastery at Cologne, far from the intrigues of statecraft and the
+tumult of war. "Here," said the Austrasians, "is the likeliest man for
+our leader; a son of the wisest and firmest ruler the kingdom has yet
+acknowledged." It was agreed, therefore, by the people, that he should
+be invited to come, and a summons <span class="pagenum"><a id="page070" name="page070"></a>(p. 070)</span> was sent from Metz, the
+then capital of the district, to the cloister at Cologne. Young and
+brave, pining in uncongenial society, and debarred from the employment
+of his talents, Charles seized this opportunity of release. Eagerly
+accepting the invitation, he hastened to return with the messengers,
+and soon, amidst the shouts of the delighted Austrasians, put himself
+at their head, under the title of Duke. The family of Pepin was not
+royal, and Charles doubtless saw the wisdom of yielding to the popular
+reverence for the ancient race of kings. The Neustrians had the same
+prejudice; and, accordingly, while Charles in the one district, and
+Raginfred in the other, virtually governed, their respective tools
+were Clothaire IV., King of Austrasia, and Chilperic II., King of
+Neustria, two descendents of the old dynasty. These events took place
+in <span class="smcap">A.D.</span> 716.</p>
+
+<p>The two countries now prepared for war. The Franks of Neustria were
+not so thoroughly and habitually warlike as their brethren of
+Austrasia, whose military system was better developed, in consequence
+of their position near the Rhine continually exposing them to
+conflicts with bands of Germans, which crossed the river in hopes of
+conquest. Nevertheless, the Austrasian Franks were now at a
+disadvantage, by reason of the unprepared state in which the Neustrian
+attack found them. Charles and Raginfred collected each an army, and
+marched at its head. The encounter was for some time doubtful, but the
+Neustrians gained a considerable advantage in the first campaign, and
+Charles was obliged to seek an asylum in the forests of the Ardennes
+region. Here, however, he did not long remain in concealment. Issuing
+forth at the head of a fresh body of men, he came upon the Neustrian
+army by surprise. A fearful slaughter took place, which he followed up
+by a vigorous pursuit. The Neustrians made a stand at Vincy, near
+Cambray. Charles met them here, and after a gallant struggle
+completely routed the force of Raginfred. This victory decided the
+fate of Neustria, and the crown of both countries was, in the year
+719, placed on the head of Chilperic II. Either from motives of policy
+or of generosity, Charles did not abuse his success by the punishment
+of his rival, Raginfred, on whom he conferred the earldom and province
+of Anjou. He himself was content to remain sole Mayor of the Palace,
+under a show of obedience to a powerless king.</p>
+
+<p>A brave, iron-willed man, this Charles Martel appears to us&mdash;dimly as
+the light of historic tradition permits us to behold him. He made his
+army the sole engine of his power, and cultivated it to the fullest
+extent then possible to him. Even the Church was not able to resist
+him; and at his pleasure he seized on benefices which he deemed too
+important to be placed in priestly hands, and bestowed them on his
+warriors. A rebellion among the nobles of Aquitaine demanded his
+attention; and thither he marched with ruthless determination,
+stemming revolt and establishing order. But he had a work to do in his
+generation far more important to Europe than any he had yet performed.</p>
+
+<p>The Arab tribes, which in the last century had been converted, by the
+genius of Mohammed, from idolatry to the worship of God, and from
+lawless bandits into disciplined soldiers, were at this period
+pursuing their career of religious <span class="pagenum"><a id="page071" name="page071"></a>(p. 071)</span> conquest into the heart
+of Christendom. The Gothic monarchy of Spain, under its last king,
+Roderick, had fallen beneath the invading force, which now threatened
+France. The Duchy of Aquitaine, which considered itself independent of
+France, but which Charles had reduced to comparative submission,
+opposed the only barrier to Arabian aggression. Eudes (or Eudin), then
+Duke, was a gallant prince, and did all that in him lay to resist the
+claim which the new lords of Spain asserted to his province of
+Septimania (Languedoc). He defeated one invading army before Toulouse
+in the year 721; but the tide of invasion still flowed in. He then
+tried intrigue, and bestowed his daughter on Musa, a revolted general
+of the great Arabian leader, Abd-er-rahman. But all was in vain. In
+732 the Moslem once more appeared, in tremendous force, all over the
+south of France, ravaging as they came, finally besieging Arles and
+defeating its relieving army.</p>
+
+<p>The wives and children of the invaders followed in their train, as
+though they intended to settle in the country. Abd-er-rahman was
+advancing yet farther on his victorious way, when Eudes, as a last
+resource, applied for aid to his enemy, Charles. What were personal
+enmities now? This common, national danger must be averted at all
+hazards. So thought Eudes when he sent to Charles. So thought Charles
+when he quickly summoned an army, and marched toward the plains
+between Poitiers and Tours, where the Arabs were quartered. The
+importance of the struggle that ensued cannot well be over-estimated.
+Christianity and Mohammedanism were at issue for the possession of
+Europe. The difficulties that lay in the way of the success of Charles
+were very great. The Arabs were animated with the fanatical zeal of a
+new faith, and a greedy desire of domination. The Franks, on the other
+hand, were probably not at all conscious of, or concerned for, the
+religious interests which were at stake, and aimed at no more than a
+vigorous rebuff of an unprovoked assault. They had the advantage of
+familiarity with the country and climate; but were outmatched, beyond
+comparison, in numbers. The old monkish chronicles tell us that the
+battle lasted seven days. The Arab army was mainly composed of cavalry
+and bowmen, and the Franks suffered greatly from the charges of the
+former and the unerring shots of the latter. But on the seventh day
+the combatants closed with each other. Heavily fell the iron hands of
+the sturdy Franks upon the sinewy, but slender frames of their Asiatic
+opponents. Nevertheless, Charles had no cavalry; and the swift steeds
+of Arabia, with their daring riders, trampled down his battalions.
+Suddenly there was a cry in the rear of the Moslem army that the
+infidels were spoiling the camp. More eager to save their treasure
+than to slay their foes, the Arabs turned in this direction. Skilfully
+interpreting the movement as a flight, Charles cheered on his men to
+pursue. The crisis was fatal to Abd-er-rahman. He tried to rally his
+cavalry. It was too late; and he fell, pierced through with many a
+Frankish spear. Night separated the contestants, and when in the
+morning the Franks would have renewed the battle, they found that
+their foes had stolen away in the night, fled, leaving their treasure
+and their dead upon the field. The incredible number of 300,000 Arabs
+is said to have <span class="pagenum"><a id="page072" name="page072"></a>(p. 072)</span> fallen in this memorable defeat. The
+remainder fled through Aquitaine before the avenging sword of Charles.
+Well was he named "Martel," from the hammer-like might of his good
+arm! Who can say whether France and Germany, ay, England and all
+Europe, might not at this hour be sunk in such poverty and degradation
+of moral and intellectual life as Turkey now exhibits, had Charles
+Martel and his bold Franks fought less valiantly and enduringly at
+Tours?</p>
+
+<p>History tells us but little more of Charles. He carried his arms into
+the Netherlands, conquered the Frisians and other tribes which then
+dwelt there, made them Christians by force, and vassals of the
+Frankish crown. In Saxony, and other parts of Germany also, his power
+was feared and obeyed. Pope Gregory II. offered to transfer to him the
+allegiance due from Rome to the Greek emperor, but the scheme was
+ended by the death of Charles. After the decease of King Chilperic
+II., in 720, Thierry IV. reigned in the same feeble manner as the
+other kings of his degenerate race. On his death, in 736, the people
+did not care to appoint a successor, being satisfied with the
+government which Charles continued to exercise under the title of
+"Duke of the Franks." He died in 741, at the age of forty-seven,
+leaving the monarchy to his three sons, Pepin, Carloman, and Griffo.
+Of the elder of these, we shall hear more anon. Charles Martel is the
+first hero who succeeded in stamping his image upon the surface of
+European history, after the chaos of the broken Roman empire had in
+some measure yielded to the spirit of order. He was chieftain of an
+unruly tribe, rather than king of a settled state. In this light we
+must regard him if we would judge his character fairly; and thus
+considered, he may be said to have governed France wisely and well. If
+his memory cannot be cleared from the reproach of certain deeds of
+violence, we can afford to pardon him when we remember the good
+service that his strong hammer once wrought for Europe.<a href="#toc"><span class="small">[Back to Contents]</span></a></p>
+
+<a id="img034" name="img034"></a>
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/img034.jpg" width="500" height="425" alt="" title="">
+<p>Charles Martel at Tours.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<h3>PEPIN THE SHORT<br>
+By <span class="smcap">Henry G. Hewlett</span><br>
+(714-768)</h3>
+
+<p>Charles Martel, as we have seen, was never king of the Franks, and his
+sons were too politic to assume the title on his death. Griffo, the
+third son, may be dismissed from our notice at once, as he was from
+the government of the kingdom, his brothers, Carloman and Pepin,
+taking advantage of his weakness to dispossess him. After this act of
+supremacy they were for some time content to act as Mayors of the
+Palace, in the districts of Neustria and Austrasia respectively, under
+the nominal sovereignty of Childeric III., the last of the <span class="italic">fainéant</span>
+kings, whom they set up as a puppet. Carloman distinguished himself by
+attacking the Saxons and other tribes which threatened <span class="pagenum"><a id="page073" name="page073"></a>(p. 073)</span>
+aggression; and in 744 Pepin severely punished a revolt of his
+father's old enemy (Eudes, Duke of Aquitaine), who, as already stated,
+had been compelled to do homage to the Frankish crown. Pepin soon had
+no sharer in his power or fame. Carloman was not made for a soldier,
+and, under the sudden impulse of devotional feeling, resigned his
+office in 747, and retired into a Roman monastery.</p>
+
+<a id="img035" name="img035"></a>
+<div class="floatright">
+<img src="images/img035.jpg" width="300" height="170" alt="Ox carriage in a forest." title="">
+</div>
+
+<p>Pepin, thus left sole lord of France, did not hastily attempt to cut
+prejudice against the grain. Feeling his way gradually, he sounded
+popular opinion for three years, on the subject of changing the royal
+dynasty, and placing the crown on the head of one who had a good right
+arm to defend it. Finding himself strong enough at last to take
+decided measures, he quietly dethroned Childeric III.; and shaving off
+his long hair, the symbol of royalty among the early Frankish kings,
+sent him to one monastery at St. Omer, and his son Thierry to another
+at Fontenelle. This accomplished, Pepin proceeded to obtain
+justification for his acts from the Pope. This was a novel step; for
+although the bishops of Rome had great spiritual influence over
+Christendom, in virtue of their alleged descent from St. Peter, their
+temporal authority was by no means admitted out of their own diocese.
+Pepin was a wise man in his generation, though short-sighted as far as
+posterity was concerned. He saw clearly enough that no sanction which
+he could obtain for his acts was likely to be so binding upon the
+minds of his subjects, and the world at large, as that pronounced by a
+power which had already fastened its yoke on the soul and conscience.
+The Pope, Zachariah, was not insensible to the importance of the
+Frankish monarchy, being at the time of Pepin's accession especially
+in need of help against Astolpho, king of the Lombards, who threatened
+to seize on the Eternal City itself. When, therefore, Pepin's envoys
+arrived at Rome, and conveyed their master's application, the pontiff
+did not hesitate to answer that it was truly fitting for one to be
+king in name who was king in deed. Thus fortified against opposition,
+Pepin proceeded to fulfil all the ceremonies attaching to the kingly
+dignity. He and his queen, Bertha, were duly crowned and consecrated
+by Boniface, the "Apostle of Germany," and Bishop of Mainz. This rite
+was performed at Soissons, in 752, with all the pomp that the Jewish
+kings had been wont to employ on such occasions. The national assembly
+was summoned; and in presence of the great Frank nobles Boniface
+produced a phial of oil, announcing it as that which had fallen from
+heaven on the day when the first king of the Franks (Clovis) had
+received baptism. <span class="pagenum"><a id="page074" name="page074"></a>(p. 074)</span> The sacred oil was then poured upon the
+head of Pepin, and amid the acclamations of nobles, soldiers, and
+peasants, he was crowned their king.</p>
+
+<p>He was a man, like his father, well fitted to rule over a warlike and
+rude people. What was most admired in a king at that period was
+personal courage, and, what was most needed, strength of will. Pepin
+had both; but he had one defect which, though to us it may seem a
+trifle, to men who prized the body far more than soul or mind, was a
+serious matter. He was of small stature, and acquired the name of "the
+Short" in consequence. Fully conscious that this was a disadvantage to
+him, and, indeed, hearing his name once derided by his courtiers,
+Pepin took a speedy opportunity of proving that what he lacked in
+height he more than made up in strength and bravery. It was common in
+those days to exhibit animal fights at the Frankish court, as indeed,
+to her shame be it spoken, is common in Spain to this day. On one of
+these occasions a lion and a bull were engaged in a savage and mortal
+struggle. Pepin and his courtiers were seated round the arena looking
+on, when suddenly the king started up, and cried: "Who will dare to
+separate those beasts?" There was a dead silence. The attempt was
+madness&mdash;certain destruction. Unsheathing his sword, and glancing
+scornfully round upon his courtiers, Pepin leapt into the arena, and
+drew the attention of the combatants upon himself. Raging with fury,
+they turned to attack him; but with cool and measured steps he evaded
+their onset, and by a succession of well-aimed blows struck off, one
+after the other, the heads of lion and bull. Then, throwing down his
+streaming sword, he accosted the astonished courtiers: "Am I worthy to
+be your king?" A deafening shout was the reply, and the name of "Pepin
+the Short" was no longer a term of derision but of honor.</p>
+
+<p>Having thus established his reputation for those qualities which were
+most essential to his influence, Pepin took measures to render it
+permanent by acts of wisdom and liberality. He frequently called
+together the national assemblies, and included in the summons bishops
+as well as chieftains. Consulting with them as to the most prudent
+course of action, he preserved their affection to his person and
+obedience to his orders. He especially courted the favor of the
+Church, and showed his gratitude for the sanction which Pope Zachariah
+had given to his accession, by assisting the next Pope, Stephen III.,
+in a serious contest which broke out in 753 with the Lombards. Their
+king, Astolpho, took an active part in the great religious quarrel
+which then agitated Christendom, with respect to the worship of
+images, espousing the cause of the image-breakers, while Pope Stephen
+supported the opposite side. Threatened with invasion, the Pope flew
+to the court of Pepin, who received him with much reverence, and in
+return was crowned king for the second time. Stephen even pronounced
+sentence of excommunication against all who should dare to choose a
+king of France from any other than Pepin's family. At the Pope's
+request the king assembled an army, and marched against Astolpho. The
+war lasted for two years, but eventually terminated in the success of
+Pepin, who compelled Astolpho to yield up to the Pope the exarchate of
+Ravenna, the last relic of the great Roman empire in Italy, and of
+which the Lombards had deprived the Eastern emperors.</p>
+
+<a id="img036" name="img036"></a>
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/img036.jpg" width="400" height="639" alt="" title="">
+<p>Pepin after the murder of Duke Waifre.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page075" name="page075"></a>(p. 075)</span> Pepin, however, had in view a more national war than this.
+The duchy of Aquitaine was perpetually in a state of resistance to the
+authority of the Frankish kings. This was owing, in some measure, to
+the difference of language and civilization which prevailed between
+the people of the duchy and those of the kingdom. A spirit of
+hostility was also fostered by the increase of population which
+Aquitaine obtained from the Gascons, a tribe from the Pyrenees, not
+subject to the Franks. After a long period of uncertain warfare, Pepin
+determined to decide the struggle by active operations. He
+accordingly, in 759, took advantage of a rising of the people of
+Septimania against their Arabian rulers. He made himself master of
+Narbonne and other towns, and freed the Septimanians. Then turning
+upon Waifre, Duke of Aquitaine, he summoned him to disgorge the spoils
+which he had seized from the Aquitanian lands of certain churches of
+France. Waifre replied in defiant terms, and for nine years resisted
+the attempts of Pepin to reduce him to submission. It was a sanguinary
+and desolating war. The fairest districts of Auvergne, Limousin, and
+Berry, were laid waste and burnt by Pepin; and in the Frankish
+territories Waifre levied an equally terrible retribution. He was
+murdered at last by some of his own subjects, at the instigation of
+the Frankish king. This is the one instance of actual crime which we
+find recorded against Pepin; and legend tells that its shadow rested
+heavily upon his mind. Aquitaine was annexed to the kingdom.</p>
+
+<p>It was Pepin's last achievement. He did not, as we might have expected
+he would, die in harness on the battle-field, but of dropsy, at the
+age of fifty-four. This event occurred in 768, at St. Denis. Long
+before his death he had obtained the coronation of his two sons,
+Charles and Carloman, jointly with his own, and directed his
+territories to be divided between them.</p>
+
+<p>To be the successful founder of a new dynasty demands a genius which
+we may justly entitle heroic, expressive as that word is of strength
+of character merely, without regard to moral worth. Pepin, however,
+was not devoid of the latter, to a limited extent, and has left a
+memory which, if not remarkable for virtue, is at least not disfigured
+by vice.<a href="#toc"><span class="small">[Back to Contents]</span></a></p>
+
+
+<h3>CHARLEMAGNE<br>
+By <span class="smcap">Sir J. Bernard Burke</span><br>
+(742-814)</h3>
+
+
+<p>The birthplace of Charlemagne is unknown, but from various data we may
+infer that he was born somewhere about the year 742, nearly seven
+years before his father, Pepin the Short, assumed the title of king.
+His mother was Bertha, daughter of Charibert, Count of Leon.</p>
+
+<p>Of his boyhood we know as little as of his birth, but he seems at an
+early age to have mingled in the real business of life, for when only
+twelve years old <span class="pagenum"><a id="page076" name="page076"></a>(p. 076)</span> we find him despatched to receive and
+welcome the sovereign pontiff who came to implore his father's aid
+against the barbarians that threatened Rome. From the usual habits of
+the Franks, it is also probable that he accompanied Pepin in his
+campaigns at an early age; but the first time that we really see him
+in the field, is on the renewal of the war with the rebellious Duke of
+Aquitaine.</p>
+
+<a id="img037" name="img037"></a>
+<div class="floatleft">
+<img src="images/img037.jpg" width="250" height="306" alt="Charlemagne." title="">
+</div>
+
+<p>Upon the death of Pepin, 768, Charlemagne and his younger brother,
+Carloman, succeeded to equal portions of one of the most powerful
+European kingdoms, bounded by the Pyrenees, the Alps, the
+Mediterranean, and the ocean. But this would hardly have enabled the
+monarchs, even had they been united, to resist successfully the
+incursions of the barbarous tribes on the German frontiers of France,
+which had commenced with the first establishment of the Frankish
+dominion in Gaul; and which was kept alive by the constant pouring out
+of fresh hordes from the overpopulated North. The situation of
+Charlemagne was rendered yet more perilous by the passive enmity of
+his brother, and the rebellion of Hunald, the turbulent Duke of
+Aquitaine. But fortunately, Charlemagne had a genius equal to the
+difficulties of his situation; though his brother refused to aid him,
+he defeated Hunald; and no less illustrious by his clemency than by
+his valor and military skill, he forgave the vanquished rebel.</p>
+
+<p>Desiderius, the king of Lombardy, had made large encroachments upon
+the states of the Roman pontiff, whose cause was taken up by
+Charlemagne. This led to feuds, which Bertha, the mother of the
+Frankish king, endeavored to appease by bringing about a union between
+her son and the daughter of the Lombard. But Charlemagne soon took a
+disgust to the wife thus imposed upon him, and repudiated her, that he
+might marry Hildegarde, the daughter of a noble family in Suabia.</p>
+
+<p>In 771 Carloman died, and Charlemagne was elected to the vacant
+throne, to the exclusion of his nephews, whose extreme youth, indeed,
+made them incapable of wearing the crown in such troubled times.
+Gilberga, the widow of Carloman, immediately fled, and sought an
+asylum with Desiderius, the common place of refuge for all who were
+hostile to the Frankish monarch. But the attention of Charlemagne was
+called off to a more immediate danger from the Saxons, of whom the
+Frisons were either a branch or the perpetual allies. Had the tribes
+of which this people were composed been united under one head, instead
+of being governed by various independent chiefs, the result would
+probably have been fatal to France. Such a day, however, might come; a
+second Attila might <span class="pagenum"><a id="page077" name="page077"></a>(p. 077)</span> arise; and with a full conviction of
+these perils, Charlemagne, when he marched against the barbarians,
+determined to put them down effectually. He took and destroyed the
+famous temple of the Irminsule, the great idol of their nation&mdash;that
+is, the Hermansaule, or Pillar of Hermann, which had originally been
+raised to commemorate the defeat of the Roman Varus by that hero,
+though in time the name had got corrupted, and the cause of its
+erection been forgotten. The Saxons were too wise to meet their
+powerful opponent in the field, and when, as often happened, they were
+brought to bay, they made a feigned submission, and obtained mercy by
+vows they never meant to keep. Meanwhile events had been taking place
+in another quarter, that called away Charlemagne, and obliged him to
+leave his generals to watch over them.</p>
+
+<p>The Lombard king, Desiderius, had made use of his absence to plunder
+the papal see, to which Adrian had now succeeded. With some difficulty
+the Pope contrived to give his friend notice of his danger, when
+Charlemagne assembled a vast army, one division of which he himself
+led into Italy over the Alps by Mount Cenis, while the other was
+conducted to the same ground by his uncle, Duke Bernard, over the Mons
+Jovis, or Mount Joux, which from this event received the name it has
+borne ever since, of the Great Saint Bernard. Although surprised by an
+invasion from a quarter so unexpected, Desiderius marched out to meet
+his enemy, but his flank being turned, he fled hastily to Pavia,
+without having struck a blow; Charlemagne pursued the fugitives, but
+finding the city too strong to be taken by storm, he blockaded it with
+one portion of his army, while with the other he proceeded against
+Verona, having reduced which, he returned to the siege of Pavia. Month
+after month passed, till at length Easter approached, when, leaving
+the city blockaded as before, he determined to visit Rome in his
+capacity of patrician or governor. His march through the Italian towns
+was one of uninterrupted triumph; everywhere he was met with
+acclamations, and at Rome he was received by the Pope, as well as the
+people, with the liveliest expressions of gratitude for having freed
+them from the tyranny of the Lombards. The friendship then cemented
+between Adrian and his young deliverer lasted through the remainder of
+their lives without any serious interruption.</p>
+
+<p>Having thus asserted his rights of Patrician or Exarch, Charlemagne
+was liberal in his donations to the Church, and soon afterward
+returned to the siege of Pavia, which it now became important for him
+to bring to a speedy conclusion, the Saxons having again taken
+advantage of his absence to ravage his frontiers. About the middle of
+the year, the city surrendered, and he was crowned with the iron crown
+of Lombardy. He then marched against the Saxons, defeating them
+whenever they ventured to make a stand, till they found their best
+resource was in submission.</p>
+
+<p>It was not long before a fresh revolt amongst the Lombards recalled
+him to their country. Once more he was victorious and once more he was
+summoned from his career of conquest to meet the Saxons. As usual,
+they were beaten out of the field, and so completely, that many of
+them, seeming to have lost all <span class="pagenum"><a id="page078" name="page078"></a>(p. 078)</span> faith in their gods, from
+repeated defeats, presented themselves with their wives and children
+to receive baptism.</p>
+
+<p>Amid all these fatigues and battles, which might appear sufficient to
+have occupied the attention of any one man, Charlemagne retained in
+his own hands the general government of the state. The local
+administration was distributed among twelve provincial officers, with
+the title of Dukes, each of them having the command of a county.
+Subordinate to these officers were the Counts, who, in fact, were the
+judges of the land, and had full authority to decide and punish within
+their jurisdiction. To secure the faithful performance of their duties
+by these Dukes and Counts, certain officers, under the name of Missi
+Dominici, were sent in visitations from time to time to inquire into
+their conduct. In great ecclesiastical questions, or those affecting
+the more powerful vassals of the crown, either the king himself, or
+the count of his palace, sat as judge.</p>
+
+<p>Spain next demanded his attention. That country had been subdued by
+the Arabs, but the descendants of the first conquerors quarrelled
+among themselves, and Ibn al Arabi, a powerful chief, sought aid of
+Charlemagne, who marched thither, and being, as usual, victorious,
+secured to himself a barrier against the Saracens and Gascons. This
+was seen with ill-will by Lupo, Duke of Gascony, who when the Frankish
+king was leaving Spain to meet fresh dangers on the Rhine,
+treacherously laid an ambush for his destruction in the gorges of the
+Pyrenees. The monarch himself was allowed to pass with the first
+division of his army, the second was assailed and destroyed in the
+valley of Roncesvalles, and the conquerors secreting themselves in
+their mountain fastnesses, presented no object for the vengeance of
+the indignant monarch. Besides, the barbarians were again ravaging his
+frontiers, under the command of Witikind, with a fierceness that went
+far beyond even the worst of their earlier incursions. Their cruelty,
+however, was retaliated by their almost total annihilation while
+attempting to retreat across the Adern, and in the ensuing season
+Charlemagne reduced them, as it seemed, to a state of total
+submission. But no sooner had he set out for Italy, whither he was
+called by many pressing affairs, than Witikind, the great leader of
+the Westphalians, started forth from his retreat in Denmark and
+stimulated all Saxony to a renewed contest. The time was well chosen.
+Witikind, who appears to have been as superior to the generals of
+Charlemagne as he was inferior to the king himself, gave the Franks a
+complete overthrow.</p>
+
+<a id="img038" name="img038"></a>
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/img038.jpg" width="600" height="356" alt="" title="">
+<p>Charlemagne at Witikind's baptism.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>When these tidings were brought to Charlemagne, he returned in all
+haste to the northern frontiers. The scene was at once reversed. Cowed
+by his name alone, they had recourse, as usual, to submission,
+guaranteed by oaths which they never meant to keep, and by hostages
+who did not hesitate to incur the fatal penalty attached to the
+certain faithlessness of their countrymen. But this time the king
+would listen to no terms short of ample vengeance. He demanded that
+four thousand of the most hostile and turbulent should be delivered up
+to him, all of whom he had executed in one day, in order to do by
+intimidation what he had failed to do by kindness. His severity,
+however, failed in producing the <span class="pagenum"><a id="page079" name="page079"></a>(p. 079)</span> desired effect. It was
+not long before the Saxons again flew to arms, when they sustained so
+signal a defeat that very few of all their host escaped from the
+bloody field. Yet still the spirit of the barbarians, supported by an
+indomitable passion for war and plunder, continued as little quelled
+as ever. Witikind and Albion, their most popular chiefs, still
+maintained the contest, even when suffering nothing but disasters,
+until at length, their conqueror, subduing them more by policy than by
+arms, won them over to the Christian faith, which was then embraced by
+all Saxony.<a id="footnotetag9" name="footnotetag9"></a><a href="#footnote9" title="Go to footnote 9"><span class="small">[9]</span></a> This, for the time, produced a better feeling, though
+the truce was not of long duration.</p>
+
+<p>Hildegarde, the wife of Charlemagne, had now been dead some short
+time, when he married Fastrada, the daughter of a Frankish noble. It
+is said that from this union there arose a spirit of discontent among
+some of the leading men of his nation, who in consequence rebelled
+against him; but, finding themselves too weak to contend with him,
+dispersed, and endeavored to find safety in concealment. They did not,
+however, escape their merited punishment. Being sooner or later taken,
+some had their eyes put out, others were degraded from their rank,
+none were condemned to death, but all to exile. Even these severe
+examples did not prevent the rise of many petty revolts, the different
+parts of which the Frankish kingdom was composed not being as yet
+sufficiently amalgamated; but they were suppressed by the united
+wisdom and vigor of the monarch.</p>
+
+<p>The short interval of peace now allowed him, Charlemagne employed in
+endeavoring to educate and civilize his people. He made a tour through
+his dominions, spreading local and general improvement, reforming
+laws, advancing knowledge, and building churches and monasteries,
+Christianity being one of the chief means to which he trusted for the
+attainment of his grand objects. In this he was no less successful
+than he had before been in war. With the exception of the Eastern
+Empire, France was now the most cultivated nation in Europe, even Rome
+herself sending thither for skilful workmen, while commerce, roads,
+and mechanics must have been much advanced, as we may infer from the
+facility with which marble columns and immense stone crosses were
+often carried through the whole extent of France upon carriages of
+native construction. Luxury, too, with its attendant arts, had made
+considerable strides. Vases of gold and silver richly carved, silver
+tables brightly wrought, bracelets, rings, and table-cloths of fine
+linen, might be seen in the houses of the nobles. The people must have
+been dexterous in working iron, for their superiority in this respect
+is evinced by the severe laws forbidding the exportation of arms.</p>
+
+<p>The calm, thus wisely employed, did not last long. Charlemagne was
+soon aroused from his peaceful occupations to put down a revolt of
+Tassilo, Duke of Bavaria, as well as a meditated attack upon Italy by
+Adalgisus, the son of the deposed Lombard king, Desiderius, who was
+assisted underhand by the Greek empress, Irene, and had besides formed
+a secret alliance with the Duke of Beneventum. Tassilo, being seized,
+was condemned to death by the great council. He <span class="pagenum"><a id="page080" name="page080"></a>(p. 080)</span> appealed to
+the clemency of the king, who, ever averse to shed blood, mitigated
+the sentence into a lifelong seclusion from the world in a cloister.
+Adalgisus was met by the Duke of Beneventum, not to assist him, as he
+had expected, but to oppose him, for the duke had in good time
+discovered that loyalty was more likely to prosper than treason. He
+therefore joined the army of France under Grimwold, and in the battle
+which succeeded the Greek forces were entirely routed, and Adalgisus
+disappears from the busy scene.</p>
+
+<p>The empire of Charlemagne was next to be assailed by the Huns, not the
+same people whose fathers had fought under Attila, though probably
+descended from the same stock. Upon the death of that ferocious
+conqueror, the tribes whom his talents had kept united, again
+sundered. Shortly afterward a warlike nation, calling themselves
+Avars, approached the northern parts of Europe, having been driven
+from their native country by the Turks. They spread rapidly, acquiring
+territory and power, until they were invited by Tassilo to aid him in
+his meditated treachery. They lost more than one battle against the
+Franks, but neither their own defeat, nor the total overthrow of their
+ally, made any change in their purposes. They persisted; fought a hard
+battle, and were so utterly routed, that they drew back and remained
+quiet for a while, in order to collect their strength before venturing
+upon a fresh contest with their tremendous adversary, who, on his
+part, was no less desirous of a respite for the same object. Little
+rest, however, was allowed him. No sooner had he beaten back these
+Huns, than he had to contend with a new enemy, the Weletabes, a
+Slavonian tribe inhabiting the northern part of Germany, near
+Brandenburg and Pomerania, from the Elbe to the Baltic. In themselves
+they might not have excited much alarm, but, if they met with only a
+temporary success, their example might have been fatal, by rousing the
+Saxons, who still with reluctance submitted to the yoke imposed upon
+them. The king, therefore, without loss of time, met and defeated the
+Weletabes; when he received them into grace, and ever afterward found
+them faithful.</p>
+
+<p>Having freed himself from this peril, Charlemagne next found that he
+must turn his arms against the Huns of Hungary, which appears to have
+been defended by them after a singular fashion. The whole country was
+surrounded by nine circles of double palisading, formed of trunks of
+trees twenty feet in height. The interstices of the palisade were
+twenty feet wide, filled with stone and lime compacted, the top being
+covered with earth, and planted with shrubs. At the distance of twenty
+Teutonic, or forty Italian miles, was a second fortified line of the
+same kind; and thus the circles were repeated, the circumference
+always narrowing till you came to the innermost, or ring, in which the
+Avars kept all their wealth, the accumulation of centuries of rapine.
+Such, at least, is the account, however improbable, handed down to us
+by an historian of the day.</p>
+
+<p>In the outset fortune favored Charlemagne as usual. He took the first
+three of the defensive circles sword in hand, and laid waste the
+country to the junction of the Raab with the Danube, while his son
+Pepin had met and routed their army in another quarter. But unhappily
+a pestilential disease broke out among <span class="pagenum"><a id="page081" name="page081"></a>(p. 081)</span> the horses, who died
+by thousands, and he was obliged to retreat, unpursued, however, by
+the Avars, their surprise and terror not having yet subsided.</p>
+
+<p>In the doubtful lull that followed, a conspiracy was raised against
+the life and throne of the monarch, in which his natural son, Pepin
+the Hunchback, was implicated. It was discovered in time, and all the
+conspirators were put to death, with the exception of Pepin, who was
+confined for life within a monastery.</p>
+
+<p>Scarcely had the king escaped this danger, than he was alarmed by news
+that the Saxons had revolted, and uniting themselves with the Huns,
+had given a bloody defeat to his cousin, Theodoric. Close upon this
+came other tidings of equally evil import. In the late campaign
+against the Huns, Charlemagne had called to his aid his son Pepin,
+King of Italy, who, notwithstanding he was himself embroiled with
+Grimbald, Duke of Beneventum, did not hesitate to obey. To reward this
+prompt obedience, Charlemagne early in the winter had despatched
+another son, Louis, King of Aquitaine, to the help of his brother,
+when the Saracens took advantage of the latter's absence to attack his
+frontiers, and even penetrated to Narbonne before any forces were
+ready to oppose them. From this expedition they returned home laden
+with plunder, and satisfied with this success, remained for a while in
+quiet. Charles therefore had a brief respite to turn against the
+Saxons; and as he had hitherto found all his precautions unavailing to
+keep them within the bounds of good order, he broke up the nation, and
+transported an immense number of the most turbulent to a distance from
+their own country. Multitudes of men, women, and children were
+dispersed over France, and not a few were transported to Brabant and
+various parts of Flanders.</p>
+
+<p>About this time, 793, the first collision took place between the
+Franks and the piratical Northmen.</p>
+
+<p>It would be alien from our present purpose to follow Charlemagne step
+by step in his march of conquest and civilization. We need only say in
+general terms, that he drove back the Arabs, reduced the Huns, became
+the friend of Haroun al Raschid, his only rival in the paths of
+greatness, and effectually protected his long line of coast from the
+attempted incursion of the Northmen. It is said that upon one occasion
+he arrived at a certain port just as the pirates were preparing to
+land; but the moment they by some means learnt the presence of the
+monarch, they immediately fled in terror at his mere name. He remained
+gazing on the departing vessels, while the tears rolled down his
+cheeks. His nobles could not help showing surprise at such unusual
+emotion in the monarch, which being observed by him he exclaimed, "I
+weep not, my friends, because I myself fear these miserable savages;
+but I weep that they should dare to show themselves upon my coast
+while I am living, for I foresee the evils they will bring upon my
+people when I am dead."</p>
+
+<p>It was always an object of first importance with Charlemagne to
+support the papal authority, as holding out the only means of
+spreading Christianity, which he justly considered the most effectual
+instrument he could employ to enlighten and civilize the world. An
+attempt had been made to mutilate the Pope, and thus disqualify him
+for his office, by Campulus and Paschal, two disappointed aspirants
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page082" name="page082"></a>(p. 082)</span> to the papacy; but he escaped from their hands and brought
+his complaints before Charlemagne. The conspirators then attempted to
+justify the deed, by accusing the Pope of atrocious crimes; and the
+king calling to his aid certain of the Roman prelates, proceeded to
+sit in judgment on him. The prelates, however, declared that by all
+the canonical rules they could not judge their superior; and Leo
+therefore was allowed, according to an old custom, to purge himself,
+by a solemn oath, of the crimes which had been laid to his charge.</p>
+
+<p>Many motives of policy at this time induced the Pope to set up an
+emperor of the West in opposition to the Eastern Empire. It was
+Christmas-day, when, with the rest of the Catholic world, Charlemagne
+presented himself in the church of St. Peter. At the desire of the
+Romans he was dressed in the long robe of the patrician, and
+unsuspicious, it is said, of the honor intended him, knelt at the high
+altar; but, just as he was about to rise, Leo advanced, and suddenly
+placed upon his head the crown of the Western world, amidst the
+popular acclamations, "Long life and victory to Charles Augustus,
+crowned by God, great and pacific Emperor of the Romans!"</p>
+
+<p>To end the long-existing feuds between the Western and Eastern
+Empires, Charlemagne now proposed to marry Irene, who, having deposed
+her son and put out his eyes, had usurped the throne of
+Constantinople. Irene herself was not unwilling to accept the offer;
+but she was overruled by a faction, and a treaty of peace was
+substituted for a treaty of marriage. But while the negotiations were
+going on, Irene herself was deposed by the great treasurer,
+Nicephorus, who even refused to grant her the smallest pittance, so
+that the degraded empress was obliged to support herself by the labors
+of the distaff. He was, however, glad to conclude a peace with
+Charlemagne.</p>
+
+<p>Though troubled from time to time by disputes among the neighboring
+barbarians, the Frankish monarch might now be said to enjoy peace; and
+while still in the possession of robust health, he resolved to prepare
+for death, by allotting among his children such portions of territory
+as he wished them to possess when he should be removed from the scene.
+Both his sons and the people willingly consented to the proposed
+arrangements, which, indeed, bore the stamp of his usual wisdom and
+justice. But the advanced age which he attained, brought with it the
+usual evils of protracted life. He saw his friends and children swept
+away before him. His son Louis alone remained to inherit his vast
+dominions. With this single drawback the remainder of his time was as
+prosperous as his earlier career had been; till at length, being
+suddenly attacked with pleurisy, he expired, after a short illness, in
+the seventy-second year of his age and the forty-seventh of his reign,
+January 28, 814.<a href="#toc"><span class="small">[Back to Contents]</span></a></p>
+
+
+<h3><span class="pagenum"><a id="page083" name="page083"></a>(p. 083)</span> OLAF TRYGGVESON<br>
+Extracts from "Early Kings of Norway," by <span class="smcap">Thomas Carlyle</span><br>
+(955-1000)</h3>
+
+<a id="img039" name="img039"></a>
+<div class="floatleft">
+<img src="images/img039.jpg" width="300" height="172" alt="Boat on the sea." title="">
+</div>
+
+<p>Olaf Tryggveson also makes a great figure in the Faröer Saga, and
+recounts there his early troubles, which were strange and many. He is
+still reckoned a grand hero of the North, though his <span class="italic">vates</span> now is
+only Snorro Sturrleson of Iceland. Tryggveson had indeed many
+adventures in the world. His poor mother, Astrid, was obliged to fly
+with him, on murder of her husband<a id="footnotetag10" name="footnotetag10"></a><a href="#footnote10" title="Go to footnote 10"><span class="small">[10]</span></a> by Gunhild&mdash;to fly for life,
+three months before her little Olaf was born. She lay concealed in
+reedy island, fled through trackless forests, reached her father's
+with the little baby in her arms, and lay deep-hidden there; tended
+only by her father himself; Gunhild's pursuit being so incessant and
+keen as with sleuth-hounds. Poor Astrid had to fly again deviously to
+Sweden, to Esthland (Esthonia), to Russia. In Esthland she was sold as
+a slave, quite parted from her boy, who also was sold, and again sold;
+but did at last fall in with a kinsman high in the Russian service;
+did from him find redemption and help, and so rose, in a distinguished
+manner, to manhood, victorious self-help, and recovery of his kingdom
+at last. He even met his mother again, he as King of Norway, she as
+one wonderfully lifted out of darkness into new life, and happiness
+still in store.</p>
+
+<p>Grown to manhood, Tryggveson, now become acquainted with his birth,
+and with his, alas! hopeless claims, left Russia for the one
+profession open to him, that of sea-robbery; and did feats without
+number in that questionable line in many seas and scenes,&mdash;in England
+latterly, and most conspicuously of all. In one of his courses
+thither, after long labors in the Hebrides, Man, Wales, and down the
+western shores to the very Land's End and farther, he paused at the
+Scilly Islands for a little while. He was told of a wonderful
+Christian hermit living strangely in these sea-solitudes; had the
+curiosity to seek him out, examine, <span class="pagenum"><a id="page084" name="page084"></a>(p. 084)</span> question, and discourse
+with him; and, after some reflection, accepted Christian baptism from
+the venerable man. In Snorro the story is involved in miracle, rumor,
+and fable; but the fact itself seems certain, and is very interesting;
+the great, wild, noble soul of fierce Olaf opening to this wonderful
+gospel of tidings from beyond the world, tidings which infinitely
+transcended all else he had ever heard or dreamt of! It seems certain
+he was baptized here; date not fixable; shortly before poor
+heart-broken Dunstan's death, or shortly after; most English churches,
+monasteries especially, lying burnt, under continual visitation of the
+Danes. Olaf, such baptism notwithstanding, did not quit his viking
+profession; indeed, what other was there for him in the world as yet?</p>
+
+<p>We mentioned his occasional copartneries with Svein of the
+Double-beard, now become King of Denmark, but the greatest of these,
+and the alone interesting at this time, is their joint invasion of
+England, and Tryggveson's exploits and fortunes there some years after
+that adventure of baptism in the Scilly Isles. Svein and he "were
+above a year in England together," this time: they steered up the
+Thames with three hundred ships and many fighters; siege, or at least
+furious assault, of London was their first or main enterprise, but it
+did not succeed. The "Saxon Chronicle" gives date to it, <span class="smcap">A.D.</span> 994, and
+names expressly, as Svein's copartner, "Olaus, King of Norway,"&mdash;which
+he was as yet far from being; but in regard to the Year of Grace the
+"Saxon Chronicle" is to be held indisputable, and, indeed, has the
+field to itself in this matter. But finding London impregnable for the
+moment (no ship able to get athwart the bridge, and many Danes
+perishing in the attempt to do it by swimming), Svein and Olaf turned
+to other enterprises; all England in a manner lying open to them, turn
+which way they liked. They burnt and plundered over Kent, over
+Hampshire, Sussex; they stormed far and wide; world lying all before
+them where to choose. Wretched Ethelred, as the one invention he could
+fall upon, offered them Danegelt (£16,000 of silver this year, but it
+rose in other years as high as £48,000); the desperate Ethelred, a
+clear method of quenching fire by pouring <span class="italic">oil</span> on it! Svein and Olaf
+accepted; withdrew to Southampton&mdash;Olaf at least did&mdash;till the money
+was got ready. Strange to think of, fierce Svein of the Double-beard,
+and conquest of England by him; this had at last become the one
+salutary result which remained for that distracted, down-trodden, now
+utterly chaotic and anarchic country. A conquering Svein, followed by
+an ably and earnestly administrative, as well as conquering, Knut
+(whom Dahlmann compares to Charlemagne), were thus by the mysterious
+destinies appointed the effective saviours of England.</p>
+
+<a id="img040" name="img040"></a>
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/img040.jpg" width="600" height="374" alt="" title="">
+<p>A Norse raid under Olaf.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Tryggveson, on this occasion, was a good while at Southampton; and
+roamed extensively about, easily victorious over everything, if
+resistance were attempted, but finding little or none; and acting now
+in a peaceable or even friendly capacity. In the Southampton country
+he came in contact with the then Bishop of Winchester, afterward
+Archbishop of Canterbury, excellent Elphegus, still dimly decipherable
+to us as a man of great natural discernment, piety, and inborn
+veracity; a hero-soul, probably of real brotherhood with Olaf's own.
+He even <span class="pagenum"><a id="page085" name="page085"></a>(p. 085)</span> made court visits to King Ethelred; one visit to
+him at Andover of a very serious nature. By Elphegus, as we can
+discover, he was introduced into the real depths of the Christian
+faith. Elphegus, with due solemnity of apparatus, in presence of the
+king, at Andover baptized Olaf anew, and to him Olaf engaged that he
+would never plunder in England any more; which promise, too, he kept.
+In fact, not long after, Svein's conquest of England being in an
+evidently forward state, Tryggveson (having made, withal, a great
+English or Irish marriage,&mdash;a dowager princess, who had voluntarily
+fallen in love with him,&mdash;see Snorro for this fine romantic fact!)
+mainly resided in our island for two or three years, or else in
+Dublin, in the precincts of the Danish Court there in the Sister Isle.
+Accordingly it was in Dublin, as above noted, that Hakon's spy found
+him; and from the Liffey that his squadron sailed, through the
+Hebrides, through the Orkneys, plundering and baptizing in their
+strange way, toward such success as we have seen.<a id="footnotetag11" name="footnotetag11"></a><a href="#footnote11" title="Go to footnote 11"><span class="small">[11]</span></a></p>
+
+<p>Tryggveson made a stout, and, in effect, victorious and glorious
+struggle for himself as king. Daily and hourly vigilant to do so,
+often enough by soft and even merry methods,&mdash;for he was a witty,
+jocund man, and had a fine ringing laugh in him, and clear pregnant
+words ever ready,&mdash;or if soft methods would not serve, then by hard,
+and even hardest, he put down a great deal of miscellaneous anarchy in
+Norway; was especially busy against heathenism (devil-worship and its
+rites): this, indeed, may be called the focus and heart of all his
+royal endeavor in Norway, and of all the troubles he now had with his
+people there. For this was a serious, vital, all-comprehending matter:
+devil-worship, a thing not to be tolerated one moment longer than you
+could by any method help! Olaf's success was intermittent, of varying
+complexion; but his effort, swift or slow, was strong and continual;
+and on the whole he did succeed. Take a sample or two of that
+wonderful conversion process:</p>
+
+<p>At one of his first Things he found the Bonders all assembled in arms;
+resolute to the death seemingly, against his proposal and him.
+Tryggveson said little; waited impassive, "What your reasons are, good
+men?" One zealous Bonder started up in passionate parliamentary
+eloquence; but after a sentence or two broke down; one, and then
+another, and still another, and remained all three staring in
+open-mouthed silence there! The peasant-proprietors accepted the
+phenomenon as ludicrous, perhaps partly as miraculous withal, and
+consented to baptism this time.</p>
+
+<p>On another occasion of a Thing, which had assembled near some heathen
+temple to meet him,&mdash;temple where Hakon Jarl had done much repairing,
+and set up many idol figures and sumptuous ornaments, regardless of
+expense, especially a very big and splendid Thor, with massive gold
+collar round the neck of him, not the like of it in Norway,&mdash;King
+Tryggveson was clamorously invited <span class="pagenum"><a id="page086" name="page086"></a>(p. 086)</span> by the Bonders to step in
+there, enlighten his eyes, and partake of the sacred rites. Instead of
+which he rushed into the temple with his armed men; smashed down, with
+his own battle-axe, the god Thor prostrate on the floor at one stroke,
+to set an example; and in a few minutes had the whole Hakon Pantheon
+wrecked; packing up, meanwhile, all the gold and preciosities
+accumulated there (not forgetting Thor's illustrious gold collar, of
+which we shall hear again), and victoriously took the plunder home
+with him for his own royal uses and behoof of the state.</p>
+
+<p>By unwearied industry of this and better kinds, Tryggveson had
+trampled down idolatry, so far as form went,&mdash;how far in substance may
+be greatly doubted. But it is to be remembered withal, that always on
+the back of these compulsory adventures there followed English
+bishops, priests, and preachers; whereby to the open-minded,
+conviction, to all degrees of it, was attainable, while silence and
+passivity became the duty or necessity of the unconvinced party.</p>
+
+<p>In about two years Norway was all gone over with a rough harrow of
+conversion. Heathenism at least constrained to be silent and outwardly
+conformable. Tryggveson next turned his attention to Iceland, sent one
+Thangbrand, priest from Saxony, of wonderful qualities, military, as
+well as theological, to try and convert Iceland. Thangbrand made a few
+converts; for Olaf had already many estimable Iceland friends, whom he
+liked much, and was much liked by; and conversion was the ready road
+to his favor. Thangbrand, I find, lodged with Hall of Sida (familiar
+acquaintance of "Burnt Njal," whose Saga has its admirers among us
+even now). Thangbrand converted Hall and one or two other leading men;
+but in general he was reckoned quarrelsome and blusterous rather than
+eloquent and piously convincing. Two skalds of repute made biting
+lampoons upon Thangbrand, whom Thangbrand, by two opportunities that
+offered, cut down and did to death because of their skaldic quality.
+Another he killed with his own hand, I know not for what reason. In
+brief, after about a year, Thangbrand returned to Norway and King
+Olaf, declaring the Icelanders to be a perverse, satirical, and
+inconvertible people, having himself, the record says, been "the death
+of three men there." King Olaf was in high rage at this result; but
+was persuaded by the Icelanders about him to try farther, and by a
+milder instrument. He accordingly chose one Thormod, a pious, patient,
+and kindly man, who, within the next year or so, did actually
+accomplish the matter; namely, get Christianity, by open vote,
+declared at Thingvalla by the general Thing of Iceland there; the roar
+of a volcanic eruption at the right moment rather helping the
+conclusion, if I recollect. Whereupon Olaf's joy was no doubt great.</p>
+
+<p>One general result of these successful operations was the discontent,
+to all manner of degrees, on the part of many Norse individuals,
+against this glorious and victorious, but peremptory and terrible king
+of theirs. Tryggveson, I fancy, did not much regard all that; a man of
+joyful, cheery temper, habitually contemptuous of danger. Another
+trivial misfortune that befell in these conversion <span class="pagenum"><a id="page087" name="page087"></a>(p. 087)</span>
+operations, and became important to him, he did not even know of, and
+would have much despised if he had. It was this: Sigrid, queen-dowager
+of Sweden, thought to be among the most shining women of the world,
+was also known for one of the most imperious, revengeful, and
+relentless, and had got for herself the name of Sigrid the Proud. In
+her high widowhood she had naturally many wooers; but treated them in
+a manner unexampled.</p>
+
+<p>In spite of which, however, there went from Tryggveson, who was now a
+widower, some incipient marriage proposals to this proud widow; by
+whom they were favorably received; as from the brightest man in all
+the world, they might seem worth being. Now, in one of these
+anti-heathen onslaughts of King Olaf's on the idol temples of
+Hakon&mdash;(I think it was that case where Olaf's own battle-axe struck
+down the monstrous refulgent Thor, and conquered an immense gold ring
+from the neck of him, or from the door of his temple)&mdash;a huge gold
+ring, at any rate, had come into Olaf's hands; and this he bethought
+him might be a pretty present to Queen Sigrid, the now favorable,
+though the proud. Sigrid received the ring with joy; fancied what a
+collar it would make for her own fair neck; but noticed that her two
+goldsmiths, weighing it on their fingers, exchanged a glance. "What is
+that?" exclaimed Queen Sigrid. "Nothing," answered they, or endeavored
+to answer, dreading mischief. But Sigrid compelled them to break open
+the ring; and there was found, all along the inside of it, an occult
+ring of copper, not a heart of gold at all! "Ha," said the proud
+queen, flinging it away, "he that could deceive in this matter can
+deceive in many others!" And was in hot wrath with Olaf; though, by
+degrees, again she took milder thoughts.</p>
+
+<p>Milder thoughts, we say; and consented to a meeting next autumn at
+some half-way station, where their great business might be brought to
+a happy settlement and betrothment. Both Olaf Tryggveson and the high
+dowager appear to have been tolerably of willing mind at this meeting;
+but Olaf interposed, what was always one condition with him, "Thou
+must consent to baptism, and give up thy idol-gods." "They are the
+gods of all my forefathers," answered the lady; "choose thou what gods
+thou pleasest, but leave me mine." Whereupon an altercation; and
+Tryggveson, as was his wont, towered up into shining wrath, and
+exclaimed at last, "Why should I care about thee then, old faded
+heathen creature?" And impatiently wagging his glove, hit her, or
+slightly switched her, on the face with it, and contemptuously turning
+away, walked out of the adventure. "This is a feat that may cost thee
+dear one day," said Sigrid. And in the end it came to do so, little as
+the magnificent Olaf deigned to think of it at the moment.</p>
+
+<p>Olaf Tryggveson, though his kingdom was the smallest of the Norse
+Three, had risen to a renown over all the Norse world which neither he
+of Denmark nor he of Sweden could pretend to rival. A magnificent,
+far-shining man; more expert in all "bodily exercises," as the Norse
+called them, than any man had ever been before him, or after was.
+Could keep five daggers in the air, always catching the proper fifth
+by its handle, and sending it aloft again; could shoot supremely,
+throw a javelin with either hand; and, in fact, in battle usually
+threw <span class="pagenum"><a id="page088" name="page088"></a>(p. 088)</span> two together. These, with swimming, climbing, leaping,
+were the then admirable Fine Arts of the North; in all which
+Tryggveson appears to have been the Raphael and the Michael Angelo at
+once. Essentially definable, too, if we look well into him, as a wild
+bit of real heroism, in such rude guise and environment; a high, true,
+and great human soul. A jovial burst of laughter in him, too; a
+bright, airy, wise way of speech; dressed beautifully and with care; a
+man admired and loved exceedingly by those he liked; dreaded as death
+by those he did not like. "Hardly any king," says Snorro, "was ever so
+well obeyed, by one class out of zeal and love, by the rest out of
+dread." His glorious course, however, was not to last long.</p>
+
+<p>King Svein of the Double-beard had not yet completed his conquest of
+England,&mdash;by no means yet, some thirteen horrid years of that still
+before him!&mdash;when, over in Denmark, he found that complaints against
+him and intricacies had arisen, on the part principally of one
+Burislav, King of the Wends (far up the Baltic), and in a less degree
+with the King of Sweden and other minor individuals. Svein earnestly
+applied himself to settle these, and have his hands free. Burislav, an
+aged heathen gentleman, proved reasonable and conciliatory; so, too,
+the King of Sweden, and Dowager Queen Sigrid, his managing mother.
+Bargain in both these cases got sealed and crowned by marriage. Svein,
+who had become a widower lately, now wedded Sigrid; and might think,
+possibly enough, he had got a proud bargain, though a heathen one.
+Burislav also insisted on marriage with Princess Thyri, the
+Double-beard's sister. Thyri, inexpressibly disinclined to wed an aged
+heathen of that stamp, pleaded hard with her brother; but the
+Double-bearded was inexorable; Thyri's wailings and entreaties went
+for nothing. With some guardian foster-brother, and a serving-maid or
+two, she had to go on this hated journey. Old Burislav, at sight of
+her, blazed out into marriage feast of supreme magnificence, and was
+charmed to see her, but Thyri would not join the marriage party,
+refused to eat with it or sit with it at all. Day after day, for six
+days, flatly refused; and after nightfall of the sixth, glided out
+with her foster-brother into the woods, into by-paths and
+inconceivable wanderings; and, in effect, got home to Denmark. Brother
+Svein was not for the moment there; probably enough gone to England
+again. But Thyri knew too well he would not allow her to stay here, or
+anywhere that he could help, except with the old heathen she had just
+fled from.</p>
+
+<p>Thyri, looking round the world, saw no likely road for her, but to
+Olaf Tryggveson in Norway; to beg protection from the most heroic man
+she knew of in the world. Olaf, except by renown, was not known to
+her; but by renown he well was. Olaf, at sight of her, promised
+protection and asylum against all mortals. Nay, in discoursing with
+Thyri Olaf perceived more and more clearly what a fine handsome being,
+soul and body, Thyri was; and in a short space of time winded up by
+proposing to Thyri, who, humbly, and we may fancy with what secret
+joy, consented to say yes, and become Queen of Norway. In the due
+months they had a little son, Harald; who, it is credibly recorded,
+was the joy of both his parents; but who, to their inexpressible
+sorrow, in about a year <span class="pagenum"><a id="page089" name="page089"></a>(p. 089)</span> died, and vanished from them. This,
+and one other fact now to be mentioned, is all the wedded history we
+have of Thyri.</p>
+
+<p>The other fact is, that Thyri had, by inheritance or covenant, not
+depending on her marriage with old Burislav, considerable properties
+in Wendland, which she often reflected might be not a little
+behooveful to her here in Norway, where her civil-list was probably
+but straitened. She spoke of this to her husband; but her husband
+would take no hold, merely made her gifts, and said, "Pooh, pooh,
+can't we live without old Burislav and his Wendland properties?" So
+that the lady sank into ever deeper anxiety and eagerness about this
+Wendland object; took to weeping; sat weeping whole days; and when
+Olaf asked, "What ails thee, then?" would answer, or did answer once,
+"What a different man my father Harald Gormson was" (vulgarly called
+Blue-tooth), "compared with some that are now kings! For no King Svein
+in the world would Harald Gormson have given up his own or his wife's
+just rights!" Whereupon Tryggveson started up, exclaiming, in some
+heat, "Of thy brother Svein I never was afraid; if Svein and I meet in
+contest, it will not be Svein, I believe, that conquers;" and went off
+in a towering fume. Consented, however, at last, had to consent, to
+get his fine fleet equipped and armed, and decide to sail with it to
+Wendland to have speech and settlement with King Burislav.</p>
+
+<p>Tryggveson had already ships and navies that were the wonder of the
+North. Especially in building war-ships&mdash;the Crane, the Serpent, last
+of all the Long Serpent&mdash;he had, for size, for outward beauty, and
+inward perfection of equipment, transcended all example.</p>
+
+<p>This new sea expedition became an object of attention to all
+neighbors; especially Queen Sigrid the Proud and Svein Forkbeard, her
+now king, were attentive to it.</p>
+
+<p>"This insolent Tryggveson," Queen Sigrid would often say, and had long
+been saying, to her Svein, "to marry thy sister without leave had or
+asked of thee; and now flaunting forth his war navies, as if he, king
+only of paltry Norway, were the big hero of the North! Why do you
+suffer it, you kings really great?"</p>
+
+<p>By such persuasions, and reiterations, King Svein of Denmark, King
+Olaf of Sweden, and Jarl Eric,<a id="footnotetag12" name="footnotetag12"></a><a href="#footnote12" title="Go to footnote 12"><span class="small">[12]</span></a> now a great man there, grown rich
+by prosperous sea-robbery and other good management, were brought to
+take the matter up, and combine strenuously for destruction of King
+Olaf Tryggveson on this grand Wendland expedition of his. Fleets and
+forces were with best diligence got ready; and, withal, a certain Jarl
+Sigwald of Jomsburg, chieftain of the Jomsvikings, a powerful,
+plausible, and cunning man, was appointed to find means of joining
+himself to Tryggveson's grand voyage; of getting into Tryggveson's
+confidence, and keeping Svein Forkbeard, Eric, and the Swedish king
+aware of all his movements.</p>
+
+<p>King Olaf Tryggveson, unacquainted with all this, sailed away in
+summer, with his splendid fleet; went through the Belts with
+prosperous winds, under bright skies, to the admiration of both
+shores. Such a fleet, with its shining <span class="pagenum"><a id="page090" name="page090"></a>(p. 090)</span> Serpents, long and
+short, and perfection of equipment and appearance, the Baltic never
+saw before. Jarl Sigwald joined with new ships by the way. "Had," he
+too, "a visit to King Burislav to pay; how could he ever do it in
+better company?" and studiously and skilfully ingratiated himself with
+King Olaf. Old Burislav, when they arrived, proved altogether
+courteous, handsome, and amenable; agreed at once to Olaf's claims for
+his now queen, did the rites of hospitality with a generous plenitude
+to Olaf; who cheerily renewed acquaintance with that country, known to
+him in early days (the cradle of his fortunes in the viking line), and
+found old friends there still surviving, joyful to meet him again.
+Jarl Sigwald encouraged these delays, King Svein &amp; Co. not being yet
+quite ready. "Get ready!" Sigwald directed them, and they diligently
+did. Olaf's men their business now done, were impatient to be home,
+and grudged every day of loitering there; but, till Sigwald pleased,
+such his power of flattering and cajoling Tryggveson, they could not
+get away.</p>
+
+<p>At length, Sigwald's secret messengers reporting all ready on the part
+of Svein &amp; Co., Olaf took farewell of Burislav and Wendland, and all
+gladly sailed away. Svein, Eric, and the Swedish king, with their
+combined fleets, lay in wait behind some cape in a safe little bay of
+some island, then called Svolde, but not in our time to be found: the
+Baltic tumults in the fourteenth century having swallowed it, as some
+think, and leaving us uncertain whether it was in the neighborhood of
+Rugen Island or in the Sound of Elsinore. There lay Svein, Eric &amp; Co.
+waiting till Tryggveson and his fleet came up, Sigwald's spy
+messengers daily reporting what progress he and it had made. At
+length, one bright summer morning, the fleet made appearance, sailing
+in loose order, Sigwald, as one acquainted with the shoal places,
+steering ahead, and showing them the way.</p>
+
+<p>Snorro rises into one of his pictorial fits, seized with enthusiasm at
+the thought of such a fleet, and reports to us largely in what order
+Tryggveson's winged Coursers of the Deep, in long series, for perhaps
+an hour or more, came on, and what the three potentates, from their
+knoll of vantage, said of each as it hove in sight. Svein thrice over
+guessed this and the other noble vessel to be the Long Serpent; Eric
+always correcting him: "No, that is not the Long Serpent yet" (and
+aside always), "Nor shall you be lord of it, King, when it does come."
+The Long Serpent itself did make appearance. Eric, Svein, and the
+Swedish king hurried on board, and pushed out of their hiding-place
+into the open sea. Treacherous Sigwald, at the beginning of all this,
+had suddenly doubled that cape of theirs, and struck into the bay out
+of sight, leaving the foremost Tryggveson ships astonished, and
+uncertain what to do, if it were not simply to strike sail and wait
+till Olaf himself with the Long Serpent arrived.</p>
+
+<p>Olaf's chief captains, seeing the enemy's huge fleet come out, and how
+the matter lay, strongly advised King Olaf to elude this stroke of
+treachery, and, with all sail, hold on his course, fight being now on
+so unequal terms. Snorro says, the king, high on the quarter-deck
+where he stood, replied, "Strike the sails! never shall men of mine
+think of flight. I never fled from battle. Let <span class="pagenum"><a id="page091" name="page091"></a>(p. 091)</span> God dispose
+of my life; but flight I will never take." And so the battle
+arrangements immediately began, and the battle with all fury went
+loose, and lasted hour after hour, till almost sunset, if I well
+recollect. "Olaf stood on the Serpent's quarter-deck," says Snorro,
+"high over the others. He had a gilt shield and a helmet inlaid with
+gold; over his armor he had a short red coat, and was easily
+distinguished from other men." Snorro's account of the battle is
+altogether animated, graphic, and so minute that antiquaries gather
+from it, if so disposed (which we but little are), what the methods of
+Norse sea-fighting were; their shooting of arrows, casting of
+javelins, pitching of big stones, ultimately boarding, and mutual
+clashing and smashing, which it would not avail us to speak of here.
+Olaf stood conspicuous all day, throwing javelins, of deadly aim, with
+both hands at once; encouraging, fighting, and commanding like a
+highest sea-king.</p>
+
+<p>The Danish fleet, the Swedish fleet, were, both of them, quickly dealt
+with, and successively withdrew out of shot-range. And then Jarl Eric
+came up, and fiercely grappled with the Long Serpent, or, rather, with
+her surrounding comrades; and gradually, as they were beaten empty of
+men, with the Long Serpent herself. The fight grew ever fiercer, more
+furious. Eric was supplied with new men from the Swedes and Danes;
+Olaf had no such resource, except from the crews of his own beaten
+ships; and at length this also failed him; all his ships, except the
+Long Serpent, being beaten and emptied. Olaf fought on unyielding.
+Eric twice boarded him, was twice repulsed. Olaf kept his
+quarter-deck; unconquerable, though left now more and more hopeless,
+fatally short of help. A tall young man, called Einar Tamberskelver,
+very celebrated and important afterward in Norway, and already the
+best archer known, kept busy with his bow. Twice he nearly shot Jarl
+Eric in his ship. "Shoot me that man," said Jarl Eric to a bowman near
+him; and, just as Tamberskelver was drawing his bow the third time, an
+arrow hit it in the middle and broke it in two. "What is this that has
+broken?" asked King Olaf. "Norway from thy hand, King," answered
+Tamberskelver. Tryggveson's men, he observed with surprise, were
+striking violently on Eric's; but to no purpose; nobody fell. "How is
+this?" asked Tryggveson. "Our swords are notched and blunted, King;
+they do not cut." Olaf stept down to his arm-chest; delivered out new
+swords; and it was observed as he did it, blood ran trickling from his
+wrist; but none knew where the wound was. Eric boarded a third time.
+Olaf, left with hardly more than one man, sprang overboard (one sees
+that red coat of his still glancing in the evening sun), and sank in
+the deep waters to his long rest.</p>
+
+<p>Rumor ran among his people that he still was not dead; grounding on
+some movement by the ships of that traitorous Sigwald, they fancied
+Olaf had dived beneath the keels of his enemies, and got away with
+Sigwald, as Sigwald himself evidently did. "Much was hoped, supposed,
+spoken," says one old mourning Skald; "but the truth was, Olaf
+Tryggveson was never seen in Norseland more." Strangely he remains
+still a shining figure to us; the wildly beautifullest man, in body
+and in soul, that one has ever heard of in the North.<a href="#toc"><span class="small">[Back to Contents]</span></a></p>
+
+
+<h3><span class="pagenum"><a id="page092" name="page092"></a>(p. 092)</span> WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR<br>
+By <span class="smcap">G. W. Prothero</span><br>
+(1027-1087)</h3>
+
+<a id="img041" name="img041"></a>
+<div class="floatleft">
+<img src="images/img041.jpg" width="250" height="374" alt="William the Conqueror." title="">
+</div>
+
+<p>William I., King of England, surnamed the Conqueror, was born in 1027
+or 1028. He was the son of Robert, Duke of Normandy and Herleva,
+daughter of Fulbert, a tanner of Falaise. When he was about seven
+years old his father, intending to go on pilgrimage and having no
+legitimate sons, proposed him as his heir. The great men of the duchy
+did homage to the child, and a year later (1035) his father's death
+left him to make good his claim. Anarchy was the natural result of a
+minority. William's life was on more than one occasion in danger, and
+several of his guardians perished in his service. At the earliest
+possible age he received knighthood from the hands of Henry I. of
+France, and speedily began to show signs of his capacity for
+government.</p>
+
+<p>In 1042 he insisted that the "truce of God" should be proclaimed and
+observed in Normandy. When he was about twenty years old his authority
+was threatened by a general conspiracy, which spread through the
+western half of his duchy. An attempt was made to seize him at
+Valognes, and he only escaped by riding hard all night to his own
+castle at Falaise. Bessin and Cotentin, the most Norman parts of
+Normandy, rose in rebellion. William sought and obtained aid from King
+Henry, and completely defeated the rebels at Val-es-Dunes near Caen
+(1047). The battle was but a combat of horse, but it decided the fate
+of the war and left William master of his duchy. The debt which he
+owed to Henry was repaid next year. War broke out between Geoffrey,
+Count of Anjou, and Henry (1048), and William came to his suzerain's
+assistance. Alençon, one of the chief border fortresses between
+Normandy and Maine, which had received an Angevin garrison, was
+captured by the duke. The inhabitants had taunted him with his birth,
+and William, who had dealt leniently with the rebels after
+Val-es-Dunes, took a cruel revenge. Soon afterward Domfront, another
+important border fortress, fell into his hands.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page093" name="page093"></a>(p. 093)</span> In 1051 William visited England. Two years later he married
+Matilda, daughter of Baldwin, Earl of Flanders, and a descendant of
+Alfred. The marriage had been forbidden by a council at Rheims as
+uncanonical, and was opposed by Lanfranc, Prior of Bec. This produced
+a quarrel between Lanfranc and William, who ravaged the lands of the
+abbey and ordered the banishment of its prior. Lanfranc, however, soon
+came to terms with the duke, and engaged to obtain a dispensation from
+Rome, which, however, was not granted till 1059.</p>
+
+<p>Strengthened by this alliance with Flanders, William showed himself
+more than a match for all his enemies. Henry, who had hitherto been
+for the most part friendly, now turned against him. After the
+suppression of some isolated revolts, William was threatened in 1054
+by a great confederacy. His dominions were invaded by the forces of
+the French king, in combination with those of Geoffrey of Anjou,
+Theobald of Blois, and others. William remained at first on the
+defensive; then, falling suddenly on one of the French armies at
+Mortemer, in the north-eastern corner of his duchy, he cut it to
+pieces. This blow put an end to the war; Henry made peace (1055), and
+William took the opportunity of extending his dominions in a southerly
+direction. He built fresh fortresses and exacted homage from Count
+Geoffrey of Mayenne.</p>
+
+<p>In 1058 Henry and Count Geoffrey made a final effort to crush their
+dangerous neighbor; but the effort failed, like those which preceded
+it. William again allowed the allies to enter and ravage his
+territory; but, while the French army was crossing the Dive at
+Varaville, he attacked and completely destroyed their rear-guard,
+which was cut off from the van by the advancing tide. Henry again made
+peace, and soon afterward died (1060). The death of Geoffrey of Anjou
+in the same year relieved William of his most formidable rival for the
+possession of Maine. Herbert Wake-Dog, the lawful ruler of that
+territory, who had been dispossessed by Geoffrey, recovered his
+dominions on the latter's death. He at once "commended" himself to
+William, thus making the duke his heir. On his death in 1063, William
+took possession of Le Mans and the county of which it was the
+capital&mdash;an acquisition which extended his southern frontier nearly to
+the Loire, almost severed Brittany from the rest of France, and paved
+the way for the subsequent junction with Anjou.</p>
+
+<p>It was apparently soon after this event, in the year 1064, that
+Harold, then Earl of Wessex, visited Normandy, and, according to
+legend, was entrapped into an oath to support William as heir to the
+English throne. When Harold was elected and crowned King of England
+(1066), William's first step was to send an embassy to him demanding
+the fulfilment of his promise. The purport of the demand is as
+uncertain as that of the pledge; but, whatever it was, Harold rejected
+it. The duke thereupon summoned a council of his supporters, who
+advised him to call together an assembly representing the whole duchy.
+This assembly, a typical feudal parliament, met at Lillebonne. While
+acting together it appears to have opposed the scheme for the conquest
+of England which William laid before it, but its members were won over
+singly. He then made a compact with Tostig, the banished brother of
+Harold; he came to terms with the Emperor <span class="pagenum"><a id="page094" name="page094"></a>(p. 094)</span> Henry; he
+conciliated Philip, King of France, by offering to hold England as his
+vassal; and&mdash;most important of all&mdash;he obtained the sanction of Rome.</p>
+
+<p>Pope Alexander II., not only issued a bull declaring William to be the
+rightful heir to the throne, but sent him a ring and a banner as
+symbols that the blessing of heaven was on his claim. Embarking at St.
+Valéry, William landed, on 28th of September, at Pevensey. The battle
+of Senlac or Hastings (October 14, 1066), was a decisive victory for
+the Duke of Normandy; but it took five years more to complete the
+conquest of England.</p>
+
+<p>Early in 1067 William made a progress through the eastern and central
+parts of his new dominions. All that had as yet submitted to him was
+comprised in the old kingdoms of Wessex and East Anglia, and a small
+portion of Mercia. He at once secured his hold over these districts by
+the erection of fortresses in London, Norwich, and elsewhere. He
+received homage from the great men; he confiscated the lands of those
+who had resisted him; and, while keeping a large number of manors for
+himself, he granted others to his followers. Even those who had not
+resisted were regarded as having legally forfeited their title and had
+to submit to a re-grant on less advantageous terms. In March, 1067,
+William returned to Normandy, taking with him as hostages the Earls
+Eadwine, Morkere, and Waltheof.</p>
+
+<p>The revolts which broke out in the north and southwest compelled him
+to return to England in December. Early in 1068 he marched on Exeter,
+as the centre of the western revolt. He took the town and built a
+castle, after which he subdued Cornwall, and then marching northward
+forced Bristol to submit. In the summer of 1068 there was a general
+rising of the North, of which Eadgar was the nominal head; but Eadwine
+and Morkere were the moving spirits. The insurgents were aided by
+Malcolm, King of Scotland. William had, however, only to show himself
+in order to put down the insurrection. He journeyed northward, by way
+of Warwick and Nottingham, to York, received the submission of
+Eadwine, Morkere, and Malcolm, and returned by way of Lincoln and
+Cambridge. His march was accompanied by heavy confiscations, and great
+castles, rising in places of vantage, rendered the Norman power at
+once visible and secure.</p>
+
+<p>In the spring of 1069 a fresh revolt broke out. Robert of Comines, the
+newly appointed Earl of Northumberland, was slain at Durham; a Danish
+fleet entered the Humber, and a Danish army, joined by Eadgar and
+Waltheof, seized and burned York. The sons of Harold attacked Devon,
+while other isolated outbreaks took place in the west. These were
+speedily put down by William's lieutenants; and in the autumn the king
+himself, going northward a second time, recovered York, and harried
+Northumberland with ruthless deliberation. Returning to keep Christmas
+at York, he set out again in January, 1070, to oppose Malcolm, who had
+crossed the border in aid of the insurgents. He forced Waltheof to
+submit, and drove the Scottish king back into his own country; then,
+marching over pathless fells in the depth of winter, he reached
+Chester, took the town, and founded another castle.</p>
+
+<a id="img042" name="img042"></a>
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/img042.jpg" width="500" height="376" alt="" title="">
+<p>William at Hastings.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page095" name="page095"></a>(p. 095)</span> Northumbria, exhausted and ruined, gave up the struggle, and
+the omission of the northern counties from the Domesday survey throws
+a grim light on the completeness of the Conquest. In one district
+only, the fens of Cambridgeshire, where Hereward still held out, the
+spirit of resistance survived. In April, 1071, William arrived at
+Cambridge and commenced a regular blockade. Advancing cautiously by
+means of a causeway through the fens, he entered Ely in October, and
+therewith the last flicker of independence died out. The conquest of
+England was completed. To guard against any fresh incitements to
+rebellion from Scotland, William in 1072 invaded that country and
+forced Malcolm to do him homage&mdash;an event which had an important
+effect on the subsequent relations of the two countries.</p>
+
+<p>Henceforward such trouble as William met with came, not from the
+English, but from his Norman vassals or his own family. In 1073 the
+citizens of Le Mans took advantage of his absence to set up a
+"commune," and invited Fulk of Anjou to protect them. William was soon
+in the field, this time assisted by English troops. He harried the
+country, recovered Le Mans, and made an advantageous peace with the
+count. By a skilful compromise he recognized Fulk as overlord of
+Maine, but kept actual possession of the district, for which his son
+Robert did homage. A year later a formidable revolt broke out in
+England. Two of William's great vassals, Ralph, Earl of Norfolk, and
+Roger, Earl of Hereford, rebelled, and a Danish fleet, probably in
+alliance with them, appeared in the Humber. William returned at once
+to England and put down the insurrection. A great meeting of the witan
+was summoned to try Roger and Waltheof, for the latter, though he took
+no part in the rebellion, had undoubtedly been privy to it. Roger was
+imprisoned for life and Waltheof was condemned to death.</p>
+
+<p>This was the last instance of opposition to William in England; but
+the remaining ten years of his life were occupied with almost
+continuous troubles on the Continent. In 1076 he was engaged in a war
+with Brittany, which the interference of Philip of France forced him
+to bring to an unsuccessful conclusion. Next year he quarrelled with
+his son Robert. Matilda took the young man's side against her husband,
+and Philip lent him his assistance. In 1080 William was at open war
+with his son. While besieging him at Gerberoi he received a wound and
+was forced to raise the siege. A temporary reconciliation followed,
+soon to give way to another and a final quarrel. Three years later
+Matilda died, and troubles thickened upon William. A rebellious
+vassal, Hubert of Beaumont, seems to have held him at bay for nearly
+three years. Rival claims to Vexin, a district on the eastern frontier
+of Normandy, involved him in another war with France. He was growing
+old and weary, and, as he lay sick at Rouen in the summer of 1087, the
+French army harried his territories with impunity. When he had
+recovered sufficiently to take the field, he invaded Vexin and burned
+the town of Mantes. But his horse, plunging in the burning cinders,
+inflicted on him an internal injury, which proved his death-wound He
+was carried to St. Gervais, where, on September 9, 1087, he died. His
+body was conveyed to Caen and buried in the great minster which he had
+built.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page096" name="page096"></a>(p. 096)</span> The career of William as a warrior and conqueror occupies of
+necessity the largest space in his life; but his fame as a statesman
+and administrator is not less than that which he won on the
+battle-field. This is not the place to discuss the results of the
+Conquest, but the policy of the Conqueror in regard to Church and
+State cannot be overlooked. An orthodox churchman, a supporter of
+union under the successor of Peter against the schismatic tendencies
+of the English Church, he nevertheless repelled any claim on the part
+of Rome to interference with his political sovereignty. He allowed
+Peter's pence to be collected, but refused to pay tribute to the Pope.
+While recognizing him as head of the Church, he declined to hold his
+kingdom as his vassal, nor would he permit papal bulls to enter
+England or excommunications to be issued against any of his subjects
+without his leave. He controlled all appointments to important
+ecclesiastical dignities; he made laws for the Church; he dealt
+justice to ecclesiastics, high and low, in his own courts. At the same
+time he had no desire to humiliate the Church; on the contrary, he
+sought to elevate it to a higher position in the State, to make it a
+more potent agent of civilization. A weaker statesman might have seen
+his own advantage in encouraging the rivalry between Canterbury and
+York; William strengthened the Church by forcing the younger to give
+way to the elder see. With the same object, that of increasing the
+efficiency of ecclesiastical organization, he severed the temporal and
+spiritual jurisdictions and furthered the enforcement of clerical
+celibacy. Finally, the trust which he reposed in Lanfranc from the
+time of his appointment to the see of Canterbury in 1070 shows not
+only his insight into character but his respect for the head of the
+English Church.</p>
+
+<p>In regard to temporal affairs William was rather an administrator than
+a lawgiver. His reign is not marked by a series of legislative acts
+like those of Henry II. or Edward I.; but his work was the
+indispensable preliminary to theirs, for a strong monarchy was the
+first requisite of the state. To establish the power of the crown was
+William's principal care. The disintegrating tendencies of feudalism
+had already been visible under the Anglo-Saxon kings. William, while
+he established fully developed feudalism as a social, territorial, and
+military system in his new dominions, took measures to prevent it from
+undermining his own authority. He scattered the estates of his great
+vassals, so as to hinder them from building up provincial
+principalities; he maintained the higher popular courts against the
+encroachments of manorial jurisdictions; he prevented the claims of
+feudal lordship from standing between himself and the mass of his
+subjects, by exacting an oath from every landholder at the meeting of
+Salisbury plain; finally, by the great survey which resulted in
+"Domesday Book" he not only asserted his right to make a general
+inquisition into property, but laid the firm basis of knowledge which
+was indispensable to centralized government and taxation.</p>
+
+<p>The care which he took to maintain English laws and institutions is
+part of the same policy. He balanced the two nationalities over which
+he ruled, and obliged each to depend upon him as its leader or
+protector against the other. He ruled as an English king; his feudal
+council was the witenagemot with a new qualification; <span class="pagenum"><a id="page097" name="page097"></a>(p. 097)</span> but at
+the same time he was lord of the land as no king had been before him,
+and he enjoyed not only all the income of his predecessors but in
+addition all the dues which came to him as feudal sovereign. He was
+thus perhaps the strongest and most absolute monarch that has ever sat
+upon the English throne.</p>
+
+<p>In character William was stern, self-reliant, and imperious in a high
+degree. He was not naturally cruel; but he was ruthless if it served
+his purpose, and could take pitiless vengeance for an insult or a
+wrong. He was too strong to prefer deceit when force would serve as
+well, but his diplomacy was subtle and guileful, and no scruple turned
+him aside from his aim. His temper, originally forgiving, was soured
+by opposition toward the end of his life, and his tyrannical
+tendencies were strengthened by the long exercise of uncontrolled
+power. His passionate devotion to the chase is only too clearly shown
+in the harshness of his forest laws. In private life he displayed
+domestic virtues, and his fidelity to his wife was exceptional in the
+annals of his house and time.<a href="#toc"><span class="small">[Back to Contents]</span></a></p>
+
+
+<h3>GODFREY DE BOUILLON<br>
+By <span class="smcap">Henry G. Hewlett</span><br>
+(1060-1100)</h3>
+
+<a id="img043" name="img043"></a>
+<div class="floatleft">
+<img src="images/img043.jpg" width="300" height="165" alt="Crusaders." title="">
+</div>
+
+<p>In the year 1094 the Turks besieged the Holy City of Jerusalem, then
+ruled by the Fatimite caliphs, and took it. Pilgrims were then
+subjected to every form of violence and insult. The Greek emperor
+Alexius Comnenus, whom the Turks had recently defeated, implored the
+assistance of the great Christian states against this new and
+formidable foe. Pope Urban, to whom the letter was addressed, summoned
+a council of nobles and prelates in Auvergne and, with solemn and
+weighty words, appealed to the princes and soldiers of France who were
+seated before him. He reminded them of the national exploits of their
+fathers, whom Charles Martel and Charlemagne led against the Saracens,
+and called on the sons of such fathers to achieve yet greater deeds.
+As the burning words dropped from his lips they lighted a flame in
+every heart, and the whole assembly suddenly rose, and shouted with
+one voice, "It is God's will! It is God's will!" Urban caught up the
+cry: "Yes, without doubt, <span class="pagenum"><a id="page098" name="page098"></a>(p. 098)</span> it is God's will. He has dictated
+to you the words, let them be your war-cry, and be this your badge!"
+As he spoke he held up a crucifix. The great meeting was moved like
+one man; and, falling on their knees, all confessed their sins,
+received absolution, and took vows of service in the Holy War. A red
+cross, embroidered on the right shoulder, was the common sign assumed
+by all the soldiers, who thence acquired the name of "Crusaders."
+Estates were pawned and sold to obtain money for the expenses of the
+undertaking, and many commercial cities purchased important liberties
+from their lords at this favorable opportunity. The chief of one of
+three great divisions into which the Christian army was formed was a
+man whom we have taken as the very type and model of a true
+Crusader,&mdash;Godfrey de Bouillon.</p>
+
+<a id="img044" name="img044"></a>
+<div class="floatright">
+<img src="images/img044.jpg" width="250" height="322" alt="Godfrey de Bouillon." title="">
+</div>
+
+<p>He was the son of Gustavus, Count of Bouillon, or Boulogne, in the
+district of Ardennes and province of Luxembourg, and was born about
+the year 1060. His profession had been from his youth that of arms,
+and his earliest services in the field were rendered to his lord, the
+Emperor of Germany. In the war of Investiture he had taken an active
+part against Gregory VII., and bore the Imperial standard at the
+battle of Merseberg. By his hand the usurper, Rudolph, Duke of Suabia,
+fell in that decisive encounter. Godfrey's sword, swayed by his young
+and powerful wrist, is said to have shorn off the right arm of Rudolph
+at a single stroke. For this valiant deed, Henry IV. created Godfrey
+Duke of his province of Bouillon; or, according to some historians,
+Lower Lorraine. At the subsequent siege of Rome, Godfrey made himself
+again prominent by scaling the city walls among the first. This action
+colored his whole life. All his contemporaries portray his nature as
+displaying the loftiest integrity and deepest piety. Sound and clear
+as his intellect was, he yet shared in the superstition of his times,
+and was led by reflection to believe that, in bearing arms against
+God's vicegerent, and attacking a city where so many apostles and
+martyrs lay buried, he had been guilty of a heinous sin. Remorse
+worked on his mind so heavily that he took a vow to join in the
+Crusade, from a conviction that his glaring crime could only be
+blotted out by a heroism equally conspicuous. His noble birth, and yet
+nobler character, won for him so high a place in the estimation of his
+fellows, that, on announcing his intention of undertaking the Crusade,
+hundreds flocked to his standard. A worthy general, truly, of soldiers
+thus ardent in a cause which they deemed divine! To the qualities of
+bodily strength and beauty, which in those days were chiefly valued in
+the head of an army, Godfrey happily united the more durable strength
+of intellect and beauty of soul. His knightly heart and statesman's
+mind never ran counter, and whatever generous policy the one dictated,
+was carried into effect by the wisdom of the other. Although averse to
+distinction, it was thrust upon him by the votes of his fellow-chiefs,
+and their decision was gladly hailed by the common soldiers, who loved
+Godfrey as a father. He would not, therefore, refuse the post of
+general, but applied himself to its duties with activity. He first set
+an example of unselfish zeal to his brother nobles, by disposing of
+his duchy for the purpose of his expedition,&mdash;an example faithfully
+followed by the leading nobility of France and the Rhine. He then
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page099" name="page099"></a>(p. 099)</span> summoned his army to join him in August, 1096, on the banks
+of the rivers Meuse and Moselle. At the appointed time, a force of
+80,000 foot and 10,000 horse assembled under his banner, and set out
+on its march through Germany,&mdash;the two other divisions of the
+Christian army taking a different route. On reaching Hungary,
+Carloman, who then ruled that country, showed some signs of objection
+to the passage of so formidable a body,&mdash;remembering the licentious
+excesses that had been committed by the rabble which followed Peter
+the Hermit. Here Godfrey's wisdom was admirably displayed. By his firm
+measures of restraint on the impetuosity of his troops he first proved
+that they were under the influence of strict discipline. Then,
+confiding himself to the justice and good faith of Carloman, he
+disarmed that monarch's suspicions by frankness and simplicity. The
+result was that, instead of opposition, the Hungarian prince gave him
+help, and escorted the Crusaders with a body of cavalry into the
+territories of Greece. Alexius Comnenus was by this time alarmed at
+the eagerness with which the Christian states had responded to his
+appeal for aid against the infidel. He mistrusted, not without reason,
+the intentions of some of the chiefs of the expedition,&mdash;mere
+adventurers, like the Norman Bohemond of Tarentum for example, who was
+his avowed foe,&mdash;and therefore deemed it politic to guard against
+danger to himself by demanding homage from all the Crusaders who
+entered his dominions. The two other divisions of the Christian army
+were now on their way to Constantinople, by a different road from that
+taken by Godfrey. One of the French nobles, the Count de Vermandois,
+was shipwrecked on the coast of Epirus, and Alexius unjustifiably
+detained him as a prisoner or hostage for the good faith of the other
+leaders. On learning these tidings, Godfrey, who was now in Thrace,
+sent to the emperor, requiring the count's release. This was not
+accorded, and Godfrey therefore treated the country as hostile,
+levying contributions on the people as he marched through. The emperor
+immediately saw his error, and promised to grant the count's release
+on the arrival of the French army. This promise satisfied Godfrey, and
+his march was once more peaceful. The wily emperor, in the meanwhile,
+obtained from his prisoner an oath of homage, hoping to induce the
+other Crusaders to follow the example. Godfrey, on his <span class="pagenum"><a id="page100" name="page100"></a>(p. 100)</span>
+arrival, at first refused this, as unbecoming the rank and character
+which he bore; but, finding that the act would appease the jealousies
+which had already broken out between the Greeks and Franks, and put a
+check on the schemes of those leaders in the crusading ranks whom
+Alexius especially dreaded, he at last consented. The other chieftains
+made a like submission; and this sacrifice of pride, by healing
+internal discords, served for a season to promote the success of the
+Crusade.</p>
+
+<p>After a sojourn of some time at Constantinople, the Crusaders, now
+formed into one army, crossed the Bosphorus, and entered Bithynia.
+Here the sight of the carnage which the Turks had inflicted on the
+weak and disorderly body that Peter had led forth, stimulated the zeal
+and indignation of the Christian host. Its passage through the Turkish
+kingdom of Roum was not unresisted. David, then Sultan, a valiant
+prince, had already prepared an army, and fortified his capital of
+Nice,&mdash;a position of great natural strength.</p>
+
+<p>The Crusaders advanced in excellent order, and, after twice routing
+the Turkish army of defence, commenced the siege. Godfrey is said to
+have distinguished himself by a feat of skill on one occasion during
+this assault. A gigantic Turk, who was the hero of the Moslem army,
+had greatly harassed the Christians by his wondrous success in the use
+of the javelin. Having spent his shafts one day, he ascended a tower,
+and showered masses of rock on the besiegers, whom he at the same time
+abused and defied to combat. The Christian archers played upon his
+person, without bringing him down; until Godfrey grasped a cross-bow,
+and at one shot pierced the giant's heart. The siege lasted seven
+weeks; and was prosecuted with such vigor and ingenuity by the
+Crusaders that the Turks were on the point of yielding, when Alexius,
+who had sent a body of Greeks with the army, craftily procured to
+himself the glory of conquest by instructing his general to intrigue
+with the enemy secretly, and persuade them to yield to his power, on
+condition of protection. The Greek general so worked upon the fears
+and hopes of the garrison, that his advice was accepted; and, to the
+surprise and anger of the Franks, the emperor's flag one day appeared
+on the towers of Nice, and the city surrendered. This act of perfidy
+reopened the jealousy between the Eastern and Western Christians,
+which Godfrey had labored to extinguish; and from this time may be
+dated the rise of those internal divisions which eventually proved so
+fatal to the Crusaders.</p>
+
+<p>Leaving Nice, the Crusaders advanced in two divisions, both without
+guides, and through a hostile and desert country. The Turks, in great
+numbers, followed in their rear. Godfrey and the Count of Toulouse
+headed one division; Bohemond, Prince of Tarentum, and Robert, Duke of
+Normandy (son of William the Conqueror), the other. The latter body
+had separated from the former at some distance, and was traversing the
+plains near Dorylæum, in Phrygia, when a sudden attack was made upon
+it by a powerful army of Turks. The Christians were taken by surprise,
+while exhausted with heat and fatigue, and in an unfavorable
+situation. In spite of the heroic valor of Bohemond, Robert, and other
+knights, the battle was turning against them, when Godfrey's division,
+to which a message had been despatched, came up. He shouted aloud the
+Crusaders' <span class="pagenum"><a id="page101" name="page101"></a>(p. 101)</span> war-cry: "It is God's will!" and the whole army,
+echoing the shout, by a gallant charge retrieved the fortunes of the
+day and completely routed the Turks. After this success the Crusaders
+resolved to march in a single body, and thus prevent a recurrence of
+the hazard which they had escaped. The Turks preceded them, burning
+the crops as they went, and the Christians, in consequence, suffered
+fearful privations from famine during the march. Hundreds perished
+from exhaustion. The horses died for want of sufficient food and
+water; and knights were seen either walking on foot, or riding on oxen
+and asses, carrying their own armor. In passing through Pisidia, an
+anecdote is related of Godfrey which is characteristic of his courage
+and gallantry. He was wandering among the recesses of a forest in
+pursuit of game, which was needed for the supply of the troops, when
+he came upon a private soldier of the army, who was defending himself
+from the attack of a bear. Godfrey struck at the beast, which at once
+turned on its new assailant, inflicting a deep wound in his thigh.
+Another stroke from the skilful hunter's arm terminated the contest;
+but the blood streamed from his wound so rapidly, that he scarcely
+reached the camp alive. The grief of his soldiers was intense, as they
+beheld their beloved leader stretched on a litter, and borne into his
+tent as if dead. The skill of his physicians and a long interval of
+rest triumphed over the weakness occasioned by the loss of blood, and
+Godfrey once more appeared at the head of his army.</p>
+
+<p>Antiochetta, the capital of Pisidia, attempted no resistance; and here
+the main body of the Christians recruited for some time. Meanwhile, a
+party of Crusaders, headed by Baldwin, brother of Godfrey, and a
+famous knight named Tancred, had been sent forward to clear a passage
+for the army. Tancred subdued the city of Tarsus; but his victory was
+usurped by Baldwin, whose ambitions and covetous nature bore no
+resemblance to that of his brother. Tancred, a man after Godfrey's
+heart, surrendered this conquest for the sake of peace; but, when
+Baldwin showed symptoms of repeating his injustice, resisted by force.
+Tancred was defeated, but a reconciliation took place between the
+combatants. Baldwin, who had no real interest in the success of the
+Crusade, soon afterwards turned aside into Mesopotamia, where he made
+himself master of Edessa, and formed a Christian state there. Though
+founded by merely personal ambition, this eventually proved of great
+assistance to the Crusaders, by checking the progress of the Turkish
+arms in Asia.</p>
+
+<p>The main body now crossed the Taurus, after a tedious and painful
+passage, and presented itself before the walls of Antioch, then ruled
+by an independent Turkish emir named Accien. This city was especially
+dear to the Christians, as the first in which their title had been
+assumed; and the sight of its walls roused their flagging spirits.
+Some of the generals advised that the siege should be deferred for
+some months, until reinforcements arrived, and the winter was over;
+but the majority of the chiefs, among whom Godfrey was conspicuous,
+confident of success, and dreading the depressing influences of delay,
+urged an immediate attack, which was accordingly made. The Turks
+adopted the stratagem of apparently neglecting to defend the city; and
+the Christians, falling into the snare, <span class="pagenum"><a id="page102" name="page102"></a>(p. 102)</span> scattered their
+forces. The licentiousness of some of their number, moreover, proved
+fatal to their vigilance, and a sudden sortie of the garrison
+inflicted deadly havoc. The siege was then commenced in earnest; but
+the city was so strongly guarded, that months elapsed without any
+impression being made upon its walls; and disease, famine, and the
+inclemency of the season, united with the missiles of the Turks to
+weaken the Christian force. Many of the leaders (Robert, Duke of
+Normandy, among them), withdrew in cowardly disgust at the failure of
+the siege and the pressure of want; while despair drove many of those
+who remained to courses of reckless vice. Godfrey, firm to his duty
+and strong in faith, aided the exertions of the clergy in encouraging
+the spirits of his troops, and restraining their profligate excesses.
+A timely supply of provisions from some of the Armenian monasteries,
+and a brilliant victory obtained by Bohemond and the Count of Toulouse
+over an army which the Sultans of Aleppo and Damascus had sent to the
+succor of Antioch, rewarded Godfrey's confidence and infused new vigor
+into the hearts of his army. This was needed to sustain the brunt of a
+desperate encounter which shortly afterward took place between the
+besieged and their besiegers. A reinforcement of Italian Crusaders
+having arrived, it was suddenly attacked by a large Turkish force, and
+thrown into disorder. Godfrey, who had been engaged on the siege,
+rapidly marshalled his men, and fell upon the enemy. A sortie of the
+garrison was immediately made, and a fearful conflict ensued under the
+walls of the city. The Turks were put to flight with immense loss, and
+the Christians pursued them up to the very gates. In this scene of
+carnage, Godfrey's recorded feats of valor approached the incredible.
+His sword clave the stoutest armor asunder at a blow. A gigantic Arab
+horseman offered him single combat, and broke his shield by way of
+challenge. Godfrey rose in his stirrups, and smote the Arab on the
+shoulder with such tremendous force as to split his whole body in
+twain; half of which, with the head, fell into the river Orontes,
+while the remainder, yet clinging to the terrified horse, was carried
+back into the city.</p>
+
+<p>Notwithstanding all these exploits, the Turks held out, and were only
+defeated at last by stratagem. This was achieved by the skill of
+Bohemond, who intrigued with Phirous, one of the leaders of the
+garrison, for the surrender of the city, upon favorable terms to
+himself. Bohemond stipulated with his fellow-chiefs that the
+principality of Antioch should be granted him in return for his
+services; and, after some opposition, this was conceded. Phirous
+managed the perilous task of admitting the Crusaders with the utmost
+adroitness. At the dead of night the walls were scaled by Bohemond and
+his followers, and Antioch was taken, in June, 1098, after a siege of
+eight months. Accien, its prince, and 6,000 Turks, are said to have
+fallen on this eventful night.</p>
+
+<p>The Crusaders had no sooner obtained this signal success than they
+were in their turn besieged by an army raised by the Sultans of
+Mossoul and other cities. Antioch had just sustained so long a siege,
+that the Christians found scarcely any provisions on their entrance,
+and their besiegers now cut off all supplies from without. Famine soon
+raged in the city to such an extent, that horses, roots, <span class="pagenum"><a id="page103" name="page103"></a>(p. 103)</span>
+leaves, leathern shoes, and even human bodies, were eagerly devoured
+by the starving soldiers. Godfrey shared his scanty meals with his
+comrades, and is related to have slain his last charger for food.
+Desertion from the ranks now occurred in great numbers, and despair
+led many to blaspheme who were ashamed to fly. To add to the misery of
+the Christians, they learned that the Emperor Alexius, who was
+advancing with reinforcements, had judged their case hopeless, and
+retraced his steps. The city was now scarcely defended, and many
+proposed to surrender it, even on degrading terms, so that their lives
+were spared.</p>
+
+<p>Godfrey and the clergy again exerted themselves successfully. They
+ventured to challenge the Turkish army to a combat of picked troops;
+and when the proposal was spurned, boldly advanced to attack the whole
+force. The appearance of the Crusaders, as they marched out of the
+city, must have been indeed pitiable. Privations had so reduced them,
+that many had no clothing. Some were nearly fainting from weakness.
+The barons and knights proceeded chiefly on foot, and camels and asses
+supplied the place of horses to most of those who rode. Yet the
+burning zeal of the Christians made the march seem like a triumphal
+procession; and while the clergy sang hymns of consolation and
+victory, the soldiers responded with the war-cry, "It is God's will!
+It is God's will!" The Turkish general, fearing nothing from an army
+so scantily provided with the means of war, was taken by surprise, but
+hastily arranged his troops in order of battle. The sight of several
+natural prodigies, such as the sudden appearance of a meteor, and the
+favorable direction of the wind, acting upon the superstitious fancy
+of the Christians, impelled them to extraordinary exertions. The
+Moslem forces, on the other hand, were weakened by the existence of
+rivalries and discords in their midst, and lacked the stimulus which
+the Christians derived from desperation. The attack was commenced by a
+volley of arrows, followed by a charge of the Turkish and Arabian
+archers, which the Crusaders not only steadily sustained, but
+vigorously returned. Godfrey, who commanded their right wing, broke
+the left wing of the Moslem; but the latter had encompassed the river
+with a large force, and attacked the Christians in the rear. In spite
+of the heroism of Godfrey and Tancred, who slaughtered all that
+ventured to compete with them, and the brave resistance of the whole
+army, the enemy was evidently gaining ground, when (according to the
+historians) three horsemen, in brilliant armor, suddenly appeared at
+the head of a reinforcement descending from the adjacent mountains.
+Some of the clergy seized on this circumstance to reanimate the
+Crusaders. "Behold your heavenly succor!" cried a bishop. "Heaven has
+sent the holy martyrs, George, Demetrius, and Theodore to fight for
+you!" As he spoke, the whole army seemed inspired with irresistible
+strength; and, shouting the well-known war-cry, made another vigorous
+charge which broke the Moslem ranks. The Sultan of Mossoul fled, and
+his immense force dispersed in the utmost disorder. The extravagant
+number of 100,000 is said to have fallen in this engagement.</p>
+
+<p>The Crusaders, instead of proceeding at once to Jerusalem, remained
+for several months in Antioch, employing the time in re-establishing
+Christianity in <span class="pagenum"><a id="page104" name="page104"></a>(p. 104)</span> that city, and sending to their brethren in
+the West for further aid. The delay was prejudicial, as the disputes
+between the rival chiefs, which the din of war had silenced, again
+broke out, and disease committed terrible ravages in the camp. Certain
+expeditions, however, were made in the neighborhood, and several towns
+fell into the hands of the Christians. Meantime, news arrived that an
+army of Egyptian Arabs&mdash;who acknowledged the Fatimite caliphs, and had
+as yet resisted the attempt of the Turks to usurp dominion over all
+the followers of the Prophet&mdash;had captured Jerusalem. The Crusaders,
+filled with indignation, resumed their march to the Holy City,
+conquering on their way several towns. Embassadors were sent from the
+Caliph of Cairo with superb presents to the Christian leaders, and
+proposals of peace between them and the Egyptians. But Godfrey would
+not be bribed to accept the humiliating terms proposed; one of which
+was, that only unarmed Christians should be admitted into the city.
+The embassadors were sent back with the answer that the Crusaders were
+on their march, and, if opposed, might extend their conquests even to
+the Nile.</p>
+
+<p>By daybreak on June 10, 1099, the Christian army came in sight of
+Jerusalem. The spectacle transported all with mingled feelings of joy,
+reverence, and remorse. Some fell on their knees and prayed; others
+kissed the sacred soil; many wept for their sins; and the air ever and
+anon resounded with the shout: "It is God's will!" The siege was
+commenced at once, Godfrey fixing his camp on Mount Calvary. The
+Egyptians had prepared for a protracted defence, by strengthening the
+fortifications and furnishing the garrison with ample provisions. They
+had likewise ravaged the neighboring country, and filled up the
+cisterns so as to harass the besiegers as much as possible. Owing to
+these impediments the Christians made slow progress. After various
+disappointments, however, they at length manufactured engines of great
+size and strength, shaped like towers, which were to be wheeled up to
+the walls, so as to enable the besiegers to enter by means of
+drawbridges. On July 14, 1099, at daybreak, the Crusaders were in
+arms, and at the same moment the assault was made on various points.
+Godfrey stood on his wooden tower, which was stationed near one of the
+gates, and by voice and action stimulated his soldiers to deeds of
+daring. His death-dealing javelin never missed its aim. The Egyptians
+employed every possible agent of defence,&mdash;showering down boiling oil,
+combustible materials, and various descriptions of missile, on the
+heads of their assailants. During the first day the Crusaders were
+repulsed at every point; but on the morrow fortune turned. The first
+half of the day was with the Egyptians, who cast lighted torches
+against the wooden engines of the Crusaders, and effected the
+destruction of many. Godfrey was, as usual, conspicuous, and became
+the mark of repeated attacks,&mdash;the cross of gold which surmounted his
+tower especially enraging the Moslem. An incident, supposed to be
+supernatural, was the immediate cause of the Christians' success.
+Godfrey and the Count of Toulouse at the same time observed the figure
+of a knight on the Mount of Olives, who with his buckler signalled to
+the Christians that they should enter the city. The two leaders,
+animated by a common feeling, cried out, "Behold <span class="pagenum"><a id="page105" name="page105"></a>(p. 105)</span> St.
+George!" The enthusiasm of the Crusaders from this moment was
+irresistible. Godfrey's tower was first pushed close beside the walls,
+and in spite of flame and missile the drawbridge was lowered. Then,
+accompanied by several of his bravest knights, he dashed into the
+city. Others followed at the same point; the gates were broken down,
+and Jerusalem was taken. A horrible carnage of the Moslem ensued, in
+which Godfrey, although unable to check, refused to share. His first
+act was to retire from his comrades, and with three attendants to
+repair, unarmed and barefooted, to the Church of the Sepulchre. His
+vow was accomplished, and the desecration of one holy site atoned for
+by the preservation of another yet holier. This act of devotion, so
+worthy of the true Crusader, recalled from carnage those who had
+forgotten their vows in the thirst for vengeance, and the whole army,
+led by the clergy, followed him to the same church in penitential
+procession.</p>
+
+<a id="img045" name="img045"></a>
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/img045.jpg" width="600" height="399" alt="" title="">
+<p>Godfrey De Bouillon entering Jerusalem.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Godfrey's work was now nearly ended, and his reward came. The leaders
+of the army, soon after the capture of the city, held a council for
+the purpose of deciding to whom should be given the crown of
+Jerusalem. No decision was arrived at; so many various opinions being
+expressed, and so many interests at stake. Ten of the most esteemed
+chiefs were then formed into an elective body, and proceeded to make
+careful inquiries into the fitness of those who were proposed for the
+kingly office. Godfrey took no part, it would seem, in either
+discussion or inquiry, and displayed no sort of anxiety as to his own
+claims. But the clergy and the mass of the soldiers were devoted to
+him,&mdash;endeared as he was by a thousand memories of his piety, courage,
+and generosity. On all hands the electors heard his praises sounded,
+and, to the joy of the whole army, they concluded their labors by
+announcing the choice to have fallen upon him. But, to the surprise of
+all, he declined the offered rank. "I will not wear a golden crown,"
+said he, "in a city where my king and Saviour has been only crowned
+with thorns." All that his fellow-chiefs could persuade him to accept
+was the title of Defender and Baron of the Holy Sepulchre, though he
+did not deem it right to refuse the kingly authority. He soon had
+occasion to exert his power, for the Caliph of Cairo had by this time
+collected a large army, and was on his march to Jerusalem. The
+Crusaders, though unfitted for a fresh campaign, prepared to defend
+their conquest, and, at the head of his troops, Godfrey advanced
+toward Ascalon, where the enemy was stationed. A battle took place on
+the adjoining plains, in which the Moslem force was routed with
+terrific slaughter. The city itself would have fallen but for the
+covetous spirit displayed by the Count of Toulouse, who, unable to
+obtain a promise that the possession of the place should be given him,
+deserted Godfrey with all his men. A quarrel ensued between the two
+leaders, but was terminated through the influence of their brothers in
+arms,&mdash;Godfrey being ready to forgive any injury to himself for the
+sake of the common cause.</p>
+
+<p>The Crusade was now completed, but Godfrey's duties as king were yet
+to commence. He set about fulfilling them with activity, fortifying
+various important positions, subduing revolts of hostile tribes,
+dividing the conquered territories <span class="pagenum"><a id="page106" name="page106"></a>(p. 106)</span> equally among his
+generals, according to the feudal system, and summoning an Assize, or
+Assembly of his wisest councillors to draw up a code of laws. This
+code, which long remained in operation, amply testified to the
+legislative wisdom of the Crusaders. But the new state was not long
+favored with his presence to enforce and exemplify its constitution.
+In returning from a successful expedition against some Arabs of
+Galilee, he was met by the Emir of Cæsarea, who offered him a present
+of fruits. Godfrey tasted a cedar apple, and immediately was seized
+with illness. He died, not without suspicion of poison having been
+thus administered, shortly after reaching Jerusalem, commending to his
+comrades the care of the holy places, and the state which he had
+founded. His age scarcely exceeded forty years.</p>
+
+<p>One of the most celebrated and beautiful Italian poems, the "Jerusalem
+Delivered" of Tasso, has "the pious Godfrey" for the presiding hero of
+the glorious scenes which it narrates. But there are no grounds for
+supposing that his fame belongs to romance rather than history.
+Contemporary writers have painted his portrait in no less flattering
+colors than Tasso has used, and the poet's affectionate fancy has
+scarcely exaggerated the tribute which the soberest historian may feel
+warranted in rendering to the memory of the great and good Crusader,
+Godfrey de Bouillon.<a href="#toc"><span class="small">[Back to Contents]</span></a></p>
+
+
+<h3>SALADIN<a id="footnotetag13" name="footnotetag13"></a><a href="#footnote13" title="Go to footnote 13"><span class="small">[13]</span></a><br>
+By <span class="smcap">Walter Besant</span><br>
+(1137-1192)</h3>
+
+
+<p>There are two great names in the tangled and somewhat tedious story of
+Islam which stand out, deathless, from the crowd of sultans, viziers,
+and Moslem conquerors&mdash;the names of Haroun al Raschid and Saladin. The
+former has become the accepted type of a good and just despot; the
+latter is the Bayard of his religion, the knight and captain, king and
+magistrate, <span class="italic">sans peur et sans reproche</span>; whose enemies respected and
+trusted him as much as his own people loved him. His conquest of
+Jerusalem and overthrow of the Latin kingdom were but episodes, and
+from his point of view, not the most important episodes in his thirty
+years of war and victory. The History of Egypt, the History of Syria,
+the History of the Mohammedan faith, contain more pages filled with
+the achievements of Saladin than even the History of the Crusades.
+Everyone has read of the battle of Hattin;<a id="footnotetag14" name="footnotetag14"></a><a href="#footnote14" title="Go to footnote 14"><span class="small">[14]</span></a> but of the healing of
+the great schism and the restoration of Egypt to orthodoxy&mdash;a step
+thought to be impossible and of the highest importance to <span class="pagenum"><a id="page107" name="page107"></a>(p. 107)</span>
+Islam&mdash;very few know anything. Let us endeavor to present the history
+of this great man with some attempt to show the true proportions of
+his achievements in the eyes of the East, if not the West.</p>
+
+<p>Yûssuf ibn Ayûb&mdash;Joseph the son of Job&mdash;was by descent a Kurd. His
+father was a retainer or follower of the celebrated Nûr-ed-Din (Light
+of Religion), Sultan of Syria, the prince who, after many years of
+humiliation, recovered some of the lost prestige of the Mohammedan
+name, wrested many of their outlying strongholds from the Christians,
+and prepared the way for his more illustrious successor.</p>
+
+<a id="img046" name="img046"></a>
+<div class="floatright">
+<img src="images/img046.jpg" width="300" height="437" alt="Saladin and Christians." title="">
+</div>
+
+<p>The caliphate was then divided into the Fatimite line, which reigned
+at Cairo, and the Abbaside, which reigned at Baghdad. Both branches
+had by this time fallen into a mere semblance of authority. The
+bitterness of theological differences survived, and though for the
+re-establishment of Moslem power, it was absolutely necessary that the
+schism should cease, there seemed no likelihood whatever of any
+change. The weaker of the two, since the rise of Nûr-ed-Din, was
+undoubtedly the Egyptian house. The last of the Fatimite caliphs were
+mere tools in the hands of rival ministers, and passed their ignoble
+lives&mdash;<span class="italic">Rois Fainéants</span>&mdash;in their luxurious palaces. Syria, which had
+been theirs, was lost to them, and occupied partly by Mohammedans of
+the rival sect, and partly by the Christians. Their final fall,
+however, was caused by internal dissensions and the quarrels of two
+candidates for the post of Grand Vizier. Their names were Shawer and
+Dargham. The former, unable to contend against his rival, applied for
+assistance to Nûr-ed-Din, offering for reward a third of the Egyptian
+revenues. The expedition which was sent in reply was the first chance
+of distinction which young Yûssuf had obtained. The army, commanded by
+his uncle Shirkoh, easily defeated Dargham and reinstated Shawer. Then
+followed the reluctance to keep the terms of the agreement which is so
+common in history; and when Shirkoh in return seized the city of
+Balbek and held it as security, Shawer sent to Amaury, King of
+Jerusalem, for succor. Amaury, the bravest if not the wisest of the
+Crusader kings, thinking that here was a chance of striking a double
+blow, readily acceded, and joining the Fatimite army forced Shirkoh to
+retire. It was, however, <span class="pagenum"><a id="page108" name="page108"></a>(p. 108)</span> only in order to collect new
+forces. Next year he was back again. Alexandria was taken by his
+nephew, and held for three months against the combined forces of
+Christians and Fatimites. At last a peace was agreed upon: both
+Christians and Damascenes were to retire, each party to have a share
+in the revenues of Egypt. The first part of the contract was
+faithfully carried out; the second part neither Syrian nor Christian
+expected to be obeyed. And now the same ambition possessed the mind
+both of Amaury and of Nûr-ed-Din. This was nothing less than the
+conquest of Egypt. Both perceived that the Fatimite power was gone.
+Both realized the fact that the country could easily be overrun. As
+for the Christian king, he had dreams of a splendid and luxurious
+capital, grander than his own narrow city set in the midst of the
+mountains; his knights, orientals now and fallen from the old western
+rudeness, looked on with envy at the luxuries of these weak
+Mohammedans; it would be a fine thing to transfer the capital of the
+Christian kingdom in the East to Cairo, leaving Jerusalem as a
+Christian Mecca, a city for the priests. And the Syrian sultan, for
+his part, would restore the unity of Islam, would unite Egypt with
+Syria, and by the strength of that union would destroy the Christian
+and recover the Holy Places. These were schemes worthy of statesman or
+of soldier. The only question was&mdash;how were they to be realized?</p>
+
+<p>The point which Amaury failed to understand was this. He who moved
+first was bound to lose. For he would draw upon himself the other two.
+Amaury moved first. We cannot follow the Christian king on his
+disastrous attempt. It is sufficient to say that Shirkoh, after a
+brief struggle, remained master of the field and of Egypt, and that
+the fall of the Latin kingdom, thus rendered possible, was only
+delayed until the consolidation of the new power was complete.</p>
+
+<p>Immediately after his final victory Shirkoh died, and was succeeded by
+his nephew Yûssuf ibn Ayûb, now called Salah-ed-Din (Shield of
+Religion), el Melek el Mansûr (the Victorious King), and Emir el
+Jayûsh (Commander-in-chief of the Forces). The Fatimite caliph, not
+yet deposed, made him Grand Vizier. In other words this soldier of
+fortune was master of Egypt and of the Fatimite caliphate. More
+important still, if the King of Jerusalem understood the importance of
+the fact, he acknowledged himself to be the vassal of Nûr-ed-Din,
+Sultan of Syria.</p>
+
+<p>The first step taken by Saladin, a <span class="italic">coup d'état</span> which restored Egypt
+to the orthodox sect, was the substitution of the Abbaside caliph's
+name for that of their own prince in the Friday prayers. This was done
+without the slightest opposition; contempt for the head of their
+religion could not be more effectually shown; Saladin therefore boldly
+proclaimed the name of the Baghdad caliph. It was received so quietly,
+as the Arab historian says, "that not a brace of goats butted over
+it." The last of the Fatimite caliphs died a few days after: it was
+one of those deaths, so frequent in history, which occur so exactly at
+the moment most convenient. Did Saladin order him to be bowstrung?
+Probably. Such an act would be regarded as perfectly legitimate and in
+accordance with the rules of the game.</p>
+
+<a id="img047" name="img047"></a>
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/img047.jpg" width="400" height="492" alt="" title="">
+<p>Saladin.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>How the victorious emir, on the death of Nûr-ed-Din, succeeded in
+making himself master of Syria and succeeding his lord; how he carried
+on the war with <span class="pagenum"><a id="page109" name="page109"></a>(p. 109)</span> the Christians unceasingly, would require
+in the telling volumes. Many volumes indeed have been devoted to this
+history. His two great achievements were the reunion of Islam and the
+destruction of the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem. The latter at least, he
+effectually accomplished. Western Europe was incapable of a second
+effort so great as that mighty wave of enthusiasm which won back the
+Holy Land and covered the plains of Asia Minor with the bones of
+Crusaders. Richard C&oelig;ur de Lion and Philip Augustus, Frederick II.,
+the kings of Cyprus, the Knights of St. John, carried on the long,
+interminable struggle, but Jerusalem was lost.</p>
+
+<p>Of the chivalry and honor of Saladin his biographers are never weary.
+When, for instance, the Christians took Jerusalem they slaughtered
+every soul in the place; their horses were knee-deep in blood. When
+Saladin took the city he suffered none to be slain; when there was no
+more money for ransom he suffered thousands to go free; to the weeping
+widows and fatherless girls he gave purses of money and suffered no
+outrage to be done to them. He divided them into three bands and
+assigned an escort to each company. And then was seen the strange
+spectacle, when the women and children grew fatigued, of the victors
+placing them on their horses and walking afoot, or even carrying the
+children in their arms. Again, why has no one painted that famous
+scene when Richard C&oelig;ur de Lion wanted no oaths, but instead gave
+his hand to Saladin in token of respect for his enemy and his own
+loyalty?</p>
+
+<p>Such is the brief history of Saladin, a soldier first, always a
+soldier, spending his whole life on the battle-field; the perfect
+knight of the Mohammedans, fierce in fight, generous in victory,
+faithful to his word, true to his religion, of a larger heart and
+nobler soul than C&oelig;ur de Lion, the only antagonist who can be named
+with him; one of the few out of the countless millions of humanity,
+whose name lives and whose memory will never die; his life an example;
+his history a monument.<a href="#toc"><span class="small">[Back to Contents]</span></a></p>
+
+<a id="sig003" name="sig003"></a>
+<div class="p2 right">
+<img src="images/sig003.jpg" width="200" height="54" alt="Author signature." title="">
+</div>
+
+
+<h3>EDWARD I. OF ENGLAND<br>
+By <span class="smcap">Thomas Davidson</span><br>
+(1239-1307)</h3>
+
+
+<p>Edward I., King of England, was the elder of the two sons of Henry
+III., by his queen, Eleanor, daughter of Count Raymond Berenger of
+Provence, and was born at Westminster, June 17, 1239. His name was
+given him by his father out of reverence for the memory of Edward the
+Confessor, and in its English sound, as well as in the honest English
+temper, no less than the yellow hair and stalwart figure with which
+the young prince grew up, Englishmen might well have read the promise,
+that once more, after two hundred years, England would be ruled by
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page110" name="page110"></a>(p. 110)</span> a native English king. Edward was brought up at Windsor, was
+given by his father in 1252 the government of Gascony, and in 1254
+married, in the monastery of Las Huelgas, Eleanor, sister of Alfonso
+X. of Castile, receiving immediately thereafter from his father
+Gascony, Ireland, and the Welsh march betwixt the Conway and the Dee,
+where, in fighting with the turbulent Welshmen, he learned his first
+lessons in warfare.</p>
+
+<a id="img048" name="img048"></a>
+<div class="floatleft">
+<img src="images/img048.jpg" width="250" height="247" alt="Edward I. of England." title="">
+</div>
+
+<p>At the Parliament of Oxford (1258) he took part with his father in his
+contest with his troublesome nobles, but thereafter appears to have at
+first sided with the great Earl Simon de Montfort, the leader of the
+barons or national party, without, however, impairing his own personal
+loyalty and affection for his father, with whom ere long he was
+reconciled. It was his rash eagerness in pursuing an advantage gained
+over the Londoners, who were devoted to the party of Simon, that lost
+the battle of Lewes (1264), one immediate consequence of which was the
+prince's imprisonment as a hostage for his father's pledges.
+Conditions for his liberation, discussed at Simon's famous parliament
+of 1265, were frustrated through Edward's escape by a stratagem from
+Hereford Castle; and at the final battle at Evesham (August 4), where
+Simon recognized in the skilful disposition of his enemy's forces a
+fatal lesson learned from himself, the struggle practically ended with
+the great popular champion's death on the battle-field. Edward gained
+much influence by the wise prudence and moderation with which he
+stamped out the last embers of rebellion.</p>
+
+<p>In 1270 he started, at the instigation of Louis IX. of France, to join
+the last of the Crusades, but when he reached Tunis, found that king
+dead, and the expedition already desperate of success. He went on to
+Acre, and won great renown as a knight, but failed to save the
+Frankish kingdom in the East from its inevitable fate. In June, 1272,
+while sitting alone on his bed, his own strength and energy saved him
+from being murdered by one of the infamous sect of the Assassins.
+Hastily guarding himself with his arms, and receiving a desperate
+wound, from which he afterward suffered much, he tore the knife from
+his assailant's hand, and buried it in his heart. The ancient story
+that his queen Eleanor, who had followed him in his pilgrimage, saved
+his life at the risk of her own by sucking the poison from the wound,
+unfortunately lacks historical support, but fits well with the
+romantic temper of the times, as well as with the deep affection that
+survived throughout life betwixt husband and wife.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page111" name="page111"></a>(p. 111)</span> Two months later he started for home, and at Capua, in the
+January of 1273, heard of his father's death two months before.
+Meantime he had been quietly proclaimed king, and as things went well
+in England, he visited the pope, did homage at Paris for his French
+provinces, and did not return to his kingdom till the August of 1274.
+At his coronation he received the homage of Alexander III. of Scotland
+for his lands in England, but Prince Llewelyn of Wales neglected the
+summons to attend, and only did his homage in 1276, under the combined
+terrors of excommunication and the royal army. Edward at once
+commenced that wise and large policy of domestic consolidation and
+financial as well as legal reform, that has shed such lustre upon the
+reign of the English Justinian, as he has been called, and made it
+almost the most important epoch in the constitutional history of
+England.</p>
+
+<p>His first warfare was with the turbulent and disaffected Welshmen, who
+had profited by the intestine turmoil of the preceding reign, and
+intrigued perpetually with the rebellious nobles of Henry III. for
+their own ends. The forced peace of 1277, and the national
+dissatisfaction at the stringent terms granted by Edward, which was
+not abated by the personal favors he heaped upon the princes Llewelyn
+and his brother David, were but the preludes to the final struggle
+which commenced three years later, and ended in the complete
+suppression of Welsh nationalism, with the defeat and death of
+Llewelyn, near Builth, in Brecknockshire, and the cruel execution of
+David at Shrewsbury, as a traitor, in 1284. By the famous Statute of
+Wales in the same year, the ancient principality was finally annexed
+to the English crown, while English laws and English institutions were
+forced upon the conquered people.</p>
+
+<p>Edward devoted the next year to legislation, then went abroad to
+mediate, without success, in the quarrel between France and Aragon. He
+had soon to return to quell fresh disturbances in Wales, and even in
+England, where the great Statute of Winchester, which had been passed
+in 1285 to place the defence of the country on a really national
+basis, had not yet had time to effect its end. Finding that most of
+his judges had been corrupting justice, he punished them with an iron
+hand, next banished in 1290 all the Jews to the number of over sixteen
+thousand from the kingdom, on the plea of extortionate usury. Earlier
+in the reign he had hanged 280 for money-clipping and forgery.</p>
+
+<p>Just at this time the death of the young Scottish queen, the Maid of
+Norway, whom Edward had caused to be betrothed to his eldest surviving
+son, Edward of Caernarvon, opened up a fatal contest for the Scottish
+crown, which gave Edward his opportunity to assert anew the old but
+somewhat shadowy claim of the English crown to the over-lordship of
+Scotland. The southern half of that composite kingdom was inhabited by
+people of English blood and English institutions; its southeastern
+part, the Lothians, had undoubtedly once formed part of the Anglian
+kingdom of Northumbria; while its southwestern, Strathclyde or
+Scottish Cumbria, the population of which was in great part Celtic,
+had in 945 been given by the English king Edmund I. to Malcolm as a
+fief. The northern portion of the kingdom was purely Celtic in blood,
+and had at no time been subject <span class="pagenum"><a id="page112" name="page112"></a>(p. 112)</span> to English influences, but
+though the reigning family was itself of Celtic origin, its authority
+hardly extended effectively beyond the region inhabited by men of
+English blood. Undoubtedly the Scottish king in 921 chose Edward the
+Elder "to father and to lord," and the right then acknowledged was
+claimed successively by William the Conqueror, Rufus, and other
+English kings. Moreover, from the twelfth century it had been
+customary for the Scottish kings or their sons to receive English
+earldoms, and do homage for them, but it continued to remain somewhat
+vague whether such homage was understood to be extended beyond these
+earldoms, so as to include the Lowland provinces and the whole
+Scottish kingdom. William the Lion, taken prisoner at Alnwick in 1174,
+for his freedom acknowledged the supremacy of Henry II. in the treaty
+concluded at Felaise on December 7; but on his return found his
+subjects ill-disposed to accede to his cowardly submission; and
+fifteen years later the claim founded on this special act of
+submission was formally renounced for a sum of 10,000 merks by Richard
+I., who was eager to raise money for his Crusade. Such was the
+ill-defined position of this ancient controversy, when fate seemed to
+fling into Edward's hands the opportunity of defining it anew with all
+the clearness dear to his legal mind. It was easy for him to secure a
+recognition of his superiority from the selfish and eager candidates
+for the crown, and meantime he secured the Scottish castles, and after
+a deliberate examination of the rival claims, decided in favor of John
+Baliol, who, on his accession, paid homage distinctly for the whole
+kingdom of Scotland. He soon found his position as a vassal-king
+intolerable, betwixt the unruly turbulence of his subjects and the
+imperious demands of his overlord, who allowed appeals to be led from
+Baliol's subjects to himself.</p>
+
+<p>Meantime the ambitious projects of the new King of France, Philip IV.,
+involved Edward in anxieties for the safety of Guienne and his other
+possessions in France. Ere long the high-handed conduct of the French
+king made war necessary, and Edward, with characteristic energy, at
+once began his preparations, and summoned in 1295 an assembly of the
+estates of the realm, which was practically the beginning of the
+modern parliaments.</p>
+
+<p>The ever-increasing exasperation of the Scots at length broke out into
+open warfare in 1296. Edward at once marched northward, captured
+Berwick, and carried his victorious arms as far north as Aberdeen,
+Banff, and Elgin, taking the great castles on the way, formally
+accepted Baliol's surrender of the crown at Montrose, and returned to
+Berwick (August 22), carrying with him the famous coronation-stone
+from Scone, after having subdued the whole kingdom in about five
+months. Here, six days later, he received the fealty of the clergy,
+barons, and gentry of Scotland, whose names fill the thirty-five skins
+of parchment known as the "Ragman Roll."</p>
+
+<p>At length he was at liberty to turn to France, but the great cost of
+his late expenditure had already driven him to make such heavy demands
+upon the revenues of the Church, that the clergy now refused fresh
+subsidies, headed by Archbishop Winchelsea and supported by the bull
+"Clericis Laicos" of Pope Boniface VIII. The king retaliated by
+placing the clergy of the kingdom in <span class="pagenum"><a id="page113" name="page113"></a>(p. 113)</span> outlawry. At the
+Salisbury parliament in February, 1297, the great barons also refused
+to take part in foreign war, while the merchants were exasperated
+because their wool had been seized. A compromise was soon effected
+with the clergy, and a temporary illegal grant for the immediate
+purposes of the war was procured from the nobles and commons who were
+with him. Edward sailed for Flanders, and at Ghent confirmed the
+Charter with such supplementary clauses as were demanded by his
+refractory nobles, thus finally establishing the right of the people
+themselves to determine taxation.</p>
+
+<p>This is only second in importance to Magna Charta itself as a landmark
+in the history of England. The suspicious fears of his people
+compelled Edward to repeat the confirmation at London in 1300, and
+again at Lincoln in 1301&mdash;an insult to his honesty which the king
+never forgave, and to which his subsequent banishment of Winchelsea
+was due. In 1303, and again the year after, Edward, in desperate
+straits for money, levied, by agreement with the foreign merchants,
+some new customs&mdash;the beginning of import duties, without consent of
+the estates, and collected a <span class="italic">tallage</span> from the royal demesne; and
+again, in 1305, he obtained from Clement V. a formal absolution from
+the obligations of 1297. It is true that the first two measures were
+contrary to the spirit rather than the letter of his promise, and that
+he never sought to avail himself of the dangerous power granted him by
+the papal absolution, yet these three facts, says Bishop Stubbs,
+"remain on record as illustrations of Edward's chief weakness, the
+legal captiousness, which was the one drawback on his greatness."</p>
+
+<p>It was the dangerous aspect of affairs in Scotland that forced the
+king to submit so easily to the demands of his barons. Already, in the
+spring of 1297, Wallace, without any countenance from the Scottish
+nobility, had commenced a guerilla warfare, and his handful of
+desperate men soon increased into an army, which completely defeated
+Earl Warenne and Cressingham at Cambuskenneth (Stirling Bridge), in
+September, 1297, and ravaged England, with the most atrocious
+cruelties, from Newcastle to Carlisle. Edward's expedition to Flanders
+had been a failure, but he hastened to conclude a truce, so as to find
+time to chastise the Scots, cementing it by his betrothal to Philip's
+sister Margaret. The good Queen Eleanor had been already dead nine
+years.</p>
+
+<p>Meantime, Wallace's success had merely earned him the bitter jealousy
+of the Scottish nobles, and his power was finally broken in the
+disastrous defeat by Edward's army at Falkirk in July, 1298. The king
+had two of his ribs broken by a kick from his horse on the morning of
+the battle, but rode throughout the day as if unhurt. The struggle
+lingered on some years under various leaders, as Edward found his
+energy paralyzed the while by the intrigues of Philip, and the
+constitutional struggle with his barons. Pope Boniface, in 1301, put
+forth a claim to the over-lordship of Scotland, which was repudiated
+by the whole body of the estates at Lincoln. It was not till the June
+of 1303 that the king was able to resume his conquest. Accompanied by
+a fleet carrying his supplies, he penetrated again into the far North,
+tarried a while in Dunfermline, and settled the kingdom after the
+reduction of Stirling, the last place of strength that held out. In
+1305 <span class="pagenum"><a id="page114" name="page114"></a>(p. 114)</span> Wallace was betrayed into his hands, sent to London,
+and cruelly executed as a traitor. The fate of this noble-hearted
+patriot is a fatal blot upon his conqueror's memory, but it should not
+be forgotten that Edward was profoundly convinced of the legality of
+his own claims over Scotland, and that Wallace to him was merely a
+pestilent rebel, who had earned his doom by treason to his lord and by
+the cruelties he had inflicted upon Englishmen. The same year the king
+prepared a new constitution for the conquered kingdom, divided it into
+sheriffdoms like the English counties, and made arrangements for the
+representation of the Scots in the English parliament&mdash;a measure
+which, had it been successful, might have anticipated by four
+centuries the benefits of the union.</p>
+
+<p>It might now have been expected that Scotland was effectively subdued,
+but ere long Robert Bruce, who had hitherto played a dubious game,
+raised a revolt in the beginning of 1306, got rid of the regent Comyn,
+his most serious rival, by a foul murder in Dumfries church, was
+crowned king at Scone, and kept up an incessant but varying struggle
+during the winter of 1306 and the spring of 1307. The treachery of
+those who had sworn fealty to him, and whom he had trusted implicitly,
+roused Edward to the pitch of exasperation, and at the knighting of
+Prince Edward at Westminster, he swore a solemn vow to be revenged
+upon Bruce. He at once despatched a force to Scotland, and though now
+old and infirm, began preparations for his fourth expedition; but he
+was attacked with dysentery on the march, and his malady increased so
+much upon him that he died on the 7th of July, 1307, at
+Burgh-on-Sands, near Carlisle, within sight of Scotland, leaving for
+his son Edward the dying command not to bury his body till he had
+utterly subdued the Scots, but to carry his bones with the army until
+the victory was complete. Eleven days later the young prince reached
+Carlisle, but returned a few weeks after to London, and buried his
+father's body in Westminster, where it still rests under a slab, with
+the simple but truly descriptive inscription: "Eduardus primus,
+Scotorum malleus, hic est."<a href="#toc"><span class="small">[Back to Contents]</span></a></p>
+
+
+<h3>EDWARD III. OF ENGLAND<br>
+(1312-1377)</h3>
+
+
+<p>Edward III., King of England, the eldest son of Edward II. and of
+Isabella, was born at Windsor, November 13, 1312. He was appointed
+guardian of the kingdom, October 26, 1326, and received the crown
+February 1, 1327. On January 24, 1328, he was married to Philippa,
+daughter of the Count of Hainault. During his minority the government
+of the kingdom was intrusted to a body of guardians with Henry of
+Lancaster at their head, but was virtually usurped by Roger Mortimer,
+until the king, irritated by his arrogance, caused him to be seized at
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page115" name="page115"></a>(p. 115)</span> Nottingham on October 15, 1330, and conveyed to the Tower.
+He was executed at Tyburn on November 29.</p>
+
+<a id="img049" name="img049"></a>
+<div class="floatright">
+<img src="images/img049.jpg" width="250" height="295" alt="Edward III. of England." title="">
+</div>
+
+<p>The overthrow of Mortimer made Edward, at the age of eighteen, a king
+in fact as well as in name. In person he was graceful; and his face
+was 'as the face of a god.' His manners were courtly and his voice
+winning. He was strong and active, and loved hunting, hawking, the
+practice of knightly exercises, and, above all, war itself.
+Considerable care must have been spent on his education, for he
+certainly spoke English as well as French, and evidently understood
+German. He was fearless in battle, and, though over-fond of pleasure
+was, until his later years, energetic in all his undertakings.
+Although according to modern notions his ambition is to be reckoned a
+grave defect in his character, it seemed in his day a kingly quality.
+Nor were his wars undertaken without cause, or indeed, according to
+the ideas of the time, without ample justification. His attempts to
+bring Scotland under his power were at first merely a continuation of
+an inherited policy that it would have been held shameful to
+repudiate, and later were forced upon him by the alliance between that
+country and France. And the French War was in the first instance
+provoked by the aggressions of Philip, though Edward's assumption of
+the title of King of France, a measure of political expediency,
+rendered peace impossible. He was liberal in his gifts, magnificent in
+his doings, profuse in his expenditure, and, though not boastful,
+inordinately ostentatious. No sense of duty beyond what was then held
+to become a knight influenced his conduct. Although the early glories
+of his reign were greeted with applause, he never won the love of his
+people; they groaned under the effects of his extravagance, and fled
+at his coming lest his officers should seize their goods. His
+commercial policy was enlightened, and has won him the title of the
+"father of English commerce" but it was mainly inspired by selfish
+motives, and he never scrupled to sacrifice the interests of the
+English merchants, to obtain a supply of money or secure an ally. In
+foreign politics he showed genius; his alliances were well devised and
+skilfully obtained, but he seems to have expected more from his allies
+than they were likely to do for him, for England still stood so far
+apart from continental affairs, that her alliance was not of much
+practical importance, except commercially. As a leader in war Edward
+could order a battle and inspire his army with his own confidence, but
+he could not plan a campaign; he was rash, and left too much to
+chance. During the first part of his reign he paid much attention to
+naval administration; he successfully asserted the maritime supremacy
+of the country, and was entitled by parliament <span class="pagenum"><a id="page116" name="page116"></a>(p. 116)</span> the "king of
+the sea;" he neglected the navy in his later years. Little as the
+nation owed him in other respects, his achievements by sea and land
+made the English name respected.</p>
+
+<p>It is said to have been chiefly through Mortimer's influence that, on
+April 24, 1328, a peace was concluded between England and Scotland,
+the chief provisions of which were that the Scots agreed to pay the
+sum of £20,000, and that Edward agreed to recognize the independence
+of the Scotch crown.</p>
+
+<p>The treaty was very unpopular in England, and it is not surprising,
+therefore, that, when Edward Baliol in 1332 made his attempt to mount
+the Scotch throne, Edward III. gave him indirect assistance, and that
+after Baliol's dethronement in 1333 an invasion of Scotland was
+resolved on. On July 19 Edward defeated the Scots at the battle of
+Halidon Hill. His army was in great danger, and was hemmed in by the
+sea, the Tweed, the garrison of Berwick, and the Scottish host, which
+far outnumbered the English. On the 20th he drew up his men in four
+battles, placing his archers on the wings of each; all fought on foot,
+and he himself in the van. The English archers began the fight; the
+Scots fell in great numbers, and others fled, the rest charged up the
+hill and engaged the enemy hand to hand. They were defeated with
+tremendous loss; many nobles were slain, and it was commonly said in
+England that the war was over, for that there was not a Scot left to
+raise a force or lead it to battle. Edward ordered a general
+thanksgiving for this victory. Receiving as the result of his victory
+the submission of the principal Scotch nobles, he annexed the whole of
+Scotland south of the Forth to his own crown, and allowed Baliol to
+reign over the remainder as titular king. Soon after, Baliol was again
+a fugitive, but was again aided by Edward to mount a nominal throne.</p>
+
+<p>After a short period of peace Edward, in July, 1336, ravaged and
+burned Scotland as far as Aberdeen, but growing complications with
+France compelled him in the same year to return to England. Though he
+professed to have a claim, through his mother, on the French throne
+against Philip of Valois, that claim was left in abeyance until
+several acts of aggression on the part of Philip brought about a
+rupture between the two kings. The Count of Flanders, at Philip's
+instigation, had broken off commercial relations with England; French
+privateers were daily committing ravages on English commerce;
+Aquitaine was continually threatened by desultory attacks; and Philip,
+though he hesitated to accept the responsibility of being the first to
+declare war, scarcely attempted to conceal his endeavors to throw that
+responsibility on Edward. Edward sailed for Flanders July 16, 1338,
+and at Coblentz held a conference with the Emperor Louis V., at which
+the latter appointed him his vicar-general, and gave orders for all
+the princes of the Low Countries to follow him in war for the space of
+seven years. In 1339 Edward laid siege to Cambrai, but soon afterward
+raised the siege and invaded France. Philip advanced to meet him, but
+declined battle, and Edward concluded his first campaign without
+achieving anything to compensate him for its cost.</p>
+
+<p>In 1340 he defeated the French fleet before Sluys. The French fleet of
+one <span class="pagenum"><a id="page117" name="page117"></a>(p. 117)</span> hundred and ninety galleys and great barges was superior
+to his in strength, for many of his ships were small. Nineteen of
+their ships were the biggest that had ever been seen, and grandest of
+all was the Christopher that had been taken from the English. Edward's
+fleet seems to have been "to the leeward and westward" of the enemy,
+and about noon he ordered his ships to sail on the starboard tack, so
+as to get the wind which presumably was north-east, and avoid having
+the sun in the faces of the archers. Then, having made their tack and
+got the wind, his ships entered the port and engaged just inside it.
+The French ships seem to have hugged the shore, and could not
+man&oelig;uvre, for they were lashed together in four lines. All in three
+of the lines were taken or sunk, the Christopher and other English
+ships being retaken; the fourth line escaped in the darkness, for the
+battle lasted into the night. The king's victory was complete, and the
+naval power of France was destroyed.</p>
+
+<p>Shortly after his return to England a great tournament was held by him
+at Windsor in memory of King Arthur. In 1346 he set sail on the
+expedition which resulted in the great victory of Crécy<a id="footnotetag15" name="footnotetag15"></a><a href="#footnote15" title="Go to footnote 15"><span class="small">[15]</span></a> and the
+capture of Calais. It was a strong place, and the inhabitants had done
+much harm to the English and Flemings by their piracies. He built a
+regular town before the walls, sent for a fleet to blockade the
+harbor, and laid siege to the town with about thirty thousand men.
+Meanwhile the Scots, who at Philip's instance had invaded England,
+were routed at Neville's Cross, Durham, on October 17, and King David
+was taken prisoner and confined in the Tower. In April some stores
+were brought into Calais by sea, and after this Edward ordered a
+stricter blockade; his fleet dispersed a convoy of forty-four ships
+laden with provisions on June 25, and the next day a letter was
+intercepted from the governor to the French king informing him of the
+starving condition of the garrison, and asking for relief. Edward sent
+the letter on to Philip, bidding him come to the relief of the town.
+In July Philip led an army toward Calais. A portion of it sent to
+dislodge the Flemings, who were acting with Edward at Quesnoy was
+defeated. He appeared at Sangatte on the 27th. He was unable to get at
+the English who were securely posted behind the marshes, and
+challenged Edward to come out to battle. It is said that Edward
+declared that he accepted the challenge; but it is probable that he
+answered more wisely. Anyway, two days later, on August 2, the French
+decamped. The next day the town surrendered at discretion. The
+garrison came forth with swords reversed, and a deputation of the
+townsmen with bare heads and ropes about their necks, prostrated
+themselves before Edward, offering him the keys of the city. He at
+first intended, or made as though he intended, to put the inhabitants
+to the sword as a punishment for their piracies, but spared them at
+the intercession of his queen. During the summer his army suffered
+much sickness, arising from lack of good water. With some few
+exceptions he banished the people of Calais; and sent over to England
+offering grants and privileges to those who would colonize the town.
+After agreeing to a truce for nine months, he returned home with his
+wife and son, and after a stormy passage, <span class="pagenum"><a id="page118" name="page118"></a>(p. 118)</span> landed at Sandwich
+on October 12. All England was filled with the spoils of Edward's
+expedition, so that there was not a woman who did not wear some
+ornament, or have in her house fine linen or some goblet, part of the
+booty the king sent home from Caen or brought back from Calais.</p>
+
+<p>One more great sea-fight there was in 1349, when the Spanish fleet was
+defeated, and now, indeed, the English were masters of the sea. From
+this time Edward, as a warrior, retires somewhat into the background,
+his place being taken by the Prince of Wales, who in 1356 won the
+battle of Poitiers, and took King John prisoner. In 1359 Edward again
+invaded France, and in 1360 he signed the peace of Bretigny, according
+to which the French agreed to pay for King John a ransom of three
+million crowns, and Edward renounced his title to the throne of
+France, but retained his full sovereignty over the whole of the
+ancient duchy of Aquitaine, the counties of Ponthieu and Guignes, and
+the town of Calais. Peace was again broken in 1369 by Charles of
+France, and when he concluded a truce with England in 1375 all of
+France that remained in Edward's hands was Bayonne and Bordeaux in the
+south, and Calais in the north. The last years of Edward's reign form
+a sad and gloomy close to a career which had had a vigorous and
+energetic commencement, and had afterward been rendered illustrious by
+great achievements. His empire in France was virtually overthrown; the
+vast expenditure which had had such a fruitless result was sorely
+burdening his subjects, and awakening increasing discontent; and he
+himself, through the gradual decay of his mental faculties, had become
+a mere tool in the hands of Anne Travers, and of ministers whose only
+aim was their own aggrandizement. In 1367 the "Good Parliament"
+virtually seized the helm of the state from the hands of the king and
+his ministers. The Black Prince was the chief agent in urging these
+reforms, but his death, in the midst of the Parliament's
+deliberations, for a time rendered almost abortive the good work he
+had begun. Edward died June 21, 1377. Both in his home and foreign
+relations he showed considerable prudence and sagacity, and he may be
+allowed the merit of having endeavored as much as possible to keep on
+good terms with his subjects. His expeditions were planned on a scale
+of great magnificence, but he entered on his campaigns without any
+definite aim, and his splendid victories were mere isolated
+achievements, won partly by good fortune, but chiefly by the valor of
+Welsh and Irish yeomen and the skill of English archers.</p>
+
+<p>It has been observed, in regard to Edward III., by Sir James
+Mackintosh, that "though his victories left few lasting acquisitions,
+yet they surrounded the name of his country with a lustre which
+produced strength and safety; which perhaps also gave a loftier tone
+to the feelings of England, and a more vigorous activity to her
+faculties."</p>
+
+<a id="img050" name="img050"></a>
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/img050.jpg" width="600" height="433" alt="" title="">
+<p>Edward III. and the burghers of Calais.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>"During a reign of fifty years," it is added, "Edward III. issued
+writs of summons, which are extant to this day, to assemble seventy
+parliaments or great councils: he thus engaged the pride and passions
+of the parliament and the people so deeply in support of his projects
+of aggrandizement, that they became his zealous and enthusiastic
+followers. His ambition was caught by the nation, and <span class="pagenum"><a id="page119" name="page119"></a>(p. 119)</span> men
+of the humblest station became proud of his brilliant victories. To
+form and keep up this state of public temper was the mainspring of his
+domestic administration, and satisfactorily explains the internal
+tranquillity of England during the forty years of his effective reign.
+It was the natural consequence of so long and watchful a pursuit of
+popularity that most grievances were redressed as soon as felt, that
+parliamentary authority was yearly strengthened by exercise, and that
+the minds of the turbulent barons were exclusively turned toward a
+share in their sovereign's glory. Quiet at home was partly the fruit
+of fame abroad."<a href="#toc"><span class="small">[Back to Contents]</span></a></p>
+
+
+<h3>EDWARD THE BLACK PRINCE<br>
+By <span class="smcap">L. Drake</span><br>
+(1330-1376)</h3>
+
+<a id="img051" name="img051"></a>
+<div class="floatleft">
+<img src="images/img051.jpg" width="250" height="245" alt="The black Prince's seal." title="">
+</div>
+
+<p>Edward, Prince of Wales, commonly called the Black Prince, was born in
+1330. He was the eldest son of Edward III., and a model of the highest
+virtues of his times, a loyal son, and a brave, yet merciful, warrior.
+He sailed with his father to attack the French in 1346, and though
+only sixteen was knighted by the king immediately on reaching France.
+He "made a right good beginning," for he rode with a small force on a
+daring foray, and then distinguished himself at the taking of Caen and
+in the engagement with the force under Gondemar du Fay, which
+endeavored to prevent the English army from crossing the Somme. King
+Edward and his small army compelled to face a far larger French force,
+made some of the most daring and successful marches on record in the
+annals of warfare.</p>
+
+<p>At length they encamped in a forest, a little to the west of the small
+town of Crécy. The French army, outnumbering them some say as four,
+some say as twelve to one, was not far distant; but, confident in his
+troops and himself, and animated by the memory of many triumphs, the
+English king resolved to make a stand. The field of Crécy, from the
+capabilities of the ground, was made choice of for the expected
+battle; and the plan being drawn out by Edward and his counsellors,
+the king, as the greatest and most chivalrous favor he could confer,
+determined to yield the place of danger and of honor to the prince,
+and in his own words, "to let the day be his."</p>
+
+<p>To insure his success, most of the famous knights were placed in the
+division which the Black Prince (as he was now called, from the sable
+suit of armor he usually wore) was to command; while the Earl of
+Warwick and the celebrated <span class="pagenum"><a id="page120" name="page120"></a>(p. 120)</span> Sir John Chandos were ordered not
+to quit his side, but be ever ready to direct and aid him.</p>
+
+<p>Early on the morning of August 26, 1346, the trumpets sounded, and the
+army marched to take up the position which had been selected on the
+previous day. The ground was an irregular slope, looking toward the
+south and east&mdash;the quarters from which the army were expected. The
+prince's division, composed of 800 men-at-arms, 4,000 archers, and
+6,000 Welsh foot, was stationed nearly at the bottom of the hill; the
+archers, as usual, in front, the light troops next, and then the
+men-at-arms, in the midst of whom was the prince himself, with twelve
+earls and lords, as his staff. To the left of this, and higher on the
+slope, appeared the second division, of about 7,000 men, commanded by
+the Earls of Arundel and Northampton. On a rising ground, surmounted
+by a windmill, aloof from the rest, was King Edward himself, with
+12,000 men, as a reserve. The wagons and baggage were in the rear of
+the prince, under the charge of a small body of archers. As the battle
+was to be fought entirely on foot, all the horses were also left with
+these.</p>
+
+<p>Mounted on a palfrey, with a white staff in his hand, the king, with a
+smiling and cheerful countenance, rode from rank to rank. By noon he
+had passed through all the lines exhorting the men to do their duty
+gallantly, and defend his honor and right.</p>
+
+<p>The soldiers now had permission to refresh themselves, while waiting
+the enemy's approach. They accordingly ate and drank at ease, and
+afterward lay down in ranks on the long grass, with their bows and
+steel caps beside them.</p>
+
+<p>Meantime the French army had approached very near. Four knights had
+ridden forward, and observed King Edward's plan of battle; when,
+having seen how fresh and vigorous the English troops appeared, they
+advised Philip, the French king, to delay the engagement till next
+day, by which time his troops, now hungry and wearied, would be
+refreshed. Philip at once saw the wisdom of this counsel, and one of
+his marshals immediately galloped to the front, and the other to the
+rear.</p>
+
+<p>"Halt your banners, in the name of God, the king, and St. Denis!" was
+the command given to the leaders. The advanced troops instantly
+obeyed; but the others pressed on, hoping to be among the foremost.
+This obliged the soldiers in front to move on again. In vain the king
+commanded, and the marshals threatened; hurrying forward in
+disgraceful confusion, the French, passing through a small wood,
+suddenly found themselves in the presence of the English. The surprise
+caused the first line to fall back, and thus increase the confusion.</p>
+
+<p>The English soldiers now rose steadily from the grass, and stood in
+fair and martial order on the hillside, with the standard of the Black
+Prince in their front.</p>
+
+<p>The sky had by this time become clouded; a thunder-storm came on, and
+torrents of rain soon fell&mdash;slackening the strings of the cross-bows
+of the Genoese archers, who had advanced to break the firm front of
+the English bowmen. The clouds cleared quickly away, and the western
+sun soon shone out bright and clear, full in the faces of the French.
+At the moment the Genoese drew their arbalists, and commenced their
+discharge, each English archer stepped forward a single pace, as he
+took his bow from the case in which it had been protected <span class="pagenum"><a id="page121" name="page121"></a>(p. 121)</span>
+from the rain; and a flight of arrows fell among the Genoese, piercing
+their heads, arms, and faces, and causing them instantly to retreat in
+confusion among the horsemen in their rear.</p>
+
+<p>The passionate French king, instead of trying to rally the fugitives,
+at once ordered the men-at-arms to fall upon them. The cavalry, the
+heavy troops, and the cross-bow men, soon formed a wild and reeling
+crowd, amid which the English poured a continued flight of unerring
+arrows, and not a single bowstring was drawn in vain.</p>
+
+<p>Meantime the Count of Alençon, dividing his men into two parties,
+swept round on one side of this scene of confusion; while the Count of
+Flanders did the same on the other side, and, avoiding the archers,
+furiously attacked the men-at-arms around the prince. England's
+chivalry, headed by the gallant boy, met the impetuous charge with
+equal valor and with greater success; and as each headlong effort of
+the French deranged the ranks for a moment, they were formed anew,
+each man fighting where he stood, none quitting his place to make a
+prisoner, while growing piles of dead told of their courage and vigor.
+The two counts were slain, and terror began to spread through their
+troops. A large body of German cavalry now bore down on the prince's
+archers, and, in spite of the terrible flight of arrows, cut their way
+through, and charged the men-at-arms. By this time nearly forty
+thousand men were pressing round the little English phalanx; but the
+combat was renewed, hand to hand, with more energy than ever, while
+the Earls of Northampton and Arundel moved up with their division, to
+repel the tremendous attack.</p>
+
+<p>King Edward still remained with his powerful reserve, viewing the
+battle from the windmill above. The Earl of Warwick now called a
+knight, named Thomas of Norwich, and despatched him to the king.</p>
+
+<p>"Sir Thomas," demanded Edward, "is my son killed, or overthrown, or
+wounded beyond help?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not so, my liege," answered the knight; "yet he is in a rude shock of
+arms, and much does he need your aid."</p>
+
+<p>"Go back, Sir Thomas, to those who sent you," rejoined the king, "and
+tell them from me, that whatever happens, to require no aid from me,
+so long as my son is in life. Tell them, also, that I command them to
+let the boy win his spurs; for, God willing, the day shall be his, and
+the honor shall rest with him, and those into whose charge I have
+given him."</p>
+
+<p>The prince, and those around him, seemed inspired with fresh courage
+by this message; and efforts surpassing all that had preceded were
+made by the English soldiers. The French men-at-arms, as they still
+dashed down on the ranks, met the same fate as their predecessors;
+and, hurled wounded from their dying horses, were thrust through by
+the short lances of the half-armed Welshmen, who rushed hither and
+thither through the midst of the fight. Charles of Luxembourg, who led
+the German cavalry, seeing his banner down, his friends slain, his
+troops routed, and himself wounded severely in three places, fled,
+casting off his rich surcoat, to avoid recognition.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page122" name="page122"></a>(p. 122)</span> This prince's father, the veteran King of Bohemia, was seated
+on horseback at a little distance from the fight. The old man had
+fought in almost every quarter of Europe; but, though still full of
+valor, he was now blind. Unable himself to mark the progress of the
+fight, he continued to inquire anxiously, and soon discovered that the
+day was lost.</p>
+
+<p>"My son," demanded the veteran monarch of his attendants; "my
+son!&mdash;can you still see my son?"</p>
+
+<p>"The King of the Romans is not in sight, sire," was the reply; "but
+doubtless he is somewhere engaged in the <span class="italic">mêlée</span>."</p>
+
+<p>"Lords," continued the old king,&mdash;drawing his own conclusions from
+what he heard, and resolved not to quit the field alive&mdash;"Lords, you
+are my vassals, my friends, and my companions; and on this day, I
+command and beseech you to lead me forward so far that I may deal one
+blow of my sword in the battle."</p>
+
+<p>They linked their horses' bridles to one another, and placing their
+venerable lord in the centre, galloped down into the field. Entering
+the thickest strife, they advanced directly against the Prince of
+Wales. Here the blind monarch was seen fighting valiantly for some
+time; but at length his banner went down. Next day he was found dead
+on the field of Crécy&mdash;his friends around him&mdash;their horses still
+linked to each other by the bridles.</p>
+
+<p>It was growing dark ere the angry Philip could force his way through
+the confusion he had himself chiefly caused by the imprudent command
+he gave at the commencement of the battle. The unremitting arrows of
+the English still continued to pour like hail; and his followers fell
+thickly around him. Many fled, leaving him to his fate; and presently
+his own horse was killed by an arrow.</p>
+
+<p>One of his attendants, John of Hainault, who had remained by his side
+the whole day, mounted him on one of his own chargers, and entreated
+him to quit the field. Philip refused; and, making his way into the
+thickest battle, fought for some time with great courage. At
+length&mdash;his troops almost annihilated, himself wounded in two
+places&mdash;he suffered John to half force him from the field; and, with a
+few of his lords, and only sixty men-at-arms, reached his nearest
+castle of Broye in safety. At midnight he again set out, and did not
+slacken his flight till he reached Amiens.</p>
+
+<p>The gallant Prince of Wales still held his station firmly in the
+battle; the utmost efforts of the French had not made him yield a
+single step. By degrees, as night fell, the assailants decreased in
+numbers, the banners disappeared, and the shouts of the knights and
+the clang of arms died away. Silence at last crept over the field, and
+told that victory was completed by the flight of the enemy. Torches
+were then lighted, in immense numbers, along the English lines to
+dispel the darkness.</p>
+
+<p>King Edward now first quitted his station on the hill; he hastily
+sought his conquering boy, and clasped him proudly to his bosom.</p>
+
+<p>"God give you perseverance in your course, my child!" cried the king,
+as he still held him. "You are indeed my son! Nobly have you acquitted
+yourself, and worthy are you of the place you hold!"</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page123" name="page123"></a>(p. 123)</span> The youthful hero had hitherto, in the excitement and energy
+of the battle, felt only the necessity of immense exertion, and had
+been unmindful of all but the immediate efforts of the moment; but
+now, the thought of his great victory&mdash;which his father's praise
+seemed first to bring fully to his mind&mdash;overcame him, and he sank on
+his knees before the king, and entreated his blessing, after a day of
+such glory and peril. And thus ended the battle of Crécy.</p>
+
+<p>The prince had now fully established his character as a warrior. Two
+or three years afterward, he showed that he could display equal
+courage at sea as on land; this was in an engagement with the
+Spaniards.</p>
+
+<p>Peter the Cruel&mdash;as he was termed&mdash;was at that time King of Castile,
+and encouraged, to a great extent, the pirates who infested the
+English seas. His own fleet even, in passing through the British
+Channel, had captured a number of English merchantmen, returning from
+Bordeaux, and after putting into Sluys, were preparing to sail back in
+triumph with the prizes and merchandise.</p>
+
+<p>King Edward determined to oppose their return, and collected his fleet
+off the coast of Sussex, near Winchelsea. When he heard that the
+Spaniards were about putting to sea, he immediately embarked to
+command the expedition in person. The Black Prince, now in his
+twentieth year, accompanied him, and commanded one of the largest
+vessels. The day on which the Spanish fleet would make its appearance
+had been nicely calculated. Edward waited impatiently for its
+approach, and, to beguile the time, made the musicians play an air
+which the famous Chandos, who was now with him, had brought from
+Germany. During the concert, the king, from time to time, turned his
+eye to the watcher at the masthead. In a short time the music was
+interrupted by the cry of&mdash;"A sail!" Ordering wine to be brought,
+Edward drank one cup with his knights, and, throwing off the cap he
+had worn till now, put on his casque, and closed his visor for the
+day.</p>
+
+<p>The Spanish ships came on in gallant trim. The number of fighting men
+which they contained was, compared with the English, as ten to one;
+and their vessels were of a much greater size. They had also large
+wooden towers on board, filled with cross-bowmen, and were further
+provided with immense bars of iron, with which to sink the ships of
+their opponents. They approached, with their tops filled with
+cross-bowmen and engineers, the decks covered with men-at-arms, and
+with the banners and pennons of different knights and commanders
+flying from every mast. They came up, in order of battle, a few hours
+before night. King Edward immediately steered direct against a large
+Spanish ship; endeavoring, according to the custom of ancient naval
+warfare, to run her down with his prow. The vessel, which was much
+superior to his own in magnitude, withstood the tremendous shock&mdash;both
+ships recoiling from each other. The king now found his ship had
+sprung a leak, and was sinking fast. In the confusion the Spanish
+vessel passed on; but Edward immediately ordering his ship to be
+lashed to another of the enemy, after a desperate struggle, made
+himself master of a sound vessel.</p>
+
+<p>The battle now raged on all sides. Showers of bolts and quarrels from
+the <span class="pagenum"><a id="page124" name="page124"></a>(p. 124)</span> cross-bows, and immense stones, hurled by powerful
+engines, were poured upon the English. The Black Prince, imitating the
+example of his father, had fixed on one of the largest ships of the
+enemy; but, while steering toward her, the missiles she discharged
+pierced his own vessel in several places. The speedy capture of his
+enemy was now necessary; for, as he came alongside, his barque was
+absolutely sinking. The sides of his opponent's vessel being much
+higher than his own rendered the attempt very hazardous; and while,
+sword in hand, he attempted to force his way, bolts and arrows poured
+on his head from every quarter. The Earl of Lancaster, sweeping by to
+engage one of the enemy, saw the situation of the prince, and
+immediately dashed to the other side of the antagonist, and after a
+fierce but short struggle, the Spanish ship remained in the hands of
+the prince; and scarcely had he and his crew left their own vessel,
+before she filled and went down.</p>
+
+<p>Twenty-four of the enemy's ships had by this time been captured; the
+rest were sunk, or in full flight; and, night having fallen, King
+Edward measured back the short distance to the shore. Father and son,
+then mounting horse, rode to the Abbey of Winchelsea, where Queen
+Philippa had been left, and soon turned the suspense she had suffered,
+since darkness had hidden the battle from her sight, into joy and
+gratitude.</p>
+
+<p>The French king, Philip, was now dead, and had been succeeded by his
+eldest son John. Some proceedings, on the part of the new monarch,
+were regarded as a signal to break the truce which had subsisted for a
+short time between the English and the French. Various displays of
+hostilities followed, and many negotiations were entered into without
+success. The Black Prince, being appointed captain-general, sailed for
+Bordeaux in August, 1355, and arrived there after an easy passage. His
+first movements were always successful; and, even when winter set in,
+the judicious manner in which he employed his troops enabled him to
+add five fortified towns and seventeen castles to the English
+possessions.</p>
+
+<p>Spring and summer passed by&mdash;the prince still continuing active. At
+length, the French king collected an immense army, and marched to
+intercept him. Though well aware that John was endeavoring to cut off
+his retreat, the Black Prince was ignorant of the exact position of
+the French army, until, one day, a small foraging party fell in with a
+troop of three hundred horsemen, who, pursuing the little band across
+some bushes, suddenly found themselves under the banner of the Black
+Prince. After a few blows they surrendered, and from them the prince
+learned that King John was a day's march in advance of him.</p>
+
+<p>A party, despatched to reconnoitre, brought back intelligence that an
+army of eight times his force lay between him and Poitiers. Though
+without fear, the prince felt all the difficulties of his situation;
+yet his simple reply was&mdash;"God be our help!&mdash;now let us think how we
+may fight them to the best advantage."</p>
+
+<p>A high ground, commanding the country toward Poitiers, defended by the
+hedges of a vineyard, and accessible from the city only by a hollow
+way scarcely wide enough to admit four men abreast, presented to him a
+most defensible position. Here he encamped, and early next morning,
+disposed his troops for battle. <span class="pagenum"><a id="page125" name="page125"></a>(p. 125)</span> He dismounted his whole
+force; placed a body of archers, drawn up in the form of a harrow, in
+front, the men-at-arms behind, and stationed strong bodies of bowmen
+along the hedges, on each side of the hollow way. Thus, while climbing
+the hill, the French would be exposed to the galling flights of
+arrows, while the nature of the ground would further render their
+superiority in numbers of little avail.</p>
+
+<p>The French host now began to advance;&mdash;yet, as its ocean of waving
+plumes rolled up the hill, the prince, in the same firm tone which had
+declared the day before, that England should never have to pay his
+ransom, now spoke the hope of victory.</p>
+
+<p>Three hundred chosen horsemen soon reached the narrow way, and,
+putting their horses at full gallop, poured in to charge the harrow of
+archers. The instant they were completely within the banks, the
+English bowmen along the hedges poured a flight of arrows, which threw
+them at once into confusion.</p>
+
+<p>The bodies of the slain men and horses soon blocked up the way; but a
+considerable number, forcing a path through every obstacle, nearly
+approached the first line of archers. A gallant knight, named James
+Audley, with his four squires, rushed against them; and thus, almost
+single-handed, he fought during the whole day, hewing a path through
+the thickest of the foe, until late in the evening; when, covered with
+many wounds, and fainting from loss of blood, he was borne from the
+field.</p>
+
+<p>Meantime the shower of arrows continued to pour death, while the
+English men-at-arms, passing between the lines of the archers, drove
+back the foremost of the enemy, and the hollow soon became one scene
+of carnage. One of Edward's officers, named the Captal de Buch, at the
+same time issued from a woody ravine situated near the foot of the
+hill,&mdash;where, with three hundred men-at-arms and three hundred archers
+on horseback, he had lain concealed,&mdash;and attacked the flank of one of
+the divisions of the French army, commanded by the Dauphin, as it
+commenced the ascent. This, with the confusion in front, and a rumor
+that part of the army was beaten, carried terror into the rear ranks,
+and vast numbers, who had hardly seen an enemy, galloped madly from
+the field. The arrows discharged by the horse-archers now began to
+tell on the front line of the enemy:&mdash;the quick eye of Sir John
+Chandos marked it waver and open.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, sir," he exclaimed, turning to the prince, "ride forward, and
+the day is yours. Let us charge right upon the King of France, for
+there lies the fate of the day. His courage, I know well, will not let
+him fly; but he shall be well encountered."</p>
+
+<p>"On! on! Chandos," replied the prince, "you shall not see me tread one
+step back, but ever in advance. Bear on my banner! God and St. George
+be with us!"</p>
+
+<p>The horses had been kept in readiness; and each man now springing into
+saddle, the army bore down on the enemy with levelled lances, the
+Captal de Buch forcing his way onward to regain the main body. The
+hostile forces met with a terrible shock, while the cries of "Denis
+Mountjoye!" "St. George, Guienne!" mingled with the clashing of steel,
+the shivering of lances, and the sound of the galloping steeds. The
+sight of the conflict struck terror into a body of sixteen <span class="pagenum"><a id="page126" name="page126"></a>(p. 126)</span>
+thousand men, who had not yet drawn a sword. Panic seemed to seize
+them; and these fresh troops, instead of aiding their companions, fled
+disgracefully with their commander, the Duke of Orleans. This probably
+decided the day.</p>
+
+<p>King John was now seen advancing with his reserve, in numbers still
+double the force of the English at the commencement of the battle. He
+saw his nobles flying, but though indignant, felt no alarm; then,
+dismounting with all his men, he led them, battle-axe in hand, against
+the English charge. The black armor of the young leader of the English
+rendered him also conspicuous; and, while the French king did feats of
+valor enough to win twenty battles if courage could have done all, the
+prince was seen raging like a young lion amid the thickest of the
+enemy. Knight to knight, and hand to hand, the battle was now fought.
+The French were driven back, step by step, till John found himself
+nearly at the gates of Poitiers, now shut against him. While, however,
+the oriflamme waved over his head, he would not believe the day lost;
+but, at length it went down, and his hopes fell with it. Surrounded on
+every side by foes eager to make him prisoner, he still wielded his
+battle-axe, clearing at each stroke the space around him and his
+little son, who had accompanied him through the fatal field. A knight
+of Artois, of gigantic height, who had been outlawed and had taken
+service with England, seeing that the monarch's life would be lost if
+he protracted his resistance, suddenly rushed into the circle.</p>
+
+<p>"Yield, sire, yield!" he exclaimed in French.</p>
+
+<p>"Who art thou?" inquired John.</p>
+
+<p>"I am Denis de Mortbec, a poor knight of Artois," answered the outlaw,
+"but now in the service of England, because a banished man from my own
+country."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I yield me to you," cried the king, giving him in sign of
+surrender, his right gauntlet.</p>
+
+<p>By this time nothing was seen but dead and dying on the field, with
+groups of prisoners, and parties of fugitives escaping over the
+distant country. The prince, by the advice of Chandos, now pitched his
+banner on a high spot; and, while the trumpets sounded a recall to the
+standard he dismounted, and, unbracing his helmet, took a draught of
+wine with the band of knights who had accompanied him throughout the
+arduous day.</p>
+
+<p>The unfortunate French king was soon brought to him by the Earl of
+Warwick and Lord Cobham. The prince received his vanquished adversary
+with deep and touching respect. Bending his knee before John, he
+called for wine, and, with his own hands, presented the cup to the
+unhappy king.</p>
+
+<p>By mid-day the battle was over; but, as the pursuing parties did not
+return till evening, it was only then that the prince learned the
+greatness of his victory. With eight thousand men he had vanquished
+more than sixty thousand, and the captives were double the number of
+the conquerors.</p>
+
+<p>At night a sumptuous entertainment was served in the tent of the Black
+Prince to the King of France and the principal prisoners. John, his
+son, and six of his chief nobles, were seated at a table raised higher
+than the rest; but no place was reserved for the prince himself. Great
+was the surprise when the victor appeared <span class="pagenum"><a id="page127" name="page127"></a>(p. 127)</span> to officiate as
+page. This in the days of chivalry implied no degradation, though it
+showed the generous humility of the young hero. John repeatedly
+entreated the prince to seat himself beside him, and could scarcely be
+persuaded to taste the food while his vanquisher remained standing, or
+handed him the cup on bended knee. The respectful manner in which the
+prince conducted himself, and the feeling he expressed for the
+misfortunes of his foe, so touched John, that at last the tears burst
+from his eyes, and mingled with the marks of blood on his checks.</p>
+
+<p>The example of their leader was followed throughout the English camp;
+every one treating his prisoners as friends, and admitting them to
+ransom on terms named, in most cases, by the vanquished themselves.</p>
+
+<p>After this event the prince again distinguished himself in France, for
+the claims of his father, which the treaty had in part recognized,
+were again disputed. Many battles were fought, and much negotiation
+was carried on, extending over several years; while in the midst of
+these harassments, the prince, who had long been ill, became worse.
+His surgeons advised his return to England. He complied; but day after
+day his strength failed him, and fainting fits of long continuance
+often led those around him to suppose him dead. At length, on Sunday,
+June 8, 1376, he closed a life which for years had been one sad scene
+of suffering. He was interred with due pomp in Canterbury Cathedral,
+his favorite suit of black armor being suspended over his tomb. Thus,
+scarcely past his prime, died "the valiant and gentle Prince of Wales,
+the flower of all chivalry in the world at that time."<a href="#toc"><span class="small">[Back to Contents]</span></a></p>
+
+
+<h3>BERTRAND DU GUESCLIN<br>
+(1314-1380)</h3>
+
+<a id="img052" name="img052"></a>
+<div class="floatleft">
+<img src="images/img052.jpg" width="250" height="221" alt="Bertrand du Guesclin." title="">
+</div>
+
+<p>Bertrand du Guesclin, Constable of France, the most famous French
+warrior of his age, was born of an ancient but undistinguished family,
+at the castle of La Motte-Broon, near Rennes, about 1314. The date is
+doubtful, the authorities varying between 1311 and 1324. The name is
+spelt in various ways in contemporary records, <span class="italic">e.g.</span>, Claquin,
+Klesquin, Guescquin, Glayaquin, etc. The familiar form is found on his
+monument at St. Denis, and in some legal documents of the time. In his
+boyhood Bertrand was a dull learner, spending his time in open-air
+sports and exercises, and could never read or write. He was remarkable
+for ugliness, and was an object of aversion to his parents. He first
+made himself a name as a soldier at the <span class="pagenum"><a id="page128" name="page128"></a>(p. 128)</span> tournament held at
+Rennes in 1338 to celebrate the marriage of Charles of Blois with
+Jeanne de Penthièvere, at which he unseated the most famous
+competitors.</p>
+
+<p>But this playing at fighting was not enough for his ambition; and in
+the war which followed between Charles of Blois and John de Montfort,
+for the possession of the Duchy of Brittany, he served his
+apprenticeship as a soldier. As he was not a great baron with a body
+of vassals at his command, he put himself at the head of a band of
+adventurers, and fought on the side of Charles and of France. He
+distinguished himself by a brilliant action at the siege of Vannes in
+1342; and after that he disappears from history for some years. In
+1351, having shortly before been made a knight, he was sent into
+England with the lords of Brittany to treat for the ransom of Charles
+of Blois, who had been defeated and captured by the English in 1347.
+When Rennes was besieged by the Duke of Lancaster, in 1356, Du
+Guesclin forced his way with a handful of men into the town, and
+successfully defended it till June, 1357, when the siege was raised in
+pursuance of the truce of Bordeaux. For this service he was rewarded
+with the lordship of Roche d'Airien.</p>
+
+<p>At the expiration of the truce he distinguished himself by the defence
+of Dinan, and here he engaged in single combat with Sir Thomas
+Canterbury. Shortly afterward he married; and about the same time he
+passed into the service of France, and greatly distinguished himself
+at the siege of Melun (1359). In April, 1364, in conjunction with
+Boucicault, he recovered Mantes and Meulan from the King of Navarre;
+and in May he defeated the Navarrese under Captal de Buch at Cocherel,
+and took their leader prisoner. The king now created him Marshal of
+Normandy and Count of Longueville. At the battle of Auray, in
+September of the same year, Charles of Blois was defeated and killed,
+and Du Guesclin taken prisoner, by Sir John Chandos.</p>
+
+<p>The grand companies beginning, after the close of the war, to play the
+part of brigands in France, it was necessary to get rid of them. Du
+Guesclin was ransomed for 100,000 crowns, and was charged to lead them
+out of France. He marched with them into Spain, visiting Avignon on
+the way, and extorting from the Pope a large sum of money and his
+absolution. Du Guesclin now supported Henry of Trastamare against
+Peter the Cruel, set the former upon the throne of Castile (1366), and
+was made Constable of Castile and Count of Trastamare. In the
+following year he was defeated and captured by the Black Prince, ally
+of Peter the Cruel, at Najara, but was soon released for a heavy
+ransom. Once more he fought for Henry, reinstated him on the throne
+(1369), and was created Duke of Molinas.</p>
+
+<a id="img053" name="img053"></a>
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/img053.jpg" width="400" height="573" alt="" title="">
+<p>Bertrand du Guesclin.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>In May, 1370, at the command of Charles V., who named him Constable of
+France, he returned to France. War had just been declared against
+England, and Du Guesclin was called to take part in it. For nearly ten
+years he was engaged in fighting against the English in the south and
+the west of France, recovering from them the provinces of Poitou,
+Guienne, and Auvergne, and thus powerfully contributing to the
+establishment of a united France. In 1373, when the Duke of Brittany
+sought English aid against a threatened invasion by Charles V.,
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page129" name="page129"></a>(p. 129)</span> Du Guesclin was sent at the head of a powerful army to
+seize the duchy, which he did; and two years later he frustrated, by a
+defensive policy, the attempt of the duke with an English army to
+recover it. Finding, in 1379, that the king entertained suspicions of
+his fidelity to him, he resolved to give up his constable's sword and
+retire to Spain. His resolution was at first proof against
+remonstrance; but ultimately he received back the sword, and continued
+in the service of France.</p>
+
+<p>In 1380 he was sent into Languedoc to suppress disturbances and
+brigandage provoked by the harsh government of the Duke of Anjou. His
+first act was to lay siege to the fortress of Châteauneuf-Randou, held
+by the English, strongly garrisoned and well provisioned. A day was
+fixed conditionally for capitulation. Meanwhile the great warrior was
+smitten with a mortal illness, and died, July 13, 1380. The commander
+led out the garrison and deposited the keys of the castle on the
+coffin of the hero. Du Guesclin lost his first wife in 1371, and
+married a second in 1373. His remains were interred, by order of the
+king, in the church of St Denis.<a href="#toc"><span class="small">[Back to Contents]</span></a></p>
+
+
+<h3>HENRY V. OF ENGLAND<br>
+Extracts from "Memoirs of Great Commanders," by <span class="smcap">G. P. R. James</span><br>
+(1388-1422)</h3>
+
+<a id="img054" name="img054"></a>
+<div class="floatleft">
+<img src="images/img054.jpg" width="250" height="197" alt="Ritter's arms." title="">
+</div>
+
+<p>Henry, the fifth English monarch of that name, was born at Monmouth,
+on the banks of the pleasant Wye, in the year 1388. He was the eldest
+son of Henry, Earl of Derby, and of Mary de Bohun, daughter of the
+Earl of Hereford. During his infancy reverses and successes passed
+rapidly over his father's head, and at the age of thirteen years he
+found himself the eldest son of the King of England, and was created
+by his father Prince of Wales, Duke of Cornwall, and Earl of Chester.
+The early education of Henry the Fifth is unknown; but it may be
+inferred, that during the life of his mother, principles of high honor
+and virtue had been instilled into his bosom, which became dormant,
+though not extinct, as rising toward manhood, evil companions took
+advantage of idleness and indulgence to call into action the passions
+of the young prince, in order to lead him to their own purposes.</p>
+
+<p>The tales of his debauchery, and the depravity of his taste, while a
+youth, have been doubted and contradicted, but not disproved by modern
+historians; <span class="pagenum"><a id="page130" name="page130"></a>(p. 130)</span> but the positive assertions of older writers,
+whose means of information was great and immediate, must always be
+more valuable than the theoretical doubts of persons who live when a
+thousand sources of knowledge have been buried under the lumber of
+ages. It is therefore more than probable that, in his youth, Henry the
+Fifth gave himself up to low companions, unworthy a prince and a
+gentleman, and yielded to his passions indulgences which were
+forbidden by his reason. Nevertheless, through the whole course of his
+youthful errors, as portrayed by those least favorable in their
+account, there is to be seen the gleaming forth of those better
+principles, that nobler soul, which rendered him in after years one of
+the greatest and best of English monarchs.</p>
+
+<p>Out of a multitude of events which might be brought forward to prove
+this fact, one of the best authenticated, and the most striking, is
+his submission to Chief-justice Gascoigne. Henry, it would appear, had
+entered the Court of Justice in support of one of his dissolute
+companions, who had rendered himself amenable to the laws of his
+country. Notwithstanding the presence and influence of the prince, the
+magistrate did his duty toward the offender, without fear or favor,
+and in the heat of the moment, Henry struck the judge upon the
+judgment-seat. Still unmoved and unruffled, the chief-justice, without
+a hesitation on the score of the prince's rank or power, at once
+committed him for contempt of court.</p>
+
+<p>Time had been given for the better spirit to assume her influence, and
+struck with the conscientious courage of the judge, the heir-apparent
+of the British throne submitted to the punishment he had merited, and
+suffered himself without opposition to be led to prison, thus setting
+a noble example of obedience to the laws. His father was of a mind
+well qualified to appreciate the conduct both of his son and of his
+son's judge, and when the news was brought him&mdash;probably by those who
+sought to inflame the monarch's mind against the punisher of his
+son&mdash;he exclaimed, with joy: "Blessed is the king whose magistrates
+possess courage to execute the laws upon such an offender; and still
+more happy is he who has for a son a prince willing to endure such
+wholesome chastisement."</p>
+
+<p>Although from all accounts it would appear that many parts of the
+prince's conduct gave great pain and offence to his father, yet we
+find that Henry IV. never scrupled to entrust to his care some of the
+greatest and most important military operations of his reign. Whether
+the prince had already displayed the qualities of a soldier, in a
+degree sufficient to attract the notice of his father, or whether the
+king sought only to habituate him early to that inevitable career of
+arms which was in those days one of the misfortunes of royalty, we are
+not informed; but so early as his sixteenth or seventeenth year he
+fought at the battle of Shrewsbury, in which Henry Hotspur was slain.
+What was the part assigned to the prince on this occasion I do not
+find stated precisely; but all accounts agree that he proved of
+infinite assistance and service to his father, and fought long in the
+thickest of the battle, after having been severely wounded by an arrow
+in the face.</p>
+
+<p>The death of Percy spread dismay among his soldiers and allies, and
+after a fight of nearly four hours the party of Northumberland fled,
+leaving the king <span class="pagenum"><a id="page131" name="page131"></a>(p. 131)</span> master of the field of battle, and a number
+of noble prisoners. Many of these were executed either at Shrewsbury
+or London; and the Earl of Northumberland, the chief support of the
+rebellion, made his peace for the time to meditate his rebellions.</p>
+
+<p>Owen Glendower, however, one of the confederates, was still in arms in
+Wales; and while Henry IV. returned in triumph to London, he
+despatched his eldest son, at the head of considerable forces, to
+reduce the Principality to obedience. The unhappy Glendower, unable to
+oppose the army led against him, was forced to fly, and, abandoned by
+his friends and followers, is said to have died of starvation among
+the caves and wildernesses in which he sought refuge. In the meanwhile
+the Prince of Wales conducted his expedition with skill and wisdom;
+the whole country submitted to his power; and having re-established
+order and tranquillity, he returned to London with honor and praise.</p>
+
+<p>Little further occurs in the history of Henry as Prince of Wales which
+is interesting in itself, if stripped of the embellishments added to
+it by the fancy of our great poet. A project of marriage between the
+heir of the British crown and a daughter of the Duke of Burgundy, was
+entertained for some time, but died away, and the opposite, or Orleans
+party in France, was afterward supported by the English Crown. At
+length Henry the Fourth, on the eve of an expedition to the Holy Land,
+undertaken, it is said, in expiation of his usurpation of the throne,
+was struck with apoplexy; and a tale, in regard to his death, is
+current among the historians of the period, on which Shakespeare has
+founded one of the most beautiful scenes in his historical dramas. The
+poet, however, is far more indebted for the splendor of his materials
+to his own imagination, than any historical record. The facts, as
+related by the best authorities, are simply as follows.</p>
+
+<p>After the first attack of apoplexy the king was carried to a chamber
+in the house of the Abbot of Westminster, and put to bed, and at his
+own desire the crown was laid upon his pillow. He languished in a
+state of great weakness for some time, and at length, after a second
+attack, appeared to those who were watching him to have yielded the
+spirit. The chamberlain immediately spread a linen cloth over the face
+of the king, and hastened to communicate his supposed death to the
+heir-apparent, who, entering the room to take a last look at his
+father's body, removed the crown from his pillow, and carried it into
+another apartment. After a short time the monarch revived, and sending
+for his son demanded, angrily, why he had removed the crown. The
+prince replied that all men had thought him dead, and therefore he had
+taken the symbol of royalty as his by right.</p>
+
+<p>"What right I have to it myself, God knows," replied the king, "and
+how I have enjoyed it."</p>
+
+<p>"Of that," replied the prince, "it is not for me to judge; but if you
+die king, my father, I will have the garland, and will defend it with
+my sword against all enemies as you have done."</p>
+
+<p>Not long after this conversation Henry IV. expired, and his son, the
+Prince of Wales, was immediately proclaimed king by the title of Henry
+V. But his <span class="pagenum"><a id="page132" name="page132"></a>(p. 132)</span> change was not alone in name or station; his
+vices and his follies he cast from him, as an unworthy garment, and
+assumed with royalty a royal mind. The debauched companions of his
+youth were banished from his presence and his counsels, and forbidden
+to approach within ten miles of his dwelling. But at the same time we
+are assured that they were not left in indigence or necessity. Wisdom
+and virtue became the only recommendations which raised any one to his
+service, and those who had proved themselves most worthy, under the
+government of the former monarch, found themselves most readily
+welcomed by the new king.</p>
+
+<p>No sooner was the truce at an end which then existed between France
+and England, than Henry himself proceeded to Southampton to take the
+command of his army in person. The English armament put to sea, and
+notwithstanding great preparations which had been made for defending
+the French coast, Henry landed his troops in safety at the mouth of
+the Seine, and immediately laid siege to Harfleur, at that time the
+principal sea-port of Normandy.</p>
+
+<p>The Dauphin himself advanced to Vernon on the Seine, and the famous
+Marshal Boucicault, one of the most celebrated knights of his time,
+gathered together a large force, and advanced toward the English army.</p>
+
+<p>Nevertheless Henry did not suffer his courage to fail, and the siege
+was continued with unabated vigor. At length the means of defence
+began to fail within the town. Two wagons of powder, which the French
+attempted to introduce, fell into the hands of the English; the walls
+were ruined by the effects of the artillery, and at length the
+governor agreed to surrender, if he remained unrelieved at the end of
+three days. The three days expired without succor, and Harfleur was
+surrendered to the King of England.</p>
+
+<p class="quote">[Here follows a long and glowing account of Henry's retreat in
+     the face of the overwhelming French forces, and of his greatest
+     victory, the famous battle of Agincourt.]</p>
+
+<p>Shortly after his return to England, Henry was visited by Sigismund,
+Emperor of Germany, accompanied by French ambassadors commissioned to
+treat for peace under his mediation. But while Henry continued to
+exact severe terms, the French gave him constant excuses for
+proceeding in the war, by their efforts to recover Harfleur, which,
+however, were constantly defeated by the activity of the English
+monarch and his officers.</p>
+
+<a id="img055" name="img055"></a>
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/img055.jpg" width="400" height="494" alt="" title="">
+<p>Henry V. rejects Falstaff.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>To conquer the former patrimony of the British kings seemed the
+monarch's first object, and in a very short time he made himself
+master of almost all the principal cities of the duchy. Caen, indeed,
+resisted with devoted courage, and, after a severe siege, was taken by
+assault; but the governors of the other fortified places in Normandy,
+divided between the Armagnac and the Burgundian parties, had no
+confidence in their soldiers or each other, and one after another
+submitted to the power of the conqueror. Nor, indeed, did Henry spare
+any means to obtain his purpose in such a bloodless manner. All his
+proclamations announced that those who submitted should be safe in
+person and property; and his address to all the French people holds
+out to them that prospect of peace and protection which had long been
+unknown amongst the dissensions of their <span class="pagenum"><a id="page133" name="page133"></a>(p. 133)</span> nobles. The first
+person of great influence, however, who joined the forces of the
+English king, was the Duke of Brittany; and, though Henry exacted no
+very great exertions from his new ally, the example of such a
+defection from the crown of France was greatly in behalf of the
+invader. Rouen, the capital of Normandy, however, still resolutely
+closed her gates against the English.</p>
+
+<p>The attack and capture of the Pont de l'Arche announced to the people
+of Rouen, and to the King of France, that the war was about to
+approach the gates of the Norman capital, and every exertion was made,
+both by the Burgundian faction, who now held the king in their hands,
+and the burghers of the city itself, to repel the English in the
+attempt. A number of famous knights and commanders were thrown into
+the city, which was, besides, garrisoned by upward of four thousand
+men-at-arms, and fifteen thousand armed citizens, all eager in the
+cause.</p>
+
+<p>Immense efforts were now made by the English to force an entrance, but
+the defences of the place were so strong, and the defenders so
+resolute, that no hope appeared of effecting a practicable breach in
+the walls. Many a sally took place, and many an assault, and many a
+feat of arms was performed between the two armies. But in the
+meanwhile the provisions of the people of the town began to decrease,
+and a smaller and smaller portion of food became the allowance of each
+day. At length the inhabitants, by murmurs and threats, compelled the
+garrison to treat; and, after a long and painful negotiation, Rouen
+capitulated, upon terms which could hardly be called unfavorable, in
+the situation to which its defenders were reduced.</p>
+
+<p>The news of the fall of Rouen had the greatest effect on the rest of
+Normandy, and twenty-seven towns, or castles, immediately made
+submission to the King of England, without even being summoned to
+surrender. Nor was this immediate benefit the only advantage which
+followed from the capture of Rouen. Dismay and doubt spread through
+all France, and thoughts of peace and concession were entertained by
+those who had hitherto breathed nothing but war and defiance to the
+King of England.</p>
+
+<p>Pontoise was almost immediately taken by surprise, Gisors and Chateau
+Gaillard fell after a short siege, and the terrific news of the
+advance of the English reached Paris, and induced the King, the Queen,
+and the Duke of Burgundy to abandon the capital and retire to Troyes.</p>
+
+<p>Henry's ambassadors, according to the desire of the French court, were
+instantly sent to Troyes&mdash;where the weak king remained under the
+guidance of his evil wife and her counsellors&mdash;and they soon sketched
+out a treaty by which, on marrying the Princess Catharine, the English
+monarch should be declared heir to the crown of France, to the
+exclusion of the Dauphin and his lineage. This hasty treaty was as
+hastily ratified, and Henry, with fifteen thousand men departed from
+Rouen, and marching with all speed to Troyes, put the seal to an
+arrangement which conveyed to him the throne for which he had fought,
+by marrying the daughter of the French monarch. To the first articles
+proposed was now added, at the request of Henry, that the Regency of
+the kingdom, to the government of which Charles was totally
+incompetent, should be entrusted to him, and <span class="pagenum"><a id="page134" name="page134"></a>(p. 134)</span> no sooner was
+the solemnity of his marriage completed, than he instantly took the
+field against the Dauphin, leading the unhappy King of France and his
+whole court against the natural heir to his throne. The town of Sens
+first fell before the arms of England and Burgundy, and immediately
+after siege was laid to Montereau, where the assassination of John the
+Bold had been committed.</p>
+
+<p>Henry also now took upon him the whole executive power of the
+government. The governors of towns, the officers of state, the
+magistrates and the dignitaries, were placed and displaced at his
+pleasure. The currency of the country was altered at his suggestion,
+and his counsels swayed everything in France. However, England was
+still at his heart, and leaving a country that his sword and his
+policy had conquered, as soon as he could do so with any security, he
+carried his beautiful bride to be crowned in London.</p>
+
+<p>The moment, however, that his foot was out of France, his interests in
+that country declined; and the rashness of his officers brought
+confusion and ruin into his affairs. Town after town was taken by the
+Dauphin; and at length the Duke of Clarence, the English monarch's
+brother, with all the chivalry that accompanied him, were defeated at
+Baugé, in Anjou, and the duke himself, as well as three thousand of
+his men, remained dead upon the field. This news, accompanied by the
+further tidings that the Dauphin was advancing to besiege Chartres,
+called upon the king imperatively to return to France; and leaving the
+queen to follow at a future time, Henry set out for Calais accompanied
+by four thousand men-at-arms and twenty-four thousand archers.</p>
+
+<p>His coming gave new courage to the Burgundian faction, and struck fear
+into the followers of the Dauphin. Scarcely pausing at all in the
+capital, the English monarch advanced direct toward Chartres, before
+which the Dauphin had already been encamped three weeks; but long ere
+the English reached the town the gates were free, and the adverse army
+with all speed retreated toward Touraine. Thither the English monarch
+followed, breathing revenge for the death of his brother. Dreux and
+Beaugency-sur-Loire were conquered by the way; but after pursuing the
+Dauphin ineffectually for some time, the scarcity of provisions
+obliged him to return toward Normandy. On his march back, he is said
+to have fallen in with a party of the Armagnac faction, who retreated
+before him into a castle called Rougemont, which was instantly
+assailed and taken by the English. All who were within, the French
+historians assert, to the number of sixty persons, were, by the king's
+order, drowned in the Loire, a fact which accords too well with the
+manners of the time and some parts of the monarch's own character. The
+town of Meaux was the next object of attack, and a long and courageous
+defence was made by the Dauphinois within.</p>
+
+<p>The fall of Meaux, like that of Rouen, brought with it the surrender
+of an immense number of other places, but this was the last great
+military undertaking which Henry conducted in person. From Meaux he
+went direct to Vincennes to meet his queen, who was at this time on
+her journey from Calais, and thence proceeded with the King and Queen
+of France to Paris, where various transactions took place relative to
+the internal policy of the country. The court soon <span class="pagenum"><a id="page135" name="page135"></a>(p. 135)</span> removed
+thence to Senlis, where Henry continued to make his principal abode,
+till news from the banks of the Loire roused him from inactivity.</p>
+
+<a id="img056" name="img056"></a>
+<div class="floatright">
+<img src="images/img056.jpg" width="150" height="189" alt="Arms." title="">
+</div>
+
+<p>The Dauphin, now finding the English monarch removed from his
+immediate neighborhood, again advanced with all the forces he could
+gather, and laid siege to Cône-sur-Loire, then garrisoned by the
+troops of Burgundy. The town, hard pressed, was obliged to treat, and
+agreed to surrender, without the Duke of Burgundy should give battle
+to the Dauphin in its defence, before the sixteenth day of August
+ensuing. The tidings were communicated to the duke by the garrison,
+and at the same time a herald from the Dauphin defied him to the field
+the day named. The duke instantly accepted the challenge, and sent to
+all his allies, as customary on such occasions, begging their aid and
+support in the day of battle. Among the rest he demanded the
+assistance of forces from the King of England, to be led by such of
+his famous leaders as he could well spare. Henry, however, though
+already unwell, declared that he would send no one to the aid of his
+good cousin of Burgundy, but go himself, and, accordingly, commanding
+his brother the Duke of Bedford, to lead his troops from Paris and
+that neighborhood, he himself set out from Senlis on horseback. At
+Melun, however, his sickness had so far increased, that, no longer
+able to sit on his horse, he attempted to proceed on a litter, but at
+length was obliged to turn toward Vincennes, where each day brought
+him nearer to the tomb.</p>
+
+<p>The Duke of Bedford, led the English forces to Cône, from which the
+Dauphin had already retreated, and the English prince returned just in
+time to witness the death of his brother.</p>
+
+<p>Henry already felt his danger, and calling his relations around him,
+made those dispositions which he thought necessary for securing his
+dominions to his child. He then insisted upon his physicians informing
+him how long he had to live, and being told that his life could not
+last much more than two hours, he prepared to meet death with the same
+courage which he had evinced during life. After going through all the
+ceremonial duties of the Catholic religion, he commanded some
+particular psalms to be sung in his chamber, and died very nearly the
+time his physicians had predicted.</p>
+
+<p>Henry V. was a great conqueror, and a wise, prudent, and politic
+prince. His two greatest faults seem to have been ambition and
+cruelty; the first was an inheritance, and the second, perhaps, was
+less an effect of a harsh nature than of hasty passion. We seldom find
+that he committed any deliberate act of barbarity, and those things
+which most stain his name were generally done under feelings of great
+irritation. His conduct to the Earl of March, the heir of Richard II.,
+and the respect he paid to the memory of that unhappy king himself,
+are proofs of a generous nature; and of all his conquests, the
+greatest he ever achieved was the first&mdash;that over himself.<a href="#toc"><span class="small">[Back to Contents]</span></a></p>
+
+
+<h3><span class="pagenum"><a id="page136" name="page136"></a>(p. 136)</span> JOHN HUNIADES<a id="footnotetag16" name="footnotetag16"></a><a href="#footnote16" title="Go to footnote 16"><span class="small">[16]</span></a><br>
+By <span class="smcap">Professor A. Vambéry</span><br>
+(1388-1456)</h3>
+
+<a id="img057" name="img057"></a>
+<div class="floatleft">
+<img src="images/img057.jpg" width="250" height="319" alt="John Huniades." title="">
+</div>
+
+<p>Of his grandfather we do not know even the name; his father was a
+Wallach, a common soldier; yet he himself was the greatest of
+Hungarian heroes, the Grand Marshal, and later on the "Governor" or
+Regent of Hungary; and his son king of that country. At the present
+day, in the age of democracy, such rapid elevation is no such rare
+phenomenon, but in the aristocratic middle ages it was really a
+miracle, one that points to exceptional circumstances and an
+exceptional man.</p>
+
+<p>In Europe at that time the circumstances were indeed exceptional. A
+new power pulsating with youthful life had arrived from somewhere in
+the interior of Asia with the intention of conquering the world. This
+power was the Turk&mdash;not merely a single nation, but a whole group of
+peoples clustered round a nation, inspired by one single idea which
+urged them ever forward. "There is no God but God, and Mohammed is the
+Apostle of God."</p>
+
+<p>The Mohammedan flood already beat upon the bounds of Catholic
+Christendom, in the forefront of which stood Hungary. Hungary's king,
+Sigismund, was able for a moment in 1396 to unite the nations of
+Europe against the common danger, but the proud array of mail-clad
+knights were swept away like chaff before the steady ranks of the
+janissaries.</p>
+
+<p>And herewith began the long series of desolating inroads into Hungary,
+for the Turk was wont to suck the blood of the nation he had marked
+down as his prey. He took the country by surprise, secretly, suddenly,
+like a summer storm, appearing in overwhelming numbers, burning,
+murdering, robbing, especially, men in the hopes of a rich ransom, or
+children whom they might bring up as Mohammedans and janissaries. This
+body, the flower of the Turkish armies, owed its origin for the most
+part to the Christian children thus stolen from their parents and
+their country. This infantry of the janissaries was the first standing
+army in Europe. Living constantly together under a common discipline,
+like the inmates of a cloister, they rushed blindly forward to the cry
+of "God and his Prophet" like some splendid, powerful wild beast,
+eager for prey. The Turkish <span class="pagenum"><a id="page137" name="page137"></a>(p. 137)</span> sultans published the proud
+order: "Forward, let us conquer the whole world, wheresoever we tie up
+our horses' heads that land is our own."</p>
+
+<p>To resist such a nation, that would not listen to negotiation, but
+only thirsted for war and conquest, seemed already an impossibility.
+Europe trembled with fear at the reports of the formidable attacks
+designed against her, and listened anxiously for news from distant
+Hungary which lay, so to say, in the lion's very mouth.</p>
+
+<p>Against such an enemy a soldier of the modern type was useless, one
+who slays only in defence of his own life and at the word of command,
+whose force consists in the high development of the military art and
+the murderous instruments of modern technical science. What was wanted
+was an heroic soul, inspired by a burning faith like to that which
+impelled the Mohammedan soldier.</p>
+
+<p>This heroic soul, this burning faith, united to the tenacious energy
+of youth, were all found united in the greatest Hungarian hero, John
+Huniades, accompanied withal by a singular talent for leadership in
+war. He could not rely for support upon the haughty magnates who could
+trace their descent back for centuries and despised the parvenu with a
+shorter pedigree and a smaller estate. He was consequently obliged to
+cast in his lot with the mass of the lesser nobility, individually
+weaker, it is true, but not deficient in spirit and a consciousness of
+their own worth. Of this class he soon became the idolized leader.
+Around him gathered the hitherto latent forces of Hungarian society,
+especially from Transylvania and South Hungary and the Great Hungarian
+Plain (<span class="italic">Alföld</span>), which suffered most from the incursions of the Turks
+and were therefore most impressed with the necessity of organizing a
+system of defence. It was these who were the first to be inspired by
+Huniades' heroic spirit.</p>
+
+<p>Before commencing his career as independent commander he, following
+his father's example, attached himself to the court of Sigismund, the
+Emperor-king, in whose train he visited the countries of Western
+Europe, Germany, England, and Italy, till he at length returned home,
+his mind enriched by experience but with the fervor of his first faith
+unchilled.</p>
+
+<p>He had thus passed the flower of his age when nearly sixty years old,
+he repaired at his sovereign's command to the south of Hungary to
+organize the resistance to the Turks. At first he was appointed Ban of
+Severin, and as such had the chief command of the fortified places
+built by the Hungarians for the defence of the Lower Danube. After
+that he became Voyvode of Transylvania, the civil and military
+governor of the southeastern corner of the Hungarian kingdom.</p>
+
+<p>Before, however, he had reached these dignities he had fought a
+succession of battles and skirmishes with such success that for the
+fanatical Turkish soldiery his form, nay, his very name was an object
+of terror. It was Huniades alone whom they sought to slay on the field
+of battle, well persuaded that he once slain they would easily deal
+with the rest of Hungary. Thus in 1442 a Turkish leader, named Mezid
+Bey, burst into Transylvania at the head of 80,000 men in pursuance of
+the sultan's commands, with no other aim than to take Huniades dead or
+alive.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page138" name="page138"></a>(p. 138)</span> Nor indeed did Huniades keep them waiting for him. He hurried
+at the head of his troops to attack the Turkish leader who was laying
+siege to Hermannstadt. Upon this Mezid Bey, calling his bravest
+soldiers around him, described to them once more Huniades' appearance,
+his arms, his dress, his stature, and his horse, that they might
+certainly recognize him. "Slay him only," he exclaimed; "and we shall
+easily deal with the rest of them; we shall drive them like a flock of
+sheep into the presence of our august master."</p>
+
+<p>On that occasion was seen with what self-sacrificing enthusiasm his
+soldiers loved their heroic leader. When they learned from their spies
+the purpose of the Turks, they took all possible measures to secure
+his precious life. One of their number, Simon Kemeny, who bore a
+striking resemblance to Huniades, determined to sacrifice himself for
+his leader. He announced that he would put on Huniades' clothes and
+armor. The Turks would then attack him under the belief that he was
+the celebrated chief, and while they were thus engaged the real
+Huniades would fall upon them unexpectedly and put them to flight. At
+first Huniades would by no means consent to this plan, as he did not
+wish to expose Kemeny to such mortal danger; but at last seeing the
+great military advantages likely to accrue from it he consented.</p>
+
+<p>And so indeed it fell out. As soon as the battle began, the Turks,
+perceiving Simon Kemeny in the garb of Huniades, directed all their
+force against him. Kemeny, after a stout defence, fell together with a
+great number of his followers, and the Turks, seeing him fall, set up
+a general cry of triumph and exultation. Just at this critical moment
+they were hotly attacked in the flank by the genuine Huniades. Thus
+attacked in the very moment when they imagined that they had already
+gained the day, the Turks were thrown into confusion and took wildly
+to flight. Twenty thousand corpses were left on the battle-field;
+among them were Mezid Bey himself, together with his sons.</p>
+
+<p>Fearful was the rage of the Turkish sultan when he heard of the defeat
+and death of Mezid Bey, and he at once despatched another army against
+Huniades, which like the first numbered 80,000 men. This time,
+however, Huniades did not let them enter Transylvania, but waited for
+them at the pass, known as the Iron Gate, among the high mountains on
+the southern boundary of Hungary.</p>
+
+<p>The Hungarian army was not more than 15,000 men, so that the Turks
+were at least five times as strong. But the military genius of
+Huniades made up for the small number of his followers. He posted them
+in a strong position in the rough pass, and attacked the enemy in
+places where it was impossible for him to make use of his strength.
+Thus more than half the Turkish army perished miserably in the battle.
+Again their commander-in-chief fell on the field together with six
+subordinate commanders, while two hundred horse-tail standards fell
+into Huniades' hands as trophies of his victory.</p>
+
+<p>These two splendid victories filled all Europe with joy and
+admiration. Christendom again breathed freely; for she felt that a
+champion, sent by a special Providence, had appeared, who had both the
+courage and the ability to meet and to repel the haughty and
+formidable foe. But Huniades was not content <span class="pagenum"><a id="page139" name="page139"></a>(p. 139)</span> with doing so
+much. He thought that by this time he might carry the war into the
+enemy's country. The plan of operations was exceptionally daring, yet
+Huniades had not resolved on it without careful consideration. In the
+meantime through Huniades' exertions, Vladislaus, the young King of
+Poland, had been elected King of Hungary. Huniades gained the new king
+over to his plans, and by this means secured the co-operation of the
+higher aristocracy and the armed bands which they were bound to lead
+into the field at the king's summons. Huniades counted besides on the
+assistance of Europe; in the first place on the Popes, who were
+zealous advocates of the war against the Mohammedans; next on Venice,
+which as the first commercial city and state at that time had suffered
+severe losses owing to the spread of Turkish dominions; on the gallant
+Poles whose king now wore the Hungarian crown; and lastly upon the
+peoples of Christendom in general, whose enthusiasm for a war against
+the infidels had been quickened by the report of Huniades' victories.
+And indeed at his request the Pope sent some small sums of money, the
+Poles furnished an auxiliary force, while numerous volunteers from the
+rest of Europe flocked to serve under his banner. Although the
+assistance thus furnished was comparatively unimportant, it
+nevertheless served to increase his zeal for the daring undertaking.
+He and his heroic companions were not only proud of defending their
+own native country, but felt that they were the champions of all
+Christendom against Ottoman aggression, and their religious enthusiasm
+kept pace with their patriotism. If they did not get regiments sent to
+their aid, they felt that the eyes of all Europe were upon them, ready
+to grieve at their possible ill success, while their victories would
+be celebrated by <span class="italic">Te deums</span> in the cathedrals of every capital in
+Europe.</p>
+
+<p>The aggressive campaign was commenced without delay; Huniades'
+resolves were at once translated into fact; he would not allow the
+beaten foe time to recover breath. His plan was to cross the Danube,
+and penetrate through the passes of the Balkan to Philippopolis, at
+that time the capital of the sultan's dominions, where he kept the
+main body of his army. About Christmas, a season in which the Turk
+does not like to fight, amid heavy snow and severe cold, the Hungarian
+army of about thirty thousand men pressed forward. Huniades marched in
+advance with the vanguard of 12,000 picked men; after him the king and
+the Pope's legate, with the rest of the army. The sultan, however,
+with a large body of men had occupied the passes of the Balkans and
+prevented their farther advance. This impediment, coupled with the
+cold and severe weather, depressed the spirits of the troops, worn out
+with fatigue. Huniades, however, raised their spirits by gaining a
+victory; lighting one night upon a body of the enemy, 20,000 in
+number, he attacked them at once and after a few hours' struggle
+succeeded in dispersing them. Later on he took two large towns with
+their citadels; and in three engagements triumphed over three separate
+divisions of the enemy. Learning that a still larger body of Turks was
+attempting to cut off his communications with the king's army he
+attacked that also and put it to flight. After that he joined his
+corps with the main army under the king; and indeed none too soon.
+Sultan Murad suddenly arrived with the main body of <span class="pagenum"><a id="page140" name="page140"></a>(p. 140)</span> his
+forces, which he strongly intrenched in the narrowest passes of the
+Balkans. Huniades saw that these intrenchments could not be forced,
+and did all he could to entice his enemy down into the plain. This he
+succeeded in doing. In the battle that ensued the king too played a
+conspicuous part and received a wound. In the end, however, the
+Hungarians gained the victory, and the younger brother of the Grand
+Vizier was taken prisoner. So much success was sufficient for Huniades
+for the time, especially as the natural obstacles had proved
+insurmountable. The Hungarian army returned home in good order, and
+the young king made a triumphal entry into his capital, preceded by a
+crowd of Turkish prisoners and captured Turkish ensigns. These last
+trophies of victory were deposited in the Coronation Church in the
+fortress of Buda.</p>
+
+<p>And now something happened which had hitherto been deemed incredible;
+the Sultan sued for peace, a true believer and a sovereign, from an
+unbelieving giaour. The peace was concluded, and Hungary again became
+possessed of those dependent (South Slavonic) provinces, which lay
+between the territories of the Sultan and the kingdom of Hungary in
+the narrower sense of the word. In three short years Huniades had
+undone the work of years on the part of the Turks. The Sultan,
+however, soon repented of what he had done, and continually delayed
+the fulfilment of his promise to evacuate certain frontier fortresses.
+For this cause the young king, especially incited thereto by the Pope,
+determined to renew the war. Huniades at first opposed the king's
+resolution, and wished to wait; later on he was gained over to the
+king's view, and took up the matter with his whole soul. The
+opportunity was inviting, for the Sultan with his main army was
+engaged somewhere in Asia, and the Venetians promised to prevent with
+their fleet his return to Europe across the narrow seas in the
+neighborhood of Constantinople.</p>
+
+<p>The Hungarian army indeed set out (1444) on its expedition, and
+continually expecting the arrival of the troops of their allies&mdash;the
+Emperor of Constantinople and the Princes of Albania&mdash;penetrated ever
+farther and farther into the hostile territory. They were to be joined
+by their allies at the town of Varna on the shores of the Black Sea.
+When, however, the Hungarians had arrived at that town, they found no
+trace of their expected allies, but on the contrary learned with
+certainty that the Sultan had succeeded in eluding the vigilance of
+the Venetians, had brought his army in small boats over into Europe,
+and was now following fast on their track.</p>
+
+<p>Thus all hope of aid from allies was at an end, the brave general and
+his small Hungarian force had to rely on their own resources,
+separated as they were by some weeks' journey from their own country,
+while the enemy would be soon upon them in numbers five times their
+own. Yet even so Huniades' faith and courage did not desert him. The
+proverb says: "If thy sword be short, lengthen it by a step forward."
+And Huniades boldly, but yet with the caution that behoved a careful
+general, took up his position before the Sultan's army. Both he and
+his Hungarians fought with dauntless courage, availing themselves of
+every advantage and beating back every assault. Already victory seemed
+to be assured. <span class="pagenum"><a id="page141" name="page141"></a>(p. 141)</span> A few hours after the battle had begun both
+the Turkish wings had been broken, and even the Sultan and the brave
+janissaries were thinking of flight, when the young king, the Pole
+Vladislaus, whom Huniades had adjured by God to remain in a place of
+safety, until the combat should be decided, was persuaded by his
+Polish suite to fling himself with the small band in immediate
+attendance upon him right on the centre of the janissaries, so that he
+too might have a share in the victory and not leave it all to
+Huniades. The janissaries wavered for a moment under this new and
+unexpected attack, but soon perceiving that they had to do with the
+King of Hungary they closed round his band which had penetrated far
+into their ranks. The king's horse was first hamstrung, and, as it
+fell, the king's head was severed from his body, stuck upon the point
+of a spear and exposed to the view of both armies. The Hungarians,
+shocked at the unexpected sight, wavered and, feeling themselves lost,
+began to fly. All the entreaties and exhortations of Huniades were in
+vain. Such was the confusion that he could be neither seen nor heard,
+and in a few minutes the whole Hungarian army was in confused flight.</p>
+
+<p>Huniades, left to himself, had too to seek safety in flight. Alone,
+deserted by all, he had to make his way from one place of concealment
+to another till after some weeks' wandering he arrived in Hungary. The
+bad news had preceded him; and in consequence everything was in
+confusion. Again arose that difficult question: Who should be the new
+king under such difficult circumstances? The Sultan's army had,
+however, suffered so much in the battle of Varna that for the time he
+left the Hungarians unmolested.</p>
+
+<p>The nation was disposed to choose for its king the child, Ladislaus,
+son of King Albert, the predecessor of Vladislaus. The child, however,
+was in the power of the neighboring prince, Frederick, the Archduke of
+Austria, who was not disposed to let him go out of his hands without a
+heavy ransom. Under these circumstances the more powerful nobles in
+Hungary took advantage of the confusion to strengthen each his own
+position at the expense of the nation. At first the government of the
+country was entrusted to a number of captains, but this proved so
+evidently disastrous that the better sort of people succeeded in
+having them abolished and Huniades established as sole governor. For
+all that, however, Huniades had a good deal of trouble with the chief
+aristocrats, Garay, Czillei, Ujlaki, who, envying the parvenu his
+sudden promotion and despising his obscure origin, took up arms to
+resist his authority. Thus Huniades, instead of blunting the edge of
+his sword upon foreign foes, had to bridle the insubordination of his
+own countrymen. Luckily it did not take long to force the discontented
+to own the weight of his arm and his superiority as a military leader.</p>
+
+<p>Order being thus to some extent re-established at home, Huniades was
+again able to turn his attention to the Turks. He felt that he had in
+fact gained the battle of Varna, which was only lost through the
+jealous humor of a youthful king; that it behoved him not to stop half
+way; that it was his duty to continue offensive operations. But in so
+doing he had to rely upon his own proper forces. It is true that he
+was governor of the country, but for the purpose of <span class="pagenum"><a id="page142" name="page142"></a>(p. 142)</span>
+offensive warfare beyond the frontier he could not gain the consent of
+the great nobles.</p>
+
+<p>Luckily his private property had enormously increased by this time.
+The Hungarian Constitution ordered the king to bestow the estates of
+such noblemen, as died without male heirs or had been condemned for
+any offence, on such noblemen as had approved themselves valiant
+defenders of the country. Now where could be found a more worthy
+recipient of such estates than Huniades, to whom the public treasury
+was besides a debtor on account of the sums he disbursed for the
+constant warfare he maintained against the Turks? Especially in the
+south of Hungary a whole series of lordly estates, many of them
+belonging to the crown, had come into Huniades' hands, either as
+pledges for the repayment of the money he had paid his soldiers, or as
+his own private property.</p>
+
+<p>The yearly revenue arising from these vast estates was employed by
+Huniades not in personal expenditure but in the defence of his
+country. He himself lived as simply as anyone of his soldiers, and
+recognized no other use of money than as a weapon to be used for the
+defence of Christendom against Islam. In the early morn while all his
+suite still slept he passed hours in prayer before the altar in the
+dimly lighted church, imploring the help of the Almighty for the
+attainment of his sole object in life&mdash;the destruction of the Turkish
+power. At last (1448) he set out against the Sultan with a picked army
+of 24,000 of his most trusty soldiers.</p>
+
+<p>This time it was on the frontier of Servia, on the so-called Field of
+Blackbirds, that Huniades encountered Sultan Murad, as before with an
+army of 150,000 men&mdash;more than five times the number of the
+Christians. Huniades at first withdrew himself into his intrenched
+camp, but in a few days felt himself strong enough to engage with the
+enemy on the open field. The battle lasted without interruption for
+two days and a night. Huniades himself was several times in deadly
+peril. Once his horse was shot under him. He was to be found wherever
+assistance, support, encouragement were needed. At last on the morning
+of the third day as the Turks who had received reinforcements were
+about to renew the attack, the Voyvode of Wallachia passed over to the
+side of the Turks. The voyvode belonged to the Orthodox Eastern
+Church. He had joined Huniades on the way, and his desertion
+transferred 6,000 men from one side to the other, and decided the
+battle in favor of the Turks. The Hungarians, worn out by fatigue,
+fell into a discouragement, while Huniades had no fresh troops to
+bring up to their support. The battle came to a sudden end. Seventeen
+thousand Hungarian corpses strewed the field, but the loss of the
+Turks was more than 30,000 men.</p>
+
+<p>Huniades again left to himself had again to make his escape. At first
+he only dismissed his military suite; afterwards he separated from his
+faithful servant in the hope that separately they might more easily
+baffle their pursuers. Next he had to turn his horse adrift, as the
+poor animal was incapable of continuing his journey. Thus he made his
+way alone and on foot toward the frontiers of his native land. After a
+while looking down from the top of a piece of elevated <span class="pagenum"><a id="page143" name="page143"></a>(p. 143)</span>
+ground he perceived a large body of Turks from whom he hid himself in
+a neighboring lake. He thus escaped this danger, but only to encounter
+another. At a turn of the road he came so suddenly upon a party of
+Turkish plunderers as to be unable to escape from them, and thus
+became their prisoner. But the Turks did not recognize him, and
+leaving him in the hands of two of their number the rest went on in
+search of more prey. His two guards soon came to blows with one
+another about a heavy gold cross which they had found on the person of
+their captive, and, while they were thus quarrelling, Huniades
+suddenly wrenched his sword out of the hand of one of the two Turks
+and cut off his head, upon which the other took to flight, and
+Huniades was again free.</p>
+
+<p>In the meantime, however, George, the Prince of Servia, who took part
+with the aristocratic malcontents, and out of pure hatred to Huniades
+had, in spite of his being a Christian, gone over to the side of the
+Turks, had given strict orders that all Hungarian stragglers were to
+be apprehended and brought before him. In this way Huniades fell into
+the hands of some Servian peasants who delivered him to their prince.
+Nor did he regain his liberty without the payment of a heavy ransom,
+leaving his son, Ladislaus, as hostage in his stead.</p>
+
+<p>He thus returned home amid a thousand perils and with the painful
+experience that Europe left him to his own resources to fight as he
+best could against the ever-advancing Turks. The dependencies of the
+Hungarian crown, Servia and Wallachia, on whose recovery he had spent
+so much blood and treasure, instead of supporting him as might be
+expected of Christian countries threw themselves in a suicidal manner
+into the arms of the Turks. They hoped by their ready submission to
+find favor in the eyes of the irresistible conquerors, by whom,
+however, they were a little later on devoured.</p>
+
+<p>After these events Huniades continued to act as Governor or Regent of
+Hungary for five years more, by which time the young Ladislaus, son of
+King Albert, attained his majority. In 1453 he finally laid down his
+dignity as governor, and gave over the power into the hands of the
+young king, Ladislaus V., whom Huniades had first to liberate by force
+of arms from his uncle, Frederick of Austria, before he could set him
+on the throne of Hungary. The young king, of German origin had,
+however, hardly become emancipated from his guardian, when he fell
+under the influence of his other uncle, Ulric Czillei. This Czillei
+was a great nobleman of Styria, but was withal possessed of large
+estates in Hungary. As a foreigner and as a relative of King
+Sigismund, he had long viewed with an evil eye Huniades' elevation. On
+one occasion Huniades had to inflict punishment on him. He
+consequently now did everything he could to induce the young king, his
+nephew, to hate the great captain as he himself did. He sought to
+infuse jealousy into his mind and to lead him to believe that Huniades
+aimed at the crown. His slanders found the readier credence in the
+mind of the youthful sovereign as he was completely stupefied by an
+uninterrupted course of debauchery. At last the king was brought to
+agree to a plan for ensnaring the great man who so often jeoparded his
+life and his substance in the defence of his country and religion.
+They summoned him in the king's name to Vienna, where <span class="pagenum"><a id="page144" name="page144"></a>(p. 144)</span>
+Ladislaus as an Austrian prince was then staying, with the intention
+of waylaying and murdering him. But Huniades got wind of the whole
+plot, and, when he arrived at the place of ambush, it was at the head
+of 2,000 picked Hungarian warriors. Thus it was Czillei who fell into
+the snare. "Wretched creature!" exclaimed Huniades; "thou hast fallen
+into the pit thou diggedst for me; were it not that I regard the
+dignity of the king and my own humanity, thou shouldst suffer a
+punishment proportioned to thy crime. As it is, I let thee off this
+time, but come no more into my sight or thou shalt pay for it with thy
+life."</p>
+
+<p>Such magnanimity, however, did not disarm the hostility of those who
+surrounded the king. On the pretence of treason against the king
+Huniades was deprived of all his offices and all his estates. The
+document is still to be seen in the Hungarian State Archives, in which
+the king, led astray by the jealousies that prevailed among his
+councillors, represents every virtue of the hero as a crime, and
+condemns him to exile.</p>
+
+<p>Fortunately Czillei himself soon fell into disfavor; the Germans
+themselves overthrew him; and the king, now better informed, replaced
+Huniades in the post of Captain-General of the Kingdom.</p>
+
+<p>Huniades, who had been living meanwhile retired in one of his castles,
+now complied with the king's wish without difficulty or hesitation,
+and again assumed the highest military command. Instead of seeking how
+to revenge himself after the manner of ordinary men, he only thought
+of the great enemy of his country, the Turk. And indeed, as it was,
+threatening clouds hung over the horizon in the southeast.</p>
+
+<p>A new sultan had come to the throne, Mohammed II., one of the greatest
+sovereigns of the house of Othman. He began his reign with the
+occupation of Constantinople (1453), and thus destroyed the last
+refuge of the Byzantine Empire. At the news of this event all Europe
+burst into a chorus of lamentation. The whole importance of the
+Eastern Question at once presented itself before the nations of
+Christendom. It was at once understood that the new conqueror would
+not remain idle within the crumbling walls of Constantinople. And
+indeed in no long time was published the proud <span class="italic">mot d'ordre</span> "As there
+is but one God in heaven, so there shall be but one master upon
+earth."</p>
+
+<p>Huniades looked toward Constantinople with heavy heart. He foresaw the
+outburst of the storm which would in the first place fall upon his own
+country, threatening it with utter ruin. Huniades, so it seemed, was
+again left alone in the defence of Christendom.</p>
+
+<p>The approaching danger was delayed for a few years, but in 1456
+Mohammed, having finally established himself in Constantinople, set
+out with the intention of striking a fatal blow against Hungary. On
+the borders of that country, on the bank of the Danube, on what was,
+properly speaking Servian territory, stood the fortress of Belgrade.
+When the danger from the Turks became imminent, the kings of Hungary
+purchased the place from the despots of Servia, giving them in
+exchange several extensive estates in Hungary, and had at great
+expense turned it into a vast fortress, at that time supposed to be
+impregnable. <span class="pagenum"><a id="page145" name="page145"></a>(p. 145)</span> Mohammed determined to take the place, and to
+this end made the most extensive preparations. He led to the walls of
+Belgrade an army of not less than 150,000 men. The approach of this
+immense host so terrified the young king that he left Hungary and took
+refuge in Vienna along with his uncle and counsellor, Czillei.</p>
+
+<p>Huniades alone remained at his post, resolute like a lion attacked.
+The energy of the old leader&mdash;he was now sixty-eight years old&mdash;was
+only steeled by the greatness of the danger; his forethought and his
+mental resources were but increased. As he saw that it would be
+impossible to do anything with a small army, he sent his friend, John
+Capistran, an Italian Franciscan, a man animated by a burning zeal
+akin to his own, to preach a crusade against the enemies of
+Christendom through the towns and villages of the Great Hungarian
+Plain. This the friar did to such effect that in a few weeks he had
+collected 60,000 men, ready to fight in defence of the Cross. This
+army of Crusaders&mdash;the last in the history of the nations&mdash;had for its
+gathering cry the bells of the churches, for its arms, scythes and
+axes, Christ for its leader, and John Huniades and John Capistran for
+his lieutenants.</p>
+
+<p>The two greatest leaders in war of that day contended for the
+possession of Belgrade. The same army now surrounded that fortress
+which a few years before had stormed Constantinople reputed
+impregnable. The same hero defended it who had so often in the course
+of a single decennium defeated the Turkish foe in an offensive war,
+who now, regardless of danger, with a small but faithful band of
+followers, was prepared to do all that courage, resolution, and
+prudence might effect.</p>
+
+<p>Many hundred large cannon began to break down the stone ramparts; many
+hundred boats forming a river flotilla covered the Danube, so as to
+cut off all communication between the fortress and Hungary. During
+this time Huniades' son Ladislaus, and his brother-in-law Michael
+Szilágyi, were in command in the fortress. Huniades' first daring plan
+was to force his way through the blockading flotilla, and enter
+Belgrade before the eyes of the whole Turkish army, taking with him
+his own soldiers and Capistran's crusaders. The plan completely
+succeeded. With his own flotilla of boats he broke through that of the
+Turks and made his entrance into the fortress in triumph. After this
+the struggle was continued with equal resolution and ability on both
+sides; such advantage as the Christians derived from the protection
+afforded by the fortifications being fully compensated by the enormous
+superiority in numbers both of men and cannon on the part of the
+Turks. Without example in the history of the storming of fortresses
+was the stratagem practised by Huniades when he permitted the picked
+troops of the enemy, the janissaries, to penetrate within the
+fortification and there destroyed them in the place they thought they
+had taken. Ten thousand janissaries had already swarmed into the town
+and were preparing to attack the bridges and gates of the citadel,
+when Huniades ordered fagots soaked in pitch and sulphur and other
+combustibles to be flung from the ramparts into the midst of the
+crowded ranks of the janissaries. The fire seized on their loose
+garments, and in <span class="pagenum"><a id="page146" name="page146"></a>(p. 146)</span> a short time the whole body was a sea of
+fire. Every one sought to fly. Then it was that Huniades sallied out
+with his picked band, while Capistran with a tall cross in his hand
+and the cry of "Jesus" on his lips followed with his crowd of
+fanatics, the cannon of the fortress played upon the Turkish camp, the
+Sultan himself was wounded and swept along by the stream of fugitives.
+Forty thousand Turks were left dead upon the field, four thousand were
+taken prisoners and three thousand cannon were captured.</p>
+
+<p>According to the opinion of Huniades himself the Turks had never
+suffered such a severe defeat. Its value as far as the Hungarians were
+concerned was heightened by the fact that the ambitious Sultan was
+personally humiliated. There was now great joy in Europe. At the news
+of the brilliant victory <span class="italic">Te deum</span> was sung in all the more important
+cities throughout Europe, and the Pope wished to compliment Huniades
+with a crown.</p>
+
+<p>Alas! a crown of another character awaited him&mdash;that of his Redeemer,
+in whose name he lived, fought, and fell. The exhalations from the
+vast number of unburied or imperfectly buried bodies, festering in the
+heat of summer, gave rise to an epidemic in the Christian camp, and to
+this the great leader fell a victim. Huniades died August 11, 1456, in
+the sixty-eighth year of his age. He died amid the intoxication of his
+greatest victory, idolized by his followers, having once more
+preserved his country from imminent ruin. Could he have desired a more
+glorious death?</p>
+
+<p>He went to his last rest with the consciousness that he had fulfilled
+his mission, having designed great things and having accomplished
+them.</p>
+
+<p>And the result of his lifelong efforts survived him. His great enemy
+the Turk for half a century after his death could only harass the
+frontier of his native land; and his country, a few years after his
+death placed on the royal throne his son Matthias.<a href="#toc"><span class="small">[Back to Contents]</span></a></p>
+
+<a id="sig004" name="sig004"></a>
+<div class="p2 right">
+<img src="images/sig004.jpg" width="200" height="50" alt="Author signature." title="">
+</div>
+
+<a id="img058" name="img058"></a>
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/img058.jpg" width="400" height="497" alt="" title="">
+<p>Huniades at Belgrade.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<h3>WARWICK, THE KING-MAKER<br>
+(1420-1471)</h3>
+
+
+<a id="img059" name="img059"></a>
+<div class="floatright">
+<img src="images/img059.jpg" width="200" height="313" alt="Warwick." title="">
+</div>
+
+<p>Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, called the king-maker, eldest son of
+Richard, Earl of Salisbury and Alice Montacute, was born November 22,
+1428. The history of this mighty peer is that of the whole of the
+contest between the two houses of York and Lancaster. The house of
+Neville had been built up by a series of wealthy marriages, and
+Richard made no exception to the rule. While yet a boy he was married
+to Anne, daughter of the Earl of Warwick, and through her, after the
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page147" name="page147"></a>(p. 147)</span> death of her brother and niece, he took his place at the
+age of twenty-one among the chief earls of the English realm. By this
+time the English rule in France had broken down, bringing the reigning
+house of Lancaster into great unpopularity, and throwing a
+correspondingly greater influence into the hands of the leader of the
+opposition, Richard Plantagenet, Duke of York. He was brother-in-law
+to the Earl of Salisbury, and so attached to his party the powerful
+influence of the Nevilles.</p>
+
+<p>The Duke of York at first made no claim to the throne, demanding only
+that he should have his place in the councils of the king, and even
+when swords were drawn the Yorkists swore their allegiance to the
+king, Henry VI., while fighting against his advisers. Of these
+favorites of the king, the chief was the Earl of Somerset, whom many
+suspected of a design to establish himself as the successor to the
+throne. It was between these two factions of York and Somerset, that
+the white and red roses were first employed as distinguishing badges.</p>
+
+<div class="poem20">
+<p class="noindent"><span class="italic" style="margin-left: -5.5em;">Plantagenet.</span> Let him, that is a true born gentleman,<br>
+               And stands upon the honor of his birth,<br>
+               If he suppose that I have pleaded truth,<br>
+               From off this brier pluck a white rose with me.</p>
+
+<p class="noindent"><span class="italic" style="margin-left: -4em;">Somerset.</span> Let him that is no coward, nor no flatterer,<br>
+             But dare maintain the party of the truth,<br>
+             Pluck a red rose from off this thorn with me.</p>
+
+<p class="noindent"><span class="italic" style="margin-left: -4em;">Warwick.</span> I love no colors; and, without all color<br>
+            Of base insinuating flattery,<br>
+            I pluck this white rose with Plantagenet.</p>
+<p class="left30">&mdash;<span class="italic">Shakespeare: I Henry VI.</span></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>The Wars of the Roses began with the battle of St. Albans (1455), in
+which Somerset was killed. The victory was gained to the Yorkists
+chiefly by the help of Warwick. By a sudden sally into the streets of
+the town he routed the royal forces, and gained for himself that
+character of daring and courage which he maintained to the end. He was
+rewarded with the post of Captain of Calais, which he retained
+throughout the changes of the parties. In this position he was
+practically independent, and scoured the Channel at his pleasure.</p>
+
+<p>In 1458 he attacked some vessels which were under a treaty of peace
+with England, and being summoned to London to answer before the king,
+was violently attacked by the followers of Somerset and barely escaped
+with his life. In 1459 the civil war finally broke out. In the first
+campaign the Yorkists failed, owing to their inactivity. The leaders
+fled to the coast of Devon, where they hired five men to carry them to
+Bristol. As soon as they left land, Warwick, <span class="pagenum"><a id="page148" name="page148"></a>(p. 148)</span> stripped to the
+doublet, took the helm, and steered straight for Calais, where he
+arrived in a few days. When Somerset, son of the earl slain at St.
+Albans, came to claim the keys of the stronghold, he had the
+mortification to find Warwick there before him.</p>
+
+<p>Warwick was next in England on June 27, 1460, when he landed at
+Sandwich with fifteen hundred men. In four days he was before the
+walls of London, having marched in that time a distance of seventy
+miles. According to some accounts, the common people so flocked to his
+standard, that in those four days his force had swelled to forty
+thousand. The city threw open its gates and joyfully welcomed him,
+while Henry fled to the north. In the beginning of July the battle of
+Northampton was fought. The Yorkists gained a complete victory, and
+took Henry prisoner. Before the fight Warwick issued the command to
+spare the common people but to slay the nobles, judging the quarrel to
+be more especially theirs; and it is significant that throughout the
+Wars of the Roses the proportion of leaders slain far exceeds that in
+any other war.</p>
+
+<p>Up to this time Warwick's conception of the war was merely the natural
+struggle of the one party with the other for power, using as their
+means the rude arguments of the time. He still maintained his loyalty
+to King Henry, and when the Duke of York, after the battle of
+Northampton, presented his claim to the throne Warwick opposed him,
+and prevailed upon him to waive it till the death of the king. But
+naturally such a state of things could not long endure. Warwick, while
+respecting the person of the king, was fighting against his orders,
+and so, while professing loyalty, was actually a rebel.</p>
+
+<p>Soon the struggle blazed out anew, and in December, 1460, the Duke of
+York was defeated and slain at Wakefield. Early in 1461 Warwick was
+defeated in the second battle of St. Albans, but the royalists not
+taking advantage of their victory, Edward, son of the Duke of York,
+accompanied by Warwick, marched on London, and was proclaimed king as
+Edward IV. Soon after the Yorkists gained a complete victory at Towton
+(1461), the bloodiest field of the whole war. Nearly all the
+Lancastrian chiefs were slain, Henry's cause was lost, and ere long he
+was captured by Warwick and lodged in the Tower. The credit of the
+crowning victory of Towton does not rest with Warwick alone, for he
+had the help of young Edward, perhaps as great a military genius as
+himself. Little is known of the details of the fighting, but we are
+told that wherever the Earl of Warwick was, there the fight raged
+hottest.</p>
+
+<a id="img060" name="img060"></a>
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/img060.jpg" width="600" height="392" alt="" title="">
+<p>York and Lancaster&mdash;The White and Red Roses.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>The earl was now the greatest man in England. His extended connections
+and immense possessions were joined to the most distinguished personal
+qualities, intrepidity, decision, and all the military virtues,
+eloquence and general talent, an affability and frankness of bearing
+that captivated equally all classes, a boundless hospitality and
+magnificence that enthroned him in the hearts of the commons. Wherever
+he resided, we are told he kept open house, and the number of people
+daily fed at his various mansions, when he was at the height of his
+prosperity, exceeded thirty thousand. "When he came to London," says
+Stowe in his "Chronicle," "he held such an house that six oxen were
+eaten at a breakfast, and <span class="pagenum"><a id="page149" name="page149"></a>(p. 149)</span> every tavern was full of his
+meat; for who that had any acquaintance in that house he should have
+had as much sodden and roast as he might carry upon a long dagger."</p>
+
+<p>But now, when Warwick might have expected to reap the reward of his
+labors, new troubles arose. King Edward began to feel jealous of his
+power, his unique influence, and vast popularity. It is said that
+Warwick was sent to France to arrange a treaty with Louis, and to
+propose a marriage between Edward and his wife's sister. On his return
+he found the king married to Elizabeth Woodville, daughter of Lord
+Rivers, and an alliance made with the enemy of Louis, the Duke of
+Burgundy. Edward now lavished all his kindness on the Woodvilles,
+intending to use them as a counterfoil to the Nevilles, and for this
+purpose he deprived the Nevilles of some of their posts. By a series
+of deliberate insults Warwick was driven farther and farther away from
+the king, till he was forced into open revolt.</p>
+
+<p>In July, 1468, his forces defeated the royalists with great slaughter
+at Edgecote, and a few days later he made Edward his prisoner. The
+Lancastrians at once rose again in favor of the aged King Henry; but
+Warwick, maintaining his allegiance to his royal captive, suppressed
+all revolts with an iron hand, and, having received renewed pledges of
+good faith, soon after restored Edward to his throne.</p>
+
+<p>Two years later the king declared Warwick a rebel; and he was
+compelled to flee to France. Louis XI. used his influence in bringing
+Warwick and Margaret, wife of King Henry, together, and they agreed to
+forget their differences in the face of a common enemy. Clarence, the
+new king's brother, had previously married Warwick's daughter, and
+joined his party.</p>
+
+<p>Once more the king-maker landed in England and advanced on London.
+Edward fled to Holland and Henry was again placed upon the throne. But
+ere long Edward secretly landed in England, raised an army, not
+without difficulty, and met Warwick at Barnet. The faithless Clarence
+had in the meantime deserted Warwick and joined his brother's army.
+The army of Warwick was composed of strangely different elements&mdash;old
+enemies fighting side by side as friends. The battle was lost mainly
+through a grievous blunder. In the heavy mist which hung around, the
+party of the Earl of Oxford were mistaken for the enemy and were
+attacked by their own friends. The cry of treachery was raised, and
+the whole army broke into utter rout. Warwick resisted till all hope
+was gone. He had fought on foot throughout the battle, and his heavy
+armor did not suffer him to escape. He was surrounded and slain,
+fighting manfully, April 14, 1471.</p>
+
+<p>Thus fell on the field of battle Richard, Earl of Warwick, in the
+prime of his life, after sixteen years of deep intrigue and desperate
+fighting. Had he been born in a more peaceful time he would have been
+a great statesman, and have done much for the good of his country, for
+his talents were more political than military, and almost alone among
+the self-seeking rivals of the time, he shows something of the
+instincts of patriotism. Cast as he was in the troublous times of the
+Wars of the Roses, he stands out in character and genius above all
+those of his generation. He was the best beloved man in the kingdom.
+When he was <span class="pagenum"><a id="page150" name="page150"></a>(p. 150)</span> away from England, says Hall, the common people
+thought the sun had gone out of the heavens. His personality cast a
+charm over even Louis XI. The heart of the Yorkist party, he was true
+to its cause till he found that his service was no longer desired. He
+was not the man to sit quietly under insult, and when it came from
+King Edward, who owed all that he was to him, it was more than he
+could endure. Yet it was only when he found his every project
+thwarted, and especially those that were dearest to his heart, that he
+was driven into open warfare with the king. His treason is capable of
+much justification: he cannot be accused of forsaking his master. He
+had in him the making of a great king, and how great and useful might
+have been his career had fortune placed him over the councils of a
+Charles VII. or a Henry VI.! As it is, he stands in worth and
+character far above any of his time, a figure that commands not merely
+admiration but affection.<a href="#toc"><span class="small">[Back to Contents]</span></a></p>
+
+
+<h3>HERNANDO CORTES<a id="footnotetag17" name="footnotetag17"></a><a href="#footnote17" title="Go to footnote 17"><span class="small">[17]</span></a><br>
+By <span class="smcap">H. Rider Haggard</span><br>
+(1485-1547)</h3>
+
+<a id="img061" name="img061"></a>
+<div class="floatleft">
+<img src="images/img061.jpg" width="250" height="272" alt="Hernando Cortes." title="">
+</div>
+
+<p>Among the millions that from age to age are born into this world there
+arise in every generation one or two pre-eminent men and women who are
+objects of the wonder and the envy, the admiration and the hatred of
+their contemporaries, and whose names, after their deaths, stand out
+as landmarks by which we shape a course across the dark and doubtful
+seas of history. Cæsar and Cromwell, Mahomet and Napoleon, to mention
+no others, were such men, and such a man was Hernando Cortes, the
+conqueror of Mexico. They have been called, and well called, Men of
+Destiny, since it is impossible in studying their lives and tracing
+their vast influence upon human affairs, to avoid the conclusion that
+they were raised up and endowed with great talents and opportunities
+in order that by their agency the ends of Providence might be shaped.</p>
+
+<p>Hernando Cortes was born of a good family, at the town of Medellin in
+Spain, in 1485, and educated at the college of Salamanca. At the age
+of nineteen having proved himself unfit to follow the profession of
+the law to which his parents had destined him, he emigrated to the
+Indian Island of Hispaniola where he <span class="pagenum"><a id="page151" name="page151"></a>(p. 151)</span> was appointed notary of
+the town of Acua, and in 1511 assisted in the conquest of Cuba under
+the command of Velasquez. Here after many curious adventures and
+vacillations he married a lady named Catalina Xuarez, and being
+created <span class="italic">alcade</span> of the settlement of St. Jago realized a moderate
+fortune by the practice of agriculture and mining. In 1518 there came
+to Cuba news of the discoveries made by Grijalva in Yucatan on the
+coast of the country now known as Mexico, and the Governor, Velasquez,
+determined to despatch a force to explore this new land. After much
+intriguing and in consideration of the payment of a considerable sum
+of money toward the expenses, Cortes whose ambitious spirit had
+already wearied of a life of peace and indolence, contrived to
+persuade Velasquez to appoint him Captain General of the expedition.
+Before the ships sailed, however, Velasquez repented him of the
+appointment, for in Cortes he recognized a servant who might well
+become his master, and made arrangements to invest some other hidalgo
+with the leadership of the expedition. Now it was that Cortes showed
+what manner of man he was. Many in his position on learning the wishes
+of their superior would have tamely yielded up their posts. Not so
+Cortes, who on the first hint that he was to be deprived of his
+authority, collected his men, and all unprepared as was his squadron,
+weighed anchor while the governor slept. At the town of Trinidad he
+landed to collect stores and volunteers, treating with contempt the
+orders that reached the commander of the town from Velasquez to depose
+him from his command and detain his person. Here it was that Cortes
+made his famous address to the volunteers, wherein he shows that
+although his instructions were to undertake a trading voyage and
+acquire information of the country, his real aim was far different,
+since he promises unimagined wealth to those who are true to him, and
+by a curious flash of prescience prophesies immortal renown to their
+enterprise. On February 10, 1519, he sailed to the conquest of Mexico,
+accompanied by some six hundred and fifty white men and a few Indians.
+Cortes was in his thirty-fourth year when he entered on this the
+greatest of his enterprises. He was pale faced and dark eyed, somewhat
+slender in build, but of an iron strength and constitution. In temper
+he was patient though liable to fits of passion, and in disposition
+frank, merry, and generous, but most determined. He dressed richly and
+was constant in his religious exercises. Such was the great captain, a
+man suited by circumstances and nature to the desperate undertaking
+which it was his destiny to bring to a successful issue.</p>
+
+<p>Having touched at the island of Cozumel on the coast of Yucatan,
+Cortes sailed up the Tabasco River and began his work of conquest by
+attacking a great army of Indians in the neighborhood of that town.
+For a while the natives held their own notwithstanding their dismay at
+the sound and effects of fire-arms; but the appearance of the
+horsemen, whom they took to be strange animals, caused them to flee in
+terror leaving many hundreds of their warriors dead upon the field. On
+the morrow they made their submission, bringing women and other gifts
+as a peace-offering. Among these women was one named Malinche, or by
+the Spaniards Marina, whom Cortes took as a mistress and who is
+described <span class="pagenum"><a id="page152" name="page152"></a>(p. 152)</span> by Camargo as having been "beautiful as a
+goddess." It was this lady, born to be the evil genius of her country,
+who instructed her lord and master in the habits, traditions, and
+history of the Aztecs, and of the land of Anahuac which they inhabited
+together with other tribes. She was Cortes' interpreter and
+confidante, whose business it was to gain information from the
+Indians, which he could use, and whose wit and devotion more than once
+saved him from disaster. So invaluable were her services to Cortes
+that it is doubtful if without her aid he would have succeeded in
+conquering Mexico, and it was from her that he acquired the name of
+Malinche by which he was known among the Indian races. Her reward,
+when she had served his purpose and he was weary of her, was to be
+given by him in marriage to another man.</p>
+
+<p>Leaving Tabasco Cortes sailed along the coast till he reached the spot
+where the city of Vera Cruz now stands, whence he opened
+communications with Montezuma, Emperor of the Aztecs. In due course
+envoys arrived from the monarch laden with magnificent gifts, who
+delivered a civil but none the less peremptory message requesting the
+Spaniards to return whence they came. By this time Cortes had learned
+that although the Aztecs were the greatest power in Anahuac, their
+supremacy was not acknowledged by all the tribes; notably was it
+contested by the Tlascalans and their allies the Otomies. The
+Tlascalans were republicans having their home in the mountains almost
+midway between Mexico and the coast. For fifty years or more they had
+been at bitter enmity with the Aztecs, who again and again had vainly
+attempted to subjugate them. To this people Cortes despatched an
+embassy asking for a safe passage through their territories on his
+road to Mexico, for his political insight told him that they might
+prove valuable allies. No answer was returned by the Tlascalans who
+when the Spaniards advanced attacked them furiously, only to be
+defeated by Cortes in several engagements, till, discouraged and
+believing the white men to be invincible, they sued for peace, and
+from enemies were converted into firm allies. From Tlascala the
+Spaniards proceeded to the neighboring city of Cholula where Marina
+discovered a plot to put them to death. For this offence Cortes took a
+terrible vengeance. Falling on the inhabitants of the city when they
+were unprepared he butchered vast numbers of them, giving their houses
+and temples to sack. Having thus established the terror of his name he
+marched on to Mexico accompanied by a body of about five thousand
+Tlascalan allies. Meanwhile the counsels of the Aztecs were darkened
+with doubt. The Spaniards might easily have been kept out of Mexico by
+force, but the arm of Montezuma was paralyzed by superstitious fears.
+Prophecy foretold that the children of the white god Quetzalcoatl
+should rise from the sea to possess the land, and in the Spaniards he
+beheld the fate fulfilled. To him they were not mortal but divine and
+when diplomacy had failed to keep them at a distance he feared to lift
+a sword against them. Thus it came about that without a blow being
+struck to drive them back Cortes and his little band of adventurers
+found themselves established at the heart of the strange and rich
+civilization that they had discovered, not as enemies, but as the
+guests of the king. They were not slow to avail themselves of the
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page153" name="page153"></a>(p. 153)</span> opportunities of their position in order to advance their
+ends which were, first plunder, secondly conquest, and, thirdly the
+extension of the authority of Spain and of the Christian religion. In
+pursuit of these ends upon some slight pretext Cortes seized the
+person of Montezuma, the great emperor, and imprisoned him in one of
+his own palaces whence, however, he was still allowed to direct the
+government and issue his commands.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile reports of Cortes' doings and success had reached Velasquez
+the Governor of Cuba, who determined to despatch an expedition to
+conquer or capture him as a traitor. Accordingly eighteen vessels
+containing nearly a thousand white men were placed under the command
+of Panfilo de Narvaez, and reached Vera Cruz in April, 1520. When
+Cortes heard of the arrival of this armament and its object which was
+to punish him for his supposed rebellion, he marched from Mexico,
+leaving the little garrison and the person of Montezuma in charge of
+his comrade Alvarado. Although he had with him but two hundred and
+fifty men in all, he did not hesitate to hazard a night attack upon
+Narvaez who was strongly encamped at Cempoalla. It was completely
+successful; Narvaez was wounded, captured, and sent in chains to Vera
+Cruz, while the army that had come to conquer him swore allegiance to
+Cortes as Captain-General and marched with him back to Mexico. Here
+great events were in progress. Moved to the deed by fear or by the
+discovery of some real or fancied plot against the Spaniards,
+Alvarado, the deputy of Cortes, had fallen upon the unarmed Aztec
+nobles while they were celebrating a feast in the courtyard of the
+great temple, and butchered some six hundred of them with every
+circumstance of brutality. Then at last the patient Aztecs rose and
+until the womanly Montezuma begged them to desist, attacked the palace
+where the Spaniards were quartered, with fury. At the intervention of
+their monarch the attack was turned to a blockade and Cortes arrived
+from his victory over Narvaez to find his companions in desperate
+straits. Reinforced by fresh soldiers the Spaniards carried on the war
+with activity. They assaulted and captured the great pyramid, putting
+to the sword the priests of human sacrifice and burning the
+blood-stained temples of the gods. Also they made several sallies into
+the city and repelled onslaughts upon the palace. It was in the course
+of one of these attacks that Montezuma received the wound that brought
+about his death. Mounting the central tower of the palace he implored
+his subjects to cease from attacking his friends the Spaniards,
+whereupon in their fury they overwhelmed him with a shower of darts
+and stones, inflicting injuries from which in course of a few days he
+died. Surrounded as he was on every side by thousands of fierce
+enemies determined to stretch every Spaniard upon the stone of
+sacrifice, Cortes saw the impossibility of maintaining the unequal
+fight and determined on retreat. Accordingly on the night of July 1,
+1520, the Spaniards and their native allies sallied from the fortress,
+and laden with gold from Montezuma's treasury, took the route of
+Tlacopan. Soon their escape was detected and instantly a fierce attack
+was made upon them from every quarter. The bridge that they had
+brought with them to span the gaps in the causeway became fixed in the
+mud, so that their only path across the canals lay over <span class="pagenum"><a id="page154" name="page154"></a>(p. 154)</span> the
+bodies of their comrades. At length they won through, but out of their
+small force there had perished, or been taken captive as victims for
+sacrifice, some four hundred and fifty Spaniards and four thousand
+native allies. It is said that when the shattered army reached a place
+of safety outside the city, Cortes sat down beneath an ancient
+cedar-tree which is still shown to travellers, and wept. Yet within a
+week fortune smiled on him again, for he and the few comrades who
+remained to him fought and won the battle of Otompan against thousands
+of the Indians, Cortes killing their chief Cihuaca with his own hand.</p>
+
+<p>The Aztecs rejoiced at the departure of the Spaniards from their
+capital Mexico or Tenoctitlan, but their joy was premature. First the
+small-pox, introduced into the country by the white men, fell upon the
+city and swept away thousands, among them Cuitlahua, the emperor who
+succeeded to Montezuma, and then came the news that the indomitable
+Cortes was marching upon them with a great army of native allies and
+large reinforcements of Spaniards from overseas. Guatimozin, the new
+emperor, made every possible preparation for defence and the siege
+began, a siege as cruel as that of Jerusalem and perhaps more bloody.
+First Cortes laid waste the cities about Mexico, then he attacked the
+Queen of the Valley herself&mdash;attacked it again and again till at
+length it was a ruin and tens of thousands of its inhabitants were
+dead by starvation, by pestilence, and by the sword. On either side
+the combat was one of desperate courage, but notwithstanding
+occasional successes on the part of the Aztecs, such as that when they
+captured and sacrificed some sixty Spaniards, from the first the
+genius of Cortes made the end inevitable. When nothing remained of
+Tenoctitlan and its people save some blackened walls and a few
+thousand wretches reduced to skeletons by hunger, the capture of
+Guatimozin while attempting to escape in a canoe, made an end of the
+fighting in August, 1521. Cortes promised honorable treatment to the
+fallen king, but before long he put him and some of his companions to
+the torture in order to force the discovery of hidden treasure. This
+brutality proved ineffectual, but taken together with the subsequent
+hanging of Guatimozin upon an unproved charge of conspiracy against
+the Spaniards, it constitutes the blackest blot upon the fame of
+Cortes. It is fair to add, however, that he was not by nature a harsh
+man, and that he was driven to the commission of these cruelties by
+the clamor of his soldiers who were infuriated at finding so little
+treasure in the devastated city. With the capture of Mexico the
+fortunes of Cortes culminated. He was appointed Captain-General of the
+land of New Spain in October, 1522, and the next few years he occupied
+in rebuilding the city, and in bringing the surrounding territories
+under the rule of Spain. Wearying of these comparatively peaceful
+occupations, in 1524 he undertook an expedition of discovery and
+conquest to Honduras, upon which he was absent until May, 1526, when
+he returned after enduring much hardship and suffering, to find that
+enemies had been plotting against him in Mexico. This discovery and
+the desire of clearing himself with the emperor, caused him to
+determine to visit Spain where he arrived in May, 1528. Charles the
+Fifth received him with much favor creating him Marquis of the Valley
+of Oaxaca and military commander of New <span class="pagenum"><a id="page155" name="page155"></a>(p. 155)</span> Spain, and endowing
+him with vast estates in the lands that he had conquered. In 1530 he
+returned to Mexico accompanied by his second wife, a lady of good
+family whom he had married while in Spain. Very soon he entered on a
+course of expeditions of discovery and maritime adventures which
+involved him in great pecuniary losses and a quarrel with the viceroy
+Mendoza; and in 1540 he sailed a second time for Spain to obtain
+redress from the emperor. But Cortes was no longer the power that he
+had been; his youth was gone and his work was done, therefore his
+prayers and remonstrances were treated with cold neglect. For nearly
+four years he pressed his suit and in February, 1544, we find him
+writing a letter to the emperor begging him to direct the Council of
+the Indies to come to a decision upon it. This letter in which
+pathetically enough, he speaks of himself as "old and poor and
+indebted," produced no result and once again, worn out and bitterly
+disappointed, its writer turned his face toward the land that he had
+won for Spain. But he was never to behold it more. At Seville he was
+seized with dysentery and passed away December 2, 1547, being then in
+his sixty-third year. His body was taken to Mexico for burial.</p>
+
+<p>In Hernando Cortes died one of the great men of the world, though how
+much of his greatness was due to chance is difficult to determine. It
+is certain that again and again fortune stood his friend in a manner
+that was little short of miraculous, as in the instances of the
+unexpected victory over Narvaez and of the death of the general at the
+battle of Otampan. But if chance or fate gave him opportunities it was
+Cortes' own genius and unconquerable will that enabled him to avail
+himself of them. These qualities were the most striking
+characteristics of the man. He showed them when having determined on
+the conquest of Mexico he burnt his ships that there might be no
+escape from the decision; when he hit upon the expedient of using
+rival tribes to accomplish the overthrow of the Aztecs; when, driven
+from Mexico with the loss of the half of his army he returned to the
+attack; and in many another time and place. He had great good
+qualities, he was a true friend, and according to his lights, an
+honorable and even a religious man, and his faults were those of his
+time and training, or at worst such as are not inconsistent with a
+generous nature. His cruelties may be urged against him, but no
+Spaniard of his age thought it cruel to slaughter enemies of the Faith
+who practised human sacrifice; also having once embarked upon his
+colossal undertaking he and his companions must either slay or be
+slain. There is evidence to show that personally he was not a cruel
+man. Thus when called upon to sign the death-warrant of a soldier he
+lamented that he had ever been taught to write, and there are passages
+in his will which show his conscience to have been troubled by
+questions as to the right to enslave human beings. With a handful of
+followers Cortes overthrew the fabric of the Aztec Empire, broke the
+spirit of its people so effectually that to this day it has not
+recovered itself, and swept away its religion. Whether for good or
+evil this was a stupendous achievement and one that must make his name
+immortal.<a href="#toc"><span class="small">[Back to Contents]</span></a></p>
+
+<a id="sig005" name="sig005"></a>
+<div class="p2 right">
+<img src="images/sig005.jpg" width="200" height="53" alt="Author signature." title="">
+</div>
+
+
+<h3><span class="pagenum"><a id="page156" name="page156"></a>(p. 156)</span> FRANCISCO PIZARRO<a id="footnotetag18" name="footnotetag18"></a><a href="#footnote18" title="Go to footnote 18"><span class="small">[18]</span></a><br>
+By <span class="smcap">J. T. Trowbridge</span><br>
+(1471-1541)</h3>
+
+<a id="img062" name="img062"></a>
+<div class="floatleft">
+<img src="images/img062.jpg" width="250" height="304" alt="Francisco Pizarro." title="">
+</div>
+
+<p>The old Spanish province of Estremadura, though distant from the sea,
+shut in by mountain-chains, furnished numerous adventurers for the
+expeditions of discovery, conquest, and plunder that followed Columbus
+to the New World; two of whom achieved astonishing renown. One was the
+conqueror of Mexico; the other, the conqueror of Peru.</p>
+
+<p>Of the early life of Francisco Pizarro not much is known with
+certainty. He was born about the year 1471; but even that date is a
+matter of conjecture, so little care was had of the coming into the
+world of the actor who was to play so stirring a part in it. The
+family from which he inherited his name must have been one of some
+note in its day. His kinsman and great rival in fame, Cortes, was a
+Pizarro on his mother's side.</p>
+
+<p>Francisco was the second of four brothers, all of whom were men of
+ability and valor, and all of whom fought in the Peruvian wars. Their
+father was Colonel Gonzalo Pizarro, concerning whom little is known,
+save that he was a soldier of Spain, and that he served creditably in
+Italy and Navarre.</p>
+
+<p>The mother of Francisco was Francisca Gonzales, a woman of low
+condition, from whom he seems to have received hardly more parental
+care than from his father, by whom he was utterly neglected. The story
+told by Gomara, and quoted by Prescott, that, abandoned as a
+foundling, he was nursed by a sow, though as mythical as that of
+Romulus and the wolf, which probably suggested it, indicates
+nevertheless the degradation of his childhood. He grew up in ignorance
+and vagabondage. Of what the world calls education he had not the
+first rudiments; to the day of his death he could neither read nor
+write. The only occupation in which we hear of his being engaged in
+his boyhood, was that of a swineherd.</p>
+
+<p>At what age he escaped from this mean employment is not known. The
+claim set up for him by his descendants, that he served with his
+father in Italy, hardly deserves consideration. He was about
+twenty-one years old when all Spain began to ring with the discoveries
+of Columbus and his companions beyond the western <span class="pagenum"><a id="page157" name="page157"></a>(p. 157)</span> seas.
+Pizarro left his employer and his pigs, ran away to Seville, and
+embarked in one of the early expeditions that sailed from that port to
+the New World.</p>
+
+<p>Of his years of apprenticeship in the stern warfare of the times we
+have no trustworthy details, until at Hispaniola, in 1510, he joined,
+as second in command, Ojeda's disastrous expedition to Uraba, on the
+main coast. Sanguinary fights with swarms of savages armed with
+poisoned arrows, marked the fortunes of the adventurers. And when
+Ojeda returned to the islands for assistance, which he did not bring,
+Pizarro remained in command of the starving colony, amid hardships and
+horrors from which only his resolute daring brought off a remnant
+alive.</p>
+
+<p>He was with Balboa in his famous march across the mountains to the
+Pacific, which no European eyes had hitherto beheld; and shared with
+him the joy of that discovery, which Keats wrongly ascribes to Cortes,
+when the hardy band, first beholding the unknown ocean outspread
+before them&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="poem30">
+  "Looked at each other with a wild surmise,<br>
+  Silent, upon a peak in Darien."</p>
+
+<p>He remained with Balboa on the isthmus until the death of that valiant
+commander, when he united his fortunes with those of the governor,
+Pedrarias, and headed various expeditions along the Pacific coast and
+to the islands beyond, in quest of pearls and gold. He was occupied in
+this way, or in cultivating with the aid of Indian slaves a malarious
+tract of land he had acquired near Panama, when a new career invited
+him.</p>
+
+<p>Rumors of a rich empire far to the south, where gold was as common
+with the natives as iron was with the Spaniards, had long inflamed the
+imaginations of the colonists; then news came of the prodigious
+exploits of Cortes in Mexico. Pizarro burned to emulate his kinsman.
+Having formed a partnership with Diego de Almagro, a soldier of
+experience, and Hernando de Luque, a priest supplied with worldly
+means, he secured an old vessel that had been designed by Balboa for a
+similar expedition, refitted it with Luque's money, and with a hundred
+adventurers sailed from the port of Panama in November, 1524; leaving
+Almagro to follow in a smaller vessel.</p>
+
+<p>Pizarro was then more than fifty years old, but still in possession of
+all his masterful qualities. And he had need of all, amid the perils
+of sea and land, the tempests, swamps, battles, sickness, and famine,
+which rendered his first voyage down the coast a deplorable failure.
+Almagro met with no better success. Both returned to the isthmus
+buffeted, baffled, humiliated, but too stout of heart to be cast down.
+They brought back but little gold, but with that little they had
+gathered evidence of the indubitable existence of the opulent empire
+they sought.</p>
+
+<p>The governor was hugely dissatisfied with the results of the
+expedition, of which he had expected to share some of the profits; and
+his consent to another could hardly have been obtained, but for the
+persuasive eloquence of the priest, backed by the offer of a sum in
+ready cash. For a thousand pesos de oro Pedrarias gave his consent,
+and signed away his right to the spoils of an empire.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page158" name="page158"></a>(p. 158)</span> A new contract was entered into by the three partners, and an
+elaborate and solemn document was drawn up, in sonorous Spanish, which
+is curious reading at this day. Father Luque signed it with his own
+hand, and the two soldiers by the hands of witnesses, since neither
+Pizarro nor Almagro could write his name. About one hundred and sixty
+men were enlisted, and again the two chiefs set sail from Panama in
+separate ships.</p>
+
+<p>They made their first landing at the mouth of the Rio San Juan, where
+by the plunder of a small village, they secured some ornaments of gold
+and a few prisoners. Almagro hastened to carry the treasure back to
+Panama, as a bait to other followers, while Pizarro and his pilot Ruiz
+remained to explore the interior and the coast. Ruiz sailed as far
+south as the equator, and after a memorable voyage of some weeks,
+returned to his chief with a cheering report. He had fallen in with
+what seemed at first a ship at sea, where no European ship had ever
+been, and found it to be an Indian <span class="italic">balsa</span>, a huge raft across which
+was stretched a sail of cotton-cloth. It had a rudder and a keel. On
+board were men and women clad in a curious sort of woollen stuff,
+skilfully woven, and beautifully dyed and embroidered. They were
+making a voyage of traffic along the coast. They wore ornaments of
+gold, and had with them, besides vessels and mirrors of burnished
+silver, balances for weighing the precious metals, which by signs they
+assured Ruiz were common in their country.</p>
+
+<p>Pizarro in the meanwhile vainly endeavored to pass the yawning gorges,
+bottomless swamps, and dense dark forests that lay between him and the
+snow-covered peaks of the Cordilleras. Entangled vines and trees of a
+luxuriant tropical vegetation, huge boas coiling in the branches,
+ready to spring upon their prey, screaming parrots, chattering and
+grimacing monkeys, mosquitoes, alligators, prowling savages,&mdash;amid
+such scenes as these he and his band had once more confronted famine
+and death in the absence of Almagro and Ruiz.</p>
+
+<p>Ruiz came opportunely with his good news, and Almagro returned with
+eighty recruits. The expedition re-embarked and proceeded southward.
+The aspect of the coast became more inviting as they advanced. There
+were signs of an extensive civilization; fields cultivated with maize,
+cacao, and potatoes; many villages; and at length a town of more than
+two thousand houses, laid out with streets, and thronging with
+inhabitants. Among the Spaniards wild enthusiasm prevailed. But it was
+quickly checked by the hostile demonstrations with which they were
+met, when they attempted to gain a foothold on the soil of the Incas.
+It was useless to make front against such numbers as opposed them.
+Divided counsels and a violent quarrel between the two captains
+ensued, and the expedition sailed back northward. Once more Almagro
+returned to Panama for more men, while Pizarro and his followers
+remained to starve on the barren isle of Gallo.</p>
+
+<a id="img063" name="img063"></a>
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/img063.jpg" width="600" height="340" alt="" title="">
+<p>Pizarro exhorting his band at Gallo.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Instead of permitting any more of his people to depart on what seemed
+so foolhardy and fatal a business, Rios, the new governor of Panama,
+despatched to the island two vessels, under a commander named Tafur,
+with orders to bring away every Spaniard left alive there. Then
+occurred the famous episode that decided <span class="pagenum"><a id="page159" name="page159"></a>(p. 159)</span> so dramatically
+the fortunes of Pizarro and the fate of Peru. Tafur had brought
+supplies of provisions to the famished and emaciated, but now jubilant
+soldiers; and all except Pizarro appeared eager to abandon their
+barren adventure and return in the ships. Pizarro alone refused
+obedience to the governor's agent. Drawing a line on the sand with his
+sword, he cried: "Comrades! on that side lie hunger and hardship; on
+this side, ease and safety. There lies Peru with its riches; here,
+Panama and poverty. Choose, every man for himself, like brave
+Castilians. For me, I go to the south."</p>
+
+<p>He stepped across the line. There was a minute of dismay and silence.
+Then Ruiz followed, and after him twelve others went over, an act of
+as desperate and resolute courage as ever inspired a forlorn band.</p>
+
+<p>They saw the ships containing their comrades sail away without them;
+Ruiz also returned, pledged to bring assistance to his companions left
+behind; while Pizarro remained with his twelve Spaniards, and three or
+four Indian captives whom he had made friends, on the desolate island.</p>
+
+<p>Not even a ship was left them, and they had to build a raft to convey
+them to a less inhospitable island, that of Gorgona, farther north.
+There they lived seven months, subsisting on small game brought down
+by their cross-bows, and shell-fish found on the shores, until Ruiz,
+after weary delays, returned in a small vessel, bringing supplies, but
+not the expected reinforcement of troops.</p>
+
+<p>In this frail craft the dauntless rovers put to sea. Pizarro pursued
+his explorations southward, beyond the point where he afterward
+founded Truxillo, named after his native town; visited several
+Peruvian ports, and learned much of the country he proposed to
+subjugate. He then returned to Panama, which he reached after an
+absence of eighteen months. The reappearance of the little group of
+wanderers bringing news of their discoveries, was the cause of great
+astonishment in the colony, and of joyful enthusiasm among their
+friends, who had long given them up for dead.</p>
+
+<p>The governor, however, resenting Pizarro's disobedience of his orders
+at the isle of Gallo, refused to sanction another expedition; and
+Pizarro resolved upon the bold course of returning to Spain and
+appealing to the Crown. This was in the spring of 1528.</p>
+
+<p>Arriving at Seville, he was immediately thrown into prison for a debt
+incurred at Darien. But he was released by order of the emperor,
+Charles V., who received him graciously at Toledo, heard the wondrous
+story of his wanderings, which Pizarro knew how to tell, and saw the
+vessels of gold and silver, the fine fabrics, the llamas, and other
+evidences of the Peruvian civilization, which were displayed before
+his royal eyes. He was also, no doubt influenced by the recent
+achievements of Cortes, who was then at court, and who perhaps spoke
+for his kinsman a friendly word.</p>
+
+<p>The monarch turned over Pizarro and his enterprise, with his
+recommendation, to the Council of the Indies. Yet a year passed, and
+nothing was done. Pizarro was fast sinking into obscurity, and he
+would likewise have sunk into despair, if he had been less stout of
+heart. Then, as Queen Isabella had aided <span class="pagenum"><a id="page160" name="page160"></a>(p. 160)</span> Columbus, so the
+queen of Charles V. came to the assistance of Pizarro, and caused to
+be executed the extraordinary instrument which bestowed on him, with
+the rights of discovery and conquest, the titles of Governor and
+Captain-General of New Castile, as Peru was then called, and a salary
+of 725,000 maravedis, to be drawn however from the conquered country.
+Almagro and Luque were also provided for, but in a more modest way,
+which proved the beginning of a long, bitter, and deadly feud between
+Almagro and his chief. Nor did the instrument fail to make the usual
+provision for the conversion to Christianity of the nations to be
+subjugated and plundered.</p>
+
+<p>In mustering his recruits Pizarro had the satisfaction of revisiting
+his native town of Truxillo, where he had lived in degradation, and to
+which he now returned a renowned discoverer and soldier, and a titled
+magnate. There he found his three brothers, the Pizarros, all poor and
+proud and eager for adventure; and a fourth brother, on his mother's
+side. With these and other followers, hardly exceeding one hundred, he
+sailed from Seville, in January, 1530; and a year later, namely, in
+January, 1531, after a solemn consecration of his enterprise in the
+cathedral of Panama, he put forth from that port with one hundred and
+eighty men and twenty-seven horses, on his fourth, last, and finally
+successful expedition, to overthrow a populous empire.</p>
+
+<p>That empire lay in the bosom and on both sides of the mighty ranges of
+the Andes, occupying thirty-seven degrees of the coast south of the
+equator, and extending eastward far over the valleys of the Amazon and
+its numerous tributaries. It was under the rule of the Incas, a
+parental despotism, which spread an iron network of laws over millions
+of subjects of different races and languages. Its mountain slopes,
+table-lands, sea-coasts, and plains comprised every variety of climate
+and almost every diversity of physical features. Its capital was
+Cuzco, where dwelt the adored Incas; there also was the famous Temple
+of the Sun, with its gorgeous decorations of gold and gems. Canals,
+aqueducts, complete systems of irrigation for the rainless regions;
+magnificent mountain roads, built to endure for centuries; fine
+textile fabrics, utensils of clay and copper, vessels and ornaments of
+silver and gold; bridges, fortresses, and edifices of a rude but massy
+and symmetrical architecture, well adapted to the climate and the
+needs of the inhabitants; armies, magistrates, courts of
+justice,&mdash;such were some of the tokens of a wide semi-civilized
+prosperity, which less than two hundred Spanish adventurers were
+proceeding ruthlessly to destroy.</p>
+
+<p>With incredible difficulties still to overcome, Pizarro had in his
+favor a circumstance of immense importance. The country was at that
+time distracted by civil war. Two brothers, Huascar and Atahualpa,
+sons of the last Inca, were engaged in a fratricidal strife for the
+imperial power, and their armies were turned against each other.</p>
+
+<p>Pizarro resolved to strike his first blow at Tumbez; but was
+constrained by baffling winds to put into the Bay St. Matthew. There
+he landed his force, and soon fell upon a peaceful village, putting
+the inhabitants to flight and pillaging their dwellings. A
+considerable treasure thus obtained was sent back to Panama, <span class="pagenum"><a id="page161" name="page161"></a>(p. 161)</span>
+where it had the desired effect of rallying new recruits for the
+conquest. A most welcome reinforcement was headed by Hernando de Soto,
+afterwards famed as the discoverer of the Mississippi, who sailed to
+join Pizarro with one hundred men and a number of horses.</p>
+
+<p>De Soto arrived in time to aid in extricating him from a harassing
+situation on the island of Puna. Pizarro had been so indiscreet as to
+get into a quarrel with the inhabitants, whom he had defeated in
+battle and slaughtered in large numbers, and from whose incessant
+attacks he was suffering great annoyance.</p>
+
+<p>He now felt himself strong enough to invade the interior. The story of
+that invasion is one of the most astonishing in history. It has been
+many times told, but nowhere else so effectively as in the full,
+flowing, and lucid narrative of Prescott. It can be but briefly
+sketched here.</p>
+
+<p>Having established near the sea-coast a settlement which he named San
+Miguel, to serve as a key of communication between him and his ships,
+Pizarro set out boldly on his march, having with him but one hundred
+and seventy-seven men, nine of whom showing signs of sinking courage,
+were soon sent back to the settlement. By pretences of a friendly
+mission to their Inca, he won his way among such of the surprised
+inhabitants as were not frightened from their villages by his
+approach; and penetrated the wild defiles of the Cordilleras, behind
+which, near Caxamalca&mdash;now Caxamarca&mdash;the Inca Atahualpa, with an
+immense army lay encamped. He was fresh from a great and decisive
+victory over his elder brother, and was resting, and enjoying the warm
+baths near the city,&mdash;the "baths of the Incas," as they are called to
+this day.</p>
+
+<p>Instead of disputing the passage of the strangers in the mountain
+fortresses, and hurling destruction upon them from a thousand crags,
+the monarch sent to exchange gifts with them, and assurances of
+friendship; and awaited them in his camp, the pavilions of which
+whitened the wide hillsides for miles.</p>
+
+<p>On a dull afternoon in November, 1532, Pizarro entered Caxamalca, and
+undismayed by the innumerable host that confronted him, went to pay a
+visit of courtesy to the Inca. He was gloomily received by Atahualpa,
+who chanced to be observing a fast, but who promised to return his
+visit on the following day.</p>
+
+<p>Pizarro felt that a crisis in his audacious business was close at
+hand; and endured the deepest anxiety until late the next afternoon,
+that of November 16th, when, after long delays and apparent waverings
+on the part of the Inca, which severely tried the patience of the
+Spaniards lying in wait with their heavy armor on, he at length
+appeared, borne in a gorgeous palanquin, and accompanied by an immense
+and magnificent procession.</p>
+
+<p>With ferocious satisfaction Pizarro beheld his august victim advancing
+to his doom. The procession entered the grand plaza of Caxamalca, on
+three sides of which, under cover of low buildings opening into it,
+spearmen and horsemen stood to their arms. Not a Spaniard was to be
+seen, until a priest with interpreters advanced to meet the monarch,
+and to confuse him with an astonishing harangue concerning the true
+faith and the supremacy of Spain. Pizarro saw that <span class="pagenum"><a id="page162" name="page162"></a>(p. 162)</span> his
+opportunity had come. He waved his scarf; from the fortress sounded a
+signal-gun; and with fierce battle-cries the Spaniards rushed from all
+sides upon the Peruvians.</p>
+
+<p>The shouts, the blaze and smoke of fire-arms, the terrible
+detonations, the sight of plunging horses and their riders, with the
+sudden fury of the onset, paralyzed with terror the multitude of
+unarmed attendants, who fell the victims of a horrible massacre. The
+Inca was seized and borne off a captive. And yet the pursuit and
+slaughter did not cease until thousands of the panic-stricken and
+defenceless Peruvians had been slain, and more prisoners had been
+taken than were required to provide every Spaniard with a retinue of
+servants.</p>
+
+<p>Pizarro treated his captive with the consideration due to a great but
+fallen potentate; he granted him ample apartments, and the society of
+his favorite wives and nobles. He at the same time endeavored to save
+his soul, by enforcing upon his mind the truths of the Catholic faith.
+Atahualpa accepted with dignity the fortunes of war; and as a ransom
+offered to fill a large room in which he one day was, with vessels of
+gold, as high as he could reach. Pizarro agreed to the proposal, and
+by the Inca's orders messengers were despatched to Cuzco and other
+important cities of the empire, for the required booty.</p>
+
+<p>This arrangement reached the ears of Huascar, then a prisoner in the
+hands of his younger brother's adherents; he thereupon sent word to
+the Spaniards that he would pay a much larger reward if they would
+espouse his cause and set him free. Unfortunately for both him and
+Pizarro, the offer reached the ears of Atahualpa, who secretly caused
+Huascar to be put to death.</p>
+
+<p>The golden treasure soon began to come in, borne on the backs of
+Indians,&mdash;goblets, vases, salvers, massy plates and tiles from the
+walls of palaces and temples, and images of plants and animals. Some
+of these objects weighed individually several pounds; and the art
+displayed in their manufacture was often admirable. But they were all
+ruthlessly melted down into ingots, to be divided among the
+conquerors. Gold to the value of more than seventeen million dollars,
+measured by our modern standard, was thus secured, besides a vast
+amount of silver. Certainly no prince in all the world's history had
+ever paid such a ransom.</p>
+
+<p>The treasure was a long while coming in; and Pizarro had ample time to
+consider how he should keep his part of the contract. He could never
+have had any intention of giving the Inca his liberty; nor was he deep
+enough in his craft to perceive the immense advantage he might gain by
+holding him a captive. He resolved upon his death. The unhappy prince
+was tried by a military court of his enemies, charged with the
+usurpation of the empire, with the murder of his brother, and with
+attempts to incite an insurrection against the Spaniards. He was
+condemned, received as a convert to the Catholic faith, baptized, and
+executed. This event occurred August 29, 1533.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile Almagro had arrived with a much-needed reinforcement; and
+adventurers of all sorts, from Spain and her western colonies, soon
+began to flock to the newly opened land of gold. Pizarro marched upon
+Cuzco, which he took <span class="pagenum"><a id="page163" name="page163"></a>(p. 163)</span> after a fierce battle, and pillaged of
+what gold had not been already removed for Atahualpa's ransom. He
+caused Manco Capae, a young prince of the royal blood, to be
+proclaimed Inca; drove him by his oppressions to revolt; and was
+besieged by him in Cuzco. The Peruvians assaulted the city in
+countless numbers, set fire to the houses with flaming arrows and
+red-hot stones, and might have starved or destroyed the Spaniards, had
+not they themselves been forced by starvation to raise the siege.</p>
+
+<p>In June, 1538, the old feud between Pizarro and Almagro culminated in
+a battle between their two factions, and Almagro was defeated and
+killed. Pizarro now ruled the country with red-handed despotism. The
+benignant laws of the Incas were replaced by the rapine of the
+conquerors. Not only gold and silver, but the land itself and its
+former peaceful occupants, were apportioned among them; and slavery
+and concubinage prevailed in their most revolting forms. The rumors of
+these wrongs reached Spain, and a commissioner was sent out to inquire
+into them; but before his arrival Pizarro died by violence in his own
+Ciudad de los Reyes, "City of the Kings,"&mdash;now Lima,&mdash;which he had
+founded in 1535.</p>
+
+<p>His death was worthy of his life. Attacked in his own house by the
+avengers of Almagro, he fought furiously, and cut down three of his
+assailants; but fell, overcome by numbers, and pierced by as many
+blades as met in the body of Cæsar. His last word was "Jesu!" and his
+last act, to stoop and kiss the symbol of a cross which he traced with
+his finger on the bloody floor.</p>
+
+<p>Thus lived and died one of the most extraordinary men of his time,
+indeed of all times. It is hard to sum up briefly the good and evil of
+such a character. He was said to be of a pleasing and dignified
+presence, simple and self-reliant. We know that he was possessed of
+indomitable courage, endurance, and persistency of purpose;
+avaricious, perfidious, devout; and conspicuous for his cruelty even
+in a cruel age. Greedy as he was of gold, he spent little of it upon
+himself, and seemed to desire it chiefly for the power and honor it
+would command. He founded settlements and cities, and was lavish in
+his expenditures upon public works; no doubt ambitious of building up
+a new empire on the ruins of the one he had destroyed. But he
+exhibited none of the great qualities of a born ruler and lawgiver; in
+the coarseness of his moral nature, a swineherd to the last. He never
+married, but by a daughter of Atahualpa he had a daughter, who
+survived him. In his native town of Truxillo her descendants are still
+to be found, with the mingled blood of the conqueror and of the last
+of the Incas in their veins.<a href="#toc"><span class="small">[Back to Contents]</span></a></p>
+
+<a id="sig006" name="sig006"></a>
+<div class="p2 right">
+<img src="images/sig006.jpg" width="200" height="62" alt="Author signature." title="">
+</div>
+
+<h3><span class="pagenum"><a id="page164" name="page164"></a>(p. 164)</span> GASPARD DE COLIGNI<br>
+By <span class="smcap">Professor Creasy</span><br>
+(1517-1572)</h3>
+
+<a id="img064" name="img064"></a>
+<div class="floatleft">
+<img src="images/img064.jpg" width="350" height="192" alt="Burning of a house." title="">
+</div>
+
+<p>There was a time, when the doctrines of the Reformation seemed
+destined to achieve far ampler conquests over the dominion of Papal
+Rome than they have ultimately realized. France, in particular, at the
+commencement of the second half of the sixteenth century, appeared to
+be almost won over to Protestantism. The Huguenots (as the followers
+of the Reformed Faith in that country were termed) formed the most
+influential, if not the largest part of the population of many of the
+principal provinces, and of nearly all the provincial capitals; they
+were numerous in Paris; nor was there a single district or town in
+France in which they had not obtained converts and power, before the
+war of 1562.</p>
+
+<p>The history of the Reformation in France is a mournful one; but it
+presents names to our notice which every good heart must delight to
+honor; and foremost of these is the name of Gaspard de Coligni, the
+statesman, the soldier, and the saint; who long was the stoutest
+champion of the Protestant cause, and finally became the most glorious
+of its many martyrs. Unlike his comrade Condé, he was proof against
+the vicious blandishments of the enemy's court, as well as against the
+terrors of their camps. Familiar with defeat, he never learned
+despair. Hallam has well compared his indomitable energy to the</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+  "Atrocem animam Catonis;"</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">but the Huguenot chief, while fully equal to the ancient Roman in
+probity, in self-reliance, and in unflinching fortitude, was far
+superior to him in comprehensiveness of judgment and in fertility of
+resources; and moreover, the affectionate gentleness which marked the
+private life of Coligni, contrasts favorably with the stoic coarseness
+by which the character of Cato was deformed.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page165" name="page165"></a>(p. 165)</span> The father of Coligni was head of an ancient and noble house,
+and was the seigneur of Châtillon-sur-Lion. At his death, in 1522, he
+left three sons, then of tender years, all of whom became eminent in
+French history, and all of whom embraced the Protestant doctrines,
+though trained up in the Romish Church. The elder brother, who is
+known as the Cardinal de Châtillon, was raised to that high
+ecclesiastical dignity by Clement VII., in 1533. Chiefly through the
+influence which his younger brother exerted over him, he became a
+convert to the tenets of the Reformers in his middle age, and took
+part in the early scenes of the civil wars. After the reverse which
+his party sustained at the battle of St. Denys, he fled to England,
+where he died in 1571. The younger brother, Dandelot, was the first of
+the three who became a Protestant. He was a skilful and gallant
+soldier, and signalized himself repeatedly by his enterprise, his
+inexhaustible resources, and undaunted spirit, as a commander of the
+Huguenot forces from the first outbreak of the religious wars until
+his death soon after the battle of Jarnac, in 1569. Gaspard, the great
+Coligni, or the Admiral (as he is often termed, from having held the
+titular office of Admiral of France), was the middle one of the three
+brothers, and was born at Châtillon-sur-Lion, February 16, 1517. He
+served with distinction in the later wars of Francis I. against Spain;
+and with his brother Dandelot received knighthood on the field of
+battle at Cerisoles. He was afterward raised to the important post of
+colonel-general of the French infantry, and in 1552 was nominated by
+Henry II. Admiral of France. He was taken prisoner at St. Quentin by
+the Spaniards, and underwent a long captivity in Spain before he
+regained his liberty by payment of a heavy ransom.</p>
+
+<p>During the long hours of solitude and compulsory inaction which he
+passed in his Spanish prison, he meditated deeply and earnestly on
+religious subjects; and after his return to France, the conversation
+of his brother Dandelot, who had already joined the Huguenots,
+confirmed the bias to the Protestant doctrines, which his own studies
+and deliberations had created. Coligni now resigned all his
+appointments and preferments, except the nominal rank of admiral, and
+retired to his estates, where he passed his time in fervent devotion,
+and in the enjoyment of the calm happiness of domestic life. But the
+cry of suffering which rose from his fellow-Protestants, against whom
+the pernicious influence of the Princes of Lorraine in the French
+court kindled the fires of persecution throughout France, soon drew
+him from his blameless and cherished repose. He at first sought to
+provide for them a refuge from oppression, by founding colonies of
+French Protestants in America; but his projects proved unsuccessful;
+and as the tyranny of the violent party among the French Catholics
+grew more and more alarming, Coligni deemed that both honor and
+conscience required him to stand openly forward in behalf of his
+co-religionists.</p>
+
+<p>No class of men ever were more long-suffering, or showed more
+unwillingness to rise in arms against their domestic tyrants, than the
+much-calumniated Huguenots of France. When we read the hideous edicts
+that were promulgated against them, and which were not mere empty
+threats, but were carried into execution <span class="pagenum"><a id="page166" name="page166"></a>(p. 166)</span> throughout the land
+with unrelenting and strenuous ferocity, we feel that if ever the
+right of self-defence can make an appeal to arms justifiable, it was
+so in their instance. Extermination or apostasy formed the only choice
+that their rulers offered them. Mackintosh, in his "History of the
+English Revolution of 1688," has truly termed the question of when
+subjects are justified in making war on their sovereign, "a tremendous
+problem." But the same admirable writer has bequeathed to us a full
+and luminous code of the rules and principles of immutable morality,
+by which this awful issue must be tried, and no one who is familiar
+with these principles can hesitate in pronouncing that the war on the
+part of the French Huguenots was lawful and laudable before God and
+man.</p>
+
+<p>Coligni is peculiarly free from the heavy imputation, which
+insurrectionary leaders incur, however great their provocation, who
+introduce the appeal of battle in civil controversy, and, to use the
+emphatic language of Milton, "let loose the sword of intestine war,
+soaking the land in her own gore," before every other possible mode of
+obtaining protection from further enormous wrong has been attempted,
+and attempted in vain. He was wholly unconnected with the enterprise
+(known in French history as the conspiracy of Amboise) by which some
+of the Protestant chiefs designed to withdraw the young king, Francis
+II., forcibly from the influence of the Guises, and which may be
+considered the first overt act of insurrection. Not that Condé is to
+be condemned for that effort, but the Admiral's exceeding loyalty is
+proved by his having kept aloof from it. Coligni continued to seek
+security for his co-religionists by peaceable means, for two years
+after that unsuccessful enterprise, from the savage reprisals of the
+Court upon its authors. He seemed at one time to be successful in his
+blameless exertions; and in the Assembly of Notables, held in January,
+1562, an edict was issued, called the "Edict of Pacification," giving
+a partial toleration of the Protestant creed, and suspending all penal
+proceedings on the ground of religion.</p>
+
+<p>This was all that Coligni strove for. He said at the time to some of
+his adherents: "If we have our religion, what do we want more?" But
+those who had made this concession were treacherous as they were
+cruel, and the fair promise which France seemed to have acquired of
+tranquillity was destined to be soon destroyed.</p>
+
+<p>Two powerful parties were arrayed against the Huguenots, one of which
+consisted of their avowed and implacable enemies. This was headed by
+the Guises, with whom the Constable Montmorenci, and the Maréchal St.
+André had been induced to enter into league. Less fanatically violent,
+but far more formidable, through its false show of moderation and
+favor, was the party of the Queen-mother, Catherine de Medici.
+Catherine dreaded the power of the house of Guise; and was often glad
+to avail herself of the Protestant interest as a counterpoise against
+them. But though the jealousy which animated herself and her sons
+against the Princes of Lorraine was great, their hatred of the
+Huguenots was greater; and their occasional simulation of friendship
+enabled them to wreak it more malignantly and more completely.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page167" name="page167"></a>(p. 167)</span> They had sided with Coligni and Condé and the other
+Protestant chiefs in enacting the Edict of Pacification, and had
+thereby given a check to the power of the Duke of Guise and his
+confederates. But when their temporary purpose was served, the wise
+provisions of that edict were set at naught; the Protestants were
+again exposed to outrage and slaughter at the hands of their foes, nor
+could any redress be obtained from the royal tribunals. At length
+occurred the massacre of Vassi, where the armed followers of the Duke
+of Guise attacked a defenceless body of Protestants, while engaged in
+the services of their church, and slaughtered several hundreds of them
+under the eye of Guise, if not by his orders. Reeking from this
+carnage, the bands of the Lorraines entered Paris, where they were
+enthusiastically received by the fanatic populace, which was devoted
+to the Catholic cause.</p>
+
+<p>Condé now left the capital, and summoned the Protestant nobility and
+gentry to rally round him in defence of their lives and their creed.
+Coligni long delayed joining him, and evinced a hesitation and a
+reluctance to embark in civil war, which emphatically attest the
+goodness while they in no degree detract from the greatness of his
+character. His wife, who naturally thought that anxiety on her account
+aided in restraining him, exhorted him in words of more than Roman
+magnanimity to arm in defence of the thousand destined victims, who
+looked up to him for guidance and protection. Coligni urged on her and
+on the friends who thronged round him, the fearful risks of the
+enterprise, and his earnest desire to wait in patience for better
+times, and rest upon the public faith rather than justify persecution
+by having recourse to violence. Unconvinced and undaunted, the heroine
+renewed her entreaties to the lingering hero. She told him that such
+prudence was not wisdom toward God. D'Aubigné professes to report this
+remarkable conversation from the lips of those who were present; and
+he states that she proceeded to urge on him these words:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"God has bestowed on you the genius of a great captain&mdash;will you
+refuse the use of it to his children? You have confessed to the
+justice of their cause&mdash;is not the knightly sword you bear pledged to
+the defence of the oppressed? Sir, my heart bleeds for our slaughtered
+brethren&mdash;and their blood cries out to God and Heaven against you as
+the murderer of those whom you might have saved."</p>
+
+<p>"Since," replied the Admiral, "the reasons which I have this evening
+alleged against an ineffectual resistance have made so little
+impression upon your mind, lay your hand upon your heart and answer me
+this question, Could you, without murmuring against Providence and the
+husband to whom Heaven has united you, receive the news of a general
+defeat? Are you prepared to endure the opprobrium of your enemies&mdash;the
+reproaches of your friends&mdash;the treachery of partisans&mdash;the curses of
+the people&mdash;confiscation, flight, exile&mdash;the insolence of the English,
+the quarrels of the Germans&mdash;shame, nakedness, hunger&mdash;and, what is
+worse, to suffer all this in your children? Are you prepared to see
+your husband branded as a rebel and dragged to a scaffold; while your
+children, disgraced and ruined, are begging their bread at the hands
+of their enemies? I give you eight days to reflect upon it, and when
+you shall be well prepared for such reverses, <span class="pagenum"><a id="page168" name="page168"></a>(p. 168)</span> I will be
+ready to set forward, and perish with you and our mutual friends."</p>
+
+<p>"The eight days are already expired!" she cried. "Go, sir, where your
+duty calls you. Heaven will not give the victory to our enemies. In
+the name of God, I call upon you to resist no longer, but to save our
+brethren, or die in the attempt."</p>
+
+<p>On the next morning Coligni was on horseback, with all his retainers
+round him; and with a heavy heart but a clear conscience, he rode on
+his way to join Condé at Meaux, which was now, in the early spring of
+1562, the head-quarters of the insurgent Huguenots.</p>
+
+<p>The high rank of the Prince of Condé, as well as his brilliant
+abilities and chivalrous courage, caused him to be acknowledged as
+chief of the Protestant party; but Coligni was looked on by friends
+and foes as the main pillar of their cause; and it was he that gave
+organization to the volunteers who flocked around himself and the
+prince, first at Meaux, and afterward in greater numbers at Orleans,
+when toward the end of March they succeeded in occupying that
+important city, and making it a centre of operations for the Huguenot
+confederacy. Like Cromwell in after times, Coligni relied on the
+religious enthusiasm as well as the natural bravery of his troops. He
+exercised them by preaching and prayer as well as by drilling and
+man&oelig;uvring. He inspired them with his own spirit of austere
+devotion to their cause; and the Huguenot army was in its first
+campaigns as conspicuous for good order and morality as for valor;
+though by degrees it became tainted with a tendency to marauding and
+to brutal violence.</p>
+
+<p>The Roman Catholic party now sought support from Philip II. of Spain,
+from the Duke of Savoy, the emperor and other foreign princes of their
+creed, and the Huguenots, to the deep regret of Coligni, were
+compelled to strengthen themselves by similar negotiations. The
+English queen, Elizabeth, promised succors in men and money, on
+condition of Havre (which city, like most of the other strong places
+in Normandy, was devoted to the Protestant cause) being placed in her
+power as a security for repayment. The German Lutheran princes
+permitted a large auxiliary force of lansquenets and heavy-armed
+cavalry to be raised among their subjects in behalf of the French
+Protestants; and Dandelot was despatched into Germany to place himself
+at their head, and lead them across the Rhine; a difficult operation,
+which he accomplished with great skill, and joined his brothers and
+Condé at Pluviers, near Orleans, late in the year, and at a crisis
+when the fortunes of the Protestant party appeared reduced to a very
+low ebb, as in the interval which had elapsed since the commencement
+of the war, though there had been no engagement between the main
+armies, the Royalists had gained numerous advantages, and had captured
+many towns, both in the South and in Normandy, which had originally
+declared for the insurgents.</p>
+
+<p>Coligni and Condé with their own troops and their German allies now
+(December, 1562) marched upon Paris; but finding it hopeless to
+attempt the storm or siege of the capital, they led their army toward
+Normandy, desiring to form a junction with the English troops at
+Havre. The Royal forces, commanded <span class="pagenum"><a id="page169" name="page169"></a>(p. 169)</span> nominally by the
+Constable Montmorenci and the Maréchal de St. André, but in which the
+Duke of Guise was also present, marched for some days on their flank,
+till the two armies came into collision on December 19th at Dreux,
+where the first battle of the civil wars was fought. In this action,
+after many vicissitudes of fortune, the Duke of Guise secured the
+victory for the Roman Catholics, and Condé was taken prisoner. Coligni
+led the remains of the Protestant army back to Orleans; whither the
+Duke of Guise, at the head of a largely recruited army, flushed by
+their recent victory, soon advanced, with the intention of crushing
+insurrection and Protestantism, by the capture of their stronghold.</p>
+
+<p>Coligni's situation now seemed desperate. His German mercenaries in
+arrear of pay, threatened to desert him; the funds which he had been
+able to collect for the conduct of the war were exhausted; and he was
+utterly unable to encounter the numerous and well-appointed forces of
+Guise. In this emergency he formed the bold plan of leaving his
+brother, Dandelot, with the bulk of the infantry to defend Orleans,
+while he himself led the cavalry and a few companies of foot again to
+Normandy, and again attempted to avail himself of the English supplies
+of money and troops. In spite of the mutinous murmurings of the German
+reisters, in spite of the attempts which the Roman Catholic commanders
+made to intercept him, Coligni executed his daring scheme. Havre was
+reached. The English subsidies were secured, and the rich and powerful
+city of Caen voluntarily placed itself in Coligni's power. Meanwhile
+Orleans had been well defended by Dandelot; and the great chief of the
+Roman Catholics, the Duke of Guise, had died by the hand of an
+assassin. Some attempts were made to implicate Coligni in the guilt of
+this murder, but the Admiral indignantly denied the charge; nor is
+there any ground for believing him to have had the least cognizance of
+Poltrot's crime.</p>
+
+<p>The death of Guise made a temporary pacification easy; and the edict
+of Amboise, on March 19, 1563, by which a narrow and restricted
+permission for the exercise of the Protestant religion was allowed,
+closed the first war.</p>
+
+<p>This peace on the part of the Royalists was only a hollow and a
+treacherous truce. Fresh communications with Philip II. were opened;
+and an interview took place in 1564 at Bayonne, between Catherine, her
+son Charles IX., and the Duke of Alva. There is every reason to
+believe that at that meeting the destruction of the Protestants by
+craft or by force was concerted. The treaty of Amboise was now openly
+and repeatedly violated by the fanatic party of the French Roman
+Catholics; and the Huguenots were again driven to take up arms in
+self-defence. Condé and Coligni advanced upon Paris, and fought on
+November 10, 1567, the sanguinary battle of St. Denys against the
+Royalist forces. The Huguenots were beaten, but Coligni rallied them,
+and marching toward the Meuse, effected a junction with fresh bands of
+German auxiliaries. The war now raged with redoubled horror in every
+district of France. Alarmed at the strength of the Huguenot army,
+Catherine tried and successfully exerted her powers of persuasion and
+deceit over Condé, and a second faithless peace, called the treaty of
+Longjumeau, was concluded; but when the Huguenot <span class="pagenum"><a id="page170" name="page170"></a>(p. 170)</span> forces were
+disbanded, and their German auxiliaries dismissed, the Royalists
+renewed the war.</p>
+
+<p>In 1569, the indiscreet spirit of Condé brought the Protestants into
+action at Jarnac, under heavy disadvantages, against the flower of the
+Catholic army. Condé was killed in the battle, and a large part of his
+forces routed with heavy slaughter; but Coligni was again the Ajax of
+the cause, covered the retreat, and reorganized the fugitives for
+fresh exertions. But the waves of calamity were not yet spent. The
+hostile armies met again at Moncontour, and the Protestants sustained
+the most complete and murderous overthrow that had been dealt to them
+throughout the war. Coligni's brother, the gallant Dandelot, was
+mortally wounded in this disastrous field; many of his stanchest
+friends had fallen; many abandoned him; and he found himself a
+fugitive, with only a few bands of mutineers around him, the wreck of
+the gallant army that he had lately led.</p>
+
+<p>But it was in this depth of gloom that the true heroic lustre of his
+soul was seen. Fearless himself of what man could do unto him, he
+calmed the panic of his followers, and inspired them with his own
+energy. He who has innate strength to stand amid the storm, will soon
+find others flock around and fortify him while they seek support for
+themselves. When it was known that Coligni's banner still was flying,
+the Protestants of France and Eastern Germany, who at first had been
+stunned by the report of Moncontour, thronged to him as to a strong
+tower in the midst of trouble. While the Royalists were exulting at
+the fancied annihilation of their foe, they suddenly learned that
+Coligni was approaching the capital, at the head of the largest army
+that the Huguenots had yet sent into the field. Again the device of a
+treacherous pacification was attempted, and again it prevailed.
+Coligni was warned of the personal danger that he incurred by trusting
+the faith of a Medici and a Guise; but he replied that he would rather
+lay down his life, than see France continue the victim of the woes of
+civil war.</p>
+
+<p>The treaty of St. Germains was signed on August 8, 1570, and on August
+24, 1572, the Massacre of St. Bartholomew attested with what worse
+than Punic faith the crowned conspirators of the French Court had
+planned it. In the interval, the most detestable and elaborate
+hypocrisy was employed to lull the suspicions of the Huguenot chiefs,
+and to bring them defenceless into the power of their enemies. At
+last, in the summer of 1572, they were collected in Paris, under the
+pretence of being the honored guests of the French king, at the
+nuptials of his sister with Henry of Navarre. An attempt was made on
+the life of Coligni by an assassin, in which the Admiral was severely
+wounded. The king and his courtiers affected the utmost indignation at
+this crime, and the warmest sympathy with the suffering veteran. But
+in the early dawn of the day appointed for the most unchristian
+carnage that ever defiled the earth, a party of murderers, headed by
+the young Duke of Guise himself, broke open the doors of the house
+where Coligni lay, and Besme, one of the duke's domestics, entered
+with a drawn sword, into the room where the Admiral was sitting in an
+arm-chair.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page171" name="page171"></a>(p. 171)</span> "Young man," said he, undisturbed, "you ought to respect my
+gray hairs; but do as you please, you can only shorten my life a few
+days."</p>
+
+<p>Besme thrust him through in many places, and then threw his body,
+still breathing, out of the window into the court, where it fell at
+the feet of the Duke of Guise. The minions of the Louvre flocked
+around in hideous glee, to insult the lifeless form of him, before
+whom they had so long quailed and trembled. They gibbeted their own
+infamy in vainly seeking to dishonor the illustrious dead. His memory
+is at once the glory and the shame of France: and the very land of the
+St. Bartholomew is, to some extent, hallowed by having been the
+birthplace of Coligni, and the scene of his heroic career.</p>
+
+<p>I do not pause to describe the tardy homage which his countrymen
+afterward paid to the name and relics of the fallen great. These
+obsequies and panegyrics may be looked on as some small expiation for
+the national guilt of France, but Coligni needed them not.<a href="#toc"><span class="small">[Back to Contents]</span></a></p>
+
+
+<h3>HENRY IV. OF FRANCE<br>
+(1553-1610)</h3>
+
+<a id="img065" name="img065"></a>
+<div class="floatleft">
+<img src="images/img065.jpg" width="250" height="261" alt="Henry IV." title="">
+</div>
+
+<p>Henry IV., the most celebrated, the most beloved, and perhaps, in
+spite of his many faults, the best of the French monarchs, was born at
+Pau, the capital of Béarn, in 1553. His parents were Antoine de
+Bourbon, Duke of Vendôme, and in right of his wife, titular king of
+Navarre, and Jeanne d'Albert, the heiress of that kingdom. On the
+paternal side he traced his descent to Robert of Clermont, fifth son
+of Louis IX., and thus, on the failure of the elder branches, became
+heir to the crown of France. Educated by a Protestant mother in the
+Protestant faith, he was for many years the rallying point and leader
+of the Huguenots. In boyhood the prince of Béarn displayed sense and
+spirit above his years. Early inured to war, he was present and
+exhibited strong proofs of military talent at the battle of Jarnac,
+and that of Moncontour, both fought in 1569. In the same year he was
+declared chief of the Protestant League. The treaty of St. Germain,
+concluded in 1570, guaranteed to the Huguenots the civil rights for
+which they had been striving; and, in appearance, to cement the union
+of the two parties, a marriage was proposed between Henry, who, by the
+death of his mother, had just succeeded to the throne of Navarre, and
+Margaret <span class="pagenum"><a id="page172" name="page172"></a>(p. 172)</span> of Valois, sister of Charles IX. This match brought
+Condé, Coligni, and all the leaders of their party, to Paris. The
+ceremony took place August 17, 1572, and a week later came the
+massacre of St. Bartholomew. For three years afterward Henry, who to
+save his life had conformed to the established religion, was kept as a
+kind of state-prisoner. He escaped in 1576, and put himself at the
+head of the Huguenot party. In the war which ensued, with the sagacity
+and fiery courage of the high-born general, he showed the indifference
+to hardships of the meanest soldier. Content with the worst fare and
+meanest lodging, in future times the magnificent monarch of France
+could recollect when his wardrobe could not furnish him with a change
+of linen. He shared all fortunes with his followers, and was rewarded
+by their unbounded devotion.</p>
+
+<p>Upon the extinction of the house of Valois, by the assassination of
+Henry III. in 1589, Henry of Navarre became the rightful owner of the
+French throne. But his religion interfered with his claims. The League
+was strong in force against him: he had few friends, few fortresses,
+no money, and a small army. But his courage and activity made up for
+the scantiness of his resources. With five thousand men he withstood
+the Duc de Mayenne, who was pursuing him with twenty-five thousand,
+and gained the battle of Arques, in spite of the disparity. This
+extraordinary result may probably be ascribed in great measure to the
+contrast of personal character in the two generals. Mayenne was slow
+and indolent. Of Henry it was said, that he lost less time in bed than
+Mayenne lost at table; and that he wore out very little broad-cloth,
+but a great deal of boot-leather. A person was once extolling the
+skill and courage of Mayenne in Henry's presence. "You are right,"
+said Henry, "he is a great captain, but I have always five hours'
+start of him." Henry got up at four in the morning, and Mayenne about
+ten.</p>
+
+<p>The battle of Arques was fought in the year of his accession. In the
+following year, 1590, he gained a splendid victory at Ivri, over the
+Leaguers commanded by Mayenne, and a Spanish army superior in numbers.
+On this occasion he made that celebrated speech to his soldiers before
+the battle: "If you lose sight of your standards, rally round my white
+plume; you will always find it in the path of honor and glory." Nor is
+his exclamation to his victorious troops less worthy of record: "Spare
+the French!"</p>
+
+<p>Paris was soon blockaded, but the Parliament swore on the Gospels, in
+the presence of the Legate and the Spanish Ambassador, to refuse all
+proposals of accommodation. The siege was pushed to such extremities,
+and the famine became so cruel, that bread was made of human bones
+ground to powder. That Henry did not then master the capital, where
+two hundred thousand men were maddened with want, was owing to his own
+lenity. He declared that he had rather lose Paris, than gain
+possession of it by the death of so many persons. He gave a free
+passage through his lines to all who were not soldiers, and allowed
+his own troops to send in refreshments to their friends. By this
+paternal kindness he lost the fruit of his labors to himself; but he
+also prolonged the civil war, and the calamities of the kingdom at
+large.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page173" name="page173"></a>(p. 173)</span> The approach of the Duke of Parma with a Spanish army obliged
+Henry to raise the siege of Paris. It was not the policy of the
+Spanish court to render the Leaguers independent of its assistance,
+and the duke, satisfied with having relieved the metropolis, avoided
+an engagement, and returned to his government in the Low Countries,
+followed by Henry as far as the frontiers of Picardy. In 1591 Henry
+received succors from England and Germany, and laid siege to Rouen;
+but his prey was again snatched from him by the Duke of Parma. Again
+battle was offered and declined; and the retiring army passed the
+Seine in the night on a bridge of boats; a retreat the more glorious,
+as Henry believed it to be impossible. The duke once said of his
+adversary, that other generals made war like lions or wild boars; but
+that Henry hovered over it like an eagle.</p>
+
+<p>During the siege of Paris, some conferences had been held between the
+chiefs of the two parties, which ended in a kind of accommodation. The
+Catholics of the king's party began to complain of his perseverance in
+Calvinism; and some influential men who were of the latter persuasion,
+especially his confidential friend and minister Rosny, represented to
+him the necessity of a change. Even some of the reformed ministers
+softened the difficulty, by acknowledging salvation to be possible in
+the Roman Church. In 1593 the ceremony of abjuration was performed at
+St. Denis, in presence of a multitude of the Parisians. If, as we
+cannot but suppose, the monarch's conversion was owing to political
+motives, the apostacy must be answered for at a higher than any human
+tribunal; politically viewed, it was perhaps one of the most
+beneficial steps ever taken toward the pacification and renewal of
+prosperity of a great kingdom. In the same year he was crowned at
+Chartres, and in 1594 Paris opened her gates to him. He had just been
+received into the capital, where he was conspicuously manifesting his
+beneficence and zeal for the public good, when he was wounded in the
+throat by John Châtel, a young fanatic. When the assassin was
+questioned, he avowed the doctrine of tyrannicide, and quoted the
+sermons of the Jesuits in his justification. That society therefore
+was banished by the Parliament.</p>
+
+<p>For two years after his ostensible conversion, the king was obliged
+daily to perform the most humiliating ceremonies, by way of penance;
+and it was not till 1594 that he was absolved by Clement VIII. The
+Leaguers then had no further pretext for rebellion, and the League
+necessarily was dissolved. Its chiefs exacted high terms for their
+submission; but the civil wars had so exhausted the kingdom, that
+tranquillity could not be too dearly purchased; and Henry was faithful
+to all his promises, even after his authority was so firmly
+established, that he might have broken his word with safety to all but
+his own conscience and honor. Although the obligations which he had to
+discharge were most burdensome, he found means to relieve his people,
+and make his kingdom prosper. The Duke de Mayenne, in Burgundy, and
+the Duke de Merc&oelig;ur in Brittany, were the last to protract an
+unavailing resistance; but the former was reduced in 1596, and the
+latter in 1598, and thenceforth France enjoyed almost uninterrupted
+peace till Henry's death. But the Protestants gave him almost as much
+uneasiness as the Catholic Leaguers. He had granted liberty of
+conscience to the former; <span class="pagenum"><a id="page174" name="page174"></a>(p. 174)</span> a measure which was admitted to be
+necessary by the prudent even among the latter. Nevertheless, either
+from vexation at his having abjured their religion, from the violence
+of party zeal, or disgust at being no longer the objects of royal
+preference, the Calvinists preferred their demands in so seditious a
+tone, as stopped little short of a rebellious one. While on the road
+to Brittany, he determined to avoid greater evils by timely
+compromise. The edict of Nantes was then promulgated, authorizing the
+public exercise of their religion in several towns, granting them the
+right of holding offices, putting them in possession of certain places
+for eight years, as pledges for their security, and establishing
+salaries for their ministers. The clergy and preachers demurred, but
+to no purpose; the Parliament ceased to resist the arguments of the
+Prince, when he represented to them as magistrates, that the peace of
+the state and the prosperity of the Church must be inseparable. At the
+same time he endeavored to convince the bigots among the priesthood on
+both sides, that the love of country and the performance of civil and
+political duties may be completely reconciled with difference of
+worship.</p>
+
+<p>But it would be unjust to attribute these enlightened views to Henry,
+without noticing that he had a friend as well as minister in Rosny,
+best known as the Duke de Sully, who probably suggested many of his
+wisest measures, and at all events superintended their execution, and
+did his best to prevent or retrieve his sovereign's errors by
+uncompromising honesty of advice and remonstrance. The allurements of
+pleasure were powerful over the enthusiastic and impassioned
+temperament of Henry; it was love that most frequently prevailed over
+the claims of duty. The beautiful Gabrielle d'Estrées became the
+absolute mistress of his heart; and he entertained hopes of obtaining
+permission from Rome to divorce Margaret de Valois, from whom he had
+long lived in a state of separation. Had he succeeded time enough, he
+contemplated the dangerous project of marrying the favorite; but her
+death saved him both from the hazard and disgrace. The sentence of
+divorce, so long solicited, was at last granted, and the king married
+Mary de Medici, who bore Louis XIII. to him in 1601. The match,
+however, contributed little to his domestic happiness.</p>
+
+<p>While France was flourishing under a vigilant and paternal
+administration, while her strength was beginning to keep pace with her
+internal happiness, new conspiracies were incessantly formed against
+the king. Henriette d'Entragues, another favorite, not only
+exasperated the Queen's peevish humor against him, but was ungrateful
+enough to combine with her father, the Count d'Auvergne, and the
+Spanish Court, in a plot which was timely discovered. Spite of the
+many virtues and conciliatory manners of Henry, the fanatics could
+never pardon his former attachment to the Protestant cause. He was
+continually surrounded with traitors and assassins; almost every year
+produced some attempt on his life, and he fell at last by the weapon
+of a misguided enthusiast.</p>
+
+<p>Shortly before his untimely end, Henry is said by some historians to
+have disclosed a project for forming a Christian republic. The
+proposal is stated to have been, to divide Europe into fifteen fixed
+powers, none of which should be <span class="pagenum"><a id="page175" name="page175"></a>(p. 175)</span> allowed to make any new
+acquisition, but should together form an association for maintaining a
+mutual balance, and preserving peace. This political reverie,
+impossible to be realized, is not likely ever to have been actually
+divulged, even if meditated by Henry, nor is there any trace of it to
+be found in the history, or among the state-papers of England, Venice,
+or Holland, the supposed co-operators in the scheme. His more rational
+design in arming went no further than to set bounds to the ambition
+and power of the house of Austria, both in Germany and Italy. Whatever
+may have been the motive, his means of success were imposing. He was
+to march into Germany at the head of forty thousand excellent troops.
+The army, provisions, and every other necessary were in readiness.
+Money no longer failed; Sully had laid up forty millions of livres in
+the treasury, which were destined for this war. His alliances were
+already assured, his generals had been formed by himself, and all
+seemed to forebode such a storm as must probably have overwhelmed an
+emperor devoted to the search after the philosopher's stone, and a
+king of Spain under the dominion of the Inquisition. Henry was
+impatient to join his army; but his mind had become harassed with
+sinister forebodings, and his chagrin was increased by a temporary
+alienation from his faithful minister. He was on his way to pay a
+visit of reconciliation to Sully, when his coach was entangled as it
+passed along the street. His attendants left the carriage to remove
+the obstruction, and during the delay thus caused he was stabbed to
+the heart by Francis Ravaillac, a native of Angoulême. This calamitous
+event took place on May 14, 1610, in the fifty-seventh year of his
+age. The Spaniards, who had the strongest interest in the catastrophe,
+were supposed to have been the instigators; but the fear of
+implicating other powers, and plunging France into greater evils than
+those from which their hero had rescued them, deterred not only
+statesmen, but even the judges on Ravaillac's trial, from pressing for
+the names of accomplices. Hardouin de Perefixe, in his "History of
+Henry the Great," says, "If it be asked who inspired the monster with
+the thought, history answers that she does not know; and that in so
+mysterious an affair, it is not allowable to vent suspicions and
+conjectures as assured truths; that even the judges who conducted the
+examinations opened not their mouths, and spoke only with their
+shoulders."</p>
+
+<p>The assertions of Ravaillac, as far as they have any weight,
+discountenance the belief of an extended political conspiracy. The
+house of Austria, Mary de Medici his wife, Henriette d'Entragues his
+mistress, as well as the Duke d'Epernon, have been subjected to the
+hateful conjectures of Mazarin and other historians; but he who
+actually struck the blow invariably affirmed that he had no
+accomplice, and that he was carried forward by an uncontrollable
+instinct. If his mind were at all acted on from without, it was
+probably by the epidemic fanaticism of the times, rather than by
+personal influence.</p>
+
+<p>Henry left three sons and three daughters by Mary de Medici. Of no
+prince recorded in history, probably, are so many personal anecdotes
+related, as of Henry IV. These are for the most part well known, and
+of easy access. Among them stands out prominently the tale of the
+Spanish ambassador who to <span class="pagenum"><a id="page176" name="page176"></a>(p. 176)</span> his astonishment, found Henry on
+the floor playing hobby-horse for his children. "Are you a father?"
+asked Henry, looking up without any apparent embarrassment. "Yes, your
+majesty." "Then we will finish our game," said the king. And he did
+so, before taking up his business with the ambassador.</p>
+
+<p>The whole tenor of Henry's life exhibits a lofty, generous, forgiving
+temper, the fearless spirit which loves the excitement of danger, and
+that suavity of feeling and manners, which, above all qualities, wins
+the affection of those who come within its sphere: it does not exhibit
+high moral or religious principle. But his weaknesses were those which
+the world most readily pardons, especially in a great man. If Henry
+had emulated the pure morals and fervent piety of his noble ancestor,
+Louis IX., he would have been a far better king, as well as a better
+man; yet we doubt whether in that case his memory would have been
+cherished with such enthusiastic attachment by his countrymen.<a href="#toc"><span class="small">[Back to Contents]</span></a></p>
+
+<a id="img067" name="img067"></a>
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/img067.jpg" width="500" height="390" alt="" title="">
+<p>Henry IV. of France at home.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<h3>SIR FRANCIS DRAKE<br>
+(1540-1596)</h3>
+
+<a id="img066" name="img066"></a>
+<div class="floatleft">
+<img src="images/img066.jpg" width="250" height="315" alt="Francis Drake." title="">
+</div>
+
+<p>Francis Drake, the first British circumnavigator of the globe, was
+born in Devonshire, of humble parents. So much is admitted; with
+respect to the date of his birth, and the method of his nurture, the
+annalists, Camden and Stowe, are not agreed. By the latter we are told
+that Drake was born at Tavistock, about 1545, and brought up under the
+care of a kinsman, the well-known navigator, Sir John Hawkins. Camden,
+on the other hand, anticipates his birth by several years, and says
+that he was bound apprentice to a small shipowner on the coast of
+Kent, who, dying unmarried, in reward of his industry bestowed his
+bark upon him as a legacy. Both accounts agree that in 1567 he went
+with Hawkins to the West Indies on a trading voyage, which gave its
+color to the rest of his life. Their little squadron was obliged by
+stress of weather to put into St. Juan de Ulloa, on the coast of
+Mexico; where, after being received with a show of amity, it was beset
+and attacked by a superior force, and only two vessels escaped. To
+make amends for his losses in this adventure, in the quaint language
+of the biographer Prince, in his "Worthies of Devon," "Mr. Drake was
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page177" name="page177"></a>(p. 177)</span> persuaded by the minister of his ship that he might
+lawfully recover the value of the King of Spain by reprisal, and
+repair his losses upon him anywhere else. The case was clear in sea
+divinity; and few are such infidels as not to believe in doctrines
+which make for their profit. Whereupon Drake, though then a poor
+private man, undertook to revenge himself upon so mighty a monarch."</p>
+
+<p>In the years 1570-71 Drake made two voyages to the West Indies,
+apparently to gain a more precise acquaintance with the seas, the
+situation, strength, and wealth of the Spanish settlements. In 1572 he
+sailed with two ships, one of seventy-five tons, the other of
+twenty-five tons, their united crews mustering only seventy-three men
+and boys, all volunteers. His object was to capture the now ruined
+city of Nombre de Dios, situated on the Isthmus of Panama, a few miles
+east of Porto Bello, then the great repository of all the treasure
+conveyed from Mexico to Spain. Off this coast of America his little
+armament was augmented by an English bark, with thirty men on board;
+so that, deducting those whom it was necessary to leave in charge of
+the ships, his available force fell short of a hundred men. This
+handful of bold men attacked the town, which was unwalled, on the
+night of July 22d, and found their way to the marketplace, where the
+captain received a severe wound. He concealed his hurt until the
+public treasury was reached; but before it could be broken open, he
+became faint from loss of blood, and his disheartened followers
+abandoned the attempt, and carried him perforce on board ship. Such at
+least, is the account of the English; there is a Portuguese statement
+in "Hakluyt's Voyages," vol. iii., p. 525, less favorable both to the
+daring and success of the assailants.</p>
+
+<p>Failing in this attempt, Drake continued for some time on the coast,
+visiting Carthagena and other places, and making prize of various
+ships; and if we wonder at his hardihood in adventuring with such
+scanty means to remain for months in the midst of an awakened and
+inveterate enemy, how much more surprising is it that the wealthy,
+proud, and powerful monarchy of Spain should so neglect the care of
+its most precious colonies, as to leave them unable to crush so slight
+a foe! The English appear to have felt perfectly at their ease; they
+cruised about, formed an intimate alliance with an Indian tribe, named
+Symerons, the bond of union being a common hatred of the Spaniards,
+and built a fort on a small island of difficult access, at the mouth
+of a river, where they remained from September 24 to February 3, 1573.
+On the latter day, Drake set forth with one portion of his associates,
+under the conduct of the Symerons, to cross the isthmus. On the fourth
+day they reached a central hill, where stood a remarkable "goodly and
+great high tree, in which the Indians had cut and made divers steps to
+ascend up neere unto the top, where they had also made a convenient
+bower, wherein ten or twelve men might easily sitt; and from thence
+wee might without any difficulty plainly see the Atlantic Ocean,
+whence now wee came, and the South Atlantic (<span class="italic">i.e.</span>, Pacific), so much
+desired. After our captain had ascended to this bower with the chief
+Symeron, and having, as it pleased God at that time, by reason of the
+brize, a very faire day, had seen that sea of which he had heard such
+golden reports, he besought Almighty God of <span class="pagenum"><a id="page178" name="page178"></a>(p. 178)</span> his goodness to
+give him life and leave to sayle once in an English ship in that sea."
+We quote from a tract entitled "Sir Francis Drake Revived," written by
+some of Drake's companions, corrected, it is said, by himself, and
+published by his nephew in 1626, which contains a full and interesting
+account of this adventurous expedition. Drake's present object was to
+intercept a convoy of treasure on the way from Panama to Nombre de
+Dios. By this route the treasures of Peru and Chili, as well as
+Mexico, were brought to Europe, for the passage round Cape Horn was
+then unknown, and no ship but Magellan's had yet accomplished the
+passage round the world to Europe. Guided by the Symerons, the English
+approached Panama, learned that a valuable treasure was expected to
+pass, and beset the lonely forest road which it had to travel. But the
+haste of one drunken man gave a premature alarm, in consequence of
+which the march of the caravan was stopped; and Drake with his party,
+their golden hopes being thus defeated, forced their way through Venta
+Cruz, and returned by a shorter route to their encampment, after a
+toilsome and fruitless journey of three weeks. It was not till April
+1st, that the long-desired opportunity presented itself, on which day
+they took a caravan of mules laden with silver and a small quantity of
+gold. They carried off part of the spoil, and buried about fifteen
+tons of silver; but on returning for it, they found that it had been
+recovered by the Spaniards.</p>
+
+<p>Drake returned to England, August 9, 1573. In dividing the treasure he
+showed the strictest honor, and even generosity; yet his share was
+large enough to pay for fitting out three ships, with which he served
+as a volunteer in Ireland, under the Earl of Essex, and "did excellent
+service both by sea and land in the winning of divers strong forts."
+In 1577, he obtained a commission from Queen Elizabeth to conduct a
+squadron into the South Seas. What was the purport of the commission
+we do not find; it appears from subsequent passages that it gave to
+Drake the power of life and death over his followers; but it would
+seem from the queen's hesitation in approving his proceedings, that it
+was not intended to authorize (at least formally) his depradations on
+Spanish property.</p>
+
+<p>With five ships, the largest the Pelican, of one hundred tons burden,
+the smallest a pinnace of fifteen tons, manned in all with only 164
+men, Drake sailed from Plymouth, November 15, 1577, to visit seas
+where no English vessel had ever sailed. Without serious loss, or
+adventure worthy of notice, the fleet arrived at Port St. Julian, on
+the coast of Patagonia, June 20, 1578. Here the discoverer Magellan
+had tried and executed his second in command on the charge of mutiny,
+and the same spot did Drake select to perform a similar tragedy. He
+accused the officer next to himself, Thomas Doughty, of plots to
+defeat the expedition and take his life; plots undertaken, he said,
+before they had left England. "Proofs were required and alleged, so
+many and so evident, that the gentleman himself, stricken with
+remorse, acknowledged himself to have deserved death;" and of three
+things presented to him, either immediate execution, or to be set on
+shore on the main, or to be sent home to answer for his conduct, he
+chose the former; and having at his own request received the
+sacrament, <span class="pagenum"><a id="page179" name="page179"></a>(p. 179)</span> together with Drake, and dined with him in
+further token of amity, he cheerfully laid his head on the block,
+according to the sentence pronounced by forty of the chiefest persons
+in the fleet. Such is the account published by Drake's nephew, in "The
+World Encompassed," of which we shall only observe, without passing
+judgment on the action, that Drake's conduct in taking out a person
+whom he knew to be ill affected to him, was as singular as is the
+behavior and sudden and acute penitence attributed to Doughty. But we
+have no account from any friend of the sufferer. It is fair to state
+the judgment of Camden, who says, "that the more unprejudiced men in
+the fleet thought Doughty had been guilty of insubordination, and that
+Drake in jealousy removed him as a rival. But some persons, who
+thought they could see farther than others, said that Drake had been
+ordered by the Earl of Leicester to take off Doughty, because he
+spread a report that Leicester had procured the death of the Earl of
+Essex."</p>
+
+<p>Having remained at Port St. Julian until August 15th, they sailed for
+the Straits, reached them August 20th, and passed safely into the
+Pacific, September 6th, with three ships, having taken out the men and
+stores, and abandoned the two smaller vessels. But there arose on the
+7th a dreadful storm, which dispersed the ships. The Marigold was no
+more heard of, while the dispirited crew of the Elizabeth returned to
+England, being the first who ever passed back to the eastward through
+Magellan's Strait. Drake's ship was driven southward to the
+fifty-sixth degree, where he ran in among the islands of the extreme
+south of America. He fixes the farthest land to be near the
+fifty-sixth degree of south latitude, and thus appears to claim the
+honor of having discovered Cape Horn. From September 7th to October
+28th, the adventurers were buffeted by one continued and dreadful
+storm; and in estimating the merits of our intrepid seamen, it is to
+be considered that the seas were utterly unknown, and feared by all,
+those who had tried to follow in Magellan's course having seldom
+succeeded, and then with much pain and loss, and little fruit of their
+voyage; that their vessels were of a class which is now hardly used
+for more than coasting service; and that the imperfection of
+instruments and observations laid them under disadvantages which are
+now removed by the ingenuity of our artists. Add to this, that as the
+Spaniards gave out that it was impossible to repass the Straits, there
+remained no known way to quit the hostile shores of America, but by
+traversing the unexplored Pacific.</p>
+
+<p>The storm at length ceased, and the lonely Pelican (which Drake,
+however, had renamed the Golden Hind) ran along the coast of Lima and
+Peru, reaping a golden harvest from the careless security of those who
+never thought to see an enemy on that side of the globe. There is
+something rather revolting, but very indicative of the temper of the
+age, in the constant reference to the guidance and protection of God,
+mixed with a quiet jocularity with which "Master Francis Fletcher,
+preacher in this employment," from whose notes the "World
+Encompassed," which is a narrative of this voyage, was compiled,
+speaks of acts very little different from highway robbery, such as
+would now be held disgraceful in <span class="pagenum"><a id="page180" name="page180"></a>(p. 180)</span> open war; as for instance,
+on meeting a Spaniard driving eight llamas, each laden with one
+hundred pounds' weight of silver, "they offered their service without
+entreaty, and became drovers, not enduring to see a gentleman Spaniard
+turned carrier." Enriched by the most valuable spoil, jewels, gold,
+and silver, Drake steered to the northward, hoping to discover a
+homeward passage in that quarter. In the forty-eighth degree of north
+latitude, in what is now the State of Washington, he was stopped by
+the cold; and, determining to traverse the Pacific, he landed,
+careened his ship, and, in the queen's name, took possession of the
+country, which he named New Albion, September 29, 1579; he sailed
+again, and reached the Molucca Islands November 4th. In his passage
+thence to the island of Celebes, he incurred the most imminent danger
+of the whole voyage. The ship struck, as they were sailing before a
+fair wind, on a reef of rocks, so precipitous that it was impossible
+to lay out an anchor to heave her off. They stuck fast in this most
+hazardous situation for eight hours. At the end of that time the wind
+shifted, and the ship, lightened of part of her guns and cargo, reeled
+off into deep water, without serious injury. Had the sea risen, she
+must have been wrecked. This was Drake's last mishap. He reached
+Plymouth in the autumn of 1580, after nearly three years' absence.
+Accounts differ as to the exact date of his arrival.</p>
+
+<p>Since Drake had for this voyage the queen's commission, by which we
+must suppose the license to rob the Spaniards to have been at least
+tacitly conceded, he seems to have been rather hardly used, in being
+left from November to April in ignorance how his bold adventure was
+received at court. Among the people it created a great sensation, with
+much diversity of opinion; some commending it as a notable instance of
+English valor and maritime skill, and a just reprisal upon the
+Spaniards for their faithless and cruel practices; others styling it a
+breach of treaties, little better than piracy, and such as it was
+neither expedient nor decent for a trading nation to encourage. During
+this interval, Drake must have felt his situation unpleasant and
+precarious; but the queen turned the scale in his favor by going,
+April 4, 1581, to dine on board his ship at Deptford, on which
+occasion she declared her entire approbation of his conduct, and
+conferred on him the honor, and such it then was, of knighthood. His
+ship she ordered to be preserved as a monument of his glory. Having
+fallen to decay, it was at length broken up: a chair, made out of its
+planks, was presented to the University of Oxford, and probably is
+still to be seen in the Bodleian Library. Cowley wrote a Pindaric ode
+upon it.</p>
+
+<a id="img068" name="img068"></a>
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/img068.jpg" width="600" height="378" alt="" title="">
+<p>The admiral of the Spanish Armada surrenders to Drake.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Drake had now established his reputation as the first seaman of the
+day; and in 1585 the queen, having resolved on war, intrusted him with
+the command of an expedition against the Spanish colonies. He burnt or
+put to ransom the cities of St. Jago, near Cape Verde, St. Domingo,
+Carthagena, and others, and returned to England, having fully answered
+the high expectations which were entertained of him. He was again
+employed with a larger force of thirty ships, in 1587, with which he
+entered the port of Cadiz, burnt ten thousand tons of shipping, which
+were to form part of the Armada, took the castle of Cape St. Vincent,
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page181" name="page181"></a>(p. 181)</span> and sailing to the Azores, made prize of a large and
+wealthy ship on its way from the Indies. Still more eminent were his
+services against the Armada in the following year, in which he served
+as vice-admiral under Lord Howard of Effingham. But these are
+well-known passages of history, and we have shortened our account of
+them, to relate at more length the early incidents of Drake's
+adventurous life.</p>
+
+<p>In 1589 Sir Francis Drake and Sir John Norris were joined in the
+command of an expedition, meant to deliver Portugal from the dominion
+of Spain. This failed, as many expeditions have done in which the sea
+and land services were meant to act together; and as usual, each party
+threw the blame on the other. Drake's plan appears to have been most
+judicious: it was at least accordant with his character, downright and
+daring. He wished to sail straight for Lisbon and surprise the place;
+but Norris was bent on landing at Corunna, where he did indeed some
+harm to the Spaniards, but no service toward the real objects of the
+expedition. When the land forces did at last besiege Lisbon, Drake was
+unwilling or unable to force his way up the Tagus to co-operate with
+them, and for this he was afterward warmly blamed by Norris. He
+defended himself by stating that the time misspent by the English at
+Corunna, had been well employed by the Spaniards in fortifying Lisbon;
+and we fully believe that neither fear nor jealousy would have made
+him hesitate at anything which he thought to be for the good of the
+service. This miscarriage, though for a time it cast something of a
+cloud upon Drake's fame, did not prevent his being again employed in
+1595, when the queen, at the suggestion of himself and Sir John
+Hawkins, determined to send out another expedition against Spanish
+America, under those two eminent navigators, the expenses of which
+were in great part to be defrayed by themselves and their friends.
+Great hope was naturally conceived of this expedition, the largest
+which had yet been sent against that quarter, for it consisted of
+thirty vessels and 2,500 men. The chief object was to sail to Nombre
+de Dios, march to Panama, and there seize the treasure from Peru. But
+the blow, which should have been struck immediately, was delayed by a
+feint on the part of the Spaniards to invade England; the Plate fleet
+arrived in safety, and the Spanish colonies were forewarned. Hawkins
+died, it was said of grief at the ruined prospects of the expedition,
+November 12th, while the fleet lay before Porto Rico; and on the same
+evening Drake had a narrow escape from a cannon-ball, which carried
+the stool from under him as he sat at supper and killed two of his
+chief officers. Repulsed from Porto Rico, the admiral steered for the
+Spanish main, where he burnt several towns, and among them Nombre de
+Dios. He then sent a strong detachment of 750 men against Panama; but
+they found the capture of that city impracticable. Soon afterward he
+fell sick of a fever, and died January 28, 1596. His death, like that
+of his coadjutor, is attributed to mental distress, and nothing is
+more probable than that disappointment may have made that noxious
+climate more deadly. Hints of poisoning were thrown out, but this is a
+surmise easily and often lightly made. "Thus," says Fuller, in his
+"Holy State," "an extempore performance, scarce heard to be begun
+before we hear it <span class="pagenum"><a id="page182" name="page182"></a>(p. 182)</span> is ended, comes off with better applause,
+or miscarries with less disgrace, than a long-studied and openly
+premeditated action. Besides, we see how great spirits, having mounted
+up to the highest pitch of performance, afterward strain and break
+their credits in trying to go beyond it. We will not justify all the
+actions of any man, though of a tamer profession than a sea-captain,
+in whom civility is often counted preciseness. For the main, we say
+that this our captain was a religious man toward God, and his houses,
+generally speaking, churches, where he came chaste in his life, just
+in his dealings, true of his word, and merciful to those that were
+under him, hating nothing so much as idleness." To these good
+qualities we may add that he was kind and considerate to his sailors,
+though strict in the maintenance of discipline; and liberal on fit
+occasions, though a strict economist. He cut a water-course from
+Buckland Abbey to Plymouth, a distance of seven miles in a straight
+line, and thirty by the windings of the conduit, to supply the latter
+town with fresh water, which before was not to be procured within the
+distance of a mile. He is honorably distinguished from the atrocious
+race of buccaneers, to whom his example in some sort gave rise, by the
+humanity with which he treated his prisoners. And it should be
+mentioned, as a proof of his judicious benevolence, that in
+conjunction with Sir John Hawkins, he procured the establishment of
+the Chest at Chatham for the relief of aged or sick seamen, out of
+their own voluntary contributions. The faults ascribed to him are
+ambition, inconstancy in friendship, and too much desire of
+popularity.</p>
+
+<p>In person Drake was low, but strongly made, "well favoured, fayre, and
+of a cheerefull countenance." He left no issue: his nephew was created
+a baronet by James I., and the title is still extant.<a href="#toc"><span class="small">[Back to Contents]</span></a></p>
+
+
+<h3>SIR WALTER RALEIGH<br>
+(1552-1618)</h3>
+
+
+<p>Very little is known concerning the youth of Sir Walter Raleigh. He
+was a younger son, descended of an ancient family, and was born at a
+farm called Hayes, near the mouth of the river Otter, in Devonshire,
+in the year 1552. He went to Oriel College, Oxford, at an early age,
+and gained high praise for the quickness and precocity of his talents.
+In 1569 he began his military career in the civil wars of France, as a
+volunteer in the Protestant cause. It is conjectured that he remained
+in France for more than six years, and returned to England in 1576.
+Soon after he repaired to the Netherlands, and served as a volunteer
+against the Spaniards. In such schools, and under such leaders as
+Coligni and the Prince of Orange, Raleigh's natural aptitude for
+political and military science received the best nurture; but he was
+soon drawn from the war in Holland by a pursuit which had captivated
+his imagination from an early age&mdash;the prosecution of discovery
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page183" name="page183"></a>(p. 183)</span> in the New World. In conjunction with his half-brother, Sir
+Humphrey Gilbert, a man of courage and ability, and a skilful sailor,
+he made an unsuccessful attempt to establish a colony in North
+America. Returning home in 1579, he immediately entered the Queen's
+army in Ireland, and served with good esteem for personal courage and
+professional skill, until the suppression of the rebellion in that
+country. He owed his introduction to court, and the personal favor of
+Elizabeth, as is traditionally reported, to a fortunate and
+well-improved accident, which is too familiar to need repetition here.
+It is probable, however, that his name and talents were not unknown,
+for we find him employed almost immediately in certain matters of
+diplomacy.</p>
+
+<a id="img069" name="img069"></a>
+<div class="floatright">
+<img src="images/img069.jpg" width="250" height="294" alt="Walter Raleigh." title="">
+</div>
+
+<p>Among the cares and pleasures of a courtier's life, Raleigh preserved
+his zeal for American discovery. He applied his own resources to the
+fitting out of another expedition in 1583, under command of Sir
+Humphrey Gilbert, which proved more unfortunate than the former one;
+two out of five vessels returned home in consequence of sickness, and
+two were wrecked, including that in which the admiral sailed; and the
+only result of the enterprise was the taking possession of
+Newfoundland in the name of England. Still Raleigh's desire for
+American adventure was not damped. The continent northward of the Gulf
+of Florida was at this time unknown. But Raleigh, upon careful study
+of the best authorities, had concluded that there was good reason for
+believing that a considerable tract of land did exist in that quarter;
+and with the assent of the Queen in council, from whom he obtained
+letters patent, granting to himself and his heirs, under certain
+reservations, property in such countries as he should discover, with a
+right to provide for their protection and administration, he fitted
+out two ships, which sailed in April, 1584. The first land which they
+made was an island named Okakoke, running parallel to the coast of
+North Carolina. They were well received by the natives, and returned
+to England in the following autumn, highly pleased. Nor was less
+satisfaction felt by Raleigh, or even by the Queen, who conferred on
+him the honor of knighthood, a title which was then in high esteem,
+inasmuch as it was bestowed by that wise princess with a most frugal
+and just discrimination. She also gave him a very lucrative mark of
+favor, in the shape of a patent for licensing the selling of wine
+throughout the kingdom; and she directed that the new country, in
+allusion to herself, should be called Virginia. Raleigh did not think
+it politic, perhaps was not allowed, to quit the court to take charge
+in person of his undertaking; and those to whom he entrusted the
+difficult task of directing the infant colony, appear to have been
+unequal to their office. It is not necessary to pursue the history of
+an enterprise which proved unsuccessful, and in which Sir Walter
+personally bore no share. <span class="pagenum"><a id="page184" name="page184"></a>(p. 184)</span> He showed his earnestness by
+fitting out several expeditions, which must have been a heavy drain
+upon his fortune. But he is said to have derived immense wealth from
+prizes captured from the Spaniards; and we may here observe that the
+lavish magnificence in dress, especially in jewels, for which Raleigh
+was remarkable, even in the gorgeous court of Elizabeth (his state
+dress is said to have been enriched with jewels to the value of
+£60,000), may be considered less as an extravagance, than as a safe
+and portable investment of treasure. A mind less active might have
+found employment more than enough in the variety of occupations which
+pressed upon it at home. He possessed a large estate, granted out of
+forfeited lands in Ireland; but this was always a source rather of
+expense than of profit, until, in 1601, he sold it to the Earl of
+Cork. He was Seneschal of the Duchies of Cornwall and Exeter, and held
+the wardenship of the Stannaries; and in 1586, as well as formerly in
+1584, we find that he possessed a seat in Parliament. In 1587, the
+formidable preparation of the Spanish Armada withdrew the mind of
+Raleigh, as of all Englishmen, from objects of minor importance, to
+the defence of their country. He was a member of the council of war
+directed to prepare a general scheme of defence, and held the office
+of Lieutenant-General of Cornwall, in addition to the charge of the
+Isle of Portland; but as on this occasion he possessed no naval
+command, he was not actively engaged in the destruction of that mighty
+armament. In 1589 he served as a volunteer in the expedition of Norris
+and Drake to Portugal, of which some account has been given in the
+life of the latter. Nor were his labors unrewarded even in that
+unfortunate enterprise; for he captured several prizes, and received
+the present of a gold chain from the Queen, in testimony of her
+approbation of his conduct.</p>
+
+<p>Soon after these events, Raleigh retired to his Irish property, being
+driven from court, according to some authorities, by the enmity of the
+Earl of Essex, then a young man just rising into favor. He there
+renewed a former intimacy with the poet Spenser, who, like himself,
+had been rewarded with a grant of land out of forfeited estates, and
+then resided at Kilcolman Castle. Spenser has celebrated the return of
+his friend in the beautiful pastoral, "Colin Clout's come home again;"
+and in that, and various passages of his works, has made honorable
+mention of the highly poetic spirit which enabled the "Shepherd of the
+Ocean," as he is there denominated, to appreciate the merit of the
+"Fairy Queen," and led him to promote the publication of it by every
+means in his power. The loss of Raleigh's court-favor, if such there
+were, could not have been of long duration on this occasion But he
+incurred more serious displeasure in consequence of a private marriage
+contracted with Elizabeth Throgmorton, one of the Queen's maids of
+honor, a lady of beauty and accomplishments, who proved her worth and
+fidelity in the long train of misfortunes which beset the latter years
+of Raleigh's life. In consequence of this intrigue, he was committed
+to the Tower. One or two amusing anecdotes are related of the devices
+which he employed to obtain forgiveness, by working on that vanity
+which was the Queen's chief foible. He succeeded in appeasing his
+indignant mistress so far as to procure his release; and about the
+same time, in 1594, she granted to him the valuable manor <span class="pagenum"><a id="page185" name="page185"></a>(p. 185)</span> of
+Sherborne, in Dorsetshire; but though she requited his services, she
+still forbade his appearance at court, where he now held the office of
+Captain of the Yeomen of the Guard. Raleigh was peculiarly fitted to
+adorn a court by his imposing person, the graceful magnificence of his
+taste and habits, the elegance of his manners, and the interest of his
+conversation. These accomplishments were sure passports to the favor
+of Elizabeth; and he improved to the utmost the constant opportunities
+of intercourse with her which his post afforded, insomuch that, except
+the Earls of Leicester and Essex, no one ever seems to have stood
+higher in her graces. But Elizabeth's jealousy on the subject of her
+favorites' marriages is well known, and her anger was lasting, in
+proportion to the value which she set on the incense of Raleigh's
+flattery. He retired, on his disgrace, to his new estate, in the
+improvement and embellishment of which he felt great interest. But
+though deeply alive to the beauties of nature, he had been too long
+trained to a life of ambition and adventure to rest contented in the
+tranquil routine of a country life; and during this period of
+seclusion he again turned his thoughts to his favorite subject of
+American adventure, and laid the scheme of his first expedition to
+Guiana, in search of the celebrated El Dorado, the fabled seat of
+inexhaustible wealth. Having fitted out, with the assistance of other
+private persons, a considerable fleet, Raleigh sailed from Plymouth,
+February 6, 1595. He left his ships in the mouth of the river Orinoco,
+and sailed 400 miles into the interior in boats. It is to be recorded
+to his honor, that he treated the Indians with great kindness; which,
+contrasted with the savage conduct of the Spaniards, raised so
+friendly a feeling toward him, that for years his return was eagerly
+expected, and at length was hailed with delight. The hardships of the
+undertaking, and the natural advantages of the country which he
+explored, are eloquently described in his own account of the
+"Discovery of Guiana." But the setting in of the rainy season rendered
+it necessary to return, without having reached the promised land of
+wealth; and Raleigh reaped no other fruit of his adventure than a
+certain quantity of geographical knowledge, and a full conviction of
+the importance of colonizing and taking possession of the newly
+discovered region. This continued through life to be his favorite
+scheme; but neither Elizabeth nor her successor could be induced to
+view it in the same favorable light.</p>
+
+<p>On reaching England, he found the Queen still unappeased; nor was he
+suffered to appear at court, and he complains in pathetic terms of the
+cold return with which his perils and losses were requited. But he was
+invested with a high command in the expedition of 1596, by which the
+Spanish fleet was destroyed in the harbor of Cadiz; and to his
+judgment and temper in overruling the faulty schemes proposed by
+others, the success of that enterprise was chiefly due. Indeed, his
+services were perhaps too important, and too justly appreciated by the
+public, for his own interests; for the great and general praise
+bestowed on him on this occasion tended to confirm a jealousy of long
+standing on the part of the commander-in-chief, the Earl of Essex; and
+it was probably owing to that favorite's influence that Raleigh was
+still forbidden the Queen's presence. <span class="pagenum"><a id="page186" name="page186"></a>(p. 186)</span> Essex, and the
+Secretary of State, Sir Robert Cecil, regarded each other with mutual
+distrust and dislike. Cecil and Raleigh were connected by ties of
+common interest, and, as the latter supposed, of friendship. Still
+Raleigh found the interest of the minister too weak to serve his
+purpose, while the interest of the favorite was employed against him;
+and, as the only method of effecting his own restoration to the
+Queen's favor, he undertook to work a reconciliation between these two
+powerful rivals. In this he succeeded, to the great admiration of all
+spectators; and the fruit of his policy was seen in his re-admission
+to the execution of his official duties at court, June 1, 1597. In the
+following August he was appointed Rear Admiral in the expedition
+called the Island Voyage, of which Essex held the chief command. The
+slight successes which were obtained were again due to the military
+talents of Raleigh; the main objects of the voyage were lost through
+the Earl's inexperience.</p>
+
+<p>From this time to the death of the Queen, Raleigh enjoyed an
+uninterrupted course of favor. Elizabeth was now old; Cecil took no
+steps to diminish the high esteem in which she held Sir Walter
+Raleigh, but he secretly labored to prejudice her successor against
+him, and he succeeded to his wish. Very soon after the accession of
+James I., Raleigh's post of captain of the guard was taken from him;
+and his patent of wines was revoked, though not without a nominal
+compensation being made. To complete his ruin, it was contrived to
+involve him in a charge of treason. Most writers have concurred in
+speaking of this passage of history as inexplicable; it is the opinion
+of the last historian of Raleigh, Mr. Tytler, that he has found
+sufficient evidence for regarding the whole plot as a device of Cecil,
+and he has supported this opinion by cogent arguments. Lord Cobham, a
+violent and ambitious but weak man, had engaged in private dealings
+with the Spanish ambassador, which brought him under the suspicion of
+the government. By a device of Cecil's (we here follow the account of
+Mr. Tytler) he was induced, in a fit of anger, and in the belief that
+Raleigh had given information against him, to accuse Sir Walter
+himself of being privy to a conspiracy against the government. This
+charge Cobham retracted, confirmed, and retracted again, behaving in
+so equivocal a manner, that no reliance whatever can be placed on any
+of his assertions. But as the King was afraid of Raleigh as much as
+the secretary hated him, this vague charge, unsupported by other
+evidence, was made sufficient to commit him to the Tower; and, after
+being plied with private examinations, in which nothing criminal could
+be elicited, he was brought to trial, November 17, 1603. For an
+account of that memorable scene we shall refer to Mr. Jardine's
+"Criminal Trials," Vol. I. It is reported to have been said by one of
+the judges who presided over it, on his death-bed, that "the justice
+of England had never been so degraded and injured as by the
+condemnation of Sir Walter Raleigh." The behavior of the victim
+himself was the object of universal admiration, for the tempered
+mixture of patience and noble spirit with which he bore the oppressive
+measure dealt to him. He had before been unpopular; but it was
+recorded by an eye-witness that "he behaved himself so worthily, so
+wisely, and so temperately, <span class="pagenum"><a id="page187" name="page187"></a>(p. 187)</span> that in half a day the mind of
+all the company was changed from the extremest hate to the extremest
+pity."</p>
+
+<p>The sentence of death thus unfairly and disgracefully obtained was not
+immediately carried into execution. James was not satisfied with the
+evidence adduced on the trial; and believing at the same time that
+Raleigh had been plotting against him, he set his royal wit to dive
+into the mystery. Of the singular scene which the British Solomon
+devised it is not necessary to speak, since Raleigh was not an actor
+in it. But as no more evidence could be obtained against him, even by
+the King's sagacity, he was reprieved, and remanded to the Tower,
+where the next twelve years of his life were spent in confinement.
+Fortunately, he had never ceased to cultivate literature with a zeal
+not often found in the soldier and politician, and he now beguiled the
+tedium of his lot by an entire devotion to those studies which before
+had only served to diversify his more active and engrossing pursuits.
+Of his poetical talents we have already made short mention; to the end
+of life he continued the practice of pouring out his mind in verse,
+and there are several well-known and beautiful pieces expressive of
+his feelings in prison, and in the anticipation of immediate death;
+especially "The Lie," and the beautiful little poem called "The
+Pilgrimage." He also possessed a strong turn for mathematics, and
+studied them with much success in the society and under the guidance
+of his friend, Thomas Hariot, one of the most accomplished
+mathematicians of the age. Chemistry was another favorite pursuit, in
+which, according to the standard of his contemporaries, he made great
+progress. But the most important occupation of his imprisonment was
+the composition of the "History of the World." The work extends from
+the creation to the end of the second Macedonian war. Raleigh meant to
+bring it down to modern times; but the untimely death of Henry, Prince
+of Wales, for whose use it was composed, deprived him of the spirit to
+proceed with so laborious an undertaking. He enjoyed the confidence of
+that generous youth in a remarkable degree, and maintained a close
+correspondence with him on civil, military, and naval subjects.
+Several discourses on these topics, addressed to the prince, will be
+found in the editions of Raleigh's works. Henry repaid these services
+with sincere friendship and admiration; and we may presume that his
+adviser looked forward to that friendship, not only for a cessation of
+misfortune, but for a more brilliant period of favor and power than he
+had yet enjoyed. Fortunately, however, his patron's death was preceded
+by that of his arch-enemy, Cecil; and through the mediation of the
+Duke of Buckingham, Raleigh was released from the Tower in March,
+1615; and obtained permission to follow up his long-cherished scheme
+of establishing a colony in Guiana, and working a gold mine, of which
+he had ascertained the existence and situation.</p>
+
+<p>The results of this disastrous voyage must be shortly given. Raleigh
+sailed March 28, 1617, and reached the coast of Guiana in November
+following. Being himself disabled by sickness from proceeding farther,
+he despatched a party to the mine under the command of Captain Keymis,
+an officer who had served in the former voyage to Guiana. But during
+the interval which had elapsed <span class="pagenum"><a id="page188" name="page188"></a>(p. 188)</span> since Raleigh's first
+discovery of that country, the Spaniards had extended their
+settlements into it, and in particular had built a town called Santa
+Thome in the immediate neighborhood of the mine in question. James,
+with his usual duplicity, while he authorized the expedition, revealed
+every particular connected with it to the Spanish ambassador. The
+English, therefore, were expected in the Orinoco, and preparation had
+been made for repelling them by force. Keymis and his men were
+unexpectedly attacked by the garrison of Santa Thome, and a sharp
+contest ensued, in which the English gained the advantage, and burnt
+the town. In this action Raleigh's eldest son was killed. The
+Spaniards still occupied the passes to the mine, and after an
+unsuccessful attempt to dislodge them, Keymis abandoned the enterprise
+and returned to the ships. Raleigh's correspondence expresses in
+affecting terms his grief and indignation at this double misfortune:
+the loss of a brave and promising son, and the destruction of the
+hopes which he had founded on this long-cherished adventure. On his
+return to England, he found himself marked out for a victim to appease
+the resentment of the Spanish Court, to which he had long been an
+object of fear and hatred.</p>
+
+<p>His conduct abroad had already been closely scrutinized, in the hope
+of finding some act of piracy, or unauthorized aggression against
+Spain, for which he might be brought to trial. Both these hopes
+failing, and his death, in compliment to Spain, being resolved on, it
+was determined to carry into effect the sentence passed fifteen years
+before, from which he had never been legally released; and a warrant
+was accordingly issued to the judges, requiring them to order
+execution. He insisted on the nature of his late commission, and on
+that plea being overruled, submitted with his usual calmness and
+dignity. The execution, with indecent haste, was ordered to take place
+on the following morning. In this last stage of life, his greatness of
+mind shone with even more than its usual lustre. Calm, and fearless
+without bravado, his behavior and speech expressed the piety and
+resignation of a Christian, with the habitual coolness of one who has
+braved death too often to shrink at its approach. His farewell to his
+faithful wife was manly, tender, and most affecting. The accounts of
+his deportment on the scaffold effectually refute the charges of
+irreligion and atheism, which some writers have brought against him,
+unless we make up our minds to believe him an accomplished hypocrite.
+He spoke at considerable length, and his dying words have been
+faithfully reported. They contain a denial of all the serious offences
+laid to his charge, and express his forgiveness of those even who had
+betrayed him under the mask of friendship. After delivering this
+address, and spending some time in prayer, he laid his head on the
+block, and breathing a short private prayer, gave the signal to the
+executioner. Not being immediately obeyed, he partially raised his
+head, and said, "What dost thou fear? Strike, man!" and underwent the
+fatal blow without shrinking or alteration of position. He died in his
+sixty-sixth year.</p>
+
+<a id="img070" name="img070"></a>
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/img070.jpg" width="400" height="544" alt="" title="">
+<p>Raleigh parting from his wife.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Raleigh sat in several Parliaments, and took an active part in the
+business of the house. His speeches, preserved in the Journals, are
+said by Mr. Tytler to be remarkable for an originality and freedom of
+thought far in advance of the <span class="pagenum"><a id="page189" name="page189"></a>(p. 189)</span> time. His expression was
+varied and animated, and his powers of conversation remarkable. His
+person was dignified and handsome, and he excelled in bodily
+accomplishments and martial exercises. He was very fond of paintings,
+and of music; and, in literature as in art, he possessed a cultivated
+and correct taste. He was one of those rare men who seem qualified to
+excel in all pursuits alike; and his talents were set off by an
+extraordinary laboriousness and capacity of application. As a
+navigator, soldier, statesman, and historian, his name is intimately
+and honorably linked with one of the most brilliant periods of British
+history.<a href="#toc"><span class="small">[Back to Contents]</span></a></p>
+
+
+<h3>MILES STANDISH<a id="footnotetag19" name="footnotetag19"></a><a href="#footnote19" title="Go to footnote 19"><span class="small">[19]</span></a><br>
+By <span class="smcap">Elbridge S. Brooks</span><br>
+(1584-1656)</h3>
+
+<a id="img071" name="img071"></a>
+<div class="floatleft">
+<img src="images/img071.jpg" width="250" height="279" alt="" title="">
+<p>Relics of Miles Standish.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Three hundred years ago the house of Standish was a notable one in
+England. The family had numerous possessions; their Lancashire estate
+of Duxbury Hall, in the shadow of Rivington Pike and the Pennine
+Hills, was pleasant and extensive, and there they had lived for
+generations, as there they live to-day. Of this Lancashire home was
+that John Standish, "squire to the king," who killed Wat Tyler, the
+agitator, on that memorable June day of 1381 when the boy-king of
+England, Richard the Second, so pluckily faced his rebellious subjects
+on the plain of Smithfield; of it was that Sir John Standish who
+fought under the leopard-banner of King Edward at the stone mill of
+Crécy; and of it was that gallant soldier Miles Standish, the Puritan
+captain, the first commissioned military officer of New England,
+famous in American history, song, and story, as the stay and bulwark
+of the Pilgrims of Plymouth in their days of struggle and beginning.</p>
+
+<p>Miles Standish (or Myles, as the old spelling has it) was born in
+Lancashire, presumably in the family manor house of Duxbury Hall, in
+the year 1584. The story of his life is simple. The absolute facts
+upon which it is based are meagre, but enough is known to warrant the
+assertion that Miles Standish was heir to the name and estates of the
+Standishes of Lancashire, from which, by some device not on record, he
+was, as he sturdily maintained in his will, "surreptitiously"
+defrauded.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page190" name="page190"></a>(p. 190)</span> At the beginning of the seventeenth century the provinces of
+the Netherlands were battling for life against the tyranny of Spain.
+The Protestant Elizabeth of England gave help and support to the
+Protestant Stadtholder Maurice, and many of her fighting men carried
+pike or arquebus at the sack of Cadiz, fought at Nieuport and Ostend,
+or served the guns in the great sea-fight off Gibraltar that, in 1607,
+broke the power of Spain. Among these fighting-men was young Miles
+Standish, and he fought so stoutly and to such good purpose that,
+before he was twenty-one he had attained the rank and title of
+captain, and was known to Englishmen in the Low Countries as a brave
+and gallant soldier. In 1609 came the twelve years' truce between
+tired Spain and not less wearied Holland, that gave way in 1621 to the
+stubborn and bloody Thirty Years' War. It was, probably, in the early
+years of this truce that Captain Miles Standish, a born fighter, went
+back to England to battle for his heritage. Not being the match for
+the law men in England that he was for Spanish dons in Holland, he was
+forced to retire from the unequal contest, defeated but not conquered.
+This belief in his rights to the inheritance of the Standishes he
+sturdily maintained to the last; for, dying forty years after in the
+new land his sword had helped to conquer and his wisdom to found, he
+left by his last will and testament unto his son and heir, Alexander:
+"Ormistic, Bonsconge, Wrightington, Maudeslay, and the estates in the
+Isle of Man"&mdash;none of which he nor his descendants were ever to occupy
+or hold.</p>
+
+<p>It was after this unsuccessful struggle for his heritage that he
+crossed again to Holland and, from some cause not apparent&mdash;perhaps
+his disgust at English law, perhaps the attractions of one who, later,
+became Mistress Rose Standish, may supply the motive&mdash;settled among
+the self-exiled English folk in Leyden who, because of religious
+differences with the established Church, had left their English homes
+and, calling themselves Pilgrims because of their wanderings, had made
+a settlement in the Dutch city of Leyden, "fair and beautiful and of a
+sweet situation."</p>
+
+<p>Although not of the religious faith and following of the Pilgrims of
+Leyden&mdash;indeed the story runs that the fiery little captain had been,
+at one time, a Romanist&mdash;he must have been settled among them for
+years, for, on the eve of their emigration to America, we find him as
+one of their leaders, accepted and commissioned as the military
+adviser of the colonists. The time of his life in Leyden was one of
+religious unrest in Europe; and in Holland, during that twelve years'
+truce with Spain, the theological disputes between Calvinists and
+Arminians ran so high as to bring John of Barneald to the scaffold,
+and to drive Grotius the scholar into exile. These days of stern
+dispute may have had their influence on the sturdy English soldier
+living in the midst of Dutch life and Dutch disputations, and made him
+lean to the side of Puritanism, even if never openly avowing it as his
+religious faith. It is, indeed, a singular fact that the mainstay and
+chief protector of the first Puritan colonists of America was neither
+of their communion nor of their connection, and is openly censured by
+Puritan writers as one who, so says Hubbard, "had been a soldier in
+the Low Countries and had never entered <span class="pagenum"><a id="page191" name="page191"></a>(p. 191)</span> the school of our
+Saviour Christ or of John the Baptist." But his companions and
+associates seem not to have permitted the dissociation to have had
+special weight with them. They gladly welcomed Captain Standish and
+his wife, Rose, among the little company of exiles that set out from
+Delft Haven for Virginia, and gave their names place on that memorable
+passenger list of the little schooner Mayflower, which, leaving the
+harbor of old Plymouth, in England, in September, 1620, finally
+dropped anchor in the harbor of new Plymouth, in New England, in
+December following.</p>
+
+<p>From the outset of this novel "adventure"&mdash;itself a turning-point in
+American history&mdash;this soldier of fortune was given place and
+prominence in the councils of a community which seems to have enlisted
+his support, not so much on its religious as on its adventurous side;
+and to this "dissenter from dissent" was intrusted the defence of a
+company of religious enthusiasts, sailing upon what they deemed a
+divine mission, only in the practical side of which did their military
+adviser find occupation or interest.</p>
+
+<p>The up-bringing of Miles Standish had been such as to fit him for
+leadership, and this he assumed early in the history of the
+enterprise. Even on the deck of the Mayflower, he was recognized as
+one whose counsels were wise and whose actions were inspiring, and
+when in the cabin of the Mayflower, in the harbor of Provincetown, the
+famous compact was drawn up, said to be "the first written
+constitution in the world," the bold signature of "Myles Standish" was
+the clearest of the forty-one Pilgrim autographs that were affixed to
+that famous document. It was Captain Standish who, with his sixteen
+"well-armed men," made a thorough exploration of the Provincetown
+peninsula; he organized and headed the party of observation which,
+later, sailed the shallop and marched with watchful eyes along the
+shores of Cape Cod, seeking the best place for settlement; and, on
+December 6th following, he sailed with a picked party across
+Massachusetts Bay and, in much peril and with many adventures, spied
+out the land and determined upon the harbor of Plymouth as the best
+spot for permanent settlement. It was to Captain Standish's knowledge
+as to the best locations and to his skill as a surveyor, that the
+colonists were indebted for the selection of their town site and the
+laying-out of their town; as, later, the same skill came in play when
+were laid out the new towns that followed after the Plymouth
+beginnings. Through all that dreary and dreadful first winter, when
+half their number died, Captain Standish was their mainstay, as one
+whose word was ever reassuring and whose arm was as ready for
+protection as was his brain for planning methods of defence. Though
+his wife, Mistress Rose Standish, was one of the early victims of that
+bitter winter of death, his courage never faltered, his vigilance
+never slackened. And when, in the midst of all the peril and
+suffering, in February, 1621, Miles Standish was appointed military
+captain of the colony, confidence was restored and courage renewed in
+the bosoms of that suffering but heroic and indomitable band; so that
+when spring came and the Mayflower sailed for England, not one of the
+settlers returned in her, nor would desert the cause to which they had
+pledged themselves.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page192" name="page192"></a>(p. 192)</span> It is customary to credit the final success of the Pilgrims
+of Plymouth to the religious element that held sway over them, making
+them patient, persistent, uncompromising, faithful, and earnest. But
+the wisdom of Carver, the genius of Bradford, the fervor of Brewster,
+the zeal of Winslow, would have been of small avail had they not been
+backed by the decision, the resolution, the courage, the constancy,
+and the forethought of their brave captain, Miles Standish, "the John
+Smith of New England" as he has been called, the man of helpful
+measures and of iron nerves, who could "hew down forests and live on
+crumbs."</p>
+
+<p>From first to last he was the loyal supporter and trusty defender of
+the Plymouth colony. No danger unnerved him, no duty staggered him.
+With but eight men he started out, in 1623, to overawe and subdue the
+Indians of Massachusetts&mdash;then an unknown and perplexing quantity;
+single-handed he checked the conspiracy at Weymouth and turned the
+tables upon the savage plotters, by himself assassinating the
+assassins&mdash;a deed that saved the colony from Indian massacre, but
+called forth the mild protest of the Pilgrim preacher at Leyden, Mr.
+Robinson, who wrote of it: "Concerning the killing of these poor
+Indians, oh! how happy a thing had it been, if you had converted some
+before you had killed any.... Let me be bold to exhort you seriously
+to consider of the disposition of your captain, whom I love. There is
+cause to fear that by occasion, especially of provocation, there may
+be wanting (in him) that tenderness of the life of man which is meet."
+But the Pilgrims of Plymouth seem not to have questioned the decisive
+measures of the man who knew when and how to act in their defence.
+Alone he faced the roystering Morton at Merrymount, unarming that
+vaporing rebel and putting his riotous colony upon its good behavior.
+He led out the forty men of Plymouth enlisted for the Pequot War,
+headed the expedition that in 1635, sailed against the encroaching
+French in Penobscot Bay, and, as late as 1653, when "very auncient and
+full of dolorous paines," expressed himself as ready to take the
+command intrusted to him when the colony forces were about to enter
+upon a struggle for the right of occupation of the Connecticut country
+with the Dutch colonists of Manhattan.</p>
+
+<p>He never refused any burden however heavy nor shirked any duty however
+onerous; he cheerfully yielded obedience to the civil power, never
+exceeding his orders, nor rashly assuming responsibilities, nor
+leading his men upon unwise ventures. While always the military
+commander of the colony, his counsel and help were counted as equally
+valuable in matters of administration. He served repeatedly as one of
+the governor's council; he was at one time assistant-governor or
+deputy, and, from 1644 to 1649, was treasurer of the Plymouth colony.
+He went to England as the envoy of the colonists in 1625, and in the
+midst of plague, of evil times and of bitter jealousies, withstood the
+tyranny of the London traders who owned the Pilgrims' labor; and
+braving both heavy debt and the possibility of censure, bought out the
+traders' rights in the name of his associates.</p>
+
+<a id="img072" name="img072"></a>
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/img072.jpg" width="600" height="332" alt="" title="">
+<p>Departure of the Mayflower.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>The personal descriptions of this remarkable man that have come down
+to us, show him as a man of small stature, quick-tempered, choleric,
+sturdy and bluff. "As a little chimney is soon fired," wrote the
+Puritan historian Hubbard, <span class="pagenum"><a id="page193" name="page193"></a>(p. 193)</span> "so was the Plymouth captain, a
+man of very little stature, yet of a very hot and angry temper." And
+yet his relations with such men as the noble Bradford, the blameless
+Brewster, the politic Winslow, were so close and of so personal a
+character that one can hardly accept unquestioningly the story of his
+hot and unreasoning temper. He was a soldier and a fighter; but he
+loved peace and quiet, and his life was full of friendly offices and
+of kindly deeds. On Nantasket Beach he built the first "house of
+refuge" and life-saving station in America. He was a gentle nurse in
+the winter of sickness, a friend and adviser to those in trouble or
+distress, a loving father in the days when parents were not
+unfrequently tyrants, and a forgiving spirit, as the old story of his
+famous "courtship" (with sufficient foundation to warrant its
+acceptance) amply proves.</p>
+
+<p>The communism of the early Pilgrim days gave place in time to personal
+possession and, as the colony grew, certain of those who had been
+leaders desired more extended holdings. Captain Standish was one of
+these, and despite his friend Bradford's protests, he moved across the
+bay and in 1632 occupied a large and fertile stretch north of
+Plymouth, to which, still clinging to his old claim of a stolen
+heritage, he gave the name of Duxbury. Here in the midst of peaceful
+pursuits, but ever ready to obey the colony's call for counsel or for
+leadership, he lived for over twenty years, dying October 3, 1656, at
+the age of seventy-two.</p>
+
+<p>A notable figure in American history, Miles Standish is a type of that
+mingled spirit of adventure, liberty, and distrust that impelled
+emigration across the sea and, combined with the uncompromising stand
+for freedom of conscience, founded and up-built the Pilgrim Colony of
+Plymouth.</p>
+
+<p>His existence among these Pilgrims is in itself an anomaly. But it is
+one of those strange associations and unfaltering friendships that
+have left their mark for good upon the world since the days when the
+Roman fighting-man stood stanchly by the side of the Christian
+proselyte even to the death.</p>
+
+<p>Tradition says that Miles Standish was buried between two pointed
+stones in the graveyard of South Duxbury, but the question of his
+burial-place is still unsettled. The tall shaft, rising from the crest
+of Captain's Hill in Duxbury, and surmounted with a statue of the
+famous colonial captain, fitly commemorates a life that has won a
+place in the American heart that only grows stronger and more enduring
+as time goes on.<a href="#toc"><span class="small">[Back to Contents]</span></a></p>
+
+<a id="sig007" name="sig007"></a>
+<div class="p2 right">
+<img src="images/sig007.jpg" width="300" height="85" alt="Author signature." title="">
+</div>
+
+
+<h3><span class="pagenum"><a id="page194" name="page194"></a>(p. 194)</span> ALBRECHT VON WALLENSTEIN<br>
+By <span class="smcap">Henry G. Hewlett</span><br>
+(1583-1634)</h3>
+
+<a id="img073" name="img073"></a>
+<div class="floatleft">
+<img src="images/img073.jpg" width="250" height="303" alt="Albrecht von Wallenstein." title="">
+</div>
+
+<p>The declaration of the great founder of Christianity that he "came not
+to bring peace, but a sword," receives its completest justification in
+the history of Europe during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
+Ignorant of the constitution of the human mind, and blind to the
+absurdity of attempting to enforce opinion, the adherents of the old
+and of the reformed faith, during these two hundred years, scarcely
+sheathed their swords. The offenders, it is just to say, were
+generally, but by no means invariably, the Catholics; and the
+retaliation of the Protestants was seldom inferior in ferocity to the
+offence received. The "Thirty Years' War" was the bloodiest, as
+happily it was the last, scene in this great religious tragedy. The
+greatest Catholic leader of this period was Wallenstein.</p>
+
+<p>After a term of peace, consequent on the Diet of Augsburg in 1555,
+which secured toleration to Protestantism in Germany, persecution
+recommenced in 1578, under the weak Emperor Rudolph II. His cousin
+Ferdinand, Duke of Styria, a pupil of the Jesuits, was the most deadly
+foe of Protestantism, which had taken deepest root in Bohemia and
+Transylvania. The incapacity and bigotry of the emperor at last
+provoked his subjects to bring about his deposition, and, in 1610, he
+was forced to abdicate in favor of his brother Matthias. He, though
+himself tolerant, unwisely committed the government to Ferdinand,
+whose tyranny in ordering the destruction of the Protestant churches
+in Bohemia, led to the expulsion of his officers and the Jesuits, in
+May, 1618, and the commencement of the Thirty Years' War. Matthias
+died in the following year, and Ferdinand was elected emperor.</p>
+
+<p>In 1619 the name of Wallenstein first became prominent. Albrecht von
+Waldstein, as he was properly called, was the third son of a Bohemian
+baron, of old family, and was born in September, 1583. As a boy, he
+displayed signs of a singularly proud and independent temper, and
+foreshowed his bent by the delight which he took in the society of
+military men. His family was Protestant; but having lost his parents
+when quite young, he was educated, by the <span class="pagenum"><a id="page195" name="page195"></a>(p. 195)</span> wish of his
+guardians, at the Jesuit college of Olmutz, and soon changed his
+faith. In Italy, where he next studied, he made great advances in
+mathematics, law, languages, and the delusive science of astrology, in
+which he was a firm believer ever afterward. On his return to Germany,
+he fought in the imperial army against the Turks, who invaded Hungary.
+He had considerable estates in Bohemia, which were increased by his
+marriage, in 1606, with a rich Moravian widow, who died in 1614, and
+left him her property. In the peaceful occupation of farming he spent
+several years, and acquired great wealth by his skill and economy. In
+1617, he took part in a campaign against the republic of Venice, with
+which Ferdinand had quarreled, and, on the termination of the war in
+the same year, was ennobled as Count. The lavish generosity of
+Wallenstein during this war greatly endeared him to the army.</p>
+
+<p>Such was his popularity that in 1619, on the Bohemian revolution
+breaking out, he was offered by the insurgents the command of their
+army, although a Catholic. But he steadily refused the offer, and
+warmly espoused the imperial cause, upon which the Bohemians
+confiscated his estates. He, however, soon retrieved his fortunes by a
+second rich marriage, and the favor of the emperor. The Bohemians,
+under their heroic leaders, the Counts von Mansfeldt and Thurn,
+ventured to march upon Vienna, and threaten Ferdinand in his capital;
+but Wallenstein, on June 10, 1619, gained a signal victory over their
+army, and saved his master's throne. In the following year the
+Bohemians and Hungarians formally renounced their allegiance; the
+former setting up Frederick, Elector-Count Palatine of the Rhine, as
+their king; and the latter, Bethlem Gabor, Prince of Transylvania.
+Frederick, who was the son-in-law of James I. of England, was as unfit
+to govern as his father-in-law, and spent his time in a frivolous
+parade of his rank. He obtained but a doubtful support from the
+Protestant princes in Germany, who were jealous of his popularity.
+Ferdinand, assisted by Spain and other Catholic powers, sent a large
+force into Bohemia, under the command of Maximilian, Duke of Bavaria,
+and totally routed Frederick's army at Prague,&mdash;the king fleeing to
+Breslau, and thence to Holland. The Palatinate was then declared
+forfeited to the Empire, and was devastated by the Spanish commander,
+Spinola. Wallenstein, during this campaign, spent his treasures in the
+imperial cause with the utmost readiness and liberality, and obtained
+as a reward the lordship of Friedland, which brought him a large
+revenue. To this he added by the purchase of several forfeited estates
+in Bohemia, and thus became possessed of immense wealth. In 1621-23 he
+distinguished himself by defeating Bethlem Gabor, the new King of
+Hungary, and forcing him to surrender his claim to the crown. For this
+service Wallenstein was created Duke of Friedland.</p>
+
+<p>A cruel persecution of the Protestants in Bohemia and Silesia
+dishonored the emperor's success; and the attempt of his officers in
+Austria to suppress Lutheranism by force, produced a revolution in
+1625. It was put down by the energy of Tilly and Pappenheim, two of
+the greatest generals of their day. The Count von Mansfeldt gallantly
+upheld the Protestant cause in Westphalia, and other parts of Germany,
+but was defeated by Tilly, who imposed Catholicism <span class="pagenum"><a id="page196" name="page196"></a>(p. 196)</span> upon all
+the revolted provinces. In their despair the German Protestants
+applied for aid to their northern brethren. Gustavus Adolphus, the
+young and brave King of Sweden, an ardent champion of the Reformed
+faith, and Christian, King of Denmark, responded to their appeal,&mdash;the
+latter immediately invading the Empire. The imperial finances being
+considerably reduced by the war, Ferdinand was glad to avail himself
+of an offer made at this crisis by Wallenstein, to levy an army at his
+own cost. This offer was abundantly fulfilled. In a few months an army
+of 30,000 men was collected, as if by magic. Wallenstein was enviously
+suspected of being in league with the devil, but the secret of his
+sway was the fascination of his bold and generous nature. He
+maintained at once thorough toleration, and strict discipline in his
+ranks. These results, however, were not attained without injustice.
+Contributions were levied on the most fertile districts, as yet
+undesolated by war, to the extent, as it is said, of $60,000,000 in
+seven years. His popularity with the army procured him the jealousy of
+Tilly, who, in the campaign of 1625-26, outrivalled him, by
+successfully combating the invasion of Christian and his Danish
+forces, and driving them beyond the Elbe. Wallenstein, nevertheless,
+in the following campaign, won his laurels, both as a statesman and a
+general, by his intrigues and conquests. Displaying the greatest ardor
+in the cause of the Empire, he attempted to render it an absolute
+despotism. After routing Count Mansfeldt on the Elbe, he marched into
+Hungary, and defeated the united armies of the count and Bethlem
+Gabor. Christian of Denmark having assembled a new army in 1628,
+Wallenstein marched to meet it; and, by a series of brilliant
+successes, recaptured all the towns garrisoned by the Danes, and
+forced the king to sue for peace. At the Congress of Lubeck, in May,
+1629, this was accorded on favorable terms to Denmark. Wallenstein
+during these campaigns astonished his compeers, and excited their
+envy, by the wondrous rapidity of his movements, and the skill with
+which he surmounted difficulties that seemed insuperable. He was
+rewarded with the duchy of Mecklenburg, which was forfeited to the
+Empire by the treason of its former owner.</p>
+
+<p>The envious schemes of Tilly and Maximilian, Duke of Bavaria, induced
+Ferdinand to remove Wallenstein from his rank of commander in 1630. He
+had hardly withdrawn to his Bohemian estates, when Gustavus Adolphus,
+who had been hitherto prevented from affording active assistance to
+the Protestant party, landed in Pomerania with a small but highly
+disciplined army. This illustrious monarch, eminent for virtue and
+piety, no less than for political wisdom and military skill, was now
+the sole hope of the Reformation in Germany. The princes who professed
+its tenets were lukewarm and unready,&mdash;divided by jealousies among
+themselves, and careless of all but their own worldly interests. He,
+on the contrary, was devoted to the cause of his faith, and his solemn
+disavowal of personal ambition in undertaking its championship is
+stamped with sincerity.</p>
+
+<p>He soon commenced a career of conquest. New Brandenburg and other
+districts yielded to his arms, and he formed an alliance with France,
+now under the sway of Cardinal Richelieu, which the emperor had vainly
+negotiated to prevent. <span class="pagenum"><a id="page197" name="page197"></a>(p. 197)</span> The rich city of Magdeburg declared
+for him, and was accordingly besieged by Tilly. The selfishness of the
+Lutheran leaders, the Electors of Brandenburg and Saxony, in not
+responding to the appeal of the Protestants in the city, led to its
+fall in 1631, before Gustavus could reach it. The most atrocious
+cruelties were perpetrated by the Catholics at the sack; no
+consideration of age or sex availing to prevent the massacre, which
+lasted for two days, and extended to 30,000 of the inhabitants. This
+monstrous crime was severely avenged by the indignant Gustavus. He
+forced the Electors of Brandenburg and Saxony to render him
+assistance, and, with an augmented army, hesitated not to give battle
+to Tilly at Leipsic, and defeated him September 7, 1631. The
+Protestants took courage and joined Gustavus in great numbers. He
+continued his victorious march, defeating the enemy at Merseberg,
+capturing Wurzburg, then advancing on the Rhine, and reducing on the
+way Frankfort-on-the-Main, Mentz, Spires, Mannheim, and other cities.
+He next turned to Bavaria, where Tilly and Maximilian entrenched
+themselves at Rain-on-the-Lech. The former was killed by a cannon-ball
+during the siege, in 1632. Gustavus marched through Augsburg, where
+the citizens did him homage, and besieged Munich, which speedily
+surrendered. He now threatened to subdue Bavaria and Austria, when his
+progress was stopped from an unexpected quarter.</p>
+
+<p>The emperor, justly mistrusting the loyalty of Maximilian, who was in
+league with France, now saw himself deprived of his ablest generals,
+and felt his power failing. He turned to Wallenstein as the only man
+who could save the Empire. That leader was meantime living in
+retirement, and secretly glad of the success of Gustavus. He refused
+at first to take the command of the imperial army, and only consented
+at last on condition of having sole and absolute authority, with the
+right of disposing as he pleased of his conquests. These humiliating
+terms were accepted by Ferdinand, and in a few months after the death
+of Tilly, Wallenstein was in the field with a large and powerful army,
+raised, as before, by his own exertions. He drove the Saxons from
+Bohemia, and thence marched to Leipsic, which capitulated. At
+Nuremberg, where Gustavus offered him battle, he wisely refused, and
+for three months the two camps remained close to each other, each
+general trying to exhaust the patience of his adversary, and relying
+on the destructive effects of famine and pestilence. Gustavus was
+forced to withdraw, after losing 20,000 men; a yet heavier loss,
+nevertheless, having befallen Wallenstein, whose numbers were better
+able to bear it.</p>
+
+<p>Gustavus marched southward, but soon returned to attack Wallenstein,
+who had moved northward, and was pillaging the neighborhood of
+Leipsic. The two armies met at Lutzen on November 6, 1632. A dense fog
+shrouded the movements of each side from the other, and created a
+fearful confusion. Wallenstein ranged his infantry in squares, having
+a ditch in front, and flanked by his cavalry. Gustavus headed his men
+and charged the enemy across the ditch. But his own infantry was borne
+down by the black cuirassiers of Wallenstein, and, as he turned to
+attack them, the thick fog concealed their approach. His horse was
+wounded, and he himself had his arm broken. In moving off the field he
+was <span class="pagenum"><a id="page198" name="page198"></a>(p. 198)</span> shot in the back, and falling from his saddle was
+dragged in the stirrup. He fell into the hands of the cuirassiers, one
+of whom, as the Swedes came up to the succor of their king, shot him
+through the head. His corpse was discovered after the battle, and
+honorably buried. The death of their king caused the deepest
+affliction to the Swedes, but aroused instead of enfeebling their
+courage. A charge of the Duke of Weimar, one of the Protestant
+leaders, threw Wallenstein's infantry and cavalry into disorder. An
+attempt of the Imperialist General Pappenheim, who now came up with a
+reserve to retrieve the battle, was for a time successful. But as the
+tide of fortune seemed turning against the Swedes, a reserve of their
+own army made a last desperate charge, carried the ditch which
+protected Wallenstein's infantry, and won the day; the Imperialists
+fleeing in all directions and their great leader escaping into
+Bohemia.</p>
+
+<p>This defeat was the death-blow to Wallenstein's fortunate career. The
+Swedes continued to carry on the war successfully under the able
+minister of Gustavus, Oxenstiern, and the valiant Duke of Weimar.
+Meantime Wallenstein, after some slight victories in Saxony and
+Silesia, remained inactive. He at the same time assumed an air of
+extreme pride and self-sufficiency, which exasperated his enemies and
+gave occasion for their slanders. He was accused to Ferdinand of
+designing to seize the Empire,&mdash;a charge which seemed the more
+credible, on account of an offer having been made by France to assist
+him in obtaining the Bohemian crown. This proposition, however, he had
+firmly refused. The emperor's intention of removing him from the
+command of the army having reached his ears, he declared he would
+resign, but was persuaded to remain by his officers, who at a great
+banquet, all, with wild and perhaps drunken enthusiasm, signed a
+promise of inviolable attachment to his person. This, too, was
+interpreted by his enemies as a conspiracy against the emperor. His
+destruction was resolved on by the Duke of Bavaria and others, among
+whom an Italian mercenary general, named Piccolomini, was the most
+perfidious and savage. A plot was formed against him by certain
+traitors among his own officers,&mdash;the names of Devereaux, Butler,
+Gordon, and Leslie, to the shame of their nations, appearing in the
+list.</p>
+
+<p>On February 25, 1634, an entertainment was given to the whole body of
+officers by Gordon, who commanded the castle of Eger, where
+Wallenstein was residing. He himself being indisposed, had retired
+from the table to his chamber. He was roused by loud cries proceeding
+from the mess-room, where his faithful officers were being murdered by
+the traitors. He opened the window to inquire the cause of the
+disturbance, when Devereaux entered, with thirty Irishmen at his back.
+The cowards shrank at the sight of their great general, standing calm
+and stern, unarmed, and at their mercy. But Devereaux, a callous and
+brutal soldier, in a moment stepped forward, and cried: "Art thou the
+traitor who wilt ruin the Empire?" Wallenstein did not speak, but
+opened his arms, as if to accept the blow which was aimed at his
+heart. He was slain at the age of fifty-one. His wealth was chiefly
+shared among his enemies.</p>
+
+<a id="img074" name="img074"></a>
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/img074.jpg" width="600" height="370" alt="" title="">
+<p>Wallenstein's last banquet.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Though undoubtedly ambitious and intriguing, Wallenstein's alleged
+treachery <span class="pagenum"><a id="page199" name="page199"></a>(p. 199)</span> to the emperor, whom he kept informed of all his
+schemes, has never been proved, and by many recent historians is
+disbelieved. He fell a victim to the jealousy of his rivals, which he
+augmented by his own pride. His fall, however, reflects lasting
+disgrace on the character of the Emperor Ferdinand, and was justly
+avenged by the subsequent humiliation of the German Empire.<a href="#toc"><span class="small">[Back to Contents]</span></a></p>
+
+
+<h3>GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS<a id="footnotetag20" name="footnotetag20"></a><a href="#footnote20" title="Go to footnote 20"><span class="small">[20]</span></a><br>
+By <span class="smcap">Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen</span><br>
+(1594-1632)</h3>
+
+<a id="img075" name="img075"></a>
+<div class="floatleft">
+<img src="images/img075.jpg" width="250" height="308" alt="Gustavus Adolphus." title="">
+</div>
+
+<p>There is a theory which has much currency nowadays, that the great
+man, being a product of his century, exerts an influence upon his age
+which is but vanishing, compared to the influence which the age exerts
+upon him. The great man is, according to this view, personally of
+small account, except in so far as the tendencies and ideas which are
+fermenting in the age find their expression in him. He does not so
+much shape the events as he is shaped and moulded by them.</p>
+
+<p>There is scarcely a hero to be found in all the annals of history who
+is better qualified to refute this theory than the Swedish king,
+Gustavus Adolphus. It would be futile to assert, of course, that he
+was an isolated phenomenon, who sprang like Jonah's luxuriant gourd
+out of the arid sands of the desert. No, he had deep and intricate
+roots in the past of his race and in the soil of his fatherland. But
+yet, how far are all the influences which we can trace, from
+accounting for the forceful energy, the clear-sighted sagacity, and
+the dominant genius of the man! As far as we can judge at this
+distance, his personality was the mightiest element that entered into
+the dénouement of that bloody world-drama, the Thirty Years' War. Had
+he been other than he was, had he been a man of less heroic mould, it
+would seem that Protestantism must have perished in Central Europe, or
+been confined, at least, to England and the Scandinavian North. The
+rights of conscience and individual judgment, for which Luther and his
+co-reformers had fought so valiantly, would then have succumbed to the
+power of authority, as embodied in the <span class="pagenum"><a id="page200" name="page200"></a>(p. 200)</span> Papacy and the
+Catholic League; and Germany, after its mighty effort at release,
+would have lapsed back into the Middle Ages. To few men the
+opportunity is offered to exercise such a far-reaching influence upon
+the history of mankind; but fewer still are those who see its full
+significance, and seeing it, seize it, and without one look behind
+march into the storm and stress of world-shaping events.</p>
+
+<p>Gustavus Adolphus was born December 9, 1594. He was the son of King
+Charles IX. of Sweden, and the grandson of the renowned Gustavus Vasa.
+He was a precocious child, and it is told (though it appears rather
+incredible) that at the age of twelve he spoke Latin, French, German,
+Dutch, and Italian with great fluency, besides having a superficial
+acquaintance with Polish and Russian. There can be no doubt, however,
+that he was well taught, and that he possessed a remarkable facility
+in acquiring languages. For all that, he was far from being a bookish
+boy. In riding, fencing, and all chivalrous accomplishments he took a
+lively interest and exhibited much skill. It was in stormy times that
+his boyhood fell, Sweden being at that time involved in frequent wars,
+and his father, in order to train him in the duties of a military
+commander, took him early into his camp and made him share his
+campaigns. Many of the famous captains of that day who had fought in
+the Low Countries and in France, were made welcome at the Swedish
+court; and the favorite pastime of the young Gustavus was to question
+them concerning the battles, sieges, and military exploits in which
+they had been engaged.</p>
+
+<p>When Charles IX. died, in 1611, Gustavus, being then seventeen years
+old, was declared to be of age and succeeded to the throne. There was
+need of an able and resolute man to cope with the many difficulties
+which sprang up round about him. In the first place there was one war
+with Denmark, already raging; the strained relations with Russia and
+Poland threatened to precipitate two more. Norway, which was then
+united with Denmark under the same king, was also jealous of Sweden;
+and the Norwegian peasantry destroyed at Kringelen, in Guldbrandsdal,
+an army of Scottish mercenaries, under the command of Colonel
+Sinclair, which was marching to the relief of Gustavus. The Danes had
+occupied two important Swedish cities, Calmar and Elfsborg, and being
+determined to utilize their advantages to the full, repelled all
+overtures for peace. It was of no avail that Gustavus renounced his
+title of King of the Laplanders, the assumption of which by his father
+had been one of the causes of the war. Christian IV., of Denmark,
+continued to push hostilities with unflagging vigor, and several
+battles were fought with varying fortunes. In 1612, he set sail with a
+fleet of thirty-six vessels for Stockholm, intending to capture the
+city. The Swedish fleet, being much inferior in numbers, was forced to
+retire under shelter of the fortress of Waxholm, which guards the
+access to the capital. In this dire dilemma, Gustavus strained every
+nerve to avert the threatened disaster. With a small force, chiefly of
+Dalecarlians, he marched day and night, and hastened to Waxholm in the
+hope of surprising the Danish fleet which had been detained by adverse
+winds. But the enemy, being probably informed of his approach, saw
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page201" name="page201"></a>(p. 201)</span> that their opportunity for capturing the capital was gone,
+and returned again to their own coast. Negotiations were now resumed
+and peace was concluded in 1613. The Danes were to surrender Calmar
+immediately and Elfsborg at the end of six years; the Swedes agreeing
+to pay a war indemnity of one million thalers.</p>
+
+<p>The war with Russia, which Gustavus had inherited from his father, had
+of late been in a state of suspension. The Swedes had occupied a large
+amount of Russian territory, in which were several strong fortresses.
+In the confusion which reigned as to the succession, after the
+extinction of the ancient house of Rurik, there was a capital chance
+of fishing in troubled waters. A strong party in Russia desired to
+elect a Swedish prince as sovereign, and actually sent an embassy to
+Stockholm to offer the throne to Charles Philip, a younger brother of
+Gustavus. But the king did not favor this plan. For four years he
+continued the war and secured important advantages. But what was more
+valuable than territorial gains, he acquired a wide experience in
+strategy and the conduct of campaigns, a habit of dealing promptly
+with large questions, and a sharpened judgment of men. In February,
+1617, the treaty of peace was signed, Russia ceding to Sweden a large
+territory on the east of the Baltic. Gustavus was now in a position to
+prosecute with greater energy the war with Poland. Sigismund III., of
+Poland, was the only son of King John III., of Sweden, and was,
+therefore, as a scion of the ancient royal house, the legitimate heir
+to the Swedish throne. But in the first place he was a Catholic; and
+in the second place, the house of Vasa, had by force of arms and with
+the support of the people, successfully asserted its right to the
+crown which Gustavus I. had won.</p>
+
+<p>After repeated extensions of the armistice which by common consent
+prevailed, the King of Sweden resumed hostilities in July, 1621; and
+the war raged with varying success until September, 1629, when another
+armistice was concluded for six years. The chief result of this
+exhausting warfare was the stipulation which was agreed to, that
+liberty of conscience should be granted to Protestants and Catholics,
+and that the commerce between Poland and Sweden was declared free.</p>
+
+<p>The renown of these wars, two of which had been brought to a
+triumphant issue, spread far over Europe; and the Protestant princes
+of Germany became aware that there was a great military captain of
+their own faith in the Scandinavian North. They were at that time
+sorely oppressed, the success of the imperial arms, under Tilly and
+Wallenstein, seeming to threaten the very existence of the Reformed
+Faith. The Emperor Ferdinand II. was carrying everything with a high
+hand after the defeat of King Christian IV. of Denmark, who, with more
+courage than success, had undertaken to champion the Protestant cause.
+It was in this desperate strait that all eyes turned toward the young
+King of Sweden. An appeal was sent to him for aid, in the name of
+their common religion; and Gustavus, after a brief hesitation,
+accepted the call. He had long watched with deep concern the war of
+devastation by which Wallenstein and the scarcely less terrible Tilly
+were seeking to destroy the fruits of the Reformation; and it is said
+that he had a clear presentiment that sooner or later he would be
+drawn <span class="pagenum"><a id="page202" name="page202"></a>(p. 202)</span> into the struggle. Leaving his domestic affairs in the
+hands of his friend, the Chancellor Oxenstiern, he embarked in June,
+1630, with a force of but fifteen thousand men, for Germany, and
+landed on midsummer day on the island of Usedom, on the coast of
+Pomerania.</p>
+
+<p>The Emperor Ferdinand professed to be much amused when he heard that
+Gustavus Adolphus had invaded his dominions.</p>
+
+<p>"So we have got another kingling on our hands," he exclaimed
+mockingly. He was far from foreseeing what trouble he was to have for
+eighteen years to come, in getting that kingling and his troops off
+his hands.</p>
+
+<p>Gustavus was the first to step upon the German soil, at the
+disembarkation; and in the sight of all his army he fell upon his
+knees and prayed for the blessing of God upon the vast enterprise
+which had been confided to him. As he arose from his prayer, he seized
+a spade and began instantly the work upon the intrenchments of the
+camp.</p>
+
+<p>If his troops were few in number, it is not to be denied that they
+were excellent in quality. Many were hardened veterans from the king's
+earlier campaigns; among his recently acquired mercenaries there was a
+Scotch brigade, from which he drew many of his best officers. We hear
+much during the following years, of Hepburn, Seaton, Leslie, Mackay,
+and Monroe, whose names betray their Caledonian origin. You would have
+supposed now that the Protestant princes, having secured the aid of
+Gustavus, would have made haste to identify themselves with his cause
+and to reinforce him with money and troops. But, strange to relate, no
+sooner had he landed than they began to grow afraid of him and to ask
+themselves whether they might not after all, be able to make more
+tolerable terms with the emperor by the sacrifice of their religion,
+than with this foreign invader, who, if he was victorious, might
+dictate his own terms. Had they not, in other words, jumped from the
+frying-pan into the fire?</p>
+
+<p>The two princes who had hitherto been the most prominent champions of
+Protestantism in Germany (though both half-hearted and pusillanimous
+shufflers) were Gustavus's brother-in-law, the Elector of Brandenburg,
+and the Elector of Saxony. They were now doing their best to wriggle
+out of their obligations, and by a shameful neutrality avert the
+emperor's displeasure. But they had reckoned without their host if
+they supposed that Gustavus would lend himself to such a scheme. The
+reply which he gave to Herr von Wilmerstorff, who had been sent to him
+by the Elector to urge an armistice, was refreshingly plain, while the
+argument which accompanied it was completely unanswerable. When
+nevertheless the Elector continued to resort to shilly-shallying and
+all sorts of ambiguous tactics, Gustavus lost his patience, marched
+his army to the gates of Berlin, and compelled him to make his choice
+of party once, for all. The treaty of alliance was then signed, on the
+Elector's part reluctantly and with a heavy heart; for these two
+brothers-in-law were so vastly different, that it was scarcely to be
+expected that they would be congenial. Gustavus, though he was not
+without personal ambition, was fired with noble zeal for the
+Protestant cause, and believed it worthy of any sacrifice, however
+great; while the Elector was only <span class="pagenum"><a id="page203" name="page203"></a>(p. 203)</span> bent on saving his own
+precious skin and extricating himself with the least possible damage
+from the dangerous situation in which he had been caught.</p>
+
+<a id="img076" name="img076"></a>
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/img076.jpg" width="600" height="363" alt="" title="">
+<p>Gustavus Adolphus before the battle of Lutzen.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>With the same promptness with which he had brought his brother-in-law
+of Brandenburg to terms, Gustavus forced the hand of the Elector of
+Saxony, who now overcame his scruples and sent him the needed
+reinforcements. An imperial army of forty thousand men, under the
+command of an Italian adventurer named Torquato Conti, had been sent
+against him, immediately on his landing in Pomerania, but no battle
+had been fought, and beyond laying waste the country the Imperialists
+had so far accomplished nothing. The emperor, who had predicted that
+"the Snow-king would melt under the rays of the Imperial sun," became
+alarmed at his successes and selected Tilly to stay his southward
+advance. This able and experienced general promptly assumed the
+command of the forces of the Catholic League, and in order to strike
+terror into the hearts of the Protestant princes, sacked and pillaged
+the city of Magdeburg in Lower Saxony, giving it over without
+restraint to devastation and ruin by the brutal soldiery. The horrors
+which were here enacted beggar description, and leave a hideous stain
+upon the page of history. Tilly himself, in announcing his success to
+the emperor, wrote: "Since the destruction of Troy and Jerusalem never
+has such a siege been seen."</p>
+
+<p>Gustavus had, indeed, come too late to relieve Magdeburg, but the
+report of the unspeakable atrocities which that unhappy city had
+witnessed, fired his generous heart with wrath and an eager
+determination to punish a general so devoid of humanity. And the
+opportunity was soon to present itself. Advancing rapidly into Saxony,
+he met Tilly on the plains of Breitenfeld, near Leipsic, September 7,
+1631; and not only defeated him, but utterly annihilated his army,
+scattering it like dust before the storm. He was now, until a new army
+could be raised, master of all Germany. Nothing apparently could have
+hindered him from marching on Vienna and dictating to the emperor his
+own terms of peace. It has been and is yet a matter of speculation,
+why Gustavus did not relentlessly follow up the results of this great
+victory, instead of going into winter quarters and affording Ferdinand
+and the discomfited princes of the League a chance of recovering from
+their utter demoralization. The answer is, no doubt, that he did not
+feel himself strong enough to lay siege to Vienna, without covering
+his rear and securing his base of supplies. He had always, like the
+good general he was, been careful to keep open a possible line of
+retreat. For the moment he was indeed irresistible. At Merseburg two
+thousand Imperialists were cut to pieces. Cities opened their gates to
+receive him. The Protestant population, in their ecstacy at his
+victories, were ready to worship him as a demigod. Proceeding
+southward to Nuremberg and Munich, he was met again by Tilly at the
+river Lech, where a brief battle was fought; Gustavus was again
+victorious and Tilly lost his life. This feat of crossing the Lech in
+the face of a hostile force is by military experts regarded as the
+greatest strategic feat of Gustavus.</p>
+
+<p>In the meanwhile the emperor had not been idle. There was but one man
+whose name was potent enough to summon an army adequate for so
+perilous a <span class="pagenum"><a id="page204" name="page204"></a>(p. 204)</span> situation; and that man was Albrecht von
+Wallenstein. He was himself, too, fully aware of his preciousness and
+the terms which he exacted of Ferdinand were hard, not to say
+extortionate. Ferdinand II., however, had no choice but to accept
+them. It was not long before Gustavus became aware that Wallenstein,
+with an army which seemed to have risen out of the ground, was moving
+in his rear, resolved, apparently, to cut him off from his
+communication with Sweden. He had no alternative then but to return
+northward to face this new enemy. On the field of Lutzen in Saxony
+they met November 6, 1632. A thick mist covered the battle-field, and
+both armies tarried with the attack in the hope that it would lift.
+Toward noon, however, Gustavus made a brief address to his soldiers
+and knelt in prayer before them, whereupon all sang Luther's hymn,
+"Our God he is a fortress strong." Then the signal was given for the
+attack. The army of Gustavus, including his German allies, numbered
+from twenty to twenty-five thousand, and the Imperialists about thirty
+thousand. The king, who suffered from an imperfectly healed wound
+which he had received in the Polish war, found it painful to wear a
+cuirass; and on the morning of the day of Lutzen refused to put it on.
+"God is my armor," he said, and mounted his horse.</p>
+
+<p>It was this sublime confidence in divine Providence which led him
+perhaps to expose himself overmuch. He led the attack in person.
+Before the battle was far advanced, a report reached him that his left
+wing was wavering. With prompt resolution he started across the field,
+but, mistaking the direction in the fog, found himself in the midst of
+a detachment of imperial cuirassiers. A pistol shot pierced his arm;
+but he still pressed on. Growing faint from pain and loss of blood, he
+turned to one of the German princes who accompanied him and said:
+"Cousin, lead me out of this tumult; for I am hurt."</p>
+
+<p>But scarcely had he spoken, when a second shot hit him between the
+shoulders and he fell from his horse, dead.</p>
+
+<p>The rumor instantly spread through the Swedish army that the king had
+been taken prisoner. The troops rushed like an avalanche upon the
+Imperialists, who wavered and gave way. In the end the victory was
+claimed by both sides, the advantage remaining however with the
+Swedes.</p>
+
+<p>Gustavus Adolphus was a man of handsome appearance, tall of stature,
+and of most impressive presence. He was hot-tempered; but at the same
+time kindly, generous, and affable. He possessed all the qualities
+required of a military leader, and has justly been accounted one of
+the world's greatest generals. He was thirty-eight years old at the
+time of his death. Having no son, he was succeeded on the Swedish
+throne by his daughter Christina.<a href="#toc"><span class="small">[Back to Contents]</span></a></p>
+
+<a id="sig008" name="sig008"></a>
+<div class="p2 right">
+<img src="images/sig008.jpg" width="200" height="59" alt="Author signature." title="">
+</div>
+
+
+<p class="p4"><a id="footnote1" name="footnote1"></a>
+<strong>Footnote 1:</strong> Copyright, 1894, by Selmar
+Hess.<a href="#footnotetag1"><span class="small">[Back to Main Text]</span></a></p>
+
+<p><a id="footnote2" name="footnote2"></a>
+<strong>Footnote 2:</strong> Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.<a href="#footnotetag2"><span class="small">[Back to Main Text]</span></a></p>
+
+<p><a id="footnote3" name="footnote3"></a>
+<strong>Footnote 3:</strong> <span class="smcap">B.C.</span> 109.<a href="#footnotetag3"><span class="small">[Back to Main Text]</span></a></p>
+
+<p><a id="footnote4" name="footnote4"></a>
+<strong>Footnote 4:</strong> King of Numidia. He successfully withstood the Romans
+during several years.<a href="#footnotetag4"><span class="small">[Back to Main Text]</span></a></p>
+
+<p><a id="footnote5" name="footnote5"></a>
+<strong>Footnote 5:</strong> He was ranked with Romulus and Camillus and given the
+title of the third founder of Rome.<a href="#footnotetag5"><span class="small">[Back to Main Text]</span></a></p>
+
+<p><a id="footnote6" name="footnote6"></a>
+<strong>Footnote 6:</strong> According to legend Marius took refuge among the ruins of
+Carthage, comparing his own fallen greatness to that of the city. His
+dignity in misfortune awed the soldiers who came to seize him, and
+they left him in peace.<a href="#footnotetag6"><span class="small">[Back to Main Text]</span></a></p>
+
+<p><a id="footnote7" name="footnote7"></a>
+<strong>Footnote 7:</strong> In this first invasion he overran all Greece, and took
+Athens with little resistance. He spared her art treasures, and acted
+with great moderation and humanity. Our illustration "Alaric in
+Athens" represents him seated among the inhabitants, who welcomed him
+as a conqueror, with every demonstration of reverence.<a href="#footnotetag7"><span class="small">[Back to Main Text]</span></a></p>
+
+<p><a id="footnote8" name="footnote8"></a>
+<strong>Footnote 8:</strong> Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.<a href="#footnotetag8"><span class="small">[Back to Main Text]</span></a></p>
+
+<p><a id="footnote9" name="footnote9"></a>
+<strong>Footnote 9:</strong> Witikind was baptized with solemn ceremony by the great
+bishops of the realm, in presence of his conqueror. Paul Thumann has
+vividly portrayed the scene in the painting here copied.<a href="#footnotetag9"><span class="small">[Back to Main Text]</span></a></p>
+
+<p><a id="footnote10" name="footnote10"></a>
+<strong>Footnote 10:</strong> Tryggve, one of the Norwegian sub-kings, slain by order
+of Gunhild, Queen of Norway.<a href="#footnotetag10"><span class="small">[Back to Main Text]</span></a></p>
+
+<p><a id="footnote11" name="footnote11"></a>
+<strong>Footnote 11:</strong> Hakon, now King of Norway, sent a spy to learn if Olaf
+thought of regaining his inheritance. Guided by the spy, Olaf did sail
+with his fleet for Norway, found the people there in unexpected
+rebellion against Hakon's tyranny, set himself at their head, easily
+overthrew the king, executed him amid general rejoicing and
+established himself upon the throne.<a href="#footnotetag11"><span class="small">[Back to Main Text]</span></a></p>
+
+<p><a id="footnote12" name="footnote12"></a>
+<strong>Footnote 12:</strong> Eric, son of King Hakon.<a href="#footnotetag12"><span class="small">[Back to Main Text]</span></a></p>
+
+<p><a id="footnote13" name="footnote13"></a>
+<strong>Footnote 13:</strong> Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.<a href="#footnotetag13"><span class="small">[Back to Main Text]</span></a></p>
+
+<p><a id="footnote14" name="footnote14"></a>
+<strong>Footnote 14:</strong> In the battle of Tiberias, or Hattin, Saladin completely
+overthrew the Christians and conquered their kingdom.<a href="#footnotetag14"><span class="small">[Back to Main Text]</span></a></p>
+
+<p><a id="footnote15" name="footnote15"></a>
+<strong>Footnote 15:</strong> See Edward the Black Prince for this battle, as also for
+the great sea-fight with the Spaniards.<a href="#footnotetag15"><span class="small">[Back to Main Text]</span></a></p>
+
+<p><a id="footnote16" name="footnote16"></a>
+<strong>Footnote 16:</strong> Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.<a href="#footnotetag16"><span class="small">[Back to Main Text]</span></a></p>
+
+<p><a id="footnote17" name="footnote17"></a>
+<strong>Footnote 17:</strong> Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.<a href="#footnotetag17"><span class="small">[Back to Main Text]</span></a></p>
+
+<p><a id="footnote18" name="footnote18"></a>
+<strong>Footnote 18:</strong> Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.<a href="#footnotetag18"><span class="small">[Back to Main Text]</span></a></p>
+
+<p><a id="footnote19" name="footnote19"></a>
+<strong>Footnote 19:</strong> Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.<a href="#footnotetag19"><span class="small">[Back to Main Text]</span></a></p>
+
+<p><a id="footnote20" name="footnote20"></a>
+<strong>Footnote 20:</strong> Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.<a href="#footnotetag20"><span class="small">[Back to Main Text]</span></a></p>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 1 of 8, by Various
+
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+</body>
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@@ -0,0 +1,11173 @@
+Project Gutenberg's Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 1 of 8, by Various
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 1 of 8
+       A series of pen and pencil sketches of the lives of more
+       than 200 of the most prominent personages in History
+
+Author: Various
+
+Editor: Charles F. Horne
+
+Release Date: August 27, 2008 [EBook #26421]
+[Last updated: March 30, 2014]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GREAT MEN, FAMOUS WOMEN, VOL. 1 ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Sigal Alon, Christine P. Travers and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This
+file was produced from images generously made available
+by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries)
+
+
+
+
+
+[Transcriber's note: Obvious printer's errors have been corrected, all
+other inconsistencies are as in the original. The author's spelling
+has been maintained.
+
+Captions marked with [TN] have been added while producing this file.]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: Attila, "The Scourge of God".]
+
+
+
+
+GREAT MEN AND FAMOUS WOMEN
+
+
+_A Series of Pen and Pencil Sketches of_
+
+THE LIVES OF MORE THAN 200 OF THE MOST PROMINENT PERSONAGES IN HISTORY
+
+
+VOL. I.
+
+
+
+
+Copyright, 1894, BY SELMAR HESS
+
+edited by Charles F. Horne
+
+[Illustration: Publisher's arm.]
+
+New-York: Selmar Hess Publisher
+
+
+Copyright, 1894, by SELMAR HESS.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS OF VOLUME I.
+
+
+  SUBJECT                         AUTHOR                          PAGE
+
+  ALARIC THE BOLD,            _Archdeacon Farrar, D.D., F.R.S._,    56
+  ALEXANDER THE GREAT,                                              10
+  MARC ANTONY,                                                      37
+  ATTILA,                     _Archdeacon Farrar, D.D., F.R.S._,    59
+  BELISARIUS,                 _Charlotte M. Yonge_,                 64
+  GODFREY DE BOUILLON,        _Henry G. Hewlett_,                   97
+  JULIUS CAESAR,               _E. Spencer Beesly, M.A._,            32
+  CHARLEMAGNE,                _Sir J. Bernard Burke_,               75
+  CLOVIS THE FIRST,           _Thomas Wyatt, A.M._,                 61
+  GASPARD DE COLIGNI,         _Professor Creasy_,                  164
+  HERNANDO CORTES,            _H. Rider Haggard_,                  150
+  CYRUS THE GREAT,            _Clarence Cook_,                       5
+  DIOCLETIAN,                                                       50
+  SIR FRANCIS DRAKE,                                               176
+  EDWARD I. OF ENGLAND,       _Thomas Davidson_,                   109
+  EDWARD III. OF ENGLAND,                                          114
+  EDWARD, THE BLACK PRINCE,   _L. Drake_,                          119
+  BERTRAND DU GUESCLIN,                                            127
+  GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS,          _Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen_,            199
+  HANNIBAL,                   _Walter Whyte_,                       14
+  HENRY IV. OF FRANCE,                                             171
+  HENRY V. OF ENGLAND,        _G. P. R. James_,                    129
+  HERMANN,                                                          40
+  JOHN HUNIADES,              _Professor A. Vambery_,              136
+  CAIUS MARIUS,               _James Anthony Froude, LL.D._,        25
+  CHARLES MARTEL,             _Henry G. Hewlett_,                   69
+  NEBUCHADNEZZAR,             _Clarence Cook_,                       1
+  PEPIN THE SHORT,            _Henry G. Hewlett_,                   72
+  FRANCISCO PIZARRO,          _J. T. Trowbridge_,                  156
+  SIR WALTER RALEIGH,                                              182
+  SALADIN,                    _Walter Besant_,                     106
+  SCIPIO AFRICANUS MAJOR,                                           18
+  MILES STANDISH,             _Elbridge S. Brooks_,                189
+  TRAJAN,                     _J. S. Reid, Litt. D._,               42
+  OLAF TRYGGVESON,            _Thomas Carlyle_,                     83
+  ALBRECHT VON WALLENSTEIN,   _Henry G. Hewlett_,                  194
+  WARWICK, THE KING-MAKER,                                         146
+  WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR,      _G. W. Prothero_,                     92
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+VOLUME I.
+
+
+PHOTOGRAVURES
+
+
+  ILLUSTRATION                           ARTIST              TO FACE PAGE
+
+  ATTILA, "THE SCOURGE OF GOD,"          _Ulpiano Checa_    _Frontispiece_
+  "AND HE WAS DRIVEN FROM MEN, AND DID
+    EAT GRASS AS OXEN,"                  _Georges Rochegrosse_       4
+  HANNIBAL CROSSING THE RHONE,           _Henri-Paul Motte_         14
+  HERMANN'S TRIUMPH OVER THE ROMANS,     _Paul Thumann_             40
+  ROME UNDER TRAJAN--A CHARIOT RACE,     _Ulpiano Checa_            48
+  THE VICTIMS OF GALERIUS,               _E. K. Liska_              54
+  ALARIC IN ATHENS,                      _Ludwig Thiersch_          56
+  CHARLEMAGNE AT WITIKIND'S BAPTISM,     _Paul Thumann_             78
+  HENRY V. REJECTS FALSTAFF,             _Eduard Gruetzner_         132
+  THE ADMIRAL OF THE SPANISH ARMADA
+    SURRENDERS TO DRAKE,                 _Seymour Lucas_           180
+  GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS BEFORE THE BATTLE OF
+    LUTZEN,                              _Ludwig Braun_            202
+
+
+
+
+WOOD-ENGRAVINGS AND TYPOGRAVURES
+
+
+  ALEXANDER DISCOVERING THE BODY OF
+    DARIUS,                              _Gustave Dore_             12
+  GENEROSITY OF SCIPIO,                  _Schopin_                  20
+  MARIUS ON THE RUINS OF CARTHAGE,       _John Vanderlyn_           32
+  THE IDES OF MARCH,                     _Carl Von Piloty_          36
+  THE LAST GLADIATORIAL CONTEST,         _J. Stallaert_             58
+  CLOVIS PUNISHING A REBEL,              _Alphonse De Neuville_     62
+  BELISARIUS RECEIVING ALMS,             _Jacques-Louis David_      68
+  CHARLES MARTEL AT TOURS,               _Charles Steuben_          72
+  PEPIN AFTER THE MURDER OF DUKE WAIFRE, _Th. Lybaert_              74
+  A NORSE RAID UNDER OLAF,               _Hugo Vogel_               84
+  WILLIAM AT HASTINGS,                   _P. J. De Loutherbourg_    94
+  GODFREY DE BOUILLON ENTERING
+    JERUSALEM,                           _Carl Von Piloty_         104
+  SALADIN,                               _Gustave Dore_            108
+  EDWARD III. AND THE BURGHERS OF
+    CALAIS,                              _Berthelemy_              118
+  BERTRAND DU GUESCLIN,                  _Alphonse De Neuville_    128
+  HUNIADES AT BELGRADE,                  _Gustave Dore_            146
+  YORK AND LANCASTER--THE RED AND WHITE
+    ROSES,                                                         148
+  PIZARRO EXHORTING HIS BAND AT GALLO,   _Lizcano_                 158
+  HENRY IV. OF FRANCE AT HOME,           _J. D. Ingres_            176
+  RALEIGH PARTING FROM HIS WIFE,         _E. Leutze_               188
+  DEPARTURE OF THE MAYFLOWER,            _A. W. Bayes_             192
+  WALLENSTEIN'S LAST BANQUET,            _J. Scholz_               198
+
+
+
+
+SOLDIERS AND SAILORS
+
+  Sleep, soldiers! still in honored rest
+      Your truth and valor wearing:
+  The bravest are the tenderest.
+      The loving are the daring.
+
+  --BAYARD TAYLOR
+
+
+
+
+NEBUCHADNEZZAR[1]
+
+By CLARENCE COOK
+
+(645-561 B.C.)
+
+         [Footnote 1: Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.]
+
+[Illustration: Nebuchadnezzar.]
+
+
+With the death of Sardanapalus, the great monarch of Assyria, and the
+taking of Nineveh, the capital city, by the Medes, the kingdom of
+Assyria came to an end, and the vast domain was parcelled out among
+the conquerors. At the time of the catastrophe, the district of
+Babylonia, with its capital city Babylon, was ruled as a dependent
+satrapy of Assyria by Nabopolassar. Aided by the Medes, he now took
+possession of the province and established himself as an independent
+monarch, strengthening the alliance by a marriage between the Princess
+Amuhia, the daughter of the Median king, and his son Nebuchadnezzar.
+
+In the partition of Assyria, the region stretching from Egypt to the
+upper Euphrates, including Syria, Phoenicia, and Palestine, had fallen
+to the share of Nabopolassar. But the tribes that peopled it were not
+disposed to accept the rule of the new claimant, and looked about for
+an ally to support them in their resistance. Such an ally they thought
+they had found in Egypt.
+
+Egypt was the great rival of Babylon, as she had been of Assyria. Both
+desired to control the highways of traffic connecting the
+Mediterranean with the farther East. Egypt had the advantage, both
+from her actual position on the Mediterranean and her nearer
+neighborhood to the coveted territory, and she used her advantage with
+audacity and skill. No sooner, however, did Nabopolassar feel himself
+firm on his throne than he resolved to check the ambition of Egypt and
+secure for himself the sovereignty of the lands in dispute.
+
+The task was not an easy one. Pharaoh Necho had been for three years
+in possession of the whole strip along the Mediterranean--Palestine,
+Phoenicia, and part of Syria--and was pushing victoriously on to
+Assyria, when he was met at the plain of Megiddo, commanding the
+principal pass in the range of Mount Carmel, by the forces of the
+petty kingdom of Judah, disputing his advance. He defeated them in a
+bloody engagement, in which Josiah, King of Judah, was slain, and then
+continued his march to Carchemish, a stronghold built to defend one of
+the few fordable passes of the upper Euphrates. This important place
+having been taken after a bloody battle, Necho was master of all the
+strategic points north and west of Babylonia.
+
+Nebuchadnezzar was now put in command of an army, to force Pharaoh to
+give up his prey. Marching directly upon Carchemish, he attacked the
+Egyptian and defeated him with great slaughter. Following up his
+victory, he wrested from Pharaoh, in engagement after engagement, all
+that he had gained in Syria, Phoenicia, and Palestine, and was in the
+midst of fighting in Egypt itself, when the news came of the death of
+his father; and he hastened home at once by forced marches to secure
+his possession of the throne. In his train were captives of all the
+nations he had conquered: Syrians, Phoenicians, Jews, and Egyptians.
+Among the Jewish prisoners was Daniel, the author of the book of the
+Old Testament called by his name, and to whom we owe the little
+personal knowledge we have of the great Babylonian monarch.
+
+Of all the conquests of Nebuchadnezzar in this long struggle with
+Egypt, that of the Jewish people is the most interesting to us. The
+Jews had fought hard for independence, but if they must be conquered
+and held in subjection, they preferred the rule of Egypt to that of
+Babylon. Even the long slavery of their ancestors in that country and
+the sufferings it had entailed, with the tragic memories of the exodus
+and the wanderings in the desert, had not been potent to blot out the
+traditions of the years passed in that pleasant land with its
+delicious climate, its nourishing and abundant food. Alike in
+prosperity and in evil days the hearts of the people of Israel yearned
+after Egypt, and the denunciations of her prophets are never so bitter
+as when uttered against those who turned from Jehovah to worship the
+false gods of the Nile. Three times did the inhabitants of Jerusalem
+rebel against the rule of Babylon, and three times did Nebuchadnezzar
+come down upon them with a cruel and unrelenting vengeance, carrying
+off their people into bondage, each time inflicting great damage upon
+the city and leaving her less capable of resistance; yet each time her
+rulers had turned to Egypt in the vain hope of finding in her a
+defence against the oppressor, but in every instance Egypt had proved
+a broken reed.
+
+Of the three successive kings of Judah whom Nebuchadnezzar had left to
+rule the city as his servants, and who had all in turn rebelled
+against him, one had been condemned to perpetual imprisonment in
+Babylon; a second had been carried there in chains and probably
+killed, while the third, captured in a vain attempt to escape after
+the taking of the city, had first been made to see his sons killed
+before his eyes, had then been cruelly blinded, and afterward carried
+in chains to Babylon, and cast into prison. The last siege of the
+city lasted eighteen months, and when it was finally taken by assault,
+its ruin was complete. By previous deportations Jerusalem had been
+deprived of her princes, her warriors, her craftsmen, and her smiths,
+with all the treasure laid up in the palace of her kings, and all the
+vessels of gold and silver consecrated to the worship of Jehovah.
+Little then was left for her to suffer, when the punishment of her
+latest rebellion came. Her walls were thrown down, her temple, her
+chief glory, was destroyed, the greater part of the inhabitants who
+had survived the prolonged siege were carried off to swell the crowd
+of exiles already in Babylon, and only a few of the humbler sort of
+folk, the vine-dressers and the small farmers, were left behind.
+
+When Nebuchadnezzar rested after his conquests, secure in the
+subjugation of his rivals, and in the possession of his vast kingdom,
+he gave himself up to the material improvement of Babylon and the
+surrounding country. The city as he left it, at the end of his reign
+of forty-three years, was built on both sides of the Euphrates, and
+covered a space of four hundred square miles, equal to five times the
+size of London. It was surrounded by a triple wall of brick; the
+innermost, over three hundred feet high, and eighty-five feet broad at
+the top, with room for four chariots to drive abreast. The walls were
+pierced by one hundred gate-ways framed in brass and with brazen
+gates, and at the points where the Euphrates entered and left the city
+the walls also turned and followed the course of the river, thus
+dividing the city into two fortified parts. These two districts were
+connected by a bridge of stone piers, guarded by portcullises, and
+ferries also plied between the quays that lined the river-banks, to
+which access was given by gates in the walls.
+
+Nebuchadnezzar's palace was a splendid structure covering a large
+space at one end of the bridge. In the central court were the Hanging
+Gardens, the chief glory of the city, and reckoned one of the wonders
+of the world. No clear idea can be formed of these gardens from any
+description that has come down to us, but it would appear that arches
+eighty feet high supported terraces of earth planted with all the
+skill for which the gardeners of the East were famous. We are told
+that they were built for the pleasure of Queen Amuhia, who, as a
+Median princess, missed her native mountains, but a more commonplace
+explanation is that they were carried so high to escape the mosquitoes
+that swarmed on the lower level.
+
+Various splendid edifices, chiefly religious, adorned the great
+squares of the city: the temple of the god Bel, enriched by the spoils
+of Tyre and Jerusalem, was the especial pride of Nebuchadnezzar. It
+rose in a succession of eight lofty stages, and supported on the top a
+golden statue of the god, forty feet high. Still another temple of Bel
+was built in seven stages, each faced with enamelled brick of one of
+the planetary colors; the topmost one of blue, the color dedicated to
+Mercury or Nebo, the patron god of Nabopolassar.
+
+But the most important of the civic undertakings of Nebuchadnezzar was
+the extension of the great system of canalization by which the barren
+wastes of the Babylonian plain were made to rival the valley of the
+Nile in fertility, and become the granary of the East. The whole
+territory was covered with a network of canals fed by the Tigris and
+Euphrates, and used for both irrigation and navigation. One branch had
+already connected Nineveh with Babylon, and another constructed by
+Nebuchadnezzar united Babylon to the Persian Gulf, running a distance
+of four hundred miles. This is still to be traced in a portion of its
+length.
+
+The fate of Nebuchadnezzar is one of the most tragic in the long list
+of calamities that have overtaken the great and powerful of the earth.
+According to Daniel, it was just after the king had spoken those words
+of exulting pride as he walked in the palace of the Kingdom of
+Babylon: "Is not this great Babylon that I have built," when he was
+attacked by that dreadful form of madness, called by the Greeks,
+lycanthropy (wolf-man), in which the victim fancies himself a beast:
+in its fiercer manifestations a beast of the forest, or in milder
+visitations a beast of the field. Nebuchadnezzar's madness became so
+violent that for four years he was exiled from his throne and from the
+company of men, and wandered in the fields, eating grass like oxen,
+"and his body was wet with the dews of heaven, and his hairs were
+grown like eagles' feathers, and his nails like birds' claws."
+Although no mention is made of this strange malady in any writing but
+the book of Daniel, yet it has a pathetic confirmation in one of the
+rock-cut inscriptions that record the acts of Nebuchadnezzar's reign.
+"For four years the seat of my kingdom did not rejoice my heart. In
+all my dominions I built no high place of power, nor did I lay up the
+precious treasure of my kingdom. In Babylon I erected no buildings for
+myself nor for the glory of my empire. In the worship of Bel-Merodach,
+my Lord, the joy of my heart, in Babylon the city of his worship and
+the seat of my empire, I did not sing his praise, nor did I furnish
+his altar with victims"--and then, as if returning to the thing that
+lay nearest him--"In four years I did not dig out the canals."
+
+[Illustration: "And he was driven from men, and did eat grass as
+oxen."]
+
+In time, the black cloud of the king's madness passed away and health
+and reason were restored to him. And if the words that Daniel puts
+into the king's mouth on his recovery are really his, we must
+recognize in this Eastern Despot a decided strain of religious
+sensibility, a trait that appears beside in his almost passionate
+expressions of affection for his god Merodach, and in his sympathy
+with Daniel and the youths who were his companions, in their own
+religious devotion. Although Daniel and the other youths whom the king
+had caused to be called out from the mass of the Jewish captives for
+his own particular service--boys distinguished from the rest by their
+personal beauty, their intelligence and aptitude--were too earnest in
+their religious convictions and too high-spirited to conform to the
+Babylonian religion or to conceal their sentiments under the cloak of
+policy, yet the king tolerated their adherence to their ritual and
+yielded only in part to the persistence of the Jew-baiters, who saw
+with angry eyes the promotion of the hated captives to places of power
+and authority over the heads of their captors. In spite of his enemies
+Daniel was allowed to exercise his own religion in peace; and the
+persecutors of his companions, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, were
+themselves destroyed in the furnace they had heated for their innocent
+victims, which the youths themselves were rescued from by the personal
+interposition of the king, who pretended to see--or in his religious
+exaltation did really see--the god himself standing guard over the
+victims in the midst of the flames.
+
+Of Nebuchadnezzar after the recovery of his reason we learn but
+little. The chronicle of Daniel passes abruptly from Nebuchadnezzar to
+Belshazzar, and the great king is not mentioned again. History, too,
+is silent. It tells us only that he left the throne to a son, whose
+name, Evil-Merodach, records the devotion of his father to the god of
+his people.
+
+[Signature of the author.]
+
+
+
+
+CYRUS THE GREAT[2]
+
+By CLARENCE COOK
+
+(REIGNED 558-529 B.C.)
+
+         [Footnote 2: Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.]
+
+[Illustration: Cyrus the Great.]
+
+
+The early life of Cyrus the Persian, like that of many another famous
+conqueror, is lost in a cloud of fable. According to Herodotus, to
+whom we owe the earliest account, Astyages the King of Media was
+warned in a dream that some danger threatened the kingdom from the
+offspring of his daughter Mandane, who as yet was unmarried. In order
+to remove the danger, whatever it might be, as far as possible from
+his throne, Astyages married his daughter to a Persian named Cambyses,
+who took her with him to his own country. But after his daughter's
+marriage Astyages had another dream, which was interpreted by the
+priests to mean that his daughter's child was destined to reign in his
+stead. Alarmed by this prophecy he sent for his daughter, and when in
+course of time she bore a son, he ordered his trusty lieutenant
+Harpagus to carry the child to his own house and kill it. Harpagus
+took the infant as he had been ordered to do, but moved by the
+pleadings of his wife he determined to commit the rest of his bloody
+instructions to other hands. He therefore called one of his herdsmen,
+and ordered him to expose the child on the bleakest part of the
+mountain and leave it to perish, threatening him with the most
+terrible penalties in case of disobedience. But the herdsman and his
+wife were no more proof against pity than Harpagus and his wife had
+been, and while they stood swayed between their wish to save the child
+and their fear of disobeying Harpagus, fortune happily provided an
+escape for them. The wife of the herdsman brought forth a dead child,
+and this they determined to substitute for the living infant, and to
+bring up the grandson of Astyages as their own. The exchange was
+accomplished, and after some days the servants of Harpagus, sent to
+inquire if their master's commands had been obeyed, were shown by the
+herdsman the body of a dead child exposed on the rocks and still
+wearing the rich clothes and ornaments in which it had been brought to
+his house. Harpagus was thus enabled to assure Astyages that he was
+safe from the threatened danger, and might enjoy his throne in peace.
+
+When the child of Mandane was ten years old an accident brought him to
+the knowledge of the king, and restored him to his birthright. One day
+he was playing with the children of his neighbors, and in a certain
+game where it was necessary to make one of the players king, Cyrus was
+chosen, and all the others, as his subjects, promised to obey his
+commands. But one of the boys, the son of a rich noble of the court of
+Astyages, refused to do as he was bid by Cyrus, and according to the
+rule of the game, he had to submit to a beating at the hand of the
+boy-king. Angry at this treatment, he complained to his father, who,
+indignant in his turn, went to Astyages, and reproached him with the
+blows his son had received at the hands of the son of one of the
+king's slaves. Cyrus was brought before the king; but when he was
+asked how he had dared to treat the son of a nobleman in such a way,
+the boy, nothing daunted, answered that he had done only what was
+right: the rules of the game were known to all who had joined in it:
+the other boys had submitted to the penalties: the son of the nobleman
+alone had refused, and he had been punished as he deserved. "If any
+wrong has been done by me," he said, "I am ready to suffer for it."
+Struck by the boldness of the lad, and by something in his looks,
+Astyages dismissed him for a time, and promised the nobleman that he
+should be satisfied for the insults offered to his son. He then sent
+for the herdsman Mitridates and wrung from him a confession of what he
+had done; and learning how Harpagus had deceived him he acquitted
+Mitridates, and turned all his vengeance upon Harpagus as the chief
+offender. How cruelly he punished him must not be told here, for pity,
+but it was such a barbarous revenge as could never be forgiven; and
+though Harpagus pretended to make light of it, yet it was only that by
+keeping fair with the king he might bide his time, and repay cruelty
+with cruelty.
+
+But now, as Cyrus in our story has grown to man's estate, and is ready
+to show the world of what stuff he is made, it will be well to explain
+in a few words, what was the state of things in that part of the
+world where he was to play his part.
+
+The mighty Kingdom of Assyria in its greatest estate had stretched
+from the Indus on the east, to the Mediterranean on the west. But when
+Nineveh, the capital and chief city of the empire, had been destroyed
+by the Medes--a subject people living on the north-eastern borders of
+the kingdom, but who had risen in rebellion against their
+rulers--Assyria was broken in pieces, and several minor kingdoms rose
+on her ruins.
+
+Of these the chief were Media and Babylonia in the east, and Lydia in
+the west. Babylonia rose to a great height of power and splendor under
+Nebuchadnezzar, as we have seen in our sketch of that king's life. The
+Medes, a brave and warlike people, never attained to so high a degree
+of civilization as the Babylonians, nor did they ever have a monarch
+whose fame equalled that of Sardanapalus, the King of Assyria; of
+Nebuchadnezzar; or of Croesus, King of Lydia; but under a succession
+of astute and hardy warriors, who held the throne for something over
+one hundred and fifty years, their dominion was gradually extended
+until it stretched from the Indus to the centre of Asia Minor. Their
+greatest achievement had been the destruction of Nineveh in B.C. 606.
+
+Lydia, the remaining province, touched the Median kingdom on the east,
+and on the west was only separated, in the beginning, from the
+Mediterranean by the narrow strip of territory occupied by the Greek
+colonies, which for a time acted as a bar to the encroachments of the
+Lydian monarchs and their conquerors.
+
+When Cyrus came to manhood, these kingdoms, the successors of the
+Assyrian monarchy, were all flourishing in wealth and power. Media was
+ruled by Astyages, his grandfather--to accept the legendary history as
+it has come down to us; Babylonia the greatest of the three was
+governed by Nebuchadnezzar, while Lydia was ruled by Croesus, a
+monarch wise above his peers, whose name has long been a synonym for
+unbounded wealth, and whose story, though not beyond the bounds of
+credibility, reads more like a fable of romance than a tale of sober
+fact.
+
+Croesus was the brother-in-law of Astyages, and in close alliance not
+only with the Medes, but with the Babylonians, the Egyptians, and the
+Greeks; and he was at the height of his power and was looking forward
+to still greater increase of his dominions, when in an evil hour he
+struck against the growing greatness of Cyrus, and was crushed in the
+encounter. Had he been less arrogant, the doom he wrought for himself
+might have been delayed, but it could not have been wholly averted.
+Nothing could have long withstood the greed of Cyrus for universal
+dominion.
+
+We have seen what good cause Harpagus had to hate Astyages. But he
+nursed his revenge with crafty wisdom, and knowing himself powerless
+to act openly and alone, he tried what stratagem might do to bring
+about his aim, which was no less than the overthrow of Astyages by
+means of the tyrant's grandson, Cyrus. He did not take open measures
+until he knew he had allies enough at his back, and could strike with
+a sure aim. He worked with the great Median chiefs in private,
+stirring them up against Astyages by appeals of all sorts: to their
+ambition, their greed, their discontent, their private wrongs; and
+when he had secured the consent of enough nobles to his plans, he
+called upon Cyrus, as one who had chiefly suffered from the tyranny
+and cruelty of the king, to lead the proposed revolt in person. He
+knew that Cyrus had been gradually strengthening his own kingdom of
+Persia in preparation for the ambitious schemes of conquest he was
+nursing, but there was danger in correspondence with one who stood to
+Astyages in the double relation of a feared and hated grandson, and
+the chief of a rival people; and if we may believe Herodotus, Harpagus
+had recourse to a strange expedient to communicate his design to
+Cyrus. Disembowelling a dead hare, he inserted a letter in the cavity,
+and sent the animal to Cyrus as a present. When the letter came to the
+hands of Cyrus he eagerly accepted the offers it contained of
+leadership in the proposed revolt, and joined his forces with those of
+the disaffected Medes. Astyages was overthrown and his kingdom taken
+possession of by Cyrus. Herodotus draws a striking picture of the
+exultation of Harpagus over the success of his revengeful projects,
+and of the disdain with which Astyages reproached him for having
+called on another to do what, trusted and confided in as he was by his
+monarch, he might have accomplished for himself, and reaped the
+harvest which he had surrendered to another. Cyrus had the wisdom to
+spare the life of Astyages, and to attach him to his person as
+councillor and friend. Harpagus he made his lieutenant, and much of
+his success was owing to this man's wisdom and bravery. After the
+defeat of Astyages, Cyrus advanced against the lesser tribes that had
+owed allegiance to the Median king, and having reduced them one by one
+to submission, the power of the once mighty empire of the Medians
+passed to the inheritance of the Persians in the year 559 B.C.
+
+When Croesus heard of the overthrow of his brother-in-law by the hands
+of Cyrus, and of the setting up a great new monarchy on the ruins of
+the fallen kingdom, his own ambitious projects were blown into fresh
+activity by the desire for private revenge. Misled by his own
+interpretation of the oracle he consulted as to the likelihood of
+success in an expedition against the Persians, he advanced to
+withstand the conquering march of Cyrus; and his first success was
+against the Syrians of Cappadocia, a people subject to Cyrus, as
+having formed a part of the Median Kingdom. Cyrus, with a powerful
+army, came at once to the assistance of his new subjects, and meeting
+the forces of Croesus on the plain of Cappadocia, a fiercely fought,
+but indecisive battle took place, which resulted in the retreat of
+Croesus to his capital, Sardis, to seek the assistance of his allies
+and prepare to meet Cyrus with a larger force. In overweening
+confidence in his own success, he dismissed his mercenary troops, and
+sent messengers to Babylon, to Egypt, and to Sparta, calling on them
+to come with troops to his assistance within five months. No sooner
+had he shut himself up in Sardis, and dismissed his mercenaries,
+depending upon his own forces until assistance should come from his
+allies, than Cyrus advanced against him so swiftly that there was no
+escape from a battle. Croesus, believing in his fortune, and trusting
+to the excellence of his cavalry, boldly took the field; but Cyrus,
+using stratagem where perhaps courage would not have availed, put his
+camels in front of his line, and massed his own horsemen behind them.
+The horses of Croesus, maddened by the unaccustomed smell of the
+camels, refused to advance; but the Lydians, dismounting, fought so
+bravely on foot with their spears, that it was not until after a long
+and fierce combat that they were forced to retreat and seek safety
+within the walls of Sardis. The army of Cyrus invested the city, but
+it was so strongly fortified on all sides but one as to be impregnable
+by assault and the side left unprotected by art was supposed to be
+amply protected by nature, since it abutted on the very edge of a
+steep precipice. But, after the siege had lasted fourteen days, a
+Persian sentinel saw one of the garrison descend the precipice to
+recover his helmet that had rolled down; and no sooner had he thus
+unwittingly showed the way, than the sentinel followed with a number
+of his fellow-soldiers and, reaching the top of the cliff in safety,
+attacked the guards, all unsuspicious, and gained an entrance to the
+city. The gates were opened to the Persians, and Croesus with all his
+vast store of treasure became the prey of the conqueror. The fall of
+Sardis and the Lydian monarchy was followed by the subjection of the
+Greek cities of Asia Minor, a task which Cyrus left to the hands of
+Harpagus, while he himself turned eastward to pursue his conquests in
+Upper Asia and in Assyria. His greatest achievement in this quarter
+was the taking of Babylon. This he accomplished in the reign of
+Belshazzar, one of the successors of Nebuchadnezzar, perhaps his son,
+by turning the Euphrates, which ran through the middle of the city,
+out of its course; and when its bed was dry he entered the city by
+this road and captured it with little resistance.
+
+Cyrus was now the sole master of the vast Assyrian Kingdom, once more
+in his hands brought back to something like the unity it had before
+the great Median revolt. But he was not content, nor was it perhaps
+possible for him to rest in the enjoyment of power and possessions
+extorted by force, and dependent on force to hold. The new empire,
+like the old one, was destined to break in pieces by its own weight.
+Cyrus was kept in constant activity by the necessity of resisting the
+inroads on his empire of the tribes in the north and farther east; and
+it was in endeavoring to repel invasion and to maintain order in the
+regions he had already conquered, that he met his death. After a reign
+of thirty years he was slain, in 529 B.C., in battle with the
+Massagetae, a tribe of Central Asia. He left his kingdom to his son
+Cambyses.
+
+[Signature of the author.]
+
+
+
+
+ALEXANDER THE GREAT
+
+(356-323 B.C.)
+
+[Illustration: Alexander.]
+
+
+Alexander the Great, son of Philip of Macedon and Olympias, daughter
+of Neoptolemus of Epirus, was born at Pella, 356 B.C. His mind was
+formed chiefly by Aristotle, who instructed him in every branch of
+human learning, especially in the art of government. Alexander was
+sixteen years of age when his father marched against Byzantium, and
+left the government in his hands during his absence. Two years
+afterward, he displayed singular courage at the battle of Chaeronea
+(338 B.C.), where he overthrew the Sacred Band of the Thebans. "My
+son," said Philip, as he embraced him after the conflict, "seek for
+thyself another kingdom, for that which I leave is too small for
+thee." The father and son quarrelled, however, when the former
+divorced Olympias. Alexander took part with his mother, and fled to
+Epirus, to escape his father's vengeance; but receiving his pardon
+soon afterward, he returned, and accompanied him in an expedition
+against the Triballi, when he saved his life on the field. Philip,
+being appointed generalissimo of the Greeks, was preparing for a war
+with Persia, when he was assassinated (336 B.C.), and Alexander, not
+yet twenty years of age, ascended the throne.
+
+After punishing his father's murderers, he marched on Corinth, and in
+a general assembly of the Greeks he caused himself to be appointed to
+the command of the forces against Persia. On his return to Macedon, he
+found the Illyrians and Triballi up in arms, whereupon he forced his
+way through Thrace, and was everywhere victorious. But now the Thebans
+had been induced, by a report of his death, to take up arms, and the
+Athenians, stimulated by the eloquence of Demosthenes, were preparing
+to join them. To prevent this coalition, Alexander rapidly marched
+against Thebes, which, refusing to surrender, was conquered and razed
+to the ground. Six thousand of the inhabitants were slain, and 30,000
+sold into slavery; the house and descendants of the poet Pindar alone
+being spared. This severity struck terror into all Greece. The
+Athenians were treated with more leniency.
+
+Alexander, having appointed Antipater his deputy in Europe, now
+prepared to prosecute the war with Persia. He crossed the Hellespont
+in the spring of 334 B.C. with 30,000 foot and 5,000 horse, attacked
+the Persian satraps at the River Granicus, and gained a complete
+victory, overthrowing the son-in-law of their king Darius with his own
+lance. As a result of the battle, most of the cities of Asia Minor at
+once opened their gates to the conqueror.
+
+Alexander restored democracy in all the Greek cities; and as he passed
+through Gordium, cut the Gordian-knot, which none should loose but the
+ruler of Asia. During a dangerous illness at Tarsus, brought on by
+bathing in the Cydnus, he received a letter insinuating that Philip,
+his physician, had been bribed by Darius to poison him. Alexander
+handed the letter to Philip, and at the same time swallowed the
+draught which the latter had prepared. As soon as he recovered, he
+advanced toward the defiles of Cilicia, in which Darius had stationed
+himself with an army of 600,000 men.
+
+He arrived in November, 333 B.C., in the neighborhood of Issus, where,
+on the narrow plain between the mountains and the sea, the unwieldy
+masses of the Persians were thrown into confusion by the charge of the
+Macedonians, and fled in terror. On the left wing, 30,000 Greek
+mercenaries held out longer, but they, too, were at length compelled
+to yield. All the treasures as well as the family of Darius fell into
+the hands of the conqueror, who treated them with the greatest
+magnanimity. Overtures for peace, made by Darius on the basis of
+surrendering to Alexander all Asia west of the Euphrates, were
+rejected.
+
+Alexander now turned toward Syria and Phoenicia. He occupied Damascus,
+where he found princely treasures, and secured to himself all the
+cities along the shores of the Mediterranean. Tyre, confident in its
+strong position, resisted him, but was conquered and destroyed, after
+seven months of incredible exertion (332 B.C.) Thence he marched
+victoriously through Palestine, where all the cities submitted to him
+except Gaza; it shared the same fate as Tyre. Egypt, weary of the
+Persian yoke, welcomed him as a deliverer; and in order to strengthen
+his dominion here, he restored all the old customs and religious
+institutions of the country, and founded Alexandria in the beginning
+of 331 B.C. Thence he marched through the Libyan Desert, in order to
+consult the oracle of Ammon, whose priest saluted him as a son of
+Zeus; and he returned with the conviction that he was indeed a god.
+
+He then again set out to meet Darius; in October, 331 B.C., a great
+battle was fought on the plain stretching eastward to Arbela.
+Notwithstanding the immense superiority of his adversary, who had
+collected a new army of more than a million men, Alexander was not for
+a moment doubtful of victory. Heading the cavalry himself, he rushed
+on the Persians, and put them to flight; then hastened to the
+assistance of his left wing, which, in the meanwhile, had been sorely
+pressed. He was anxious to make Darius a prisoner, but Darius escaped
+on horseback, leaving his baggage and all his treasures a prey to the
+conqueror. Babylon and Susa, the treasure-houses of the East, opened
+their gates to Alexander, who next marched toward Persepolis, the
+capital of Persia, which he entered in triumph.
+
+The marvellous successes of Alexander now began to dazzle his judgment
+and to inflame his passions. He became a slave to debauchery, and his
+caprices were as cruel as they were ungrateful. In a fit of
+drunkenness, and at the instigation of Thais, an Athenian courtesan,
+he set fire to Persepolis, the wonder of the world, and reduced it to
+a heap of ashes; then, ashamed of the deed, he set out with his
+cavalry in pursuit of Darius. Learning that Bessus, the Bactrian
+satrap, held him a prisoner, he hastened his march, in the hope of
+saving him, but he found him mortally wounded (330 B.C.). He mourned
+over his fallen enemy, and caused him to be buried with all the
+customary honors, while he hunted down Bessus, who himself aspired to
+the throne, chasing him over the Oxus to Sogdiana (Bokhara).
+
+Having discovered a conspiracy in which the son of Parmenio was
+implicated, he put both father and son to death, though Parmenio
+himself was innocent of any knowledge of the affair. This cruel
+injustice excited universal displeasure. In 329 he penetrated to the
+farthest known limits of Northern Asia, and overthrew the Scythians on
+the banks of the Jaxartes. In the following year he subdued the whole
+of Sogdiana, and married Roxana, whom he had taken prisoner. She was
+the daughter of Oxyartes, one of the enemy's captains, and was said to
+be the fairest of all the virgins of Asia. The murder of his
+foster-brother, Clitus, in a drunken brawl, was followed, in 327 B.C.,
+by the discovery of a fresh conspiracy, in which Callisthenes, a
+nephew of Aristotle, was falsely implicated. For challenging
+Alexander's divinity, he was cruelly tortured and hanged.
+
+In 327 B.C., proceeding to the conquest of India, hitherto known only
+by name, Alexander crossed the Indus near to the modern Attock, and
+pursued his way under the guidance of a native prince to the Hydaspes
+(Jhelum). He there was opposed by Porus, another native prince, whom
+he overthrew after a bloody contest, and there he lost his charger
+Bucephalus; thence he marched as lord of the country, through the
+Punjab, establishing Greek colonies. He then wished to advance to the
+Ganges, but the general murmuring of his troops obliged him, at the
+Hyphasis (modern Sutlej), to commence his retreat. On regaining the
+Hydaspes, he built a fleet, and sent one division of his army in it
+down the river, while the other followed along the banks, fighting its
+way through successive Indian armies. At length, having reached the
+ocean, he ordered Nearchus, the commander of the fleet, to sail thence
+to the Persian Gulf, while he himself struck inland with one division
+of his army, in order to return home through Gedrosia (Beluchistan).
+During this march his forces suffered fearfully from want of food and
+water. Of all the troops which had set out with Alexander, little more
+than a fourth part arrived with him in Persia (325 B.C.).
+
+[Illustration: Alexander discovering the Body of Darius.]
+
+At Susa he married Stateira, the daughter of Darius, and he bestowed
+presents on those Macedonians (some ten thousand in number) who had
+married Persian women, his design being to unite the two nations. He
+also distributed liberal rewards among his soldiers. Soon afterward he
+was deprived, by death, of his favorite Hephestion. His grief was
+unbounded, and he interred the dead man with kingly honors. As he was
+returning from Ecbatana to Babylon, it is said that the Magi
+foretold that the latter city would prove fatal to him; but he
+despised their warnings. On the way, he was met by ambassadors from
+all parts of the world--Libya, Italy, Carthage, Greece, the Scythians,
+Celts, and Iberians.
+
+At Babylon he was busy with gigantic plans for the future, both of
+conquest and civilization, when he was suddenly taken ill after a
+banquet, and died eleven days later, 323 B.C., in the thirty-second
+year of his age, and the thirteenth of his reign. His body was
+deposited in a golden coffin at Alexandria, by Ptolemaeus, and divine
+honors were paid to him, not only in Egypt, but in other countries. He
+had appointed no heir to his immense dominions; but to the question of
+his friends, "Who should inherit them?" he replied, "The most worthy."
+After many disturbances, his generals recognized as Kings the
+weak-minded Aridaeus--a son of Philip by Philinna, the dancer--and
+Alexander's posthumous son by Roxana, Alexander AEgus, while they
+shared the provinces among themselves, assuming the title of satraps.
+Perdiccas, to whom Alexander had, on his death-bed, delivered his
+ring, became guardian of the kings during their minority. The empire
+of Alexander soon broke up, and his dominions were divided among his
+generals.
+
+Alexander was more than a conqueror. He diffused the language and
+civilization of Greece wherever victory led him, and planted Greek
+kingdoms in Asia, which continued to exist for some centuries. At the
+very time of his death, he was engaged in devising plans for the
+drainage of the unhealthy marshes around Babylon, and a better
+irrigation of the extensive plains. It is even supposed that the fever
+which he caught there, rather than his famous drinking-bout, was the
+real cause of his death. To Alexander, the ancient world owed a vast
+increase of its knowledge in geography, natural history, etc. He
+taught Europeans the road to India, and gave them the first glimpses
+of that magnificence and splendor which has dazzled and captivated
+their imagination for more than two thousand years. See Freeman's
+"Historical Essays" (2d series, 1873), and Mahaffy's "Alexander's
+Empire" (1887).
+
+The wonderful element in the campaigns of Alexander, and his tragical
+death at the height of his power, threw a rare romantic interest
+around his figure. It is ever the fate of a great name to be enshrined
+in fable, and Alexander soon became the hero of romantic story,
+scarcely more wonderful than the actual, but growing from age to age
+with the mythopoeic spirit which can work as freely in fact as
+fiction. The earliest form of the story which we know is the great
+romance connected with the name of Callisthenes, which, under the
+influence of the living popular tradition, arose in Egypt about 200
+A.D., and was carried through Latin translations to the West, through
+Armenian and Syriac versions to the East. It became widely popular
+during the middle ages, and was worked into poetic form by many
+writers in French and German. Alberich of Besancon wrote in Middle
+High German an epic on the subject in the first half of the twelfth
+century, which was the basis of the German "Pfaffe" Lamprecht's
+"Alexanderbuch," also of the twelfth century. The French poets Lambert
+li Court and Alexandre de Bernay composed, between 1180 and 1190, a
+romance of Alexander, the twelve-syllable metre of which gave rise to
+the name _Alexandrines_. The German poem of Rudolf of Ems was based on
+the Latin epic of Walter of Chatillon, about 1200, which became
+henceforward the prevailing form of the story. In contrast with it is
+the thirteenth century Old English epic of Alexander (in vol. i. of
+Weber's "Metrical Romances," 1810), based on the Callisthenes version.
+The story appears also in the East, worked up in conjunction with
+myths of other nationalities, especially the Persian. It appears in
+Firdusi, and among later writers, in Nizami. From the Persians both
+the substance of the story and its form in poetical treatment have
+extended to Turks and other Mohammedans, who have interpreted
+Alexander as the _Dsulkarnein_ ('two horned') of the Koran, and to the
+Hindus, which last had preserved no independent traditions of
+Alexander.
+
+
+
+
+HANNIBAL
+
+By WALTER WHYTE
+
+(247-183 B.C.)
+
+[Illustration: Hannibal.]
+
+
+Hannibal (the grace of Baal, the Hanniel of Scripture) was the son of
+the great Carthaginian general Hamilcar Barca, and was born in 247
+B.C. It is said that in his ninth year his father led him to an altar
+and bade him swear eternal enmity to Rome. From the age of nine to
+eighteen he was trained in war and diplomacy under Hamilcar in Spain;
+and from his eighteenth to his twenty-fifth year he was the chief
+agent in carrying out the plans by which his brother-in-law,
+Hasdrubal, extended and consolidated the Carthaginian dominion in the
+Peninsula. On the death of Hasdrubal, in 221 B.C., the soldiers with
+one voice chose Hannibal, then in his twenty-sixth year, as their
+general. Forthwith he crossed the Tagus, and in two years reduced all
+Spain up to the Ebro, with the exception of the Greek colony of
+Saguntum. That town, which claimed the protection of Rome, fell in 218
+B.C., and the Second Punic War, or, as the Romans justly called it,
+"the War of Hannibal," began. Garrisoning Libya with Spaniards, and
+Spain with Libyans (a precaution against treachery), Hannibal set
+out on his march for Rome. In the summer of 218 B.C. he left New
+Carthage with 90,000 foot, 12,000 horse, and 37 elephants, crossed the
+Pyrenees, and gained the Rhone, where his passage was barred by a host
+of Gauls. The general thereupon sent part of his troops two days'
+journey up-stream, with orders to cross the Rhone and fall on the rear
+of the barbarians. His orders were executed by Hanno, and the passage
+of the river was safely effected. He crossed the Alps in fifteen days,
+in the face of obstacles which would have proved insuperable to almost
+any other commander. His troops, reared under African and Spanish
+suns, perished in thousands amid ice and snow. The native tribes
+threatened the annihilation of his force, and were only dispersed by
+his matchless courage and address. The beasts of burden fell over
+precipices, or stuck fast and were frozen to death. In places, rocks
+had to be shattered and roads constructed to enable the men to creep
+round projecting crags. When he gained the valley of Aosta, Hannibal
+had but 20,000 foot and 6,000 horse to attempt the conquest of a power
+which had lately shown that she could put an army of 170,000
+unrivalled soldiers into the field.
+
+[Illustration: Hannibal crossing the Rhone.]
+
+After allowing his men to recruit in the villages of the friendly
+Insubres, he overcame the Taurini, besieging and taking Turin, and
+forced the Ligurian and Celtic tribes on the Upper Po to serve in his
+army. At the Ticinus, a stream which enters the Po near Pavia, he
+encountered the Romans under Scipio, the father of Scipio Africanus.
+The cavalry of both armies joined battle, Hannibal's Numidian horse
+proved their superiority, and Scipio fell back beyond the Po. The
+Carthaginians crossed the river, and the first great battle of the
+campaign was fought in the plain of the Trebia. Placing Mago in ambush
+with 2,000 men, Hannibal enticed the Romans across the stream. His
+light troops retired before the legionaries, and as Scipio was
+pressing on to fancied victory he was taken in flank by the terrible
+Numidian horse, Mago came down in the rear, and the 40,000 men of the
+consular army were either cut to pieces or scattered in flight.
+Wintering in the valley of the Po, in the early spring Hannibal
+crossed the Apennines and pushed through a region of lakes, flooded by
+the melting of the snow, to Faesulae. The beasts of burden perished in
+vast numbers amid the morasses; the Gauls, disheartened by the perils
+of the journey, had to be driven forward by Mago's horsemen, and the
+general lost an eye. Quitting Faesulae, Hannibal wasted Etruria with
+fire and sword, and marched toward Rome, leaving behind him two
+consular armies of 60,000 men. He awaited the consul Flaminius by the
+Lake Trasimene, where the hills, retiring in a semicircle from the
+shore, inclose a plain entered by two narrow passes. Concealing the
+main body of his army amid the hills, he placed his Numidians in
+ambush at the pass by which the Romans must enter; while he stationed
+part of his infantry in a conspicuous position near the other defile.
+The Romans pushed into the valley; the pass in their rear was secured
+by the Carthaginians who had lain in ambush; Hannibal's men charged
+from the heights, and the army of Flaminius was annihilated. Six
+thousand infantry cut their way through the farther pass, but these
+were overtaken by the horse under Maherbal and forced to yield on the
+following day.
+
+After recruiting his men in the champaign country of Picenum, where
+the Numidian horses, we are told, were groomed with old Italian wine,
+Hannibal marched through Apulia and ravaged Campania, dogged by the
+dictator Quintus Fabius Maximus, whom he vainly endeavored to entice
+into an engagement. He wintered at Gerontium, and in the spring took
+up a position at Cannae, on the Aufidus. A Roman army of 80,000 men,
+under the consuls L. AEmilius Paulus and P. Terentius Varro, marched
+against him. Hannibal flung his troops (he had but 30,000) into a
+space inclosed on the rear and wings by a loop of the river. He placed
+his Spanish infantry in the centre, with the African foot on either
+flank. His Numidian horse, now reduced to 2,000 men, he posted on the
+right wing; while Hasdrubal, with 8,000 heavy cavalry, was opposed to
+the Roman cavalry on the left. The legionaries pressed into the loop,
+and Hannibal drew back his centre before them. Hasdrubal, on the left,
+broke the Roman cavalry, swept round to the left wing of the Romans,
+drove the second detachment of Roman horse into flight, and then came
+thundering in the rear of the legionaries. The Libyans, who had by the
+general's orders fallen back as the Romans pressed after the retiring
+Spanish infantry, now closed on the enemy's flanks. Packed together so
+closely that they could not use their weapons, assailed in front,
+flank, and rear, the legionaries were hewn down through eight hours of
+carnage, till 50,000 lay dead on the field. The battle became a
+butchery. Nearly 20,000 men were taken prisoners. The consul Paulus,
+the proconsul Servilius, the master of the horse Minucius, 21 military
+tribunes, and 60 senators lay amid the slain. On his side Hannibal
+lost but 5,700 men. "Send me on with the horse, general," said
+Maherbal, "and in five days thou shalt sup in the Capitol."
+
+But the general was wiser than the fiery captain of the horse. It has
+been common to censure Hannibal for neglecting to march on Rome after
+the battle of Cannae. But his dazzling triumph did not for a moment
+unsettle his clear judgment. He knew that his forces were unequal to
+the task of storming a walled city garrisoned by a population of
+fighting men. An attack which he had made on Spoletium had proved the
+inadequacy of the small Carthaginian army to carry a strongly
+fortified town. Had he followed the advice of Maherbal, he would in
+all likelihood have dashed his army to pieces against the walls of
+Rome. His aim was to destroy the common oppressor by raising the
+Italian allies against her; and the hope was partly justified by the
+revolt of Lucania and Bruttium, Samnium and Apulia. The soundness of
+judgment, the patience and self-control which he evinced in this hour
+of intoxicating success, are hardly less marvellous than the genius by
+which the success had been won. After the battle of Cannae the
+character of the war changes. Hitherto Hannibal had swept everything
+before him. Rivers and mountains and morasses had been powerless to
+thwart his progress. Army after army, vastly superior in numbers and
+composed of the best fighting men the ancient world ever saw, had come
+against him to be broken, scattered, and destroyed. His career through
+Italy had been, in the words of Horace, as the rush of the flames
+through a forest of pines. But after Cannae the tide turned. His
+niggardly, short-sighted countrymen denied him the support without
+which success was impossible. As his veterans were lost to him he had
+no means of filling their places, while the Romans could put army
+after army into the field. But through the long years during which he
+maintained a hopeless struggle in Italy he was never defeated. Nor did
+one of his veterans desert him; never was there a murmur of
+disaffection in his camp. It has been well said that his victories
+over his motley followers were hardly less wonderful than his
+victories over nature and over Rome.
+
+Hannibal spent the winter of 216-215 B.C. at Capua, where his men are
+said to have been demoralized by luxurious living. When he again took
+the field the Romans wisely avoided a pitched battle, though the
+Carthaginians overran Italy, capturing Locri, Thurii, Metapontum,
+Tarentum, and other towns. In 211 B.C. he marched on Rome, rode up to
+the Colline gate, and, it is said, flung his spear over the walls. But
+the fall of Capua smote the Italian allies with dismay, and ruined his
+hopes of recruiting his ever-diminishing forces from their ranks. In
+210 B.C. he overcame the praetor Fulvius at Herdonea, and in the
+following year gained two battles in Apulia. Thereafter, he fell upon
+the consuls Crispinus and Marcellus, both of whom were slain and their
+forces routed, while he almost annihilated the Roman army which was
+besieging Locri. In 207 B.C. his brother Hasdrubal marched from Spain
+to his aid, but was surprised, defeated, and slain at the Metaurus by
+the consul Nero. By the barbarous commands of Nero, Hasdrubal's head
+was flung into the camp of Hannibal, who had been till then in
+ignorance of his brother's doom. The battle of the Metaurus sealed the
+fate of "the lion's brood"--of the great house of Hamilcar. But for
+four years Hannibal stood at bay in the hill-country of Bruttium,
+defying with his thinned army every general who was sent against him,
+till in 202 B.C., after an absence of fifteen years, he was recalled
+to Africa to repel the Roman invasion. In the same year he met Scipio
+at Zama; his raw levies fled, and in part went over to the enemy; his
+veterans were cut to pieces where they stood, and Carthage was at the
+mercy of Rome. So ended the Second Punic War--the war, as Arnold so
+truly said, of a man with a nation, and the war which is perhaps the
+most wonderful in all history. Three hundred thousand Italians had
+fallen, and three hundred towns had been destroyed in the struggle.
+
+Peace being made, Hannibal turned his genius to political toils. He
+amended the constitution, cut down the power of the ignoble oligarchy,
+checked corruption, and placed the city's finances on a sounder
+footing. The enemies whom he made by his reforms denounced him to the
+Romans, and the Romans demanded that he should be surrendered into
+their hands. Setting out as a voluntary exile, Hannibal visited Tyre,
+the mother-city of Carthage, and then betook himself to the court of
+Antiochus, at Ephesus. He was well received by the king, who
+nevertheless rejected his advice to carry the war with Rome into
+Italy. On the conclusion of peace, to avoid being given up to the
+Romans, he repaired to Prusias, king of Bithynia, for whom he gained a
+naval victory over the king of Pergamus. The Romans again demanding
+that he should be surrendered, he baffled his enemies by taking
+poison, which, we are told, he carried about with him in a ring, and
+died at Lybyssa about the year 183 B.C.
+
+In judging of the character and achievements of Hannibal, it must
+never be forgotten, that for all we know of him, we are indebted to
+his implacable enemies. No Carthaginian record of that astounding
+career has come down to us. The Romans did all that unscrupulous
+malignity can, to blacken the fame and belittle the deeds of the most
+terrible of their foes. Yet, though calumny has done its bitterest
+against him, Hannibal not only dazzles the imagination, but takes
+captive the heart. He stands out as the incarnation of magnanimity and
+patriotism and self-sacrificing heroism, no less than of incomparable
+military genius. Napoleon, the only general who could plausibly
+challenge the Carthaginian's supremacy, had throughout the greater
+part of his career an immense superiority to his adversaries in the
+quality of the forces which he wielded. He had the enthusiasm of the
+Revolution behind him, and he was unhampered by authorities at home.
+Hannibal, on the contrary, saw his plans thwarted and finally wrecked
+by the sordid merchant-nobles of the city he strove so hard to save.
+He had not, like Alexander, to lead picked troops against effeminate
+Asiatics. He had to mould his little army out of raw and barbarous
+levies. He had no reinforcements to fall back on. With a motley army
+of Libyans, Gauls, and Spaniards he had to encounter a nation in
+arms--a nation of the stoutest and most highly trained warriors of
+ancient times. There is not in all history so wonderful an example of
+what a single man of genius may achieve against the most tremendous
+odds, as the story of the Phoenician hero--the greatest captain that
+the world has seen.
+
+
+
+
+SCIPIO AFRICANUS MAJOR
+
+(235-183 B.C.)
+
+[Illustration: Scipio.]
+
+
+P. Cornelius Scipio, Africanus Major, was the son of that P. Cornelius
+Scipio who was defeated by Hannibal at the Ticinus. If it be true that
+at the age of seventeen Scipio fought in this battle, and rescued his
+wounded father, he must have been born in B.C. 235. He was in the
+battle of Cannae (B.C. 216) as a tribune, and was among those who,
+after the defeat, escaped to Canusium. Here the chief command of the
+remaining troops was unanimously entrusted to him and another. On this
+occasion it was owing to his presence of mind that the remnants of the
+Roman army did not, in their despair, quit Italy.
+
+In B.C. 212, Scipio was curule aedile, though he had not yet attained
+the legitimate age. The tribunes of the people endeavored to prevent
+his election, but they were obliged to give up their opposition, for
+the people, who seem to have perceived the extraordinary abilities of
+the young man, elected him almost unanimously. In B.C. 211 his father
+and uncle fell in Spain, and the Carthaginians again took possession
+of the country, which they had almost entirely lost. When Capua had
+fallen again into their hands, and Italy no longer required their
+exclusive attention, the Romans determined to act with more energy
+against the Carthaginians in Spain. On the day of the election, no one
+ventured to come forward to undertake the command in this war. Young
+Scipio, then scarcely twenty-four years of age, at last offered to
+take the command of the army in Spain. The people were struck with
+admiration at the courage of the young man, and gave him command, with
+proconsular power, which was afterward prolonged to him for several
+years (B.C. 210-206).
+
+The extraordinary power which young Scipio exercised over his
+contemporaries was perhaps partly owing to superstition, for he was
+believed to be a favorite of the gods. Ever since he had risen to
+manhood, he went every morning into the Capitol, where he spent some
+hours in solitude and meditation. Hence all he did was considered by
+the people to be the result of his intercourse with the gods. Scipio
+himself partook in this opinion, and cherished it; and the
+extraordinary success of all his enterprises must have strengthened
+his belief.
+
+Toward the end of the summer, in B.C. 210, or, as Livy says, at the
+beginning of spring, Scipio set out for Spain with an army of 11,000
+men, landed at the mouth of the Iberus, and undertook the command of
+the whole Roman forces in Spain. He was accompanied by his friend,
+Laelius. His first object was to gain possession of New Carthage, where
+the Carthaginians kept their Spanish hostages. Laelius made the attack
+with the fleet from the seaside, while Scipio conducted the operations
+on land. The town soon fell into the hands of the Romans, and the
+generosity with which Scipio treated the Spanish hostages gained over
+a great number of Spaniards. The hostages of those tribes who declared
+themselves allies of the Romans were sent home without ransom. It is
+also related that a very beautiful maiden having fallen to his special
+lot in the division of the booty, Scipio finding her sad, inquired the
+cause, and learning that she was betrothed to a neighboring chief,
+sent for the lover, and personally restored the maid in all honor to
+his arms. A short time after the conquest of this place Scipio went to
+Tarraco, where he received embassies from various Spanish tribes, who
+offered to become the allies of the Romans or to recognize their
+supremacy.
+
+Scipio is said not to have set out against Hasdrubal until the year
+following, but it can scarcely be conceived why the Carthaginians
+should have been so long inactive, and it is a probable supposition
+that the battle with Hasdrubal, which Livy and Polybius assign to the
+year B.C. 209, was fought very soon after the taking of New Carthage.
+In this battle Scipio gained a great victory; 8,000 Carthaginians were
+slain, and 22,000, with their camp, fell into the hands of the victor.
+Many of the Spaniards now wished to proclaim Scipio their king, but he
+refused the honor.
+
+Hasdrubal fled with the remainder of his army toward the Tagus and the
+Pyrenees. Scipio did not follow him, partly because he thought his
+enemy too much weakened to be dangerous, and partly because he feared
+lest he might expose himself to the combined attacks of the two other
+Carthaginian generals, Mago, and Hasdrubal, son of Gisco. Hasdrubal
+Barcas, the defeated general, however, had carried considerable wealth
+with him in his flight, and with these means he raised an army in
+Spain, to lead into Italy to the assistance of his brother Hannibal,
+hoping thus to bring the war to an end in Italy. During these
+preparations of Hasdrubal, Scipio was engaged against the two other
+Carthaginian generals, one of whom (Mago) was defeated, in B.C. 208,
+by the propraetor Silanus, in the country of the Celtiberians, and
+Hanno, who came with an auxiliary army from Africa, was taken
+prisoner. After this success of the propraetor, Scipio united his
+forces with those of Silanus to attack Hasdrubal, son of Gisco. But as
+this general had retired to the south of Spain, and had distributed
+his army in the fortified places on the Baetis as far as Gades, Scipio
+(through his brother Lucius) only took the important town of Oringis,
+and then gradually returned across the Iberus. The power of the
+Carthaginians in Spain was, however, already broken, and in the year
+following (B.C. 207) Scipio gained possession of nearly all Spain by a
+victory, the place of which is not clearly ascertained, some calling
+it Silpia or Baecula, some Ilipa, and others Carmo.
+
+Scipio, now in the almost undisputed possession of Spain, began to
+turn his eyes to Africa, and, accompanied by his friend Laelius, he
+ventured to pay a visit to King Syphax, with whom Laelius had already
+commenced negotiations. Here Scipio is said to have met Hasdrubal, son
+of Gisco, and to have made a very favorable impression on Syphax as
+well as on Hasdrubal. After a short stay in Africa, Scipio returned to
+Spain, where he first punished several towns for their faithlessness,
+and subdued some of the Spanish chiefs who ventured to claim their
+former independence. During these occupations Scipio was attacked by a
+severe illness, from which, however, he recovered in time to quell an
+insurrection of 8,000 Roman soldiers, who were discontented from not
+having derived from their conquests those advantages which they had
+expected, and who are said also to have been bribed by the
+Carthaginians. Mago had in the meantime withdrawn to the Balearic
+Islands, and thence to Liguria. Gades, the last place which the
+Carthaginians possessed in Spain, was now taken from them, and thus
+the war in Spain was at an end.
+
+[Illustration: Generosity of Scipio.]
+
+Toward the close of the year B.C. 206, Scipio surrendered the command
+of the Roman forces in Spain to the proconsuls L. Lentulus and L.
+Manlius Acidinus, and returned to Rome. He delivered to the aerarium
+the immense treasures which he brought from Spain. He evidently
+wished for a triumph, but the senate paid no attention to his wishes,
+for no one had ever triumphed at Rome before he had held the
+consulship. In the year B.C. 205, Scipio was made consul with P.
+Licinius Crassus, who was at the same time pontifex maximus, and was
+consequently not allowed to leave Italy. If, therefore, a war was to
+be carried on abroad, the command necessarily devolved upon Scipio.
+His wish was immediately to sail with an army to Africa, but the more
+cautious senators, and especially Q. Fabius, were decidedly opposed to
+his plan, partly because Hannibal, as long as he was in Italy,
+appeared too formidable to be neglected, and partly because they were
+influenced by jealousy.
+
+All that Scipio could obtain was that Sicily should be assigned to him
+as his province, with thirty vessels, and with permission to sail over
+to Africa in case he should think it advantageous to the republic. But
+he did not obtain from the Senate permission to levy an army, and he
+therefore called upon the Italian allies to provide him with troops
+and other things necessary for carrying on the war. As they were all
+willing to support the conqueror of the Carthaginians in Spain, he was
+soon enabled to sail to Sicily with nearly seven thousand volunteers
+and thirty ships. Soon after his arrival in Sicily he sent his friend
+Laelius with a part of his fleet to Africa, partly to keep up the
+connection which he had formed there, on his visit from Spain, with
+Syphax and Massinissa (for to the latter Scipio had sent back a nephew
+who had been taken prisoner in the battle of Baecula), and partly to
+show to his timid opponents at Rome how groundless their fears were.
+He himself employed his time in Sicily most actively, in preparing and
+disciplining his new army.
+
+Massinissa, dissatisfied with the Carthaginians, was anxious for the
+arrival of Scipio in Africa, but Syphax had altered his policy, and
+again joined the Carthaginians. The enemies of Scipio at Rome at last
+got an opportunity of attacking him, and they nearly succeeded in
+depriving him of his post. Without being authorized by the Senate,
+Scipio had taken part in the conquest of Locri, in Southern Italy, and
+had left his legate, Q. Flaminius, as commander of the Roman garrison
+in that place. The legate treated the Locrians with such severity and
+cruelty that they sent an embassy to Rome to lay their complaints
+before the Senate. As Scipio, although acquainted with the conduct of
+Flaminius, had nevertheless left him in command, his enemies attacked
+him on this and other grounds, and Fabius Maximus even proposed that
+he should be recalled. A commission was sent out to inquire into the
+state of affairs and to bring Scipio home, if the charges against him
+were found true. Scipio proved that his army was in the best possible
+condition; and the commissioners were so surprised at what they saw,
+that instead of recalling the consul, they bade him sail to Africa as
+soon as he might think it proper, and to adopt any measures that he
+might think useful.
+
+Scipio, in consequence of this, sailed in B.C. 204 as proconsul, with
+a large army, from Lilybaeum to Africa, and landed in the neighborhood
+of Utica. Here he made successful incursions into the neighboring
+country, and Hasdrubal, who attempted to prevent them, suffered a
+great defeat. But Scipio could not gain possession of Utica, which was
+of the greater importance to him and his fleet as the winter was
+approaching, and he was obliged to spend the season on a piece of land
+extending into the sea, which he fortified as well as he could. Toward
+the close of the winter the Carthaginians, united with Syphax,
+intended to make a general attack on Scipio's army and fleet, but
+being informed of their plans, he surprised the camps of Hasdrubal and
+Syphax in the night, and only a small number of the enemy escaped.
+Syphax withdrew into his own dominions, but was defeated by Massinissa
+and Laelius, and taken prisoner with his wife and one of his sons.
+Massinissa married Sophonisba, the wife of Syphax, who had formerly
+been engaged to him, but had been given to Syphax for political
+reasons. Scipio, fearing the influence she might have on Massinissa
+(for she was a Carthaginian), claimed her as a prisoner belonging to
+the Romans, and Massinissa poisoned her, to save her from the
+humiliation of captivity.
+
+The fears and apprehensions of the Carthaginians now increased to such
+a degree that they thought it necessary to recall Hannibal from Italy,
+and at the same time they sued for peace. The terms which Scipio
+proposed would have concluded the war in a manner honorable to the
+Romans. The Carthaginians, however, whose only object was to gain
+time, made no objections to the conditions, but only concluded a truce
+of forty-five days, during which an embassy was to be sent to Rome.
+Before this truce was at an end, the Carthaginian populace plundered
+some Roman vessels with provisions, which were wrecked off Carthage,
+and even insulted the Roman envoys who came to demand reparation.
+Scipio did not resent this conduct and allowed the Carthaginian
+ambassadors, on their return from Rome, to pass on to Carthage
+unmolested. About this time (it was the autumn of the year B.C. 203)
+Hannibal arrived in Africa, and soon collected an army in numbers far
+exceeding that of Scipio. He first made a successful campaign against
+Massinissa. Scipio was at this time informed that the consul Tib.
+Claudius Nero would come with an army to co-operate with him against
+Hannibal.
+
+Scipio, who wished to bring the war to a conclusion, and was unwilling
+to share the glory with anyone else, determined to bring Hannibal to a
+decisive battle. The Carthaginian at first avoided an engagement; but
+when Scipio, in order to deceive the enemy, hastily retreated as if he
+intended to take to flight, Hannibal followed him with his cavalry and
+lost a battle in the neighborhood of Zama. A tribune of Scipio soon
+afterward cut off a large convoy of provisions which was on its way to
+the camp of Hannibal, and this suddenly threw him into such
+difficulties that he began to negotiate with Scipio for peace. The
+conditions, however, which Scipio now proposed were so humiliating,
+that the Carthaginians would not accept them. Hannibal, therefore,
+though he saw the impossibility of gaining any further advantages, was
+compelled to decide the affair by a last and desperate effort. In a
+personal interview between the two generals Scipio was inexorable as
+to the conditions. Hannibal's army was in a bad condition; and in the
+ensuing battle, to the west of Zama, the victory of Scipio was
+complete. This defeat (in B.C. 202) was the death-blow to Carthage.
+
+Scipio, on his return to Italy, was received with the greatest
+enthusiasm; he entered Rome in triumph, and was henceforward
+distinguished by the name of Africanus. He now for several years
+continued to live at Rome, apparently without taking any part in
+public affairs. In B.C. 199 he obtained the office of censor with P.
+AElius Paetus, and in B.C. 194 he was made consul a second time with
+Tib. Sempronius Longus, and princeps senatus, a distinction with which
+he had already been honored in B.C. 196, and which was conferred upon
+him for the third time in B.C. 190. In B.C. 193, during one of the
+disputes between the Carthaginians and Massinissa, Scipio was sent
+with two other commissioners to mediate between the parties; but
+nothing was settled, though, as Livy observes, Scipio might easily
+have put an end to the disputes. Scipio was the only Roman who thought
+it unworthy of the republic to support those Carthaginians who
+persecuted Hannibal; and there was a tradition that Scipio, in B.C.
+193, was sent on an embassy to Antiochus, and that he met Hannibal in
+his exile, who in the conversation which took place, declared Scipio
+the greatest of all generals. Whether the story of the conversation be
+true or not, the judgment ascribed to Hannibal is just; for Scipio as
+a general was second to none but Hannibal himself.
+
+In the year B.C. 190, some discussions arose in the Senate as to what
+provinces should be assigned to the two consuls, Laelius and L.
+Cornelius Scipio, brother of the great Africanus. Africanus, although
+he was princeps senatus, offered to accompany his brother, as legate,
+if the Senate would give him Greece as his province, for this province
+conferred upon Lucius the command in the war against Antiochus. The
+offer was accepted, and the two brothers set out for Greece, and
+thence for Asia. Africanus took his son with him on this expedition,
+but by some unlucky chance the boy was taken prisoner, and sent to
+Antiochus. The king offered to restore him to freedom, and to give a
+considerable sum of money, if the father would interpose his influence
+to obtain favorable terms for the king. Africanus refused; but the
+king, notwithstanding, soon after sent the boy back to his father, who
+just then was suffering from illness, and was absent from the camp. To
+show his gratitude, Africanus sent a message to Antiochus, advising
+him not to engage in a battle until he himself had returned to the
+Roman camp. After the great battle near Mount Sipylus, Antiochus again
+applied to Scipio for peace, and the latter now used his influence
+with his brother Lucius and the council of war, on behalf of the king.
+The conditions of the peace were tolerably mild, but they were
+afterward made much more severe when the peace was ratified at Rome.
+
+The enemies of Africanus at Rome had now another charge against him.
+The peace with Antiochus, and the conditions proposed by Africanus and
+his brother Lucius, were regarded by the hostile party as the result
+of bribes from Antiochus, and of the liberation of the son of
+Africanus. A charge was therefore brought against the two brothers, on
+their return to Rome, of having accepted bribes of the king, and of
+having retained a part of the treasures which they ought to have
+delivered up to the aerarium. At the same time they were called upon to
+give an account of the sums of money they had taken from Antiochus.
+Lucius was ready to obey; but his brother Africanus with indignation
+snatched the accounts from the hands of his brother and tore them to
+pieces before the Senate. The tribune of the people, C. Minucius
+Augurinus, however, fined Lucius; and when he was going to be thrown
+into prison until he should pay the heavy fine, Africanus dragged him
+away; and the tribune Tib. Gracchus, though disapproving of the
+violence of Africanus, liberated Lucius from imprisonment. Africanus
+himself was now summoned before the people by the tribune M. Naevius;
+but instead of answering the charges he reminded the people that it
+was the anniversary of his victory at Zama, and bade them rather thank
+the gods for such citizens as he.
+
+After these troubles he withdrew to his villa near Liternum, and it
+was owing to the interposition of Tib. Gracchus that he was not
+compelled to obey another summons. The estates of his brother Lucius,
+however, were confiscated (B.C. 187), but the sum produced by their
+sale did not make up the amount of the fine. His friends and clients
+not only offered to make up the sum, but their generosity would even
+have made him richer than he had been before; but he refused to accept
+anything beyond what was absolutely necessary for his support.
+Africanus never returned from his voluntary exile, and he spent the
+last years of his life in quiet retirement at his villa. He is said to
+have wished to be buried on his estate; but there was, as Livy says, a
+tradition that he died at Rome, and was buried in the tomb of his
+family near the Porta Capena, where statues of him, his brother
+Lucius, and their friend Q. Ennius, were erected. The year of his
+death is not quite certain; for, according to Polybius, he died in the
+same year with Hannibal and Philopoemen (B.C. 183); according to
+others, two years earlier (B.C. 185).
+
+In judging of Scipio Africanus as a general, we may adopt the judgment
+ascribed to Hannibal; but as a Roman citizen he is very far from
+deserving such praise. His pride and haughtiness were intolerable, and
+the laws of the constitution were set at nought whenever they opposed
+his own views and passions. As a statesman he scarcely did anything
+worth mentioning. By his wife AEmilia, daughter of AEmilius Paullus, he
+had two daughters, one of whom married P. Cornelius Scipio Nasica
+Corculum, the other, the celebrated Cornelia, married Tib. Sempronius
+Gracchus, and was the mother of the two Gracchi, the tribunes of the
+people.
+
+
+
+
+CAIUS MARIUS
+
+Extracts from "Caesar, a Sketch," by JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE, LL.D.
+
+(157-86 B.C.)
+
+[Illustration: Caius Marius.]
+
+
+Caius Marius was at this time forty-eight years old.[3] Two-thirds of
+his life were over, and a name which was to sound throughout the world
+and be remembered through all ages, had as yet been scarcely heard of
+beyond the army and the political clubs in Rome. He was born at
+Arpinum, a Latin township, seventy miles from the capital, in the year
+157 B.C. His father was a small farmer, and he was himself bred to the
+plough. He joined the army early, and soon attracted notice by his
+punctual discharge of his duties. In a time of growing looseness,
+Marius was strict himself in keeping discipline and in enforcing it as
+he rose in the service. He was in Spain when Jugurtha[4] was there,
+and made himself especially useful to Scipio; he forced his way
+steadily upward, by his mere soldierlike qualities, to the rank of
+military tribune. Rome, too, had learnt to know him, for he was chosen
+tribune of the people the year after the murder of Caius Gracchus.
+Being a self-made man, he belonged naturally to the popular party.
+While in office he gave offence in some way to the men in power, and
+was called before the Senate to answer for himself. But he had the
+right on his side, it is likely, for they found him stubborn and
+impertinent, and they could make nothing of their charges against him.
+He was not bidding at this time, however, for the support of the mob.
+He had the integrity and sense to oppose the largesses of corn; and he
+forfeited his popularity by trying to close the public granaries
+before the practice had passed into a system. He seemed as if made of
+a block of hard Roman oak, gnarled and knotted, but sound in all its
+fibres. His professional merit continued to recommend him. At the age
+of forty he became praetor, and was sent to Spain, where he left a mark
+again by the successful severity by which he cleared the province of
+banditti. He was a man neither given himself to talking, nor much
+talked about in the world; but he was sought for wherever work was to
+be done, and he had made himself respected and valued in high circles,
+for after his return from the Peninsula he had married into one of the
+most distinguished of the patrician families.
+
+         [Footnote 3: B.C. 109.]
+
+         [Footnote 4: King of Numidia. He successfully withstood the
+         Romans during several years.]
+
+Marius by this marriage became a person of social consideration. His
+father had been a client of the Metelli; and Caecilius Metellus, who
+must have known Marius by reputation and probably in person, invited
+him to go as second in command in the African campaign. He was
+moderately successful. Towns were taken, battles were won: Metellus
+was incorruptible, and the Numidians sued for peace. But Jugurtha
+wanted terms, and the consul demanded unconditional surrender.
+Jugurtha withdrew into the desert; the war dragged on; and Marius,
+perhaps ambitious, perhaps impatient at the general's want of vigor,
+began to think that he could make quicker work of it. The popular
+party were stirring again in Rome, the Senate having so notoriously
+disgraced itself. There was just irritation that a petty African
+prince could defy the whole power of Rome for so many years; and
+though a democratic consul had been unheard of for a century, the name
+of Marius began to be spoken of as a possible candidate. Marius
+consented to stand. The law required that he must be present in person
+at the election, and he applied to his commander for leave of absence.
+Metellus laughed at his pretensions, and bade him wait another twenty
+years. Marius, however, persisted, and was allowed to go. The
+patricians strained their resources to defeat him, but he was chosen
+with enthusiasm. Metellus was recalled, and the conduct of the
+Numidian war was assigned to the new hero of the "Populares."
+
+A shudder of alarm ran, no doubt, through the Senate house, when the
+determination of the people was known. A successful general could not
+be disposed of so easily as oratorical tribunes. Fortunately, Marius
+was not a politician. He had no belief in democracy. He was a soldier,
+and had a soldier's way of thinking on government and the methods of
+it. His first step was a reformation in the army. Hitherto the Roman
+legions had been no more than the citizens in arms, called for the
+moment from their various occupations, to return to them when the
+occasion for their services was past. Marius had perceived that fewer
+men, better trained and disciplined, could be made more effective and
+be more easily handled. He had studied war as a science. He had
+perceived that the present weakness need be no more than an accident,
+and that there was a latent force in the Roman state, which needed
+only organization to resume its ascendency. "He enlisted," it was
+said, "the worst of the citizens," men, that is to say, who had no
+occupation, and who became soldiers by profession; and as persons
+without property could not have furnished themselves at their own
+cost, he must have carried out the scheme proposed by Gracchus, and
+equipped them at the expense of the state. His discipline was of the
+sternest. The experiment was new; and men of rank who had a taste for
+war in earnest, and did not wish that the popular party should have
+the whole benefit and credit of the improvements, were willing to go
+with him; among them a dissipated young patrician, called Lucius
+Sulla, whose name also was destined to be memorable.
+
+By these methods, and out of these materials, an army was formed, such
+as no Roman general had hitherto led. It performed extraordinary
+marches, carried its water-supplies with it in skins, and followed the
+enemy across sandy deserts hitherto found impassable. In less than two
+years the war was over. The Moors, to whom Jugurtha had fled,
+surrendered him to Sulla; and he was brought in chains to Rome, where
+he finished his life in a dungeon.
+
+Marius had formed an army barely in time to save Italy from being
+totally overwhelmed. A vast migratory wave of population had been set
+in motion behind the Rhine and the Danube. The German forests were
+uncultivated. The hunting and pasture grounds were too straight for
+the numbers crowded into them, and two enormous hordes were rolling
+westward and southward in search of some new abiding-place. Each
+division consisted of hundreds of thousands. They travelled, with
+their wives and children, their wagons, as with the ancient Scythians
+and with the modern South African Dutch, being at once their
+conveyance and their home. Gray-haired priestesses tramped along among
+them, barefooted, in white linen dresses, the knife at their girdle;
+northern Iphigenias, sacrificing prisoners as they were taken, to the
+gods of Valhalla. On they swept, eating up the country, and the people
+flying before them. In 113 B.C. the skirts of the Cimbri had
+encountered a small Roman force near Trieste, and destroyed it. Four
+years later another attempt was made to stop them, but the Roman army
+was beaten and its camp taken. The Cimbrian host did not, however,
+turn at that time upon Italy. Their aim was the south of France. They
+made their way through the Alps into Switzerland, where the Helvetii
+joined them and the united mass rolled over the Jura and down the bank
+of the Rhone. Roused at last into the exertion, the Senate sent into
+Gaul the largest force which the Romans had ever brought into the
+field. They met the Cimbri at Orange, and were simply annihilated.
+Eighty thousand Romans and forty thousand camp-followers were said to
+have fallen. The numbers in such cases are generally exaggerated, but
+the extravagance of the report is a witness to the greatness of the
+overthrow. The Romans had received a worse blow than at Cannae. They
+were brave enough, but they were commanded by persons whose
+recommendations for command were birth or fortune; "preposterous men,"
+as Marius termed them, who had waited for their appointment to open
+the military manuals.
+
+Had the Cimbri chosen at this moment to recross the Alps into Italy,
+they had only to go and take possession, and Alaric would have been
+antedated by five centuries. In great danger it was the Senate's
+business to suspend the constitution. The constitution was set aside
+now, but it was set aside by the people themselves, not by the Senate.
+One man only could save the country, and that man was Marius. His
+consulship was over, and custom forbade his re-election. The Senate
+might have appointed him Dictator, but would not. The people, custom
+or no custom, chose him consul a second time--a significant
+acknowledgment that the Empire, which had been won by the sword, must
+be held by the sword, and that the sword itself must be held by the
+hand that was best fitted to use it. Marius first triumphed for his
+African victory, and, as an intimation to the Senate that the power
+for the moment was his and not theirs, he entered the Curia in his
+triumphal dress. He then prepared for the barbarians who, to the
+alarmed imagination of the city, were already knocking at its gates.
+Time was the important element in the matter. Had the Cimbri come at
+once after their victory at Orange, Italy had been theirs. But they
+did not come. With the unguided movements of some wild force of
+nature, they swerved away through Aquitaine to the Pyrenees. They
+swept across the mountains into Spain. Thence, turning north, they
+passed up the Atlantic coast and round to the Seine, the Gauls flying
+before them; thence on to the Rhine, where the vast body of the
+Teutons joined them, and fresh detachments of the Helvetii. It was as
+if some vast tide-wave had surged over the country and rolled through
+it, searching out the easiest passages. At length, in two divisions,
+the invaders moved definitely toward Italy, the Cimbri following their
+old tracks by the Eastern Alps toward Aquileia and the Adriatic, the
+Teutons passing down through Provence, and making for the road along
+the Mediterranean. Two years had been consumed in these wanderings,
+and Marius was by this time ready for them. The Senate had dropped the
+reins, and no longer governed or misgoverned; the popular party,
+represented by the army, was supreme. Marius was continued in office,
+and was a fourth time consul. He had completed his military reforms,
+and the army was now a professional service, with regular pay. Trained
+corps of engineers were attached to each legion. The campaigns of the
+Romans were thenceforward to be conducted with spade and pickaxe as
+much as with sword and javelin, and the soldiers learnt the use of
+tools as well as arms.
+
+The effect of the change was like enchantment. The delay of the
+Germans made it unnecessary to wait for them in Italy. Leaving
+Catulus, his colleague in the consulship, to check the Cimbri in
+Venetia, Marius went himself, taking Sulla with him, into the south of
+France. As the barbarian host came on, he occupied a fortified camp
+near Aix. He allowed the enormous procession to roll past him in their
+wagons toward the Alps. Then, following cautiously, he watched his
+opportunity to fall on them. The Teutons were brave, but they had no
+longer mere legionaries to fight with, but a powerful machine, and the
+entire mass of them, men, women, and children, in numbers which,
+however uncertain, were rather those of a nation than an army, were
+swept out of existence. The Teutons were destroyed on the 20th of
+July, 102. In the year following, the same fate overtook their
+comrades. The Cimbri had forced the passes through the mountains. They
+had beaten the unscientific patrician Catulus, and had driven him back
+on the Po. But Marius came to his rescue. The Cimbri were cut to
+pieces near Mantua, in the summer of 101, and Italy was saved.
+
+The victories of Marius mark a new epoch in Roman history.[5] The
+legions were no longer the levy of the citizens in arms, who were
+themselves the state for which they fought. The legionaries were
+citizens still. They had votes, and they used them; but they were
+professional soldiers with the modes of thought which belong to
+soldiers; and besides, the power of the hustings was now the power of
+the sword. The constitution remained to appearance intact, and means
+were devised sufficient to encounter, it might be supposed, the new
+danger. Standing armies were prohibited in Italy. Victorious generals
+returning from campaigns abroad were required to disband their legions
+on entering the sacred soil. But the materials of these legions
+remained a distinct order from the rest of the population, capable of
+instant combination, and in combination, irresistible, save by
+opposing combinations of the same kind.
+
+         [Footnote 5: He was ranked with Romulus and Camillus and
+         given the title of the third founder of Rome.]
+
+The danger from the Germans was no sooner gone than political anarchy
+broke loose again. Marius, the man of the people, was the saviour of
+his country. He was made consul a fifth time, and a sixth. The party
+which had given him his command shared, of course, in his
+pre-eminence. The elections could be no longer interfered with or the
+voters intimidated. The public offices were filled with the most
+violent agitators, who believed that the time had come to revenge the
+Gracchi, and carry out the democratic revolution, to establish the
+ideal Republic, and the direct rule of the citizen assembly. This,
+too, was a chimera. If the Roman Senate could not govern, far less
+could the Roman mob govern. Marius stood aside, and let the voices
+rage. He could not be expected to support a system which had brought
+the country so near to ruin. He had no belief in the visions of the
+demagogues, but the time was not ripe to make an end of it all. Had he
+tried, the army would not have gone with him; so he sat still, till
+faction had done its work. The popular heroes of the hour were the
+tribune Saturninus and the praetor Glaucia. They carried corn laws and
+land laws--whatever laws they pleased to propose. The administration
+remaining with the Senate, they carried a vote that every senator
+should take an oath to execute their laws under penalty of fine and
+expulsion. Marius did not like it, and even opposed it, but let it
+pass at last.
+
+Marius was an indifferent politician. He perceived as well as any one
+that violence must not go on, but he hesitated to put it down. He knew
+that the aristocracy feared and hated him. Between them and the
+people's consul no alliance was possible. He did not care to alienate
+his friends, and there may have been other difficulties which we do
+not know, in his way. The army itself was perhaps divided. On the
+popular side there were two parties: a moderate one, represented by
+Memmius, who, as tribune, had impeached the senators for the
+Jugurthine infamies; the other, the advanced radicals, led by Glaucia
+and Saturninus. Memmius and Glaucia were both candidates for the
+consulship; and as Memmius was likely to succeed, he was murdered.
+
+Above the tumults of the factions in the Capitol a cry rising into
+shrillness began to be heard from Italy. Caius Gracchus had wished to
+extend the Roman franchise to the Italian states, and the suggestion
+had cost him his popularity and his life. The Italian provinces had
+furnished their share of the armies which had beaten Jugurtha, and had
+destroyed the German invaders. They now demanded that they should have
+the position which Gracchus designed for them: that they should be
+allowed to legislate for themselves, and no longer lie at the mercy of
+others, who neither understood their necessities, nor cared for their
+interests. They had no friends in the city, save a few far-sighted
+statesmen. Senate and mob had at least one point of agreement, that
+the spoils of the Empire should be fought for among themselves; and at
+the first mention of the invasion of their monopoly a law was passed
+making the very agitation of the subject punishable by death.
+
+The contrast of character between two classes of population, became at
+once uncomfortably evident. The provincials had been the right arm of
+the Empire. Rome, a city of rich men with families of slaves, and of a
+crowd of impoverished freemen without employment to keep them in
+health and strength, could no longer bring into the field a force
+which could hold its ground against the gentry and peasants of
+Samnium. The Senate enlisted Greeks, Numidians, any one whose services
+they could purchase. They had to encounter soldiers who had been
+trained and disciplined by Marius, and they were taught, by defeat
+upon defeat, that they had a worse enemy before them than the Germans.
+Marius himself had almost withdrawn from public life. He had no heart
+for the quarrel, and did not care greatly to exert himself. At the
+bottom, perhaps, he thought that the Italians were in the right. The
+Senate discovered that they were helpless, and must come to terms if
+they would escape destruction. They abandoned the original point of
+difference, and they offered to open the franchise to every Italian
+state south of the Po, which had not taken arms, or which returned
+immediately to its allegiance. The war had broken out for a definite
+cause. When the cause was removed no reason remained for its
+continuance.
+
+The panting Senate was thus able to breathe again. The war continued,
+but under better auspices. Sound material could now be collected again
+for the army. Marius being in the background, the chosen knight of the
+aristocracy, Lucius Sulla, whose fame in the Cimbrian war had been
+only second to that of his commander's, came at once to the front. Too
+late the democratic leaders repented of their folly in encouraging the
+Senate to refuse the franchise to the Italians. The Italians, they
+began to perceive, would be their surest political allies. Caius
+Gracchus had been right after all. The Roman democracy must make haste
+to offer the Italians more than all which the Senate was ready to
+concede to them. Together they could make an end of misrule, and place
+Marius once more at their head.
+
+Much of this was perhaps the scheming passion of revolution; much of
+it was legitimate indignation, penitent for its errors and anxious to
+atone for them. Marius had his personal grievances. The aristocrats
+were stealing from him even his military reputation, and claiming for
+Sulla the capture of Jugurtha. He was willing, perhaps anxious, to
+take the Eastern command. Sulpicius Rufus, once a champion of the
+Senate and the most brilliant orator in Rome, went over to the people
+in the excitement. Rufus was chosen tribune, and at once proposed to
+enfranchise the remainder of Italy.
+
+But Sulla was not so easily got rid of. It was no time for nice
+considerations. He had formed an army in Campania out of the legions
+which had served against the Italians. He had made his soldiers
+devoted to him. They were ready to go anywhere and do anything which
+Sulla bade them. After so many murders, and so many commotions, the
+constitution had lost its sacred character; a popular assembly was, of
+all conceivable bodies, the least fit to govern an empire; and in
+Sulla's eyes the Senate, whatever its deficiencies, was the only
+possible sovereign of Rome. The people were a rabble, and their voices
+the clamor of fools, who must be taught to know their masters. His
+reply to Sulpicius and to the vote for his recall, was to march on the
+city. He led his troops within the circle which no legionary in arms
+was allowed to enter, and he lighted his watch-fires in the Forum
+itself. The people resisted; Sulpicius was killed; Marius, the saviour
+of his country, had to fly for his life, pursued by assassins, with a
+price set upon his head.[6] Twelve of the prominent popular leaders
+were immediately executed without trial; and in hot haste, swift,
+decisive measures were taken, which permanently, as Sulla hoped, or if
+not permanently, at least for the moment, would lame the limbs of the
+democracy.
+
+         [Footnote 6: According to legend Marius took refuge among the
+         ruins of Carthage, comparing his own fallen greatness to that
+         of the city. His dignity in misfortune awed the soldiers who
+         came to seize him, and they left him in peace.]
+
+He was no sooner out of Italy than the democratic party rose, with
+Cinna at their head, to demand the restoration of the old
+constitution. Cinna had been sworn to maintain Sulla's reforms, but no
+oath could be held binding which was extorted at the sword's point. A
+fresh Sulpicius was found in Carbo, a popular tribune. A more valuable
+supporter was found in Quintus Sertorius, a soldier of fortune, but a
+man of real gifts, and even of genius. Disregarding the new obligation
+to obtain the previous consent of the Senate, Cinna called the
+assembly together to repeal the acts which Sulla had forced on them.
+
+The wounds of the social war were scarcely cicatrized, and the peace
+had left the allies imperfectly satisfied. Their dispersed armies
+gathered again about Cinna and Sertorius. Old Marius, who had been
+hunted through marsh and forest, and had been hiding with difficulty
+in Africa, came back at the news that Italy had risen again; and six
+thousand of his veterans flocked to him at the sound of his name. The
+Senate issued proclamations. The limitations on the Italian franchise
+left by Sulla were abandoned. Every privilege which had been asked for
+was conceded. It was too late. Concessions made in fear might be
+withdrawn on the return of safety. Marius and Cinna joined their
+forces. The few troops in the pay of the Senate deserted to them. They
+appeared together at the gates of the city, and Rome capitulated.
+
+There was a bloody score to be wiped out. Marius bears the chief blame
+for the scenes which followed. Undoubtedly he was in no pleasant
+humor. A price had been set on his head, his house had been destroyed,
+his property had been confiscated, he himself had been chased like a
+wild beast, and he had not deserved such treatment. He had saved Italy
+when but for him it would have been wasted by the swords of the
+Germans. His power had afterward been absolute, but he had not abused
+it for party purposes. The Senate had no reason to complain of him. He
+had touched none of their privileges, incapable and dishonest as he
+knew them to be. His crime in their eyes had been his eminence. They
+had now shown themselves as cruel as they were worthless; and if
+public justice was disposed to make an end of them, he saw no cause
+for interference.
+
+Thus the familiar story repeated itself: wrong was punished by wrong,
+and another item was entered on the bloody account which was being
+scored up year after year. The noble lords and their friends had
+killed the people in the Forum. They were killed in turn by the
+soldiers of Marius. Fifty senators perished, not those who were
+specially guilty, but those who were most politically marked as
+patrician leaders. With them fell a thousand equites, commoners of
+fortune, who had thrown in their lot with the aristocracy. From
+retaliatory political revenge the transition was easy to pillage and
+wholesale murder; and for many days the wretched city was made a prey
+to robbers and cut-throats.
+
+So ended the year 87, the darkest and bloodiest which the guilty city
+had yet experienced. Marius and Cinna were chosen consuls for the year
+ensuing, and a witches' prophecy was fulfilled, that Marius should
+have a seventh consulate. But the glory had departed from him. His sun
+was already setting, redly, among crimson clouds. He lived but a
+fortnight after his inauguration, and he died in his bed on the 13th
+of January, at the age of seventy-one.
+
+"The mother of the Gracchi," said Mirabeau, "cast the dust of her
+murdered sons into the air, and out of it sprang Caius Marius."
+
+
+
+
+JULIUS CAESAR
+
+By E. SPENCER BEESLY, M.A.
+
+(100-44 B.C.)
+
+[Illustration: Julius Caesar.]
+
+
+Rome solved the great political problem of the ancient world in the
+best practicable, if not in the best conceivable, way. To Caesar it
+fell to put the crowning stroke to that work. The several states of
+modern Europe have all contributed, though in different degrees, to
+political progress, and therefore no one of them has the unique
+importance and glory that belongs to Rome. For the same reason, no
+modern statesman stands on a level with Caesar. He remains, in
+Shakespeare's phrase, "the foremost man of all this world." It was the
+high fortune of Rome that, in the principal crisis of her history, she
+possessed a citizen so splendidly endowed in intellect, character, and
+heart. Free to an extraordinary degree from the prejudices belonging
+to his age and country, with piercing and far-sweeping vision, he saw
+as from some superior height, the political situation of his own time
+in its relation to the past and the future of the ancient world. If
+Rome had till then carried out the work of conquest with considerable
+method, and upon the whole, with steadiness, she had very inadequately
+satisfied the need for incorporation. Her oligarchical constitution,
+admirably adapted for the first task, could not easily reconcile
+itself to the second. In its best days, and while Carthage and Macedon
+were still formidable, the Senate had from time to time, prudently
+though grudgingly, extended the privilege of citizenship to some of
+the subject Italian states. But the great mass of Italians had only
+extorted it by rebellion during the boyhood of Caesar, and outside
+Italy, the conquered nations were still on the footing of subject
+allies, trampled upon and fleeced for the benefit of Rome, or rather
+of the Roman nobles and capitalists. If the great dominion was to be
+maintained in some tolerable degree of well-being for all its members,
+or even maintained at all, it was absolutely necessary that the
+so-called Republican constitution, always oppressive for the
+provinces, and now shamefully corrupt, should be replaced by personal
+government. For a complete incorporation of the subject peoples was
+not to be expected from the suffrages of a dominant people, to even
+the poorest of whom, it would mean the cessation of highly prized
+privileges and immunities. The provinces would from the earliest
+moment of their subjection have welcomed such a change. The time was
+more than ripe for it when the Roman world lay at the feet of Sulla.
+Sulla had all the ability, self-reliance, prestige, and opportunity
+that were needed. But his moral nature was below the task. He had
+neither the insight, nor the sympathy, nor the noble ambition of
+Caesar, and he preferred to re-establish the senatorial oligarchy.
+
+[Illustration: Marius on the ruins of Carthage.]
+
+When Sulla crushed the Marian party Caesar had just arrived at manhood.
+Though of an old patrician house, he had yet a family connection with
+the democratic party, Marius having married his aunt. He himself had
+married a daughter of the democratic leader Cinna, and for refusing to
+divorce her he was proscribed by Sulla, but managed to keep in hiding
+till the storm was past. After the death of the great reactionist
+(B.C. 78), he seized every opportunity of reviving the spirit of the
+popular party; as, for instance, by publicly honoring the memory of
+Marius, bringing to justice murderers of the proscription, and
+courageously raising his single voice in the Senate against the
+illegal execution of Catiline's partisans (B.C. 63). Clearly seeing
+the necessity for personal government, at a time when his own services
+and distinctions were not such as to entitle him to aspire to it,
+Caesar did his best to secure it for Pompey, then far the foremost man
+in Rome, by strenuously supporting measures which virtually placed the
+empire at his absolute disposal for an indefinite period. A fairly
+good soldier, but a most vain, unreliable, and incompetent statesman,
+Pompey after five years let these powers slip through his hands.
+
+[Illustration: Julius Caesar.]
+
+Caesar was by this time thirty-eight (B.C. 62). He had steadily risen
+in influence and official rank; and it was, no doubt, now that he
+determined to take the great task into his own hands. He was the
+recognized chief of the popular party, which aimed at concentrating
+Republican government in the hands of a single person, as the only
+means of bridling the oligarchy. But this was not to be accomplished
+merely by popular votes, as many a democratic leader had found to his
+cost. Caesar needed an army and a military reputation, and with rare
+patience he set himself to acquire both. By a coalition with
+Pompey--now obliged to treat him as an equal--he obtained the
+consulship (B.C. 59), which on its expiration entitled him to a great
+military command.
+
+Roman generals had of late preferred to extend their conquests
+eastward, and to win comparatively easy and lucrative triumphs in
+Asia, over people who had possessed for long ages a type of
+civilization suited to them, and who therefore could never thoroughly
+assimilate Western manners and institutions. All this time Gaul, lying
+at the gates of Italy, was neglected (only the district between the
+Cevennes and the Alps having been reduced), because the people were
+more warlike, and less booty was to be gained. Yet, till that conquest
+should be effected, Rome's work of civilizing the world was standing
+still; nay, it was always menaced by northern invasions. This field of
+action, then, Caesar marked out for himself, in which he could prepare
+the means for assuming power at home, and at the same time render the
+highest service to his country and humanity. His ardent spirit, his
+incredible energy in all circumstances of his life, astonished his
+contemporaries. Time pressed, for he was no longer young. While he was
+absent from Rome, what revolutions might not mar his plans! Yet, ten
+continuous years did he devote to this great task, which, if he had
+achieved nothing else, would make his name one of the greatest in
+history. In those ten years he conquered Gaul, from the Pyrenees to
+the Rhine and the British Channel; conquered her so thoroughly, and
+treated her so sensibly, that when the fierce struggle was over, she
+frankly and even proudly accepted her new position. The culture, the
+institutions, even the language of the victors, were eagerly adopted.
+The grandsons of the men who had fought so gallantly against Caesar,
+won full citizenship, took their seats in the Senate, and commanded
+Roman armies.
+
+These ten years decided the future of the West, and therefore of
+Humanity. It is not merely the central position and natural advantages
+of France, nor yet the admirable qualities of her people, which have
+made her throughout mediaeval and modern history, the foremost of
+European states. It is even more the result of her rapid and thorough
+acceptance of Roman civilization. This made her the heir of Rome. This
+enabled her, long afterward, to Romanize Germany and England in some
+degree, and as it were at second-hand, by the arms of Charlemagne and
+William.
+
+It had been arranged between Caesar and Pompey, that during the absence
+of the former in Gaul, the latter should act with the popular party,
+and keep the nobility in the condition of impotence to which it had
+been reduced in the consulship of Caesar. Partly from jealousy of
+Caesar, partly from sheer incapacity, Pompey, after much vacillation
+and duplicity, finally allied himself with the nobles, thinking with
+their aid to crush his rival and thereafter to be supreme. The nobles,
+for their part, thought they would know how to deal with Pompey if
+once Caesar was out of the way. In the negotiations which preceded the
+civil war, Caesar showed a moderation and fairness in striking contrast
+with the unscrupulous and headstrong violence of the nobles, who had
+not even formal legality on their side. But when he was finally
+summoned to hand over his province and army to a nominee of the
+Senate, on pain of being declared a public enemy, and when the
+tribunes who had reversed the resolution of the Senate were obliged to
+fly for their lives to his camp, he suddenly crossed the river
+Rubicon, the boundary of his province, and marched on Rome (B.C. 49).
+
+He had but one legion with him; the bulk of his army was far away in
+its Gallic cantonments. The forces of Pompey were overwhelmingly
+superior in numbers. But the rapid and daring advance of Caesar
+prevented their concentration. He came, not merely the adored general
+of a veteran army, but the long-tried and consistent leader of the
+liberal party, who had never swerved from his principles, never
+betrayed his friends, never flinched from dangers. Fascinated by his
+success and encouraged by his clemency, towns everywhere opened their
+gates and Pompeian levies joined him, swelling his army at every stage
+as he swept down Italy.
+
+Pompey, for his part, was not sorry to have a pretext for moving
+eastward toward the scene of his early triumphs, where his military
+prestige and his personal influence would cause all the client states
+to rally round him, and the sulky and suspicious nobles would find
+themselves overshadowed. So he crossed the Adriatic, leaving the large
+veteran army in Spain, which was under his orders, to take care of
+itself. Thither Caesar proceeded as soon as he had secured Italy, bent
+on making sure of the West before doing anything else. When the
+Spanish legions were beaten, he lost no time in following Pompey, who
+had found the respite all too short for drilling his large but raw
+force of Romans, and organizing the masses of Asiatics whom he had
+summoned to his standard. In the campaign that ensued, the conqueror
+of the East fully maintained his old military reputation; but at
+length, driven by the clamor of the nobles to risk a pitched battle,
+he suffered a crushing defeat on the field of Pharsalia (B.C. 48).
+Flying to Egypt, still an independent kingdom, he was assassinated by
+order of the government.
+
+The beaten party rallied again, first in Africa, then in Spain; and of
+the three years and nine months of life that remained to Caesar, much
+the greater portion was spent at the head of his army. He, therefore,
+had not time to give any complete organization to his new government.
+But his intentions are clearly discernible in outline. Supreme power,
+legislative as well as executive, was to be vested in a single ruler,
+governing not by divine right, but as the representative of the
+community, and in its interest. This was indeed an ideal by no means
+novel to Romans. Scipio had brooded over it. Caius Gracchus had for a
+moment realized it. The oldest institutions and traditions told of it.
+It was the power of the ancient kings theoretically continued to, and
+in grave emergencies actually exercised by, the magistrates of the
+Republic during its best days. It had been increasingly overshadowed
+by the Senate. That body was now to be reduced to its original
+consultative office. The functions of the executive had been gradually
+divided among several magistrates. They were now to be re-concentrated.
+Above all, annual election--the cherished institution of all
+oligarchies, open or disguised--was to be replaced by life-tenure,
+with power to name a successor. The subjects of Rome were to be
+admitted to citizenship, wherever and whenever fit for it; and there
+is reason to believe that Caesar intended to move much faster in this
+direction than his successor did. Rome itself, from the mistress of
+the Empire, was to become its capital and most dignified municipality.
+All old parties--Caesar's own included--were to consider themselves at
+an end. "To the victors the spoils!" was a cry rebuked from the first.
+For the vanquished of Pharsalia there was not only amnesty, but
+admission to the highest grades of the public service, if they would
+bury their old grudge and recognize the government. Pauperism among
+the lower class, and insolvency among the upper--ulcers not admitting
+of a radical cure--were treated with judicious palliatives. Taxation
+was reduced, expenditure was increased, and yet the balance in the
+treasury at Caesar's death was tenfold what it had ever been before--a
+proof of the frightful waste and corruption from which the Roman world
+was rescued by the overthrow of the oligarchy.
+
+Of the administrative work of Caesar it is impossible here to give any
+adequate idea. A reform of the calendar, which served the West till
+1582, and serves Russia still; a recasting of the whole provincial
+administration; a codification of Roman law; a census of the Empire; a
+uniform gold coinage; a public library; a metropolitan police;
+building regulations; sanitary regulations; an alteration of the
+course of the Tiber, which would have drained the marshes--all these
+grand projects, and more, some carried to completion, some only
+sketched out, teemed from the active brain of the great organizer, in
+the brief moments he could spare from military cares in these last
+months of his life--a devouring activity, an all-embracing capacity,
+such as perhaps never shone forth in man before or since. What Roman
+incorporation meant for the ancient world was at last revealed. The
+war havoc of seven centuries had found its justification.
+
+[Illustration: The Ides of March.]
+
+In the midst of this glorious and beneficent career, at the age of
+fifty-five (57?), Caesar, whose frank and fearless spirit disdained
+suspicion or precaution, was assassinated by a knot of rancorous,
+perfidious aristocrats, whom he had pardoned and promoted. Their
+purblind spite was powerless to avert the inevitable advent of
+monocracy. What they did effectually extinguish for more than a
+century, was the possibility of amnesty, conciliation, and mutual
+confidence. Careless as usual of historical truth, the great English
+poet has glorified the murderers of Caesar. Dante, never forgetting the
+moral responsibility of art, has reserved the lowest circle of hell
+for Brutus, Cassius, and Judas Iscariot.
+
+It imports little to the greatness of such a one as Caesar, to add that
+in an age of oratory he stood in the first rank of orators; that his
+historical writings are an unrivalled model of vigor, lucidity, and
+elegance; that he carried his scientific culture to a point very
+unusual among his countrymen; and that his personal prowess and feats
+of endurance were the admiration of veteran soldiers. Women loved him,
+and he loved them. Enjoying life thoroughly, he was temperate in all
+things. To no man has it been given to approach more nearly to the
+perfection of human nature--complete, evenly balanced, and
+self-controlled.
+
+
+
+
+MARC ANTONY
+
+(83-30 B.C.)
+
+[Illustration: Marc Antony.]
+
+
+Marcus Antonius, or Marc Antony, grandson of Antonius the orator, and
+son of Antonius Creticus, seems to have been born about 83 B.C. While
+still a child he lost his father, whose example however, had he been
+spared, would have done little for the improvement of his character.
+Brought up under the influence of the disreputable Cornelius Lentulus
+Sura, whom his mother had married, Antony spent his youth in
+profligacy and extravagance. For a time he co-operated with the
+reprobate Clodius in his political plans, chiefly, it is supposed,
+through hostility to Cicero, who had caused Lentulus, his stepfather,
+to be put to death as one of the Catiline conspirators; but he soon
+withdrew from the connection, on account of a disagreement which,
+appropriately enough, arose in regard to his relations to his
+associate's wife, Flavia. Not long after, in 58 B.C., he fled to
+Greece, to escape the importunity of his creditors; and at length,
+after a short time spent in attendance on the philosophers at Athens,
+found an occasion for displaying some of the better features of his
+character, in the wars that were being carried on by Gabinius against
+Aristobulus in Palestine, and in support of Ptolemy Auletes in Egypt.
+
+A new chapter in his life was opened by the visit which he made to
+Julius Caesar in Gaul (54 B.C.). Welcomed by the victorious general as
+a valuable assistant in his ambitious designs, and raised by his
+influence to the offices of quaestor, augur, and tribune of the plebes,
+he displayed admirable boldness and activity in the maintenance of his
+patron's cause, in opposition to the violence and intrigues of the
+oligarchical party. At length his antagonists prevailed, and expelled
+him from the curia; and the political contest became a civil war. The
+Rubicon was crossed; Caesar was victorious, and Antony shared in his
+triumph. Deputy-governor of Italy during Caesar's absence in Spain
+(49), second in command in the decisive battle of Pharsalia (48), and
+again deputy-governor of Italy while Caesar was in Africa (47), Antony
+was now inferior in power only to the dictator himself, and eagerly
+seized the opportunity of indulging in the most extravagant excesses
+of luxurious licentiousness--excesses which Cicero depicted in the
+"Philippics" with all the elaborate eloquence of political hatred. In
+46 he seems to have taken offence at Caesar, because he insisted on
+payment for the property of Pompey which Antony professedly had
+purchased, but had merely appropriated. But the estrangement was not
+of long continuance, for we find Antony meeting the dictator at Narbo
+the following year, and rejecting the advances of Trebonius, who
+endeavored to discover if there was any hope of getting Antony to join
+in the conspiracy that was already on foot. In 44 he was consul along
+with Caesar, and seconded his ambition by the famous offer of the crown
+on the 15th of February, thus unconsciously preparing the way for the
+tragedy on the 15th of March. To the sincerity of his adherence to
+Caesar, the conspirators themselves bore witness on that memorable day,
+by the care which they took to keep him engaged without, while the
+daggers were doing their work within.
+
+This was the second great epoch in Antony's life. A brighter prospect
+than ever was then opened to his ambition. By his eloquence--a
+hereditary gift--he managed to stir up the minds of the populace
+against the assassins of Caesar, and drove them from the city. He made
+peace with the remaining representatives of the senatorial party, and
+seemed almost to have succeeded to the power and position of his
+unfortunate patron. But the youthful Octavius, whom Caesar had adopted
+as his son, arrived from Illyria, and claimed the inheritance of his
+"father." Agreement was impossible, and war ensued. Octavius obtained
+the support of the Senate and of Cicero; and the veteran troops of the
+dictator flocked to his standard. Antony was denounced as a public
+enemy; and the city gave its loudest applause to the tirades of his
+most eloquent accuser. His cause gradually lost ground, and seemed to
+be totally ruined when his army was defeated in the siege of Mutina
+(43 B.C.). But escaping to Cisalpine Gaul, he formed a junction with
+Lepidus, and they marched toward Rome with 17 legions and 10,000
+cavalry.
+
+The wily Octavius now betrayed his party, and entered into terms with
+Antony and Lepidus. It was agreed that they three should adopt the
+title--so beautifully ironical--of _Triumviri reipublicae
+constituendae_, and share the power and the provinces among them. Gaul
+was to be Antony's; Spain fell to the lot of Lepidus, and Africa,
+Sardinia, and Sicily were to belong to Octavius. A conjunct
+proscription followed, each of the partners in the villanous design
+bartering the life of his friends, for the pleasure of destroying his
+foes. The detested author of the "Philippics" was given up to Antony's
+revenge; and, according to Appian, the number of the victims amounted
+to 300 senators and 2,000 knights. In the following year Antony and
+Octavius proceeded against the conspirators, Cassius and Brutus, who
+still maintained themselves in Macedonia; and, in the battles of
+Philippi, stamped out the last embers of republican Rome.
+
+While Octavius returned to Italy, Antony proceeded to Greece, and
+thence to Asia Minor, for the sake of recruiting his funds, completing
+the subjugation of the Eastern provinces, and obtaining satisfaction
+about the conduct of the Egyptian queen during the recent contest. On
+his passage through Cilicia, in 41, he was visited by Cleopatra, who
+came to answer the charges in person. She sailed up the Cydnus in a
+gorgeous bark, with a fantastic and brilliant equipage, and brought
+all her allurements to bear on the heart of the voluptuous Roman. Her
+success was complete; and he who was to have been her judge, was led
+captive to Alexandria as her slave. All was forgotten in the
+fascination and delight of the passing hour; and feasting and revelry
+found perpetual and ever-varying renewal.
+
+At length Antony was aroused by the Parthian invasion of Syria, and
+the report of an outbreak between Fulvia, his wife, and Lucius, his
+brother, on the one hand, and Octavius on the other. On arriving in
+Italy he found that the war was over, and Octavius the victor; and the
+chief cause of disagreement being soon after removed by the death of
+Fulvia, a reconciliation was speedily effected between the triumvirs,
+and cemented by the marriage of Antony with Octavia, the sister of his
+colleague. A new division of the Roman world was agreed on at
+Brundusium, Lepidus receiving Africa, Octavius the West, and Antony
+the East.
+
+Returning to his province, Antony was for a time successful; his
+general, Ventidius, beating the Parthians, and Socius capturing
+Jerusalem and conquering Antigonus. But after another visit to Italy,
+during which the triumvirate was prolonged for five years, Antony sent
+away his wife, yielded himself completely to the evil influence of
+Cleopatra, indulged not only in licentiousness, but in tyranny, and
+allowed his affairs to be neglected or delayed. An expedition against
+the Parthians was a failure; but for this, his success against
+Artavasdes, the Armenian king, in some measure compensated. Octavius
+at length determined to get rid of Antony, and had little need of
+invention to bring charges sufficient against him. About two years
+were spent in preparations and delays on both sides, and it was not
+till the year 31 that the fate of Antony was decided by the battle of
+Actium.
+
+Defeated and deserted, he once more sought refuge and repose in the
+society of Cleopatra, but was followed even there by his relentless
+rival. At first he made a gallant effort to defend himself, and
+partially succeeded. But convinced of the hopelessness of his
+position, and assured of the suicide of his mistress, he followed the
+example which he was falsely informed she had given (30 B.C.). Antony
+had been married in succession to Fadia, Antonia, Fulvia, and Octavia,
+and left behind him a number of children. A short but vivid sketch of
+Antony is given by De Quincey in his "Essay on the Caesars."
+
+
+
+
+HERMANN
+
+(16 B.C.-21 A.D.)
+
+[Illustration: Hermann.]
+
+
+Hermann, the Arminius of the Roman historians, the son of Sigimer,
+chief of the Cherusci, was born about B.C. 16 or 17. Being sent in
+early youth as a hostage to Rome, probably in consequence of the
+victories of Drusus, which had established the supremacy of Rome over
+the Catti, Cherusci, and other tribes of North Germany, he obtained
+the favor of Augustus, and was inscribed among the Roman knights. On
+his return to his native country, he resolved to deliver it from the
+Romans, whose oppression had become intolerable. Quintilius Varus, a
+rapacious man, was then the Roman governor in Germany. He had held
+office in Syria, where he had ruled with great harshness; and fancying
+that he might act in the same way toward the fierce tribes of the
+North, he roused among them a bitter hatred of the Romans.
+
+[Illustration: Hermann's triumph over the Romans.]
+
+They found in Hermann a leader of extraordinary bravery and resource.
+He laid his plans with the chiefs of the Catti, Bructeri, and other
+tribes that lived between the Rhine and the Albis (Elbe), some of
+which broke out into insurrection. Hermann then offered Varus his
+assistance in reducing them to subjection, and thus led him to advance
+some distance from the Rhine into the interior. Varus began his march
+with three legions, six cohorts, and a body of cavalry, and Hermann
+served him as a guide through the wilds. The Romans were thus drawn
+into an ambuscade in the Teutoburg forest, and found themselves all at
+once surrounded by numerous bodies of Germans, who were directed by
+Hermann himself. The Romans fought desperately; but being
+unacquainted with the localities, and unable to form their ranks owing
+to the thickness of the forests and the marshy nature of the ground,
+they were defeated after a three days' battle, by the Germans, who
+destroyed them in detail. At last, Varus, being wounded and seeing no
+chance of escape, fell upon his sword, and the other chief officers
+followed his example.
+
+The legions were entirely destroyed, and the cavalry alone cut their
+way through the enemy and regained the banks of the Rhine. By this
+defeat the Romans lost all their conquests beyond that river; and
+although Germanicus some years after again carried their arms to the
+Weser, they never established anything like a solid dominion over
+those regions. The defeat of Varus occurred, according to various
+chronologists, in the year 763 of Rome (A.D. 9). The scene of the
+defeat is conjectured to have been in the country of the Bructeri,
+near the sources of the Ems and the Lippe. The news of this calamity,
+the greatest that had befallen the Roman arms since the defeat of
+Crassus, was received with universal amazement and terror. The
+despairing cry of Augustus, "Varus, Varus, give me back my legions!"
+testified to the consternation even at Rome, where it was expected
+that the barbarians would take a terrible revenge for the wrongs they
+had suffered.
+
+The fears of invasion, however, were not realized. L. Asprena guarded
+the banks of the Rhine, and the Germans were too little united among
+themselves to attack the Empire. Augustus in the following year sent
+Tiberius to the Rhine with a fresh army; but he does not seem to have
+effected anything of importance. Hermann meantime quarrelled with
+Segestes, chief of the Catti, whose daughter Tusnelda, he had carried
+off and married against her father's consent. When Germanicus, after
+the death of Augustus, marched into the interior of Germany to avenge
+the defeat of Varus, he was assisted by Segestes, and also by the
+Chauci and other tribes. In the first battle against Hermann, his wife
+Tusnelda, was taken prisoner by the Romans, and she afterward figured
+in the triumph of Germanicus. Germanicus, having reached the scene of
+Varus's defeat, paid funeral honors to the remains of the legions; but
+Hermann, who was hovering about his line of march, without coming to a
+pitched battle, harassed him in his retreat, and occasioned a great
+loss to Caecina, the lieutenant of Germanicus.
+
+In the following year, Germanicus advanced again as far as the
+Visurgis, or Weser, where he found Hermann encamped ready for battle.
+A desperate fight took place, in which Hermann, after performing
+prodigies of valor, was defeated, and escaped with difficulty. But the
+victory was gained at such cost that Germanicus and his army had to
+take refuge in their ships, nor did the Romans ever again attempt the
+conquest of the fiercer German tribes.
+
+When Tiberius recalled Germanicus, he observed that the Cherusci,
+Bructeri, and other unsubdued tribes, might be left to their own
+internal dissensions. He seems to have guessed right.
+
+No sooner had the Romans been driven off, than Hermann had to protect
+his people against an internal danger. Maroboduus, the chief of the
+Marcomanni, a man of great ambition, had by treachery or by open
+fighting, made himself master of several neighboring tribes. Hermann
+began to fear his designs, and after the defeat of Varus, warned him
+of his peril by sending him the Roman general's head. When Germanicus
+finally left the country, Hermann declared war against Maroboduus,
+and, being joined by the Semnones and Longobards, defeated him on the
+borders of the Hercynian forest, broke up his kingdom, and drove him
+from Germany. The fugitive applied to Rome for assistance. Tiberius
+then sent his son Drusus into the Illyricum; but the Romans did not
+advance beyond the Danube, and Hermann remained unmolested in Northern
+Germany. Shortly after, however, Hermann was killed by his own
+relatives, being accused, as it would seem, of aspiring to absolute
+dominion. He died at the age of thirty-seven, in the twenty-first year
+of our era, after being for twelve years the leader and champion of
+Germany.
+
+
+
+
+TRAJAN
+
+By J. S. REID, Litt.D.
+
+(53-117)
+
+[Illustration: Trajan.]
+
+
+The Roman Empire reached its greatest extent under Marcus Ulpius
+Traianus, the fourteenth emperor. Of him it was said that he "built
+the world over," and the Romans themselves regarded him as the best,
+and perhaps the greatest of their emperors. He was a native of
+Italica, in Spain. The family to which he belonged was probably
+Italian, and not Iberian, by blood. His father began life as a common
+legionary soldier, and fought his way up to the consulship and the
+governorship of Asia. He was one of the hardest fighters in Judaea
+under Vespasian and Titus; he served, too, against the Parthians, and
+won the highest military distinction open to a subject, the grant of
+the triumphal insignia. Thus he acquired a prominent place among the
+brand new patricians created by the Flavians as substitutes for the
+nobles of old descent who had succumbed to the cruelty and rapacity of
+the emperors from Tiberius to Nero.
+
+The younger Trajan was rigorously trained by his father, and deeply
+imbued with the same principles and tastes. He was a soldier born and
+bred. No better representative of the true old hardy Roman type,
+little softened either by luxury or education, had come to the head
+of affairs since the days of Marius. The date of his birth was
+probably 53 A.D. His training was almost exclusively military, but his
+experience as an officer gave him an acquaintance with almost every
+important province of the empire, which was of priceless value to him
+when he came to the throne. For ten years he held a commission as
+military tribune, which took him to many lands far asunder; then he
+filled important posts in Syria and Spain. How much actual warfare
+Trajan saw in those days we can hardly tell; he certainly went through
+some severe service under his father's command against the Parthians.
+By the year 89 he had achieved a considerable reputation. At that time
+L. Antonius Saturninus headed a rebellion in Germany, which threatened
+seriously to bring Domitian's rule to an end. Trajan was ordered in
+hot haste from Farther Spain to the Rhine. Although he carried his
+troops over that long and arduous march with almost unexampled
+rapidity, he only arrived after the insurrection had been put down.
+But his promptitude raised him higher in the favor of Domitian, and he
+was advanced to the consulship in 91. Of the next five years of his
+life we know nothing positively. It is not unlikely that they were
+spent at Rome or in Italy in the fulfilment of some official duties.
+
+When the revolution of 96 came, and Nerva replaced the murdered
+Domitian, Trajan had conferred upon him one of the most important
+posts in the Empire, that of consular legate of Upper Germany. An
+officer whose nature, as the event showed, was interpenetrated with
+the spirit of legality, was a fitting servant of a revolution whose
+aim it was to substitute legality for personal caprice, as the
+dominant principle of affairs. The short reign of Nerva really did
+start the Empire on a new career, which lasted more than
+three-quarters of a century. But it also demonstrated how impossible
+it was for any one to govern at all who had no claim, either personal
+or inherited, to the respect of the legions. Nerva saw that if he
+could not find an Augustus to control the army, the army would find
+another Domitian to trample the Senate under foot. In his difficulties
+he took counsel with L. Licinius Sura, a lifelong friend of Trajan,
+and in October, 97, he ascended the Capitol, and with all due
+solemnity proclaimed that he adopted Trajan as his son.
+
+The Senate confirmed the choice, and acknowledged the emperor's
+adopted son as his successor. In a letter which Nerva sent at once to
+Trajan, he quoted most significantly a line from the beginning of the
+"Iliad," where Chryses, insulted by Achilles, prays to Apollo: "May
+thy shafts afford me vengeance on the Greeks for my tears." After a
+little hesitation Trajan accepted the position, which was marked by
+the titles of Imperator, Caesar, and Germanicus, and by the tribunician
+authority. He immediately proceeded to Lower Germany, to assure
+himself of the fidelity of the troops in that province, and while at
+Cologne he received news of Nerva's death (January, 98).
+
+The authority of the new emperor was recognized at once all the Empire
+over. The novel fact that a master of the Romans should have been born
+on Spanish soil seems to have passed with little remark, and this very
+absence of notice is significant. Trajan's first care as emperor was
+to write to the Senate an assurance like that which had been given by
+Nerva, that he would neither kill nor degrade any senator. He ordered
+the establishment of a temple and cult in honor of his adoptive
+father, but he did not present himself at Rome for nearly two years
+after his accession. Possibly he had taken measures before Nerva's
+death to secure the revenge which Nerva craved, but probably did not
+live to see. In his dealings with the mutinous praetorians the strength
+of the new emperor's hand was shown at once. He ordered a portion of
+the force to Germany. They did not venture to disobey, and were
+distributed among the legions there. Those who remained at Rome were
+easily overawed and reformed. It is still more surprising that the
+soldiers should have quietly submitted to a reduction in the amount of
+the donative or gift which it was customary for them to receive from a
+new emperor, though the civil population of the capital were paid
+their largess (_congiarium_) in full. By politic management Trajan was
+able to represent the diminution as a sort of discount for immediate
+payment, while the civilians had to wait a considerable time before
+their full due was handed to them.
+
+The secret of Trajan's power lay in his close personal relations with
+the officers and men of the army, and in the soldierly qualities which
+commanded their esteem. He possessed courage, justice, and frankness
+to a high degree. Having a good title to military distinction himself,
+he could afford, as the unwarlike emperors could not, to be generous
+to his officers. The common soldiers, on the other hand, were
+fascinated by his personal prowess and his somewhat ostentatious
+_camaraderie_. His features were firm and clearly cut; his figure was
+tall and soldierly, and exhibited the sinewy hard health of a veteran
+campaigner. His hair was already gray before he came to the throne,
+though he was not more than forty-four years old. The stoutness of the
+emperor's arm had been proved in the face of his men in many a hard
+fight. When on service he used the mean fare of the common private,
+dining on salt pork, cheese, and sour wine. Nothing pleased him better
+than to take part with the centurion, or the soldier in fencing or
+other military exercise, and he would applaud any shrewd blow which
+fell upon his own helmet. He loved to display his acquaintance with
+the career of distinguished veterans, and to talk with them of their
+battles and their wounds. Probably he lost nothing of his popularity
+with the army by occasional free indulgence in sensual pleasures, with
+which, as Bacon remarks, the soldier is apt to pay himself for the
+perils he encounters. Yet every man felt and knew that no detail of
+military duty, however minute, escaped the emperor's eye, and that any
+relaxation of discipline would be rigidly punished, yet with
+unwavering justice.
+
+Trajan emphasized at once his personal control and the
+constitutionality of his sway, by bearing on his campaigns the actual
+title of "proconsul," which no other emperor had done. All things
+considered, it is not surprising that he was able, without serious
+opposition from the army, to remodel the whole military institutions
+of the empire, and to bring them into a shape from which there was
+comparatively little departure so long as the army lasted. In
+disciplinary matters no emperor since Augustus had been able to keep
+so strong a control over the troops. Pliny rightly praises Trajan as
+the lawgiver and the founder of discipline, and Vegetius classes
+Augustus, Trajan, and Hadrian together as restorers of the _morale_ of
+the army. The confidence which existed between Trajan and his army
+finds expression in some of the coins of his reign.
+
+For nearly two years after his election Trajan did not appear in Rome.
+He had decided already what the great task of his reign should be--the
+establishment of security upon the dangerous north-eastern frontier.
+Before visiting the capital he determined to put affairs in train for
+the attainment of this great object. He made a thorough inspection of
+the great lines of defence between the Danube and the Rhine, and
+framed, and partly carried out, a vast scheme for strengthening and
+securing them. The policy of opposing uncivilized tribes by the
+construction of the _limes_, a raised embankment of earth or other
+material, intersected here and there by fortifications, was not his
+invention, but it owed in great measure its development to him. This
+grand work, which would have excited the envy of Augustus, is
+traceable in its main extent at the present day. Among a people of
+roadmakers, Trajan was one of the greatest, and we have definite
+evidence from inscriptions that some of the military roads in this
+region were constructed by him. The more secure control which the
+Romans now maintained over the territory within the _limes_, tended to
+its rapid civilization, and the Roman influence, if not the Roman
+arms, soon began to affect powerfully the regions beyond.
+
+After his careful survey of the Rhine end of the great defensive
+barrier, Trajan proceeded to consider it and plan it from the Danube.
+From the age of Tiberius onward, the Romans possessed the whole
+southern bank of the river from its source to the Euxine. But the
+precarious tenure of their possession, had been deeply impressed on
+them by the disasters and humiliations they had undergone in these
+districts during the reign of Domitian. A prince had arisen among the
+Dacians, Decebalus by name, worthy to be placed at the head of all the
+great barbarian antagonists of Rome. Like Maroboduus, he was able to
+combine the forces of tribes commonly hostile to each other, and his
+military ability almost went the length of genius. After he had swept
+the province of Moesia bare, he was defeated by one of Domitian's
+lieutenants, but the position of affairs on the Danubio-Rhenish border
+was still so threatening, that the emperor was glad to conclude a
+treaty which conferred extraordinary advantages on his foe. Not only
+did the Romans stipulate to pay to Decebalus an annual subsidy, which
+he must have regarded as a tribute, but they agreed to supply him with
+engineers and craftsmen skilled in all kinds of construction, but
+particularly in the erection of fortifications and defensive works.
+During the nine or ten years which had elapsed since the conclusion of
+this remarkable treaty, the Dacian prince had immensely strengthened
+the approaches to his kingdom from the Roman side. He had also
+equipped and drilled his formidable army after the Roman fashion. It
+was impossible for a soldier like Trajan to endure the conditions
+laid down by Domitian; but the conquest of Dacia had become one of the
+most formidable tasks that had ever confronted the Empire. Trajan, no
+doubt, planned a war before he left the Danube for Rome late in 99.
+
+The arrival of the emperor had been awaited in the capital with an
+impatience which is expressed by Pliny and by Martial. All that had
+happened since Trajan's elevation to the throne had raised high at
+Rome the hope of a prosperous and glorious reign. As he entered the
+city and went on foot to the Capitol, the plaudits of the people were
+unmistakably genuine. During his stay in the city he riveted more
+firmly still the affections both of the Senate and of the people. The
+reconciliation of the Empire with liberty, inaugurated, as Tacitus
+says, by Nerva, seemed now to be securely achieved. Trajan was
+absolutely open and simple, and lived with men at Rome as he had lived
+with his soldiers while on service. He realized the Senate's ideal of
+the citizen ruler. The assurance that no senator should suffer was
+renewed by oath. All the old republican formalities were most
+punctiliously observed--even those attendant on the emperor's election
+to the consulate, so far as they did not involve a restoration of the
+old order of voting at the comitia. The veneration for republican
+tradition is curiously attested by the reproduction of many republican
+types of coin struck by senatorial officers.
+
+Trajan seized every opportunity for emphasizing his view that the
+_princeps_ was merely the greatest of the magistrates, and so was not
+above but under the laws. He was determined, he said, to be to his
+subjects such a ruler as he had desired for himself when a subject.
+There is a pretty story to the effect that he handed the commander of
+the praetorians his sword, and said, "Use it for me if I do well, but
+against me if I do ill." Martial, who had called Domitian his lord and
+his god, now cried, "In him we have no lord, but an imperator!" Real
+power and influence were accorded to the Senate, which had now, by the
+incorporation of members whose origin was provincial, become in a
+manner representative of the whole empire. Trajan associated with the
+senators on equal terms, and enjoyed in their company every kind of
+recreation. All pomp was distasteful to him, and discarded by him.
+There was practically no court, and no intrigues of any kind were
+possible. The approach to his house was free, and he loved to pass
+through the city unattended, and to pay unexpected visits to his
+friends. He thirsted for no senator's blood, and used severity against
+the _delatores_ alone. There was but one insignificant conspiracy
+against him during his whole reign.
+
+Though not literary himself, Trajan conciliated the literary men, who
+at all times had close relations with the Senate. His intimate, M.
+Licinius, played an excellent Maecenas to his Augustus. In his efforts
+to win the affections of Roman society, Trajan was excellently aided
+by his wife Plotina, who was as simple as her husband, benevolent,
+pure in character, and entirely unambitious. The hold which Trajan
+acquired over the people was no less firm than that which he
+maintained upon the army and the Senate. His largesses, his
+distributions of food, his public works, and his spectacles were all
+on a generous scale. The exhibitions in the arena were perhaps at
+their zenith during his tenure of power. Though, for some unexplained
+reason, he abolished the mimes, so beloved of the populace, at the
+outset of his reign, he availed himself of the occasion of his first
+triumph to restore them again. The people were delighted by the
+removal of the imperial _exedra_ in the circus, whereby five thousand
+additional places were provided. Taxation was in many directions
+reduced, and the financial exactions of the imperial officers
+controlled by the erection of a special court. Elaborate precautions
+were taken to save Italy from famine; it is said that corn for seven
+years' consumption at the capital was retained in the granaries.
+Special encouragement was given to merchants to import articles of
+food. The corporation of bakers was organized, and made more effective
+for the service of the public. The internal trade of Italy was
+powerfully stimulated by the careful maintenance and extension of the
+different lines of road.
+
+But the most striking evidence of Trajan's solicitude for his people's
+welfare is found in his institution of the _alimenta_, whereby means
+were provided for the rearing of poor and orphan children in Italy.
+The method had been sketched out by Nerva, but its great development
+was due to Trajan. The moneys allotted by the emperor were in many
+cases supplemented by private benevolence. As a soldier, Trajan
+realized the need of men for the maintenance of the Empire against the
+outer barbarians, and he preferred that these men should be of Italian
+birth. He was only carrying a step further the policy of Augustus, who
+by a system of rewards and penalties had tried to encourage marriage
+and the nurture of children. The annual effect of Trajan's regulations
+is hard to measure; they were probably more effectual for their object
+than those of Augustus. The foundations were confiscated by Pertinax,
+after they had existed less than a century.
+
+Toward the end of 100, or early in 101, Trajan left Rome for the
+Danube. Pretexts for a Dacian war were not difficult to find. Although
+there was no lack of hard fighting, victory in this war depended
+largely on the work of the engineer. The great military road
+connecting the posts in Upper Germany with those on the Danube, which
+had been begun by Tiberius, was now extended along the right bank of
+the river as far as the modern Orsova. The year 101 was spent mainly
+in roadmaking and fortification. In the following campaign, after
+desperate fighting to the north of the Danube in the mountainous
+region of Transylvania, such as Caesar never encountered in all his
+Gaulish wars, the capital of Decebalus was taken, and he was forced to
+terms. He agreed to raze all fortresses, to surrender all weapons,
+prisoners, and Roman deserters, and to become a dependent prince under
+the suzerainty of Rome. Trajan came back to Italy with Dacian envoys,
+who in ancient style begged the Senate to confirm the conditions
+granted by the commander in the field. The emperor now enjoyed his
+first Dacian triumph, and assumed the title of Dacicus. At the same
+time he royally entertained the people, and no less royally rewarded
+his brave officers.
+
+But the Dacian chief could not school his high spirit to endure the
+conditions of the treaty, and Trajan soon found it necessary to
+prepare for another war. A massive stone bridge was built across the
+Danube, near the modern Turn Severin, by Apollodorus, the gifted
+architect who afterward designed the forum of Trajan. In 105 began the
+new struggle, which on the side of Decebalus could now only lead to
+victory or to destruction. The Dacians fought their ground inch by
+inch, and their army as a whole may be said to have bled to death. The
+prince put an end to his own life. His kingdom became an imperial
+province; in it many colonies were founded, and peopled by settlers
+drawn from different parts of the empire. The work done by Trajan in
+the Danubian regions left a lasting mark upon their history. The
+emperor returned to the capital in 106, laden with captured treasure.
+His triumph outdid in splendor all those that went before it. Games
+are said to have been held continuously for four months. The chariot
+races were the grandest ever seen. Ten thousand gladiators contended
+in the arena, and eleven thousand beasts were killed in the contests.
+Congratulatory embassies came from all lands, even from India. The
+grand and enduring monument of the Dacian wars is the noble pillar
+which still stands on the site of Trajan's forum at Rome. The end of
+the Dacian wars was followed by seven years of peace.
+
+Many details in the administration of the law, and particularly of the
+criminal law, were improved. To cure corruption in the Senate the
+ballot was introduced at elections to magistracies. The finances of
+the state were economically managed, and taxpayers were most carefully
+guarded from oppression. Trajan never lacked money to expend on great
+works of public utility; as a builder, he may fairly be compared with
+Augustus. His forum and its numerous appendages were constructed on a
+magnificent scale. Many regions of Italy and the provinces, besides
+the city itself, benefited by the care and munificence which the
+emperor bestowed on such public improvements. His attitude toward
+religion was, like that of Augustus, moderate and conservative. The
+famous letter to Pliny about the Christians is, according to Roman
+ideas, merciful and considerate. It was impossible, however, for a
+Roman magistrate of the time to rid himself of the idea that all forms
+of religion must do homage to the civil power. Hence the conflict
+which made Trajan appear in the eyes of Christians like Tertullian,
+the most infamous of monsters. On the whole, Trajan's civil
+administration was sound, careful, and sensible, rather than brilliant
+or epoch-making.
+
+[Illustration: Rome under Trajan--A chariot race.]
+
+In 113 or 114 Trajan left Italy to make war in the East. The
+never-ending Parthian problem confronted him, and with it were more or
+less connected a number of minor difficulties. Already by 106 the
+position of Rome in the East had been materially improved by the
+peaceful annexation of districts bordering on the province of Syria.
+The district of Damascus, hitherto a dependency, and the last
+remaining fragment of the Jewish kingdom, were incorporated with
+Syria; Bostra and Petra were permanently occupied, and a great portion
+of the Nabathaean kingdom was constituted the Roman province of Arabia.
+Rome thus obtained mastery of the most important positions lying on
+the great trade-routes from East to West. These changes could not but
+affect the relations of the Roman with the Parthian empire, and the
+affairs of Armenia became, in 114, the occasion of war. Trajan's
+campaigns in the East ended in complete though brilliant failure.
+In the retreat from Ctesiphon (117), the old emperor tasted for almost
+the first time the bitterness of defeat in the field. He attacked the
+desert city of Hatra, westward of the Tigris, whose importance is
+still attested by grand ruins. The want of water made it impossible to
+maintain a large force near the city, and the brave Arabs routed the
+Roman cavalry. Trajan, who narrowly escaped being killed, was forced
+to withdraw.
+
+A more alarming difficulty lay before him. Taking advantage of the
+absence of the emperor in the far East, and possibly by an
+understanding with the leaders of the rising in Armenia and the
+annexed portions of Parthia, the Jews all over the East had taken up
+arms at the same moment, and at a given signal. The massacres they
+committed were portentous. In Cyprus 240,000 men are said to have been
+put to death, and at Cyrene 220,000. At Alexandria, on the other hand,
+many Jews were killed. The Romans punished massacre by massacre, and
+the complete suppression of the insurrection was long delayed, but the
+Jews made no great stand against disciplined troops. Trajan still
+thought of returning to Mesopotamia, and of avenging his defeat at
+Hatra, but he was stricken with sickness and compelled to take ship
+for Italy. His illness increasing, he landed in Cilicia, and died at
+Selinus in that country about the end of July, 117.
+
+Trajan, who had no children, had continually delayed to settle the
+succession to the throne, though Pliny, in the "Panegyric" had
+pointedly drawn his attention to the matter, and it must have caused
+the Senate much anxiety. Whether Hadrian, the cousin of Trajan, was
+actually adopted by him or not, is impossible to determine; certainly
+Hadrian had not been advanced to any great honors by Trajan. Even his
+military service had not been distinguished. Plotina asserted the
+adoption, and it was readily and most fortunately accepted, if not
+believed, as a fact.
+
+The Senate had decreed to Trajan as many triumphs as he chose to
+celebrate. For the first time a dead general triumphed. When Trajan
+was deified, he appropriately retained, alone among the emperors, a
+title he had won for himself in the field, that of "Parthicus." He was
+a patient organizer of victory rather than a strategic genius. He
+laboriously perfected the military machine, which when once set in
+motion went on to victory. Much of the work he did was great and
+enduring, but the last year of his life forbade the Romans to
+attribute to him that _felicitas_ which they regarded as an inborn
+quality of the highest generals. Each succeeding emperor was saluted
+with the wish that he might be "better than Trajan and more fortunate
+than Augustus." Yet the breach made in Trajan's _felicitas_ by the
+failure in the East was no greater than that made in the _felicitas_
+of Augustus by his retirement from the right bank of the Rhine.
+
+
+
+
+DIOCLETIAN
+
+(245-313)
+
+[Illustration: Circus scene. [TN]]
+
+
+Caius Valerius Diocletianus, one of the most famous of the Roman
+emperors, was, as De Quincey says, "doubtless that man of iron whom
+the times demanded." He was born at Dioclea, in Dalmatia, some say at
+Salona, about A.D. 245 according to some, but others make him ten
+years older. His original name was Diocles, which he afterward changed
+into Diocletianus. He is said by some to have been the son of a
+notary, by others the freedman of a senator named Anulinus. He entered
+the army at an early age, and rose gradually to rank; he served in
+Gaul, in Moesia, under Probus, and was present at the campaign against
+the Persians, in which Carus, then emperor, perished in a mysterious
+manner. Diocletian commanded the household or imperial body-guards
+when young Numerianus, the son of Carus, was secretly put to death by
+Aper his father-in-law, while travelling in a close litter on account
+of illness, on the return of the army from Persia. The death of
+Numerianus being discovered after several days by the soldiers near
+Calchedon, they arrested Aper and proclaimed Diocletian emperor, who
+addressing the soldiers from his tribunal in the camp, protested his
+innocence of the death of Numerianus, and then upbraiding Aper for the
+crime, plunged his sword into the traitor's body.
+
+The new emperor observed to a friend that "he had now killed the
+boar," punning on the word Aper, which means a boar, and alluding to
+the prediction of a soothsayer in Gaul, who had told him that he would
+become emperor after having killed a boar (Vopiscus, in "Hist. Aug.").
+Diocletian, self-composed and strong-minded in other respects, was all
+his life an anxious believer in divination, which superstition led him
+probably to inflict summary punishment upon Aper with his own hands.
+He made his solemn entrance into Nicomedia in September, 284, which
+town he afterward chose for his favorite residence.
+
+Carinus, the other son of Carus, who had remained in Italy, having
+collected a force to attack Diocletian, the two armies met at Margum,
+in Moesia, where the soldiers of Carinus had the advantage at first,
+but Carinus himself being killed during the battle by his officers,
+who detested him for his cruelty and debauchery, both armies joined
+in acknowledging Diocletian emperor in 285. Diocletian was generous
+after his victory, and, contrary to the common practice, there were no
+executions, proscriptions, or confiscations of property; he even
+retained most of the officers of Carinus in their places.
+
+Diocletian, on assuming the imperial power, found the Empire assailed
+by enemies in various quarters--on the Persian frontiers, on the side
+of Germany and of Illyricum, and in Britain; besides which a serious
+revolt had broken out in Gaul among the rural population, under two
+leaders who had assumed the title of emperor. To quell the disturbance
+in Gaul, Diocletian sent his old friend Maximianus, a native of
+Pannonia, and a brave but rude uncultivated soldier. Maximianus
+defeated the Bagaudi, for such was the name the rustic insurgents had
+assumed. In the year 286, Diocletian chose Maximianus as his colleague
+in the Empire, under the name of Marcus Valerius Maximianus Augustus,
+and it is to the credit of both that the latter continued ever after
+faithful to Diocletian and willing to follow his advice. Maximianus
+was stationed in Gaul and on the German frontier to repel invasion;
+Diocletian resided chiefly in the East to watch the Persians, though
+he appears to have visited Rome in the early part of his reign. About
+287 the revolt of Carausius took place. In the following year
+Maximianus defeated the Germans near Treviri, and Diocletian himself
+marched against other tribes on the Rhaetian frontier; the year after
+he defeated the Sarmatians on the lower Danube. In the same year, 289,
+peace was made between Carausius and the two emperors, Carausius being
+allowed to retain possession of Britain. In 290 Maximianus and
+Diocletian met at Milan to confer together on the state of the Empire,
+after which Diocletian returned to Nicomedia. The Persians soon after
+again invaded Mesopotamia and threatened Syria; the Quinquegentiani, a
+federation of tribes in the Mauritania Caesariensis, revolted; another
+revolt under one Achillaeus broke out in Egypt; another in Italy under
+a certain Julianus.
+
+Diocletian thought it necessary to increase the number of his
+colleagues in order to face the attacks in the various quarters. On
+the 1st of March, 292, or 291, according to some chronologists, he
+appointed Galerius as Caesar, and presented him to the troops at
+Nicomedia. At the same time Maximianus adopted on his part Constantius
+called Chlorus. The two Caesars repudiated their respective wives;
+Galerius married Valeria, Diocletian's daughter, adding to his name
+that of Valerianus; and Constantius married Theodora, daughter of
+Maximianus. Galerius was a native of Dacia, and a good soldier, but
+violent and cruel; he had been a herdsman in his youth, for which he
+has been styled, in derision, Armentarius. The two Caesars remained
+subordinate to the two Augusti, though each of the four was entrusted
+with the administration of a part of the Empire. Diocletian kept to
+himself Asia and Egypt; Maximianus had Italy and Africa; Galerius,
+Thrace and Illyricum; and Constantius had Gaul and Spain. But it was
+rather an administrative than a political division. At the head of the
+edicts of each prince were put the names of all the four, beginning
+with that of Diocletian.
+
+Diocletian resorted to this arrangement probably as much for reasons
+of internal as of external policy. For nearly a hundred years before,
+ever since the death of Commodus, the soldiers had been in the habit
+of giving or selling the imperial crown, to which any general might
+aspire. Between thirty and forty emperors had been thus successively
+made and unmade many of whom only reigned a few months. By fixing upon
+four colleagues, one in each of the great divisions of the Empire,
+each having his army, and all mutually checking one another,
+Diocletian put a stop to military insolence and anarchy. The Empire
+was no longer put up to sale, the immediate and intolerable evil was
+effectually cured, though another danger remained, that of disputes
+and wars between the various sharers of the imperial power; still it
+was a smaller danger and one which did not manifest itself so long as
+Diocletian remained at the helm. Writers have been very free of their
+censure upon this emperor for parcelling, as they call it, the Empire;
+but this was the only chance there was of preventing its crumbling to
+pieces. Italy, and Rome in particular, lost by the change: they no
+longer monopolized the wealth and power of the world, but the other
+provinces gained. The Empire was much too large for one single man or
+a single central administration, under the dwindled influence of the
+Roman name, and amidst the numerous causes of local dissension and
+discontent, private ambition, social corruption, and foreign
+hostility, that had accumulated for three centuries, since the time of
+Augustus.
+
+[Illustration: Army on horse. [TN]]
+
+The new Caesars justified Diocletian's expectations. Constantius
+defeated the Franks and the Alemanni, and soon after reconquered
+Britain. Galerius subjugated the Carpi, and transported the whole
+tribe into Pannonia. In the year 296, the Persians, under their king
+Narses, again invaded Mesopotamia and part of Syria. Galerius marched
+against them, but being too confident was defeated by superior
+numbers, and obliged to retire. On his meeting Diocletian, the emperor
+showed his dissatisfaction by letting Galerius walk for a mile, clad
+in purple as he was, by the side of his car. The following year
+Galerius again attacked the Persians, and completely defeated them,
+taking an immense booty. The wives and children of Narses, who were
+among the prisoners, were treated by Galerius with humanity and
+respect. Narses sued for peace, which was granted by Diocletian on
+condition of the Persians giving up all the territory on the right or
+western bank of the Tigris. This peace was concluded in 297, and
+lasted forty years.
+
+At the same time Diocletian marched into Egypt against Achillaeus, whom
+he besieged in Alexandria, which he took after a siege of eight
+months, when the usurper and his chief adherents were put to death.
+Diocletian is said to have behaved on this occasion with unusual
+sternness. Several towns of Egypt, among others Busiris and Coptos,
+were destroyed. Constantine, the son of Constantius, who was educated
+at Nicomedia, accompanied the emperor in this expedition. Diocletian
+fixed the limits of the Empire on that side at the island of
+Elephantina, where he built a castle, and made peace with the
+neighboring tribes, called by some Nubae and by others Nabatae, to whom
+he gave up the strip of territory which the Romans had conquered, of
+seven days' march above the first cataract, on condition that they
+should prevent the Blemmyes and Ethiopians from attacking Egypt.
+Maximianus in the meantime was engaged in putting down the revolt in
+Mauritania, which he effected with full success.
+
+For several years after this the empire enjoyed peace, and Diocletian
+and his colleagues were chiefly employed in framing laws and
+administrative regulations, and in constructing forts on the
+frontiers. Diocletian kept a splendid court at Nicomedia, which town
+he embellished with numerous structures. He, or rather Maximianus by
+his order, caused the magnificent Thermae at Rome to be built, the
+remains of which still bear Diocletian's name, and which contained,
+besides the baths, a library, a museum, public walks, and other
+establishments.
+
+In February, 303, Diocletian issued an edict against the Christians,
+ordering their churches to be pulled down, their sacred books to be
+burnt, and all Christians to be dismissed from offices civil or
+military, with other penalties, exclusive however of death. Various
+causes have been assigned for this measure. It is known that Galerius
+had always been hostile to the Christians, while Diocletian had openly
+favored them, had employed them in his armies and about his person;
+and Eusebius speaks of the prosperity, security, and protection which
+the Christians enjoyed under his reign. They had churches in most
+towns, and one at Nicomedia in particular under the eye of the
+emperor. Just before the edict was issued, Galerius had repaired to
+Nicomedia to induce Diocletian to proscribe the Christians. He filled
+the emperor's mind with reports of conspiracies and seditions. The
+imperial palace took fire, Constantine ("Oratio ad Coetum Sanctorum")
+says, from lightning, and Galerius suggested to the emperor that it
+was a Christian plot.
+
+The heathen priests on their part exerted themselves for the same
+purpose. It happened that on the occasion of a solemn sacrifice in
+presence of the emperor, while priests were consulting the entrails of
+the victims, the Christian officers in the imperial retinue crossed
+themselves; upon which the priests declared that the presence of
+profane men prevented them from discovering the auspices. Diocletian,
+who was very anxious to pry into futurity, became irritated, and
+ordered all his Christian officers to sacrifice to the gods under pain
+of flagellation and dismissal, which many of them underwent. Several
+oracles which he consulted gave answers unfavorable to the Christians.
+The church of Nicomedia was the first pulled down by order of the
+emperor. The rashness of a Christian who publicly tore down the
+imperial edict exasperated Diocletian still more: the culprit was put
+to a cruel death. Then came a second edict, ordering all magistrates
+to arrest the Christian bishops and presbyters, and compel them to
+sacrifice to the gods. This was giving to their enemies power over
+their lives, and it proved, in fact, the beginning of a cruel
+persecution, whose ravages were the more extensive in proportion to
+the great diffusion of Christianity during a long period of
+toleration. This was the last persecution under the Roman Empire, and
+it has been called by the name of Diocletian. But that emperor issued
+the two edicts reluctantly and after long hesitation, according to
+Lactantius's acknowledgment: he fell ill a few months after, and on
+recovering from his long illness he abdicated. Galerius, who had
+instigated the persecution, was the most zealous minister of it; the
+persecution raged with most fury in the provinces subject to his rule,
+and he continued it for several years after Diocletian's abdication,
+so that it might with more propriety be called the Galerian
+persecution. Legend says that he died of a horrible disease, filled
+with remorse and imagining himself haunted by the martyred spirits.
+The countries under the government of Constantius suffered the least
+from it.
+
+In November of that year (303) Diocletian repaired to Rome, where he
+and Maximianus enjoyed the honor of a triumph, followed by festive
+games. This was the last triumph that Rome saw. The populace of that
+city complained of the economy of Diocletian on the occasion, who
+replied that moderation and temperance were most required when the
+censor was present. They vented their displeasure in jibes and
+sarcasms, which so hurt Diocletian that he left Rome abruptly in the
+month of December for Ravenna, in very cold weather. In this journey
+he was seized by an illness which affected him the whole of the
+following year, which he spent at Nicomedia. At one time he was
+reported to be dead. He rallied, however, in the spring of 305, and
+showed himself in public, but greatly altered in appearance. Galerius
+soon after came to Nicomedia, and it is said that he persuaded
+Diocletian to abdicate. Others say that Diocletian did it
+spontaneously.
+
+On the 1st of May he repaired with his guards to a spot three miles
+out of Nicomedia, where he had thirteen years before proclaimed
+Galerius as Caesar, and there addressing his officers and court, he
+said that the infirmities of age warned him to retire from power, and
+to deliver the administration of the state into stronger hands. He
+then proclaimed Galerius as Augustus, and Maximinus Daza as the new
+Caesar. Constantine, who has given an account of the ceremony, which is
+quoted by Eusebius in his life of that prince, was present, and the
+troops fully expected that he would be the new Caesar; when they heard
+another mentioned, they asked each other whether Constantine had
+changed his name. But Galerius did not leave them long in suspense; he
+pushed forward Maximinus and showed him to the assembly, and
+Diocletian clothed him with the purple vest, after which the old
+emperor returned privately in his carriage to Nicomedia, and
+immediately after set off for Salona in Dalmatia, near which he built
+himself an extensive palace by the sea-shore, in which he lived for
+the rest of his life, respected by the other emperors, without cares
+and without regret.
+
+[Illustration: The Victims of Galerius.]
+
+Part of the external walls which inclosed the area belonging to his
+palace and other buildings still remain, with three of the gates,
+as well as a temple, which is now a church at Spalatro, or Spalato, in
+Dalmatia, a comparatively modern town, grown out of the decay of the
+ancient Salona, and built in great part within the walls of
+Diocletian's residence, from the name of which, "Palatium," it is
+believed that "Spalato" is derived.
+
+At the same time that Diocletian abdicated at Nicomedia, Maximianus,
+according to an agreement between them, performed a similar ceremony
+at Milan, proclaiming Constantius as Augustus, and Severus as Caesar.
+Both Severus and Maximinus Daza were inferior persons, and creatures
+of Galerius, who insisted upon their nomination in preference to that
+of Maxentius and Constantine, whom Diocletian had at first proposed.
+Maximianus retired to his seat in Lucania, but not being endowed with
+the firmness of Diocletian he tried some time after to recover his
+former power, and wrote to his old colleague to induce him to do the
+same. "Were you but to come to Salona," answered Diocletian, "and see
+the vegetables which I grow in my garden with my own hands, you would
+no longer talk to me of empire." In his retirement he used to observe
+to his associates how difficult it is, even for the best-intentioned
+man, to govern well, as he cannot see everything with his own eyes,
+but must trust to others, who often deceive him.
+
+Once only he left his retirement to meet Galerius in Pannonia for the
+purpose of appointing a new Caesar, Licinius, in the place of Severus,
+who had died. Licinius, however, did not prove grateful, for after the
+death of Galerius, in 311, he ill-treated his widow, Valeria,
+Diocletian's daughter, who then, with her mother, Prisca, took refuge
+in the territories of Maximinus Daza. The latter offered to marry
+Valeria, but on her refusal exiled both her and her mother into the
+deserts of Syria, and put to death several of their attendants.
+Diocletian remonstrated in favor of his wife and daughter, but to no
+purpose, and his grief on this occasion probably hastened his death,
+which took place at his residence near Salona in July, 313. In the
+following year his wife and daughter were put to death by order of
+Licinius.
+
+Diocletian ranks among the most distinguished emperors of Rome; his
+reign of twenty-one years was upon the whole prosperous for the
+empire, and creditable to the Roman name. He was severe, but not
+wantonly cruel, and we ought to remember that mercy was not a Roman
+virtue. His conduct after his abdication shows that his was no common
+mind. The chief charge against him is his haughtiness in introducing
+the Oriental ceremonial of prostration into the Roman court. The
+Christian writers, and especially Lactantius, have spoken unfavorably
+of him; but Lactantius cannot be implicitly trusted. Of the regular
+historians of his reign we have only the meagre narratives of
+Eutropius and Aurelius Victor, the others being now lost; but notices
+of Diocletian's life are scattered about in various authors, Libanius,
+Vopiscus, Eusebius, Julian in his "Caesars," and the contemporary
+panegyrists, Eumenes and Mamertinus. His laws or edicts are in the
+"Code." Among other useful reforms, he abolished the _frumentarii_, or
+licensed informers, who were stationed in every province to report
+any attempt at mutiny or rebellion, and who basely enriched themselves
+by working on the fears of the inhabitants. He also reformed and
+reduced the number of the insolent Praetorians, who were afterward
+totally disbanded by Constantine.
+
+
+
+
+ALARIC THE BOLD
+
+By ARCHDEACON FARRAR, D.D., F.R.S.
+
+(360-410)
+
+[Illustration: Men on a river raft. [TN]]
+
+
+Alaric, the "All-ruler," surnamed the Baltha, or Bold, was born, about
+360, on an island in the delta of the Danube. As long as the great
+Theodosius lived, the Goths continued in his pay; but when he died in
+395, and Alaric was elevated on the shield as king of the Visigoths,
+he determined to lead his nation to independent victory. In 395 and
+396 he invaded Greece,[7] and Stilicho, the Vandal general of the
+Western Emperor, advanced against him. The strategy of Stilicho was
+masterly, and it would probably have gone hard with Alaric had not
+Stilicho been suddenly bidden by the Eastern Emperor, Arcadius, to
+withdraw his western troops. Again, in 396, Stilicho penned Alaric in
+the Peloponnesus, but for some unknown reason allowed him to escape
+into Illyricum. The Gothic chief had, however, struck deadly terror
+into the Eastern Empire; and by way of pacifying him Arcadius made him
+Master-General of Illyricum.
+
+         [Footnote 7: In this first invasion he overran all Greece,
+         and took Athens with little resistance. He spared her art
+         treasures, and acted with great moderation and humanity. Our
+         illustration "Alaric in Athens" represents him seated among
+         the inhabitants, who welcomed him as a conqueror, with every
+         demonstration of reverence.]
+
+Alaric had already found the way to Italy when he accompanied
+Theodosius in his campaign against the usurper Maximus in 394. In 400
+he descended into Italy, not with an army only, but with the migration
+of his entire people. He defeated the Romans under the walls of
+Aquileia, and in 401 besieged Honorius in Milan. In 402 a vast army
+under Stilicho met him at Pollentia; and when an old chieftain advised
+him to retire, Alaric, with fierce indignation, silenced his timid
+counsellor, and told him that he had been assured by a voice which
+came from the grave and said to him, "_Thou shalt penetrate to the
+City_" (_ad Urbem_). But the oracle on this occasion had "paltered"
+with him in a double sense. He penetrated indeed _ad Urbem_, not
+however "to the _City_" but to the little river _Urbis_ (or Borbo),
+near Pollenzo. On Good Friday, April 4, 402, the Western army, under a
+dwarfish Hun chieftain named Saulus, attacked and routed Alaric,
+recovering the splendid spoils of Greece, freeing his captives, and
+winning back the purple robes which the Emperor Valens had lost in the
+battle of Adrianople. In that disastrous defeat even the wife of
+Alaric, if we may believe the poet Claudian, was taken prisoner.
+
+[Illustration: Alaric in Athens.]
+
+Alaric retreated through Lombardy, and the feeble Emperor Honorius--"a
+crowned nothingness"--celebrated at Rome, in 404, that triumph which
+was signalized by the last display of the brutal gladiatorial games.
+No sooner had the first blood been shed than the Eastern monk
+Telemachus sprang down into the arena to part the combatants. His life
+paid the price of his glorious temerity. He was hewn and stoned to
+death. But that death was not in vain. The horrid massacres, at which
+not only men but women gazed in demoniac pleasure and excitement, had
+been condemned centuries before by the genius of Christianity. It was
+monstrous that an emperor calling himself a Christian should preside
+at such a spectacle. But the martyrdom of Telemachus at last touched
+the callous and torpid consciences of nominal Christians. Thenceforth
+the games of the amphitheatre were abolished. But it was too late for
+repentance. Alike "the incomparable wickedness and the incomparable
+splendor" of the Imperial City were doomed to destruction. Even the
+blood of a Christian martyr voluntarily shed would not atone for the
+blood of hundreds of brave barbarians who, in that huge Flavian
+amphitheatre, had been
+
+  "Butchered to make a Roman holiday."
+
+The day was near at hand when the Goths would arise and glut their
+ire.
+
+Alaric, though he had retreated, was still in a position to dictate
+terms to Stilicho. He fixed his camp at AEmona, and was promised large
+pay and the government of a Western province under nominal allegiance
+to the Western Emperor. But the pledges made to him were broken, and
+their fulfilment delayed. In 408 the promise of the oracle was
+fulfilled, for he led his troops under the walls of Rome. The feeble
+and timid Honorius had retired to Ravenna, where he was safe behind
+the marshes, the pine-woods, and the stone walls against which Alaric
+said that he did not fight. In 408 the wretched court filled to the
+full the brimming cup of its iniquities--first by a massacre of
+barbarian auxiliaries at Pavia, and then by the foul, ungrateful
+murder of Stilicho himself, at the command of Honorius. No army barred
+the path of Alaric, but an Italian hermit denounced on him the wrath
+of heaven. This might have awoke the superstitious terrors of the
+Gothic soldiers if Alaric had not assured them, with confidence, that
+he was obeying a divine and irresistible command. The Goths encamped
+under the walls which for six hundred and nineteen years had never
+been threatened by a foreign enemy. The wealthy, effeminate, corrupted
+nobles, and people of the Eternal City thought to terrify Alaric back
+by boasts of their numbers. His scornful answer simply was, "The
+thicker the hay, the easier it is mowed." He demanded all their gold,
+silver, movables, and barbarian slaves. "What then, O King, will you
+leave us?" He grimly said, "Your lives."
+
+He was content, however, this time to accept a ransom, of which the
+most curious element was three thousand pounds of pepper.
+
+The folly, pride, and braggadocio of Honorius, or rather of his
+miserable court, brought Alaric a second time to Rome in 409. The city
+capitulated, and he raised Attalus to the purple as a rival to
+Honorius. But Attalus proved utterly incompetent, and the next year
+Alaric publicly and insultingly degraded him to a private position. In
+410 a fresh insult and wrong inflicted on the Goths by Honorius
+brought Alaric once more to Rome. He burst in by the Salarian gate,
+and sacked the city, which was only saved from irretrievable
+destruction by the respect of the Goths for the churches, which they
+regarded as inviolable asylums. The pillage and conflagration of Rome,
+and the resultant ruin and misery, came on the world like a shock of
+earthquake; but the Pagans saw that the catastrophe would have been
+yet more awful if the conquerors had not been Christians as well as
+the conquered.
+
+It seemed as if even the Imperial City could not fall without some
+circumstance of irony and insult. Paganism may be said to have
+perished in two bursts of laughter: one when in Alexandria the
+Christian mob burst into merriment to see the rats scurry out of the
+rotten head of the shattered statue of Serapis; and again when
+Theodosius and his soldiers laughed at the golden thunderbolts torn
+from the uplifted arms of the menacing statue of Jupiter. And Honorius
+managed to invest even the fall of Rome with ludicrous associations.
+He was a great fancier of fowls, and had a particularly large hen,
+which, out of compliment, he called _Roma_. When the agitated eunuch
+entered to tell him that "Rome had perished," "What!" cried the
+Emperor, in a voice of deep concern, "why, she was feeding out of my
+hand only an hour ago!" "It is the _city_ of Rome that has fallen,
+sire!" "Oh, my friend," said the Emperor, with a sigh of relief, "but
+I thought you meant that my _hen_ 'Roma' had died."
+
+Laden with spoils of priceless value, the creaking wagons of the Gauls
+went southward. Alaric meant to lead them to the conquest first of
+Sicily, then of Africa. But death overtook him amid the schemes of his
+ambition. He died after a short illness, and was buried in the bed of
+the river which washes the walls of Cosentia. The captives who reared
+the tomb were massacred, that none might know where the hero lay. The
+Visigothic kingdom of Spain, founded by the warrior tribe which he
+first led into the West, is one of the most permanent results of his
+invasion.
+
+[Illustration: The Last Gladiatorial Contest.]
+
+
+
+
+ATTILA
+
+By ARCHDEACON FARRAR, D.D., F.R.S.
+
+(REIGNED 434-453)
+
+[Illustration: Attila.]
+
+
+The Goths were "improvable barbarians;" but the Huns whom Attila led
+to ravage the fair peninsula were mere Tartar savages of the lowest
+stamp.
+
+All the other invaders of Italy were of Teutonic origin, but the Huns
+were Mongols--of such perfect hideousness that Jornandes regarded them
+as the offspring of witches and demons. Attila, son of Mundzuk, "the
+scourge of God," resembled his soldiers in his flat, swarthy features,
+deep-set, fierce, rolling black eyes, and stunted figure. The Huns
+were uncivilizable savages, who might harry a continent, but neither
+under Attila, nor Genghis, nor Timour, could ever found an organized
+kingdom. This terrific and brutal little Kalmuck, with his bead-like
+eyes, this skin-clad devourer of raw flesh, delighted to lay waste
+whole empires with fire and sword, and to terrify the world. In 434 he
+became king of the Huns with his brother Bleda. In 445 Bleda died,
+possibly by murder; and in 445 Attila, now sole king of the Huns,
+invaded the Eastern Empire, and ravaged it even to the gates of
+Constantinople. He was only bought off from destroying it by an
+enormous tribute. The infamous plot to assassinate him by the
+treachery of Edecon, who was one of his counsellors, was discovered
+and foiled, and Attila sent message after message filled with insults
+to Theodosius II. In 451 his vast army moved westward, and devastated
+Gaul. It was met in the Mauriac plain and defeated by AEtius in the
+tremendous battle of Chalons, after a carnage among the most frightful
+that the world has ever seen. The Huns were only saved from final
+destruction by the heroic boldness of Attila. He had a vast hill of
+saddles and other spoils erected, and declared his determination to
+burn himself alive rather than be taken captive. He led back his
+shattered host to Pannonia, and there in his wooden palace meditated
+revenge. In the one authentic glimpse which we get of his mode of
+life, we see him at a banquet, while his nobles and warriors caroused
+and burst into peals of laughter at the buffooneries of an idiot and a
+jester. But the Hunnish king sat grave and silent, caressing the
+cheeks of the boy Ernak, his favorite son, whom the augur pointed out
+as the heir of his destinies.
+
+In 452 he once more put his myriads in motion and invaded Italy. Every
+where the land was as the garden of Eden before him; behind him it
+was a desolate wilderness. Encouraged by the omen of some storks
+leaving their nest, he stormed and destroyed Aquileia, and, razing
+city after city into heaps of blackened ruins, advanced to Milan,
+boasting that "where his horses' hoofs trod the grass never grew."
+Rome awaited with trembling a fate which seemed to threaten
+unprecedented catastrophe. But in this awful crisis the Pope, Leo I.,
+showed himself the true _Defensor civitatis_. He headed a splendid
+embassy to the camp of Attila. Already Leo had helped to trace with
+firm hand the deep lines of Christian orthodoxy which were accepted by
+the Church at the fourth great OEcumenical Council of Chalcedon in 451
+as her final utterance as to the true Godhead, the perfect Manhood,
+the invisible yet distinct union of both Godhead and Manhood, in the
+person of her Lord. Now Leo showed what miracle could be achieved by
+the irresistible might of weakness. Attila's god was a naked iron
+sword of gigantic size, which had been accidentally found by a
+herdsman and presented to him, but which he palmed off on his nation
+as the authentic sword of the Scythian war-god. Yet he was easily
+overawed by the majesty of religion. He scorned the guilty, corrupt
+courtiers of Constantinople, but he almost trembled before a holy man.
+Already in 451 he had spared the defenceless city of Troyes at the
+entreaty of its bishop, St. Lupus, and had asked the benefit of his
+prayers. And when he gazed on the calm countenance, noble presence,
+and dauntless demeanor of Pope Leo, an awful dread fell upon him.
+Alaric had conquered Rome, but Alaric had died immediately afterward.
+How if it would be so with Attila? He yielded, he retired; he said--or
+perhaps he said--that he could conquer _men_, but that the wolf
+(Lupus) and the lion (Leo) had learnt how to conquer him. The tide of
+brutal and barbarous invasion was rolled back again, and the world and
+the city saw that while the Emperor Valentinian had been ready to fly,
+the Pope Leo was not afraid to advance, and that "when the successor
+of Caesar had been proved useless, the successor of St. Peter had been
+a very present help." Indirectly Attila was the strengthener of the
+Papacy, and the founder of Venice. That stately and gorgeous city owes
+its origin to the Italians who fled in terror before the brutal Huns
+from ruined Padua to the islands and lagoons at the mouth of the
+Piave.
+
+In retiring, Attila had demanded once more the hand and dower of
+Honoria, the disgraced sister of Theodosius II. But in 453 he added a
+beautiful maiden, Ildico, to his innumerable wives. He retired from
+the banquet after a deep carouse, and in the morning was found dead
+amid a flood of gore by which he had been suffocated, while Ildico sat
+weeping beneath her veil by the dead king's bedside. He died as a fool
+dieth; and his warriors gashed their cheeks and wept tears of blood,
+and gave him a splendid burial. And his name passed into legend as the
+King Etzel of the Niebelungen Lied, and Alti of the Saga. But his
+"loutish sons" quarrelled among themselves. The Teutons, Goths,
+Gepidae, Alani, and Heruli reasserted their independence in the great
+victory of Netad in Pannonia in 454; and though the Huns left their
+name in Hungary, henceforth the empire of Attila became mere
+"drift-wood, on its way to inevitable oblivion."
+
+
+
+
+CLOVIS THE FIRST
+
+By THOMAS WYATT, A.M.
+
+(465-511)
+
+[Illustration: Clovis on horse. [TN]]
+
+
+The honor of having established the French monarchy and the French
+nation, of having raised himself from his position as chief of a petty
+and turbulent tribe to be the ruler of a powerful and permanent
+kingdom, unquestionably belongs to Clovis the First, who was born in
+the year 465. The multitude of petty kingdoms subsisting in Gaul at
+this time, forms, says an illustrious historian, one of the greatest
+difficulties in the ancient history of France. In a manuscript work,
+still preserved in the King's library at Paris, it is imputed to the
+disorders which prevailed after the expulsion of Childeric, father of
+Clovis, when such as were sufficiently powerful took advantage of the
+anarchy in which the nation was involved, to establish independent
+monarchies of their own. Clovis ascended the throne at the age of
+fifteen, and at the early age of twenty began to show his jealousy
+toward those whom he considered usurpers of his territories. His
+courtiers, ever ready to fan into a flame the spark they had
+discovered in the breast of their master, incited him to challenge
+Syagrius, a Roman who still had possession of Soissons and a part of
+the adjacent country.
+
+The challenge was accepted by this self-made prince, and a bloody
+battle was the result. Syagrius saved himself by flight, taking refuge
+among the Visigoths; but Alaric II., then king, fearing the threats of
+Clovis delivered the refugee into his power, who caused him to be
+beheaded.
+
+The Frankish leader was now a man of note in the world; but he was
+still nothing more than the leader of a band of warriors, often
+retaining his authority only by brute force. At one time, his band
+having stormed the Christian city of Rheims and carried off from its
+church a vase "of marvellous size and beauty," the bishop sent word to
+their leader entreating him to return it. "That will I," responded
+Clovis to the envoy, "if when we divide our spoil the vase falls to my
+lot." In his desire to gratify the bishop, who was an old friend, the
+chieftain went a step beyond his promise and requested his companions
+to give him the great vase as his share. Then cried one of their
+number, striking the trophy angrily with his axe, "No, you shall draw
+lots with the rest of us, and take what comes honestly to you." His
+comrades, however, felt that this was going too far. The vase was
+given to their leader, and by him returned to Rheims. A year passed,
+and Clovis gave no sign that he remembered the affront. Then, having
+called his band together for a review, he passed them one by one,
+examining and approving their arms, till, last of all, he reached the
+warrior who had opposed him; and he eyed this man sternly. "Your
+weapons suit you poorly," he said, "none of them are fit for service."
+And, snatching the man's axe from him he threw it to the ground. The
+other stooped to recover it, when, whirling up his own axe, Clovis
+crashed it through the rebel's skull. "'Twas so you struck my vase,"
+he cried.
+
+Such a leader, who could so long await a fitting opportunity, and then
+so sternly avenge an insult to his power, was well calculated to wield
+great authority among these stern and hardy warriors. He had enjoyed
+several years of uninterrupted tranquillity, when Basinus, King of
+Thuringia, made a sudden irruption into that part of the dominions of
+Clovis situated beyond the Rhine. Clovis was no sooner informed of
+this invasion, than he assembled his army, and entering the enemy's
+country, laid it waste with fire and sword, and imposed a perpetual
+tribute on the offending monarch.
+
+Clovis now bent his thoughts on the formation of an alliance by
+marriage with some of the neighboring princes. He accordingly
+despatched his ambassadors to the King of Burgundy, asking for the
+hand of the Princess Clotildis, his niece, the accounts of whose
+extraordinary piety and beauty had made a deep impression on his
+heart. The court of Burgundy, fearful of offending a young and
+powerful prince, whose arms had hitherto been everywhere victorious,
+complied with his request.
+
+Great preparations were made for the departure of the queen elect, and
+she began her journey in a kind of wagon, called _basterne_, drawn by
+oxen, which was the most elegant vehicle then in use. The marriage was
+celebrated at Soissons, amid the joyful acclamations of the people.
+
+Heaven smiled on this propitious union; Clotildis became mother of a
+prince, who received baptism with the king's consent, and was named
+Ingomer. The subsequent death of this child, on whom Clovis had so
+firmly set his affections, inspired him, notwithstanding the prayers
+and remonstrances of his affectionate and pious princess, with an
+aversion to the Christian religion. He was prevailed on, however, to
+suffer his second son to undergo the ceremony of baptism. He also was
+attacked by a severe indisposition, but the prayers of this pious
+woman were heard and answered, the young prince restored to health,
+and the anxiety of his father dispelled.
+
+[Illustration: Clovis punishing a rebel.]
+
+The conversion to Christianity of Clovis, soon after this, is thus
+related by historians: The Germans had commenced preparing for
+incursions into the dominions of Clovis; he, being apprised of their
+intentions, hastened to impede their progress, and met them on the
+plains of Tolbiac, not far from Cologne, where a bloody battle was
+fought. Clovis, perceiving that the strength of his army was
+diminishing, lifted up his eyes to Heaven, and exclaimed, "God of my
+Queen Clotildis, grant me victory, and I here vow to worship none
+other than you." He immediately rallied his yielding forces, again led
+the charge, pierced with irresistible ardor the enemy's battalions,
+and entirely put them to flight. He then followed them into Germany,
+where he dispersed the remains of the vanquished army, reduced to
+obedience a nation hitherto invincible, and compelled them to pay him
+an annual tribute.
+
+Faithful to his vow, he requested to be made acquainted with the
+mysteries of the Christian religion; and on Christmas-day, 496,
+received baptism at the church of St. Martin, in Paris, from Remigius,
+Bishop of Rheims, a prelate equally distinguished for his birth and
+piety. His sister Albofleda, and about three thousand of his subjects,
+followed his example. An improbable legend prevails, that during the
+ceremony of the baptism of Clovis, a dove descended from Heaven,
+bringing a phial of balsam, with which he was consecrated. This is
+what is now called _La Sainte Ampoule_, the Holy Phial; which was kept
+with extreme care, and contained the oil used by the monarchs of
+France at their coronation.
+
+The conversion of Clovis had not repressed his warlike ambition.
+Brabant, the country of Liege, and that part of Flanders which was
+situated on the sea-coast, had not yet submitted to the new conqueror
+of Gaul.
+
+The most considerable of these small states was the Arborici, a
+Christian nation, firmly attached to the Christian religion, and
+thence maintaining an enmity against the French, who were pagans. But
+the recent conversion to Christianity of Clovis and so many of his
+subjects, diminished the aversion of the people of this peaceful
+nation; they were induced to consent to an alliance with him,
+acknowledge him for their sovereign, and became subjects of the French
+kingdom. The Roman garrisons, following the example, capitulated and
+gave up all the places that were still in their possession, toward the
+ocean and on the banks of the Rhine.
+
+Clovis did not as yet consider his victories complete; the conquest of
+Brittany was soon followed by that of Alaric II., King of the
+Visigoths. Before the French set out on this latter expedition, they
+made a vow not to shave themselves till they had subdued their
+enemies. Vows of this kind were very common at that period. It was the
+custom of those times to draw an omen from the verse that was
+chanting, when a person entered the church. The king's envoys, at
+their entrance into the church of St. Martin, heard these words from
+the Psalms: "Thou hast endued me with strength for the wars; thou hast
+supplanted those that had risen up against me; and hast put mine
+enemies to flight." This fortunate prognostic was confirmed on the
+banks of the Vienne. The army was at a loss where to pass that river,
+when a hind plunged into the stream in sight of the whole camp, and
+showed them a ford which still retains the name of the Passage of the
+Hind.
+
+The two armies met in the plains of Vouille, near Poictiers. Soon
+after the commencement of the battle, the monarchs of either nation
+perceiving each other, rushed forward at the same instant, and
+engaged in single combat, when the superior skill and strength of
+Clovis decided the victory in his favor; he dismounted his adversary,
+and slew him on the spot. Nothing now remained to impede the progress
+of the conqueror, who extended his empire from the banks of the Loire
+to the Pyrenean mountains. Clovis then withdrew to Paris, and fixed
+his residence in a palace in the southern part of the capital, which
+had formerly been inhabited by the emperors Julian and Valentinian the
+First. Success had hitherto attended all the plans of Clovis, and
+allowing for the ferocious and martial spirit which then prevailed, he
+had preserved his fame from any material pollution.
+
+The assembling of the Council of Orleans was the last remarkable event
+of the reign of Clovis, who died the same year, A.D. 511, at the age
+of forty-five, and was buried in the church of Saint Peter and Saint
+Paul, which he had caused to be built. It has been a subject of
+dispute with historians, whether the military or the political talents
+of this prince were the most eminent. Gaul, subdued by his arms,
+preserved by his prudence, affords a proof that he was equally
+skillful in the cabinet and formidable in the field.
+
+
+
+
+BELISARIUS[8]
+
+By CHARLOTTE M. YONGE
+
+(505-565)
+
+         [Footnote 8: Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.]
+
+
+Few men have performed greater achievements than this general, to whom
+it was given to be conqueror again and again over nations hitherto
+invincible, and to arrest, during his own lifetime, the disintegration
+of the Roman Empire. He lived in the early part of the sixth century
+of the Christian era, though the date of his birth is not certainly
+known, and he was in the prime of life about 530. He is believed to
+have been the son of a peasant of Thrace, probably of Slavonian
+descent, as his name, stripped of its classical form, would belong to
+that language and would be Beli-than, or the White Prince. Apparently
+he began life as a common soldier, and gradually rose by courage and
+ability. His master, the Emperor Justinian, was an equally remarkable
+personage, capable of conceiving and accomplishing magnificent
+designs, yet withal of a mean, ungenerous, ungrateful character. The
+codification under Christian conditions of the old Roman law, so as to
+serve as the foundation of jurisprudence to all the European nations
+except the English; the building of the church of St. Sophia, and the
+rolling back for a time the flood that on all sides was overwhelming
+the ancient Empire of Rome were all due to this prince.
+
+For the last two centuries the East and the West had been separated,
+though sometimes coalescing under one head, but in 476, the last
+titular Emperor of the West had been deposed. Italy had been the prey
+of successive swarms of Teutonic nations. Vandals and Ostro-or Eastern
+Goths had burst upon Rome, and while the Vandals proceeded to
+devastate the great Roman province of Northern Africa and set up a
+kingdom there, the Goths had established another in Italy.
+Constantinople still held its ground as the magnificent capital of the
+Eastern Empire, maintaining the old civilization, but her dominions
+were threatened by the vigorous Persians on the east, and on the north
+by the Bulgarians, a nation chiefly Slavonic and very savage and
+formidable.
+
+[Illustration: Man carrying a child. [TN]]
+
+This was the inheritance to which Justinian succeeded, in right of his
+uncle Justin, a successful soldier. He was forty-five years old at the
+time, 527, having had an entirely civil and literary training, and
+though warfare continued through the thirty-eight years of his reign,
+he never once appeared at the head of his armies. Yet his foresight
+and ambition were great, and he had not long been on the throne before
+he decided on an endeavor to recover the African provinces. The
+Vandals were Arian heretics, denying the Godhead and Eternity of our
+Blessed Lord, and they had cruelly persecuted and constantly oppressed
+the Catholics, who entreated the Eastern Empire to deliver them, so
+that religious zeal added strength to Justinian's ambition. The
+luxuries of Carthage and the other African cities had in a couple of
+generations done much to destroy the vigor of the Vandals, so that the
+conjuncture was favorable.
+
+Belisarius had proved his abilities in a dangerous retreat in the
+Persian war, but he probably owed his appointment to the African
+expedition to his wife Antonina. She was the daughter of a charioteer
+in the exhibitions of the hippodrome, which were loved to a
+passionate, almost incredible degree, by the people of the Eastern
+cities; and Theodora, the wife of the emperor was likewise the child
+of one of these competitors in the races. Both ladies were devotedly
+loved by their husbands, though scarcely worthy of their affection,
+and it was thus that Belisarius obtained the opportunity for his
+career, a curious parallel in this, as in other respects, to the great
+Duke of Marlborough.
+
+Belisarius only took on this expedition 10,000 foot and 6,000 horse,
+picked men, with carefully selected officers, bred in the old Roman
+discipline, for he much preferred a small army whom he could trust,
+to a large and unwieldy host; and his fleet amounted to 500 vessels of
+different sizes.
+
+The expedition sailed from Heraclea in June, 533, and one of the first
+acts of the general showed his sternness of discipline. A murder was
+committed in a drunken fit by two Huns, and he immediately hung them
+both, and silenced the murmurs of the rest by a speech in which he
+declared that Roman arms must be carried in pure hands, and that no
+courage would obtain pardon for violence or insubordination.
+
+He landed in September at Caput Vadas, five days' distance from
+Carthage, without opposition and with an eager welcome from the
+natives, who rejoiced to be delivered from the Vandal oppression, and
+Belisarius preserved their goodwill by hindering his soldiers from
+committing any act of plunder or violence. Indeed Gelimer, king of the
+Vandal horde, was only like an enemy occupying the place; there had
+been no amalgamation, and persecution had sown seeds of bitter hatred.
+Gelimer, however, marched out to meet the invaders, and at ten miles
+from Carthage was totally defeated, and his brother and nephew killed.
+He fled into the deserts of Numidia, recalling his brother who was
+putting down a revolt in Sardinia, and leaving the city to Belisarius,
+who entered on the feast of the great Carthaginian martyr, St.
+Cyprian, amid the extreme joy of the populace. When the brother of
+Gelimer returned from Sardinia there was still another battle to
+fight, but as usual Belisarius conquered. Gelimer submitted and
+received an estate in Galatia, and lived there in honor and prosperity
+for the rest of his days. The bravest of his warriors took service in
+the Roman army under their victor! Gelimer had, however, first to
+march in the triumph of Belisarius, the only one ever held at
+Constantinople! Justinian had recalled the general, though it would
+have been far wiser to have left him to consolidate his conquest; but
+no Roman emperor could be free from the suspicion that a victorious
+general might become his rival, nor could the scrupulous loyalty of
+Belisarius disarm him. It is said that Gelimer marched along,
+repeating, "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity."
+
+The next scheme of Justinian was the recovery of Italy from the Goths.
+This people had never shown the same savage cruelty as the Vandals,
+but had settled amicably among the Italians, and adopted much of their
+civilization and learning. They had recently had a truly great
+monarch, Theodoric, who deserves to rank with Alfred or Charlemagne,
+but he had left only a daughter, Amalasanta, a noble woman, and an
+ally of Justinian. She was stifled in her bath by Theodatus, the
+husband whom she had raised to the throne. The Gothic kingdom was
+convulsed by the crime, and Justinian saw both motive and opportunity
+for conquest. Yet he only gave Belisarius 4,500 horse and 3,000
+infantry when this great enterprise was begun in 535, besides some
+choice troops of the imperial guard.
+
+Sailing to Sicily he met no resistance except at Panormis (Palermo),
+but observing that his masts overtopped the walls, he hung up small
+rafts full of archers, whose arrows disconcerted the inhabitants so
+that they surrendered, and the whole island was restored to the Roman
+power. Theodatus tried to treat with Justinian, and while the
+negotiations were going on, Belisarius crossed over to the African
+province, which was threatened by the Moors of Mount Atlas. Strong
+measures were needed, but for the time the incursions were repressed,
+and by the time the bad faith of Theodatus had disgusted the Greeks,
+Belisarius was ready to cross into Italy and besiege Naples. As usual,
+the native inhabitants were his friends, but were in terror of the
+Gothic garrison, and these, on their side, were afraid of treating
+with the Greek general because Theodatus had their wives and children
+as hostages.
+
+Theodatus, however, shut himself up in Rome and gave no aid to Naples,
+and Belisarius had made up his mind to raise the siege and attack Rome
+itself, when one of his soldiers came to tell him that in exploring an
+aqueduct which had been stopped, he had found that the passage for the
+water could easily be enlarged so as to admit armed men. Once more he
+summoned the native magistrates, but the inhabitants would not submit,
+and he sent on the bravest of his men, with two trumpets and with
+lanterns, while he made an attack to divert the attention of the
+Goths. The way was long, and the soldiers found themselves in the very
+heart of Naples, in a basin with very steep sides, impossible, as it
+seemed, to climb. One man however, scrambled up and found himself in a
+hovel, where he obtained a rope and pulled up his companions. The
+Goths who were resisting the escalade, threw down their arms when they
+were attacked from behind. Belisarius did his utmost to stop slaughter
+and plunder, but could not entirely succeed, for many of his soldiers
+were savage Huns, barely kept under restraint at any time.
+
+Theodatus remained in Rome, and appointed a brave general called
+Vetiges by the Greeks, but whose name was probably Wittich, to the
+command. The army suspected treachery, raised Wittich on their shields
+and proclaimed him king. Theodatus fled, and was murdered on his way,
+in 536. Wittich thought it better to draw off to Ravenna to reorganize
+his army, so the way to Rome was left open to Belisarius, who had only
+to summon a small garrison to submit. He gained it in the March of
+537, and immediately repaired the defences; and indeed there was need,
+for Wittich besieged him there for a whole year, and he had terrible
+difficulties to contend with. The Roman populace had lost all their
+spirit of patriotism, and murmured from the first that with a mere
+handful of soldiers, he should bring down the Goths upon them, and
+when the distresses of a protracted siege came on them, they loudly
+complained, though all the useless mouths were safely sent off by sea
+to the fertile fields about Naples.
+
+It is impossible to dwell at length on the events of the siege and the
+gallant deeds on either side. The Goths, under Wittich, were gallant
+enemies, but the diseases of the Campagna reduced their numbers, and
+finally, late in the March of 538, Wittich broke up his camp and
+retreated to Ravenna. There he called the Franks to his assistance,
+but they were mere barbarians, who plundered Goths as well as Italians
+and added to the general misery of the country. At last, in 539,
+Wittich yielded Ravenna to Belisarius who sent him to Constantinople,
+where he lived in honor and prosperity.
+
+Justinian recalled his general, always fearing the result of his
+success. The city of Pavia was still left to the Goths, and here they
+chose as king, a kinsman of Wittich, called Totila, young, gallant,
+and generous. The utter incapacity and greed of Justinian's governors
+left the country open to him, and he traversed the whole peninsula
+collecting Goths again to his standard, till their kingdom was
+restored. Indeed the whole of the land was so desolate that hardly any
+opposition was offered. In 544 Justinian was obliged to send
+Belisarius back to Italy, but most insufficiently supplied with men
+and money. He had in the meantime been fighting on the Persian
+frontier, with the great King Chosroes, and with more success than
+could have been hoped for with such means as were at his disposal. He
+came to Ravenna, but his forces were too scanty to enable him to
+undertake any enterprise, and where he did not command in person, the
+so-called Roman captains were uniformly beaten. Totila occupied Rome
+in 546, and tried to destroy it, overthrowing the walls and beginning
+to ruin the ancient buildings. Belisarius wrote to him a remonstrance,
+telling him how after-ages would regard such destruction, and he
+actually thanked the great general for his advice and spared the
+churches and monuments, but carried off all the inhabitants, so that
+when, forty days later, Belisarius re-entered the city not a man was
+found there. He tried to rebuild the defences, but Justinian would not
+send him money or men, and when Totila again advanced, he was forced
+to abandon the beloved and honored city. Justinian then recalled him,
+preferring to leave Italy to its fate rather than trust to his
+unswerving loyalty. An unwarlike despot, who knew that the will of an
+army might at any time raise a popular captain in his stead, could
+hardly fail to dread the one man who was beloved by his soldiers and
+always successful. The Empress Theodora was dead, and no honors
+awaited Belisarius, only undeserved suspicion.
+
+Once again, however, the great man was called for. The Bulgarians were
+desolating Thrace. There was an outcry that none but Belisarius could
+save the Empire. He was placed at the head of only 300 old soldiers,
+and found the peasants helpless and incapable, yet he succeeded in
+repulsing the enemy and driving them beyond the Danube. The outcries
+of admiration alarmed the emperor, now in his eightieth year, and the
+notion that Belisarius, almost as old, must be a traitor, haunted him.
+There was a real conspiracy, and the enemies of the general accused
+him of sharing in it. The acts of accusation were read to the old man,
+but he stood, listening and not answering a single word, no doubt in
+his disdain. The emperor caused the brave old man's eyes to be put
+out, and he was stripped of all his possessions. It is said that he
+stood in front of his former palace with a wooden dish for alms.
+"_Date obolum Belisario_," give a penny to Belisarius, has become a
+proverb. However, Justinian seems to have repented, and he restored to
+Belisarius his wealth and his palace, in which, shortly after, the old
+man died on the 13th of March, 565, only eight months before his
+ungrateful sovereign.
+
+[Signature of the author.]
+
+[Illustration: Belisarius receiving alms.]
+
+
+
+
+CHARLES MARTEL
+
+By HENRY G. HEWLETT
+
+(694-741)
+
+[Illustration: Fight on horses. [TN]]
+
+
+Toward the close of the seventh century of our era, the kingdom which
+we now name France was peopled by a half-barbarous, professedly
+Christian race, of mixed tribes, the ruling portion of which
+originally sprang from Germany. The Frankish kingdom, as it was
+called, had risen upon the ruins of the Roman Empire, and for about a
+century was remarkable for the ability of its sovereigns. But after
+the death of King Dagobert I., in A.D. 638, the royal family seemed
+devoid of any mental or moral strength whatsoever, and the kings of
+this line have been always known as _faineants_--weak idlers. The real
+power of the government was held by a succession of chief officers of
+the household, styled "Mayors of the Palace." The most distinguished
+of these noblemen was Pepin d'Heristal, who, from the year 688 to his
+death in 715, was virtually king of France--the nominal sovereigns
+being but puppets in his hands. The country was then divided into two
+great districts--the eastern, known as Austrasia; and the western, as
+Neustria. At his death Pepin left the reins of government to his
+grandson, Theodebald, an infant under the guardianship of his mother,
+Plectrude. The lawful king, Dagobert III., was also a child. It was
+clear that a fierce race of warriors required a strong arm to keep
+them in check, and could not long brook an infant's sway. The
+Neustrians commenced the revolt by expelling Theodebald and his
+mother, and choosing for their ruler a Mayor of the Palace named
+Raginfred. They then attacked Austrasia, which had not joined in the
+revolt. It was without fitting defences, and had no able man to direct
+its resistance against this assault. What course should the
+Austrasians take? Pepin, as we have said, left the government of
+France to a grandson; but he had a natural son, Charles, then in the
+flower of his youth. Whether on account of his not having been born in
+wedlock, or his having offended Pepin by some misconduct, Charles had
+been slighted, and even hated, by his father, who banished him to a
+monastery at Cologne, far from the intrigues of statecraft and the
+tumult of war. "Here," said the Austrasians, "is the likeliest man for
+our leader; a son of the wisest and firmest ruler the kingdom has yet
+acknowledged." It was agreed, therefore, by the people, that he should
+be invited to come, and a summons was sent from Metz, the then
+capital of the district, to the cloister at Cologne. Young and brave,
+pining in uncongenial society, and debarred from the employment of his
+talents, Charles seized this opportunity of release. Eagerly accepting
+the invitation, he hastened to return with the messengers, and soon,
+amidst the shouts of the delighted Austrasians, put himself at their
+head, under the title of Duke. The family of Pepin was not royal, and
+Charles doubtless saw the wisdom of yielding to the popular reverence
+for the ancient race of kings. The Neustrians had the same prejudice;
+and, accordingly, while Charles in the one district, and Raginfred in
+the other, virtually governed, their respective tools were Clothaire
+IV., King of Austrasia, and Chilperic II., King of Neustria, two
+descendents of the old dynasty. These events took place in A.D. 716.
+
+The two countries now prepared for war. The Franks of Neustria were
+not so thoroughly and habitually warlike as their brethren of
+Austrasia, whose military system was better developed, in consequence
+of their position near the Rhine continually exposing them to
+conflicts with bands of Germans, which crossed the river in hopes of
+conquest. Nevertheless, the Austrasian Franks were now at a
+disadvantage, by reason of the unprepared state in which the Neustrian
+attack found them. Charles and Raginfred collected each an army, and
+marched at its head. The encounter was for some time doubtful, but the
+Neustrians gained a considerable advantage in the first campaign, and
+Charles was obliged to seek an asylum in the forests of the Ardennes
+region. Here, however, he did not long remain in concealment. Issuing
+forth at the head of a fresh body of men, he came upon the Neustrian
+army by surprise. A fearful slaughter took place, which he followed up
+by a vigorous pursuit. The Neustrians made a stand at Vincy, near
+Cambray. Charles met them here, and after a gallant struggle
+completely routed the force of Raginfred. This victory decided the
+fate of Neustria, and the crown of both countries was, in the year
+719, placed on the head of Chilperic II. Either from motives of policy
+or of generosity, Charles did not abuse his success by the punishment
+of his rival, Raginfred, on whom he conferred the earldom and province
+of Anjou. He himself was content to remain sole Mayor of the Palace,
+under a show of obedience to a powerless king.
+
+A brave, iron-willed man, this Charles Martel appears to us--dimly as
+the light of historic tradition permits us to behold him. He made his
+army the sole engine of his power, and cultivated it to the fullest
+extent then possible to him. Even the Church was not able to resist
+him; and at his pleasure he seized on benefices which he deemed too
+important to be placed in priestly hands, and bestowed them on his
+warriors. A rebellion among the nobles of Aquitaine demanded his
+attention; and thither he marched with ruthless determination,
+stemming revolt and establishing order. But he had a work to do in his
+generation far more important to Europe than any he had yet performed.
+
+The Arab tribes, which in the last century had been converted, by the
+genius of Mohammed, from idolatry to the worship of God, and from
+lawless bandits into disciplined soldiers, were at this period
+pursuing their career of religious conquest into the heart of
+Christendom. The Gothic monarchy of Spain, under its last king,
+Roderick, had fallen beneath the invading force, which now threatened
+France. The Duchy of Aquitaine, which considered itself independent of
+France, but which Charles had reduced to comparative submission,
+opposed the only barrier to Arabian aggression. Eudes (or Eudin), then
+Duke, was a gallant prince, and did all that in him lay to resist the
+claim which the new lords of Spain asserted to his province of
+Septimania (Languedoc). He defeated one invading army before Toulouse
+in the year 721; but the tide of invasion still flowed in. He then
+tried intrigue, and bestowed his daughter on Musa, a revolted general
+of the great Arabian leader, Abd-er-rahman. But all was in vain. In
+732 the Moslem once more appeared, in tremendous force, all over the
+south of France, ravaging as they came, finally besieging Arles and
+defeating its relieving army.
+
+The wives and children of the invaders followed in their train, as
+though they intended to settle in the country. Abd-er-rahman was
+advancing yet farther on his victorious way, when Eudes, as a last
+resource, applied for aid to his enemy, Charles. What were personal
+enmities now? This common, national danger must be averted at all
+hazards. So thought Eudes when he sent to Charles. So thought Charles
+when he quickly summoned an army, and marched toward the plains
+between Poitiers and Tours, where the Arabs were quartered. The
+importance of the struggle that ensued cannot well be over-estimated.
+Christianity and Mohammedanism were at issue for the possession of
+Europe. The difficulties that lay in the way of the success of Charles
+were very great. The Arabs were animated with the fanatical zeal of a
+new faith, and a greedy desire of domination. The Franks, on the other
+hand, were probably not at all conscious of, or concerned for, the
+religious interests which were at stake, and aimed at no more than a
+vigorous rebuff of an unprovoked assault. They had the advantage of
+familiarity with the country and climate; but were outmatched, beyond
+comparison, in numbers. The old monkish chronicles tell us that the
+battle lasted seven days. The Arab army was mainly composed of cavalry
+and bowmen, and the Franks suffered greatly from the charges of the
+former and the unerring shots of the latter. But on the seventh day
+the combatants closed with each other. Heavily fell the iron hands of
+the sturdy Franks upon the sinewy, but slender frames of their Asiatic
+opponents. Nevertheless, Charles had no cavalry; and the swift steeds
+of Arabia, with their daring riders, trampled down his battalions.
+Suddenly there was a cry in the rear of the Moslem army that the
+infidels were spoiling the camp. More eager to save their treasure
+than to slay their foes, the Arabs turned in this direction. Skilfully
+interpreting the movement as a flight, Charles cheered on his men to
+pursue. The crisis was fatal to Abd-er-rahman. He tried to rally his
+cavalry. It was too late; and he fell, pierced through with many a
+Frankish spear. Night separated the contestants, and when in the
+morning the Franks would have renewed the battle, they found that
+their foes had stolen away in the night, fled, leaving their treasure
+and their dead upon the field. The incredible number of 300,000 Arabs
+is said to have fallen in this memorable defeat. The remainder fled
+through Aquitaine before the avenging sword of Charles. Well was he
+named "Martel," from the hammer-like might of his good arm! Who can
+say whether France and Germany, ay, England and all Europe, might not
+at this hour be sunk in such poverty and degradation of moral and
+intellectual life as Turkey now exhibits, had Charles Martel and his
+bold Franks fought less valiantly and enduringly at Tours?
+
+History tells us but little more of Charles. He carried his arms into
+the Netherlands, conquered the Frisians and other tribes which then
+dwelt there, made them Christians by force, and vassals of the
+Frankish crown. In Saxony, and other parts of Germany also, his power
+was feared and obeyed. Pope Gregory II. offered to transfer to him the
+allegiance due from Rome to the Greek emperor, but the scheme was
+ended by the death of Charles. After the decease of King Chilperic
+II., in 720, Thierry IV. reigned in the same feeble manner as the
+other kings of his degenerate race. On his death, in 736, the people
+did not care to appoint a successor, being satisfied with the
+government which Charles continued to exercise under the title of
+"Duke of the Franks." He died in 741, at the age of forty-seven,
+leaving the monarchy to his three sons, Pepin, Carloman, and Griffo.
+Of the elder of these, we shall hear more anon. Charles Martel is the
+first hero who succeeded in stamping his image upon the surface of
+European history, after the chaos of the broken Roman empire had in
+some measure yielded to the spirit of order. He was chieftain of an
+unruly tribe, rather than king of a settled state. In this light we
+must regard him if we would judge his character fairly; and thus
+considered, he may be said to have governed France wisely and well. If
+his memory cannot be cleared from the reproach of certain deeds of
+violence, we can afford to pardon him when we remember the good
+service that his strong hammer once wrought for Europe.
+
+
+
+
+PEPIN THE SHORT
+
+By HENRY G. HEWLETT
+
+(714-768)
+
+[Illustration: Charles Martel at Tours.]
+
+
+Charles Martel, as we have seen, was never king of the Franks, and his
+sons were too politic to assume the title on his death. Griffo, the
+third son, may be dismissed from our notice at once, as he was from
+the government of the kingdom, his brothers, Carloman and Pepin,
+taking advantage of his weakness to dispossess him. After this act of
+supremacy they were for some time content to act as Mayors of the
+Palace, in the districts of Neustria and Austrasia respectively, under
+the nominal sovereignty of Childeric III., the last of the _faineant_
+kings, whom they set up as a puppet. Carloman distinguished himself by
+attacking the Saxons and other tribes which threatened aggression;
+and in 744 Pepin severely punished a revolt of his father's old enemy
+(Eudes, Duke of Aquitaine), who, as already stated, had been compelled
+to do homage to the Frankish crown. Pepin soon had no sharer in his
+power or fame. Carloman was not made for a soldier, and, under the
+sudden impulse of devotional feeling, resigned his office in 747, and
+retired into a Roman monastery.
+
+[Illustration: Ox carriage in a forest. [TN]]
+
+Pepin, thus left sole lord of France, did not hastily attempt to cut
+prejudice against the grain. Feeling his way gradually, he sounded
+popular opinion for three years, on the subject of changing the royal
+dynasty, and placing the crown on the head of one who had a good right
+arm to defend it. Finding himself strong enough at last to take
+decided measures, he quietly dethroned Childeric III.; and shaving off
+his long hair, the symbol of royalty among the early Frankish kings,
+sent him to one monastery at St. Omer, and his son Thierry to another
+at Fontenelle. This accomplished, Pepin proceeded to obtain
+justification for his acts from the Pope. This was a novel step; for
+although the bishops of Rome had great spiritual influence over
+Christendom, in virtue of their alleged descent from St. Peter, their
+temporal authority was by no means admitted out of their own diocese.
+Pepin was a wise man in his generation, though short-sighted as far as
+posterity was concerned. He saw clearly enough that no sanction which
+he could obtain for his acts was likely to be so binding upon the
+minds of his subjects, and the world at large, as that pronounced by a
+power which had already fastened its yoke on the soul and conscience.
+The Pope, Zachariah, was not insensible to the importance of the
+Frankish monarchy, being at the time of Pepin's accession especially
+in need of help against Astolpho, king of the Lombards, who threatened
+to seize on the Eternal City itself. When, therefore, Pepin's envoys
+arrived at Rome, and conveyed their master's application, the pontiff
+did not hesitate to answer that it was truly fitting for one to be
+king in name who was king in deed. Thus fortified against opposition,
+Pepin proceeded to fulfil all the ceremonies attaching to the kingly
+dignity. He and his queen, Bertha, were duly crowned and consecrated
+by Boniface, the "Apostle of Germany," and Bishop of Mainz. This rite
+was performed at Soissons, in 752, with all the pomp that the Jewish
+kings had been wont to employ on such occasions. The national assembly
+was summoned; and in presence of the great Frank nobles Boniface
+produced a phial of oil, announcing it as that which had fallen from
+heaven on the day when the first king of the Franks (Clovis) had
+received baptism. The sacred oil was then poured upon the head of
+Pepin, and amid the acclamations of nobles, soldiers, and peasants, he
+was crowned their king.
+
+He was a man, like his father, well fitted to rule over a warlike and
+rude people. What was most admired in a king at that period was
+personal courage, and, what was most needed, strength of will. Pepin
+had both; but he had one defect which, though to us it may seem a
+trifle, to men who prized the body far more than soul or mind, was a
+serious matter. He was of small stature, and acquired the name of "the
+Short" in consequence. Fully conscious that this was a disadvantage to
+him, and, indeed, hearing his name once derided by his courtiers,
+Pepin took a speedy opportunity of proving that what he lacked in
+height he more than made up in strength and bravery. It was common in
+those days to exhibit animal fights at the Frankish court, as indeed,
+to her shame be it spoken, is common in Spain to this day. On one of
+these occasions a lion and a bull were engaged in a savage and mortal
+struggle. Pepin and his courtiers were seated round the arena looking
+on, when suddenly the king started up, and cried: "Who will dare to
+separate those beasts?" There was a dead silence. The attempt was
+madness--certain destruction. Unsheathing his sword, and glancing
+scornfully round upon his courtiers, Pepin leapt into the arena, and
+drew the attention of the combatants upon himself. Raging with fury,
+they turned to attack him; but with cool and measured steps he evaded
+their onset, and by a succession of well-aimed blows struck off, one
+after the other, the heads of lion and bull. Then, throwing down his
+streaming sword, he accosted the astonished courtiers: "Am I worthy to
+be your king?" A deafening shout was the reply, and the name of "Pepin
+the Short" was no longer a term of derision but of honor.
+
+Having thus established his reputation for those qualities which were
+most essential to his influence, Pepin took measures to render it
+permanent by acts of wisdom and liberality. He frequently called
+together the national assemblies, and included in the summons bishops
+as well as chieftains. Consulting with them as to the most prudent
+course of action, he preserved their affection to his person and
+obedience to his orders. He especially courted the favor of the
+Church, and showed his gratitude for the sanction which Pope Zachariah
+had given to his accession, by assisting the next Pope, Stephen III.,
+in a serious contest which broke out in 753 with the Lombards. Their
+king, Astolpho, took an active part in the great religious quarrel
+which then agitated Christendom, with respect to the worship of
+images, espousing the cause of the image-breakers, while Pope Stephen
+supported the opposite side. Threatened with invasion, the Pope flew
+to the court of Pepin, who received him with much reverence, and in
+return was crowned king for the second time. Stephen even pronounced
+sentence of excommunication against all who should dare to choose a
+king of France from any other than Pepin's family. At the Pope's
+request the king assembled an army, and marched against Astolpho. The
+war lasted for two years, but eventually terminated in the success of
+Pepin, who compelled Astolpho to yield up to the Pope the exarchate of
+Ravenna, the last relic of the great Roman empire in Italy, and of
+which the Lombards had deprived the Eastern emperors.
+
+[Illustration: Pepin after the murder of Duke Waifre.]
+
+Pepin, however, had in view a more national war than this. The duchy
+of Aquitaine was perpetually in a state of resistance to the authority
+of the Frankish kings. This was owing, in some measure, to the
+difference of language and civilization which prevailed between the
+people of the duchy and those of the kingdom. A spirit of hostility
+was also fostered by the increase of population which Aquitaine
+obtained from the Gascons, a tribe from the Pyrenees, not subject to
+the Franks. After a long period of uncertain warfare, Pepin determined
+to decide the struggle by active operations. He accordingly, in 759,
+took advantage of a rising of the people of Septimania against their
+Arabian rulers. He made himself master of Narbonne and other towns,
+and freed the Septimanians. Then turning upon Waifre, Duke of
+Aquitaine, he summoned him to disgorge the spoils which he had seized
+from the Aquitanian lands of certain churches of France. Waifre
+replied in defiant terms, and for nine years resisted the attempts of
+Pepin to reduce him to submission. It was a sanguinary and desolating
+war. The fairest districts of Auvergne, Limousin, and Berry, were laid
+waste and burnt by Pepin; and in the Frankish territories Waifre
+levied an equally terrible retribution. He was murdered at last by
+some of his own subjects, at the instigation of the Frankish king.
+This is the one instance of actual crime which we find recorded
+against Pepin; and legend tells that its shadow rested heavily upon
+his mind. Aquitaine was annexed to the kingdom.
+
+It was Pepin's last achievement. He did not, as we might have expected
+he would, die in harness on the battle-field, but of dropsy, at the
+age of fifty-four. This event occurred in 768, at St. Denis. Long
+before his death he had obtained the coronation of his two sons,
+Charles and Carloman, jointly with his own, and directed his
+territories to be divided between them.
+
+To be the successful founder of a new dynasty demands a genius which
+we may justly entitle heroic, expressive as that word is of strength
+of character merely, without regard to moral worth. Pepin, however,
+was not devoid of the latter, to a limited extent, and has left a
+memory which, if not remarkable for virtue, is at least not disfigured
+by vice.
+
+
+
+
+CHARLEMAGNE
+
+By SIR J. BERNARD BURKE
+
+(742-814)
+
+
+The birthplace of Charlemagne is unknown, but from various data we may
+infer that he was born somewhere about the year 742, nearly seven
+years before his father, Pepin the Short, assumed the title of king.
+His mother was Bertha, daughter of Charibert, Count of Leon.
+
+Of his boyhood we know as little as of his birth, but he seems at an
+early age to have mingled in the real business of life, for when only
+twelve years old we find him despatched to receive and welcome the
+sovereign pontiff who came to implore his father's aid against the
+barbarians that threatened Rome. From the usual habits of the Franks,
+it is also probable that he accompanied Pepin in his campaigns at an
+early age; but the first time that we really see him in the field, is
+on the renewal of the war with the rebellious Duke of Aquitaine.
+
+[Illustration: Charlemagne.]
+
+Upon the death of Pepin, 768, Charlemagne and his younger brother,
+Carloman, succeeded to equal portions of one of the most powerful
+European kingdoms, bounded by the Pyrenees, the Alps, the
+Mediterranean, and the ocean. But this would hardly have enabled the
+monarchs, even had they been united, to resist successfully the
+incursions of the barbarous tribes on the German frontiers of France,
+which had commenced with the first establishment of the Frankish
+dominion in Gaul; and which was kept alive by the constant pouring out
+of fresh hordes from the overpopulated North. The situation of
+Charlemagne was rendered yet more perilous by the passive enmity of
+his brother, and the rebellion of Hunald, the turbulent Duke of
+Aquitaine. But fortunately, Charlemagne had a genius equal to the
+difficulties of his situation; though his brother refused to aid him,
+he defeated Hunald; and no less illustrious by his clemency than by
+his valor and military skill, he forgave the vanquished rebel.
+
+Desiderius, the king of Lombardy, had made large encroachments upon
+the states of the Roman pontiff, whose cause was taken up by
+Charlemagne. This led to feuds, which Bertha, the mother of the
+Frankish king, endeavored to appease by bringing about a union between
+her son and the daughter of the Lombard. But Charlemagne soon took a
+disgust to the wife thus imposed upon him, and repudiated her, that he
+might marry Hildegarde, the daughter of a noble family in Suabia.
+
+In 771 Carloman died, and Charlemagne was elected to the vacant
+throne, to the exclusion of his nephews, whose extreme youth, indeed,
+made them incapable of wearing the crown in such troubled times.
+Gilberga, the widow of Carloman, immediately fled, and sought an
+asylum with Desiderius, the common place of refuge for all who were
+hostile to the Frankish monarch. But the attention of Charlemagne was
+called off to a more immediate danger from the Saxons, of whom the
+Frisons were either a branch or the perpetual allies. Had the tribes
+of which this people were composed been united under one head, instead
+of being governed by various independent chiefs, the result would
+probably have been fatal to France. Such a day, however, might come; a
+second Attila might arise; and with a full conviction of these
+perils, Charlemagne, when he marched against the barbarians,
+determined to put them down effectually. He took and destroyed the
+famous temple of the Irminsule, the great idol of their nation--that
+is, the Hermansaule, or Pillar of Hermann, which had originally been
+raised to commemorate the defeat of the Roman Varus by that hero,
+though in time the name had got corrupted, and the cause of its
+erection been forgotten. The Saxons were too wise to meet their
+powerful opponent in the field, and when, as often happened, they were
+brought to bay, they made a feigned submission, and obtained mercy by
+vows they never meant to keep. Meanwhile events had been taking place
+in another quarter, that called away Charlemagne, and obliged him to
+leave his generals to watch over them.
+
+The Lombard king, Desiderius, had made use of his absence to plunder
+the papal see, to which Adrian had now succeeded. With some difficulty
+the Pope contrived to give his friend notice of his danger, when
+Charlemagne assembled a vast army, one division of which he himself
+led into Italy over the Alps by Mount Cenis, while the other was
+conducted to the same ground by his uncle, Duke Bernard, over the Mons
+Jovis, or Mount Joux, which from this event received the name it has
+borne ever since, of the Great Saint Bernard. Although surprised by an
+invasion from a quarter so unexpected, Desiderius marched out to meet
+his enemy, but his flank being turned, he fled hastily to Pavia,
+without having struck a blow; Charlemagne pursued the fugitives, but
+finding the city too strong to be taken by storm, he blockaded it with
+one portion of his army, while with the other he proceeded against
+Verona, having reduced which, he returned to the siege of Pavia. Month
+after month passed, till at length Easter approached, when, leaving
+the city blockaded as before, he determined to visit Rome in his
+capacity of patrician or governor. His march through the Italian towns
+was one of uninterrupted triumph; everywhere he was met with
+acclamations, and at Rome he was received by the Pope, as well as the
+people, with the liveliest expressions of gratitude for having freed
+them from the tyranny of the Lombards. The friendship then cemented
+between Adrian and his young deliverer lasted through the remainder of
+their lives without any serious interruption.
+
+Having thus asserted his rights of Patrician or Exarch, Charlemagne
+was liberal in his donations to the Church, and soon afterward
+returned to the siege of Pavia, which it now became important for him
+to bring to a speedy conclusion, the Saxons having again taken
+advantage of his absence to ravage his frontiers. About the middle of
+the year, the city surrendered, and he was crowned with the iron crown
+of Lombardy. He then marched against the Saxons, defeating them
+whenever they ventured to make a stand, till they found their best
+resource was in submission.
+
+It was not long before a fresh revolt amongst the Lombards recalled
+him to their country. Once more he was victorious and once more he was
+summoned from his career of conquest to meet the Saxons. As usual,
+they were beaten out of the field, and so completely, that many of
+them, seeming to have lost all faith in their gods, from repeated
+defeats, presented themselves with their wives and children to receive
+baptism.
+
+Amid all these fatigues and battles, which might appear sufficient to
+have occupied the attention of any one man, Charlemagne retained in
+his own hands the general government of the state. The local
+administration was distributed among twelve provincial officers, with
+the title of Dukes, each of them having the command of a county.
+Subordinate to these officers were the Counts, who, in fact, were the
+judges of the land, and had full authority to decide and punish within
+their jurisdiction. To secure the faithful performance of their duties
+by these Dukes and Counts, certain officers, under the name of Missi
+Dominici, were sent in visitations from time to time to inquire into
+their conduct. In great ecclesiastical questions, or those affecting
+the more powerful vassals of the crown, either the king himself, or
+the count of his palace, sat as judge.
+
+Spain next demanded his attention. That country had been subdued by
+the Arabs, but the descendants of the first conquerors quarrelled
+among themselves, and Ibn al Arabi, a powerful chief, sought aid of
+Charlemagne, who marched thither, and being, as usual, victorious,
+secured to himself a barrier against the Saracens and Gascons. This
+was seen with ill-will by Lupo, Duke of Gascony, who when the Frankish
+king was leaving Spain to meet fresh dangers on the Rhine,
+treacherously laid an ambush for his destruction in the gorges of the
+Pyrenees. The monarch himself was allowed to pass with the first
+division of his army, the second was assailed and destroyed in the
+valley of Roncesvalles, and the conquerors secreting themselves in
+their mountain fastnesses, presented no object for the vengeance of
+the indignant monarch. Besides, the barbarians were again ravaging his
+frontiers, under the command of Witikind, with a fierceness that went
+far beyond even the worst of their earlier incursions. Their cruelty,
+however, was retaliated by their almost total annihilation while
+attempting to retreat across the Adern, and in the ensuing season
+Charlemagne reduced them, as it seemed, to a state of total
+submission. But no sooner had he set out for Italy, whither he was
+called by many pressing affairs, than Witikind, the great leader of
+the Westphalians, started forth from his retreat in Denmark and
+stimulated all Saxony to a renewed contest. The time was well chosen.
+Witikind, who appears to have been as superior to the generals of
+Charlemagne as he was inferior to the king himself, gave the Franks a
+complete overthrow.
+
+[Illustration: Charlemagne at Witikind's baptism.]
+
+When these tidings were brought to Charlemagne, he returned in all
+haste to the northern frontiers. The scene was at once reversed. Cowed
+by his name alone, they had recourse, as usual, to submission,
+guaranteed by oaths which they never meant to keep, and by hostages
+who did not hesitate to incur the fatal penalty attached to the
+certain faithlessness of their countrymen. But this time the king
+would listen to no terms short of ample vengeance. He demanded that
+four thousand of the most hostile and turbulent should be delivered up
+to him, all of whom he had executed in one day, in order to do by
+intimidation what he had failed to do by kindness. His severity,
+however, failed in producing the desired effect. It was not long
+before the Saxons again flew to arms, when they sustained so signal a
+defeat that very few of all their host escaped from the bloody field.
+Yet still the spirit of the barbarians, supported by an indomitable
+passion for war and plunder, continued as little quelled as ever.
+Witikind and Albion, their most popular chiefs, still maintained the
+contest, even when suffering nothing but disasters, until at length,
+their conqueror, subduing them more by policy than by arms, won them
+over to the Christian faith, which was then embraced by all Saxony.[9]
+This, for the time, produced a better feeling, though the truce was
+not of long duration.
+
+         [Footnote 9: Witikind was baptized with solemn ceremony by
+         the great bishops of the realm, in presence of his conqueror.
+         Paul Thumann has vividly portrayed the scene in the painting
+         here copied.]
+
+Hildegarde, the wife of Charlemagne, had now been dead some short
+time, when he married Fastrada, the daughter of a Frankish noble. It
+is said that from this union there arose a spirit of discontent among
+some of the leading men of his nation, who in consequence rebelled
+against him; but, finding themselves too weak to contend with him,
+dispersed, and endeavored to find safety in concealment. They did not,
+however, escape their merited punishment. Being sooner or later taken,
+some had their eyes put out, others were degraded from their rank,
+none were condemned to death, but all to exile. Even these severe
+examples did not prevent the rise of many petty revolts, the different
+parts of which the Frankish kingdom was composed not being as yet
+sufficiently amalgamated; but they were suppressed by the united
+wisdom and vigor of the monarch.
+
+The short interval of peace now allowed him, Charlemagne employed in
+endeavoring to educate and civilize his people. He made a tour through
+his dominions, spreading local and general improvement, reforming
+laws, advancing knowledge, and building churches and monasteries,
+Christianity being one of the chief means to which he trusted for the
+attainment of his grand objects. In this he was no less successful
+than he had before been in war. With the exception of the Eastern
+Empire, France was now the most cultivated nation in Europe, even Rome
+herself sending thither for skilful workmen, while commerce, roads,
+and mechanics must have been much advanced, as we may infer from the
+facility with which marble columns and immense stone crosses were
+often carried through the whole extent of France upon carriages of
+native construction. Luxury, too, with its attendant arts, had made
+considerable strides. Vases of gold and silver richly carved, silver
+tables brightly wrought, bracelets, rings, and table-cloths of fine
+linen, might be seen in the houses of the nobles. The people must have
+been dexterous in working iron, for their superiority in this respect
+is evinced by the severe laws forbidding the exportation of arms.
+
+The calm, thus wisely employed, did not last long. Charlemagne was
+soon aroused from his peaceful occupations to put down a revolt of
+Tassilo, Duke of Bavaria, as well as a meditated attack upon Italy by
+Adalgisus, the son of the deposed Lombard king, Desiderius, who was
+assisted underhand by the Greek empress, Irene, and had besides formed
+a secret alliance with the Duke of Beneventum. Tassilo, being seized,
+was condemned to death by the great council. He appealed to the
+clemency of the king, who, ever averse to shed blood, mitigated the
+sentence into a lifelong seclusion from the world in a cloister.
+Adalgisus was met by the Duke of Beneventum, not to assist him, as he
+had expected, but to oppose him, for the duke had in good time
+discovered that loyalty was more likely to prosper than treason. He
+therefore joined the army of France under Grimwold, and in the battle
+which succeeded the Greek forces were entirely routed, and Adalgisus
+disappears from the busy scene.
+
+The empire of Charlemagne was next to be assailed by the Huns, not the
+same people whose fathers had fought under Attila, though probably
+descended from the same stock. Upon the death of that ferocious
+conqueror, the tribes whom his talents had kept united, again
+sundered. Shortly afterward a warlike nation, calling themselves
+Avars, approached the northern parts of Europe, having been driven
+from their native country by the Turks. They spread rapidly, acquiring
+territory and power, until they were invited by Tassilo to aid him in
+his meditated treachery. They lost more than one battle against the
+Franks, but neither their own defeat, nor the total overthrow of their
+ally, made any change in their purposes. They persisted; fought a hard
+battle, and were so utterly routed, that they drew back and remained
+quiet for a while, in order to collect their strength before venturing
+upon a fresh contest with their tremendous adversary, who, on his
+part, was no less desirous of a respite for the same object. Little
+rest, however, was allowed him. No sooner had he beaten back these
+Huns, than he had to contend with a new enemy, the Weletabes, a
+Slavonian tribe inhabiting the northern part of Germany, near
+Brandenburg and Pomerania, from the Elbe to the Baltic. In themselves
+they might not have excited much alarm, but, if they met with only a
+temporary success, their example might have been fatal, by rousing the
+Saxons, who still with reluctance submitted to the yoke imposed upon
+them. The king, therefore, without loss of time, met and defeated the
+Weletabes; when he received them into grace, and ever afterward found
+them faithful.
+
+Having freed himself from this peril, Charlemagne next found that he
+must turn his arms against the Huns of Hungary, which appears to have
+been defended by them after a singular fashion. The whole country was
+surrounded by nine circles of double palisading, formed of trunks of
+trees twenty feet in height. The interstices of the palisade were
+twenty feet wide, filled with stone and lime compacted, the top being
+covered with earth, and planted with shrubs. At the distance of twenty
+Teutonic, or forty Italian miles, was a second fortified line of the
+same kind; and thus the circles were repeated, the circumference
+always narrowing till you came to the innermost, or ring, in which the
+Avars kept all their wealth, the accumulation of centuries of rapine.
+Such, at least, is the account, however improbable, handed down to us
+by an historian of the day.
+
+In the outset fortune favored Charlemagne as usual. He took the first
+three of the defensive circles sword in hand, and laid waste the
+country to the junction of the Raab with the Danube, while his son
+Pepin had met and routed their army in another quarter. But unhappily
+a pestilential disease broke out among the horses, who died by
+thousands, and he was obliged to retreat, unpursued, however, by the
+Avars, their surprise and terror not having yet subsided.
+
+In the doubtful lull that followed, a conspiracy was raised against
+the life and throne of the monarch, in which his natural son, Pepin
+the Hunchback, was implicated. It was discovered in time, and all the
+conspirators were put to death, with the exception of Pepin, who was
+confined for life within a monastery.
+
+Scarcely had the king escaped this danger, than he was alarmed by news
+that the Saxons had revolted, and uniting themselves with the Huns,
+had given a bloody defeat to his cousin, Theodoric. Close upon this
+came other tidings of equally evil import. In the late campaign
+against the Huns, Charlemagne had called to his aid his son Pepin,
+King of Italy, who, notwithstanding he was himself embroiled with
+Grimbald, Duke of Beneventum, did not hesitate to obey. To reward this
+prompt obedience, Charlemagne early in the winter had despatched
+another son, Louis, King of Aquitaine, to the help of his brother,
+when the Saracens took advantage of the latter's absence to attack his
+frontiers, and even penetrated to Narbonne before any forces were
+ready to oppose them. From this expedition they returned home laden
+with plunder, and satisfied with this success, remained for a while in
+quiet. Charles therefore had a brief respite to turn against the
+Saxons; and as he had hitherto found all his precautions unavailing to
+keep them within the bounds of good order, he broke up the nation, and
+transported an immense number of the most turbulent to a distance from
+their own country. Multitudes of men, women, and children were
+dispersed over France, and not a few were transported to Brabant and
+various parts of Flanders.
+
+About this time, 793, the first collision took place between the
+Franks and the piratical Northmen.
+
+It would be alien from our present purpose to follow Charlemagne step
+by step in his march of conquest and civilization. We need only say in
+general terms, that he drove back the Arabs, reduced the Huns, became
+the friend of Haroun al Raschid, his only rival in the paths of
+greatness, and effectually protected his long line of coast from the
+attempted incursion of the Northmen. It is said that upon one occasion
+he arrived at a certain port just as the pirates were preparing to
+land; but the moment they by some means learnt the presence of the
+monarch, they immediately fled in terror at his mere name. He remained
+gazing on the departing vessels, while the tears rolled down his
+cheeks. His nobles could not help showing surprise at such unusual
+emotion in the monarch, which being observed by him he exclaimed, "I
+weep not, my friends, because I myself fear these miserable savages;
+but I weep that they should dare to show themselves upon my coast
+while I am living, for I foresee the evils they will bring upon my
+people when I am dead."
+
+It was always an object of first importance with Charlemagne to
+support the papal authority, as holding out the only means of
+spreading Christianity, which he justly considered the most effectual
+instrument he could employ to enlighten and civilize the world. An
+attempt had been made to mutilate the Pope, and thus disqualify him
+for his office, by Campulus and Paschal, two disappointed aspirants
+to the papacy; but he escaped from their hands and brought his
+complaints before Charlemagne. The conspirators then attempted to
+justify the deed, by accusing the Pope of atrocious crimes; and the
+king calling to his aid certain of the Roman prelates, proceeded to
+sit in judgment on him. The prelates, however, declared that by all
+the canonical rules they could not judge their superior; and Leo
+therefore was allowed, according to an old custom, to purge himself,
+by a solemn oath, of the crimes which had been laid to his charge.
+
+Many motives of policy at this time induced the Pope to set up an
+emperor of the West in opposition to the Eastern Empire. It was
+Christmas-day, when, with the rest of the Catholic world, Charlemagne
+presented himself in the church of St. Peter. At the desire of the
+Romans he was dressed in the long robe of the patrician, and
+unsuspicious, it is said, of the honor intended him, knelt at the high
+altar; but, just as he was about to rise, Leo advanced, and suddenly
+placed upon his head the crown of the Western world, amidst the
+popular acclamations, "Long life and victory to Charles Augustus,
+crowned by God, great and pacific Emperor of the Romans!"
+
+To end the long-existing feuds between the Western and Eastern
+Empires, Charlemagne now proposed to marry Irene, who, having deposed
+her son and put out his eyes, had usurped the throne of
+Constantinople. Irene herself was not unwilling to accept the offer;
+but she was overruled by a faction, and a treaty of peace was
+substituted for a treaty of marriage. But while the negotiations were
+going on, Irene herself was deposed by the great treasurer,
+Nicephorus, who even refused to grant her the smallest pittance, so
+that the degraded empress was obliged to support herself by the labors
+of the distaff. He was, however, glad to conclude a peace with
+Charlemagne.
+
+Though troubled from time to time by disputes among the neighboring
+barbarians, the Frankish monarch might now be said to enjoy peace; and
+while still in the possession of robust health, he resolved to prepare
+for death, by allotting among his children such portions of territory
+as he wished them to possess when he should be removed from the scene.
+Both his sons and the people willingly consented to the proposed
+arrangements, which, indeed, bore the stamp of his usual wisdom and
+justice. But the advanced age which he attained, brought with it the
+usual evils of protracted life. He saw his friends and children swept
+away before him. His son Louis alone remained to inherit his vast
+dominions. With this single drawback the remainder of his time was as
+prosperous as his earlier career had been; till at length, being
+suddenly attacked with pleurisy, he expired, after a short illness, in
+the seventy-second year of his age and the forty-seventh of his reign,
+January 28, 814.
+
+
+
+
+OLAF TRYGGVESON
+
+Extracts from "Early Kings of Norway," by THOMAS CARLYLE
+
+(955-1000)
+
+[Illustration: Boat on the sea. [TN]]
+
+
+Olaf Tryggveson also makes a great figure in the Faroeer Saga, and
+recounts there his early troubles, which were strange and many. He is
+still reckoned a grand hero of the North, though his _vates_ now is
+only Snorro Sturrleson of Iceland. Tryggveson had indeed many
+adventures in the world. His poor mother, Astrid, was obliged to fly
+with him, on murder of her husband[10] by Gunhild--to fly for life,
+three months before her little Olaf was born. She lay concealed in
+reedy island, fled through trackless forests, reached her father's
+with the little baby in her arms, and lay deep-hidden there; tended
+only by her father himself; Gunhild's pursuit being so incessant and
+keen as with sleuth-hounds. Poor Astrid had to fly again deviously to
+Sweden, to Esthland (Esthonia), to Russia. In Esthland she was sold as
+a slave, quite parted from her boy, who also was sold, and again sold;
+but did at last fall in with a kinsman high in the Russian service;
+did from him find redemption and help, and so rose, in a distinguished
+manner, to manhood, victorious self-help, and recovery of his kingdom
+at last. He even met his mother again, he as King of Norway, she as
+one wonderfully lifted out of darkness into new life, and happiness
+still in store.
+
+         [Footnote 10: Tryggve, one of the Norwegian sub-kings, slain
+         by order of Gunhild, Queen of Norway.]
+
+Grown to manhood, Tryggveson, now become acquainted with his birth,
+and with his, alas! hopeless claims, left Russia for the one
+profession open to him, that of sea-robbery; and did feats without
+number in that questionable line in many seas and scenes,--in England
+latterly, and most conspicuously of all. In one of his courses
+thither, after long labors in the Hebrides, Man, Wales, and down the
+western shores to the very Land's End and farther, he paused at the
+Scilly Islands for a little while. He was told of a wonderful
+Christian hermit living strangely in these sea-solitudes; had the
+curiosity to seek him out, examine, question, and discourse with him;
+and, after some reflection, accepted Christian baptism from the
+venerable man. In Snorro the story is involved in miracle, rumor, and
+fable; but the fact itself seems certain, and is very interesting; the
+great, wild, noble soul of fierce Olaf opening to this wonderful
+gospel of tidings from beyond the world, tidings which infinitely
+transcended all else he had ever heard or dreamt of! It seems certain
+he was baptized here; date not fixable; shortly before poor
+heart-broken Dunstan's death, or shortly after; most English churches,
+monasteries especially, lying burnt, under continual visitation of the
+Danes. Olaf, such baptism notwithstanding, did not quit his viking
+profession; indeed, what other was there for him in the world as yet?
+
+We mentioned his occasional copartneries with Svein of the
+Double-beard, now become King of Denmark, but the greatest of these,
+and the alone interesting at this time, is their joint invasion of
+England, and Tryggveson's exploits and fortunes there some years after
+that adventure of baptism in the Scilly Isles. Svein and he "were
+above a year in England together," this time: they steered up the
+Thames with three hundred ships and many fighters; siege, or at least
+furious assault, of London was their first or main enterprise, but it
+did not succeed. The "Saxon Chronicle" gives date to it, A.D. 994, and
+names expressly, as Svein's copartner, "Olaus, King of Norway,"--which
+he was as yet far from being; but in regard to the Year of Grace the
+"Saxon Chronicle" is to be held indisputable, and, indeed, has the
+field to itself in this matter. But finding London impregnable for the
+moment (no ship able to get athwart the bridge, and many Danes
+perishing in the attempt to do it by swimming), Svein and Olaf turned
+to other enterprises; all England in a manner lying open to them, turn
+which way they liked. They burnt and plundered over Kent, over
+Hampshire, Sussex; they stormed far and wide; world lying all before
+them where to choose. Wretched Ethelred, as the one invention he could
+fall upon, offered them Danegelt (L16,000 of silver this year, but it
+rose in other years as high as L48,000); the desperate Ethelred, a
+clear method of quenching fire by pouring _oil_ on it! Svein and Olaf
+accepted; withdrew to Southampton--Olaf at least did--till the money
+was got ready. Strange to think of, fierce Svein of the Double-beard,
+and conquest of England by him; this had at last become the one
+salutary result which remained for that distracted, down-trodden, now
+utterly chaotic and anarchic country. A conquering Svein, followed by
+an ably and earnestly administrative, as well as conquering, Knut
+(whom Dahlmann compares to Charlemagne), were thus by the mysterious
+destinies appointed the effective saviours of England.
+
+[Illustration: A Norse raid under Olaf.]
+
+Tryggveson, on this occasion, was a good while at Southampton; and
+roamed extensively about, easily victorious over everything, if
+resistance were attempted, but finding little or none; and acting now
+in a peaceable or even friendly capacity. In the Southampton country
+he came in contact with the then Bishop of Winchester, afterward
+Archbishop of Canterbury, excellent Elphegus, still dimly decipherable
+to us as a man of great natural discernment, piety, and inborn
+veracity; a hero-soul, probably of real brotherhood with Olaf's own.
+He even made court visits to King Ethelred; one visit to him at
+Andover of a very serious nature. By Elphegus, as we can discover, he
+was introduced into the real depths of the Christian faith. Elphegus,
+with due solemnity of apparatus, in presence of the king, at Andover
+baptized Olaf anew, and to him Olaf engaged that he would never
+plunder in England any more; which promise, too, he kept. In fact, not
+long after, Svein's conquest of England being in an evidently forward
+state, Tryggveson (having made, withal, a great English or Irish
+marriage,--a dowager princess, who had voluntarily fallen in love with
+him,--see Snorro for this fine romantic fact!) mainly resided in our
+island for two or three years, or else in Dublin, in the precincts of
+the Danish Court there in the Sister Isle. Accordingly it was in
+Dublin, as above noted, that Hakon's spy found him; and from the
+Liffey that his squadron sailed, through the Hebrides, through the
+Orkneys, plundering and baptizing in their strange way, toward such
+success as we have seen.[11]
+
+         [Footnote 11: Hakon, now King of Norway, sent a spy to learn
+         if Olaf thought of regaining his inheritance. Guided by the
+         spy, Olaf did sail with his fleet for Norway, found the
+         people there in unexpected rebellion against Hakon's tyranny,
+         set himself at their head, easily overthrew the king,
+         executed him amid general rejoicing and established himself
+         upon the throne.]
+
+Tryggveson made a stout, and, in effect, victorious and glorious
+struggle for himself as king. Daily and hourly vigilant to do so,
+often enough by soft and even merry methods,--for he was a witty,
+jocund man, and had a fine ringing laugh in him, and clear pregnant
+words ever ready,--or if soft methods would not serve, then by hard,
+and even hardest, he put down a great deal of miscellaneous anarchy in
+Norway; was especially busy against heathenism (devil-worship and its
+rites): this, indeed, may be called the focus and heart of all his
+royal endeavor in Norway, and of all the troubles he now had with his
+people there. For this was a serious, vital, all-comprehending matter:
+devil-worship, a thing not to be tolerated one moment longer than you
+could by any method help! Olaf's success was intermittent, of varying
+complexion; but his effort, swift or slow, was strong and continual;
+and on the whole he did succeed. Take a sample or two of that
+wonderful conversion process:
+
+At one of his first Things he found the Bonders all assembled in arms;
+resolute to the death seemingly, against his proposal and him.
+Tryggveson said little; waited impassive, "What your reasons are, good
+men?" One zealous Bonder started up in passionate parliamentary
+eloquence; but after a sentence or two broke down; one, and then
+another, and still another, and remained all three staring in
+open-mouthed silence there! The peasant-proprietors accepted the
+phenomenon as ludicrous, perhaps partly as miraculous withal, and
+consented to baptism this time.
+
+On another occasion of a Thing, which had assembled near some heathen
+temple to meet him,--temple where Hakon Jarl had done much repairing,
+and set up many idol figures and sumptuous ornaments, regardless of
+expense, especially a very big and splendid Thor, with massive gold
+collar round the neck of him, not the like of it in Norway,--King
+Tryggveson was clamorously invited by the Bonders to step in there,
+enlighten his eyes, and partake of the sacred rites. Instead of which
+he rushed into the temple with his armed men; smashed down, with his
+own battle-axe, the god Thor prostrate on the floor at one stroke, to
+set an example; and in a few minutes had the whole Hakon Pantheon
+wrecked; packing up, meanwhile, all the gold and preciosities
+accumulated there (not forgetting Thor's illustrious gold collar, of
+which we shall hear again), and victoriously took the plunder home
+with him for his own royal uses and behoof of the state.
+
+By unwearied industry of this and better kinds, Tryggveson had
+trampled down idolatry, so far as form went,--how far in substance may
+be greatly doubted. But it is to be remembered withal, that always on
+the back of these compulsory adventures there followed English
+bishops, priests, and preachers; whereby to the open-minded,
+conviction, to all degrees of it, was attainable, while silence and
+passivity became the duty or necessity of the unconvinced party.
+
+In about two years Norway was all gone over with a rough harrow of
+conversion. Heathenism at least constrained to be silent and outwardly
+conformable. Tryggveson next turned his attention to Iceland, sent one
+Thangbrand, priest from Saxony, of wonderful qualities, military, as
+well as theological, to try and convert Iceland. Thangbrand made a few
+converts; for Olaf had already many estimable Iceland friends, whom he
+liked much, and was much liked by; and conversion was the ready road
+to his favor. Thangbrand, I find, lodged with Hall of Sida (familiar
+acquaintance of "Burnt Njal," whose Saga has its admirers among us
+even now). Thangbrand converted Hall and one or two other leading men;
+but in general he was reckoned quarrelsome and blusterous rather than
+eloquent and piously convincing. Two skalds of repute made biting
+lampoons upon Thangbrand, whom Thangbrand, by two opportunities that
+offered, cut down and did to death because of their skaldic quality.
+Another he killed with his own hand, I know not for what reason. In
+brief, after about a year, Thangbrand returned to Norway and King
+Olaf, declaring the Icelanders to be a perverse, satirical, and
+inconvertible people, having himself, the record says, been "the death
+of three men there." King Olaf was in high rage at this result; but
+was persuaded by the Icelanders about him to try farther, and by a
+milder instrument. He accordingly chose one Thormod, a pious, patient,
+and kindly man, who, within the next year or so, did actually
+accomplish the matter; namely, get Christianity, by open vote,
+declared at Thingvalla by the general Thing of Iceland there; the roar
+of a volcanic eruption at the right moment rather helping the
+conclusion, if I recollect. Whereupon Olaf's joy was no doubt great.
+
+One general result of these successful operations was the discontent,
+to all manner of degrees, on the part of many Norse individuals,
+against this glorious and victorious, but peremptory and terrible king
+of theirs. Tryggveson, I fancy, did not much regard all that; a man of
+joyful, cheery temper, habitually contemptuous of danger. Another
+trivial misfortune that befell in these conversion operations, and
+became important to him, he did not even know of, and would have much
+despised if he had. It was this: Sigrid, queen-dowager of Sweden,
+thought to be among the most shining women of the world, was also
+known for one of the most imperious, revengeful, and relentless, and
+had got for herself the name of Sigrid the Proud. In her high
+widowhood she had naturally many wooers; but treated them in a manner
+unexampled.
+
+In spite of which, however, there went from Tryggveson, who was now a
+widower, some incipient marriage proposals to this proud widow; by
+whom they were favorably received; as from the brightest man in all
+the world, they might seem worth being. Now, in one of these
+anti-heathen onslaughts of King Olaf's on the idol temples of
+Hakon--(I think it was that case where Olaf's own battle-axe struck
+down the monstrous refulgent Thor, and conquered an immense gold ring
+from the neck of him, or from the door of his temple)--a huge gold
+ring, at any rate, had come into Olaf's hands; and this he bethought
+him might be a pretty present to Queen Sigrid, the now favorable,
+though the proud. Sigrid received the ring with joy; fancied what a
+collar it would make for her own fair neck; but noticed that her two
+goldsmiths, weighing it on their fingers, exchanged a glance. "What is
+that?" exclaimed Queen Sigrid. "Nothing," answered they, or endeavored
+to answer, dreading mischief. But Sigrid compelled them to break open
+the ring; and there was found, all along the inside of it, an occult
+ring of copper, not a heart of gold at all! "Ha," said the proud
+queen, flinging it away, "he that could deceive in this matter can
+deceive in many others!" And was in hot wrath with Olaf; though, by
+degrees, again she took milder thoughts.
+
+Milder thoughts, we say; and consented to a meeting next autumn at
+some half-way station, where their great business might be brought to
+a happy settlement and betrothment. Both Olaf Tryggveson and the high
+dowager appear to have been tolerably of willing mind at this meeting;
+but Olaf interposed, what was always one condition with him, "Thou
+must consent to baptism, and give up thy idol-gods." "They are the
+gods of all my forefathers," answered the lady; "choose thou what gods
+thou pleasest, but leave me mine." Whereupon an altercation; and
+Tryggveson, as was his wont, towered up into shining wrath, and
+exclaimed at last, "Why should I care about thee then, old faded
+heathen creature?" And impatiently wagging his glove, hit her, or
+slightly switched her, on the face with it, and contemptuously turning
+away, walked out of the adventure. "This is a feat that may cost thee
+dear one day," said Sigrid. And in the end it came to do so, little as
+the magnificent Olaf deigned to think of it at the moment.
+
+Olaf Tryggveson, though his kingdom was the smallest of the Norse
+Three, had risen to a renown over all the Norse world which neither he
+of Denmark nor he of Sweden could pretend to rival. A magnificent,
+far-shining man; more expert in all "bodily exercises," as the Norse
+called them, than any man had ever been before him, or after was.
+Could keep five daggers in the air, always catching the proper fifth
+by its handle, and sending it aloft again; could shoot supremely,
+throw a javelin with either hand; and, in fact, in battle usually
+threw two together. These, with swimming, climbing, leaping, were the
+then admirable Fine Arts of the North; in all which Tryggveson appears
+to have been the Raphael and the Michael Angelo at once. Essentially
+definable, too, if we look well into him, as a wild bit of real
+heroism, in such rude guise and environment; a high, true, and great
+human soul. A jovial burst of laughter in him, too; a bright, airy,
+wise way of speech; dressed beautifully and with care; a man admired
+and loved exceedingly by those he liked; dreaded as death by those he
+did not like. "Hardly any king," says Snorro, "was ever so well
+obeyed, by one class out of zeal and love, by the rest out of dread."
+His glorious course, however, was not to last long.
+
+King Svein of the Double-beard had not yet completed his conquest of
+England,--by no means yet, some thirteen horrid years of that still
+before him!--when, over in Denmark, he found that complaints against
+him and intricacies had arisen, on the part principally of one
+Burislav, King of the Wends (far up the Baltic), and in a less degree
+with the King of Sweden and other minor individuals. Svein earnestly
+applied himself to settle these, and have his hands free. Burislav, an
+aged heathen gentleman, proved reasonable and conciliatory; so, too,
+the King of Sweden, and Dowager Queen Sigrid, his managing mother.
+Bargain in both these cases got sealed and crowned by marriage. Svein,
+who had become a widower lately, now wedded Sigrid; and might think,
+possibly enough, he had got a proud bargain, though a heathen one.
+Burislav also insisted on marriage with Princess Thyri, the
+Double-beard's sister. Thyri, inexpressibly disinclined to wed an aged
+heathen of that stamp, pleaded hard with her brother; but the
+Double-bearded was inexorable; Thyri's wailings and entreaties went
+for nothing. With some guardian foster-brother, and a serving-maid or
+two, she had to go on this hated journey. Old Burislav, at sight of
+her, blazed out into marriage feast of supreme magnificence, and was
+charmed to see her, but Thyri would not join the marriage party,
+refused to eat with it or sit with it at all. Day after day, for six
+days, flatly refused; and after nightfall of the sixth, glided out
+with her foster-brother into the woods, into by-paths and
+inconceivable wanderings; and, in effect, got home to Denmark. Brother
+Svein was not for the moment there; probably enough gone to England
+again. But Thyri knew too well he would not allow her to stay here, or
+anywhere that he could help, except with the old heathen she had just
+fled from.
+
+Thyri, looking round the world, saw no likely road for her, but to
+Olaf Tryggveson in Norway; to beg protection from the most heroic man
+she knew of in the world. Olaf, except by renown, was not known to
+her; but by renown he well was. Olaf, at sight of her, promised
+protection and asylum against all mortals. Nay, in discoursing with
+Thyri Olaf perceived more and more clearly what a fine handsome being,
+soul and body, Thyri was; and in a short space of time winded up by
+proposing to Thyri, who, humbly, and we may fancy with what secret
+joy, consented to say yes, and become Queen of Norway. In the due
+months they had a little son, Harald; who, it is credibly recorded,
+was the joy of both his parents; but who, to their inexpressible
+sorrow, in about a year died, and vanished from them. This, and one
+other fact now to be mentioned, is all the wedded history we have of
+Thyri.
+
+The other fact is, that Thyri had, by inheritance or covenant, not
+depending on her marriage with old Burislav, considerable properties
+in Wendland, which she often reflected might be not a little
+behooveful to her here in Norway, where her civil-list was probably
+but straitened. She spoke of this to her husband; but her husband
+would take no hold, merely made her gifts, and said, "Pooh, pooh,
+can't we live without old Burislav and his Wendland properties?" So
+that the lady sank into ever deeper anxiety and eagerness about this
+Wendland object; took to weeping; sat weeping whole days; and when
+Olaf asked, "What ails thee, then?" would answer, or did answer once,
+"What a different man my father Harald Gormson was" (vulgarly called
+Blue-tooth), "compared with some that are now kings! For no King Svein
+in the world would Harald Gormson have given up his own or his wife's
+just rights!" Whereupon Tryggveson started up, exclaiming, in some
+heat, "Of thy brother Svein I never was afraid; if Svein and I meet in
+contest, it will not be Svein, I believe, that conquers;" and went off
+in a towering fume. Consented, however, at last, had to consent, to
+get his fine fleet equipped and armed, and decide to sail with it to
+Wendland to have speech and settlement with King Burislav.
+
+Tryggveson had already ships and navies that were the wonder of the
+North. Especially in building war-ships--the Crane, the Serpent, last
+of all the Long Serpent--he had, for size, for outward beauty, and
+inward perfection of equipment, transcended all example.
+
+This new sea expedition became an object of attention to all
+neighbors; especially Queen Sigrid the Proud and Svein Forkbeard, her
+now king, were attentive to it.
+
+"This insolent Tryggveson," Queen Sigrid would often say, and had long
+been saying, to her Svein, "to marry thy sister without leave had or
+asked of thee; and now flaunting forth his war navies, as if he, king
+only of paltry Norway, were the big hero of the North! Why do you
+suffer it, you kings really great?"
+
+By such persuasions, and reiterations, King Svein of Denmark, King
+Olaf of Sweden, and Jarl Eric,[12] now a great man there, grown rich
+by prosperous sea-robbery and other good management, were brought to
+take the matter up, and combine strenuously for destruction of King
+Olaf Tryggveson on this grand Wendland expedition of his. Fleets and
+forces were with best diligence got ready; and, withal, a certain Jarl
+Sigwald of Jomsburg, chieftain of the Jomsvikings, a powerful,
+plausible, and cunning man, was appointed to find means of joining
+himself to Tryggveson's grand voyage; of getting into Tryggveson's
+confidence, and keeping Svein Forkbeard, Eric, and the Swedish king
+aware of all his movements.
+
+         [Footnote 12: Eric, son of King Hakon.]
+
+King Olaf Tryggveson, unacquainted with all this, sailed away in
+summer, with his splendid fleet; went through the Belts with
+prosperous winds, under bright skies, to the admiration of both
+shores. Such a fleet, with its shining Serpents, long and short, and
+perfection of equipment and appearance, the Baltic never saw before.
+Jarl Sigwald joined with new ships by the way. "Had," he too, "a visit
+to King Burislav to pay; how could he ever do it in better company?"
+and studiously and skilfully ingratiated himself with King Olaf. Old
+Burislav, when they arrived, proved altogether courteous, handsome,
+and amenable; agreed at once to Olaf's claims for his now queen, did
+the rites of hospitality with a generous plenitude to Olaf; who
+cheerily renewed acquaintance with that country, known to him in early
+days (the cradle of his fortunes in the viking line), and found old
+friends there still surviving, joyful to meet him again. Jarl Sigwald
+encouraged these delays, King Svein & Co. not being yet quite ready.
+"Get ready!" Sigwald directed them, and they diligently did. Olaf's
+men their business now done, were impatient to be home, and grudged
+every day of loitering there; but, till Sigwald pleased, such his
+power of flattering and cajoling Tryggveson, they could not get away.
+
+At length, Sigwald's secret messengers reporting all ready on the part
+of Svein & Co., Olaf took farewell of Burislav and Wendland, and all
+gladly sailed away. Svein, Eric, and the Swedish king, with their
+combined fleets, lay in wait behind some cape in a safe little bay of
+some island, then called Svolde, but not in our time to be found: the
+Baltic tumults in the fourteenth century having swallowed it, as some
+think, and leaving us uncertain whether it was in the neighborhood of
+Rugen Island or in the Sound of Elsinore. There lay Svein, Eric & Co.
+waiting till Tryggveson and his fleet came up, Sigwald's spy
+messengers daily reporting what progress he and it had made. At
+length, one bright summer morning, the fleet made appearance, sailing
+in loose order, Sigwald, as one acquainted with the shoal places,
+steering ahead, and showing them the way.
+
+Snorro rises into one of his pictorial fits, seized with enthusiasm at
+the thought of such a fleet, and reports to us largely in what order
+Tryggveson's winged Coursers of the Deep, in long series, for perhaps
+an hour or more, came on, and what the three potentates, from their
+knoll of vantage, said of each as it hove in sight. Svein thrice over
+guessed this and the other noble vessel to be the Long Serpent; Eric
+always correcting him: "No, that is not the Long Serpent yet" (and
+aside always), "Nor shall you be lord of it, King, when it does come."
+The Long Serpent itself did make appearance. Eric, Svein, and the
+Swedish king hurried on board, and pushed out of their hiding-place
+into the open sea. Treacherous Sigwald, at the beginning of all this,
+had suddenly doubled that cape of theirs, and struck into the bay out
+of sight, leaving the foremost Tryggveson ships astonished, and
+uncertain what to do, if it were not simply to strike sail and wait
+till Olaf himself with the Long Serpent arrived.
+
+Olaf's chief captains, seeing the enemy's huge fleet come out, and how
+the matter lay, strongly advised King Olaf to elude this stroke of
+treachery, and, with all sail, hold on his course, fight being now on
+so unequal terms. Snorro says, the king, high on the quarter-deck
+where he stood, replied, "Strike the sails! never shall men of mine
+think of flight. I never fled from battle. Let God dispose of my
+life; but flight I will never take." And so the battle arrangements
+immediately began, and the battle with all fury went loose, and lasted
+hour after hour, till almost sunset, if I well recollect. "Olaf stood
+on the Serpent's quarter-deck," says Snorro, "high over the others. He
+had a gilt shield and a helmet inlaid with gold; over his armor he had
+a short red coat, and was easily distinguished from other men."
+Snorro's account of the battle is altogether animated, graphic, and so
+minute that antiquaries gather from it, if so disposed (which we but
+little are), what the methods of Norse sea-fighting were; their
+shooting of arrows, casting of javelins, pitching of big stones,
+ultimately boarding, and mutual clashing and smashing, which it would
+not avail us to speak of here. Olaf stood conspicuous all day,
+throwing javelins, of deadly aim, with both hands at once;
+encouraging, fighting, and commanding like a highest sea-king.
+
+The Danish fleet, the Swedish fleet, were, both of them, quickly dealt
+with, and successively withdrew out of shot-range. And then Jarl Eric
+came up, and fiercely grappled with the Long Serpent, or, rather, with
+her surrounding comrades; and gradually, as they were beaten empty of
+men, with the Long Serpent herself. The fight grew ever fiercer, more
+furious. Eric was supplied with new men from the Swedes and Danes;
+Olaf had no such resource, except from the crews of his own beaten
+ships; and at length this also failed him; all his ships, except the
+Long Serpent, being beaten and emptied. Olaf fought on unyielding.
+Eric twice boarded him, was twice repulsed. Olaf kept his
+quarter-deck; unconquerable, though left now more and more hopeless,
+fatally short of help. A tall young man, called Einar Tamberskelver,
+very celebrated and important afterward in Norway, and already the
+best archer known, kept busy with his bow. Twice he nearly shot Jarl
+Eric in his ship. "Shoot me that man," said Jarl Eric to a bowman near
+him; and, just as Tamberskelver was drawing his bow the third time, an
+arrow hit it in the middle and broke it in two. "What is this that has
+broken?" asked King Olaf. "Norway from thy hand, King," answered
+Tamberskelver. Tryggveson's men, he observed with surprise, were
+striking violently on Eric's; but to no purpose; nobody fell. "How is
+this?" asked Tryggveson. "Our swords are notched and blunted, King;
+they do not cut." Olaf stept down to his arm-chest; delivered out new
+swords; and it was observed as he did it, blood ran trickling from his
+wrist; but none knew where the wound was. Eric boarded a third time.
+Olaf, left with hardly more than one man, sprang overboard (one sees
+that red coat of his still glancing in the evening sun), and sank in
+the deep waters to his long rest.
+
+Rumor ran among his people that he still was not dead; grounding on
+some movement by the ships of that traitorous Sigwald, they fancied
+Olaf had dived beneath the keels of his enemies, and got away with
+Sigwald, as Sigwald himself evidently did. "Much was hoped, supposed,
+spoken," says one old mourning Skald; "but the truth was, Olaf
+Tryggveson was never seen in Norseland more." Strangely he remains
+still a shining figure to us; the wildly beautifullest man, in body
+and in soul, that one has ever heard of in the North.
+
+
+
+
+WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR
+
+By G. W. PROTHERO
+
+(1027-1087)
+
+[Illustration: William the Conqueror.]
+
+
+William I., King of England, surnamed the Conqueror, was born in 1027
+or 1028. He was the son of Robert, Duke of Normandy and Herleva,
+daughter of Fulbert, a tanner of Falaise. When he was about seven
+years old his father, intending to go on pilgrimage and having no
+legitimate sons, proposed him as his heir. The great men of the duchy
+did homage to the child, and a year later (1035) his father's death
+left him to make good his claim. Anarchy was the natural result of a
+minority. William's life was on more than one occasion in danger, and
+several of his guardians perished in his service. At the earliest
+possible age he received knighthood from the hands of Henry I. of
+France, and speedily began to show signs of his capacity for
+government.
+
+In 1042 he insisted that the "truce of God" should be proclaimed and
+observed in Normandy. When he was about twenty years old his authority
+was threatened by a general conspiracy, which spread through the
+western half of his duchy. An attempt was made to seize him at
+Valognes, and he only escaped by riding hard all night to his own
+castle at Falaise. Bessin and Cotentin, the most Norman parts of
+Normandy, rose in rebellion. William sought and obtained aid from King
+Henry, and completely defeated the rebels at Val-es-Dunes near Caen
+(1047). The battle was but a combat of horse, but it decided the fate
+of the war and left William master of his duchy. The debt which he
+owed to Henry was repaid next year. War broke out between Geoffrey,
+Count of Anjou, and Henry (1048), and William came to his suzerain's
+assistance. Alencon, one of the chief border fortresses between
+Normandy and Maine, which had received an Angevin garrison, was
+captured by the duke. The inhabitants had taunted him with his birth,
+and William, who had dealt leniently with the rebels after
+Val-es-Dunes, took a cruel revenge. Soon afterward Domfront, another
+important border fortress, fell into his hands.
+
+In 1051 William visited England. Two years later he married Matilda,
+daughter of Baldwin, Earl of Flanders, and a descendant of Alfred. The
+marriage had been forbidden by a council at Rheims as uncanonical, and
+was opposed by Lanfranc, Prior of Bec. This produced a quarrel between
+Lanfranc and William, who ravaged the lands of the abbey and ordered
+the banishment of its prior. Lanfranc, however, soon came to terms
+with the duke, and engaged to obtain a dispensation from Rome, which,
+however, was not granted till 1059.
+
+Strengthened by this alliance with Flanders, William showed himself
+more than a match for all his enemies. Henry, who had hitherto been
+for the most part friendly, now turned against him. After the
+suppression of some isolated revolts, William was threatened in 1054
+by a great confederacy. His dominions were invaded by the forces of
+the French king, in combination with those of Geoffrey of Anjou,
+Theobald of Blois, and others. William remained at first on the
+defensive; then, falling suddenly on one of the French armies at
+Mortemer, in the north-eastern corner of his duchy, he cut it to
+pieces. This blow put an end to the war; Henry made peace (1055), and
+William took the opportunity of extending his dominions in a southerly
+direction. He built fresh fortresses and exacted homage from Count
+Geoffrey of Mayenne.
+
+In 1058 Henry and Count Geoffrey made a final effort to crush their
+dangerous neighbor; but the effort failed, like those which preceded
+it. William again allowed the allies to enter and ravage his
+territory; but, while the French army was crossing the Dive at
+Varaville, he attacked and completely destroyed their rear-guard,
+which was cut off from the van by the advancing tide. Henry again made
+peace, and soon afterward died (1060). The death of Geoffrey of Anjou
+in the same year relieved William of his most formidable rival for the
+possession of Maine. Herbert Wake-Dog, the lawful ruler of that
+territory, who had been dispossessed by Geoffrey, recovered his
+dominions on the latter's death. He at once "commended" himself to
+William, thus making the duke his heir. On his death in 1063, William
+took possession of Le Mans and the county of which it was the
+capital--an acquisition which extended his southern frontier nearly to
+the Loire, almost severed Brittany from the rest of France, and paved
+the way for the subsequent junction with Anjou.
+
+It was apparently soon after this event, in the year 1064, that
+Harold, then Earl of Wessex, visited Normandy, and, according to
+legend, was entrapped into an oath to support William as heir to the
+English throne. When Harold was elected and crowned King of England
+(1066), William's first step was to send an embassy to him demanding
+the fulfilment of his promise. The purport of the demand is as
+uncertain as that of the pledge; but, whatever it was, Harold rejected
+it. The duke thereupon summoned a council of his supporters, who
+advised him to call together an assembly representing the whole duchy.
+This assembly, a typical feudal parliament, met at Lillebonne. While
+acting together it appears to have opposed the scheme for the conquest
+of England which William laid before it, but its members were won over
+singly. He then made a compact with Tostig, the banished brother of
+Harold; he came to terms with the Emperor Henry; he conciliated
+Philip, King of France, by offering to hold England as his vassal;
+and--most important of all--he obtained the sanction of Rome.
+
+Pope Alexander II., not only issued a bull declaring William to be the
+rightful heir to the throne, but sent him a ring and a banner as
+symbols that the blessing of heaven was on his claim. Embarking at St.
+Valery, William landed, on 28th of September, at Pevensey. The battle
+of Senlac or Hastings (October 14, 1066), was a decisive victory for
+the Duke of Normandy; but it took five years more to complete the
+conquest of England.
+
+Early in 1067 William made a progress through the eastern and central
+parts of his new dominions. All that had as yet submitted to him was
+comprised in the old kingdoms of Wessex and East Anglia, and a small
+portion of Mercia. He at once secured his hold over these districts by
+the erection of fortresses in London, Norwich, and elsewhere. He
+received homage from the great men; he confiscated the lands of those
+who had resisted him; and, while keeping a large number of manors for
+himself, he granted others to his followers. Even those who had not
+resisted were regarded as having legally forfeited their title and had
+to submit to a re-grant on less advantageous terms. In March, 1067,
+William returned to Normandy, taking with him as hostages the Earls
+Eadwine, Morkere, and Waltheof.
+
+The revolts which broke out in the north and southwest compelled him
+to return to England in December. Early in 1068 he marched on Exeter,
+as the centre of the western revolt. He took the town and built a
+castle, after which he subdued Cornwall, and then marching northward
+forced Bristol to submit. In the summer of 1068 there was a general
+rising of the North, of which Eadgar was the nominal head; but Eadwine
+and Morkere were the moving spirits. The insurgents were aided by
+Malcolm, King of Scotland. William had, however, only to show himself
+in order to put down the insurrection. He journeyed northward, by way
+of Warwick and Nottingham, to York, received the submission of
+Eadwine, Morkere, and Malcolm, and returned by way of Lincoln and
+Cambridge. His march was accompanied by heavy confiscations, and great
+castles, rising in places of vantage, rendered the Norman power at
+once visible and secure.
+
+In the spring of 1069 a fresh revolt broke out. Robert of Comines, the
+newly appointed Earl of Northumberland, was slain at Durham; a Danish
+fleet entered the Humber, and a Danish army, joined by Eadgar and
+Waltheof, seized and burned York. The sons of Harold attacked Devon,
+while other isolated outbreaks took place in the west. These were
+speedily put down by William's lieutenants; and in the autumn the king
+himself, going northward a second time, recovered York, and harried
+Northumberland with ruthless deliberation. Returning to keep Christmas
+at York, he set out again in January, 1070, to oppose Malcolm, who had
+crossed the border in aid of the insurgents. He forced Waltheof to
+submit, and drove the Scottish king back into his own country; then,
+marching over pathless fells in the depth of winter, he reached
+Chester, took the town, and founded another castle.
+
+[Illustration: William at Hastings.]
+
+Northumbria, exhausted and ruined, gave up the struggle, and the
+omission of the northern counties from the Domesday survey throws a
+grim light on the completeness of the Conquest. In one district only,
+the fens of Cambridgeshire, where Hereward still held out, the spirit
+of resistance survived. In April, 1071, William arrived at Cambridge
+and commenced a regular blockade. Advancing cautiously by means of a
+causeway through the fens, he entered Ely in October, and therewith
+the last flicker of independence died out. The conquest of England was
+completed. To guard against any fresh incitements to rebellion from
+Scotland, William in 1072 invaded that country and forced Malcolm to
+do him homage--an event which had an important effect on the
+subsequent relations of the two countries.
+
+Henceforward such trouble as William met with came, not from the
+English, but from his Norman vassals or his own family. In 1073 the
+citizens of Le Mans took advantage of his absence to set up a
+"commune," and invited Fulk of Anjou to protect them. William was soon
+in the field, this time assisted by English troops. He harried the
+country, recovered Le Mans, and made an advantageous peace with the
+count. By a skilful compromise he recognized Fulk as overlord of
+Maine, but kept actual possession of the district, for which his son
+Robert did homage. A year later a formidable revolt broke out in
+England. Two of William's great vassals, Ralph, Earl of Norfolk, and
+Roger, Earl of Hereford, rebelled, and a Danish fleet, probably in
+alliance with them, appeared in the Humber. William returned at once
+to England and put down the insurrection. A great meeting of the witan
+was summoned to try Roger and Waltheof, for the latter, though he took
+no part in the rebellion, had undoubtedly been privy to it. Roger was
+imprisoned for life and Waltheof was condemned to death.
+
+This was the last instance of opposition to William in England; but
+the remaining ten years of his life were occupied with almost
+continuous troubles on the Continent. In 1076 he was engaged in a war
+with Brittany, which the interference of Philip of France forced him
+to bring to an unsuccessful conclusion. Next year he quarrelled with
+his son Robert. Matilda took the young man's side against her husband,
+and Philip lent him his assistance. In 1080 William was at open war
+with his son. While besieging him at Gerberoi he received a wound and
+was forced to raise the siege. A temporary reconciliation followed,
+soon to give way to another and a final quarrel. Three years later
+Matilda died, and troubles thickened upon William. A rebellious
+vassal, Hubert of Beaumont, seems to have held him at bay for nearly
+three years. Rival claims to Vexin, a district on the eastern frontier
+of Normandy, involved him in another war with France. He was growing
+old and weary, and, as he lay sick at Rouen in the summer of 1087, the
+French army harried his territories with impunity. When he had
+recovered sufficiently to take the field, he invaded Vexin and burned
+the town of Mantes. But his horse, plunging in the burning cinders,
+inflicted on him an internal injury, which proved his death-wound He
+was carried to St. Gervais, where, on September 9, 1087, he died. His
+body was conveyed to Caen and buried in the great minster which he had
+built.
+
+The career of William as a warrior and conqueror occupies of necessity
+the largest space in his life; but his fame as a statesman and
+administrator is not less than that which he won on the battle-field.
+This is not the place to discuss the results of the Conquest, but the
+policy of the Conqueror in regard to Church and State cannot be
+overlooked. An orthodox churchman, a supporter of union under the
+successor of Peter against the schismatic tendencies of the English
+Church, he nevertheless repelled any claim on the part of Rome to
+interference with his political sovereignty. He allowed Peter's pence
+to be collected, but refused to pay tribute to the Pope. While
+recognizing him as head of the Church, he declined to hold his kingdom
+as his vassal, nor would he permit papal bulls to enter England or
+excommunications to be issued against any of his subjects without his
+leave. He controlled all appointments to important ecclesiastical
+dignities; he made laws for the Church; he dealt justice to
+ecclesiastics, high and low, in his own courts. At the same time he
+had no desire to humiliate the Church; on the contrary, he sought to
+elevate it to a higher position in the State, to make it a more potent
+agent of civilization. A weaker statesman might have seen his own
+advantage in encouraging the rivalry between Canterbury and York;
+William strengthened the Church by forcing the younger to give way to
+the elder see. With the same object, that of increasing the efficiency
+of ecclesiastical organization, he severed the temporal and spiritual
+jurisdictions and furthered the enforcement of clerical celibacy.
+Finally, the trust which he reposed in Lanfranc from the time of his
+appointment to the see of Canterbury in 1070 shows not only his
+insight into character but his respect for the head of the English
+Church.
+
+In regard to temporal affairs William was rather an administrator than
+a lawgiver. His reign is not marked by a series of legislative acts
+like those of Henry II. or Edward I.; but his work was the
+indispensable preliminary to theirs, for a strong monarchy was the
+first requisite of the state. To establish the power of the crown was
+William's principal care. The disintegrating tendencies of feudalism
+had already been visible under the Anglo-Saxon kings. William, while
+he established fully developed feudalism as a social, territorial, and
+military system in his new dominions, took measures to prevent it from
+undermining his own authority. He scattered the estates of his great
+vassals, so as to hinder them from building up provincial
+principalities; he maintained the higher popular courts against the
+encroachments of manorial jurisdictions; he prevented the claims of
+feudal lordship from standing between himself and the mass of his
+subjects, by exacting an oath from every landholder at the meeting of
+Salisbury plain; finally, by the great survey which resulted in
+"Domesday Book" he not only asserted his right to make a general
+inquisition into property, but laid the firm basis of knowledge which
+was indispensable to centralized government and taxation.
+
+The care which he took to maintain English laws and institutions is
+part of the same policy. He balanced the two nationalities over which
+he ruled, and obliged each to depend upon him as its leader or
+protector against the other. He ruled as an English king; his feudal
+council was the witenagemot with a new qualification; but at the same
+time he was lord of the land as no king had been before him, and he
+enjoyed not only all the income of his predecessors but in addition
+all the dues which came to him as feudal sovereign. He was thus
+perhaps the strongest and most absolute monarch that has ever sat upon
+the English throne.
+
+In character William was stern, self-reliant, and imperious in a high
+degree. He was not naturally cruel; but he was ruthless if it served
+his purpose, and could take pitiless vengeance for an insult or a
+wrong. He was too strong to prefer deceit when force would serve as
+well, but his diplomacy was subtle and guileful, and no scruple turned
+him aside from his aim. His temper, originally forgiving, was soured
+by opposition toward the end of his life, and his tyrannical
+tendencies were strengthened by the long exercise of uncontrolled
+power. His passionate devotion to the chase is only too clearly shown
+in the harshness of his forest laws. In private life he displayed
+domestic virtues, and his fidelity to his wife was exceptional in the
+annals of his house and time.
+
+
+
+
+GODFREY DE BOUILLON
+
+By HENRY G. HEWLETT
+
+(1060-1100)
+
+[Illustration: Crusaders. [TN]]
+
+
+In the year 1094 the Turks besieged the Holy City of Jerusalem, then
+ruled by the Fatimite caliphs, and took it. Pilgrims were then
+subjected to every form of violence and insult. The Greek emperor
+Alexius Comnenus, whom the Turks had recently defeated, implored the
+assistance of the great Christian states against this new and
+formidable foe. Pope Urban, to whom the letter was addressed, summoned
+a council of nobles and prelates in Auvergne and, with solemn and
+weighty words, appealed to the princes and soldiers of France who were
+seated before him. He reminded them of the national exploits of their
+fathers, whom Charles Martel and Charlemagne led against the Saracens,
+and called on the sons of such fathers to achieve yet greater deeds.
+As the burning words dropped from his lips they lighted a flame in
+every heart, and the whole assembly suddenly rose, and shouted with
+one voice, "It is God's will! It is God's will!" Urban caught up the
+cry: "Yes, without doubt, it is God's will. He has dictated to you
+the words, let them be your war-cry, and be this your badge!" As he
+spoke he held up a crucifix. The great meeting was moved like one man;
+and, falling on their knees, all confessed their sins, received
+absolution, and took vows of service in the Holy War. A red cross,
+embroidered on the right shoulder, was the common sign assumed by all
+the soldiers, who thence acquired the name of "Crusaders." Estates
+were pawned and sold to obtain money for the expenses of the
+undertaking, and many commercial cities purchased important liberties
+from their lords at this favorable opportunity. The chief of one of
+three great divisions into which the Christian army was formed was a
+man whom we have taken as the very type and model of a true
+Crusader,--Godfrey de Bouillon.
+
+[Illustration: Godfrey de Bouillon. [TN]]
+
+He was the son of Gustavus, Count of Bouillon, or Boulogne, in the
+district of Ardennes and province of Luxembourg, and was born about
+the year 1060. His profession had been from his youth that of arms,
+and his earliest services in the field were rendered to his lord, the
+Emperor of Germany. In the war of Investiture he had taken an active
+part against Gregory VII., and bore the Imperial standard at the
+battle of Merseberg. By his hand the usurper, Rudolph, Duke of Suabia,
+fell in that decisive encounter. Godfrey's sword, swayed by his young
+and powerful wrist, is said to have shorn off the right arm of Rudolph
+at a single stroke. For this valiant deed, Henry IV. created Godfrey
+Duke of his province of Bouillon; or, according to some historians,
+Lower Lorraine. At the subsequent siege of Rome, Godfrey made himself
+again prominent by scaling the city walls among the first. This action
+colored his whole life. All his contemporaries portray his nature as
+displaying the loftiest integrity and deepest piety. Sound and clear
+as his intellect was, he yet shared in the superstition of his times,
+and was led by reflection to believe that, in bearing arms against
+God's vicegerent, and attacking a city where so many apostles and
+martyrs lay buried, he had been guilty of a heinous sin. Remorse
+worked on his mind so heavily that he took a vow to join in the
+Crusade, from a conviction that his glaring crime could only be
+blotted out by a heroism equally conspicuous. His noble birth, and yet
+nobler character, won for him so high a place in the estimation of his
+fellows, that, on announcing his intention of undertaking the Crusade,
+hundreds flocked to his standard. A worthy general, truly, of soldiers
+thus ardent in a cause which they deemed divine! To the qualities of
+bodily strength and beauty, which in those days were chiefly valued in
+the head of an army, Godfrey happily united the more durable strength
+of intellect and beauty of soul. His knightly heart and statesman's
+mind never ran counter, and whatever generous policy the one dictated,
+was carried into effect by the wisdom of the other. Although averse to
+distinction, it was thrust upon him by the votes of his fellow-chiefs,
+and their decision was gladly hailed by the common soldiers, who loved
+Godfrey as a father. He would not, therefore, refuse the post of
+general, but applied himself to its duties with activity. He first set
+an example of unselfish zeal to his brother nobles, by disposing of
+his duchy for the purpose of his expedition,--an example faithfully
+followed by the leading nobility of France and the Rhine. He then
+summoned his army to join him in August, 1096, on the banks of the
+rivers Meuse and Moselle. At the appointed time, a force of 80,000
+foot and 10,000 horse assembled under his banner, and set out on its
+march through Germany,--the two other divisions of the Christian army
+taking a different route. On reaching Hungary, Carloman, who then
+ruled that country, showed some signs of objection to the passage of
+so formidable a body,--remembering the licentious excesses that had
+been committed by the rabble which followed Peter the Hermit. Here
+Godfrey's wisdom was admirably displayed. By his firm measures of
+restraint on the impetuosity of his troops he first proved that they
+were under the influence of strict discipline. Then, confiding himself
+to the justice and good faith of Carloman, he disarmed that monarch's
+suspicions by frankness and simplicity. The result was that, instead
+of opposition, the Hungarian prince gave him help, and escorted the
+Crusaders with a body of cavalry into the territories of Greece.
+Alexius Comnenus was by this time alarmed at the eagerness with which
+the Christian states had responded to his appeal for aid against the
+infidel. He mistrusted, not without reason, the intentions of some of
+the chiefs of the expedition,--mere adventurers, like the Norman
+Bohemond of Tarentum for example, who was his avowed foe,--and
+therefore deemed it politic to guard against danger to himself by
+demanding homage from all the Crusaders who entered his dominions. The
+two other divisions of the Christian army were now on their way to
+Constantinople, by a different road from that taken by Godfrey. One of
+the French nobles, the Count de Vermandois, was shipwrecked on the
+coast of Epirus, and Alexius unjustifiably detained him as a prisoner
+or hostage for the good faith of the other leaders. On learning these
+tidings, Godfrey, who was now in Thrace, sent to the emperor,
+requiring the count's release. This was not accorded, and Godfrey
+therefore treated the country as hostile, levying contributions on the
+people as he marched through. The emperor immediately saw his error,
+and promised to grant the count's release on the arrival of the French
+army. This promise satisfied Godfrey, and his march was once more
+peaceful. The wily emperor, in the meanwhile, obtained from his
+prisoner an oath of homage, hoping to induce the other Crusaders to
+follow the example. Godfrey, on his arrival, at first refused this,
+as unbecoming the rank and character which he bore; but, finding that
+the act would appease the jealousies which had already broken out
+between the Greeks and Franks, and put a check on the schemes of those
+leaders in the crusading ranks whom Alexius especially dreaded, he at
+last consented. The other chieftains made a like submission; and this
+sacrifice of pride, by healing internal discords, served for a season
+to promote the success of the Crusade.
+
+After a sojourn of some time at Constantinople, the Crusaders, now
+formed into one army, crossed the Bosphorus, and entered Bithynia.
+Here the sight of the carnage which the Turks had inflicted on the
+weak and disorderly body that Peter had led forth, stimulated the zeal
+and indignation of the Christian host. Its passage through the Turkish
+kingdom of Roum was not unresisted. David, then Sultan, a valiant
+prince, had already prepared an army, and fortified his capital of
+Nice,--a position of great natural strength.
+
+The Crusaders advanced in excellent order, and, after twice routing
+the Turkish army of defence, commenced the siege. Godfrey is said to
+have distinguished himself by a feat of skill on one occasion during
+this assault. A gigantic Turk, who was the hero of the Moslem army,
+had greatly harassed the Christians by his wondrous success in the use
+of the javelin. Having spent his shafts one day, he ascended a tower,
+and showered masses of rock on the besiegers, whom he at the same time
+abused and defied to combat. The Christian archers played upon his
+person, without bringing him down; until Godfrey grasped a cross-bow,
+and at one shot pierced the giant's heart. The siege lasted seven
+weeks; and was prosecuted with such vigor and ingenuity by the
+Crusaders that the Turks were on the point of yielding, when Alexius,
+who had sent a body of Greeks with the army, craftily procured to
+himself the glory of conquest by instructing his general to intrigue
+with the enemy secretly, and persuade them to yield to his power, on
+condition of protection. The Greek general so worked upon the fears
+and hopes of the garrison, that his advice was accepted; and, to the
+surprise and anger of the Franks, the emperor's flag one day appeared
+on the towers of Nice, and the city surrendered. This act of perfidy
+reopened the jealousy between the Eastern and Western Christians,
+which Godfrey had labored to extinguish; and from this time may be
+dated the rise of those internal divisions which eventually proved so
+fatal to the Crusaders.
+
+Leaving Nice, the Crusaders advanced in two divisions, both without
+guides, and through a hostile and desert country. The Turks, in great
+numbers, followed in their rear. Godfrey and the Count of Toulouse
+headed one division; Bohemond, Prince of Tarentum, and Robert, Duke of
+Normandy (son of William the Conqueror), the other. The latter body
+had separated from the former at some distance, and was traversing the
+plains near Dorylaeum, in Phrygia, when a sudden attack was made upon
+it by a powerful army of Turks. The Christians were taken by surprise,
+while exhausted with heat and fatigue, and in an unfavorable
+situation. In spite of the heroic valor of Bohemond, Robert, and other
+knights, the battle was turning against them, when Godfrey's division,
+to which a message had been despatched, came up. He shouted aloud the
+Crusaders' war-cry: "It is God's will!" and the whole army, echoing
+the shout, by a gallant charge retrieved the fortunes of the day and
+completely routed the Turks. After this success the Crusaders resolved
+to march in a single body, and thus prevent a recurrence of the hazard
+which they had escaped. The Turks preceded them, burning the crops as
+they went, and the Christians, in consequence, suffered fearful
+privations from famine during the march. Hundreds perished from
+exhaustion. The horses died for want of sufficient food and water; and
+knights were seen either walking on foot, or riding on oxen and asses,
+carrying their own armor. In passing through Pisidia, an anecdote is
+related of Godfrey which is characteristic of his courage and
+gallantry. He was wandering among the recesses of a forest in pursuit
+of game, which was needed for the supply of the troops, when he came
+upon a private soldier of the army, who was defending himself from the
+attack of a bear. Godfrey struck at the beast, which at once turned on
+its new assailant, inflicting a deep wound in his thigh. Another
+stroke from the skilful hunter's arm terminated the contest; but the
+blood streamed from his wound so rapidly, that he scarcely reached the
+camp alive. The grief of his soldiers was intense, as they beheld
+their beloved leader stretched on a litter, and borne into his tent as
+if dead. The skill of his physicians and a long interval of rest
+triumphed over the weakness occasioned by the loss of blood, and
+Godfrey once more appeared at the head of his army.
+
+Antiochetta, the capital of Pisidia, attempted no resistance; and here
+the main body of the Christians recruited for some time. Meanwhile, a
+party of Crusaders, headed by Baldwin, brother of Godfrey, and a
+famous knight named Tancred, had been sent forward to clear a passage
+for the army. Tancred subdued the city of Tarsus; but his victory was
+usurped by Baldwin, whose ambitions and covetous nature bore no
+resemblance to that of his brother. Tancred, a man after Godfrey's
+heart, surrendered this conquest for the sake of peace; but, when
+Baldwin showed symptoms of repeating his injustice, resisted by force.
+Tancred was defeated, but a reconciliation took place between the
+combatants. Baldwin, who had no real interest in the success of the
+Crusade, soon afterwards turned aside into Mesopotamia, where he made
+himself master of Edessa, and formed a Christian state there. Though
+founded by merely personal ambition, this eventually proved of great
+assistance to the Crusaders, by checking the progress of the Turkish
+arms in Asia.
+
+The main body now crossed the Taurus, after a tedious and painful
+passage, and presented itself before the walls of Antioch, then ruled
+by an independent Turkish emir named Accien. This city was especially
+dear to the Christians, as the first in which their title had been
+assumed; and the sight of its walls roused their flagging spirits.
+Some of the generals advised that the siege should be deferred for
+some months, until reinforcements arrived, and the winter was over;
+but the majority of the chiefs, among whom Godfrey was conspicuous,
+confident of success, and dreading the depressing influences of delay,
+urged an immediate attack, which was accordingly made. The Turks
+adopted the stratagem of apparently neglecting to defend the city; and
+the Christians, falling into the snare, scattered their forces. The
+licentiousness of some of their number, moreover, proved fatal to
+their vigilance, and a sudden sortie of the garrison inflicted deadly
+havoc. The siege was then commenced in earnest; but the city was so
+strongly guarded, that months elapsed without any impression being
+made upon its walls; and disease, famine, and the inclemency of the
+season, united with the missiles of the Turks to weaken the Christian
+force. Many of the leaders (Robert, Duke of Normandy, among them),
+withdrew in cowardly disgust at the failure of the siege and the
+pressure of want; while despair drove many of those who remained to
+courses of reckless vice. Godfrey, firm to his duty and strong in
+faith, aided the exertions of the clergy in encouraging the spirits of
+his troops, and restraining their profligate excesses. A timely supply
+of provisions from some of the Armenian monasteries, and a brilliant
+victory obtained by Bohemond and the Count of Toulouse over an army
+which the Sultans of Aleppo and Damascus had sent to the succor of
+Antioch, rewarded Godfrey's confidence and infused new vigor into the
+hearts of his army. This was needed to sustain the brunt of a
+desperate encounter which shortly afterward took place between the
+besieged and their besiegers. A reinforcement of Italian Crusaders
+having arrived, it was suddenly attacked by a large Turkish force, and
+thrown into disorder. Godfrey, who had been engaged on the siege,
+rapidly marshalled his men, and fell upon the enemy. A sortie of the
+garrison was immediately made, and a fearful conflict ensued under the
+walls of the city. The Turks were put to flight with immense loss, and
+the Christians pursued them up to the very gates. In this scene of
+carnage, Godfrey's recorded feats of valor approached the incredible.
+His sword clave the stoutest armor asunder at a blow. A gigantic Arab
+horseman offered him single combat, and broke his shield by way of
+challenge. Godfrey rose in his stirrups, and smote the Arab on the
+shoulder with such tremendous force as to split his whole body in
+twain; half of which, with the head, fell into the river Orontes,
+while the remainder, yet clinging to the terrified horse, was carried
+back into the city.
+
+Notwithstanding all these exploits, the Turks held out, and were only
+defeated at last by stratagem. This was achieved by the skill of
+Bohemond, who intrigued with Phirous, one of the leaders of the
+garrison, for the surrender of the city, upon favorable terms to
+himself. Bohemond stipulated with his fellow-chiefs that the
+principality of Antioch should be granted him in return for his
+services; and, after some opposition, this was conceded. Phirous
+managed the perilous task of admitting the Crusaders with the utmost
+adroitness. At the dead of night the walls were scaled by Bohemond and
+his followers, and Antioch was taken, in June, 1098, after a siege of
+eight months. Accien, its prince, and 6,000 Turks, are said to have
+fallen on this eventful night.
+
+The Crusaders had no sooner obtained this signal success than they
+were in their turn besieged by an army raised by the Sultans of
+Mossoul and other cities. Antioch had just sustained so long a siege,
+that the Christians found scarcely any provisions on their entrance,
+and their besiegers now cut off all supplies from without. Famine soon
+raged in the city to such an extent, that horses, roots, leaves,
+leathern shoes, and even human bodies, were eagerly devoured by the
+starving soldiers. Godfrey shared his scanty meals with his comrades,
+and is related to have slain his last charger for food. Desertion from
+the ranks now occurred in great numbers, and despair led many to
+blaspheme who were ashamed to fly. To add to the misery of the
+Christians, they learned that the Emperor Alexius, who was advancing
+with reinforcements, had judged their case hopeless, and retraced his
+steps. The city was now scarcely defended, and many proposed to
+surrender it, even on degrading terms, so that their lives were
+spared.
+
+Godfrey and the clergy again exerted themselves successfully. They
+ventured to challenge the Turkish army to a combat of picked troops;
+and when the proposal was spurned, boldly advanced to attack the whole
+force. The appearance of the Crusaders, as they marched out of the
+city, must have been indeed pitiable. Privations had so reduced them,
+that many had no clothing. Some were nearly fainting from weakness.
+The barons and knights proceeded chiefly on foot, and camels and asses
+supplied the place of horses to most of those who rode. Yet the
+burning zeal of the Christians made the march seem like a triumphal
+procession; and while the clergy sang hymns of consolation and
+victory, the soldiers responded with the war-cry, "It is God's will!
+It is God's will!" The Turkish general, fearing nothing from an army
+so scantily provided with the means of war, was taken by surprise, but
+hastily arranged his troops in order of battle. The sight of several
+natural prodigies, such as the sudden appearance of a meteor, and the
+favorable direction of the wind, acting upon the superstitious fancy
+of the Christians, impelled them to extraordinary exertions. The
+Moslem forces, on the other hand, were weakened by the existence of
+rivalries and discords in their midst, and lacked the stimulus which
+the Christians derived from desperation. The attack was commenced by a
+volley of arrows, followed by a charge of the Turkish and Arabian
+archers, which the Crusaders not only steadily sustained, but
+vigorously returned. Godfrey, who commanded their right wing, broke
+the left wing of the Moslem; but the latter had encompassed the river
+with a large force, and attacked the Christians in the rear. In spite
+of the heroism of Godfrey and Tancred, who slaughtered all that
+ventured to compete with them, and the brave resistance of the whole
+army, the enemy was evidently gaining ground, when (according to the
+historians) three horsemen, in brilliant armor, suddenly appeared at
+the head of a reinforcement descending from the adjacent mountains.
+Some of the clergy seized on this circumstance to reanimate the
+Crusaders. "Behold your heavenly succor!" cried a bishop. "Heaven has
+sent the holy martyrs, George, Demetrius, and Theodore to fight for
+you!" As he spoke, the whole army seemed inspired with irresistible
+strength; and, shouting the well-known war-cry, made another vigorous
+charge which broke the Moslem ranks. The Sultan of Mossoul fled, and
+his immense force dispersed in the utmost disorder. The extravagant
+number of 100,000 is said to have fallen in this engagement.
+
+The Crusaders, instead of proceeding at once to Jerusalem, remained
+for several months in Antioch, employing the time in re-establishing
+Christianity in that city, and sending to their brethren in the West
+for further aid. The delay was prejudicial, as the disputes between
+the rival chiefs, which the din of war had silenced, again broke out,
+and disease committed terrible ravages in the camp. Certain
+expeditions, however, were made in the neighborhood, and several towns
+fell into the hands of the Christians. Meantime, news arrived that an
+army of Egyptian Arabs--who acknowledged the Fatimite caliphs, and had
+as yet resisted the attempt of the Turks to usurp dominion over all
+the followers of the Prophet--had captured Jerusalem. The Crusaders,
+filled with indignation, resumed their march to the Holy City,
+conquering on their way several towns. Embassadors were sent from the
+Caliph of Cairo with superb presents to the Christian leaders, and
+proposals of peace between them and the Egyptians. But Godfrey would
+not be bribed to accept the humiliating terms proposed; one of which
+was, that only unarmed Christians should be admitted into the city.
+The embassadors were sent back with the answer that the Crusaders were
+on their march, and, if opposed, might extend their conquests even to
+the Nile.
+
+By daybreak on June 10, 1099, the Christian army came in sight of
+Jerusalem. The spectacle transported all with mingled feelings of joy,
+reverence, and remorse. Some fell on their knees and prayed; others
+kissed the sacred soil; many wept for their sins; and the air ever and
+anon resounded with the shout: "It is God's will!" The siege was
+commenced at once, Godfrey fixing his camp on Mount Calvary. The
+Egyptians had prepared for a protracted defence, by strengthening the
+fortifications and furnishing the garrison with ample provisions. They
+had likewise ravaged the neighboring country, and filled up the
+cisterns so as to harass the besiegers as much as possible. Owing to
+these impediments the Christians made slow progress. After various
+disappointments, however, they at length manufactured engines of great
+size and strength, shaped like towers, which were to be wheeled up to
+the walls, so as to enable the besiegers to enter by means of
+drawbridges. On July 14, 1099, at daybreak, the Crusaders were in
+arms, and at the same moment the assault was made on various points.
+Godfrey stood on his wooden tower, which was stationed near one of the
+gates, and by voice and action stimulated his soldiers to deeds of
+daring. His death-dealing javelin never missed its aim. The Egyptians
+employed every possible agent of defence,--showering down boiling oil,
+combustible materials, and various descriptions of missile, on the
+heads of their assailants. During the first day the Crusaders were
+repulsed at every point; but on the morrow fortune turned. The first
+half of the day was with the Egyptians, who cast lighted torches
+against the wooden engines of the Crusaders, and effected the
+destruction of many. Godfrey was, as usual, conspicuous, and became
+the mark of repeated attacks,--the cross of gold which surmounted his
+tower especially enraging the Moslem. An incident, supposed to be
+supernatural, was the immediate cause of the Christians' success.
+Godfrey and the Count of Toulouse at the same time observed the figure
+of a knight on the Mount of Olives, who with his buckler signalled to
+the Christians that they should enter the city. The two leaders,
+animated by a common feeling, cried out, "Behold St. George!" The
+enthusiasm of the Crusaders from this moment was irresistible.
+Godfrey's tower was first pushed close beside the walls, and in spite
+of flame and missile the drawbridge was lowered. Then, accompanied by
+several of his bravest knights, he dashed into the city. Others
+followed at the same point; the gates were broken down, and Jerusalem
+was taken. A horrible carnage of the Moslem ensued, in which Godfrey,
+although unable to check, refused to share. His first act was to
+retire from his comrades, and with three attendants to repair, unarmed
+and barefooted, to the Church of the Sepulchre. His vow was
+accomplished, and the desecration of one holy site atoned for by the
+preservation of another yet holier. This act of devotion, so worthy of
+the true Crusader, recalled from carnage those who had forgotten their
+vows in the thirst for vengeance, and the whole army, led by the
+clergy, followed him to the same church in penitential procession.
+
+[Illustration: Godfrey De Bouillon entering Jerusalem.]
+
+Godfrey's work was now nearly ended, and his reward came. The leaders
+of the army, soon after the capture of the city, held a council for
+the purpose of deciding to whom should be given the crown of
+Jerusalem. No decision was arrived at; so many various opinions being
+expressed, and so many interests at stake. Ten of the most esteemed
+chiefs were then formed into an elective body, and proceeded to make
+careful inquiries into the fitness of those who were proposed for the
+kingly office. Godfrey took no part, it would seem, in either
+discussion or inquiry, and displayed no sort of anxiety as to his own
+claims. But the clergy and the mass of the soldiers were devoted to
+him,--endeared as he was by a thousand memories of his piety, courage,
+and generosity. On all hands the electors heard his praises sounded,
+and, to the joy of the whole army, they concluded their labors by
+announcing the choice to have fallen upon him. But, to the surprise of
+all, he declined the offered rank. "I will not wear a golden crown,"
+said he, "in a city where my king and Saviour has been only crowned
+with thorns." All that his fellow-chiefs could persuade him to accept
+was the title of Defender and Baron of the Holy Sepulchre, though he
+did not deem it right to refuse the kingly authority. He soon had
+occasion to exert his power, for the Caliph of Cairo had by this time
+collected a large army, and was on his march to Jerusalem. The
+Crusaders, though unfitted for a fresh campaign, prepared to defend
+their conquest, and, at the head of his troops, Godfrey advanced
+toward Ascalon, where the enemy was stationed. A battle took place on
+the adjoining plains, in which the Moslem force was routed with
+terrific slaughter. The city itself would have fallen but for the
+covetous spirit displayed by the Count of Toulouse, who, unable to
+obtain a promise that the possession of the place should be given him,
+deserted Godfrey with all his men. A quarrel ensued between the two
+leaders, but was terminated through the influence of their brothers in
+arms,--Godfrey being ready to forgive any injury to himself for the
+sake of the common cause.
+
+The Crusade was now completed, but Godfrey's duties as king were yet
+to commence. He set about fulfilling them with activity, fortifying
+various important positions, subduing revolts of hostile tribes,
+dividing the conquered territories equally among his generals,
+according to the feudal system, and summoning an Assize, or Assembly
+of his wisest councillors to draw up a code of laws. This code, which
+long remained in operation, amply testified to the legislative wisdom
+of the Crusaders. But the new state was not long favored with his
+presence to enforce and exemplify its constitution. In returning from
+a successful expedition against some Arabs of Galilee, he was met by
+the Emir of Caesarea, who offered him a present of fruits. Godfrey
+tasted a cedar apple, and immediately was seized with illness. He
+died, not without suspicion of poison having been thus administered,
+shortly after reaching Jerusalem, commending to his comrades the care
+of the holy places, and the state which he had founded. His age
+scarcely exceeded forty years.
+
+One of the most celebrated and beautiful Italian poems, the "Jerusalem
+Delivered" of Tasso, has "the pious Godfrey" for the presiding hero of
+the glorious scenes which it narrates. But there are no grounds for
+supposing that his fame belongs to romance rather than history.
+Contemporary writers have painted his portrait in no less flattering
+colors than Tasso has used, and the poet's affectionate fancy has
+scarcely exaggerated the tribute which the soberest historian may feel
+warranted in rendering to the memory of the great and good Crusader,
+Godfrey de Bouillon.
+
+
+
+
+SALADIN[13]
+
+By WALTER BESANT
+
+(1137-1192)
+
+         [Footnote 13: Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.]
+
+
+There are two great names in the tangled and somewhat tedious story of
+Islam which stand out, deathless, from the crowd of sultans, viziers,
+and Moslem conquerors--the names of Haroun al Raschid and Saladin. The
+former has become the accepted type of a good and just despot; the
+latter is the Bayard of his religion, the knight and captain, king and
+magistrate, _sans peur et sans reproche_; whose enemies respected and
+trusted him as much as his own people loved him. His conquest of
+Jerusalem and overthrow of the Latin kingdom were but episodes, and
+from his point of view, not the most important episodes in his thirty
+years of war and victory. The History of Egypt, the History of Syria,
+the History of the Mohammedan faith, contain more pages filled with
+the achievements of Saladin than even the History of the Crusades.
+Everyone has read of the battle of Hattin;[14] but of the healing of
+the great schism and the restoration of Egypt to orthodoxy--a step
+thought to be impossible and of the highest importance to Islam--very
+few know anything. Let us endeavor to present the history of this
+great man with some attempt to show the true proportions of his
+achievements in the eyes of the East, if not the West.
+
+         [Footnote 14: In the battle of Tiberias, or Hattin, Saladin
+         completely overthrew the Christians and conquered their
+         kingdom.]
+
+Yussuf ibn Ayub--Joseph the son of Job--was by descent a Kurd. His
+father was a retainer or follower of the celebrated Nur-ed-Din (Light
+of Religion), Sultan of Syria, the prince who, after many years of
+humiliation, recovered some of the lost prestige of the Mohammedan
+name, wrested many of their outlying strongholds from the Christians,
+and prepared the way for his more illustrious successor.
+
+[Illustration: Saladin and Christians. [TN]]
+
+The caliphate was then divided into the Fatimite line, which reigned
+at Cairo, and the Abbaside, which reigned at Baghdad. Both branches
+had by this time fallen into a mere semblance of authority. The
+bitterness of theological differences survived, and though for the
+re-establishment of Moslem power, it was absolutely necessary that the
+schism should cease, there seemed no likelihood whatever of any
+change. The weaker of the two, since the rise of Nur-ed-Din, was
+undoubtedly the Egyptian house. The last of the Fatimite caliphs were
+mere tools in the hands of rival ministers, and passed their ignoble
+lives--_Rois Faineants_--in their luxurious palaces. Syria, which had
+been theirs, was lost to them, and occupied partly by Mohammedans of
+the rival sect, and partly by the Christians. Their final fall,
+however, was caused by internal dissensions and the quarrels of two
+candidates for the post of Grand Vizier. Their names were Shawer and
+Dargham. The former, unable to contend against his rival, applied for
+assistance to Nur-ed-Din, offering for reward a third of the Egyptian
+revenues. The expedition which was sent in reply was the first chance
+of distinction which young Yussuf had obtained. The army, commanded by
+his uncle Shirkoh, easily defeated Dargham and reinstated Shawer. Then
+followed the reluctance to keep the terms of the agreement which is so
+common in history; and when Shirkoh in return seized the city of
+Balbek and held it as security, Shawer sent to Amaury, King of
+Jerusalem, for succor. Amaury, the bravest if not the wisest of the
+Crusader kings, thinking that here was a chance of striking a double
+blow, readily acceded, and joining the Fatimite army forced Shirkoh to
+retire. It was, however, only in order to collect new forces. Next
+year he was back again. Alexandria was taken by his nephew, and held
+for three months against the combined forces of Christians and
+Fatimites. At last a peace was agreed upon: both Christians and
+Damascenes were to retire, each party to have a share in the revenues
+of Egypt. The first part of the contract was faithfully carried out;
+the second part neither Syrian nor Christian expected to be obeyed.
+And now the same ambition possessed the mind both of Amaury and of
+Nur-ed-Din. This was nothing less than the conquest of Egypt. Both
+perceived that the Fatimite power was gone. Both realized the fact
+that the country could easily be overrun. As for the Christian king,
+he had dreams of a splendid and luxurious capital, grander than his
+own narrow city set in the midst of the mountains; his knights,
+orientals now and fallen from the old western rudeness, looked on with
+envy at the luxuries of these weak Mohammedans; it would be a fine
+thing to transfer the capital of the Christian kingdom in the East to
+Cairo, leaving Jerusalem as a Christian Mecca, a city for the priests.
+And the Syrian sultan, for his part, would restore the unity of Islam,
+would unite Egypt with Syria, and by the strength of that union would
+destroy the Christian and recover the Holy Places. These were schemes
+worthy of statesman or of soldier. The only question was--how were
+they to be realized?
+
+The point which Amaury failed to understand was this. He who moved
+first was bound to lose. For he would draw upon himself the other two.
+Amaury moved first. We cannot follow the Christian king on his
+disastrous attempt. It is sufficient to say that Shirkoh, after a
+brief struggle, remained master of the field and of Egypt, and that
+the fall of the Latin kingdom, thus rendered possible, was only
+delayed until the consolidation of the new power was complete.
+
+Immediately after his final victory Shirkoh died, and was succeeded by
+his nephew Yussuf ibn Ayub, now called Salah-ed-Din (Shield of
+Religion), el Melek el Mansur (the Victorious King), and Emir el
+Jayush (Commander-in-chief of the Forces). The Fatimite caliph, not
+yet deposed, made him Grand Vizier. In other words this soldier of
+fortune was master of Egypt and of the Fatimite caliphate. More
+important still, if the King of Jerusalem understood the importance of
+the fact, he acknowledged himself to be the vassal of Nur-ed-Din,
+Sultan of Syria.
+
+The first step taken by Saladin, a _coup d'etat_ which restored Egypt
+to the orthodox sect, was the substitution of the Abbaside caliph's
+name for that of their own prince in the Friday prayers. This was done
+without the slightest opposition; contempt for the head of their
+religion could not be more effectually shown; Saladin therefore boldly
+proclaimed the name of the Baghdad caliph. It was received so quietly,
+as the Arab historian says, "that not a brace of goats butted over
+it." The last of the Fatimite caliphs died a few days after: it was
+one of those deaths, so frequent in history, which occur so exactly at
+the moment most convenient. Did Saladin order him to be bowstrung?
+Probably. Such an act would be regarded as perfectly legitimate and in
+accordance with the rules of the game.
+
+[Illustration: Saladin.]
+
+How the victorious emir, on the death of Nur-ed-Din, succeeded in
+making himself master of Syria and succeeding his lord; how he carried
+on the war with the Christians unceasingly, would require in the
+telling volumes. Many volumes indeed have been devoted to this
+history. His two great achievements were the reunion of Islam and the
+destruction of the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem. The latter at least, he
+effectually accomplished. Western Europe was incapable of a second
+effort so great as that mighty wave of enthusiasm which won back the
+Holy Land and covered the plains of Asia Minor with the bones of
+Crusaders. Richard Coeur de Lion and Philip Augustus, Frederick II.,
+the kings of Cyprus, the Knights of St. John, carried on the long,
+interminable struggle, but Jerusalem was lost.
+
+Of the chivalry and honor of Saladin his biographers are never weary.
+When, for instance, the Christians took Jerusalem they slaughtered
+every soul in the place; their horses were knee-deep in blood. When
+Saladin took the city he suffered none to be slain; when there was no
+more money for ransom he suffered thousands to go free; to the weeping
+widows and fatherless girls he gave purses of money and suffered no
+outrage to be done to them. He divided them into three bands and
+assigned an escort to each company. And then was seen the strange
+spectacle, when the women and children grew fatigued, of the victors
+placing them on their horses and walking afoot, or even carrying the
+children in their arms. Again, why has no one painted that famous
+scene when Richard Coeur de Lion wanted no oaths, but instead gave his
+hand to Saladin in token of respect for his enemy and his own loyalty?
+
+Such is the brief history of Saladin, a soldier first, always a
+soldier, spending his whole life on the battle-field; the perfect
+knight of the Mohammedans, fierce in fight, generous in victory,
+faithful to his word, true to his religion, of a larger heart and
+nobler soul than Coeur de Lion, the only antagonist who can be named
+with him; one of the few out of the countless millions of humanity,
+whose name lives and whose memory will never die; his life an example;
+his history a monument.
+
+[Signature of the author.]
+
+
+
+
+EDWARD I. OF ENGLAND
+
+By THOMAS DAVIDSON
+
+(1239-1307)
+
+
+Edward I., King of England, was the elder of the two sons of Henry
+III., by his queen, Eleanor, daughter of Count Raymond Berenger of
+Provence, and was born at Westminster, June 17, 1239. His name was
+given him by his father out of reverence for the memory of Edward the
+Confessor, and in its English sound, as well as in the honest English
+temper, no less than the yellow hair and stalwart figure with which
+the young prince grew up, Englishmen might well have read the promise,
+that once more, after two hundred years, England would be ruled by a
+native English king. Edward was brought up at Windsor, was given by
+his father in 1252 the government of Gascony, and in 1254 married, in
+the monastery of Las Huelgas, Eleanor, sister of Alfonso X. of
+Castile, receiving immediately thereafter from his father Gascony,
+Ireland, and the Welsh march betwixt the Conway and the Dee, where, in
+fighting with the turbulent Welshmen, he learned his first lessons in
+warfare.
+
+[Illustration: Edward I. of England. [TN]]
+
+At the Parliament of Oxford (1258) he took part with his father in his
+contest with his troublesome nobles, but thereafter appears to have at
+first sided with the great Earl Simon de Montfort, the leader of the
+barons or national party, without, however, impairing his own personal
+loyalty and affection for his father, with whom ere long he was
+reconciled. It was his rash eagerness in pursuing an advantage gained
+over the Londoners, who were devoted to the party of Simon, that lost
+the battle of Lewes (1264), one immediate consequence of which was the
+prince's imprisonment as a hostage for his father's pledges.
+Conditions for his liberation, discussed at Simon's famous parliament
+of 1265, were frustrated through Edward's escape by a stratagem from
+Hereford Castle; and at the final battle at Evesham (August 4), where
+Simon recognized in the skilful disposition of his enemy's forces a
+fatal lesson learned from himself, the struggle practically ended with
+the great popular champion's death on the battle-field. Edward gained
+much influence by the wise prudence and moderation with which he
+stamped out the last embers of rebellion.
+
+In 1270 he started, at the instigation of Louis IX. of France, to join
+the last of the Crusades, but when he reached Tunis, found that king
+dead, and the expedition already desperate of success. He went on to
+Acre, and won great renown as a knight, but failed to save the
+Frankish kingdom in the East from its inevitable fate. In June, 1272,
+while sitting alone on his bed, his own strength and energy saved him
+from being murdered by one of the infamous sect of the Assassins.
+Hastily guarding himself with his arms, and receiving a desperate
+wound, from which he afterward suffered much, he tore the knife from
+his assailant's hand, and buried it in his heart. The ancient story
+that his queen Eleanor, who had followed him in his pilgrimage, saved
+his life at the risk of her own by sucking the poison from the wound,
+unfortunately lacks historical support, but fits well with the
+romantic temper of the times, as well as with the deep affection that
+survived throughout life betwixt husband and wife.
+
+Two months later he started for home, and at Capua, in the January of
+1273, heard of his father's death two months before. Meantime he had
+been quietly proclaimed king, and as things went well in England, he
+visited the pope, did homage at Paris for his French provinces, and
+did not return to his kingdom till the August of 1274. At his
+coronation he received the homage of Alexander III. of Scotland for
+his lands in England, but Prince Llewelyn of Wales neglected the
+summons to attend, and only did his homage in 1276, under the combined
+terrors of excommunication and the royal army. Edward at once
+commenced that wise and large policy of domestic consolidation and
+financial as well as legal reform, that has shed such lustre upon the
+reign of the English Justinian, as he has been called, and made it
+almost the most important epoch in the constitutional history of
+England.
+
+His first warfare was with the turbulent and disaffected Welshmen, who
+had profited by the intestine turmoil of the preceding reign, and
+intrigued perpetually with the rebellious nobles of Henry III. for
+their own ends. The forced peace of 1277, and the national
+dissatisfaction at the stringent terms granted by Edward, which was
+not abated by the personal favors he heaped upon the princes Llewelyn
+and his brother David, were but the preludes to the final struggle
+which commenced three years later, and ended in the complete
+suppression of Welsh nationalism, with the defeat and death of
+Llewelyn, near Builth, in Brecknockshire, and the cruel execution of
+David at Shrewsbury, as a traitor, in 1284. By the famous Statute of
+Wales in the same year, the ancient principality was finally annexed
+to the English crown, while English laws and English institutions were
+forced upon the conquered people.
+
+Edward devoted the next year to legislation, then went abroad to
+mediate, without success, in the quarrel between France and Aragon. He
+had soon to return to quell fresh disturbances in Wales, and even in
+England, where the great Statute of Winchester, which had been passed
+in 1285 to place the defence of the country on a really national
+basis, had not yet had time to effect its end. Finding that most of
+his judges had been corrupting justice, he punished them with an iron
+hand, next banished in 1290 all the Jews to the number of over sixteen
+thousand from the kingdom, on the plea of extortionate usury. Earlier
+in the reign he had hanged 280 for money-clipping and forgery.
+
+Just at this time the death of the young Scottish queen, the Maid of
+Norway, whom Edward had caused to be betrothed to his eldest surviving
+son, Edward of Caernarvon, opened up a fatal contest for the Scottish
+crown, which gave Edward his opportunity to assert anew the old but
+somewhat shadowy claim of the English crown to the over-lordship of
+Scotland. The southern half of that composite kingdom was inhabited by
+people of English blood and English institutions; its southeastern
+part, the Lothians, had undoubtedly once formed part of the Anglian
+kingdom of Northumbria; while its southwestern, Strathclyde or
+Scottish Cumbria, the population of which was in great part Celtic,
+had in 945 been given by the English king Edmund I. to Malcolm as a
+fief. The northern portion of the kingdom was purely Celtic in blood,
+and had at no time been subject to English influences, but though the
+reigning family was itself of Celtic origin, its authority hardly
+extended effectively beyond the region inhabited by men of English
+blood. Undoubtedly the Scottish king in 921 chose Edward the Elder "to
+father and to lord," and the right then acknowledged was claimed
+successively by William the Conqueror, Rufus, and other English kings.
+Moreover, from the twelfth century it had been customary for the
+Scottish kings or their sons to receive English earldoms, and do
+homage for them, but it continued to remain somewhat vague whether
+such homage was understood to be extended beyond these earldoms, so as
+to include the Lowland provinces and the whole Scottish kingdom.
+William the Lion, taken prisoner at Alnwick in 1174, for his freedom
+acknowledged the supremacy of Henry II. in the treaty concluded at
+Felaise on December 7; but on his return found his subjects
+ill-disposed to accede to his cowardly submission; and fifteen years
+later the claim founded on this special act of submission was formally
+renounced for a sum of 10,000 merks by Richard I., who was eager to
+raise money for his Crusade. Such was the ill-defined position of this
+ancient controversy, when fate seemed to fling into Edward's hands the
+opportunity of defining it anew with all the clearness dear to his
+legal mind. It was easy for him to secure a recognition of his
+superiority from the selfish and eager candidates for the crown, and
+meantime he secured the Scottish castles, and after a deliberate
+examination of the rival claims, decided in favor of John Baliol, who,
+on his accession, paid homage distinctly for the whole kingdom of
+Scotland. He soon found his position as a vassal-king intolerable,
+betwixt the unruly turbulence of his subjects and the imperious
+demands of his overlord, who allowed appeals to be led from Baliol's
+subjects to himself.
+
+Meantime the ambitious projects of the new King of France, Philip IV.,
+involved Edward in anxieties for the safety of Guienne and his other
+possessions in France. Ere long the high-handed conduct of the French
+king made war necessary, and Edward, with characteristic energy, at
+once began his preparations, and summoned in 1295 an assembly of the
+estates of the realm, which was practically the beginning of the
+modern parliaments.
+
+The ever-increasing exasperation of the Scots at length broke out into
+open warfare in 1296. Edward at once marched northward, captured
+Berwick, and carried his victorious arms as far north as Aberdeen,
+Banff, and Elgin, taking the great castles on the way, formally
+accepted Baliol's surrender of the crown at Montrose, and returned to
+Berwick (August 22), carrying with him the famous coronation-stone
+from Scone, after having subdued the whole kingdom in about five
+months. Here, six days later, he received the fealty of the clergy,
+barons, and gentry of Scotland, whose names fill the thirty-five skins
+of parchment known as the "Ragman Roll."
+
+At length he was at liberty to turn to France, but the great cost of
+his late expenditure had already driven him to make such heavy demands
+upon the revenues of the Church, that the clergy now refused fresh
+subsidies, headed by Archbishop Winchelsea and supported by the bull
+"Clericis Laicos" of Pope Boniface VIII. The king retaliated by
+placing the clergy of the kingdom in outlawry. At the Salisbury
+parliament in February, 1297, the great barons also refused to take
+part in foreign war, while the merchants were exasperated because
+their wool had been seized. A compromise was soon effected with the
+clergy, and a temporary illegal grant for the immediate purposes of
+the war was procured from the nobles and commons who were with him.
+Edward sailed for Flanders, and at Ghent confirmed the Charter with
+such supplementary clauses as were demanded by his refractory nobles,
+thus finally establishing the right of the people themselves to
+determine taxation.
+
+This is only second in importance to Magna Charta itself as a landmark
+in the history of England. The suspicious fears of his people
+compelled Edward to repeat the confirmation at London in 1300, and
+again at Lincoln in 1301--an insult to his honesty which the king
+never forgave, and to which his subsequent banishment of Winchelsea
+was due. In 1303, and again the year after, Edward, in desperate
+straits for money, levied, by agreement with the foreign merchants,
+some new customs--the beginning of import duties, without consent of
+the estates, and collected a _tallage_ from the royal demesne; and
+again, in 1305, he obtained from Clement V. a formal absolution from
+the obligations of 1297. It is true that the first two measures were
+contrary to the spirit rather than the letter of his promise, and that
+he never sought to avail himself of the dangerous power granted him by
+the papal absolution, yet these three facts, says Bishop Stubbs,
+"remain on record as illustrations of Edward's chief weakness, the
+legal captiousness, which was the one drawback on his greatness."
+
+It was the dangerous aspect of affairs in Scotland that forced the
+king to submit so easily to the demands of his barons. Already, in the
+spring of 1297, Wallace, without any countenance from the Scottish
+nobility, had commenced a guerilla warfare, and his handful of
+desperate men soon increased into an army, which completely defeated
+Earl Warenne and Cressingham at Cambuskenneth (Stirling Bridge), in
+September, 1297, and ravaged England, with the most atrocious
+cruelties, from Newcastle to Carlisle. Edward's expedition to Flanders
+had been a failure, but he hastened to conclude a truce, so as to find
+time to chastise the Scots, cementing it by his betrothal to Philip's
+sister Margaret. The good Queen Eleanor had been already dead nine
+years.
+
+Meantime, Wallace's success had merely earned him the bitter jealousy
+of the Scottish nobles, and his power was finally broken in the
+disastrous defeat by Edward's army at Falkirk in July, 1298. The king
+had two of his ribs broken by a kick from his horse on the morning of
+the battle, but rode throughout the day as if unhurt. The struggle
+lingered on some years under various leaders, as Edward found his
+energy paralyzed the while by the intrigues of Philip, and the
+constitutional struggle with his barons. Pope Boniface, in 1301, put
+forth a claim to the over-lordship of Scotland, which was repudiated
+by the whole body of the estates at Lincoln. It was not till the June
+of 1303 that the king was able to resume his conquest. Accompanied by
+a fleet carrying his supplies, he penetrated again into the far North,
+tarried a while in Dunfermline, and settled the kingdom after the
+reduction of Stirling, the last place of strength that held out. In
+1305 Wallace was betrayed into his hands, sent to London, and cruelly
+executed as a traitor. The fate of this noble-hearted patriot is a
+fatal blot upon his conqueror's memory, but it should not be forgotten
+that Edward was profoundly convinced of the legality of his own claims
+over Scotland, and that Wallace to him was merely a pestilent rebel,
+who had earned his doom by treason to his lord and by the cruelties he
+had inflicted upon Englishmen. The same year the king prepared a new
+constitution for the conquered kingdom, divided it into sheriffdoms
+like the English counties, and made arrangements for the
+representation of the Scots in the English parliament--a measure
+which, had it been successful, might have anticipated by four
+centuries the benefits of the union.
+
+It might now have been expected that Scotland was effectively subdued,
+but ere long Robert Bruce, who had hitherto played a dubious game,
+raised a revolt in the beginning of 1306, got rid of the regent Comyn,
+his most serious rival, by a foul murder in Dumfries church, was
+crowned king at Scone, and kept up an incessant but varying struggle
+during the winter of 1306 and the spring of 1307. The treachery of
+those who had sworn fealty to him, and whom he had trusted implicitly,
+roused Edward to the pitch of exasperation, and at the knighting of
+Prince Edward at Westminster, he swore a solemn vow to be revenged
+upon Bruce. He at once despatched a force to Scotland, and though now
+old and infirm, began preparations for his fourth expedition; but he
+was attacked with dysentery on the march, and his malady increased so
+much upon him that he died on the 7th of July, 1307, at
+Burgh-on-Sands, near Carlisle, within sight of Scotland, leaving for
+his son Edward the dying command not to bury his body till he had
+utterly subdued the Scots, but to carry his bones with the army until
+the victory was complete. Eleven days later the young prince reached
+Carlisle, but returned a few weeks after to London, and buried his
+father's body in Westminster, where it still rests under a slab, with
+the simple but truly descriptive inscription: "Eduardus primus,
+Scotorum malleus, hic est."
+
+
+
+
+EDWARD III. OF ENGLAND
+
+(1312-1377)
+
+
+Edward III., King of England, the eldest son of Edward II. and of
+Isabella, was born at Windsor, November 13, 1312. He was appointed
+guardian of the kingdom, October 26, 1326, and received the crown
+February 1, 1327. On January 24, 1328, he was married to Philippa,
+daughter of the Count of Hainault. During his minority the government
+of the kingdom was intrusted to a body of guardians with Henry of
+Lancaster at their head, but was virtually usurped by Roger Mortimer,
+until the king, irritated by his arrogance, caused him to be seized at
+Nottingham on October 15, 1330, and conveyed to the Tower. He was
+executed at Tyburn on November 29.
+
+[Illustration: Edward III. of England. [TN]]
+
+The overthrow of Mortimer made Edward, at the age of eighteen, a king
+in fact as well as in name. In person he was graceful; and his face
+was 'as the face of a god.' His manners were courtly and his voice
+winning. He was strong and active, and loved hunting, hawking, the
+practice of knightly exercises, and, above all, war itself.
+Considerable care must have been spent on his education, for he
+certainly spoke English as well as French, and evidently understood
+German. He was fearless in battle, and, though over-fond of pleasure
+was, until his later years, energetic in all his undertakings.
+Although according to modern notions his ambition is to be reckoned a
+grave defect in his character, it seemed in his day a kingly quality.
+Nor were his wars undertaken without cause, or indeed, according to
+the ideas of the time, without ample justification. His attempts to
+bring Scotland under his power were at first merely a continuation of
+an inherited policy that it would have been held shameful to
+repudiate, and later were forced upon him by the alliance between that
+country and France. And the French War was in the first instance
+provoked by the aggressions of Philip, though Edward's assumption of
+the title of King of France, a measure of political expediency,
+rendered peace impossible. He was liberal in his gifts, magnificent in
+his doings, profuse in his expenditure, and, though not boastful,
+inordinately ostentatious. No sense of duty beyond what was then held
+to become a knight influenced his conduct. Although the early glories
+of his reign were greeted with applause, he never won the love of his
+people; they groaned under the effects of his extravagance, and fled
+at his coming lest his officers should seize their goods. His
+commercial policy was enlightened, and has won him the title of the
+"father of English commerce" but it was mainly inspired by selfish
+motives, and he never scrupled to sacrifice the interests of the
+English merchants, to obtain a supply of money or secure an ally. In
+foreign politics he showed genius; his alliances were well devised and
+skilfully obtained, but he seems to have expected more from his allies
+than they were likely to do for him, for England still stood so far
+apart from continental affairs, that her alliance was not of much
+practical importance, except commercially. As a leader in war Edward
+could order a battle and inspire his army with his own confidence, but
+he could not plan a campaign; he was rash, and left too much to
+chance. During the first part of his reign he paid much attention to
+naval administration; he successfully asserted the maritime supremacy
+of the country, and was entitled by parliament the "king of the sea;"
+he neglected the navy in his later years. Little as the nation owed
+him in other respects, his achievements by sea and land made the
+English name respected.
+
+It is said to have been chiefly through Mortimer's influence that, on
+April 24, 1328, a peace was concluded between England and Scotland,
+the chief provisions of which were that the Scots agreed to pay the
+sum of L20,000, and that Edward agreed to recognize the independence
+of the Scotch crown.
+
+The treaty was very unpopular in England, and it is not surprising,
+therefore, that, when Edward Baliol in 1332 made his attempt to mount
+the Scotch throne, Edward III. gave him indirect assistance, and that
+after Baliol's dethronement in 1333 an invasion of Scotland was
+resolved on. On July 19 Edward defeated the Scots at the battle of
+Halidon Hill. His army was in great danger, and was hemmed in by the
+sea, the Tweed, the garrison of Berwick, and the Scottish host, which
+far outnumbered the English. On the 20th he drew up his men in four
+battles, placing his archers on the wings of each; all fought on foot,
+and he himself in the van. The English archers began the fight; the
+Scots fell in great numbers, and others fled, the rest charged up the
+hill and engaged the enemy hand to hand. They were defeated with
+tremendous loss; many nobles were slain, and it was commonly said in
+England that the war was over, for that there was not a Scot left to
+raise a force or lead it to battle. Edward ordered a general
+thanksgiving for this victory. Receiving as the result of his victory
+the submission of the principal Scotch nobles, he annexed the whole of
+Scotland south of the Forth to his own crown, and allowed Baliol to
+reign over the remainder as titular king. Soon after, Baliol was again
+a fugitive, but was again aided by Edward to mount a nominal throne.
+
+After a short period of peace Edward, in July, 1336, ravaged and
+burned Scotland as far as Aberdeen, but growing complications with
+France compelled him in the same year to return to England. Though he
+professed to have a claim, through his mother, on the French throne
+against Philip of Valois, that claim was left in abeyance until
+several acts of aggression on the part of Philip brought about a
+rupture between the two kings. The Count of Flanders, at Philip's
+instigation, had broken off commercial relations with England; French
+privateers were daily committing ravages on English commerce;
+Aquitaine was continually threatened by desultory attacks; and Philip,
+though he hesitated to accept the responsibility of being the first to
+declare war, scarcely attempted to conceal his endeavors to throw that
+responsibility on Edward. Edward sailed for Flanders July 16, 1338,
+and at Coblentz held a conference with the Emperor Louis V., at which
+the latter appointed him his vicar-general, and gave orders for all
+the princes of the Low Countries to follow him in war for the space of
+seven years. In 1339 Edward laid siege to Cambrai, but soon afterward
+raised the siege and invaded France. Philip advanced to meet him, but
+declined battle, and Edward concluded his first campaign without
+achieving anything to compensate him for its cost.
+
+In 1340 he defeated the French fleet before Sluys. The French fleet of
+one hundred and ninety galleys and great barges was superior to his
+in strength, for many of his ships were small. Nineteen of their ships
+were the biggest that had ever been seen, and grandest of all was the
+Christopher that had been taken from the English. Edward's fleet seems
+to have been "to the leeward and westward" of the enemy, and about
+noon he ordered his ships to sail on the starboard tack, so as to get
+the wind which presumably was north-east, and avoid having the sun in
+the faces of the archers. Then, having made their tack and got the
+wind, his ships entered the port and engaged just inside it. The
+French ships seem to have hugged the shore, and could not manoeuvre,
+for they were lashed together in four lines. All in three of the lines
+were taken or sunk, the Christopher and other English ships being
+retaken; the fourth line escaped in the darkness, for the battle
+lasted into the night. The king's victory was complete, and the naval
+power of France was destroyed.
+
+Shortly after his return to England a great tournament was held by him
+at Windsor in memory of King Arthur. In 1346 he set sail on the
+expedition which resulted in the great victory of Crecy[15] and the
+capture of Calais. It was a strong place, and the inhabitants had done
+much harm to the English and Flemings by their piracies. He built a
+regular town before the walls, sent for a fleet to blockade the
+harbor, and laid siege to the town with about thirty thousand men.
+Meanwhile the Scots, who at Philip's instance had invaded England,
+were routed at Neville's Cross, Durham, on October 17, and King David
+was taken prisoner and confined in the Tower. In April some stores
+were brought into Calais by sea, and after this Edward ordered a
+stricter blockade; his fleet dispersed a convoy of forty-four ships
+laden with provisions on June 25, and the next day a letter was
+intercepted from the governor to the French king informing him of the
+starving condition of the garrison, and asking for relief. Edward sent
+the letter on to Philip, bidding him come to the relief of the town.
+In July Philip led an army toward Calais. A portion of it sent to
+dislodge the Flemings, who were acting with Edward at Quesnoy was
+defeated. He appeared at Sangatte on the 27th. He was unable to get at
+the English who were securely posted behind the marshes, and
+challenged Edward to come out to battle. It is said that Edward
+declared that he accepted the challenge; but it is probable that he
+answered more wisely. Anyway, two days later, on August 2, the French
+decamped. The next day the town surrendered at discretion. The
+garrison came forth with swords reversed, and a deputation of the
+townsmen with bare heads and ropes about their necks, prostrated
+themselves before Edward, offering him the keys of the city. He at
+first intended, or made as though he intended, to put the inhabitants
+to the sword as a punishment for their piracies, but spared them at
+the intercession of his queen. During the summer his army suffered
+much sickness, arising from lack of good water. With some few
+exceptions he banished the people of Calais; and sent over to England
+offering grants and privileges to those who would colonize the town.
+After agreeing to a truce for nine months, he returned home with his
+wife and son, and after a stormy passage, landed at Sandwich on
+October 12. All England was filled with the spoils of Edward's
+expedition, so that there was not a woman who did not wear some
+ornament, or have in her house fine linen or some goblet, part of the
+booty the king sent home from Caen or brought back from Calais.
+
+         [Footnote 15: See Edward the Black Prince for this battle, as
+         also for the great sea-fight with the Spaniards.]
+
+One more great sea-fight there was in 1349, when the Spanish fleet was
+defeated, and now, indeed, the English were masters of the sea. From
+this time Edward, as a warrior, retires somewhat into the background,
+his place being taken by the Prince of Wales, who in 1356 won the
+battle of Poitiers, and took King John prisoner. In 1359 Edward again
+invaded France, and in 1360 he signed the peace of Bretigny, according
+to which the French agreed to pay for King John a ransom of three
+million crowns, and Edward renounced his title to the throne of
+France, but retained his full sovereignty over the whole of the
+ancient duchy of Aquitaine, the counties of Ponthieu and Guignes, and
+the town of Calais. Peace was again broken in 1369 by Charles of
+France, and when he concluded a truce with England in 1375 all of
+France that remained in Edward's hands was Bayonne and Bordeaux in the
+south, and Calais in the north. The last years of Edward's reign form
+a sad and gloomy close to a career which had had a vigorous and
+energetic commencement, and had afterward been rendered illustrious by
+great achievements. His empire in France was virtually overthrown; the
+vast expenditure which had had such a fruitless result was sorely
+burdening his subjects, and awakening increasing discontent; and he
+himself, through the gradual decay of his mental faculties, had become
+a mere tool in the hands of Anne Travers, and of ministers whose only
+aim was their own aggrandizement. In 1367 the "Good Parliament"
+virtually seized the helm of the state from the hands of the king and
+his ministers. The Black Prince was the chief agent in urging these
+reforms, but his death, in the midst of the Parliament's
+deliberations, for a time rendered almost abortive the good work he
+had begun. Edward died June 21, 1377. Both in his home and foreign
+relations he showed considerable prudence and sagacity, and he may be
+allowed the merit of having endeavored as much as possible to keep on
+good terms with his subjects. His expeditions were planned on a scale
+of great magnificence, but he entered on his campaigns without any
+definite aim, and his splendid victories were mere isolated
+achievements, won partly by good fortune, but chiefly by the valor of
+Welsh and Irish yeomen and the skill of English archers.
+
+It has been observed, in regard to Edward III., by Sir James
+Mackintosh, that "though his victories left few lasting acquisitions,
+yet they surrounded the name of his country with a lustre which
+produced strength and safety; which perhaps also gave a loftier tone
+to the feelings of England, and a more vigorous activity to her
+faculties."
+
+[Illustration: Edward III. and the burghers of Calais.]
+
+"During a reign of fifty years," it is added, "Edward III. issued
+writs of summons, which are extant to this day, to assemble seventy
+parliaments or great councils: he thus engaged the pride and passions
+of the parliament and the people so deeply in support of his projects
+of aggrandizement, that they became his zealous and enthusiastic
+followers. His ambition was caught by the nation, and men of the
+humblest station became proud of his brilliant victories. To form and
+keep up this state of public temper was the mainspring of his domestic
+administration, and satisfactorily explains the internal tranquillity
+of England during the forty years of his effective reign. It was the
+natural consequence of so long and watchful a pursuit of popularity
+that most grievances were redressed as soon as felt, that
+parliamentary authority was yearly strengthened by exercise, and that
+the minds of the turbulent barons were exclusively turned toward a
+share in their sovereign's glory. Quiet at home was partly the fruit
+of fame abroad."
+
+
+
+
+EDWARD THE BLACK PRINCE
+
+By L. DRAKE
+
+(1330-1376)
+
+[Illustration: The black Prince's seal. [TN]]
+
+
+Edward, Prince of Wales, commonly called the Black Prince, was born in
+1330. He was the eldest son of Edward III., and a model of the highest
+virtues of his times, a loyal son, and a brave, yet merciful, warrior.
+He sailed with his father to attack the French in 1346, and though
+only sixteen was knighted by the king immediately on reaching France.
+He "made a right good beginning," for he rode with a small force on a
+daring foray, and then distinguished himself at the taking of Caen and
+in the engagement with the force under Gondemar du Fay, which
+endeavored to prevent the English army from crossing the Somme. King
+Edward and his small army compelled to face a far larger French force,
+made some of the most daring and successful marches on record in the
+annals of warfare.
+
+At length they encamped in a forest, a little to the west of the small
+town of Crecy. The French army, outnumbering them some say as four,
+some say as twelve to one, was not far distant; but, confident in his
+troops and himself, and animated by the memory of many triumphs, the
+English king resolved to make a stand. The field of Crecy, from the
+capabilities of the ground, was made choice of for the expected
+battle; and the plan being drawn out by Edward and his counsellors,
+the king, as the greatest and most chivalrous favor he could confer,
+determined to yield the place of danger and of honor to the prince,
+and in his own words, "to let the day be his."
+
+To insure his success, most of the famous knights were placed in the
+division which the Black Prince (as he was now called, from the sable
+suit of armor he usually wore) was to command; while the Earl of
+Warwick and the celebrated Sir John Chandos were ordered not to quit
+his side, but be ever ready to direct and aid him.
+
+Early on the morning of August 26, 1346, the trumpets sounded, and the
+army marched to take up the position which had been selected on the
+previous day. The ground was an irregular slope, looking toward the
+south and east--the quarters from which the army were expected. The
+prince's division, composed of 800 men-at-arms, 4,000 archers, and
+6,000 Welsh foot, was stationed nearly at the bottom of the hill; the
+archers, as usual, in front, the light troops next, and then the
+men-at-arms, in the midst of whom was the prince himself, with twelve
+earls and lords, as his staff. To the left of this, and higher on the
+slope, appeared the second division, of about 7,000 men, commanded by
+the Earls of Arundel and Northampton. On a rising ground, surmounted
+by a windmill, aloof from the rest, was King Edward himself, with
+12,000 men, as a reserve. The wagons and baggage were in the rear of
+the prince, under the charge of a small body of archers. As the battle
+was to be fought entirely on foot, all the horses were also left with
+these.
+
+Mounted on a palfrey, with a white staff in his hand, the king, with a
+smiling and cheerful countenance, rode from rank to rank. By noon he
+had passed through all the lines exhorting the men to do their duty
+gallantly, and defend his honor and right.
+
+The soldiers now had permission to refresh themselves, while waiting
+the enemy's approach. They accordingly ate and drank at ease, and
+afterward lay down in ranks on the long grass, with their bows and
+steel caps beside them.
+
+Meantime the French army had approached very near. Four knights had
+ridden forward, and observed King Edward's plan of battle; when,
+having seen how fresh and vigorous the English troops appeared, they
+advised Philip, the French king, to delay the engagement till next
+day, by which time his troops, now hungry and wearied, would be
+refreshed. Philip at once saw the wisdom of this counsel, and one of
+his marshals immediately galloped to the front, and the other to the
+rear.
+
+"Halt your banners, in the name of God, the king, and St. Denis!" was
+the command given to the leaders. The advanced troops instantly
+obeyed; but the others pressed on, hoping to be among the foremost.
+This obliged the soldiers in front to move on again. In vain the king
+commanded, and the marshals threatened; hurrying forward in
+disgraceful confusion, the French, passing through a small wood,
+suddenly found themselves in the presence of the English. The surprise
+caused the first line to fall back, and thus increase the confusion.
+
+The English soldiers now rose steadily from the grass, and stood in
+fair and martial order on the hillside, with the standard of the Black
+Prince in their front.
+
+The sky had by this time become clouded; a thunder-storm came on, and
+torrents of rain soon fell--slackening the strings of the cross-bows
+of the Genoese archers, who had advanced to break the firm front of
+the English bowmen. The clouds cleared quickly away, and the western
+sun soon shone out bright and clear, full in the faces of the French.
+At the moment the Genoese drew their arbalists, and commenced their
+discharge, each English archer stepped forward a single pace, as he
+took his bow from the case in which it had been protected from the
+rain; and a flight of arrows fell among the Genoese, piercing their
+heads, arms, and faces, and causing them instantly to retreat in
+confusion among the horsemen in their rear.
+
+The passionate French king, instead of trying to rally the fugitives,
+at once ordered the men-at-arms to fall upon them. The cavalry, the
+heavy troops, and the cross-bow men, soon formed a wild and reeling
+crowd, amid which the English poured a continued flight of unerring
+arrows, and not a single bowstring was drawn in vain.
+
+Meantime the Count of Alencon, dividing his men into two parties,
+swept round on one side of this scene of confusion; while the Count of
+Flanders did the same on the other side, and, avoiding the archers,
+furiously attacked the men-at-arms around the prince. England's
+chivalry, headed by the gallant boy, met the impetuous charge with
+equal valor and with greater success; and as each headlong effort of
+the French deranged the ranks for a moment, they were formed anew,
+each man fighting where he stood, none quitting his place to make a
+prisoner, while growing piles of dead told of their courage and vigor.
+The two counts were slain, and terror began to spread through their
+troops. A large body of German cavalry now bore down on the prince's
+archers, and, in spite of the terrible flight of arrows, cut their way
+through, and charged the men-at-arms. By this time nearly forty
+thousand men were pressing round the little English phalanx; but the
+combat was renewed, hand to hand, with more energy than ever, while
+the Earls of Northampton and Arundel moved up with their division, to
+repel the tremendous attack.
+
+King Edward still remained with his powerful reserve, viewing the
+battle from the windmill above. The Earl of Warwick now called a
+knight, named Thomas of Norwich, and despatched him to the king.
+
+"Sir Thomas," demanded Edward, "is my son killed, or overthrown, or
+wounded beyond help?"
+
+"Not so, my liege," answered the knight; "yet he is in a rude shock of
+arms, and much does he need your aid."
+
+"Go back, Sir Thomas, to those who sent you," rejoined the king, "and
+tell them from me, that whatever happens, to require no aid from me,
+so long as my son is in life. Tell them, also, that I command them to
+let the boy win his spurs; for, God willing, the day shall be his, and
+the honor shall rest with him, and those into whose charge I have
+given him."
+
+The prince, and those around him, seemed inspired with fresh courage
+by this message; and efforts surpassing all that had preceded were
+made by the English soldiers. The French men-at-arms, as they still
+dashed down on the ranks, met the same fate as their predecessors;
+and, hurled wounded from their dying horses, were thrust through by
+the short lances of the half-armed Welshmen, who rushed hither and
+thither through the midst of the fight. Charles of Luxembourg, who led
+the German cavalry, seeing his banner down, his friends slain, his
+troops routed, and himself wounded severely in three places, fled,
+casting off his rich surcoat, to avoid recognition.
+
+This prince's father, the veteran King of Bohemia, was seated on
+horseback at a little distance from the fight. The old man had fought
+in almost every quarter of Europe; but, though still full of valor, he
+was now blind. Unable himself to mark the progress of the fight, he
+continued to inquire anxiously, and soon discovered that the day was
+lost.
+
+"My son," demanded the veteran monarch of his attendants; "my
+son!--can you still see my son?"
+
+"The King of the Romans is not in sight, sire," was the reply; "but
+doubtless he is somewhere engaged in the _melee_."
+
+"Lords," continued the old king,--drawing his own conclusions from
+what he heard, and resolved not to quit the field alive--"Lords, you
+are my vassals, my friends, and my companions; and on this day, I
+command and beseech you to lead me forward so far that I may deal one
+blow of my sword in the battle."
+
+They linked their horses' bridles to one another, and placing their
+venerable lord in the centre, galloped down into the field. Entering
+the thickest strife, they advanced directly against the Prince of
+Wales. Here the blind monarch was seen fighting valiantly for some
+time; but at length his banner went down. Next day he was found dead
+on the field of Crecy--his friends around him--their horses still
+linked to each other by the bridles.
+
+It was growing dark ere the angry Philip could force his way through
+the confusion he had himself chiefly caused by the imprudent command
+he gave at the commencement of the battle. The unremitting arrows of
+the English still continued to pour like hail; and his followers fell
+thickly around him. Many fled, leaving him to his fate; and presently
+his own horse was killed by an arrow.
+
+One of his attendants, John of Hainault, who had remained by his side
+the whole day, mounted him on one of his own chargers, and entreated
+him to quit the field. Philip refused; and, making his way into the
+thickest battle, fought for some time with great courage. At
+length--his troops almost annihilated, himself wounded in two
+places--he suffered John to half force him from the field; and, with a
+few of his lords, and only sixty men-at-arms, reached his nearest
+castle of Broye in safety. At midnight he again set out, and did not
+slacken his flight till he reached Amiens.
+
+The gallant Prince of Wales still held his station firmly in the
+battle; the utmost efforts of the French had not made him yield a
+single step. By degrees, as night fell, the assailants decreased in
+numbers, the banners disappeared, and the shouts of the knights and
+the clang of arms died away. Silence at last crept over the field, and
+told that victory was completed by the flight of the enemy. Torches
+were then lighted, in immense numbers, along the English lines to
+dispel the darkness.
+
+King Edward now first quitted his station on the hill; he hastily
+sought his conquering boy, and clasped him proudly to his bosom.
+
+"God give you perseverance in your course, my child!" cried the king,
+as he still held him. "You are indeed my son! Nobly have you acquitted
+yourself, and worthy are you of the place you hold!"
+
+The youthful hero had hitherto, in the excitement and energy of the
+battle, felt only the necessity of immense exertion, and had been
+unmindful of all but the immediate efforts of the moment; but now, the
+thought of his great victory--which his father's praise seemed first
+to bring fully to his mind--overcame him, and he sank on his knees
+before the king, and entreated his blessing, after a day of such glory
+and peril. And thus ended the battle of Crecy.
+
+The prince had now fully established his character as a warrior. Two
+or three years afterward, he showed that he could display equal
+courage at sea as on land; this was in an engagement with the
+Spaniards.
+
+Peter the Cruel--as he was termed--was at that time King of Castile,
+and encouraged, to a great extent, the pirates who infested the
+English seas. His own fleet even, in passing through the British
+Channel, had captured a number of English merchantmen, returning from
+Bordeaux, and after putting into Sluys, were preparing to sail back in
+triumph with the prizes and merchandise.
+
+King Edward determined to oppose their return, and collected his fleet
+off the coast of Sussex, near Winchelsea. When he heard that the
+Spaniards were about putting to sea, he immediately embarked to
+command the expedition in person. The Black Prince, now in his
+twentieth year, accompanied him, and commanded one of the largest
+vessels. The day on which the Spanish fleet would make its appearance
+had been nicely calculated. Edward waited impatiently for its
+approach, and, to beguile the time, made the musicians play an air
+which the famous Chandos, who was now with him, had brought from
+Germany. During the concert, the king, from time to time, turned his
+eye to the watcher at the masthead. In a short time the music was
+interrupted by the cry of--"A sail!" Ordering wine to be brought,
+Edward drank one cup with his knights, and, throwing off the cap he
+had worn till now, put on his casque, and closed his visor for the
+day.
+
+The Spanish ships came on in gallant trim. The number of fighting men
+which they contained was, compared with the English, as ten to one;
+and their vessels were of a much greater size. They had also large
+wooden towers on board, filled with cross-bowmen, and were further
+provided with immense bars of iron, with which to sink the ships of
+their opponents. They approached, with their tops filled with
+cross-bowmen and engineers, the decks covered with men-at-arms, and
+with the banners and pennons of different knights and commanders
+flying from every mast. They came up, in order of battle, a few hours
+before night. King Edward immediately steered direct against a large
+Spanish ship; endeavoring, according to the custom of ancient naval
+warfare, to run her down with his prow. The vessel, which was much
+superior to his own in magnitude, withstood the tremendous shock--both
+ships recoiling from each other. The king now found his ship had
+sprung a leak, and was sinking fast. In the confusion the Spanish
+vessel passed on; but Edward immediately ordering his ship to be
+lashed to another of the enemy, after a desperate struggle, made
+himself master of a sound vessel.
+
+The battle now raged on all sides. Showers of bolts and quarrels from
+the cross-bows, and immense stones, hurled by powerful engines, were
+poured upon the English. The Black Prince, imitating the example of
+his father, had fixed on one of the largest ships of the enemy; but,
+while steering toward her, the missiles she discharged pierced his own
+vessel in several places. The speedy capture of his enemy was now
+necessary; for, as he came alongside, his barque was absolutely
+sinking. The sides of his opponent's vessel being much higher than his
+own rendered the attempt very hazardous; and while, sword in hand, he
+attempted to force his way, bolts and arrows poured on his head from
+every quarter. The Earl of Lancaster, sweeping by to engage one of the
+enemy, saw the situation of the prince, and immediately dashed to the
+other side of the antagonist, and after a fierce but short struggle,
+the Spanish ship remained in the hands of the prince; and scarcely had
+he and his crew left their own vessel, before she filled and went
+down.
+
+Twenty-four of the enemy's ships had by this time been captured; the
+rest were sunk, or in full flight; and, night having fallen, King
+Edward measured back the short distance to the shore. Father and son,
+then mounting horse, rode to the Abbey of Winchelsea, where Queen
+Philippa had been left, and soon turned the suspense she had suffered,
+since darkness had hidden the battle from her sight, into joy and
+gratitude.
+
+The French king, Philip, was now dead, and had been succeeded by his
+eldest son John. Some proceedings, on the part of the new monarch,
+were regarded as a signal to break the truce which had subsisted for a
+short time between the English and the French. Various displays of
+hostilities followed, and many negotiations were entered into without
+success. The Black Prince, being appointed captain-general, sailed for
+Bordeaux in August, 1355, and arrived there after an easy passage. His
+first movements were always successful; and, even when winter set in,
+the judicious manner in which he employed his troops enabled him to
+add five fortified towns and seventeen castles to the English
+possessions.
+
+Spring and summer passed by--the prince still continuing active. At
+length, the French king collected an immense army, and marched to
+intercept him. Though well aware that John was endeavoring to cut off
+his retreat, the Black Prince was ignorant of the exact position of
+the French army, until, one day, a small foraging party fell in with a
+troop of three hundred horsemen, who, pursuing the little band across
+some bushes, suddenly found themselves under the banner of the Black
+Prince. After a few blows they surrendered, and from them the prince
+learned that King John was a day's march in advance of him.
+
+A party, despatched to reconnoitre, brought back intelligence that an
+army of eight times his force lay between him and Poitiers. Though
+without fear, the prince felt all the difficulties of his situation;
+yet his simple reply was--"God be our help!--now let us think how we
+may fight them to the best advantage."
+
+A high ground, commanding the country toward Poitiers, defended by the
+hedges of a vineyard, and accessible from the city only by a hollow
+way scarcely wide enough to admit four men abreast, presented to him a
+most defensible position. Here he encamped, and early next morning,
+disposed his troops for battle. He dismounted his whole force; placed
+a body of archers, drawn up in the form of a harrow, in front, the
+men-at-arms behind, and stationed strong bodies of bowmen along the
+hedges, on each side of the hollow way. Thus, while climbing the hill,
+the French would be exposed to the galling flights of arrows, while
+the nature of the ground would further render their superiority in
+numbers of little avail.
+
+The French host now began to advance;--yet, as its ocean of waving
+plumes rolled up the hill, the prince, in the same firm tone which had
+declared the day before, that England should never have to pay his
+ransom, now spoke the hope of victory.
+
+Three hundred chosen horsemen soon reached the narrow way, and,
+putting their horses at full gallop, poured in to charge the harrow of
+archers. The instant they were completely within the banks, the
+English bowmen along the hedges poured a flight of arrows, which threw
+them at once into confusion.
+
+The bodies of the slain men and horses soon blocked up the way; but a
+considerable number, forcing a path through every obstacle, nearly
+approached the first line of archers. A gallant knight, named James
+Audley, with his four squires, rushed against them; and thus, almost
+single-handed, he fought during the whole day, hewing a path through
+the thickest of the foe, until late in the evening; when, covered with
+many wounds, and fainting from loss of blood, he was borne from the
+field.
+
+Meantime the shower of arrows continued to pour death, while the
+English men-at-arms, passing between the lines of the archers, drove
+back the foremost of the enemy, and the hollow soon became one scene
+of carnage. One of Edward's officers, named the Captal de Buch, at the
+same time issued from a woody ravine situated near the foot of the
+hill,--where, with three hundred men-at-arms and three hundred archers
+on horseback, he had lain concealed,--and attacked the flank of one of
+the divisions of the French army, commanded by the Dauphin, as it
+commenced the ascent. This, with the confusion in front, and a rumor
+that part of the army was beaten, carried terror into the rear ranks,
+and vast numbers, who had hardly seen an enemy, galloped madly from
+the field. The arrows discharged by the horse-archers now began to
+tell on the front line of the enemy:--the quick eye of Sir John
+Chandos marked it waver and open.
+
+"Now, sir," he exclaimed, turning to the prince, "ride forward, and
+the day is yours. Let us charge right upon the King of France, for
+there lies the fate of the day. His courage, I know well, will not let
+him fly; but he shall be well encountered."
+
+"On! on! Chandos," replied the prince, "you shall not see me tread one
+step back, but ever in advance. Bear on my banner! God and St. George
+be with us!"
+
+The horses had been kept in readiness; and each man now springing into
+saddle, the army bore down on the enemy with levelled lances, the
+Captal de Buch forcing his way onward to regain the main body. The
+hostile forces met with a terrible shock, while the cries of "Denis
+Mountjoye!" "St. George, Guienne!" mingled with the clashing of steel,
+the shivering of lances, and the sound of the galloping steeds. The
+sight of the conflict struck terror into a body of sixteen thousand
+men, who had not yet drawn a sword. Panic seemed to seize them; and
+these fresh troops, instead of aiding their companions, fled
+disgracefully with their commander, the Duke of Orleans. This probably
+decided the day.
+
+King John was now seen advancing with his reserve, in numbers still
+double the force of the English at the commencement of the battle. He
+saw his nobles flying, but though indignant, felt no alarm; then,
+dismounting with all his men, he led them, battle-axe in hand, against
+the English charge. The black armor of the young leader of the English
+rendered him also conspicuous; and, while the French king did feats of
+valor enough to win twenty battles if courage could have done all, the
+prince was seen raging like a young lion amid the thickest of the
+enemy. Knight to knight, and hand to hand, the battle was now fought.
+The French were driven back, step by step, till John found himself
+nearly at the gates of Poitiers, now shut against him. While, however,
+the oriflamme waved over his head, he would not believe the day lost;
+but, at length it went down, and his hopes fell with it. Surrounded on
+every side by foes eager to make him prisoner, he still wielded his
+battle-axe, clearing at each stroke the space around him and his
+little son, who had accompanied him through the fatal field. A knight
+of Artois, of gigantic height, who had been outlawed and had taken
+service with England, seeing that the monarch's life would be lost if
+he protracted his resistance, suddenly rushed into the circle.
+
+"Yield, sire, yield!" he exclaimed in French.
+
+"Who art thou?" inquired John.
+
+"I am Denis de Mortbec, a poor knight of Artois," answered the outlaw,
+"but now in the service of England, because a banished man from my own
+country."
+
+"Well, I yield me to you," cried the king, giving him in sign of
+surrender, his right gauntlet.
+
+By this time nothing was seen but dead and dying on the field, with
+groups of prisoners, and parties of fugitives escaping over the
+distant country. The prince, by the advice of Chandos, now pitched his
+banner on a high spot; and, while the trumpets sounded a recall to the
+standard he dismounted, and, unbracing his helmet, took a draught of
+wine with the band of knights who had accompanied him throughout the
+arduous day.
+
+The unfortunate French king was soon brought to him by the Earl of
+Warwick and Lord Cobham. The prince received his vanquished adversary
+with deep and touching respect. Bending his knee before John, he
+called for wine, and, with his own hands, presented the cup to the
+unhappy king.
+
+By mid-day the battle was over; but, as the pursuing parties did not
+return till evening, it was only then that the prince learned the
+greatness of his victory. With eight thousand men he had vanquished
+more than sixty thousand, and the captives were double the number of
+the conquerors.
+
+At night a sumptuous entertainment was served in the tent of the Black
+Prince to the King of France and the principal prisoners. John, his
+son, and six of his chief nobles, were seated at a table raised higher
+than the rest; but no place was reserved for the prince himself. Great
+was the surprise when the victor appeared to officiate as page. This
+in the days of chivalry implied no degradation, though it showed the
+generous humility of the young hero. John repeatedly entreated the
+prince to seat himself beside him, and could scarcely be persuaded to
+taste the food while his vanquisher remained standing, or handed him
+the cup on bended knee. The respectful manner in which the prince
+conducted himself, and the feeling he expressed for the misfortunes of
+his foe, so touched John, that at last the tears burst from his eyes,
+and mingled with the marks of blood on his checks.
+
+The example of their leader was followed throughout the English camp;
+every one treating his prisoners as friends, and admitting them to
+ransom on terms named, in most cases, by the vanquished themselves.
+
+After this event the prince again distinguished himself in France, for
+the claims of his father, which the treaty had in part recognized,
+were again disputed. Many battles were fought, and much negotiation
+was carried on, extending over several years; while in the midst of
+these harassments, the prince, who had long been ill, became worse.
+His surgeons advised his return to England. He complied; but day after
+day his strength failed him, and fainting fits of long continuance
+often led those around him to suppose him dead. At length, on Sunday,
+June 8, 1376, he closed a life which for years had been one sad scene
+of suffering. He was interred with due pomp in Canterbury Cathedral,
+his favorite suit of black armor being suspended over his tomb. Thus,
+scarcely past his prime, died "the valiant and gentle Prince of Wales,
+the flower of all chivalry in the world at that time."
+
+
+
+
+BERTRAND DU GUESCLIN
+
+(1314-1380)
+
+[Illustration: Bertrand du Guesclin. [TN]]
+
+
+Bertrand du Guesclin, Constable of France, the most famous French
+warrior of his age, was born of an ancient but undistinguished family,
+at the castle of La Motte-Broon, near Rennes, about 1314. The date is
+doubtful, the authorities varying between 1311 and 1324. The name is
+spelt in various ways in contemporary records, _e.g._, Claquin,
+Klesquin, Guescquin, Glayaquin, etc. The familiar form is found on his
+monument at St. Denis, and in some legal documents of the time. In his
+boyhood Bertrand was a dull learner, spending his time in open-air
+sports and exercises, and could never read or write. He was remarkable
+for ugliness, and was an object of aversion to his parents. He first
+made himself a name as a soldier at the tournament held at Rennes in
+1338 to celebrate the marriage of Charles of Blois with Jeanne de
+Penthievere, at which he unseated the most famous competitors.
+
+But this playing at fighting was not enough for his ambition; and in
+the war which followed between Charles of Blois and John de Montfort,
+for the possession of the Duchy of Brittany, he served his
+apprenticeship as a soldier. As he was not a great baron with a body
+of vassals at his command, he put himself at the head of a band of
+adventurers, and fought on the side of Charles and of France. He
+distinguished himself by a brilliant action at the siege of Vannes in
+1342; and after that he disappears from history for some years. In
+1351, having shortly before been made a knight, he was sent into
+England with the lords of Brittany to treat for the ransom of Charles
+of Blois, who had been defeated and captured by the English in 1347.
+When Rennes was besieged by the Duke of Lancaster, in 1356, Du
+Guesclin forced his way with a handful of men into the town, and
+successfully defended it till June, 1357, when the siege was raised in
+pursuance of the truce of Bordeaux. For this service he was rewarded
+with the lordship of Roche d'Airien.
+
+At the expiration of the truce he distinguished himself by the defence
+of Dinan, and here he engaged in single combat with Sir Thomas
+Canterbury. Shortly afterward he married; and about the same time he
+passed into the service of France, and greatly distinguished himself
+at the siege of Melun (1359). In April, 1364, in conjunction with
+Boucicault, he recovered Mantes and Meulan from the King of Navarre;
+and in May he defeated the Navarrese under Captal de Buch at Cocherel,
+and took their leader prisoner. The king now created him Marshal of
+Normandy and Count of Longueville. At the battle of Auray, in
+September of the same year, Charles of Blois was defeated and killed,
+and Du Guesclin taken prisoner, by Sir John Chandos.
+
+The grand companies beginning, after the close of the war, to play the
+part of brigands in France, it was necessary to get rid of them. Du
+Guesclin was ransomed for 100,000 crowns, and was charged to lead them
+out of France. He marched with them into Spain, visiting Avignon on
+the way, and extorting from the Pope a large sum of money and his
+absolution. Du Guesclin now supported Henry of Trastamare against
+Peter the Cruel, set the former upon the throne of Castile (1366), and
+was made Constable of Castile and Count of Trastamare. In the
+following year he was defeated and captured by the Black Prince, ally
+of Peter the Cruel, at Najara, but was soon released for a heavy
+ransom. Once more he fought for Henry, reinstated him on the throne
+(1369), and was created Duke of Molinas.
+
+[Illustration: Bertrand du Guesclin.]
+
+In May, 1370, at the command of Charles V., who named him Constable of
+France, he returned to France. War had just been declared against
+England, and Du Guesclin was called to take part in it. For nearly ten
+years he was engaged in fighting against the English in the south and
+the west of France, recovering from them the provinces of Poitou,
+Guienne, and Auvergne, and thus powerfully contributing to the
+establishment of a united France. In 1373, when the Duke of Brittany
+sought English aid against a threatened invasion by Charles V., Du
+Guesclin was sent at the head of a powerful army to seize the duchy,
+which he did; and two years later he frustrated, by a defensive
+policy, the attempt of the duke with an English army to recover it.
+Finding, in 1379, that the king entertained suspicions of his fidelity
+to him, he resolved to give up his constable's sword and retire to
+Spain. His resolution was at first proof against remonstrance; but
+ultimately he received back the sword, and continued in the service of
+France.
+
+In 1380 he was sent into Languedoc to suppress disturbances and
+brigandage provoked by the harsh government of the Duke of Anjou. His
+first act was to lay siege to the fortress of Chateauneuf-Randou, held
+by the English, strongly garrisoned and well provisioned. A day was
+fixed conditionally for capitulation. Meanwhile the great warrior was
+smitten with a mortal illness, and died, July 13, 1380. The commander
+led out the garrison and deposited the keys of the castle on the
+coffin of the hero. Du Guesclin lost his first wife in 1371, and
+married a second in 1373. His remains were interred, by order of the
+king, in the church of St Denis.
+
+
+
+
+HENRY V. OF ENGLAND
+
+Extracts from "Memoirs of Great Commanders," by G. P. R. JAMES
+
+(1388-1422)
+
+[Illustration: Ritter's arms. [TN]]
+
+
+Henry, the fifth English monarch of that name, was born at Monmouth,
+on the banks of the pleasant Wye, in the year 1388. He was the eldest
+son of Henry, Earl of Derby, and of Mary de Bohun, daughter of the
+Earl of Hereford. During his infancy reverses and successes passed
+rapidly over his father's head, and at the age of thirteen years he
+found himself the eldest son of the King of England, and was created
+by his father Prince of Wales, Duke of Cornwall, and Earl of Chester.
+The early education of Henry the Fifth is unknown; but it may be
+inferred, that during the life of his mother, principles of high honor
+and virtue had been instilled into his bosom, which became dormant,
+though not extinct, as rising toward manhood, evil companions took
+advantage of idleness and indulgence to call into action the passions
+of the young prince, in order to lead him to their own purposes.
+
+The tales of his debauchery, and the depravity of his taste, while a
+youth, have been doubted and contradicted, but not disproved by modern
+historians; but the positive assertions of older writers, whose means
+of information was great and immediate, must always be more valuable
+than the theoretical doubts of persons who live when a thousand
+sources of knowledge have been buried under the lumber of ages. It is
+therefore more than probable that, in his youth, Henry the Fifth gave
+himself up to low companions, unworthy a prince and a gentleman, and
+yielded to his passions indulgences which were forbidden by his
+reason. Nevertheless, through the whole course of his youthful errors,
+as portrayed by those least favorable in their account, there is to be
+seen the gleaming forth of those better principles, that nobler soul,
+which rendered him in after years one of the greatest and best of
+English monarchs.
+
+Out of a multitude of events which might be brought forward to prove
+this fact, one of the best authenticated, and the most striking, is
+his submission to Chief-justice Gascoigne. Henry, it would appear, had
+entered the Court of Justice in support of one of his dissolute
+companions, who had rendered himself amenable to the laws of his
+country. Notwithstanding the presence and influence of the prince, the
+magistrate did his duty toward the offender, without fear or favor,
+and in the heat of the moment, Henry struck the judge upon the
+judgment-seat. Still unmoved and unruffled, the chief-justice, without
+a hesitation on the score of the prince's rank or power, at once
+committed him for contempt of court.
+
+Time had been given for the better spirit to assume her influence, and
+struck with the conscientious courage of the judge, the heir-apparent
+of the British throne submitted to the punishment he had merited, and
+suffered himself without opposition to be led to prison, thus setting
+a noble example of obedience to the laws. His father was of a mind
+well qualified to appreciate the conduct both of his son and of his
+son's judge, and when the news was brought him--probably by those who
+sought to inflame the monarch's mind against the punisher of his
+son--he exclaimed, with joy: "Blessed is the king whose magistrates
+possess courage to execute the laws upon such an offender; and still
+more happy is he who has for a son a prince willing to endure such
+wholesome chastisement."
+
+Although from all accounts it would appear that many parts of the
+prince's conduct gave great pain and offence to his father, yet we
+find that Henry IV. never scrupled to entrust to his care some of the
+greatest and most important military operations of his reign. Whether
+the prince had already displayed the qualities of a soldier, in a
+degree sufficient to attract the notice of his father, or whether the
+king sought only to habituate him early to that inevitable career of
+arms which was in those days one of the misfortunes of royalty, we are
+not informed; but so early as his sixteenth or seventeenth year he
+fought at the battle of Shrewsbury, in which Henry Hotspur was slain.
+What was the part assigned to the prince on this occasion I do not
+find stated precisely; but all accounts agree that he proved of
+infinite assistance and service to his father, and fought long in the
+thickest of the battle, after having been severely wounded by an arrow
+in the face.
+
+The death of Percy spread dismay among his soldiers and allies, and
+after a fight of nearly four hours the party of Northumberland fled,
+leaving the king master of the field of battle, and a number of noble
+prisoners. Many of these were executed either at Shrewsbury or London;
+and the Earl of Northumberland, the chief support of the rebellion,
+made his peace for the time to meditate his rebellions.
+
+Owen Glendower, however, one of the confederates, was still in arms in
+Wales; and while Henry IV. returned in triumph to London, he
+despatched his eldest son, at the head of considerable forces, to
+reduce the Principality to obedience. The unhappy Glendower, unable to
+oppose the army led against him, was forced to fly, and, abandoned by
+his friends and followers, is said to have died of starvation among
+the caves and wildernesses in which he sought refuge. In the meanwhile
+the Prince of Wales conducted his expedition with skill and wisdom;
+the whole country submitted to his power; and having re-established
+order and tranquillity, he returned to London with honor and praise.
+
+Little further occurs in the history of Henry as Prince of Wales which
+is interesting in itself, if stripped of the embellishments added to
+it by the fancy of our great poet. A project of marriage between the
+heir of the British crown and a daughter of the Duke of Burgundy, was
+entertained for some time, but died away, and the opposite, or Orleans
+party in France, was afterward supported by the English Crown. At
+length Henry the Fourth, on the eve of an expedition to the Holy Land,
+undertaken, it is said, in expiation of his usurpation of the throne,
+was struck with apoplexy; and a tale, in regard to his death, is
+current among the historians of the period, on which Shakespeare has
+founded one of the most beautiful scenes in his historical dramas. The
+poet, however, is far more indebted for the splendor of his materials
+to his own imagination, than any historical record. The facts, as
+related by the best authorities, are simply as follows.
+
+After the first attack of apoplexy the king was carried to a chamber
+in the house of the Abbot of Westminster, and put to bed, and at his
+own desire the crown was laid upon his pillow. He languished in a
+state of great weakness for some time, and at length, after a second
+attack, appeared to those who were watching him to have yielded the
+spirit. The chamberlain immediately spread a linen cloth over the face
+of the king, and hastened to communicate his supposed death to the
+heir-apparent, who, entering the room to take a last look at his
+father's body, removed the crown from his pillow, and carried it into
+another apartment. After a short time the monarch revived, and sending
+for his son demanded, angrily, why he had removed the crown. The
+prince replied that all men had thought him dead, and therefore he had
+taken the symbol of royalty as his by right.
+
+"What right I have to it myself, God knows," replied the king, "and
+how I have enjoyed it."
+
+"Of that," replied the prince, "it is not for me to judge; but if you
+die king, my father, I will have the garland, and will defend it with
+my sword against all enemies as you have done."
+
+Not long after this conversation Henry IV. expired, and his son, the
+Prince of Wales, was immediately proclaimed king by the title of Henry
+V. But his change was not alone in name or station; his vices and his
+follies he cast from him, as an unworthy garment, and assumed with
+royalty a royal mind. The debauched companions of his youth were
+banished from his presence and his counsels, and forbidden to approach
+within ten miles of his dwelling. But at the same time we are assured
+that they were not left in indigence or necessity. Wisdom and virtue
+became the only recommendations which raised any one to his service,
+and those who had proved themselves most worthy, under the government
+of the former monarch, found themselves most readily welcomed by the
+new king.
+
+No sooner was the truce at an end which then existed between France
+and England, than Henry himself proceeded to Southampton to take the
+command of his army in person. The English armament put to sea, and
+notwithstanding great preparations which had been made for defending
+the French coast, Henry landed his troops in safety at the mouth of
+the Seine, and immediately laid siege to Harfleur, at that time the
+principal sea-port of Normandy.
+
+The Dauphin himself advanced to Vernon on the Seine, and the famous
+Marshal Boucicault, one of the most celebrated knights of his time,
+gathered together a large force, and advanced toward the English army.
+
+Nevertheless Henry did not suffer his courage to fail, and the siege
+was continued with unabated vigor. At length the means of defence
+began to fail within the town. Two wagons of powder, which the French
+attempted to introduce, fell into the hands of the English; the walls
+were ruined by the effects of the artillery, and at length the
+governor agreed to surrender, if he remained unrelieved at the end of
+three days. The three days expired without succor, and Harfleur was
+surrendered to the King of England.
+
+     [Here follows a long and glowing account of Henry's retreat in
+     the face of the overwhelming French forces, and of his greatest
+     victory, the famous battle of Agincourt.]
+
+Shortly after his return to England, Henry was visited by Sigismund,
+Emperor of Germany, accompanied by French ambassadors commissioned to
+treat for peace under his mediation. But while Henry continued to
+exact severe terms, the French gave him constant excuses for
+proceeding in the war, by their efforts to recover Harfleur, which,
+however, were constantly defeated by the activity of the English
+monarch and his officers.
+
+[Illustration: Henry V. rejects Falstaff.]
+
+To conquer the former patrimony of the British kings seemed the
+monarch's first object, and in a very short time he made himself
+master of almost all the principal cities of the duchy. Caen, indeed,
+resisted with devoted courage, and, after a severe siege, was taken by
+assault; but the governors of the other fortified places in Normandy,
+divided between the Armagnac and the Burgundian parties, had no
+confidence in their soldiers or each other, and one after another
+submitted to the power of the conqueror. Nor, indeed, did Henry spare
+any means to obtain his purpose in such a bloodless manner. All his
+proclamations announced that those who submitted should be safe in
+person and property; and his address to all the French people holds
+out to them that prospect of peace and protection which had long been
+unknown amongst the dissensions of their nobles. The first person
+of great influence, however, who joined the forces of the English
+king, was the Duke of Brittany; and, though Henry exacted no very
+great exertions from his new ally, the example of such a defection
+from the crown of France was greatly in behalf of the invader. Rouen,
+the capital of Normandy, however, still resolutely closed her gates
+against the English.
+
+The attack and capture of the Pont de l'Arche announced to the people
+of Rouen, and to the King of France, that the war was about to
+approach the gates of the Norman capital, and every exertion was made,
+both by the Burgundian faction, who now held the king in their hands,
+and the burghers of the city itself, to repel the English in the
+attempt. A number of famous knights and commanders were thrown into
+the city, which was, besides, garrisoned by upward of four thousand
+men-at-arms, and fifteen thousand armed citizens, all eager in the
+cause.
+
+Immense efforts were now made by the English to force an entrance, but
+the defences of the place were so strong, and the defenders so
+resolute, that no hope appeared of effecting a practicable breach in
+the walls. Many a sally took place, and many an assault, and many a
+feat of arms was performed between the two armies. But in the
+meanwhile the provisions of the people of the town began to decrease,
+and a smaller and smaller portion of food became the allowance of each
+day. At length the inhabitants, by murmurs and threats, compelled the
+garrison to treat; and, after a long and painful negotiation, Rouen
+capitulated, upon terms which could hardly be called unfavorable, in
+the situation to which its defenders were reduced.
+
+The news of the fall of Rouen had the greatest effect on the rest of
+Normandy, and twenty-seven towns, or castles, immediately made
+submission to the King of England, without even being summoned to
+surrender. Nor was this immediate benefit the only advantage which
+followed from the capture of Rouen. Dismay and doubt spread through
+all France, and thoughts of peace and concession were entertained by
+those who had hitherto breathed nothing but war and defiance to the
+King of England.
+
+Pontoise was almost immediately taken by surprise, Gisors and Chateau
+Gaillard fell after a short siege, and the terrific news of the
+advance of the English reached Paris, and induced the King, the Queen,
+and the Duke of Burgundy to abandon the capital and retire to Troyes.
+
+Henry's ambassadors, according to the desire of the French court, were
+instantly sent to Troyes--where the weak king remained under the
+guidance of his evil wife and her counsellors--and they soon sketched
+out a treaty by which, on marrying the Princess Catharine, the English
+monarch should be declared heir to the crown of France, to the
+exclusion of the Dauphin and his lineage. This hasty treaty was as
+hastily ratified, and Henry, with fifteen thousand men departed from
+Rouen, and marching with all speed to Troyes, put the seal to an
+arrangement which conveyed to him the throne for which he had fought,
+by marrying the daughter of the French monarch. To the first articles
+proposed was now added, at the request of Henry, that the Regency of
+the kingdom, to the government of which Charles was totally
+incompetent, should be entrusted to him, and no sooner was the
+solemnity of his marriage completed, than he instantly took the field
+against the Dauphin, leading the unhappy King of France and his whole
+court against the natural heir to his throne. The town of Sens first
+fell before the arms of England and Burgundy, and immediately after
+siege was laid to Montereau, where the assassination of John the Bold
+had been committed.
+
+Henry also now took upon him the whole executive power of the
+government. The governors of towns, the officers of state, the
+magistrates and the dignitaries, were placed and displaced at his
+pleasure. The currency of the country was altered at his suggestion,
+and his counsels swayed everything in France. However, England was
+still at his heart, and leaving a country that his sword and his
+policy had conquered, as soon as he could do so with any security, he
+carried his beautiful bride to be crowned in London.
+
+The moment, however, that his foot was out of France, his interests in
+that country declined; and the rashness of his officers brought
+confusion and ruin into his affairs. Town after town was taken by the
+Dauphin; and at length the Duke of Clarence, the English monarch's
+brother, with all the chivalry that accompanied him, were defeated at
+Bauge, in Anjou, and the duke himself, as well as three thousand of
+his men, remained dead upon the field. This news, accompanied by the
+further tidings that the Dauphin was advancing to besiege Chartres,
+called upon the king imperatively to return to France; and leaving the
+queen to follow at a future time, Henry set out for Calais accompanied
+by four thousand men-at-arms and twenty-four thousand archers.
+
+His coming gave new courage to the Burgundian faction, and struck fear
+into the followers of the Dauphin. Scarcely pausing at all in the
+capital, the English monarch advanced direct toward Chartres, before
+which the Dauphin had already been encamped three weeks; but long ere
+the English reached the town the gates were free, and the adverse army
+with all speed retreated toward Touraine. Thither the English monarch
+followed, breathing revenge for the death of his brother. Dreux and
+Beaugency-sur-Loire were conquered by the way; but after pursuing the
+Dauphin ineffectually for some time, the scarcity of provisions
+obliged him to return toward Normandy. On his march back, he is said
+to have fallen in with a party of the Armagnac faction, who retreated
+before him into a castle called Rougemont, which was instantly
+assailed and taken by the English. All who were within, the French
+historians assert, to the number of sixty persons, were, by the king's
+order, drowned in the Loire, a fact which accords too well with the
+manners of the time and some parts of the monarch's own character. The
+town of Meaux was the next object of attack, and a long and courageous
+defence was made by the Dauphinois within.
+
+The fall of Meaux, like that of Rouen, brought with it the surrender
+of an immense number of other places, but this was the last great
+military undertaking which Henry conducted in person. From Meaux he
+went direct to Vincennes to meet his queen, who was at this time on
+her journey from Calais, and thence proceeded with the King and Queen
+of France to Paris, where various transactions took place relative to
+the internal policy of the country. The court soon removed thence to
+Senlis, where Henry continued to make his principal abode, till news
+from the banks of the Loire roused him from inactivity.
+
+[Illustration: Arms. [TN]]
+
+The Dauphin, now finding the English monarch removed from his
+immediate neighborhood, again advanced with all the forces he could
+gather, and laid siege to Cone-sur-Loire, then garrisoned by the
+troops of Burgundy. The town, hard pressed, was obliged to treat, and
+agreed to surrender, without the Duke of Burgundy should give battle
+to the Dauphin in its defence, before the sixteenth day of August
+ensuing. The tidings were communicated to the duke by the garrison,
+and at the same time a herald from the Dauphin defied him to the field
+the day named. The duke instantly accepted the challenge, and sent to
+all his allies, as customary on such occasions, begging their aid and
+support in the day of battle. Among the rest he demanded the
+assistance of forces from the King of England, to be led by such of
+his famous leaders as he could well spare. Henry, however, though
+already unwell, declared that he would send no one to the aid of his
+good cousin of Burgundy, but go himself, and, accordingly, commanding
+his brother the Duke of Bedford, to lead his troops from Paris and
+that neighborhood, he himself set out from Senlis on horseback. At
+Melun, however, his sickness had so far increased, that, no longer
+able to sit on his horse, he attempted to proceed on a litter, but at
+length was obliged to turn toward Vincennes, where each day brought
+him nearer to the tomb.
+
+The Duke of Bedford, led the English forces to Cone, from which the
+Dauphin had already retreated, and the English prince returned just in
+time to witness the death of his brother.
+
+Henry already felt his danger, and calling his relations around him,
+made those dispositions which he thought necessary for securing his
+dominions to his child. He then insisted upon his physicians informing
+him how long he had to live, and being told that his life could not
+last much more than two hours, he prepared to meet death with the same
+courage which he had evinced during life. After going through all the
+ceremonial duties of the Catholic religion, he commanded some
+particular psalms to be sung in his chamber, and died very nearly the
+time his physicians had predicted.
+
+Henry V. was a great conqueror, and a wise, prudent, and politic
+prince. His two greatest faults seem to have been ambition and
+cruelty; the first was an inheritance, and the second, perhaps, was
+less an effect of a harsh nature than of hasty passion. We seldom find
+that he committed any deliberate act of barbarity, and those things
+which most stain his name were generally done under feelings of great
+irritation. His conduct to the Earl of March, the heir of Richard II.,
+and the respect he paid to the memory of that unhappy king himself,
+are proofs of a generous nature; and of all his conquests, the
+greatest he ever achieved was the first--that over himself.
+
+
+
+
+JOHN HUNIADES[16]
+
+By PROFESSOR A. VAMBERY
+
+(1388-1456)
+
+         [Footnote 16: Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.]
+
+[Illustration: John Huniades. [TN]]
+
+
+Of his grandfather we do not know even the name; his father was a
+Wallach, a common soldier; yet he himself was the greatest of
+Hungarian heroes, the Grand Marshal, and later on the "Governor" or
+Regent of Hungary; and his son king of that country. At the present
+day, in the age of democracy, such rapid elevation is no such rare
+phenomenon, but in the aristocratic middle ages it was really a
+miracle, one that points to exceptional circumstances and an
+exceptional man.
+
+In Europe at that time the circumstances were indeed exceptional. A
+new power pulsating with youthful life had arrived from somewhere in
+the interior of Asia with the intention of conquering the world. This
+power was the Turk--not merely a single nation, but a whole group of
+peoples clustered round a nation, inspired by one single idea which
+urged them ever forward. "There is no God but God, and Mohammed is the
+Apostle of God."
+
+The Mohammedan flood already beat upon the bounds of Catholic
+Christendom, in the forefront of which stood Hungary. Hungary's king,
+Sigismund, was able for a moment in 1396 to unite the nations of
+Europe against the common danger, but the proud array of mail-clad
+knights were swept away like chaff before the steady ranks of the
+janissaries.
+
+And herewith began the long series of desolating inroads into Hungary,
+for the Turk was wont to suck the blood of the nation he had marked
+down as his prey. He took the country by surprise, secretly, suddenly,
+like a summer storm, appearing in overwhelming numbers, burning,
+murdering, robbing, especially, men in the hopes of a rich ransom, or
+children whom they might bring up as Mohammedans and janissaries. This
+body, the flower of the Turkish armies, owed its origin for the most
+part to the Christian children thus stolen from their parents and
+their country. This infantry of the janissaries was the first standing
+army in Europe. Living constantly together under a common discipline,
+like the inmates of a cloister, they rushed blindly forward to the cry
+of "God and his Prophet" like some splendid, powerful wild beast,
+eager for prey. The Turkish sultans published the proud order:
+"Forward, let us conquer the whole world, wheresoever we tie up our
+horses' heads that land is our own."
+
+To resist such a nation, that would not listen to negotiation, but
+only thirsted for war and conquest, seemed already an impossibility.
+Europe trembled with fear at the reports of the formidable attacks
+designed against her, and listened anxiously for news from distant
+Hungary which lay, so to say, in the lion's very mouth.
+
+Against such an enemy a soldier of the modern type was useless, one
+who slays only in defence of his own life and at the word of command,
+whose force consists in the high development of the military art and
+the murderous instruments of modern technical science. What was wanted
+was an heroic soul, inspired by a burning faith like to that which
+impelled the Mohammedan soldier.
+
+This heroic soul, this burning faith, united to the tenacious energy
+of youth, were all found united in the greatest Hungarian hero, John
+Huniades, accompanied withal by a singular talent for leadership in
+war. He could not rely for support upon the haughty magnates who could
+trace their descent back for centuries and despised the parvenu with a
+shorter pedigree and a smaller estate. He was consequently obliged to
+cast in his lot with the mass of the lesser nobility, individually
+weaker, it is true, but not deficient in spirit and a consciousness of
+their own worth. Of this class he soon became the idolized leader.
+Around him gathered the hitherto latent forces of Hungarian society,
+especially from Transylvania and South Hungary and the Great Hungarian
+Plain (_Alfoeld_), which suffered most from the incursions of the Turks
+and were therefore most impressed with the necessity of organizing a
+system of defence. It was these who were the first to be inspired by
+Huniades' heroic spirit.
+
+Before commencing his career as independent commander he, following
+his father's example, attached himself to the court of Sigismund, the
+Emperor-king, in whose train he visited the countries of Western
+Europe, Germany, England, and Italy, till he at length returned home,
+his mind enriched by experience but with the fervor of his first faith
+unchilled.
+
+He had thus passed the flower of his age when nearly sixty years old,
+he repaired at his sovereign's command to the south of Hungary to
+organize the resistance to the Turks. At first he was appointed Ban of
+Severin, and as such had the chief command of the fortified places
+built by the Hungarians for the defence of the Lower Danube. After
+that he became Voyvode of Transylvania, the civil and military
+governor of the southeastern corner of the Hungarian kingdom.
+
+Before, however, he had reached these dignities he had fought a
+succession of battles and skirmishes with such success that for the
+fanatical Turkish soldiery his form, nay, his very name was an object
+of terror. It was Huniades alone whom they sought to slay on the field
+of battle, well persuaded that he once slain they would easily deal
+with the rest of Hungary. Thus in 1442 a Turkish leader, named Mezid
+Bey, burst into Transylvania at the head of 80,000 men in pursuance of
+the sultan's commands, with no other aim than to take Huniades dead or
+alive.
+
+Nor indeed did Huniades keep them waiting for him. He hurried at the
+head of his troops to attack the Turkish leader who was laying siege
+to Hermannstadt. Upon this Mezid Bey, calling his bravest soldiers
+around him, described to them once more Huniades' appearance, his
+arms, his dress, his stature, and his horse, that they might certainly
+recognize him. "Slay him only," he exclaimed; "and we shall easily
+deal with the rest of them; we shall drive them like a flock of sheep
+into the presence of our august master."
+
+On that occasion was seen with what self-sacrificing enthusiasm his
+soldiers loved their heroic leader. When they learned from their spies
+the purpose of the Turks, they took all possible measures to secure
+his precious life. One of their number, Simon Kemeny, who bore a
+striking resemblance to Huniades, determined to sacrifice himself for
+his leader. He announced that he would put on Huniades' clothes and
+armor. The Turks would then attack him under the belief that he was
+the celebrated chief, and while they were thus engaged the real
+Huniades would fall upon them unexpectedly and put them to flight. At
+first Huniades would by no means consent to this plan, as he did not
+wish to expose Kemeny to such mortal danger; but at last seeing the
+great military advantages likely to accrue from it he consented.
+
+And so indeed it fell out. As soon as the battle began, the Turks,
+perceiving Simon Kemeny in the garb of Huniades, directed all their
+force against him. Kemeny, after a stout defence, fell together with a
+great number of his followers, and the Turks, seeing him fall, set up
+a general cry of triumph and exultation. Just at this critical moment
+they were hotly attacked in the flank by the genuine Huniades. Thus
+attacked in the very moment when they imagined that they had already
+gained the day, the Turks were thrown into confusion and took wildly
+to flight. Twenty thousand corpses were left on the battle-field;
+among them were Mezid Bey himself, together with his sons.
+
+Fearful was the rage of the Turkish sultan when he heard of the defeat
+and death of Mezid Bey, and he at once despatched another army against
+Huniades, which like the first numbered 80,000 men. This time,
+however, Huniades did not let them enter Transylvania, but waited for
+them at the pass, known as the Iron Gate, among the high mountains on
+the southern boundary of Hungary.
+
+The Hungarian army was not more than 15,000 men, so that the Turks
+were at least five times as strong. But the military genius of
+Huniades made up for the small number of his followers. He posted them
+in a strong position in the rough pass, and attacked the enemy in
+places where it was impossible for him to make use of his strength.
+Thus more than half the Turkish army perished miserably in the battle.
+Again their commander-in-chief fell on the field together with six
+subordinate commanders, while two hundred horse-tail standards fell
+into Huniades' hands as trophies of his victory.
+
+These two splendid victories filled all Europe with joy and
+admiration. Christendom again breathed freely; for she felt that a
+champion, sent by a special Providence, had appeared, who had both the
+courage and the ability to meet and to repel the haughty and
+formidable foe. But Huniades was not content with doing so much. He
+thought that by this time he might carry the war into the enemy's
+country. The plan of operations was exceptionally daring, yet Huniades
+had not resolved on it without careful consideration. In the meantime
+through Huniades' exertions, Vladislaus, the young King of Poland, had
+been elected King of Hungary. Huniades gained the new king over to his
+plans, and by this means secured the co-operation of the higher
+aristocracy and the armed bands which they were bound to lead into the
+field at the king's summons. Huniades counted besides on the
+assistance of Europe; in the first place on the Popes, who were
+zealous advocates of the war against the Mohammedans; next on Venice,
+which as the first commercial city and state at that time had suffered
+severe losses owing to the spread of Turkish dominions; on the gallant
+Poles whose king now wore the Hungarian crown; and lastly upon the
+peoples of Christendom in general, whose enthusiasm for a war against
+the infidels had been quickened by the report of Huniades' victories.
+And indeed at his request the Pope sent some small sums of money, the
+Poles furnished an auxiliary force, while numerous volunteers from the
+rest of Europe flocked to serve under his banner. Although the
+assistance thus furnished was comparatively unimportant, it
+nevertheless served to increase his zeal for the daring undertaking.
+He and his heroic companions were not only proud of defending their
+own native country, but felt that they were the champions of all
+Christendom against Ottoman aggression, and their religious enthusiasm
+kept pace with their patriotism. If they did not get regiments sent to
+their aid, they felt that the eyes of all Europe were upon them, ready
+to grieve at their possible ill success, while their victories would
+be celebrated by _Te deums_ in the cathedrals of every capital in
+Europe.
+
+The aggressive campaign was commenced without delay; Huniades'
+resolves were at once translated into fact; he would not allow the
+beaten foe time to recover breath. His plan was to cross the Danube,
+and penetrate through the passes of the Balkan to Philippopolis, at
+that time the capital of the sultan's dominions, where he kept the
+main body of his army. About Christmas, a season in which the Turk
+does not like to fight, amid heavy snow and severe cold, the Hungarian
+army of about thirty thousand men pressed forward. Huniades marched in
+advance with the vanguard of 12,000 picked men; after him the king and
+the Pope's legate, with the rest of the army. The sultan, however,
+with a large body of men had occupied the passes of the Balkans and
+prevented their farther advance. This impediment, coupled with the
+cold and severe weather, depressed the spirits of the troops, worn out
+with fatigue. Huniades, however, raised their spirits by gaining a
+victory; lighting one night upon a body of the enemy, 20,000 in
+number, he attacked them at once and after a few hours' struggle
+succeeded in dispersing them. Later on he took two large towns with
+their citadels; and in three engagements triumphed over three separate
+divisions of the enemy. Learning that a still larger body of Turks was
+attempting to cut off his communications with the king's army he
+attacked that also and put it to flight. After that he joined his
+corps with the main army under the king; and indeed none too soon.
+Sultan Murad suddenly arrived with the main body of his forces, which
+he strongly intrenched in the narrowest passes of the Balkans.
+Huniades saw that these intrenchments could not be forced, and did all
+he could to entice his enemy down into the plain. This he succeeded in
+doing. In the battle that ensued the king too played a conspicuous
+part and received a wound. In the end, however, the Hungarians gained
+the victory, and the younger brother of the Grand Vizier was taken
+prisoner. So much success was sufficient for Huniades for the time,
+especially as the natural obstacles had proved insurmountable. The
+Hungarian army returned home in good order, and the young king made a
+triumphal entry into his capital, preceded by a crowd of Turkish
+prisoners and captured Turkish ensigns. These last trophies of victory
+were deposited in the Coronation Church in the fortress of Buda.
+
+And now something happened which had hitherto been deemed incredible;
+the Sultan sued for peace, a true believer and a sovereign, from an
+unbelieving giaour. The peace was concluded, and Hungary again became
+possessed of those dependent (South Slavonic) provinces, which lay
+between the territories of the Sultan and the kingdom of Hungary in
+the narrower sense of the word. In three short years Huniades had
+undone the work of years on the part of the Turks. The Sultan,
+however, soon repented of what he had done, and continually delayed
+the fulfilment of his promise to evacuate certain frontier fortresses.
+For this cause the young king, especially incited thereto by the Pope,
+determined to renew the war. Huniades at first opposed the king's
+resolution, and wished to wait; later on he was gained over to the
+king's view, and took up the matter with his whole soul. The
+opportunity was inviting, for the Sultan with his main army was
+engaged somewhere in Asia, and the Venetians promised to prevent with
+their fleet his return to Europe across the narrow seas in the
+neighborhood of Constantinople.
+
+The Hungarian army indeed set out (1444) on its expedition, and
+continually expecting the arrival of the troops of their allies--the
+Emperor of Constantinople and the Princes of Albania--penetrated ever
+farther and farther into the hostile territory. They were to be joined
+by their allies at the town of Varna on the shores of the Black Sea.
+When, however, the Hungarians had arrived at that town, they found no
+trace of their expected allies, but on the contrary learned with
+certainty that the Sultan had succeeded in eluding the vigilance of
+the Venetians, had brought his army in small boats over into Europe,
+and was now following fast on their track.
+
+Thus all hope of aid from allies was at an end, the brave general and
+his small Hungarian force had to rely on their own resources,
+separated as they were by some weeks' journey from their own country,
+while the enemy would be soon upon them in numbers five times their
+own. Yet even so Huniades' faith and courage did not desert him. The
+proverb says: "If thy sword be short, lengthen it by a step forward."
+And Huniades boldly, but yet with the caution that behoved a careful
+general, took up his position before the Sultan's army. Both he and
+his Hungarians fought with dauntless courage, availing themselves of
+every advantage and beating back every assault. Already victory seemed
+to be assured. A few hours after the battle had begun both the
+Turkish wings had been broken, and even the Sultan and the brave
+janissaries were thinking of flight, when the young king, the Pole
+Vladislaus, whom Huniades had adjured by God to remain in a place of
+safety, until the combat should be decided, was persuaded by his
+Polish suite to fling himself with the small band in immediate
+attendance upon him right on the centre of the janissaries, so that he
+too might have a share in the victory and not leave it all to
+Huniades. The janissaries wavered for a moment under this new and
+unexpected attack, but soon perceiving that they had to do with the
+King of Hungary they closed round his band which had penetrated far
+into their ranks. The king's horse was first hamstrung, and, as it
+fell, the king's head was severed from his body, stuck upon the point
+of a spear and exposed to the view of both armies. The Hungarians,
+shocked at the unexpected sight, wavered and, feeling themselves lost,
+began to fly. All the entreaties and exhortations of Huniades were in
+vain. Such was the confusion that he could be neither seen nor heard,
+and in a few minutes the whole Hungarian army was in confused flight.
+
+Huniades, left to himself, had too to seek safety in flight. Alone,
+deserted by all, he had to make his way from one place of concealment
+to another till after some weeks' wandering he arrived in Hungary. The
+bad news had preceded him; and in consequence everything was in
+confusion. Again arose that difficult question: Who should be the new
+king under such difficult circumstances? The Sultan's army had,
+however, suffered so much in the battle of Varna that for the time he
+left the Hungarians unmolested.
+
+The nation was disposed to choose for its king the child, Ladislaus,
+son of King Albert, the predecessor of Vladislaus. The child, however,
+was in the power of the neighboring prince, Frederick, the Archduke of
+Austria, who was not disposed to let him go out of his hands without a
+heavy ransom. Under these circumstances the more powerful nobles in
+Hungary took advantage of the confusion to strengthen each his own
+position at the expense of the nation. At first the government of the
+country was entrusted to a number of captains, but this proved so
+evidently disastrous that the better sort of people succeeded in
+having them abolished and Huniades established as sole governor. For
+all that, however, Huniades had a good deal of trouble with the chief
+aristocrats, Garay, Czillei, Ujlaki, who, envying the parvenu his
+sudden promotion and despising his obscure origin, took up arms to
+resist his authority. Thus Huniades, instead of blunting the edge of
+his sword upon foreign foes, had to bridle the insubordination of his
+own countrymen. Luckily it did not take long to force the discontented
+to own the weight of his arm and his superiority as a military leader.
+
+Order being thus to some extent re-established at home, Huniades was
+again able to turn his attention to the Turks. He felt that he had in
+fact gained the battle of Varna, which was only lost through the
+jealous humor of a youthful king; that it behoved him not to stop half
+way; that it was his duty to continue offensive operations. But in so
+doing he had to rely upon his own proper forces. It is true that he
+was governor of the country, but for the purpose of offensive warfare
+beyond the frontier he could not gain the consent of the great nobles.
+
+Luckily his private property had enormously increased by this time.
+The Hungarian Constitution ordered the king to bestow the estates of
+such noblemen, as died without male heirs or had been condemned for
+any offence, on such noblemen as had approved themselves valiant
+defenders of the country. Now where could be found a more worthy
+recipient of such estates than Huniades, to whom the public treasury
+was besides a debtor on account of the sums he disbursed for the
+constant warfare he maintained against the Turks? Especially in the
+south of Hungary a whole series of lordly estates, many of them
+belonging to the crown, had come into Huniades' hands, either as
+pledges for the repayment of the money he had paid his soldiers, or as
+his own private property.
+
+The yearly revenue arising from these vast estates was employed by
+Huniades not in personal expenditure but in the defence of his
+country. He himself lived as simply as anyone of his soldiers, and
+recognized no other use of money than as a weapon to be used for the
+defence of Christendom against Islam. In the early morn while all his
+suite still slept he passed hours in prayer before the altar in the
+dimly lighted church, imploring the help of the Almighty for the
+attainment of his sole object in life--the destruction of the Turkish
+power. At last (1448) he set out against the Sultan with a picked army
+of 24,000 of his most trusty soldiers.
+
+This time it was on the frontier of Servia, on the so-called Field of
+Blackbirds, that Huniades encountered Sultan Murad, as before with an
+army of 150,000 men--more than five times the number of the
+Christians. Huniades at first withdrew himself into his intrenched
+camp, but in a few days felt himself strong enough to engage with the
+enemy on the open field. The battle lasted without interruption for
+two days and a night. Huniades himself was several times in deadly
+peril. Once his horse was shot under him. He was to be found wherever
+assistance, support, encouragement were needed. At last on the morning
+of the third day as the Turks who had received reinforcements were
+about to renew the attack, the Voyvode of Wallachia passed over to the
+side of the Turks. The voyvode belonged to the Orthodox Eastern
+Church. He had joined Huniades on the way, and his desertion
+transferred 6,000 men from one side to the other, and decided the
+battle in favor of the Turks. The Hungarians, worn out by fatigue,
+fell into a discouragement, while Huniades had no fresh troops to
+bring up to their support. The battle came to a sudden end. Seventeen
+thousand Hungarian corpses strewed the field, but the loss of the
+Turks was more than 30,000 men.
+
+Huniades again left to himself had again to make his escape. At first
+he only dismissed his military suite; afterwards he separated from his
+faithful servant in the hope that separately they might more easily
+baffle their pursuers. Next he had to turn his horse adrift, as the
+poor animal was incapable of continuing his journey. Thus he made his
+way alone and on foot toward the frontiers of his native land. After a
+while looking down from the top of a piece of elevated ground he
+perceived a large body of Turks from whom he hid himself in a
+neighboring lake. He thus escaped this danger, but only to encounter
+another. At a turn of the road he came so suddenly upon a party of
+Turkish plunderers as to be unable to escape from them, and thus
+became their prisoner. But the Turks did not recognize him, and
+leaving him in the hands of two of their number the rest went on in
+search of more prey. His two guards soon came to blows with one
+another about a heavy gold cross which they had found on the person of
+their captive, and, while they were thus quarrelling, Huniades
+suddenly wrenched his sword out of the hand of one of the two Turks
+and cut off his head, upon which the other took to flight, and
+Huniades was again free.
+
+In the meantime, however, George, the Prince of Servia, who took part
+with the aristocratic malcontents, and out of pure hatred to Huniades
+had, in spite of his being a Christian, gone over to the side of the
+Turks, had given strict orders that all Hungarian stragglers were to
+be apprehended and brought before him. In this way Huniades fell into
+the hands of some Servian peasants who delivered him to their prince.
+Nor did he regain his liberty without the payment of a heavy ransom,
+leaving his son, Ladislaus, as hostage in his stead.
+
+He thus returned home amid a thousand perils and with the painful
+experience that Europe left him to his own resources to fight as he
+best could against the ever-advancing Turks. The dependencies of the
+Hungarian crown, Servia and Wallachia, on whose recovery he had spent
+so much blood and treasure, instead of supporting him as might be
+expected of Christian countries threw themselves in a suicidal manner
+into the arms of the Turks. They hoped by their ready submission to
+find favor in the eyes of the irresistible conquerors, by whom,
+however, they were a little later on devoured.
+
+After these events Huniades continued to act as Governor or Regent of
+Hungary for five years more, by which time the young Ladislaus, son of
+King Albert, attained his majority. In 1453 he finally laid down his
+dignity as governor, and gave over the power into the hands of the
+young king, Ladislaus V., whom Huniades had first to liberate by force
+of arms from his uncle, Frederick of Austria, before he could set him
+on the throne of Hungary. The young king, of German origin had,
+however, hardly become emancipated from his guardian, when he fell
+under the influence of his other uncle, Ulric Czillei. This Czillei
+was a great nobleman of Styria, but was withal possessed of large
+estates in Hungary. As a foreigner and as a relative of King
+Sigismund, he had long viewed with an evil eye Huniades' elevation. On
+one occasion Huniades had to inflict punishment on him. He
+consequently now did everything he could to induce the young king, his
+nephew, to hate the great captain as he himself did. He sought to
+infuse jealousy into his mind and to lead him to believe that Huniades
+aimed at the crown. His slanders found the readier credence in the
+mind of the youthful sovereign as he was completely stupefied by an
+uninterrupted course of debauchery. At last the king was brought to
+agree to a plan for ensnaring the great man who so often jeoparded his
+life and his substance in the defence of his country and religion.
+They summoned him in the king's name to Vienna, where Ladislaus as an
+Austrian prince was then staying, with the intention of waylaying and
+murdering him. But Huniades got wind of the whole plot, and, when he
+arrived at the place of ambush, it was at the head of 2,000 picked
+Hungarian warriors. Thus it was Czillei who fell into the snare.
+"Wretched creature!" exclaimed Huniades; "thou hast fallen into the
+pit thou diggedst for me; were it not that I regard the dignity of the
+king and my own humanity, thou shouldst suffer a punishment
+proportioned to thy crime. As it is, I let thee off this time, but
+come no more into my sight or thou shalt pay for it with thy life."
+
+Such magnanimity, however, did not disarm the hostility of those who
+surrounded the king. On the pretence of treason against the king
+Huniades was deprived of all his offices and all his estates. The
+document is still to be seen in the Hungarian State Archives, in which
+the king, led astray by the jealousies that prevailed among his
+councillors, represents every virtue of the hero as a crime, and
+condemns him to exile.
+
+Fortunately Czillei himself soon fell into disfavor; the Germans
+themselves overthrew him; and the king, now better informed, replaced
+Huniades in the post of Captain-General of the Kingdom.
+
+Huniades, who had been living meanwhile retired in one of his castles,
+now complied with the king's wish without difficulty or hesitation,
+and again assumed the highest military command. Instead of seeking how
+to revenge himself after the manner of ordinary men, he only thought
+of the great enemy of his country, the Turk. And indeed, as it was,
+threatening clouds hung over the horizon in the southeast.
+
+A new sultan had come to the throne, Mohammed II., one of the greatest
+sovereigns of the house of Othman. He began his reign with the
+occupation of Constantinople (1453), and thus destroyed the last
+refuge of the Byzantine Empire. At the news of this event all Europe
+burst into a chorus of lamentation. The whole importance of the
+Eastern Question at once presented itself before the nations of
+Christendom. It was at once understood that the new conqueror would
+not remain idle within the crumbling walls of Constantinople. And
+indeed in no long time was published the proud _mot d'ordre_ "As there
+is but one God in heaven, so there shall be but one master upon
+earth."
+
+Huniades looked toward Constantinople with heavy heart. He foresaw the
+outburst of the storm which would in the first place fall upon his own
+country, threatening it with utter ruin. Huniades, so it seemed, was
+again left alone in the defence of Christendom.
+
+The approaching danger was delayed for a few years, but in 1456
+Mohammed, having finally established himself in Constantinople, set
+out with the intention of striking a fatal blow against Hungary. On
+the borders of that country, on the bank of the Danube, on what was,
+properly speaking Servian territory, stood the fortress of Belgrade.
+When the danger from the Turks became imminent, the kings of Hungary
+purchased the place from the despots of Servia, giving them in
+exchange several extensive estates in Hungary, and had at great
+expense turned it into a vast fortress, at that time supposed to be
+impregnable. Mohammed determined to take the place, and to this end
+made the most extensive preparations. He led to the walls of Belgrade
+an army of not less than 150,000 men. The approach of this immense
+host so terrified the young king that he left Hungary and took refuge
+in Vienna along with his uncle and counsellor, Czillei.
+
+Huniades alone remained at his post, resolute like a lion attacked.
+The energy of the old leader--he was now sixty-eight years old--was
+only steeled by the greatness of the danger; his forethought and his
+mental resources were but increased. As he saw that it would be
+impossible to do anything with a small army, he sent his friend, John
+Capistran, an Italian Franciscan, a man animated by a burning zeal
+akin to his own, to preach a crusade against the enemies of
+Christendom through the towns and villages of the Great Hungarian
+Plain. This the friar did to such effect that in a few weeks he had
+collected 60,000 men, ready to fight in defence of the Cross. This
+army of Crusaders--the last in the history of the nations--had for its
+gathering cry the bells of the churches, for its arms, scythes and
+axes, Christ for its leader, and John Huniades and John Capistran for
+his lieutenants.
+
+The two greatest leaders in war of that day contended for the
+possession of Belgrade. The same army now surrounded that fortress
+which a few years before had stormed Constantinople reputed
+impregnable. The same hero defended it who had so often in the course
+of a single decennium defeated the Turkish foe in an offensive war,
+who now, regardless of danger, with a small but faithful band of
+followers, was prepared to do all that courage, resolution, and
+prudence might effect.
+
+Many hundred large cannon began to break down the stone ramparts; many
+hundred boats forming a river flotilla covered the Danube, so as to
+cut off all communication between the fortress and Hungary. During
+this time Huniades' son Ladislaus, and his brother-in-law Michael
+Szilagyi, were in command in the fortress. Huniades' first daring plan
+was to force his way through the blockading flotilla, and enter
+Belgrade before the eyes of the whole Turkish army, taking with him
+his own soldiers and Capistran's crusaders. The plan completely
+succeeded. With his own flotilla of boats he broke through that of the
+Turks and made his entrance into the fortress in triumph. After this
+the struggle was continued with equal resolution and ability on both
+sides; such advantage as the Christians derived from the protection
+afforded by the fortifications being fully compensated by the enormous
+superiority in numbers both of men and cannon on the part of the
+Turks. Without example in the history of the storming of fortresses
+was the stratagem practised by Huniades when he permitted the picked
+troops of the enemy, the janissaries, to penetrate within the
+fortification and there destroyed them in the place they thought they
+had taken. Ten thousand janissaries had already swarmed into the town
+and were preparing to attack the bridges and gates of the citadel,
+when Huniades ordered fagots soaked in pitch and sulphur and other
+combustibles to be flung from the ramparts into the midst of the
+crowded ranks of the janissaries. The fire seized on their loose
+garments, and in a short time the whole body was a sea of fire. Every
+one sought to fly. Then it was that Huniades sallied out with his
+picked band, while Capistran with a tall cross in his hand and the cry
+of "Jesus" on his lips followed with his crowd of fanatics, the cannon
+of the fortress played upon the Turkish camp, the Sultan himself was
+wounded and swept along by the stream of fugitives. Forty thousand
+Turks were left dead upon the field, four thousand were taken
+prisoners and three thousand cannon were captured.
+
+According to the opinion of Huniades himself the Turks had never
+suffered such a severe defeat. Its value as far as the Hungarians were
+concerned was heightened by the fact that the ambitious Sultan was
+personally humiliated. There was now great joy in Europe. At the news
+of the brilliant victory _Te deum_ was sung in all the more important
+cities throughout Europe, and the Pope wished to compliment Huniades
+with a crown.
+
+Alas! a crown of another character awaited him--that of his Redeemer,
+in whose name he lived, fought, and fell. The exhalations from the
+vast number of unburied or imperfectly buried bodies, festering in the
+heat of summer, gave rise to an epidemic in the Christian camp, and to
+this the great leader fell a victim. Huniades died August 11, 1456, in
+the sixty-eighth year of his age. He died amid the intoxication of his
+greatest victory, idolized by his followers, having once more
+preserved his country from imminent ruin. Could he have desired a more
+glorious death?
+
+He went to his last rest with the consciousness that he had fulfilled
+his mission, having designed great things and having accomplished
+them.
+
+And the result of his lifelong efforts survived him. His great enemy
+the Turk for half a century after his death could only harass the
+frontier of his native land; and his country, a few years after his
+death placed on the royal throne his son Matthias.
+
+[Signature of the author.]
+
+
+
+
+WARWICK, THE KING-MAKER
+
+(1420-1471)
+
+
+Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, called the king-maker, eldest son of
+Richard, Earl of Salisbury and Alice Montacute, was born November 22,
+1428. The history of this mighty peer is that of the whole of the
+contest between the two houses of York and Lancaster. The house of
+Neville had been built up by a series of wealthy marriages, and
+Richard made no exception to the rule. While yet a boy he was married
+to Anne, daughter of the Earl of Warwick, and through her, after the
+death of her brother and niece, he took his place at the age of
+twenty-one among the chief earls of the English realm. By this time
+the English rule in France had broken down, bringing the reigning
+house of Lancaster into great unpopularity, and throwing a
+correspondingly greater influence into the hands of the leader of the
+opposition, Richard Plantagenet, Duke of York. He was brother-in-law
+to the Earl of Salisbury, and so attached to his party the powerful
+influence of the Nevilles.
+
+[Illustration: Huniades at Belgrade.]
+
+The Duke of York at first made no claim to the throne, demanding only
+that he should have his place in the councils of the king, and even
+when swords were drawn the Yorkists swore their allegiance to the
+king, Henry VI., while fighting against his advisers. Of these
+favorites of the king, the chief was the Earl of Somerset, whom many
+suspected of a design to establish himself as the successor to the
+throne. It was between these two factions of York and Somerset, that
+the white and red roses were first employed as distinguishing badges.
+
+[Illustration: Warwick. [TN]]
+
+  _Plantagenet._ Let him, that is a true born gentleman,
+                 And stands upon the honor of his birth,
+                 If he suppose that I have pleaded truth,
+                 From off this brier pluck a white rose with me.
+
+  _Somerset._    Let him that is no coward, nor no flatterer,
+                 But dare maintain the party of the truth,
+                 Pluck a red rose from off this thorn with me.
+
+  _Warwick._     I love no colors; and, without all color
+                 Of base insinuating flattery,
+                 I pluck this white rose with Plantagenet.
+                                         --_Shakespeare: I Henry VI._
+
+The Wars of the Roses began with the battle of St. Albans (1455), in
+which Somerset was killed. The victory was gained to the Yorkists
+chiefly by the help of Warwick. By a sudden sally into the streets of
+the town he routed the royal forces, and gained for himself that
+character of daring and courage which he maintained to the end. He was
+rewarded with the post of Captain of Calais, which he retained
+throughout the changes of the parties. In this position he was
+practically independent, and scoured the Channel at his pleasure.
+
+In 1458 he attacked some vessels which were under a treaty of peace
+with England, and being summoned to London to answer before the king,
+was violently attacked by the followers of Somerset and barely escaped
+with his life. In 1459 the civil war finally broke out. In the first
+campaign the Yorkists failed, owing to their inactivity. The leaders
+fled to the coast of Devon, where they hired five men to carry them to
+Bristol. As soon as they left land, Warwick, stripped to the doublet,
+took the helm, and steered straight for Calais, where he arrived in a
+few days. When Somerset, son of the earl slain at St. Albans, came to
+claim the keys of the stronghold, he had the mortification to find
+Warwick there before him.
+
+Warwick was next in England on June 27, 1460, when he landed at
+Sandwich with fifteen hundred men. In four days he was before the
+walls of London, having marched in that time a distance of seventy
+miles. According to some accounts, the common people so flocked to his
+standard, that in those four days his force had swelled to forty
+thousand. The city threw open its gates and joyfully welcomed him,
+while Henry fled to the north. In the beginning of July the battle of
+Northampton was fought. The Yorkists gained a complete victory, and
+took Henry prisoner. Before the fight Warwick issued the command to
+spare the common people but to slay the nobles, judging the quarrel to
+be more especially theirs; and it is significant that throughout the
+Wars of the Roses the proportion of leaders slain far exceeds that in
+any other war.
+
+Up to this time Warwick's conception of the war was merely the natural
+struggle of the one party with the other for power, using as their
+means the rude arguments of the time. He still maintained his loyalty
+to King Henry, and when the Duke of York, after the battle of
+Northampton, presented his claim to the throne Warwick opposed him,
+and prevailed upon him to waive it till the death of the king. But
+naturally such a state of things could not long endure. Warwick, while
+respecting the person of the king, was fighting against his orders,
+and so, while professing loyalty, was actually a rebel.
+
+Soon the struggle blazed out anew, and in December, 1460, the Duke of
+York was defeated and slain at Wakefield. Early in 1461 Warwick was
+defeated in the second battle of St. Albans, but the royalists not
+taking advantage of their victory, Edward, son of the Duke of York,
+accompanied by Warwick, marched on London, and was proclaimed king as
+Edward IV. Soon after the Yorkists gained a complete victory at Towton
+(1461), the bloodiest field of the whole war. Nearly all the
+Lancastrian chiefs were slain, Henry's cause was lost, and ere long he
+was captured by Warwick and lodged in the Tower. The credit of the
+crowning victory of Towton does not rest with Warwick alone, for he
+had the help of young Edward, perhaps as great a military genius as
+himself. Little is known of the details of the fighting, but we are
+told that wherever the Earl of Warwick was, there the fight raged
+hottest.
+
+[Illustration: York and Lancaster--The White and Red Roses.]
+
+The earl was now the greatest man in England. His extended connections
+and immense possessions were joined to the most distinguished personal
+qualities, intrepidity, decision, and all the military virtues,
+eloquence and general talent, an affability and frankness of bearing
+that captivated equally all classes, a boundless hospitality and
+magnificence that enthroned him in the hearts of the commons. Wherever
+he resided, we are told he kept open house, and the number of people
+daily fed at his various mansions, when he was at the height of his
+prosperity, exceeded thirty thousand. "When he came to London," says
+Stowe in his "Chronicle," "he held such an house that six oxen were
+eaten at a breakfast, and every tavern was full of his meat; for
+who that had any acquaintance in that house he should have had as much
+sodden and roast as he might carry upon a long dagger."
+
+But now, when Warwick might have expected to reap the reward of his
+labors, new troubles arose. King Edward began to feel jealous of his
+power, his unique influence, and vast popularity. It is said that
+Warwick was sent to France to arrange a treaty with Louis, and to
+propose a marriage between Edward and his wife's sister. On his return
+he found the king married to Elizabeth Woodville, daughter of Lord
+Rivers, and an alliance made with the enemy of Louis, the Duke of
+Burgundy. Edward now lavished all his kindness on the Woodvilles,
+intending to use them as a counterfoil to the Nevilles, and for this
+purpose he deprived the Nevilles of some of their posts. By a series
+of deliberate insults Warwick was driven farther and farther away from
+the king, till he was forced into open revolt.
+
+In July, 1468, his forces defeated the royalists with great slaughter
+at Edgecote, and a few days later he made Edward his prisoner. The
+Lancastrians at once rose again in favor of the aged King Henry; but
+Warwick, maintaining his allegiance to his royal captive, suppressed
+all revolts with an iron hand, and, having received renewed pledges of
+good faith, soon after restored Edward to his throne.
+
+Two years later the king declared Warwick a rebel; and he was
+compelled to flee to France. Louis XI. used his influence in bringing
+Warwick and Margaret, wife of King Henry, together, and they agreed to
+forget their differences in the face of a common enemy. Clarence, the
+new king's brother, had previously married Warwick's daughter, and
+joined his party.
+
+Once more the king-maker landed in England and advanced on London.
+Edward fled to Holland and Henry was again placed upon the throne. But
+ere long Edward secretly landed in England, raised an army, not
+without difficulty, and met Warwick at Barnet. The faithless Clarence
+had in the meantime deserted Warwick and joined his brother's army.
+The army of Warwick was composed of strangely different elements--old
+enemies fighting side by side as friends. The battle was lost mainly
+through a grievous blunder. In the heavy mist which hung around, the
+party of the Earl of Oxford were mistaken for the enemy and were
+attacked by their own friends. The cry of treachery was raised, and
+the whole army broke into utter rout. Warwick resisted till all hope
+was gone. He had fought on foot throughout the battle, and his heavy
+armor did not suffer him to escape. He was surrounded and slain,
+fighting manfully, April 14, 1471.
+
+Thus fell on the field of battle Richard, Earl of Warwick, in the
+prime of his life, after sixteen years of deep intrigue and desperate
+fighting. Had he been born in a more peaceful time he would have been
+a great statesman, and have done much for the good of his country, for
+his talents were more political than military, and almost alone among
+the self-seeking rivals of the time, he shows something of the
+instincts of patriotism. Cast as he was in the troublous times of the
+Wars of the Roses, he stands out in character and genius above all
+those of his generation. He was the best beloved man in the kingdom.
+When he was away from England, says Hall, the common people thought
+the sun had gone out of the heavens. His personality cast a charm over
+even Louis XI. The heart of the Yorkist party, he was true to its
+cause till he found that his service was no longer desired. He was not
+the man to sit quietly under insult, and when it came from King
+Edward, who owed all that he was to him, it was more than he could
+endure. Yet it was only when he found his every project thwarted, and
+especially those that were dearest to his heart, that he was driven
+into open warfare with the king. His treason is capable of much
+justification: he cannot be accused of forsaking his master. He had in
+him the making of a great king, and how great and useful might have
+been his career had fortune placed him over the councils of a Charles
+VII. or a Henry VI.! As it is, he stands in worth and character far
+above any of his time, a figure that commands not merely admiration
+but affection.
+
+
+
+
+HERNANDO CORTES[17]
+
+By H. RIDER HAGGARD
+
+(1485-1547)
+
+         [Footnote 17: Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.]
+
+[Illustration: Hernando Cortes. [TN]]
+
+
+Among the millions that from age to age are born into this world there
+arise in every generation one or two pre-eminent men and women who are
+objects of the wonder and the envy, the admiration and the hatred of
+their contemporaries, and whose names, after their deaths, stand out
+as landmarks by which we shape a course across the dark and doubtful
+seas of history. Caesar and Cromwell, Mahomet and Napoleon, to mention
+no others, were such men, and such a man was Hernando Cortes, the
+conqueror of Mexico. They have been called, and well called, Men of
+Destiny, since it is impossible in studying their lives and tracing
+their vast influence upon human affairs, to avoid the conclusion that
+they were raised up and endowed with great talents and opportunities
+in order that by their agency the ends of Providence might be shaped.
+
+Hernando Cortes was born of a good family, at the town of Medellin in
+Spain, in 1485, and educated at the college of Salamanca. At the age
+of nineteen having proved himself unfit to follow the profession of
+the law to which his parents had destined him, he emigrated to the
+Indian Island of Hispaniola where he was appointed notary of the town
+of Acua, and in 1511 assisted in the conquest of Cuba under the
+command of Velasquez. Here after many curious adventures and
+vacillations he married a lady named Catalina Xuarez, and being
+created _alcade_ of the settlement of St. Jago realized a moderate
+fortune by the practice of agriculture and mining. In 1518 there came
+to Cuba news of the discoveries made by Grijalva in Yucatan on the
+coast of the country now known as Mexico, and the Governor, Velasquez,
+determined to despatch a force to explore this new land. After much
+intriguing and in consideration of the payment of a considerable sum
+of money toward the expenses, Cortes whose ambitious spirit had
+already wearied of a life of peace and indolence, contrived to
+persuade Velasquez to appoint him Captain General of the expedition.
+Before the ships sailed, however, Velasquez repented him of the
+appointment, for in Cortes he recognized a servant who might well
+become his master, and made arrangements to invest some other hidalgo
+with the leadership of the expedition. Now it was that Cortes showed
+what manner of man he was. Many in his position on learning the wishes
+of their superior would have tamely yielded up their posts. Not so
+Cortes, who on the first hint that he was to be deprived of his
+authority, collected his men, and all unprepared as was his squadron,
+weighed anchor while the governor slept. At the town of Trinidad he
+landed to collect stores and volunteers, treating with contempt the
+orders that reached the commander of the town from Velasquez to depose
+him from his command and detain his person. Here it was that Cortes
+made his famous address to the volunteers, wherein he shows that
+although his instructions were to undertake a trading voyage and
+acquire information of the country, his real aim was far different,
+since he promises unimagined wealth to those who are true to him, and
+by a curious flash of prescience prophesies immortal renown to their
+enterprise. On February 10, 1519, he sailed to the conquest of Mexico,
+accompanied by some six hundred and fifty white men and a few Indians.
+Cortes was in his thirty-fourth year when he entered on this the
+greatest of his enterprises. He was pale faced and dark eyed, somewhat
+slender in build, but of an iron strength and constitution. In temper
+he was patient though liable to fits of passion, and in disposition
+frank, merry, and generous, but most determined. He dressed richly and
+was constant in his religious exercises. Such was the great captain, a
+man suited by circumstances and nature to the desperate undertaking
+which it was his destiny to bring to a successful issue.
+
+Having touched at the island of Cozumel on the coast of Yucatan,
+Cortes sailed up the Tabasco River and began his work of conquest by
+attacking a great army of Indians in the neighborhood of that town.
+For a while the natives held their own notwithstanding their dismay at
+the sound and effects of fire-arms; but the appearance of the
+horsemen, whom they took to be strange animals, caused them to flee in
+terror leaving many hundreds of their warriors dead upon the field. On
+the morrow they made their submission, bringing women and other gifts
+as a peace-offering. Among these women was one named Malinche, or by
+the Spaniards Marina, whom Cortes took as a mistress and who is
+described by Camargo as having been "beautiful as a goddess." It was
+this lady, born to be the evil genius of her country, who instructed
+her lord and master in the habits, traditions, and history of the
+Aztecs, and of the land of Anahuac which they inhabited together with
+other tribes. She was Cortes' interpreter and confidante, whose
+business it was to gain information from the Indians, which he could
+use, and whose wit and devotion more than once saved him from
+disaster. So invaluable were her services to Cortes that it is
+doubtful if without her aid he would have succeeded in conquering
+Mexico, and it was from her that he acquired the name of Malinche by
+which he was known among the Indian races. Her reward, when she had
+served his purpose and he was weary of her, was to be given by him in
+marriage to another man.
+
+Leaving Tabasco Cortes sailed along the coast till he reached the spot
+where the city of Vera Cruz now stands, whence he opened
+communications with Montezuma, Emperor of the Aztecs. In due course
+envoys arrived from the monarch laden with magnificent gifts, who
+delivered a civil but none the less peremptory message requesting the
+Spaniards to return whence they came. By this time Cortes had learned
+that although the Aztecs were the greatest power in Anahuac, their
+supremacy was not acknowledged by all the tribes; notably was it
+contested by the Tlascalans and their allies the Otomies. The
+Tlascalans were republicans having their home in the mountains almost
+midway between Mexico and the coast. For fifty years or more they had
+been at bitter enmity with the Aztecs, who again and again had vainly
+attempted to subjugate them. To this people Cortes despatched an
+embassy asking for a safe passage through their territories on his
+road to Mexico, for his political insight told him that they might
+prove valuable allies. No answer was returned by the Tlascalans who
+when the Spaniards advanced attacked them furiously, only to be
+defeated by Cortes in several engagements, till, discouraged and
+believing the white men to be invincible, they sued for peace, and
+from enemies were converted into firm allies. From Tlascala the
+Spaniards proceeded to the neighboring city of Cholula where Marina
+discovered a plot to put them to death. For this offence Cortes took a
+terrible vengeance. Falling on the inhabitants of the city when they
+were unprepared he butchered vast numbers of them, giving their houses
+and temples to sack. Having thus established the terror of his name he
+marched on to Mexico accompanied by a body of about five thousand
+Tlascalan allies. Meanwhile the counsels of the Aztecs were darkened
+with doubt. The Spaniards might easily have been kept out of Mexico by
+force, but the arm of Montezuma was paralyzed by superstitious fears.
+Prophecy foretold that the children of the white god Quetzalcoatl
+should rise from the sea to possess the land, and in the Spaniards he
+beheld the fate fulfilled. To him they were not mortal but divine and
+when diplomacy had failed to keep them at a distance he feared to lift
+a sword against them. Thus it came about that without a blow being
+struck to drive them back Cortes and his little band of adventurers
+found themselves established at the heart of the strange and rich
+civilization that they had discovered, not as enemies, but as the
+guests of the king. They were not slow to avail themselves of the
+opportunities of their position in order to advance their ends which
+were, first plunder, secondly conquest, and, thirdly the extension of
+the authority of Spain and of the Christian religion. In pursuit of
+these ends upon some slight pretext Cortes seized the person of
+Montezuma, the great emperor, and imprisoned him in one of his own
+palaces whence, however, he was still allowed to direct the government
+and issue his commands.
+
+Meanwhile reports of Cortes' doings and success had reached Velasquez
+the Governor of Cuba, who determined to despatch an expedition to
+conquer or capture him as a traitor. Accordingly eighteen vessels
+containing nearly a thousand white men were placed under the command
+of Panfilo de Narvaez, and reached Vera Cruz in April, 1520. When
+Cortes heard of the arrival of this armament and its object which was
+to punish him for his supposed rebellion, he marched from Mexico,
+leaving the little garrison and the person of Montezuma in charge of
+his comrade Alvarado. Although he had with him but two hundred and
+fifty men in all, he did not hesitate to hazard a night attack upon
+Narvaez who was strongly encamped at Cempoalla. It was completely
+successful; Narvaez was wounded, captured, and sent in chains to Vera
+Cruz, while the army that had come to conquer him swore allegiance to
+Cortes as Captain-General and marched with him back to Mexico. Here
+great events were in progress. Moved to the deed by fear or by the
+discovery of some real or fancied plot against the Spaniards,
+Alvarado, the deputy of Cortes, had fallen upon the unarmed Aztec
+nobles while they were celebrating a feast in the courtyard of the
+great temple, and butchered some six hundred of them with every
+circumstance of brutality. Then at last the patient Aztecs rose and
+until the womanly Montezuma begged them to desist, attacked the palace
+where the Spaniards were quartered, with fury. At the intervention of
+their monarch the attack was turned to a blockade and Cortes arrived
+from his victory over Narvaez to find his companions in desperate
+straits. Reinforced by fresh soldiers the Spaniards carried on the war
+with activity. They assaulted and captured the great pyramid, putting
+to the sword the priests of human sacrifice and burning the
+blood-stained temples of the gods. Also they made several sallies into
+the city and repelled onslaughts upon the palace. It was in the course
+of one of these attacks that Montezuma received the wound that brought
+about his death. Mounting the central tower of the palace he implored
+his subjects to cease from attacking his friends the Spaniards,
+whereupon in their fury they overwhelmed him with a shower of darts
+and stones, inflicting injuries from which in course of a few days he
+died. Surrounded as he was on every side by thousands of fierce
+enemies determined to stretch every Spaniard upon the stone of
+sacrifice, Cortes saw the impossibility of maintaining the unequal
+fight and determined on retreat. Accordingly on the night of July 1,
+1520, the Spaniards and their native allies sallied from the fortress,
+and laden with gold from Montezuma's treasury, took the route of
+Tlacopan. Soon their escape was detected and instantly a fierce attack
+was made upon them from every quarter. The bridge that they had
+brought with them to span the gaps in the causeway became fixed in the
+mud, so that their only path across the canals lay over the bodies of
+their comrades. At length they won through, but out of their small
+force there had perished, or been taken captive as victims for
+sacrifice, some four hundred and fifty Spaniards and four thousand
+native allies. It is said that when the shattered army reached a place
+of safety outside the city, Cortes sat down beneath an ancient
+cedar-tree which is still shown to travellers, and wept. Yet within a
+week fortune smiled on him again, for he and the few comrades who
+remained to him fought and won the battle of Otompan against thousands
+of the Indians, Cortes killing their chief Cihuaca with his own hand.
+
+The Aztecs rejoiced at the departure of the Spaniards from their
+capital Mexico or Tenoctitlan, but their joy was premature. First the
+small-pox, introduced into the country by the white men, fell upon the
+city and swept away thousands, among them Cuitlahua, the emperor who
+succeeded to Montezuma, and then came the news that the indomitable
+Cortes was marching upon them with a great army of native allies and
+large reinforcements of Spaniards from overseas. Guatimozin, the new
+emperor, made every possible preparation for defence and the siege
+began, a siege as cruel as that of Jerusalem and perhaps more bloody.
+First Cortes laid waste the cities about Mexico, then he attacked the
+Queen of the Valley herself--attacked it again and again till at
+length it was a ruin and tens of thousands of its inhabitants were
+dead by starvation, by pestilence, and by the sword. On either side
+the combat was one of desperate courage, but notwithstanding
+occasional successes on the part of the Aztecs, such as that when they
+captured and sacrificed some sixty Spaniards, from the first the
+genius of Cortes made the end inevitable. When nothing remained of
+Tenoctitlan and its people save some blackened walls and a few
+thousand wretches reduced to skeletons by hunger, the capture of
+Guatimozin while attempting to escape in a canoe, made an end of the
+fighting in August, 1521. Cortes promised honorable treatment to the
+fallen king, but before long he put him and some of his companions to
+the torture in order to force the discovery of hidden treasure. This
+brutality proved ineffectual, but taken together with the subsequent
+hanging of Guatimozin upon an unproved charge of conspiracy against
+the Spaniards, it constitutes the blackest blot upon the fame of
+Cortes. It is fair to add, however, that he was not by nature a harsh
+man, and that he was driven to the commission of these cruelties by
+the clamor of his soldiers who were infuriated at finding so little
+treasure in the devastated city. With the capture of Mexico the
+fortunes of Cortes culminated. He was appointed Captain-General of the
+land of New Spain in October, 1522, and the next few years he occupied
+in rebuilding the city, and in bringing the surrounding territories
+under the rule of Spain. Wearying of these comparatively peaceful
+occupations, in 1524 he undertook an expedition of discovery and
+conquest to Honduras, upon which he was absent until May, 1526, when
+he returned after enduring much hardship and suffering, to find that
+enemies had been plotting against him in Mexico. This discovery and
+the desire of clearing himself with the emperor, caused him to
+determine to visit Spain where he arrived in May, 1528. Charles the
+Fifth received him with much favor creating him Marquis of the Valley
+of Oaxaca and military commander of New Spain, and endowing him with
+vast estates in the lands that he had conquered. In 1530 he returned
+to Mexico accompanied by his second wife, a lady of good family whom
+he had married while in Spain. Very soon he entered on a course of
+expeditions of discovery and maritime adventures which involved him in
+great pecuniary losses and a quarrel with the viceroy Mendoza; and in
+1540 he sailed a second time for Spain to obtain redress from the
+emperor. But Cortes was no longer the power that he had been; his
+youth was gone and his work was done, therefore his prayers and
+remonstrances were treated with cold neglect. For nearly four years he
+pressed his suit and in February, 1544, we find him writing a letter
+to the emperor begging him to direct the Council of the Indies to come
+to a decision upon it. This letter in which pathetically enough, he
+speaks of himself as "old and poor and indebted," produced no result
+and once again, worn out and bitterly disappointed, its writer turned
+his face toward the land that he had won for Spain. But he was never
+to behold it more. At Seville he was seized with dysentery and passed
+away December 2, 1547, being then in his sixty-third year. His body
+was taken to Mexico for burial.
+
+In Hernando Cortes died one of the great men of the world, though how
+much of his greatness was due to chance is difficult to determine. It
+is certain that again and again fortune stood his friend in a manner
+that was little short of miraculous, as in the instances of the
+unexpected victory over Narvaez and of the death of the general at the
+battle of Otampan. But if chance or fate gave him opportunities it was
+Cortes' own genius and unconquerable will that enabled him to avail
+himself of them. These qualities were the most striking
+characteristics of the man. He showed them when having determined on
+the conquest of Mexico he burnt his ships that there might be no
+escape from the decision; when he hit upon the expedient of using
+rival tribes to accomplish the overthrow of the Aztecs; when, driven
+from Mexico with the loss of the half of his army he returned to the
+attack; and in many another time and place. He had great good
+qualities, he was a true friend, and according to his lights, an
+honorable and even a religious man, and his faults were those of his
+time and training, or at worst such as are not inconsistent with a
+generous nature. His cruelties may be urged against him, but no
+Spaniard of his age thought it cruel to slaughter enemies of the Faith
+who practised human sacrifice; also having once embarked upon his
+colossal undertaking he and his companions must either slay or be
+slain. There is evidence to show that personally he was not a cruel
+man. Thus when called upon to sign the death-warrant of a soldier he
+lamented that he had ever been taught to write, and there are passages
+in his will which show his conscience to have been troubled by
+questions as to the right to enslave human beings. With a handful of
+followers Cortes overthrew the fabric of the Aztec Empire, broke the
+spirit of its people so effectually that to this day it has not
+recovered itself, and swept away its religion. Whether for good or
+evil this was a stupendous achievement and one that must make his name
+immortal.
+
+[Signature of the author.]
+
+
+
+
+FRANCISCO PIZARRO[18]
+
+By J. T. TROWBRIDGE
+
+(1471-1541)
+
+         [Footnote 18: Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.]
+
+[Illustration: Francisco Pizarro. [TN]]
+
+
+The old Spanish province of Estremadura, though distant from the sea,
+shut in by mountain-chains, furnished numerous adventurers for the
+expeditions of discovery, conquest, and plunder that followed Columbus
+to the New World; two of whom achieved astonishing renown. One was the
+conqueror of Mexico; the other, the conqueror of Peru.
+
+Of the early life of Francisco Pizarro not much is known with
+certainty. He was born about the year 1471; but even that date is a
+matter of conjecture, so little care was had of the coming into the
+world of the actor who was to play so stirring a part in it. The
+family from which he inherited his name must have been one of some
+note in its day. His kinsman and great rival in fame, Cortes, was a
+Pizarro on his mother's side.
+
+Francisco was the second of four brothers, all of whom were men of
+ability and valor, and all of whom fought in the Peruvian wars. Their
+father was Colonel Gonzalo Pizarro, concerning whom little is known,
+save that he was a soldier of Spain, and that he served creditably in
+Italy and Navarre.
+
+The mother of Francisco was Francisca Gonzales, a woman of low
+condition, from whom he seems to have received hardly more parental
+care than from his father, by whom he was utterly neglected. The story
+told by Gomara, and quoted by Prescott, that, abandoned as a
+foundling, he was nursed by a sow, though as mythical as that of
+Romulus and the wolf, which probably suggested it, indicates
+nevertheless the degradation of his childhood. He grew up in ignorance
+and vagabondage. Of what the world calls education he had not the
+first rudiments; to the day of his death he could neither read nor
+write. The only occupation in which we hear of his being engaged in
+his boyhood, was that of a swineherd.
+
+At what age he escaped from this mean employment is not known. The
+claim set up for him by his descendants, that he served with his
+father in Italy, hardly deserves consideration. He was about
+twenty-one years old when all Spain began to ring with the discoveries
+of Columbus and his companions beyond the western seas. Pizarro left
+his employer and his pigs, ran away to Seville, and embarked in one of
+the early expeditions that sailed from that port to the New World.
+
+Of his years of apprenticeship in the stern warfare of the times we
+have no trustworthy details, until at Hispaniola, in 1510, he joined,
+as second in command, Ojeda's disastrous expedition to Uraba, on the
+main coast. Sanguinary fights with swarms of savages armed with
+poisoned arrows, marked the fortunes of the adventurers. And when
+Ojeda returned to the islands for assistance, which he did not bring,
+Pizarro remained in command of the starving colony, amid hardships and
+horrors from which only his resolute daring brought off a remnant
+alive.
+
+He was with Balboa in his famous march across the mountains to the
+Pacific, which no European eyes had hitherto beheld; and shared with
+him the joy of that discovery, which Keats wrongly ascribes to Cortes,
+when the hardy band, first beholding the unknown ocean outspread
+before them--
+
+  "Looked at each other with a wild surmise,
+   Silent, upon a peak in Darien."
+
+He remained with Balboa on the isthmus until the death of that valiant
+commander, when he united his fortunes with those of the governor,
+Pedrarias, and headed various expeditions along the Pacific coast and
+to the islands beyond, in quest of pearls and gold. He was occupied in
+this way, or in cultivating with the aid of Indian slaves a malarious
+tract of land he had acquired near Panama, when a new career invited
+him.
+
+Rumors of a rich empire far to the south, where gold was as common
+with the natives as iron was with the Spaniards, had long inflamed the
+imaginations of the colonists; then news came of the prodigious
+exploits of Cortes in Mexico. Pizarro burned to emulate his kinsman.
+Having formed a partnership with Diego de Almagro, a soldier of
+experience, and Hernando de Luque, a priest supplied with worldly
+means, he secured an old vessel that had been designed by Balboa for a
+similar expedition, refitted it with Luque's money, and with a hundred
+adventurers sailed from the port of Panama in November, 1524; leaving
+Almagro to follow in a smaller vessel.
+
+Pizarro was then more than fifty years old, but still in possession of
+all his masterful qualities. And he had need of all, amid the perils
+of sea and land, the tempests, swamps, battles, sickness, and famine,
+which rendered his first voyage down the coast a deplorable failure.
+Almagro met with no better success. Both returned to the isthmus
+buffeted, baffled, humiliated, but too stout of heart to be cast down.
+They brought back but little gold, but with that little they had
+gathered evidence of the indubitable existence of the opulent empire
+they sought.
+
+The governor was hugely dissatisfied with the results of the
+expedition, of which he had expected to share some of the profits; and
+his consent to another could hardly have been obtained, but for the
+persuasive eloquence of the priest, backed by the offer of a sum in
+ready cash. For a thousand pesos de oro Pedrarias gave his consent,
+and signed away his right to the spoils of an empire.
+
+A new contract was entered into by the three partners, and an
+elaborate and solemn document was drawn up, in sonorous Spanish, which
+is curious reading at this day. Father Luque signed it with his own
+hand, and the two soldiers by the hands of witnesses, since neither
+Pizarro nor Almagro could write his name. About one hundred and sixty
+men were enlisted, and again the two chiefs set sail from Panama in
+separate ships.
+
+They made their first landing at the mouth of the Rio San Juan, where
+by the plunder of a small village, they secured some ornaments of gold
+and a few prisoners. Almagro hastened to carry the treasure back to
+Panama, as a bait to other followers, while Pizarro and his pilot Ruiz
+remained to explore the interior and the coast. Ruiz sailed as far
+south as the equator, and after a memorable voyage of some weeks,
+returned to his chief with a cheering report. He had fallen in with
+what seemed at first a ship at sea, where no European ship had ever
+been, and found it to be an Indian _balsa_, a huge raft across which
+was stretched a sail of cotton-cloth. It had a rudder and a keel. On
+board were men and women clad in a curious sort of woollen stuff,
+skilfully woven, and beautifully dyed and embroidered. They were
+making a voyage of traffic along the coast. They wore ornaments of
+gold, and had with them, besides vessels and mirrors of burnished
+silver, balances for weighing the precious metals, which by signs they
+assured Ruiz were common in their country.
+
+Pizarro in the meanwhile vainly endeavored to pass the yawning gorges,
+bottomless swamps, and dense dark forests that lay between him and the
+snow-covered peaks of the Cordilleras. Entangled vines and trees of a
+luxuriant tropical vegetation, huge boas coiling in the branches,
+ready to spring upon their prey, screaming parrots, chattering and
+grimacing monkeys, mosquitoes, alligators, prowling savages,--amid
+such scenes as these he and his band had once more confronted famine
+and death in the absence of Almagro and Ruiz.
+
+Ruiz came opportunely with his good news, and Almagro returned with
+eighty recruits. The expedition re-embarked and proceeded southward.
+The aspect of the coast became more inviting as they advanced. There
+were signs of an extensive civilization; fields cultivated with maize,
+cacao, and potatoes; many villages; and at length a town of more than
+two thousand houses, laid out with streets, and thronging with
+inhabitants. Among the Spaniards wild enthusiasm prevailed. But it was
+quickly checked by the hostile demonstrations with which they were
+met, when they attempted to gain a foothold on the soil of the Incas.
+It was useless to make front against such numbers as opposed them.
+Divided counsels and a violent quarrel between the two captains
+ensued, and the expedition sailed back northward. Once more Almagro
+returned to Panama for more men, while Pizarro and his followers
+remained to starve on the barren isle of Gallo.
+
+[Illustration: Pizarro exhorting his band at Gallo.]
+
+Instead of permitting any more of his people to depart on what seemed
+so foolhardy and fatal a business, Rios, the new governor of Panama,
+despatched to the island two vessels, under a commander named Tafur,
+with orders to bring away every Spaniard left alive there. Then
+occurred the famous episode that decided so dramatically the
+fortunes of Pizarro and the fate of Peru. Tafur had brought supplies
+of provisions to the famished and emaciated, but now jubilant
+soldiers; and all except Pizarro appeared eager to abandon their
+barren adventure and return in the ships. Pizarro alone refused
+obedience to the governor's agent. Drawing a line on the sand with his
+sword, he cried: "Comrades! on that side lie hunger and hardship; on
+this side, ease and safety. There lies Peru with its riches; here,
+Panama and poverty. Choose, every man for himself, like brave
+Castilians. For me, I go to the south."
+
+He stepped across the line. There was a minute of dismay and silence.
+Then Ruiz followed, and after him twelve others went over, an act of
+as desperate and resolute courage as ever inspired a forlorn band.
+
+They saw the ships containing their comrades sail away without them;
+Ruiz also returned, pledged to bring assistance to his companions left
+behind; while Pizarro remained with his twelve Spaniards, and three or
+four Indian captives whom he had made friends, on the desolate island.
+
+Not even a ship was left them, and they had to build a raft to convey
+them to a less inhospitable island, that of Gorgona, farther north.
+There they lived seven months, subsisting on small game brought down
+by their cross-bows, and shell-fish found on the shores, until Ruiz,
+after weary delays, returned in a small vessel, bringing supplies, but
+not the expected reinforcement of troops.
+
+In this frail craft the dauntless rovers put to sea. Pizarro pursued
+his explorations southward, beyond the point where he afterward
+founded Truxillo, named after his native town; visited several
+Peruvian ports, and learned much of the country he proposed to
+subjugate. He then returned to Panama, which he reached after an
+absence of eighteen months. The reappearance of the little group of
+wanderers bringing news of their discoveries, was the cause of great
+astonishment in the colony, and of joyful enthusiasm among their
+friends, who had long given them up for dead.
+
+The governor, however, resenting Pizarro's disobedience of his orders
+at the isle of Gallo, refused to sanction another expedition; and
+Pizarro resolved upon the bold course of returning to Spain and
+appealing to the Crown. This was in the spring of 1528.
+
+Arriving at Seville, he was immediately thrown into prison for a debt
+incurred at Darien. But he was released by order of the emperor,
+Charles V., who received him graciously at Toledo, heard the wondrous
+story of his wanderings, which Pizarro knew how to tell, and saw the
+vessels of gold and silver, the fine fabrics, the llamas, and other
+evidences of the Peruvian civilization, which were displayed before
+his royal eyes. He was also, no doubt influenced by the recent
+achievements of Cortes, who was then at court, and who perhaps spoke
+for his kinsman a friendly word.
+
+The monarch turned over Pizarro and his enterprise, with his
+recommendation, to the Council of the Indies. Yet a year passed, and
+nothing was done. Pizarro was fast sinking into obscurity, and he
+would likewise have sunk into despair, if he had been less stout of
+heart. Then, as Queen Isabella had aided Columbus, so the queen of
+Charles V. came to the assistance of Pizarro, and caused to be
+executed the extraordinary instrument which bestowed on him, with the
+rights of discovery and conquest, the titles of Governor and
+Captain-General of New Castile, as Peru was then called, and a salary
+of 725,000 maravedis, to be drawn however from the conquered country.
+Almagro and Luque were also provided for, but in a more modest way,
+which proved the beginning of a long, bitter, and deadly feud between
+Almagro and his chief. Nor did the instrument fail to make the usual
+provision for the conversion to Christianity of the nations to be
+subjugated and plundered.
+
+In mustering his recruits Pizarro had the satisfaction of revisiting
+his native town of Truxillo, where he had lived in degradation, and to
+which he now returned a renowned discoverer and soldier, and a titled
+magnate. There he found his three brothers, the Pizarros, all poor and
+proud and eager for adventure; and a fourth brother, on his mother's
+side. With these and other followers, hardly exceeding one hundred, he
+sailed from Seville, in January, 1530; and a year later, namely, in
+January, 1531, after a solemn consecration of his enterprise in the
+cathedral of Panama, he put forth from that port with one hundred and
+eighty men and twenty-seven horses, on his fourth, last, and finally
+successful expedition, to overthrow a populous empire.
+
+That empire lay in the bosom and on both sides of the mighty ranges of
+the Andes, occupying thirty-seven degrees of the coast south of the
+equator, and extending eastward far over the valleys of the Amazon and
+its numerous tributaries. It was under the rule of the Incas, a
+parental despotism, which spread an iron network of laws over millions
+of subjects of different races and languages. Its mountain slopes,
+table-lands, sea-coasts, and plains comprised every variety of climate
+and almost every diversity of physical features. Its capital was
+Cuzco, where dwelt the adored Incas; there also was the famous Temple
+of the Sun, with its gorgeous decorations of gold and gems. Canals,
+aqueducts, complete systems of irrigation for the rainless regions;
+magnificent mountain roads, built to endure for centuries; fine
+textile fabrics, utensils of clay and copper, vessels and ornaments of
+silver and gold; bridges, fortresses, and edifices of a rude but massy
+and symmetrical architecture, well adapted to the climate and the
+needs of the inhabitants; armies, magistrates, courts of
+justice,--such were some of the tokens of a wide semi-civilized
+prosperity, which less than two hundred Spanish adventurers were
+proceeding ruthlessly to destroy.
+
+With incredible difficulties still to overcome, Pizarro had in his
+favor a circumstance of immense importance. The country was at that
+time distracted by civil war. Two brothers, Huascar and Atahualpa,
+sons of the last Inca, were engaged in a fratricidal strife for the
+imperial power, and their armies were turned against each other.
+
+Pizarro resolved to strike his first blow at Tumbez; but was
+constrained by baffling winds to put into the Bay St. Matthew. There
+he landed his force, and soon fell upon a peaceful village, putting
+the inhabitants to flight and pillaging their dwellings. A
+considerable treasure thus obtained was sent back to Panama, where it
+had the desired effect of rallying new recruits for the conquest. A
+most welcome reinforcement was headed by Hernando de Soto, afterwards
+famed as the discoverer of the Mississippi, who sailed to join Pizarro
+with one hundred men and a number of horses.
+
+De Soto arrived in time to aid in extricating him from a harassing
+situation on the island of Puna. Pizarro had been so indiscreet as to
+get into a quarrel with the inhabitants, whom he had defeated in
+battle and slaughtered in large numbers, and from whose incessant
+attacks he was suffering great annoyance.
+
+He now felt himself strong enough to invade the interior. The story of
+that invasion is one of the most astonishing in history. It has been
+many times told, but nowhere else so effectively as in the full,
+flowing, and lucid narrative of Prescott. It can be but briefly
+sketched here.
+
+Having established near the sea-coast a settlement which he named San
+Miguel, to serve as a key of communication between him and his ships,
+Pizarro set out boldly on his march, having with him but one hundred
+and seventy-seven men, nine of whom showing signs of sinking courage,
+were soon sent back to the settlement. By pretences of a friendly
+mission to their Inca, he won his way among such of the surprised
+inhabitants as were not frightened from their villages by his
+approach; and penetrated the wild defiles of the Cordilleras, behind
+which, near Caxamalca--now Caxamarca--the Inca Atahualpa, with an
+immense army lay encamped. He was fresh from a great and decisive
+victory over his elder brother, and was resting, and enjoying the warm
+baths near the city,--the "baths of the Incas," as they are called to
+this day.
+
+Instead of disputing the passage of the strangers in the mountain
+fortresses, and hurling destruction upon them from a thousand crags,
+the monarch sent to exchange gifts with them, and assurances of
+friendship; and awaited them in his camp, the pavilions of which
+whitened the wide hillsides for miles.
+
+On a dull afternoon in November, 1532, Pizarro entered Caxamalca, and
+undismayed by the innumerable host that confronted him, went to pay a
+visit of courtesy to the Inca. He was gloomily received by Atahualpa,
+who chanced to be observing a fast, but who promised to return his
+visit on the following day.
+
+Pizarro felt that a crisis in his audacious business was close at
+hand; and endured the deepest anxiety until late the next afternoon,
+that of November 16th, when, after long delays and apparent waverings
+on the part of the Inca, which severely tried the patience of the
+Spaniards lying in wait with their heavy armor on, he at length
+appeared, borne in a gorgeous palanquin, and accompanied by an immense
+and magnificent procession.
+
+With ferocious satisfaction Pizarro beheld his august victim advancing
+to his doom. The procession entered the grand plaza of Caxamalca, on
+three sides of which, under cover of low buildings opening into it,
+spearmen and horsemen stood to their arms. Not a Spaniard was to be
+seen, until a priest with interpreters advanced to meet the monarch,
+and to confuse him with an astonishing harangue concerning the true
+faith and the supremacy of Spain. Pizarro saw that his opportunity
+had come. He waved his scarf; from the fortress sounded a signal-gun;
+and with fierce battle-cries the Spaniards rushed from all sides upon
+the Peruvians.
+
+The shouts, the blaze and smoke of fire-arms, the terrible
+detonations, the sight of plunging horses and their riders, with the
+sudden fury of the onset, paralyzed with terror the multitude of
+unarmed attendants, who fell the victims of a horrible massacre. The
+Inca was seized and borne off a captive. And yet the pursuit and
+slaughter did not cease until thousands of the panic-stricken and
+defenceless Peruvians had been slain, and more prisoners had been
+taken than were required to provide every Spaniard with a retinue of
+servants.
+
+Pizarro treated his captive with the consideration due to a great but
+fallen potentate; he granted him ample apartments, and the society of
+his favorite wives and nobles. He at the same time endeavored to save
+his soul, by enforcing upon his mind the truths of the Catholic faith.
+Atahualpa accepted with dignity the fortunes of war; and as a ransom
+offered to fill a large room in which he one day was, with vessels of
+gold, as high as he could reach. Pizarro agreed to the proposal, and
+by the Inca's orders messengers were despatched to Cuzco and other
+important cities of the empire, for the required booty.
+
+This arrangement reached the ears of Huascar, then a prisoner in the
+hands of his younger brother's adherents; he thereupon sent word to
+the Spaniards that he would pay a much larger reward if they would
+espouse his cause and set him free. Unfortunately for both him and
+Pizarro, the offer reached the ears of Atahualpa, who secretly caused
+Huascar to be put to death.
+
+The golden treasure soon began to come in, borne on the backs of
+Indians,--goblets, vases, salvers, massy plates and tiles from the
+walls of palaces and temples, and images of plants and animals. Some
+of these objects weighed individually several pounds; and the art
+displayed in their manufacture was often admirable. But they were all
+ruthlessly melted down into ingots, to be divided among the
+conquerors. Gold to the value of more than seventeen million dollars,
+measured by our modern standard, was thus secured, besides a vast
+amount of silver. Certainly no prince in all the world's history had
+ever paid such a ransom.
+
+The treasure was a long while coming in; and Pizarro had ample time to
+consider how he should keep his part of the contract. He could never
+have had any intention of giving the Inca his liberty; nor was he deep
+enough in his craft to perceive the immense advantage he might gain by
+holding him a captive. He resolved upon his death. The unhappy prince
+was tried by a military court of his enemies, charged with the
+usurpation of the empire, with the murder of his brother, and with
+attempts to incite an insurrection against the Spaniards. He was
+condemned, received as a convert to the Catholic faith, baptized, and
+executed. This event occurred August 29, 1533.
+
+Meanwhile Almagro had arrived with a much-needed reinforcement; and
+adventurers of all sorts, from Spain and her western colonies, soon
+began to flock to the newly opened land of gold. Pizarro marched upon
+Cuzco, which he took after a fierce battle, and pillaged of what gold
+had not been already removed for Atahualpa's ransom. He caused Manco
+Capae, a young prince of the royal blood, to be proclaimed Inca; drove
+him by his oppressions to revolt; and was besieged by him in Cuzco.
+The Peruvians assaulted the city in countless numbers, set fire to the
+houses with flaming arrows and red-hot stones, and might have starved
+or destroyed the Spaniards, had not they themselves been forced by
+starvation to raise the siege.
+
+In June, 1538, the old feud between Pizarro and Almagro culminated in
+a battle between their two factions, and Almagro was defeated and
+killed. Pizarro now ruled the country with red-handed despotism. The
+benignant laws of the Incas were replaced by the rapine of the
+conquerors. Not only gold and silver, but the land itself and its
+former peaceful occupants, were apportioned among them; and slavery
+and concubinage prevailed in their most revolting forms. The rumors of
+these wrongs reached Spain, and a commissioner was sent out to inquire
+into them; but before his arrival Pizarro died by violence in his own
+Ciudad de los Reyes, "City of the Kings,"--now Lima,--which he had
+founded in 1535.
+
+His death was worthy of his life. Attacked in his own house by the
+avengers of Almagro, he fought furiously, and cut down three of his
+assailants; but fell, overcome by numbers, and pierced by as many
+blades as met in the body of Caesar. His last word was "Jesu!" and his
+last act, to stoop and kiss the symbol of a cross which he traced with
+his finger on the bloody floor.
+
+Thus lived and died one of the most extraordinary men of his time,
+indeed of all times. It is hard to sum up briefly the good and evil of
+such a character. He was said to be of a pleasing and dignified
+presence, simple and self-reliant. We know that he was possessed of
+indomitable courage, endurance, and persistency of purpose;
+avaricious, perfidious, devout; and conspicuous for his cruelty even
+in a cruel age. Greedy as he was of gold, he spent little of it upon
+himself, and seemed to desire it chiefly for the power and honor it
+would command. He founded settlements and cities, and was lavish in
+his expenditures upon public works; no doubt ambitious of building up
+a new empire on the ruins of the one he had destroyed. But he
+exhibited none of the great qualities of a born ruler and lawgiver; in
+the coarseness of his moral nature, a swineherd to the last. He never
+married, but by a daughter of Atahualpa he had a daughter, who
+survived him. In his native town of Truxillo her descendants are still
+to be found, with the mingled blood of the conqueror and of the last
+of the Incas in their veins.
+
+[Signature of the author.]
+
+
+
+
+GASPARD DE COLIGNI
+
+By PROFESSOR CREASY
+
+(1517-1572)
+
+[Illustration: Burning of a house. [TN]]
+
+
+There was a time, when the doctrines of the Reformation seemed
+destined to achieve far ampler conquests over the dominion of Papal
+Rome than they have ultimately realized. France, in particular, at the
+commencement of the second half of the sixteenth century, appeared to
+be almost won over to Protestantism. The Huguenots (as the followers
+of the Reformed Faith in that country were termed) formed the most
+influential, if not the largest part of the population of many of the
+principal provinces, and of nearly all the provincial capitals; they
+were numerous in Paris; nor was there a single district or town in
+France in which they had not obtained converts and power, before the
+war of 1562.
+
+The history of the Reformation in France is a mournful one; but it
+presents names to our notice which every good heart must delight to
+honor; and foremost of these is the name of Gaspard de Coligni, the
+statesman, the soldier, and the saint; who long was the stoutest
+champion of the Protestant cause, and finally became the most glorious
+of its many martyrs. Unlike his comrade Conde, he was proof against
+the vicious blandishments of the enemy's court, as well as against the
+terrors of their camps. Familiar with defeat, he never learned
+despair. Hallam has well compared his indomitable energy to the
+
+  "Atrocem animam Catonis;"
+
+but the Huguenot chief, while fully equal to the ancient Roman in
+probity, in self-reliance, and in unflinching fortitude, was far
+superior to him in comprehensiveness of judgment and in fertility of
+resources; and moreover, the affectionate gentleness which marked the
+private life of Coligni, contrasts favorably with the stoic coarseness
+by which the character of Cato was deformed.
+
+The father of Coligni was head of an ancient and noble house, and was
+the seigneur of Chatillon-sur-Lion. At his death, in 1522, he left
+three sons, then of tender years, all of whom became eminent in French
+history, and all of whom embraced the Protestant doctrines, though
+trained up in the Romish Church. The elder brother, who is known as
+the Cardinal de Chatillon, was raised to that high ecclesiastical
+dignity by Clement VII., in 1533. Chiefly through the influence which
+his younger brother exerted over him, he became a convert to the
+tenets of the Reformers in his middle age, and took part in the early
+scenes of the civil wars. After the reverse which his party sustained
+at the battle of St. Denys, he fled to England, where he died in 1571.
+The younger brother, Dandelot, was the first of the three who became a
+Protestant. He was a skilful and gallant soldier, and signalized
+himself repeatedly by his enterprise, his inexhaustible resources, and
+undaunted spirit, as a commander of the Huguenot forces from the first
+outbreak of the religious wars until his death soon after the battle
+of Jarnac, in 1569. Gaspard, the great Coligni, or the Admiral (as he
+is often termed, from having held the titular office of Admiral of
+France), was the middle one of the three brothers, and was born at
+Chatillon-sur-Lion, February 16, 1517. He served with distinction in
+the later wars of Francis I. against Spain; and with his brother
+Dandelot received knighthood on the field of battle at Cerisoles. He
+was afterward raised to the important post of colonel-general of the
+French infantry, and in 1552 was nominated by Henry II. Admiral of
+France. He was taken prisoner at St. Quentin by the Spaniards, and
+underwent a long captivity in Spain before he regained his liberty by
+payment of a heavy ransom.
+
+During the long hours of solitude and compulsory inaction which he
+passed in his Spanish prison, he meditated deeply and earnestly on
+religious subjects; and after his return to France, the conversation
+of his brother Dandelot, who had already joined the Huguenots,
+confirmed the bias to the Protestant doctrines, which his own studies
+and deliberations had created. Coligni now resigned all his
+appointments and preferments, except the nominal rank of admiral, and
+retired to his estates, where he passed his time in fervent devotion,
+and in the enjoyment of the calm happiness of domestic life. But the
+cry of suffering which rose from his fellow-Protestants, against whom
+the pernicious influence of the Princes of Lorraine in the French
+court kindled the fires of persecution throughout France, soon drew
+him from his blameless and cherished repose. He at first sought to
+provide for them a refuge from oppression, by founding colonies of
+French Protestants in America; but his projects proved unsuccessful;
+and as the tyranny of the violent party among the French Catholics
+grew more and more alarming, Coligni deemed that both honor and
+conscience required him to stand openly forward in behalf of his
+co-religionists.
+
+No class of men ever were more long-suffering, or showed more
+unwillingness to rise in arms against their domestic tyrants, than the
+much-calumniated Huguenots of France. When we read the hideous edicts
+that were promulgated against them, and which were not mere empty
+threats, but were carried into execution throughout the land with
+unrelenting and strenuous ferocity, we feel that if ever the right of
+self-defence can make an appeal to arms justifiable, it was so in
+their instance. Extermination or apostasy formed the only choice that
+their rulers offered them. Mackintosh, in his "History of the English
+Revolution of 1688," has truly termed the question of when subjects
+are justified in making war on their sovereign, "a tremendous
+problem." But the same admirable writer has bequeathed to us a full
+and luminous code of the rules and principles of immutable morality,
+by which this awful issue must be tried, and no one who is familiar
+with these principles can hesitate in pronouncing that the war on the
+part of the French Huguenots was lawful and laudable before God and
+man.
+
+Coligni is peculiarly free from the heavy imputation, which
+insurrectionary leaders incur, however great their provocation, who
+introduce the appeal of battle in civil controversy, and, to use the
+emphatic language of Milton, "let loose the sword of intestine war,
+soaking the land in her own gore," before every other possible mode of
+obtaining protection from further enormous wrong has been attempted,
+and attempted in vain. He was wholly unconnected with the enterprise
+(known in French history as the conspiracy of Amboise) by which some
+of the Protestant chiefs designed to withdraw the young king, Francis
+II., forcibly from the influence of the Guises, and which may be
+considered the first overt act of insurrection. Not that Conde is to
+be condemned for that effort, but the Admiral's exceeding loyalty is
+proved by his having kept aloof from it. Coligni continued to seek
+security for his co-religionists by peaceable means, for two years
+after that unsuccessful enterprise, from the savage reprisals of the
+Court upon its authors. He seemed at one time to be successful in his
+blameless exertions; and in the Assembly of Notables, held in January,
+1562, an edict was issued, called the "Edict of Pacification," giving
+a partial toleration of the Protestant creed, and suspending all penal
+proceedings on the ground of religion.
+
+This was all that Coligni strove for. He said at the time to some of
+his adherents: "If we have our religion, what do we want more?" But
+those who had made this concession were treacherous as they were
+cruel, and the fair promise which France seemed to have acquired of
+tranquillity was destined to be soon destroyed.
+
+Two powerful parties were arrayed against the Huguenots, one of which
+consisted of their avowed and implacable enemies. This was headed by
+the Guises, with whom the Constable Montmorenci, and the Marechal St.
+Andre had been induced to enter into league. Less fanatically violent,
+but far more formidable, through its false show of moderation and
+favor, was the party of the Queen-mother, Catherine de Medici.
+Catherine dreaded the power of the house of Guise; and was often glad
+to avail herself of the Protestant interest as a counterpoise against
+them. But though the jealousy which animated herself and her sons
+against the Princes of Lorraine was great, their hatred of the
+Huguenots was greater; and their occasional simulation of friendship
+enabled them to wreak it more malignantly and more completely.
+
+They had sided with Coligni and Conde and the other Protestant chiefs
+in enacting the Edict of Pacification, and had thereby given a check
+to the power of the Duke of Guise and his confederates. But when their
+temporary purpose was served, the wise provisions of that edict were
+set at naught; the Protestants were again exposed to outrage and
+slaughter at the hands of their foes, nor could any redress be
+obtained from the royal tribunals. At length occurred the massacre of
+Vassi, where the armed followers of the Duke of Guise attacked a
+defenceless body of Protestants, while engaged in the services of
+their church, and slaughtered several hundreds of them under the eye
+of Guise, if not by his orders. Reeking from this carnage, the bands
+of the Lorraines entered Paris, where they were enthusiastically
+received by the fanatic populace, which was devoted to the Catholic
+cause.
+
+Conde now left the capital, and summoned the Protestant nobility and
+gentry to rally round him in defence of their lives and their creed.
+Coligni long delayed joining him, and evinced a hesitation and a
+reluctance to embark in civil war, which emphatically attest the
+goodness while they in no degree detract from the greatness of his
+character. His wife, who naturally thought that anxiety on her account
+aided in restraining him, exhorted him in words of more than Roman
+magnanimity to arm in defence of the thousand destined victims, who
+looked up to him for guidance and protection. Coligni urged on her and
+on the friends who thronged round him, the fearful risks of the
+enterprise, and his earnest desire to wait in patience for better
+times, and rest upon the public faith rather than justify persecution
+by having recourse to violence. Unconvinced and undaunted, the heroine
+renewed her entreaties to the lingering hero. She told him that such
+prudence was not wisdom toward God. D'Aubigne professes to report this
+remarkable conversation from the lips of those who were present; and
+he states that she proceeded to urge on him these words:--
+
+"God has bestowed on you the genius of a great captain--will you
+refuse the use of it to his children? You have confessed to the
+justice of their cause--is not the knightly sword you bear pledged to
+the defence of the oppressed? Sir, my heart bleeds for our slaughtered
+brethren--and their blood cries out to God and Heaven against you as
+the murderer of those whom you might have saved."
+
+"Since," replied the Admiral, "the reasons which I have this evening
+alleged against an ineffectual resistance have made so little
+impression upon your mind, lay your hand upon your heart and answer me
+this question, Could you, without murmuring against Providence and the
+husband to whom Heaven has united you, receive the news of a general
+defeat? Are you prepared to endure the opprobrium of your enemies--the
+reproaches of your friends--the treachery of partisans--the curses of
+the people--confiscation, flight, exile--the insolence of the English,
+the quarrels of the Germans--shame, nakedness, hunger--and, what is
+worse, to suffer all this in your children? Are you prepared to see
+your husband branded as a rebel and dragged to a scaffold; while your
+children, disgraced and ruined, are begging their bread at the hands
+of their enemies? I give you eight days to reflect upon it, and when
+you shall be well prepared for such reverses, I will be ready to set
+forward, and perish with you and our mutual friends."
+
+"The eight days are already expired!" she cried. "Go, sir, where your
+duty calls you. Heaven will not give the victory to our enemies. In
+the name of God, I call upon you to resist no longer, but to save our
+brethren, or die in the attempt."
+
+On the next morning Coligni was on horseback, with all his retainers
+round him; and with a heavy heart but a clear conscience, he rode on
+his way to join Conde at Meaux, which was now, in the early spring of
+1562, the head-quarters of the insurgent Huguenots.
+
+The high rank of the Prince of Conde, as well as his brilliant
+abilities and chivalrous courage, caused him to be acknowledged as
+chief of the Protestant party; but Coligni was looked on by friends
+and foes as the main pillar of their cause; and it was he that gave
+organization to the volunteers who flocked around himself and the
+prince, first at Meaux, and afterward in greater numbers at Orleans,
+when toward the end of March they succeeded in occupying that
+important city, and making it a centre of operations for the Huguenot
+confederacy. Like Cromwell in after times, Coligni relied on the
+religious enthusiasm as well as the natural bravery of his troops. He
+exercised them by preaching and prayer as well as by drilling and
+manoeuvring. He inspired them with his own spirit of austere devotion
+to their cause; and the Huguenot army was in its first campaigns as
+conspicuous for good order and morality as for valor; though by
+degrees it became tainted with a tendency to marauding and to brutal
+violence.
+
+The Roman Catholic party now sought support from Philip II. of Spain,
+from the Duke of Savoy, the emperor and other foreign princes of their
+creed, and the Huguenots, to the deep regret of Coligni, were
+compelled to strengthen themselves by similar negotiations. The
+English queen, Elizabeth, promised succors in men and money, on
+condition of Havre (which city, like most of the other strong places
+in Normandy, was devoted to the Protestant cause) being placed in her
+power as a security for repayment. The German Lutheran princes
+permitted a large auxiliary force of lansquenets and heavy-armed
+cavalry to be raised among their subjects in behalf of the French
+Protestants; and Dandelot was despatched into Germany to place himself
+at their head, and lead them across the Rhine; a difficult operation,
+which he accomplished with great skill, and joined his brothers and
+Conde at Pluviers, near Orleans, late in the year, and at a crisis
+when the fortunes of the Protestant party appeared reduced to a very
+low ebb, as in the interval which had elapsed since the commencement
+of the war, though there had been no engagement between the main
+armies, the Royalists had gained numerous advantages, and had captured
+many towns, both in the South and in Normandy, which had originally
+declared for the insurgents.
+
+Coligni and Conde with their own troops and their German allies now
+(December, 1562) marched upon Paris; but finding it hopeless to
+attempt the storm or siege of the capital, they led their army toward
+Normandy, desiring to form a junction with the English troops at
+Havre. The Royal forces, commanded nominally by the Constable
+Montmorenci and the Marechal de St. Andre, but in which the Duke of
+Guise was also present, marched for some days on their flank, till the
+two armies came into collision on December 19th at Dreux, where the
+first battle of the civil wars was fought. In this action, after many
+vicissitudes of fortune, the Duke of Guise secured the victory for the
+Roman Catholics, and Conde was taken prisoner. Coligni led the remains
+of the Protestant army back to Orleans; whither the Duke of Guise, at
+the head of a largely recruited army, flushed by their recent victory,
+soon advanced, with the intention of crushing insurrection and
+Protestantism, by the capture of their stronghold.
+
+Coligni's situation now seemed desperate. His German mercenaries in
+arrear of pay, threatened to desert him; the funds which he had been
+able to collect for the conduct of the war were exhausted; and he was
+utterly unable to encounter the numerous and well-appointed forces of
+Guise. In this emergency he formed the bold plan of leaving his
+brother, Dandelot, with the bulk of the infantry to defend Orleans,
+while he himself led the cavalry and a few companies of foot again to
+Normandy, and again attempted to avail himself of the English supplies
+of money and troops. In spite of the mutinous murmurings of the German
+reisters, in spite of the attempts which the Roman Catholic commanders
+made to intercept him, Coligni executed his daring scheme. Havre was
+reached. The English subsidies were secured, and the rich and powerful
+city of Caen voluntarily placed itself in Coligni's power. Meanwhile
+Orleans had been well defended by Dandelot; and the great chief of the
+Roman Catholics, the Duke of Guise, had died by the hand of an
+assassin. Some attempts were made to implicate Coligni in the guilt of
+this murder, but the Admiral indignantly denied the charge; nor is
+there any ground for believing him to have had the least cognizance of
+Poltrot's crime.
+
+The death of Guise made a temporary pacification easy; and the edict
+of Amboise, on March 19, 1563, by which a narrow and restricted
+permission for the exercise of the Protestant religion was allowed,
+closed the first war.
+
+This peace on the part of the Royalists was only a hollow and a
+treacherous truce. Fresh communications with Philip II. were opened;
+and an interview took place in 1564 at Bayonne, between Catherine, her
+son Charles IX., and the Duke of Alva. There is every reason to
+believe that at that meeting the destruction of the Protestants by
+craft or by force was concerted. The treaty of Amboise was now openly
+and repeatedly violated by the fanatic party of the French Roman
+Catholics; and the Huguenots were again driven to take up arms in
+self-defence. Conde and Coligni advanced upon Paris, and fought on
+November 10, 1567, the sanguinary battle of St. Denys against the
+Royalist forces. The Huguenots were beaten, but Coligni rallied them,
+and marching toward the Meuse, effected a junction with fresh bands of
+German auxiliaries. The war now raged with redoubled horror in every
+district of France. Alarmed at the strength of the Huguenot army,
+Catherine tried and successfully exerted her powers of persuasion and
+deceit over Conde, and a second faithless peace, called the treaty of
+Longjumeau, was concluded; but when the Huguenot forces were
+disbanded, and their German auxiliaries dismissed, the Royalists
+renewed the war.
+
+In 1569, the indiscreet spirit of Conde brought the Protestants into
+action at Jarnac, under heavy disadvantages, against the flower of the
+Catholic army. Conde was killed in the battle, and a large part of his
+forces routed with heavy slaughter; but Coligni was again the Ajax of
+the cause, covered the retreat, and reorganized the fugitives for
+fresh exertions. But the waves of calamity were not yet spent. The
+hostile armies met again at Moncontour, and the Protestants sustained
+the most complete and murderous overthrow that had been dealt to them
+throughout the war. Coligni's brother, the gallant Dandelot, was
+mortally wounded in this disastrous field; many of his stanchest
+friends had fallen; many abandoned him; and he found himself a
+fugitive, with only a few bands of mutineers around him, the wreck of
+the gallant army that he had lately led.
+
+But it was in this depth of gloom that the true heroic lustre of his
+soul was seen. Fearless himself of what man could do unto him, he
+calmed the panic of his followers, and inspired them with his own
+energy. He who has innate strength to stand amid the storm, will soon
+find others flock around and fortify him while they seek support for
+themselves. When it was known that Coligni's banner still was flying,
+the Protestants of France and Eastern Germany, who at first had been
+stunned by the report of Moncontour, thronged to him as to a strong
+tower in the midst of trouble. While the Royalists were exulting at
+the fancied annihilation of their foe, they suddenly learned that
+Coligni was approaching the capital, at the head of the largest army
+that the Huguenots had yet sent into the field. Again the device of a
+treacherous pacification was attempted, and again it prevailed.
+Coligni was warned of the personal danger that he incurred by trusting
+the faith of a Medici and a Guise; but he replied that he would rather
+lay down his life, than see France continue the victim of the woes of
+civil war.
+
+The treaty of St. Germains was signed on August 8, 1570, and on August
+24, 1572, the Massacre of St. Bartholomew attested with what worse
+than Punic faith the crowned conspirators of the French Court had
+planned it. In the interval, the most detestable and elaborate
+hypocrisy was employed to lull the suspicions of the Huguenot chiefs,
+and to bring them defenceless into the power of their enemies. At
+last, in the summer of 1572, they were collected in Paris, under the
+pretence of being the honored guests of the French king, at the
+nuptials of his sister with Henry of Navarre. An attempt was made on
+the life of Coligni by an assassin, in which the Admiral was severely
+wounded. The king and his courtiers affected the utmost indignation at
+this crime, and the warmest sympathy with the suffering veteran. But
+in the early dawn of the day appointed for the most unchristian
+carnage that ever defiled the earth, a party of murderers, headed by
+the young Duke of Guise himself, broke open the doors of the house
+where Coligni lay, and Besme, one of the duke's domestics, entered
+with a drawn sword, into the room where the Admiral was sitting in an
+arm-chair.
+
+"Young man," said he, undisturbed, "you ought to respect my gray
+hairs; but do as you please, you can only shorten my life a few days."
+
+Besme thrust him through in many places, and then threw his body,
+still breathing, out of the window into the court, where it fell at
+the feet of the Duke of Guise. The minions of the Louvre flocked
+around in hideous glee, to insult the lifeless form of him, before
+whom they had so long quailed and trembled. They gibbeted their own
+infamy in vainly seeking to dishonor the illustrious dead. His memory
+is at once the glory and the shame of France: and the very land of the
+St. Bartholomew is, to some extent, hallowed by having been the
+birthplace of Coligni, and the scene of his heroic career.
+
+I do not pause to describe the tardy homage which his countrymen
+afterward paid to the name and relics of the fallen great. These
+obsequies and panegyrics may be looked on as some small expiation for
+the national guilt of France, but Coligni needed them not.
+
+
+
+
+HENRY IV. OF FRANCE
+
+(1553-1610)
+
+[Illustration: Henry IV. [TN]]
+
+
+Henry IV., the most celebrated, the most beloved, and perhaps, in
+spite of his many faults, the best of the French monarchs, was born at
+Pau, the capital of Bearn, in 1553. His parents were Antoine de
+Bourbon, Duke of Vendome, and in right of his wife, titular king of
+Navarre, and Jeanne d'Albert, the heiress of that kingdom. On the
+paternal side he traced his descent to Robert of Clermont, fifth son
+of Louis IX., and thus, on the failure of the elder branches, became
+heir to the crown of France. Educated by a Protestant mother in the
+Protestant faith, he was for many years the rallying point and leader
+of the Huguenots. In boyhood the prince of Bearn displayed sense and
+spirit above his years. Early inured to war, he was present and
+exhibited strong proofs of military talent at the battle of Jarnac,
+and that of Moncontour, both fought in 1569. In the same year he was
+declared chief of the Protestant League. The treaty of St. Germain,
+concluded in 1570, guaranteed to the Huguenots the civil rights for
+which they had been striving; and, in appearance, to cement the union
+of the two parties, a marriage was proposed between Henry, who, by the
+death of his mother, had just succeeded to the throne of Navarre, and
+Margaret of Valois, sister of Charles IX. This match brought Conde,
+Coligni, and all the leaders of their party, to Paris. The ceremony
+took place August 17, 1572, and a week later came the massacre of St.
+Bartholomew. For three years afterward Henry, who to save his life had
+conformed to the established religion, was kept as a kind of
+state-prisoner. He escaped in 1576, and put himself at the head of the
+Huguenot party. In the war which ensued, with the sagacity and fiery
+courage of the high-born general, he showed the indifference to
+hardships of the meanest soldier. Content with the worst fare and
+meanest lodging, in future times the magnificent monarch of France
+could recollect when his wardrobe could not furnish him with a change
+of linen. He shared all fortunes with his followers, and was rewarded
+by their unbounded devotion.
+
+Upon the extinction of the house of Valois, by the assassination of
+Henry III. in 1589, Henry of Navarre became the rightful owner of the
+French throne. But his religion interfered with his claims. The League
+was strong in force against him: he had few friends, few fortresses,
+no money, and a small army. But his courage and activity made up for
+the scantiness of his resources. With five thousand men he withstood
+the Duc de Mayenne, who was pursuing him with twenty-five thousand,
+and gained the battle of Arques, in spite of the disparity. This
+extraordinary result may probably be ascribed in great measure to the
+contrast of personal character in the two generals. Mayenne was slow
+and indolent. Of Henry it was said, that he lost less time in bed than
+Mayenne lost at table; and that he wore out very little broad-cloth,
+but a great deal of boot-leather. A person was once extolling the
+skill and courage of Mayenne in Henry's presence. "You are right,"
+said Henry, "he is a great captain, but I have always five hours'
+start of him." Henry got up at four in the morning, and Mayenne about
+ten.
+
+The battle of Arques was fought in the year of his accession. In the
+following year, 1590, he gained a splendid victory at Ivri, over the
+Leaguers commanded by Mayenne, and a Spanish army superior in numbers.
+On this occasion he made that celebrated speech to his soldiers before
+the battle: "If you lose sight of your standards, rally round my white
+plume; you will always find it in the path of honor and glory." Nor is
+his exclamation to his victorious troops less worthy of record: "Spare
+the French!"
+
+Paris was soon blockaded, but the Parliament swore on the Gospels, in
+the presence of the Legate and the Spanish Ambassador, to refuse all
+proposals of accommodation. The siege was pushed to such extremities,
+and the famine became so cruel, that bread was made of human bones
+ground to powder. That Henry did not then master the capital, where
+two hundred thousand men were maddened with want, was owing to his own
+lenity. He declared that he had rather lose Paris, than gain
+possession of it by the death of so many persons. He gave a free
+passage through his lines to all who were not soldiers, and allowed
+his own troops to send in refreshments to their friends. By this
+paternal kindness he lost the fruit of his labors to himself; but he
+also prolonged the civil war, and the calamities of the kingdom at
+large.
+
+The approach of the Duke of Parma with a Spanish army obliged Henry to
+raise the siege of Paris. It was not the policy of the Spanish court
+to render the Leaguers independent of its assistance, and the duke,
+satisfied with having relieved the metropolis, avoided an engagement,
+and returned to his government in the Low Countries, followed by Henry
+as far as the frontiers of Picardy. In 1591 Henry received succors
+from England and Germany, and laid siege to Rouen; but his prey was
+again snatched from him by the Duke of Parma. Again battle was offered
+and declined; and the retiring army passed the Seine in the night on a
+bridge of boats; a retreat the more glorious, as Henry believed it to
+be impossible. The duke once said of his adversary, that other
+generals made war like lions or wild boars; but that Henry hovered
+over it like an eagle.
+
+During the siege of Paris, some conferences had been held between the
+chiefs of the two parties, which ended in a kind of accommodation. The
+Catholics of the king's party began to complain of his perseverance in
+Calvinism; and some influential men who were of the latter persuasion,
+especially his confidential friend and minister Rosny, represented to
+him the necessity of a change. Even some of the reformed ministers
+softened the difficulty, by acknowledging salvation to be possible in
+the Roman Church. In 1593 the ceremony of abjuration was performed at
+St. Denis, in presence of a multitude of the Parisians. If, as we
+cannot but suppose, the monarch's conversion was owing to political
+motives, the apostacy must be answered for at a higher than any human
+tribunal; politically viewed, it was perhaps one of the most
+beneficial steps ever taken toward the pacification and renewal of
+prosperity of a great kingdom. In the same year he was crowned at
+Chartres, and in 1594 Paris opened her gates to him. He had just been
+received into the capital, where he was conspicuously manifesting his
+beneficence and zeal for the public good, when he was wounded in the
+throat by John Chatel, a young fanatic. When the assassin was
+questioned, he avowed the doctrine of tyrannicide, and quoted the
+sermons of the Jesuits in his justification. That society therefore
+was banished by the Parliament.
+
+For two years after his ostensible conversion, the king was obliged
+daily to perform the most humiliating ceremonies, by way of penance;
+and it was not till 1594 that he was absolved by Clement VIII. The
+Leaguers then had no further pretext for rebellion, and the League
+necessarily was dissolved. Its chiefs exacted high terms for their
+submission; but the civil wars had so exhausted the kingdom, that
+tranquillity could not be too dearly purchased; and Henry was faithful
+to all his promises, even after his authority was so firmly
+established, that he might have broken his word with safety to all but
+his own conscience and honor. Although the obligations which he had to
+discharge were most burdensome, he found means to relieve his people,
+and make his kingdom prosper. The Duke de Mayenne, in Burgundy, and
+the Duke de Mercoeur in Brittany, were the last to protract an
+unavailing resistance; but the former was reduced in 1596, and the
+latter in 1598, and thenceforth France enjoyed almost uninterrupted
+peace till Henry's death. But the Protestants gave him almost as much
+uneasiness as the Catholic Leaguers. He had granted liberty of
+conscience to the former; a measure which was admitted to be
+necessary by the prudent even among the latter. Nevertheless, either
+from vexation at his having abjured their religion, from the violence
+of party zeal, or disgust at being no longer the objects of royal
+preference, the Calvinists preferred their demands in so seditious a
+tone, as stopped little short of a rebellious one. While on the road
+to Brittany, he determined to avoid greater evils by timely
+compromise. The edict of Nantes was then promulgated, authorizing the
+public exercise of their religion in several towns, granting them the
+right of holding offices, putting them in possession of certain places
+for eight years, as pledges for their security, and establishing
+salaries for their ministers. The clergy and preachers demurred, but
+to no purpose; the Parliament ceased to resist the arguments of the
+Prince, when he represented to them as magistrates, that the peace of
+the state and the prosperity of the Church must be inseparable. At the
+same time he endeavored to convince the bigots among the priesthood on
+both sides, that the love of country and the performance of civil and
+political duties may be completely reconciled with difference of
+worship.
+
+But it would be unjust to attribute these enlightened views to Henry,
+without noticing that he had a friend as well as minister in Rosny,
+best known as the Duke de Sully, who probably suggested many of his
+wisest measures, and at all events superintended their execution, and
+did his best to prevent or retrieve his sovereign's errors by
+uncompromising honesty of advice and remonstrance. The allurements of
+pleasure were powerful over the enthusiastic and impassioned
+temperament of Henry; it was love that most frequently prevailed over
+the claims of duty. The beautiful Gabrielle d'Estrees became the
+absolute mistress of his heart; and he entertained hopes of obtaining
+permission from Rome to divorce Margaret de Valois, from whom he had
+long lived in a state of separation. Had he succeeded time enough, he
+contemplated the dangerous project of marrying the favorite; but her
+death saved him both from the hazard and disgrace. The sentence of
+divorce, so long solicited, was at last granted, and the king married
+Mary de Medici, who bore Louis XIII. to him in 1601. The match,
+however, contributed little to his domestic happiness.
+
+While France was flourishing under a vigilant and paternal
+administration, while her strength was beginning to keep pace with her
+internal happiness, new conspiracies were incessantly formed against
+the king. Henriette d'Entragues, another favorite, not only
+exasperated the Queen's peevish humor against him, but was ungrateful
+enough to combine with her father, the Count d'Auvergne, and the
+Spanish Court, in a plot which was timely discovered. Spite of the
+many virtues and conciliatory manners of Henry, the fanatics could
+never pardon his former attachment to the Protestant cause. He was
+continually surrounded with traitors and assassins; almost every year
+produced some attempt on his life, and he fell at last by the weapon
+of a misguided enthusiast.
+
+Shortly before his untimely end, Henry is said by some historians to
+have disclosed a project for forming a Christian republic. The
+proposal is stated to have been, to divide Europe into fifteen fixed
+powers, none of which should be allowed to make any new acquisition,
+but should together form an association for maintaining a mutual
+balance, and preserving peace. This political reverie, impossible to
+be realized, is not likely ever to have been actually divulged, even
+if meditated by Henry, nor is there any trace of it to be found in the
+history, or among the state-papers of England, Venice, or Holland, the
+supposed co-operators in the scheme. His more rational design in
+arming went no further than to set bounds to the ambition and power of
+the house of Austria, both in Germany and Italy. Whatever may have
+been the motive, his means of success were imposing. He was to march
+into Germany at the head of forty thousand excellent troops. The army,
+provisions, and every other necessary were in readiness. Money no
+longer failed; Sully had laid up forty millions of livres in the
+treasury, which were destined for this war. His alliances were already
+assured, his generals had been formed by himself, and all seemed to
+forebode such a storm as must probably have overwhelmed an emperor
+devoted to the search after the philosopher's stone, and a king of
+Spain under the dominion of the Inquisition. Henry was impatient to
+join his army; but his mind had become harassed with sinister
+forebodings, and his chagrin was increased by a temporary alienation
+from his faithful minister. He was on his way to pay a visit of
+reconciliation to Sully, when his coach was entangled as it passed
+along the street. His attendants left the carriage to remove the
+obstruction, and during the delay thus caused he was stabbed to the
+heart by Francis Ravaillac, a native of Angouleme. This calamitous
+event took place on May 14, 1610, in the fifty-seventh year of his
+age. The Spaniards, who had the strongest interest in the catastrophe,
+were supposed to have been the instigators; but the fear of
+implicating other powers, and plunging France into greater evils than
+those from which their hero had rescued them, deterred not only
+statesmen, but even the judges on Ravaillac's trial, from pressing for
+the names of accomplices. Hardouin de Perefixe, in his "History of
+Henry the Great," says, "If it be asked who inspired the monster with
+the thought, history answers that she does not know; and that in so
+mysterious an affair, it is not allowable to vent suspicions and
+conjectures as assured truths; that even the judges who conducted the
+examinations opened not their mouths, and spoke only with their
+shoulders."
+
+The assertions of Ravaillac, as far as they have any weight,
+discountenance the belief of an extended political conspiracy. The
+house of Austria, Mary de Medici his wife, Henriette d'Entragues his
+mistress, as well as the Duke d'Epernon, have been subjected to the
+hateful conjectures of Mazarin and other historians; but he who
+actually struck the blow invariably affirmed that he had no
+accomplice, and that he was carried forward by an uncontrollable
+instinct. If his mind were at all acted on from without, it was
+probably by the epidemic fanaticism of the times, rather than by
+personal influence.
+
+Henry left three sons and three daughters by Mary de Medici. Of no
+prince recorded in history, probably, are so many personal anecdotes
+related, as of Henry IV. These are for the most part well known, and
+of easy access. Among them stands out prominently the tale of the
+Spanish ambassador who to his astonishment, found Henry on the floor
+playing hobby-horse for his children. "Are you a father?" asked Henry,
+looking up without any apparent embarrassment. "Yes, your majesty."
+"Then we will finish our game," said the king. And he did so, before
+taking up his business with the ambassador.
+
+The whole tenor of Henry's life exhibits a lofty, generous, forgiving
+temper, the fearless spirit which loves the excitement of danger, and
+that suavity of feeling and manners, which, above all qualities, wins
+the affection of those who come within its sphere: it does not exhibit
+high moral or religious principle. But his weaknesses were those which
+the world most readily pardons, especially in a great man. If Henry
+had emulated the pure morals and fervent piety of his noble ancestor,
+Louis IX., he would have been a far better king, as well as a better
+man; yet we doubt whether in that case his memory would have been
+cherished with such enthusiastic attachment by his countrymen.
+
+[Illustration: Henry IV. of France at home.]
+
+
+
+
+SIR FRANCIS DRAKE
+
+(1540-1596)
+
+[Illustration: Francis Drake. [TN]]
+
+
+Francis Drake, the first British circumnavigator of the globe, was
+born in Devonshire, of humble parents. So much is admitted; with
+respect to the date of his birth, and the method of his nurture, the
+annalists, Camden and Stowe, are not agreed. By the latter we are told
+that Drake was born at Tavistock, about 1545, and brought up under the
+care of a kinsman, the well-known navigator, Sir John Hawkins. Camden,
+on the other hand, anticipates his birth by several years, and says
+that he was bound apprentice to a small shipowner on the coast of
+Kent, who, dying unmarried, in reward of his industry bestowed his
+bark upon him as a legacy. Both accounts agree that in 1567 he went
+with Hawkins to the West Indies on a trading voyage, which gave its
+color to the rest of his life. Their little squadron was obliged by
+stress of weather to put into St. Juan de Ulloa, on the coast of
+Mexico; where, after being received with a show of amity, it was beset
+and attacked by a superior force, and only two vessels escaped. To
+make amends for his losses in this adventure, in the quaint language
+of the biographer Prince, in his "Worthies of Devon," "Mr. Drake was
+persuaded by the minister of his ship that he might lawfully
+recover the value of the King of Spain by reprisal, and repair his
+losses upon him anywhere else. The case was clear in sea divinity; and
+few are such infidels as not to believe in doctrines which make for
+their profit. Whereupon Drake, though then a poor private man,
+undertook to revenge himself upon so mighty a monarch."
+
+In the years 1570-71 Drake made two voyages to the West Indies,
+apparently to gain a more precise acquaintance with the seas, the
+situation, strength, and wealth of the Spanish settlements. In 1572 he
+sailed with two ships, one of seventy-five tons, the other of
+twenty-five tons, their united crews mustering only seventy-three men
+and boys, all volunteers. His object was to capture the now ruined
+city of Nombre de Dios, situated on the Isthmus of Panama, a few miles
+east of Porto Bello, then the great repository of all the treasure
+conveyed from Mexico to Spain. Off this coast of America his little
+armament was augmented by an English bark, with thirty men on board;
+so that, deducting those whom it was necessary to leave in charge of
+the ships, his available force fell short of a hundred men. This
+handful of bold men attacked the town, which was unwalled, on the
+night of July 22d, and found their way to the marketplace, where the
+captain received a severe wound. He concealed his hurt until the
+public treasury was reached; but before it could be broken open, he
+became faint from loss of blood, and his disheartened followers
+abandoned the attempt, and carried him perforce on board ship. Such at
+least, is the account of the English; there is a Portuguese statement
+in "Hakluyt's Voyages," vol. iii., p. 525, less favorable both to the
+daring and success of the assailants.
+
+Failing in this attempt, Drake continued for some time on the coast,
+visiting Carthagena and other places, and making prize of various
+ships; and if we wonder at his hardihood in adventuring with such
+scanty means to remain for months in the midst of an awakened and
+inveterate enemy, how much more surprising is it that the wealthy,
+proud, and powerful monarchy of Spain should so neglect the care of
+its most precious colonies, as to leave them unable to crush so slight
+a foe! The English appear to have felt perfectly at their ease; they
+cruised about, formed an intimate alliance with an Indian tribe, named
+Symerons, the bond of union being a common hatred of the Spaniards,
+and built a fort on a small island of difficult access, at the mouth
+of a river, where they remained from September 24 to February 3, 1573.
+On the latter day, Drake set forth with one portion of his associates,
+under the conduct of the Symerons, to cross the isthmus. On the fourth
+day they reached a central hill, where stood a remarkable "goodly and
+great high tree, in which the Indians had cut and made divers steps to
+ascend up neere unto the top, where they had also made a convenient
+bower, wherein ten or twelve men might easily sitt; and from thence
+wee might without any difficulty plainly see the Atlantic Ocean,
+whence now wee came, and the South Atlantic (_i.e._, Pacific), so much
+desired. After our captain had ascended to this bower with the chief
+Symeron, and having, as it pleased God at that time, by reason of the
+brize, a very faire day, had seen that sea of which he had heard such
+golden reports, he besought Almighty God of his goodness to give him
+life and leave to sayle once in an English ship in that sea." We quote
+from a tract entitled "Sir Francis Drake Revived," written by some of
+Drake's companions, corrected, it is said, by himself, and published
+by his nephew in 1626, which contains a full and interesting account
+of this adventurous expedition. Drake's present object was to
+intercept a convoy of treasure on the way from Panama to Nombre de
+Dios. By this route the treasures of Peru and Chili, as well as
+Mexico, were brought to Europe, for the passage round Cape Horn was
+then unknown, and no ship but Magellan's had yet accomplished the
+passage round the world to Europe. Guided by the Symerons, the English
+approached Panama, learned that a valuable treasure was expected to
+pass, and beset the lonely forest road which it had to travel. But the
+haste of one drunken man gave a premature alarm, in consequence of
+which the march of the caravan was stopped; and Drake with his party,
+their golden hopes being thus defeated, forced their way through Venta
+Cruz, and returned by a shorter route to their encampment, after a
+toilsome and fruitless journey of three weeks. It was not till April
+1st, that the long-desired opportunity presented itself, on which day
+they took a caravan of mules laden with silver and a small quantity of
+gold. They carried off part of the spoil, and buried about fifteen
+tons of silver; but on returning for it, they found that it had been
+recovered by the Spaniards.
+
+Drake returned to England, August 9, 1573. In dividing the treasure he
+showed the strictest honor, and even generosity; yet his share was
+large enough to pay for fitting out three ships, with which he served
+as a volunteer in Ireland, under the Earl of Essex, and "did excellent
+service both by sea and land in the winning of divers strong forts."
+In 1577, he obtained a commission from Queen Elizabeth to conduct a
+squadron into the South Seas. What was the purport of the commission
+we do not find; it appears from subsequent passages that it gave to
+Drake the power of life and death over his followers; but it would
+seem from the queen's hesitation in approving his proceedings, that it
+was not intended to authorize (at least formally) his depradations on
+Spanish property.
+
+With five ships, the largest the Pelican, of one hundred tons burden,
+the smallest a pinnace of fifteen tons, manned in all with only 164
+men, Drake sailed from Plymouth, November 15, 1577, to visit seas
+where no English vessel had ever sailed. Without serious loss, or
+adventure worthy of notice, the fleet arrived at Port St. Julian, on
+the coast of Patagonia, June 20, 1578. Here the discoverer Magellan
+had tried and executed his second in command on the charge of mutiny,
+and the same spot did Drake select to perform a similar tragedy. He
+accused the officer next to himself, Thomas Doughty, of plots to
+defeat the expedition and take his life; plots undertaken, he said,
+before they had left England. "Proofs were required and alleged, so
+many and so evident, that the gentleman himself, stricken with
+remorse, acknowledged himself to have deserved death;" and of three
+things presented to him, either immediate execution, or to be set on
+shore on the main, or to be sent home to answer for his conduct, he
+chose the former; and having at his own request received the
+sacrament, together with Drake, and dined with him in further token
+of amity, he cheerfully laid his head on the block, according to the
+sentence pronounced by forty of the chiefest persons in the fleet.
+Such is the account published by Drake's nephew, in "The World
+Encompassed," of which we shall only observe, without passing judgment
+on the action, that Drake's conduct in taking out a person whom he
+knew to be ill affected to him, was as singular as is the behavior and
+sudden and acute penitence attributed to Doughty. But we have no
+account from any friend of the sufferer. It is fair to state the
+judgment of Camden, who says, "that the more unprejudiced men in the
+fleet thought Doughty had been guilty of insubordination, and that
+Drake in jealousy removed him as a rival. But some persons, who
+thought they could see farther than others, said that Drake had been
+ordered by the Earl of Leicester to take off Doughty, because he
+spread a report that Leicester had procured the death of the Earl of
+Essex."
+
+Having remained at Port St. Julian until August 15th, they sailed for
+the Straits, reached them August 20th, and passed safely into the
+Pacific, September 6th, with three ships, having taken out the men and
+stores, and abandoned the two smaller vessels. But there arose on the
+7th a dreadful storm, which dispersed the ships. The Marigold was no
+more heard of, while the dispirited crew of the Elizabeth returned to
+England, being the first who ever passed back to the eastward through
+Magellan's Strait. Drake's ship was driven southward to the
+fifty-sixth degree, where he ran in among the islands of the extreme
+south of America. He fixes the farthest land to be near the
+fifty-sixth degree of south latitude, and thus appears to claim the
+honor of having discovered Cape Horn. From September 7th to October
+28th, the adventurers were buffeted by one continued and dreadful
+storm; and in estimating the merits of our intrepid seamen, it is to
+be considered that the seas were utterly unknown, and feared by all,
+those who had tried to follow in Magellan's course having seldom
+succeeded, and then with much pain and loss, and little fruit of their
+voyage; that their vessels were of a class which is now hardly used
+for more than coasting service; and that the imperfection of
+instruments and observations laid them under disadvantages which are
+now removed by the ingenuity of our artists. Add to this, that as the
+Spaniards gave out that it was impossible to repass the Straits, there
+remained no known way to quit the hostile shores of America, but by
+traversing the unexplored Pacific.
+
+The storm at length ceased, and the lonely Pelican (which Drake,
+however, had renamed the Golden Hind) ran along the coast of Lima and
+Peru, reaping a golden harvest from the careless security of those who
+never thought to see an enemy on that side of the globe. There is
+something rather revolting, but very indicative of the temper of the
+age, in the constant reference to the guidance and protection of God,
+mixed with a quiet jocularity with which "Master Francis Fletcher,
+preacher in this employment," from whose notes the "World
+Encompassed," which is a narrative of this voyage, was compiled,
+speaks of acts very little different from highway robbery, such as
+would now be held disgraceful in open war; as for instance, on
+meeting a Spaniard driving eight llamas, each laden with one hundred
+pounds' weight of silver, "they offered their service without
+entreaty, and became drovers, not enduring to see a gentleman Spaniard
+turned carrier." Enriched by the most valuable spoil, jewels, gold,
+and silver, Drake steered to the northward, hoping to discover a
+homeward passage in that quarter. In the forty-eighth degree of north
+latitude, in what is now the State of Washington, he was stopped by
+the cold; and, determining to traverse the Pacific, he landed,
+careened his ship, and, in the queen's name, took possession of the
+country, which he named New Albion, September 29, 1579; he sailed
+again, and reached the Molucca Islands November 4th. In his passage
+thence to the island of Celebes, he incurred the most imminent danger
+of the whole voyage. The ship struck, as they were sailing before a
+fair wind, on a reef of rocks, so precipitous that it was impossible
+to lay out an anchor to heave her off. They stuck fast in this most
+hazardous situation for eight hours. At the end of that time the wind
+shifted, and the ship, lightened of part of her guns and cargo, reeled
+off into deep water, without serious injury. Had the sea risen, she
+must have been wrecked. This was Drake's last mishap. He reached
+Plymouth in the autumn of 1580, after nearly three years' absence.
+Accounts differ as to the exact date of his arrival.
+
+Since Drake had for this voyage the queen's commission, by which we
+must suppose the license to rob the Spaniards to have been at least
+tacitly conceded, he seems to have been rather hardly used, in being
+left from November to April in ignorance how his bold adventure was
+received at court. Among the people it created a great sensation, with
+much diversity of opinion; some commending it as a notable instance of
+English valor and maritime skill, and a just reprisal upon the
+Spaniards for their faithless and cruel practices; others styling it a
+breach of treaties, little better than piracy, and such as it was
+neither expedient nor decent for a trading nation to encourage. During
+this interval, Drake must have felt his situation unpleasant and
+precarious; but the queen turned the scale in his favor by going,
+April 4, 1581, to dine on board his ship at Deptford, on which
+occasion she declared her entire approbation of his conduct, and
+conferred on him the honor, and such it then was, of knighthood. His
+ship she ordered to be preserved as a monument of his glory. Having
+fallen to decay, it was at length broken up: a chair, made out of its
+planks, was presented to the University of Oxford, and probably is
+still to be seen in the Bodleian Library. Cowley wrote a Pindaric ode
+upon it.
+
+[Illustration: The admiral of the Spanish Armada surrenders to Drake.]
+
+Drake had now established his reputation as the first seaman of the
+day; and in 1585 the queen, having resolved on war, intrusted him with
+the command of an expedition against the Spanish colonies. He burnt or
+put to ransom the cities of St. Jago, near Cape Verde, St. Domingo,
+Carthagena, and others, and returned to England, having fully answered
+the high expectations which were entertained of him. He was again
+employed with a larger force of thirty ships, in 1587, with which he
+entered the port of Cadiz, burnt ten thousand tons of shipping, which
+were to form part of the Armada, took the castle of Cape St. Vincent,
+and sailing to the Azores, made prize of a large and wealthy ship
+on its way from the Indies. Still more eminent were his services
+against the Armada in the following year, in which he served as
+vice-admiral under Lord Howard of Effingham. But these are well-known
+passages of history, and we have shortened our account of them, to
+relate at more length the early incidents of Drake's adventurous life.
+
+In 1589 Sir Francis Drake and Sir John Norris were joined in the
+command of an expedition, meant to deliver Portugal from the dominion
+of Spain. This failed, as many expeditions have done in which the sea
+and land services were meant to act together; and as usual, each party
+threw the blame on the other. Drake's plan appears to have been most
+judicious: it was at least accordant with his character, downright and
+daring. He wished to sail straight for Lisbon and surprise the place;
+but Norris was bent on landing at Corunna, where he did indeed some
+harm to the Spaniards, but no service toward the real objects of the
+expedition. When the land forces did at last besiege Lisbon, Drake was
+unwilling or unable to force his way up the Tagus to co-operate with
+them, and for this he was afterward warmly blamed by Norris. He
+defended himself by stating that the time misspent by the English at
+Corunna, had been well employed by the Spaniards in fortifying Lisbon;
+and we fully believe that neither fear nor jealousy would have made
+him hesitate at anything which he thought to be for the good of the
+service. This miscarriage, though for a time it cast something of a
+cloud upon Drake's fame, did not prevent his being again employed in
+1595, when the queen, at the suggestion of himself and Sir John
+Hawkins, determined to send out another expedition against Spanish
+America, under those two eminent navigators, the expenses of which
+were in great part to be defrayed by themselves and their friends.
+Great hope was naturally conceived of this expedition, the largest
+which had yet been sent against that quarter, for it consisted of
+thirty vessels and 2,500 men. The chief object was to sail to Nombre
+de Dios, march to Panama, and there seize the treasure from Peru. But
+the blow, which should have been struck immediately, was delayed by a
+feint on the part of the Spaniards to invade England; the Plate fleet
+arrived in safety, and the Spanish colonies were forewarned. Hawkins
+died, it was said of grief at the ruined prospects of the expedition,
+November 12th, while the fleet lay before Porto Rico; and on the same
+evening Drake had a narrow escape from a cannon-ball, which carried
+the stool from under him as he sat at supper and killed two of his
+chief officers. Repulsed from Porto Rico, the admiral steered for the
+Spanish main, where he burnt several towns, and among them Nombre de
+Dios. He then sent a strong detachment of 750 men against Panama; but
+they found the capture of that city impracticable. Soon afterward he
+fell sick of a fever, and died January 28, 1596. His death, like that
+of his coadjutor, is attributed to mental distress, and nothing is
+more probable than that disappointment may have made that noxious
+climate more deadly. Hints of poisoning were thrown out, but this is a
+surmise easily and often lightly made. "Thus," says Fuller, in his
+"Holy State," "an extempore performance, scarce heard to be begun
+before we hear it is ended, comes off with better applause, or
+miscarries with less disgrace, than a long-studied and openly
+premeditated action. Besides, we see how great spirits, having mounted
+up to the highest pitch of performance, afterward strain and break
+their credits in trying to go beyond it. We will not justify all the
+actions of any man, though of a tamer profession than a sea-captain,
+in whom civility is often counted preciseness. For the main, we say
+that this our captain was a religious man toward God, and his houses,
+generally speaking, churches, where he came chaste in his life, just
+in his dealings, true of his word, and merciful to those that were
+under him, hating nothing so much as idleness." To these good
+qualities we may add that he was kind and considerate to his sailors,
+though strict in the maintenance of discipline; and liberal on fit
+occasions, though a strict economist. He cut a water-course from
+Buckland Abbey to Plymouth, a distance of seven miles in a straight
+line, and thirty by the windings of the conduit, to supply the latter
+town with fresh water, which before was not to be procured within the
+distance of a mile. He is honorably distinguished from the atrocious
+race of buccaneers, to whom his example in some sort gave rise, by the
+humanity with which he treated his prisoners. And it should be
+mentioned, as a proof of his judicious benevolence, that in
+conjunction with Sir John Hawkins, he procured the establishment of
+the Chest at Chatham for the relief of aged or sick seamen, out of
+their own voluntary contributions. The faults ascribed to him are
+ambition, inconstancy in friendship, and too much desire of
+popularity.
+
+In person Drake was low, but strongly made, "well favoured, fayre, and
+of a cheerefull countenance." He left no issue: his nephew was created
+a baronet by James I., and the title is still extant.
+
+
+
+
+SIR WALTER RALEIGH
+
+(1552-1618)
+
+
+Very little is known concerning the youth of Sir Walter Raleigh. He
+was a younger son, descended of an ancient family, and was born at a
+farm called Hayes, near the mouth of the river Otter, in Devonshire,
+in the year 1552. He went to Oriel College, Oxford, at an early age,
+and gained high praise for the quickness and precocity of his talents.
+In 1569 he began his military career in the civil wars of France, as a
+volunteer in the Protestant cause. It is conjectured that he remained
+in France for more than six years, and returned to England in 1576.
+Soon after he repaired to the Netherlands, and served as a volunteer
+against the Spaniards. In such schools, and under such leaders as
+Coligni and the Prince of Orange, Raleigh's natural aptitude for
+political and military science received the best nurture; but he was
+soon drawn from the war in Holland by a pursuit which had captivated
+his imagination from an early age--the prosecution of discovery in
+the New World. In conjunction with his half-brother, Sir Humphrey
+Gilbert, a man of courage and ability, and a skilful sailor, he made
+an unsuccessful attempt to establish a colony in North America.
+Returning home in 1579, he immediately entered the Queen's army in
+Ireland, and served with good esteem for personal courage and
+professional skill, until the suppression of the rebellion in that
+country. He owed his introduction to court, and the personal favor of
+Elizabeth, as is traditionally reported, to a fortunate and
+well-improved accident, which is too familiar to need repetition here.
+It is probable, however, that his name and talents were not unknown,
+for we find him employed almost immediately in certain matters of
+diplomacy.
+
+[Illustration: Walter Raleigh. [TN]]
+
+Among the cares and pleasures of a courtier's life, Raleigh preserved
+his zeal for American discovery. He applied his own resources to the
+fitting out of another expedition in 1583, under command of Sir
+Humphrey Gilbert, which proved more unfortunate than the former one;
+two out of five vessels returned home in consequence of sickness, and
+two were wrecked, including that in which the admiral sailed; and the
+only result of the enterprise was the taking possession of
+Newfoundland in the name of England. Still Raleigh's desire for
+American adventure was not damped. The continent northward of the Gulf
+of Florida was at this time unknown. But Raleigh, upon careful study
+of the best authorities, had concluded that there was good reason for
+believing that a considerable tract of land did exist in that quarter;
+and with the assent of the Queen in council, from whom he obtained
+letters patent, granting to himself and his heirs, under certain
+reservations, property in such countries as he should discover, with a
+right to provide for their protection and administration, he fitted
+out two ships, which sailed in April, 1584. The first land which they
+made was an island named Okakoke, running parallel to the coast of
+North Carolina. They were well received by the natives, and returned
+to England in the following autumn, highly pleased. Nor was less
+satisfaction felt by Raleigh, or even by the Queen, who conferred on
+him the honor of knighthood, a title which was then in high esteem,
+inasmuch as it was bestowed by that wise princess with a most frugal
+and just discrimination. She also gave him a very lucrative mark of
+favor, in the shape of a patent for licensing the selling of wine
+throughout the kingdom; and she directed that the new country, in
+allusion to herself, should be called Virginia. Raleigh did not think
+it politic, perhaps was not allowed, to quit the court to take charge
+in person of his undertaking; and those to whom he entrusted the
+difficult task of directing the infant colony, appear to have been
+unequal to their office. It is not necessary to pursue the history of
+an enterprise which proved unsuccessful, and in which Sir Walter
+personally bore no share. He showed his earnestness by fitting out
+several expeditions, which must have been a heavy drain upon his
+fortune. But he is said to have derived immense wealth from prizes
+captured from the Spaniards; and we may here observe that the lavish
+magnificence in dress, especially in jewels, for which Raleigh was
+remarkable, even in the gorgeous court of Elizabeth (his state dress
+is said to have been enriched with jewels to the value of L60,000),
+may be considered less as an extravagance, than as a safe and portable
+investment of treasure. A mind less active might have found employment
+more than enough in the variety of occupations which pressed upon it
+at home. He possessed a large estate, granted out of forfeited lands
+in Ireland; but this was always a source rather of expense than of
+profit, until, in 1601, he sold it to the Earl of Cork. He was
+Seneschal of the Duchies of Cornwall and Exeter, and held the
+wardenship of the Stannaries; and in 1586, as well as formerly in
+1584, we find that he possessed a seat in Parliament. In 1587, the
+formidable preparation of the Spanish Armada withdrew the mind of
+Raleigh, as of all Englishmen, from objects of minor importance, to
+the defence of their country. He was a member of the council of war
+directed to prepare a general scheme of defence, and held the office
+of Lieutenant-General of Cornwall, in addition to the charge of the
+Isle of Portland; but as on this occasion he possessed no naval
+command, he was not actively engaged in the destruction of that mighty
+armament. In 1589 he served as a volunteer in the expedition of Norris
+and Drake to Portugal, of which some account has been given in the
+life of the latter. Nor were his labors unrewarded even in that
+unfortunate enterprise; for he captured several prizes, and received
+the present of a gold chain from the Queen, in testimony of her
+approbation of his conduct.
+
+Soon after these events, Raleigh retired to his Irish property, being
+driven from court, according to some authorities, by the enmity of the
+Earl of Essex, then a young man just rising into favor. He there
+renewed a former intimacy with the poet Spenser, who, like himself,
+had been rewarded with a grant of land out of forfeited estates, and
+then resided at Kilcolman Castle. Spenser has celebrated the return of
+his friend in the beautiful pastoral, "Colin Clout's come home again;"
+and in that, and various passages of his works, has made honorable
+mention of the highly poetic spirit which enabled the "Shepherd of the
+Ocean," as he is there denominated, to appreciate the merit of the
+"Fairy Queen," and led him to promote the publication of it by every
+means in his power. The loss of Raleigh's court-favor, if such there
+were, could not have been of long duration on this occasion But he
+incurred more serious displeasure in consequence of a private marriage
+contracted with Elizabeth Throgmorton, one of the Queen's maids of
+honor, a lady of beauty and accomplishments, who proved her worth and
+fidelity in the long train of misfortunes which beset the latter years
+of Raleigh's life. In consequence of this intrigue, he was committed
+to the Tower. One or two amusing anecdotes are related of the devices
+which he employed to obtain forgiveness, by working on that vanity
+which was the Queen's chief foible. He succeeded in appeasing his
+indignant mistress so far as to procure his release; and about the
+same time, in 1594, she granted to him the valuable manor of
+Sherborne, in Dorsetshire; but though she requited his services, she
+still forbade his appearance at court, where he now held the office of
+Captain of the Yeomen of the Guard. Raleigh was peculiarly fitted to
+adorn a court by his imposing person, the graceful magnificence of his
+taste and habits, the elegance of his manners, and the interest of his
+conversation. These accomplishments were sure passports to the favor
+of Elizabeth; and he improved to the utmost the constant opportunities
+of intercourse with her which his post afforded, insomuch that, except
+the Earls of Leicester and Essex, no one ever seems to have stood
+higher in her graces. But Elizabeth's jealousy on the subject of her
+favorites' marriages is well known, and her anger was lasting, in
+proportion to the value which she set on the incense of Raleigh's
+flattery. He retired, on his disgrace, to his new estate, in the
+improvement and embellishment of which he felt great interest. But
+though deeply alive to the beauties of nature, he had been too long
+trained to a life of ambition and adventure to rest contented in the
+tranquil routine of a country life; and during this period of
+seclusion he again turned his thoughts to his favorite subject of
+American adventure, and laid the scheme of his first expedition to
+Guiana, in search of the celebrated El Dorado, the fabled seat of
+inexhaustible wealth. Having fitted out, with the assistance of other
+private persons, a considerable fleet, Raleigh sailed from Plymouth,
+February 6, 1595. He left his ships in the mouth of the river Orinoco,
+and sailed 400 miles into the interior in boats. It is to be recorded
+to his honor, that he treated the Indians with great kindness; which,
+contrasted with the savage conduct of the Spaniards, raised so
+friendly a feeling toward him, that for years his return was eagerly
+expected, and at length was hailed with delight. The hardships of the
+undertaking, and the natural advantages of the country which he
+explored, are eloquently described in his own account of the
+"Discovery of Guiana." But the setting in of the rainy season rendered
+it necessary to return, without having reached the promised land of
+wealth; and Raleigh reaped no other fruit of his adventure than a
+certain quantity of geographical knowledge, and a full conviction of
+the importance of colonizing and taking possession of the newly
+discovered region. This continued through life to be his favorite
+scheme; but neither Elizabeth nor her successor could be induced to
+view it in the same favorable light.
+
+On reaching England, he found the Queen still unappeased; nor was he
+suffered to appear at court, and he complains in pathetic terms of the
+cold return with which his perils and losses were requited. But he was
+invested with a high command in the expedition of 1596, by which the
+Spanish fleet was destroyed in the harbor of Cadiz; and to his
+judgment and temper in overruling the faulty schemes proposed by
+others, the success of that enterprise was chiefly due. Indeed, his
+services were perhaps too important, and too justly appreciated by the
+public, for his own interests; for the great and general praise
+bestowed on him on this occasion tended to confirm a jealousy of long
+standing on the part of the commander-in-chief, the Earl of Essex; and
+it was probably owing to that favorite's influence that Raleigh was
+still forbidden the Queen's presence. Essex, and the Secretary of
+State, Sir Robert Cecil, regarded each other with mutual distrust and
+dislike. Cecil and Raleigh were connected by ties of common interest,
+and, as the latter supposed, of friendship. Still Raleigh found the
+interest of the minister too weak to serve his purpose, while the
+interest of the favorite was employed against him; and, as the only
+method of effecting his own restoration to the Queen's favor, he
+undertook to work a reconciliation between these two powerful rivals.
+In this he succeeded, to the great admiration of all spectators; and
+the fruit of his policy was seen in his re-admission to the execution
+of his official duties at court, June 1, 1597. In the following August
+he was appointed Rear Admiral in the expedition called the Island
+Voyage, of which Essex held the chief command. The slight successes
+which were obtained were again due to the military talents of Raleigh;
+the main objects of the voyage were lost through the Earl's
+inexperience.
+
+From this time to the death of the Queen, Raleigh enjoyed an
+uninterrupted course of favor. Elizabeth was now old; Cecil took no
+steps to diminish the high esteem in which she held Sir Walter
+Raleigh, but he secretly labored to prejudice her successor against
+him, and he succeeded to his wish. Very soon after the accession of
+James I., Raleigh's post of captain of the guard was taken from him;
+and his patent of wines was revoked, though not without a nominal
+compensation being made. To complete his ruin, it was contrived to
+involve him in a charge of treason. Most writers have concurred in
+speaking of this passage of history as inexplicable; it is the opinion
+of the last historian of Raleigh, Mr. Tytler, that he has found
+sufficient evidence for regarding the whole plot as a device of Cecil,
+and he has supported this opinion by cogent arguments. Lord Cobham, a
+violent and ambitious but weak man, had engaged in private dealings
+with the Spanish ambassador, which brought him under the suspicion of
+the government. By a device of Cecil's (we here follow the account of
+Mr. Tytler) he was induced, in a fit of anger, and in the belief that
+Raleigh had given information against him, to accuse Sir Walter
+himself of being privy to a conspiracy against the government. This
+charge Cobham retracted, confirmed, and retracted again, behaving in
+so equivocal a manner, that no reliance whatever can be placed on any
+of his assertions. But as the King was afraid of Raleigh as much as
+the secretary hated him, this vague charge, unsupported by other
+evidence, was made sufficient to commit him to the Tower; and, after
+being plied with private examinations, in which nothing criminal could
+be elicited, he was brought to trial, November 17, 1603. For an
+account of that memorable scene we shall refer to Mr. Jardine's
+"Criminal Trials," Vol. I. It is reported to have been said by one of
+the judges who presided over it, on his death-bed, that "the justice
+of England had never been so degraded and injured as by the
+condemnation of Sir Walter Raleigh." The behavior of the victim
+himself was the object of universal admiration, for the tempered
+mixture of patience and noble spirit with which he bore the oppressive
+measure dealt to him. He had before been unpopular; but it was
+recorded by an eye-witness that "he behaved himself so worthily, so
+wisely, and so temperately, that in half a day the mind of all the
+company was changed from the extremest hate to the extremest pity."
+
+The sentence of death thus unfairly and disgracefully obtained was not
+immediately carried into execution. James was not satisfied with the
+evidence adduced on the trial; and believing at the same time that
+Raleigh had been plotting against him, he set his royal wit to dive
+into the mystery. Of the singular scene which the British Solomon
+devised it is not necessary to speak, since Raleigh was not an actor
+in it. But as no more evidence could be obtained against him, even by
+the King's sagacity, he was reprieved, and remanded to the Tower,
+where the next twelve years of his life were spent in confinement.
+Fortunately, he had never ceased to cultivate literature with a zeal
+not often found in the soldier and politician, and he now beguiled the
+tedium of his lot by an entire devotion to those studies which before
+had only served to diversify his more active and engrossing pursuits.
+Of his poetical talents we have already made short mention; to the end
+of life he continued the practice of pouring out his mind in verse,
+and there are several well-known and beautiful pieces expressive of
+his feelings in prison, and in the anticipation of immediate death;
+especially "The Lie," and the beautiful little poem called "The
+Pilgrimage." He also possessed a strong turn for mathematics, and
+studied them with much success in the society and under the guidance
+of his friend, Thomas Hariot, one of the most accomplished
+mathematicians of the age. Chemistry was another favorite pursuit, in
+which, according to the standard of his contemporaries, he made great
+progress. But the most important occupation of his imprisonment was
+the composition of the "History of the World." The work extends from
+the creation to the end of the second Macedonian war. Raleigh meant to
+bring it down to modern times; but the untimely death of Henry, Prince
+of Wales, for whose use it was composed, deprived him of the spirit to
+proceed with so laborious an undertaking. He enjoyed the confidence of
+that generous youth in a remarkable degree, and maintained a close
+correspondence with him on civil, military, and naval subjects.
+Several discourses on these topics, addressed to the prince, will be
+found in the editions of Raleigh's works. Henry repaid these services
+with sincere friendship and admiration; and we may presume that his
+adviser looked forward to that friendship, not only for a cessation of
+misfortune, but for a more brilliant period of favor and power than he
+had yet enjoyed. Fortunately, however, his patron's death was preceded
+by that of his arch-enemy, Cecil; and through the mediation of the
+Duke of Buckingham, Raleigh was released from the Tower in March,
+1615; and obtained permission to follow up his long-cherished scheme
+of establishing a colony in Guiana, and working a gold mine, of which
+he had ascertained the existence and situation.
+
+The results of this disastrous voyage must be shortly given. Raleigh
+sailed March 28, 1617, and reached the coast of Guiana in November
+following. Being himself disabled by sickness from proceeding farther,
+he despatched a party to the mine under the command of Captain Keymis,
+an officer who had served in the former voyage to Guiana. But during
+the interval which had elapsed since Raleigh's first discovery of
+that country, the Spaniards had extended their settlements into it,
+and in particular had built a town called Santa Thome in the immediate
+neighborhood of the mine in question. James, with his usual duplicity,
+while he authorized the expedition, revealed every particular
+connected with it to the Spanish ambassador. The English, therefore,
+were expected in the Orinoco, and preparation had been made for
+repelling them by force. Keymis and his men were unexpectedly attacked
+by the garrison of Santa Thome, and a sharp contest ensued, in which
+the English gained the advantage, and burnt the town. In this action
+Raleigh's eldest son was killed. The Spaniards still occupied the
+passes to the mine, and after an unsuccessful attempt to dislodge
+them, Keymis abandoned the enterprise and returned to the ships.
+Raleigh's correspondence expresses in affecting terms his grief and
+indignation at this double misfortune: the loss of a brave and
+promising son, and the destruction of the hopes which he had founded
+on this long-cherished adventure. On his return to England, he found
+himself marked out for a victim to appease the resentment of the
+Spanish Court, to which he had long been an object of fear and hatred.
+
+His conduct abroad had already been closely scrutinized, in the hope
+of finding some act of piracy, or unauthorized aggression against
+Spain, for which he might be brought to trial. Both these hopes
+failing, and his death, in compliment to Spain, being resolved on, it
+was determined to carry into effect the sentence passed fifteen years
+before, from which he had never been legally released; and a warrant
+was accordingly issued to the judges, requiring them to order
+execution. He insisted on the nature of his late commission, and on
+that plea being overruled, submitted with his usual calmness and
+dignity. The execution, with indecent haste, was ordered to take place
+on the following morning. In this last stage of life, his greatness of
+mind shone with even more than its usual lustre. Calm, and fearless
+without bravado, his behavior and speech expressed the piety and
+resignation of a Christian, with the habitual coolness of one who has
+braved death too often to shrink at its approach. His farewell to his
+faithful wife was manly, tender, and most affecting. The accounts of
+his deportment on the scaffold effectually refute the charges of
+irreligion and atheism, which some writers have brought against him,
+unless we make up our minds to believe him an accomplished hypocrite.
+He spoke at considerable length, and his dying words have been
+faithfully reported. They contain a denial of all the serious offences
+laid to his charge, and express his forgiveness of those even who had
+betrayed him under the mask of friendship. After delivering this
+address, and spending some time in prayer, he laid his head on the
+block, and breathing a short private prayer, gave the signal to the
+executioner. Not being immediately obeyed, he partially raised his
+head, and said, "What dost thou fear? Strike, man!" and underwent the
+fatal blow without shrinking or alteration of position. He died in his
+sixty-sixth year.
+
+[Illustration: Raleigh parting from his wife.]
+
+Raleigh sat in several Parliaments, and took an active part in the
+business of the house. His speeches, preserved in the Journals, are
+said by Mr. Tytler to be remarkable for an originality and freedom of
+thought far in advance of the time. His expression was varied and
+animated, and his powers of conversation remarkable. His person was
+dignified and handsome, and he excelled in bodily accomplishments and
+martial exercises. He was very fond of paintings, and of music; and,
+in literature as in art, he possessed a cultivated and correct taste.
+He was one of those rare men who seem qualified to excel in all
+pursuits alike; and his talents were set off by an extraordinary
+laboriousness and capacity of application. As a navigator, soldier,
+statesman, and historian, his name is intimately and honorably linked
+with one of the most brilliant periods of British history.
+
+
+
+
+MILES STANDISH[19]
+
+By ELBRIDGE S. BROOKS
+
+(1584-1656)
+
+         [Footnote 19: Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.]
+
+[Illustration: Relics of Miles Standish.]
+
+
+Three hundred years ago the house of Standish was a notable one in
+England. The family had numerous possessions; their Lancashire estate
+of Duxbury Hall, in the shadow of Rivington Pike and the Pennine
+Hills, was pleasant and extensive, and there they had lived for
+generations, as there they live to-day. Of this Lancashire home was
+that John Standish, "squire to the king," who killed Wat Tyler, the
+agitator, on that memorable June day of 1381 when the boy-king of
+England, Richard the Second, so pluckily faced his rebellious subjects
+on the plain of Smithfield; of it was that Sir John Standish who
+fought under the leopard-banner of King Edward at the stone mill of
+Crecy; and of it was that gallant soldier Miles Standish, the Puritan
+captain, the first commissioned military officer of New England,
+famous in American history, song, and story, as the stay and bulwark
+of the Pilgrims of Plymouth in their days of struggle and beginning.
+
+Miles Standish (or Myles, as the old spelling has it) was born in
+Lancashire, presumably in the family manor house of Duxbury Hall, in
+the year 1584. The story of his life is simple. The absolute facts
+upon which it is based are meagre, but enough is known to warrant the
+assertion that Miles Standish was heir to the name and estates of the
+Standishes of Lancashire, from which, by some device not on record, he
+was, as he sturdily maintained in his will, "surreptitiously"
+defrauded.
+
+At the beginning of the seventeenth century the provinces of the
+Netherlands were battling for life against the tyranny of Spain. The
+Protestant Elizabeth of England gave help and support to the
+Protestant Stadtholder Maurice, and many of her fighting men carried
+pike or arquebus at the sack of Cadiz, fought at Nieuport and Ostend,
+or served the guns in the great sea-fight off Gibraltar that, in 1607,
+broke the power of Spain. Among these fighting-men was young Miles
+Standish, and he fought so stoutly and to such good purpose that,
+before he was twenty-one he had attained the rank and title of
+captain, and was known to Englishmen in the Low Countries as a brave
+and gallant soldier. In 1609 came the twelve years' truce between
+tired Spain and not less wearied Holland, that gave way in 1621 to the
+stubborn and bloody Thirty Years' War. It was, probably, in the early
+years of this truce that Captain Miles Standish, a born fighter, went
+back to England to battle for his heritage. Not being the match for
+the law men in England that he was for Spanish dons in Holland, he was
+forced to retire from the unequal contest, defeated but not conquered.
+This belief in his rights to the inheritance of the Standishes he
+sturdily maintained to the last; for, dying forty years after in the
+new land his sword had helped to conquer and his wisdom to found, he
+left by his last will and testament unto his son and heir, Alexander:
+"Ormistic, Bonsconge, Wrightington, Maudeslay, and the estates in the
+Isle of Man"--none of which he nor his descendants were ever to occupy
+or hold.
+
+It was after this unsuccessful struggle for his heritage that he
+crossed again to Holland and, from some cause not apparent--perhaps
+his disgust at English law, perhaps the attractions of one who, later,
+became Mistress Rose Standish, may supply the motive--settled among
+the self-exiled English folk in Leyden who, because of religious
+differences with the established Church, had left their English homes
+and, calling themselves Pilgrims because of their wanderings, had made
+a settlement in the Dutch city of Leyden, "fair and beautiful and of a
+sweet situation."
+
+Although not of the religious faith and following of the Pilgrims of
+Leyden--indeed the story runs that the fiery little captain had been,
+at one time, a Romanist--he must have been settled among them for
+years, for, on the eve of their emigration to America, we find him as
+one of their leaders, accepted and commissioned as the military
+adviser of the colonists. The time of his life in Leyden was one of
+religious unrest in Europe; and in Holland, during that twelve years'
+truce with Spain, the theological disputes between Calvinists and
+Arminians ran so high as to bring John of Barneald to the scaffold,
+and to drive Grotius the scholar into exile. These days of stern
+dispute may have had their influence on the sturdy English soldier
+living in the midst of Dutch life and Dutch disputations, and made him
+lean to the side of Puritanism, even if never openly avowing it as his
+religious faith. It is, indeed, a singular fact that the mainstay and
+chief protector of the first Puritan colonists of America was neither
+of their communion nor of their connection, and is openly censured by
+Puritan writers as one who, so says Hubbard, "had been a soldier in
+the Low Countries and had never entered the school of our Saviour
+Christ or of John the Baptist." But his companions and associates seem
+not to have permitted the dissociation to have had special weight with
+them. They gladly welcomed Captain Standish and his wife, Rose, among
+the little company of exiles that set out from Delft Haven for
+Virginia, and gave their names place on that memorable passenger list
+of the little schooner Mayflower, which, leaving the harbor of old
+Plymouth, in England, in September, 1620, finally dropped anchor in
+the harbor of new Plymouth, in New England, in December following.
+
+From the outset of this novel "adventure"--itself a turning-point in
+American history--this soldier of fortune was given place and
+prominence in the councils of a community which seems to have enlisted
+his support, not so much on its religious as on its adventurous side;
+and to this "dissenter from dissent" was intrusted the defence of a
+company of religious enthusiasts, sailing upon what they deemed a
+divine mission, only in the practical side of which did their military
+adviser find occupation or interest.
+
+The up-bringing of Miles Standish had been such as to fit him for
+leadership, and this he assumed early in the history of the
+enterprise. Even on the deck of the Mayflower, he was recognized as
+one whose counsels were wise and whose actions were inspiring, and
+when in the cabin of the Mayflower, in the harbor of Provincetown, the
+famous compact was drawn up, said to be "the first written
+constitution in the world," the bold signature of "Myles Standish" was
+the clearest of the forty-one Pilgrim autographs that were affixed to
+that famous document. It was Captain Standish who, with his sixteen
+"well-armed men," made a thorough exploration of the Provincetown
+peninsula; he organized and headed the party of observation which,
+later, sailed the shallop and marched with watchful eyes along the
+shores of Cape Cod, seeking the best place for settlement; and, on
+December 6th following, he sailed with a picked party across
+Massachusetts Bay and, in much peril and with many adventures, spied
+out the land and determined upon the harbor of Plymouth as the best
+spot for permanent settlement. It was to Captain Standish's knowledge
+as to the best locations and to his skill as a surveyor, that the
+colonists were indebted for the selection of their town site and the
+laying-out of their town; as, later, the same skill came in play when
+were laid out the new towns that followed after the Plymouth
+beginnings. Through all that dreary and dreadful first winter, when
+half their number died, Captain Standish was their mainstay, as one
+whose word was ever reassuring and whose arm was as ready for
+protection as was his brain for planning methods of defence. Though
+his wife, Mistress Rose Standish, was one of the early victims of that
+bitter winter of death, his courage never faltered, his vigilance
+never slackened. And when, in the midst of all the peril and
+suffering, in February, 1621, Miles Standish was appointed military
+captain of the colony, confidence was restored and courage renewed in
+the bosoms of that suffering but heroic and indomitable band; so that
+when spring came and the Mayflower sailed for England, not one of the
+settlers returned in her, nor would desert the cause to which they had
+pledged themselves.
+
+It is customary to credit the final success of the Pilgrims of
+Plymouth to the religious element that held sway over them, making
+them patient, persistent, uncompromising, faithful, and earnest. But
+the wisdom of Carver, the genius of Bradford, the fervor of Brewster,
+the zeal of Winslow, would have been of small avail had they not been
+backed by the decision, the resolution, the courage, the constancy,
+and the forethought of their brave captain, Miles Standish, "the John
+Smith of New England" as he has been called, the man of helpful
+measures and of iron nerves, who could "hew down forests and live on
+crumbs."
+
+From first to last he was the loyal supporter and trusty defender of
+the Plymouth colony. No danger unnerved him, no duty staggered him.
+With but eight men he started out, in 1623, to overawe and subdue the
+Indians of Massachusetts--then an unknown and perplexing quantity;
+single-handed he checked the conspiracy at Weymouth and turned the
+tables upon the savage plotters, by himself assassinating the
+assassins--a deed that saved the colony from Indian massacre, but
+called forth the mild protest of the Pilgrim preacher at Leyden, Mr.
+Robinson, who wrote of it: "Concerning the killing of these poor
+Indians, oh! how happy a thing had it been, if you had converted some
+before you had killed any.... Let me be bold to exhort you seriously
+to consider of the disposition of your captain, whom I love. There is
+cause to fear that by occasion, especially of provocation, there may
+be wanting (in him) that tenderness of the life of man which is meet."
+But the Pilgrims of Plymouth seem not to have questioned the decisive
+measures of the man who knew when and how to act in their defence.
+Alone he faced the roystering Morton at Merrymount, unarming that
+vaporing rebel and putting his riotous colony upon its good behavior.
+He led out the forty men of Plymouth enlisted for the Pequot War,
+headed the expedition that in 1635, sailed against the encroaching
+French in Penobscot Bay, and, as late as 1653, when "very auncient and
+full of dolorous paines," expressed himself as ready to take the
+command intrusted to him when the colony forces were about to enter
+upon a struggle for the right of occupation of the Connecticut country
+with the Dutch colonists of Manhattan.
+
+He never refused any burden however heavy nor shirked any duty however
+onerous; he cheerfully yielded obedience to the civil power, never
+exceeding his orders, nor rashly assuming responsibilities, nor
+leading his men upon unwise ventures. While always the military
+commander of the colony, his counsel and help were counted as equally
+valuable in matters of administration. He served repeatedly as one of
+the governor's council; he was at one time assistant-governor or
+deputy, and, from 1644 to 1649, was treasurer of the Plymouth colony.
+He went to England as the envoy of the colonists in 1625, and in the
+midst of plague, of evil times and of bitter jealousies, withstood the
+tyranny of the London traders who owned the Pilgrims' labor; and
+braving both heavy debt and the possibility of censure, bought out the
+traders' rights in the name of his associates.
+
+[Illustration: Departure of the Mayflower.]
+
+The personal descriptions of this remarkable man that have come down
+to us, show him as a man of small stature, quick-tempered, choleric,
+sturdy and bluff. "As a little chimney is soon fired," wrote the
+Puritan historian Hubbard, "so was the Plymouth captain, a man of
+very little stature, yet of a very hot and angry temper." And yet his
+relations with such men as the noble Bradford, the blameless Brewster,
+the politic Winslow, were so close and of so personal a character that
+one can hardly accept unquestioningly the story of his hot and
+unreasoning temper. He was a soldier and a fighter; but he loved peace
+and quiet, and his life was full of friendly offices and of kindly
+deeds. On Nantasket Beach he built the first "house of refuge" and
+life-saving station in America. He was a gentle nurse in the winter of
+sickness, a friend and adviser to those in trouble or distress, a
+loving father in the days when parents were not unfrequently tyrants,
+and a forgiving spirit, as the old story of his famous "courtship"
+(with sufficient foundation to warrant its acceptance) amply proves.
+
+The communism of the early Pilgrim days gave place in time to personal
+possession and, as the colony grew, certain of those who had been
+leaders desired more extended holdings. Captain Standish was one of
+these, and despite his friend Bradford's protests, he moved across the
+bay and in 1632 occupied a large and fertile stretch north of
+Plymouth, to which, still clinging to his old claim of a stolen
+heritage, he gave the name of Duxbury. Here in the midst of peaceful
+pursuits, but ever ready to obey the colony's call for counsel or for
+leadership, he lived for over twenty years, dying October 3, 1656, at
+the age of seventy-two.
+
+A notable figure in American history, Miles Standish is a type of that
+mingled spirit of adventure, liberty, and distrust that impelled
+emigration across the sea and, combined with the uncompromising stand
+for freedom of conscience, founded and up-built the Pilgrim Colony of
+Plymouth.
+
+His existence among these Pilgrims is in itself an anomaly. But it is
+one of those strange associations and unfaltering friendships that
+have left their mark for good upon the world since the days when the
+Roman fighting-man stood stanchly by the side of the Christian
+proselyte even to the death.
+
+Tradition says that Miles Standish was buried between two pointed
+stones in the graveyard of South Duxbury, but the question of his
+burial-place is still unsettled. The tall shaft, rising from the crest
+of Captain's Hill in Duxbury, and surmounted with a statue of the
+famous colonial captain, fitly commemorates a life that has won a
+place in the American heart that only grows stronger and more enduring
+as time goes on.
+
+[Signature of the author.]
+
+
+
+
+ALBRECHT VON WALLENSTEIN
+
+By HENRY G. HEWLETT
+
+(1583-1634)
+
+[Illustration: Albrecht von Wallenstein. [TN]]
+
+
+The declaration of the great founder of Christianity that he "came not
+to bring peace, but a sword," receives its completest justification in
+the history of Europe during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
+Ignorant of the constitution of the human mind, and blind to the
+absurdity of attempting to enforce opinion, the adherents of the old
+and of the reformed faith, during these two hundred years, scarcely
+sheathed their swords. The offenders, it is just to say, were
+generally, but by no means invariably, the Catholics; and the
+retaliation of the Protestants was seldom inferior in ferocity to the
+offence received. The "Thirty Years' War" was the bloodiest, as
+happily it was the last, scene in this great religious tragedy. The
+greatest Catholic leader of this period was Wallenstein.
+
+After a term of peace, consequent on the Diet of Augsburg in 1555,
+which secured toleration to Protestantism in Germany, persecution
+recommenced in 1578, under the weak Emperor Rudolph II. His cousin
+Ferdinand, Duke of Styria, a pupil of the Jesuits, was the most deadly
+foe of Protestantism, which had taken deepest root in Bohemia and
+Transylvania. The incapacity and bigotry of the emperor at last
+provoked his subjects to bring about his deposition, and, in 1610, he
+was forced to abdicate in favor of his brother Matthias. He, though
+himself tolerant, unwisely committed the government to Ferdinand,
+whose tyranny in ordering the destruction of the Protestant churches
+in Bohemia, led to the expulsion of his officers and the Jesuits, in
+May, 1618, and the commencement of the Thirty Years' War. Matthias
+died in the following year, and Ferdinand was elected emperor.
+
+In 1619 the name of Wallenstein first became prominent. Albrecht von
+Waldstein, as he was properly called, was the third son of a Bohemian
+baron, of old family, and was born in September, 1583. As a boy, he
+displayed signs of a singularly proud and independent temper, and
+foreshowed his bent by the delight which he took in the society of
+military men. His family was Protestant; but having lost his parents
+when quite young, he was educated, by the wish of his guardians, at
+the Jesuit college of Olmutz, and soon changed his faith. In Italy,
+where he next studied, he made great advances in mathematics, law,
+languages, and the delusive science of astrology, in which he was a
+firm believer ever afterward. On his return to Germany, he fought in
+the imperial army against the Turks, who invaded Hungary. He had
+considerable estates in Bohemia, which were increased by his marriage,
+in 1606, with a rich Moravian widow, who died in 1614, and left him
+her property. In the peaceful occupation of farming he spent several
+years, and acquired great wealth by his skill and economy. In 1617, he
+took part in a campaign against the republic of Venice, with which
+Ferdinand had quarreled, and, on the termination of the war in the
+same year, was ennobled as Count. The lavish generosity of Wallenstein
+during this war greatly endeared him to the army.
+
+Such was his popularity that in 1619, on the Bohemian revolution
+breaking out, he was offered by the insurgents the command of their
+army, although a Catholic. But he steadily refused the offer, and
+warmly espoused the imperial cause, upon which the Bohemians
+confiscated his estates. He, however, soon retrieved his fortunes by a
+second rich marriage, and the favor of the emperor. The Bohemians,
+under their heroic leaders, the Counts von Mansfeldt and Thurn,
+ventured to march upon Vienna, and threaten Ferdinand in his capital;
+but Wallenstein, on June 10, 1619, gained a signal victory over their
+army, and saved his master's throne. In the following year the
+Bohemians and Hungarians formally renounced their allegiance; the
+former setting up Frederick, Elector-Count Palatine of the Rhine, as
+their king; and the latter, Bethlem Gabor, Prince of Transylvania.
+Frederick, who was the son-in-law of James I. of England, was as unfit
+to govern as his father-in-law, and spent his time in a frivolous
+parade of his rank. He obtained but a doubtful support from the
+Protestant princes in Germany, who were jealous of his popularity.
+Ferdinand, assisted by Spain and other Catholic powers, sent a large
+force into Bohemia, under the command of Maximilian, Duke of Bavaria,
+and totally routed Frederick's army at Prague,--the king fleeing to
+Breslau, and thence to Holland. The Palatinate was then declared
+forfeited to the Empire, and was devastated by the Spanish commander,
+Spinola. Wallenstein, during this campaign, spent his treasures in the
+imperial cause with the utmost readiness and liberality, and obtained
+as a reward the lordship of Friedland, which brought him a large
+revenue. To this he added by the purchase of several forfeited estates
+in Bohemia, and thus became possessed of immense wealth. In 1621-23 he
+distinguished himself by defeating Bethlem Gabor, the new King of
+Hungary, and forcing him to surrender his claim to the crown. For this
+service Wallenstein was created Duke of Friedland.
+
+A cruel persecution of the Protestants in Bohemia and Silesia
+dishonored the emperor's success; and the attempt of his officers in
+Austria to suppress Lutheranism by force, produced a revolution in
+1625. It was put down by the energy of Tilly and Pappenheim, two of
+the greatest generals of their day. The Count von Mansfeldt gallantly
+upheld the Protestant cause in Westphalia, and other parts of Germany,
+but was defeated by Tilly, who imposed Catholicism upon all the
+revolted provinces. In their despair the German Protestants applied
+for aid to their northern brethren. Gustavus Adolphus, the young and
+brave King of Sweden, an ardent champion of the Reformed faith, and
+Christian, King of Denmark, responded to their appeal,--the latter
+immediately invading the Empire. The imperial finances being
+considerably reduced by the war, Ferdinand was glad to avail himself
+of an offer made at this crisis by Wallenstein, to levy an army at his
+own cost. This offer was abundantly fulfilled. In a few months an army
+of 30,000 men was collected, as if by magic. Wallenstein was enviously
+suspected of being in league with the devil, but the secret of his
+sway was the fascination of his bold and generous nature. He
+maintained at once thorough toleration, and strict discipline in his
+ranks. These results, however, were not attained without injustice.
+Contributions were levied on the most fertile districts, as yet
+undesolated by war, to the extent, as it is said, of $60,000,000 in
+seven years. His popularity with the army procured him the jealousy of
+Tilly, who, in the campaign of 1625-26, outrivalled him, by
+successfully combating the invasion of Christian and his Danish
+forces, and driving them beyond the Elbe. Wallenstein, nevertheless,
+in the following campaign, won his laurels, both as a statesman and a
+general, by his intrigues and conquests. Displaying the greatest ardor
+in the cause of the Empire, he attempted to render it an absolute
+despotism. After routing Count Mansfeldt on the Elbe, he marched into
+Hungary, and defeated the united armies of the count and Bethlem
+Gabor. Christian of Denmark having assembled a new army in 1628,
+Wallenstein marched to meet it; and, by a series of brilliant
+successes, recaptured all the towns garrisoned by the Danes, and
+forced the king to sue for peace. At the Congress of Lubeck, in May,
+1629, this was accorded on favorable terms to Denmark. Wallenstein
+during these campaigns astonished his compeers, and excited their
+envy, by the wondrous rapidity of his movements, and the skill with
+which he surmounted difficulties that seemed insuperable. He was
+rewarded with the duchy of Mecklenburg, which was forfeited to the
+Empire by the treason of its former owner.
+
+The envious schemes of Tilly and Maximilian, Duke of Bavaria, induced
+Ferdinand to remove Wallenstein from his rank of commander in 1630. He
+had hardly withdrawn to his Bohemian estates, when Gustavus Adolphus,
+who had been hitherto prevented from affording active assistance to
+the Protestant party, landed in Pomerania with a small but highly
+disciplined army. This illustrious monarch, eminent for virtue and
+piety, no less than for political wisdom and military skill, was now
+the sole hope of the Reformation in Germany. The princes who professed
+its tenets were lukewarm and unready,--divided by jealousies among
+themselves, and careless of all but their own worldly interests. He,
+on the contrary, was devoted to the cause of his faith, and his solemn
+disavowal of personal ambition in undertaking its championship is
+stamped with sincerity.
+
+He soon commenced a career of conquest. New Brandenburg and other
+districts yielded to his arms, and he formed an alliance with France,
+now under the sway of Cardinal Richelieu, which the emperor had vainly
+negotiated to prevent. The rich city of Magdeburg declared for him,
+and was accordingly besieged by Tilly. The selfishness of the Lutheran
+leaders, the Electors of Brandenburg and Saxony, in not responding to
+the appeal of the Protestants in the city, led to its fall in 1631,
+before Gustavus could reach it. The most atrocious cruelties were
+perpetrated by the Catholics at the sack; no consideration of age or
+sex availing to prevent the massacre, which lasted for two days, and
+extended to 30,000 of the inhabitants. This monstrous crime was
+severely avenged by the indignant Gustavus. He forced the Electors of
+Brandenburg and Saxony to render him assistance, and, with an
+augmented army, hesitated not to give battle to Tilly at Leipsic, and
+defeated him September 7, 1631. The Protestants took courage and
+joined Gustavus in great numbers. He continued his victorious march,
+defeating the enemy at Merseberg, capturing Wurzburg, then advancing
+on the Rhine, and reducing on the way Frankfort-on-the-Main, Mentz,
+Spires, Mannheim, and other cities. He next turned to Bavaria, where
+Tilly and Maximilian entrenched themselves at Rain-on-the-Lech. The
+former was killed by a cannon-ball during the siege, in 1632. Gustavus
+marched through Augsburg, where the citizens did him homage, and
+besieged Munich, which speedily surrendered. He now threatened to
+subdue Bavaria and Austria, when his progress was stopped from an
+unexpected quarter.
+
+The emperor, justly mistrusting the loyalty of Maximilian, who was in
+league with France, now saw himself deprived of his ablest generals,
+and felt his power failing. He turned to Wallenstein as the only man
+who could save the Empire. That leader was meantime living in
+retirement, and secretly glad of the success of Gustavus. He refused
+at first to take the command of the imperial army, and only consented
+at last on condition of having sole and absolute authority, with the
+right of disposing as he pleased of his conquests. These humiliating
+terms were accepted by Ferdinand, and in a few months after the death
+of Tilly, Wallenstein was in the field with a large and powerful army,
+raised, as before, by his own exertions. He drove the Saxons from
+Bohemia, and thence marched to Leipsic, which capitulated. At
+Nuremberg, where Gustavus offered him battle, he wisely refused, and
+for three months the two camps remained close to each other, each
+general trying to exhaust the patience of his adversary, and relying
+on the destructive effects of famine and pestilence. Gustavus was
+forced to withdraw, after losing 20,000 men; a yet heavier loss,
+nevertheless, having befallen Wallenstein, whose numbers were better
+able to bear it.
+
+Gustavus marched southward, but soon returned to attack Wallenstein,
+who had moved northward, and was pillaging the neighborhood of
+Leipsic. The two armies met at Lutzen on November 6, 1632. A dense fog
+shrouded the movements of each side from the other, and created a
+fearful confusion. Wallenstein ranged his infantry in squares, having
+a ditch in front, and flanked by his cavalry. Gustavus headed his men
+and charged the enemy across the ditch. But his own infantry was borne
+down by the black cuirassiers of Wallenstein, and, as he turned to
+attack them, the thick fog concealed their approach. His horse was
+wounded, and he himself had his arm broken. In moving off the field he
+was shot in the back, and falling from his saddle was dragged in the
+stirrup. He fell into the hands of the cuirassiers, one of whom, as
+the Swedes came up to the succor of their king, shot him through the
+head. His corpse was discovered after the battle, and honorably
+buried. The death of their king caused the deepest affliction to the
+Swedes, but aroused instead of enfeebling their courage. A charge of
+the Duke of Weimar, one of the Protestant leaders, threw Wallenstein's
+infantry and cavalry into disorder. An attempt of the Imperialist
+General Pappenheim, who now came up with a reserve to retrieve the
+battle, was for a time successful. But as the tide of fortune seemed
+turning against the Swedes, a reserve of their own army made a last
+desperate charge, carried the ditch which protected Wallenstein's
+infantry, and won the day; the Imperialists fleeing in all directions
+and their great leader escaping into Bohemia.
+
+This defeat was the death-blow to Wallenstein's fortunate career. The
+Swedes continued to carry on the war successfully under the able
+minister of Gustavus, Oxenstiern, and the valiant Duke of Weimar.
+Meantime Wallenstein, after some slight victories in Saxony and
+Silesia, remained inactive. He at the same time assumed an air of
+extreme pride and self-sufficiency, which exasperated his enemies and
+gave occasion for their slanders. He was accused to Ferdinand of
+designing to seize the Empire,--a charge which seemed the more
+credible, on account of an offer having been made by France to assist
+him in obtaining the Bohemian crown. This proposition, however, he had
+firmly refused. The emperor's intention of removing him from the
+command of the army having reached his ears, he declared he would
+resign, but was persuaded to remain by his officers, who at a great
+banquet, all, with wild and perhaps drunken enthusiasm, signed a
+promise of inviolable attachment to his person. This, too, was
+interpreted by his enemies as a conspiracy against the emperor. His
+destruction was resolved on by the Duke of Bavaria and others, among
+whom an Italian mercenary general, named Piccolomini, was the most
+perfidious and savage. A plot was formed against him by certain
+traitors among his own officers,--the names of Devereaux, Butler,
+Gordon, and Leslie, to the shame of their nations, appearing in the
+list.
+
+On February 25, 1634, an entertainment was given to the whole body of
+officers by Gordon, who commanded the castle of Eger, where
+Wallenstein was residing. He himself being indisposed, had retired
+from the table to his chamber. He was roused by loud cries proceeding
+from the mess-room, where his faithful officers were being murdered by
+the traitors. He opened the window to inquire the cause of the
+disturbance, when Devereaux entered, with thirty Irishmen at his back.
+The cowards shrank at the sight of their great general, standing calm
+and stern, unarmed, and at their mercy. But Devereaux, a callous and
+brutal soldier, in a moment stepped forward, and cried: "Art thou the
+traitor who wilt ruin the Empire?" Wallenstein did not speak, but
+opened his arms, as if to accept the blow which was aimed at his
+heart. He was slain at the age of fifty-one. His wealth was chiefly
+shared among his enemies.
+
+[Illustration: Wallenstein's last banquet.]
+
+Though undoubtedly ambitious and intriguing, Wallenstein's alleged
+treachery to the emperor, whom he kept informed of all his schemes,
+has never been proved, and by many recent historians is disbelieved.
+He fell a victim to the jealousy of his rivals, which he augmented by
+his own pride. His fall, however, reflects lasting disgrace on the
+character of the Emperor Ferdinand, and was justly avenged by the
+subsequent humiliation of the German Empire.
+
+
+
+
+GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS[20]
+
+By HJALMAR HJORTH BOYESEN
+
+(1594-1632)
+
+         [Footnote 20: Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.]
+
+[Illustration: Gustavus Adolphus. [TN]]
+
+
+There is a theory which has much currency nowadays, that the great
+man, being a product of his century, exerts an influence upon his age
+which is but vanishing, compared to the influence which the age exerts
+upon him. The great man is, according to this view, personally of
+small account, except in so far as the tendencies and ideas which are
+fermenting in the age find their expression in him. He does not so
+much shape the events as he is shaped and moulded by them.
+
+There is scarcely a hero to be found in all the annals of history who
+is better qualified to refute this theory than the Swedish king,
+Gustavus Adolphus. It would be futile to assert, of course, that he
+was an isolated phenomenon, who sprang like Jonah's luxuriant gourd
+out of the arid sands of the desert. No, he had deep and intricate
+roots in the past of his race and in the soil of his fatherland. But
+yet, how far are all the influences which we can trace, from
+accounting for the forceful energy, the clear-sighted sagacity, and
+the dominant genius of the man! As far as we can judge at this
+distance, his personality was the mightiest element that entered into
+the denouement of that bloody world-drama, the Thirty Years' War. Had
+he been other than he was, had he been a man of less heroic mould, it
+would seem that Protestantism must have perished in Central Europe, or
+been confined, at least, to England and the Scandinavian North. The
+rights of conscience and individual judgment, for which Luther and his
+co-reformers had fought so valiantly, would then have succumbed to the
+power of authority, as embodied in the Papacy and the Catholic
+League; and Germany, after its mighty effort at release, would have
+lapsed back into the Middle Ages. To few men the opportunity is
+offered to exercise such a far-reaching influence upon the history of
+mankind; but fewer still are those who see its full significance, and
+seeing it, seize it, and without one look behind march into the storm
+and stress of world-shaping events.
+
+Gustavus Adolphus was born December 9, 1594. He was the son of King
+Charles IX. of Sweden, and the grandson of the renowned Gustavus Vasa.
+He was a precocious child, and it is told (though it appears rather
+incredible) that at the age of twelve he spoke Latin, French, German,
+Dutch, and Italian with great fluency, besides having a superficial
+acquaintance with Polish and Russian. There can be no doubt, however,
+that he was well taught, and that he possessed a remarkable facility
+in acquiring languages. For all that, he was far from being a bookish
+boy. In riding, fencing, and all chivalrous accomplishments he took a
+lively interest and exhibited much skill. It was in stormy times that
+his boyhood fell, Sweden being at that time involved in frequent wars,
+and his father, in order to train him in the duties of a military
+commander, took him early into his camp and made him share his
+campaigns. Many of the famous captains of that day who had fought in
+the Low Countries and in France, were made welcome at the Swedish
+court; and the favorite pastime of the young Gustavus was to question
+them concerning the battles, sieges, and military exploits in which
+they had been engaged.
+
+When Charles IX. died, in 1611, Gustavus, being then seventeen years
+old, was declared to be of age and succeeded to the throne. There was
+need of an able and resolute man to cope with the many difficulties
+which sprang up round about him. In the first place there was one war
+with Denmark, already raging; the strained relations with Russia and
+Poland threatened to precipitate two more. Norway, which was then
+united with Denmark under the same king, was also jealous of Sweden;
+and the Norwegian peasantry destroyed at Kringelen, in Guldbrandsdal,
+an army of Scottish mercenaries, under the command of Colonel
+Sinclair, which was marching to the relief of Gustavus. The Danes had
+occupied two important Swedish cities, Calmar and Elfsborg, and being
+determined to utilize their advantages to the full, repelled all
+overtures for peace. It was of no avail that Gustavus renounced his
+title of King of the Laplanders, the assumption of which by his father
+had been one of the causes of the war. Christian IV., of Denmark,
+continued to push hostilities with unflagging vigor, and several
+battles were fought with varying fortunes. In 1612, he set sail with a
+fleet of thirty-six vessels for Stockholm, intending to capture the
+city. The Swedish fleet, being much inferior in numbers, was forced to
+retire under shelter of the fortress of Waxholm, which guards the
+access to the capital. In this dire dilemma, Gustavus strained every
+nerve to avert the threatened disaster. With a small force, chiefly of
+Dalecarlians, he marched day and night, and hastened to Waxholm in the
+hope of surprising the Danish fleet which had been detained by adverse
+winds. But the enemy, being probably informed of his approach, saw
+that their opportunity for capturing the capital was gone, and
+returned again to their own coast. Negotiations were now resumed and
+peace was concluded in 1613. The Danes were to surrender Calmar
+immediately and Elfsborg at the end of six years; the Swedes agreeing
+to pay a war indemnity of one million thalers.
+
+The war with Russia, which Gustavus had inherited from his father, had
+of late been in a state of suspension. The Swedes had occupied a large
+amount of Russian territory, in which were several strong fortresses.
+In the confusion which reigned as to the succession, after the
+extinction of the ancient house of Rurik, there was a capital chance
+of fishing in troubled waters. A strong party in Russia desired to
+elect a Swedish prince as sovereign, and actually sent an embassy to
+Stockholm to offer the throne to Charles Philip, a younger brother of
+Gustavus. But the king did not favor this plan. For four years he
+continued the war and secured important advantages. But what was more
+valuable than territorial gains, he acquired a wide experience in
+strategy and the conduct of campaigns, a habit of dealing promptly
+with large questions, and a sharpened judgment of men. In February,
+1617, the treaty of peace was signed, Russia ceding to Sweden a large
+territory on the east of the Baltic. Gustavus was now in a position to
+prosecute with greater energy the war with Poland. Sigismund III., of
+Poland, was the only son of King John III., of Sweden, and was,
+therefore, as a scion of the ancient royal house, the legitimate heir
+to the Swedish throne. But in the first place he was a Catholic; and
+in the second place, the house of Vasa, had by force of arms and with
+the support of the people, successfully asserted its right to the
+crown which Gustavus I. had won.
+
+After repeated extensions of the armistice which by common consent
+prevailed, the King of Sweden resumed hostilities in July, 1621; and
+the war raged with varying success until September, 1629, when another
+armistice was concluded for six years. The chief result of this
+exhausting warfare was the stipulation which was agreed to, that
+liberty of conscience should be granted to Protestants and Catholics,
+and that the commerce between Poland and Sweden was declared free.
+
+The renown of these wars, two of which had been brought to a
+triumphant issue, spread far over Europe; and the Protestant princes
+of Germany became aware that there was a great military captain of
+their own faith in the Scandinavian North. They were at that time
+sorely oppressed, the success of the imperial arms, under Tilly and
+Wallenstein, seeming to threaten the very existence of the Reformed
+Faith. The Emperor Ferdinand II. was carrying everything with a high
+hand after the defeat of King Christian IV. of Denmark, who, with more
+courage than success, had undertaken to champion the Protestant cause.
+It was in this desperate strait that all eyes turned toward the young
+King of Sweden. An appeal was sent to him for aid, in the name of
+their common religion; and Gustavus, after a brief hesitation,
+accepted the call. He had long watched with deep concern the war of
+devastation by which Wallenstein and the scarcely less terrible Tilly
+were seeking to destroy the fruits of the Reformation; and it is said
+that he had a clear presentiment that sooner or later he would be
+drawn into the struggle. Leaving his domestic affairs in the hands of
+his friend, the Chancellor Oxenstiern, he embarked in June, 1630, with
+a force of but fifteen thousand men, for Germany, and landed on
+midsummer day on the island of Usedom, on the coast of Pomerania.
+
+The Emperor Ferdinand professed to be much amused when he heard that
+Gustavus Adolphus had invaded his dominions.
+
+"So we have got another kingling on our hands," he exclaimed
+mockingly. He was far from foreseeing what trouble he was to have for
+eighteen years to come, in getting that kingling and his troops off
+his hands.
+
+Gustavus was the first to step upon the German soil, at the
+disembarkation; and in the sight of all his army he fell upon his
+knees and prayed for the blessing of God upon the vast enterprise
+which had been confided to him. As he arose from his prayer, he seized
+a spade and began instantly the work upon the intrenchments of the
+camp.
+
+If his troops were few in number, it is not to be denied that they
+were excellent in quality. Many were hardened veterans from the king's
+earlier campaigns; among his recently acquired mercenaries there was a
+Scotch brigade, from which he drew many of his best officers. We hear
+much during the following years, of Hepburn, Seaton, Leslie, Mackay,
+and Monroe, whose names betray their Caledonian origin. You would have
+supposed now that the Protestant princes, having secured the aid of
+Gustavus, would have made haste to identify themselves with his cause
+and to reinforce him with money and troops. But, strange to relate, no
+sooner had he landed than they began to grow afraid of him and to ask
+themselves whether they might not after all, be able to make more
+tolerable terms with the emperor by the sacrifice of their religion,
+than with this foreign invader, who, if he was victorious, might
+dictate his own terms. Had they not, in other words, jumped from the
+frying-pan into the fire?
+
+The two princes who had hitherto been the most prominent champions of
+Protestantism in Germany (though both half-hearted and pusillanimous
+shufflers) were Gustavus's brother-in-law, the Elector of Brandenburg,
+and the Elector of Saxony. They were now doing their best to wriggle
+out of their obligations, and by a shameful neutrality avert the
+emperor's displeasure. But they had reckoned without their host if
+they supposed that Gustavus would lend himself to such a scheme. The
+reply which he gave to Herr von Wilmerstorff, who had been sent to him
+by the Elector to urge an armistice, was refreshingly plain, while the
+argument which accompanied it was completely unanswerable. When
+nevertheless the Elector continued to resort to shilly-shallying and
+all sorts of ambiguous tactics, Gustavus lost his patience, marched
+his army to the gates of Berlin, and compelled him to make his choice
+of party once, for all. The treaty of alliance was then signed, on the
+Elector's part reluctantly and with a heavy heart; for these two
+brothers-in-law were so vastly different, that it was scarcely to be
+expected that they would be congenial. Gustavus, though he was not
+without personal ambition, was fired with noble zeal for the
+Protestant cause, and believed it worthy of any sacrifice, however
+great; while the Elector was only bent on saving his own precious
+skin and extricating himself with the least possible damage from the
+dangerous situation in which he had been caught.
+
+[Illustration: Gustavus Adolphus before the battle of Lutzen.]
+
+With the same promptness with which he had brought his brother-in-law
+of Brandenburg to terms, Gustavus forced the hand of the Elector of
+Saxony, who now overcame his scruples and sent him the needed
+reinforcements. An imperial army of forty thousand men, under the
+command of an Italian adventurer named Torquato Conti, had been sent
+against him, immediately on his landing in Pomerania, but no battle
+had been fought, and beyond laying waste the country the Imperialists
+had so far accomplished nothing. The emperor, who had predicted that
+"the Snow-king would melt under the rays of the Imperial sun," became
+alarmed at his successes and selected Tilly to stay his southward
+advance. This able and experienced general promptly assumed the
+command of the forces of the Catholic League, and in order to strike
+terror into the hearts of the Protestant princes, sacked and pillaged
+the city of Magdeburg in Lower Saxony, giving it over without
+restraint to devastation and ruin by the brutal soldiery. The horrors
+which were here enacted beggar description, and leave a hideous stain
+upon the page of history. Tilly himself, in announcing his success to
+the emperor, wrote: "Since the destruction of Troy and Jerusalem never
+has such a siege been seen."
+
+Gustavus had, indeed, come too late to relieve Magdeburg, but the
+report of the unspeakable atrocities which that unhappy city had
+witnessed, fired his generous heart with wrath and an eager
+determination to punish a general so devoid of humanity. And the
+opportunity was soon to present itself. Advancing rapidly into Saxony,
+he met Tilly on the plains of Breitenfeld, near Leipsic, September 7,
+1631; and not only defeated him, but utterly annihilated his army,
+scattering it like dust before the storm. He was now, until a new army
+could be raised, master of all Germany. Nothing apparently could have
+hindered him from marching on Vienna and dictating to the emperor his
+own terms of peace. It has been and is yet a matter of speculation,
+why Gustavus did not relentlessly follow up the results of this great
+victory, instead of going into winter quarters and affording Ferdinand
+and the discomfited princes of the League a chance of recovering from
+their utter demoralization. The answer is, no doubt, that he did not
+feel himself strong enough to lay siege to Vienna, without covering
+his rear and securing his base of supplies. He had always, like the
+good general he was, been careful to keep open a possible line of
+retreat. For the moment he was indeed irresistible. At Merseburg two
+thousand Imperialists were cut to pieces. Cities opened their gates to
+receive him. The Protestant population, in their ecstacy at his
+victories, were ready to worship him as a demigod. Proceeding
+southward to Nuremberg and Munich, he was met again by Tilly at the
+river Lech, where a brief battle was fought; Gustavus was again
+victorious and Tilly lost his life. This feat of crossing the Lech in
+the face of a hostile force is by military experts regarded as the
+greatest strategic feat of Gustavus.
+
+In the meanwhile the emperor had not been idle. There was but one man
+whose name was potent enough to summon an army adequate for so
+perilous a situation; and that man was Albrecht von Wallenstein. He
+was himself, too, fully aware of his preciousness and the terms which
+he exacted of Ferdinand were hard, not to say extortionate. Ferdinand
+II., however, had no choice but to accept them. It was not long before
+Gustavus became aware that Wallenstein, with an army which seemed to
+have risen out of the ground, was moving in his rear, resolved,
+apparently, to cut him off from his communication with Sweden. He had
+no alternative then but to return northward to face this new enemy. On
+the field of Lutzen in Saxony they met November 6, 1632. A thick mist
+covered the battle-field, and both armies tarried with the attack in
+the hope that it would lift. Toward noon, however, Gustavus made a
+brief address to his soldiers and knelt in prayer before them,
+whereupon all sang Luther's hymn, "Our God he is a fortress strong."
+Then the signal was given for the attack. The army of Gustavus,
+including his German allies, numbered from twenty to twenty-five
+thousand, and the Imperialists about thirty thousand. The king, who
+suffered from an imperfectly healed wound which he had received in the
+Polish war, found it painful to wear a cuirass; and on the morning of
+the day of Lutzen refused to put it on. "God is my armor," he said,
+and mounted his horse.
+
+It was this sublime confidence in divine Providence which led him
+perhaps to expose himself overmuch. He led the attack in person.
+Before the battle was far advanced, a report reached him that his left
+wing was wavering. With prompt resolution he started across the field,
+but, mistaking the direction in the fog, found himself in the midst of
+a detachment of imperial cuirassiers. A pistol shot pierced his arm;
+but he still pressed on. Growing faint from pain and loss of blood, he
+turned to one of the German princes who accompanied him and said:
+"Cousin, lead me out of this tumult; for I am hurt."
+
+But scarcely had he spoken, when a second shot hit him between the
+shoulders and he fell from his horse, dead.
+
+The rumor instantly spread through the Swedish army that the king had
+been taken prisoner. The troops rushed like an avalanche upon the
+Imperialists, who wavered and gave way. In the end the victory was
+claimed by both sides, the advantage remaining however with the
+Swedes.
+
+Gustavus Adolphus was a man of handsome appearance, tall of stature,
+and of most impressive presence. He was hot-tempered; but at the same
+time kindly, generous, and affable. He possessed all the qualities
+required of a military leader, and has justly been accounted one of
+the world's greatest generals. He was thirty-eight years old at the
+time of his death. Having no son, he was succeeded on the Swedish
+throne by his daughter Christina.
+
+[Signature of the author.]
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 1 of 8, by Various
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