← catalogue

Historical Parallels, vol. 1 (of 3)

by Arthur Thomas Malkin · English · Gutenberg #47302 · 502,778 chars · public domain (US)

The Project Gutenberg eBook of Historical Parallels, vol. 1 (of 3)
    
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
most other parts of the world 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. If you are not located in the United States,
you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located
before using this eBook.

Title: Historical Parallels, vol. 1 (of 3)

Author: Arthur Thomas Malkin


        
Release date: November 6, 2014 [eBook #47302]
                Most recently updated: October 24, 2024

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/47302

Credits: Produced by Giovanni Fini and the Online Distributed
        Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
        produced from images generously made available by The
        Internet Archive)


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HISTORICAL PARALLELS, VOL. 1 (OF 3) ***

                         TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:

—Obvious print and punctuation errors were corrected.

—This work is divided into three volumes, all of them available on PG;
 index is on third volume. It has been split replacing every item in
 the volume where they belong. A full version of index has been
 mantained at the end of third volume.




                              HISTORICAL

                               PARALLELS

                           IN THREE  VOLUMES

                                VOL. I.

                                LONDON:

                 CHARLES KNIGHT & Co., LUDGATE STREET.

                                 1846.




                                LONDON:
                  PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS,
                           STAMFORD STREET.




CONTENTS.


                                                             Page

  INTRODUCTION                                                  5

  CHAPTER I.

  Mythic period of Grecian history—Savage state of Greece
  compared with that of Scandinavia—Anecdotes of Northern
  warriors—Hercules—Theseus—State of Greece in their time,
  illustrated by that of England subsequent to the
  Conquest—Argonautic expedition—Theban war—Story of Don
  Pedro of Castile—Trojan war                                  11

  CHAPTER II.

  Aristomenes—Hereward le Wake—Wallace                         40

  CHAPTER III.

  Treatment of Prisoners of War—Crœsus—Roman Triumphs—Sapor
  and Valerian—Imprisonment of Bajazet—His treatment of the
  Marshal Boucicaut and his Companions—Changes produced by
  the advance of Civilization—Effect of Feudal
  Institutions—Anecdote from Froissart—Conduct of the Black
  Prince towards the Constable Du Guesclin and the King of
  France                                                       77

  CHAPTER IV.

  Tyranny of Cambyses, terminating in madness—of
  Caligula—of the Emperor Paul                                114

  CHAPTER V.

  Early changes in the Athenian constitution—Murder of
  Cylon—Fatalism—Usurpation of Pisistratus—His
  policy—Hippias and Hipparchus—Conspiracy of Harmodius
  and Aristogiton—Expulsion of Hippias—Cosmo de’ Medici,
  Lorenzo and Giuliano de’ Medici—Conspiracy of the Pazzi     153

  CHAPTER VI.

  Invasion of Scythia by Darius—Destruction of Crassus and
  his army by the Parthians—Retreat of Antony—Retreat and
  death of Julian—Retreat from Moscow                         190

  INDEX                                                       239




                         HISTORICAL PARALLELS.




INTRODUCTION.


Works of history may be divided into two great classes: those which
select a single action or a detached period for their subject; and
those which follow a nation through the whole or a large portion
of its existence; and which, embracing a number of such subjects,
compensate for giving less minute and accurate information upon each,
by explaining their relation, and the influence which they have
exerted upon each other. To the former belong Thucydides, Xenophon,
and Cæsar; to the latter Diodorus and Livy: or, in English literature,
we may take Clarendon and Hume respectively as the representatives
of these divisions. It is obvious that the method of treating themes
so different in character, must also be essentially different; that
for an historian of the latter class to aim at the particularity
which we expect in the former, would involve something of the same
absurdity as if a landscape painter were to give to an extended horizon
the distinctness and detail which are proper to his foregrounds or
to a closely bounded scene. If our curiosity is not satisfied by a
comprehensive view, the remedy is to be found by multiplying pictures
of its most striking parts, not by introducing into one canvas a
multitude of objects which must fatigue and confuse the mind, and
obscure those leading features which ought to stand out in prominent
relief. Any one who wished to become acquainted with the nature and
characteristics of a country, which he could not survey personally,
would neither confine his inspection to bird’s–eye and panoramic
views, nor content himself with a series of detached paintings, though
representing separately whatever was most worthy of observation: in the
one case his ideas, though perhaps correct, would necessarily be slight
and superficial; in the other, his knowledge of the parts would never
enable him to form an accurate judgment of the whole.

Valuable, therefore, as is the assistance of those authors who have
devoted their talents and learning to epitomizing and rendering
accessible the story of past ages, it is far from desirable that we
should content ourselves with a blind trust in them, without checking
their assertions, and filling up their sketches by a more detailed
knowledge than it is possible for them to communicate. To apply these
observations to the present work, the History of Greece contained
in the Library of Useful Knowledge necessarily gives a very short
account of many things which deserve to be known in detail, both on
account of their historical notoriety and for the intrinsic value
which they possess as striking examples of human power, passion, and
suffering. Much of the excessive commendation which has been bestowed
upon ancient virtue and patriotism ought probably to be attributed to
the eager interest naturally excited by the revival of learning and
the peculiar circumstances under which it took place. The discovery
of the works of the most celebrated writers of antiquity, whose names
at least had not been forgotten, must at any time have produced much
curiosity and excitement: and peculiarly so when modern literature did
not yet possess many names to divide the palm of genius with them.
Besides this the political circumstances of the Italian states, in
which the new discoveries were at first most successfully and generally
prosecuted, would give an additional interest and a peculiar bias to
the study of ancient literature; for their inhabitants would naturally
be disposed, as Italians, to exult in the glories of ancient Italy,
and as republicans to look for patterns both of polity and of conduct
among the famous republics of Greece and Rome. A contrary cause, in a
later age, and in countries subject to arbitrary power, would probably
conduce to the continuance of the same feeling, when the prevalent
subjection of public opinion made it safer to enforce sentiments of
freedom and patriotism under the mask of an overstrained admiration
for actions, frequently of very questionable character, done in times
long past, than openly to profess the love of republican simplicity and
liberty, which was willingly left to be inferred. The usual course of
education long tended, and in an inferior degree perhaps still tends,
to cherish the same indiscriminate enthusiasm. The first histories
put into the hands of children are usually those of Greece and Rome,
taken not from the sober and comparatively unprejudiced relations of
the earliest authorities, but from Plutarch, and other compilers of a
later age, who, living themselves under despotic power, and compelled
to veil their philosophical aspirations after a better state of polity
and morals under extravagant praises of a by–gone period of imaginary
virtue and disinterestedness, were for the most part ready to warp
truth into correspondence with their own views. In such works actions
are held up to admiration because they are brilliant, without much
inquiry whether they were justifiable; wanton and unjust aggressions,
and other crimes of still deeper dye, are glossed over upon some false
plea of patriotism; or their moral quality is never alluded to, and the
young reader is too much captivated by the splendour of bravery and
talent, to remember that the ends to which these gifts are directed
should never be forgotten in estimating their claim to applause.[1]
But whatever be our opinion touching Grecian and Roman virtue, or the
moral character of the most celebrated portions of their history, these
have obtained a degree of currency and notoriety which render familiar
acquaintance with them almost necessary for the full understanding of
much even of modern literature. The object of this work is to supply,
in part, these details from the original historians, and to compare
or contrast them with other remarkable incidents of ancient or modern
times; in hope of forming a collection of narratives of some interest
to those who are not largely read in history. And even those who are
in some degree familiar with the subjects here treated, but whose
knowledge is chiefly drawn from compilations of modern date, may be
gratified by the variety in style, feelings, and opinions observable in
a collection of extracts from authors of various dates and nations.

We have selected from the Grecian History, in chronological order,
as furnishing the readiest principle of arrangement, a series of
occurrences of which some have obtained remarkable notoriety; some,
being less known, are either striking in themselves, or characteristic
of the age and people to which they belong; and finally some, with
less intrinsic value, may serve to introduce curious or instructive
matter of comparison. To every person well acquainted with the
subject, many things will probably occur, of which the omission may
be regretted. Completeness, however, is evidently unattainable in an
undertaking of this sort, and the passages taken from Grecian history
have necessarily been regulated in part by the correspondences which
presented themselves in the histories of other nations. It has been
our object to draw examples from a great variety of sources; from
different countries, in different ages, and in different states of
civilization: and to show that no particular virtues or vices have
been inherent in any age or nation: believing that human nature and
human passions are everywhere alike, and that the great differences in
national character are mainly to be ascribed to external circumstances
and training. Comparisons of contrast, therefore, are no less valuable
than comparisons of resemblance, when we can trace the causes which
have produced a difference in conduct. It only remains to add, that we
have not always thought it necessary to require a close analogy either
of motives or of actions.

The instances chosen have not been very strictly confined to what
rests upon undoubted testimony. Perhaps we learn little less of the
habits and opinions of men, from ascertaining what they have believed
of others, than from knowing what they have done themselves; and,
therefore, even works of fiction may be resorted to in some degree,
care being taken to distinguish the character of the authorities.
For example, we should have no hesitation in quoting even from the
Mort d’Arthur, and still more from the earlier romances on which
it is founded, in illustration of the manners of the twelfth and
thirteenth centuries, in which those romances were written; or,
though on different grounds, the admirable narratives of the plagues
of Florence and London by Boccaccio and Defoe, which probably are no
less trustworthy for the character of the narrative, and in a great
degree for the facts themselves, than Thucydides’ description of
the plague at Athens. Again, there is a sort of debateable ground,
where genuine history begins to gain the ascendant over fable, as
in the case of Aristomenes and Wallace, where we cannot tell, nor
is it important to know, the exact measure of truth contained in
the legends concerning them. The outlines of their lives we have
reason to believe to be correct, and rejecting from their exploits
all that is grossly improbable, the remainder will furnish us with a
sufficiently clear idea of the accomplishments and adventures of a
warrior of their respective ages. The poem of Blind Harry abounds in
improbable fictions, but much more information concerning Wallace
and his contemporaries may be gained from it than from the meagre
chronicles which composed the graver literature of the age. From
such sources, therefore, we shall not scruple to borrow, though not
without advertising the reader of their nature, and endeavouring, where
necessary, to draw the boundary line between truth and fiction.

For reasons above stated, our extracts have usually been taken from
contemporary authors, or at least from the earliest authorities
extant. Where this rule has been departed from, it is because the
originals offer no striking passages to select, and are too prolix
to be given entire. In this case, condensation becomes necessary,
and we have gladly availed ourselves of the labours of others who
have already performed that task, in preference to seeking novelty
at the expense perhaps of accuracy or elegance. For the same reason
existing translations have been used, whenever a good translation of
the particular passage could be found. Where none such occurred, we
have endeavoured to adhere closely to our author, and even where his
narrative has been much compressed, to give, as far as was possible,
not only his substance, but his words.




[Illustration]




CHAPTER I.

 Mythic period of Grecian history—Savage state of Greece
 compared with that of Scandinavia—Anecdotes of Northern
 warriors—Hercules—Theseus—State of Greece in their time, illustrated by
 that of England subsequent to the Conquest—Argonautic expedition—Theban
 war—Story of Don Pedro of Castile—Trojan war.


The traditions from which our knowledge of what is called the mythic
age of Greece, or the age of fable, from the earliest notices of it
to the Trojan war, is almost entirely derived, furnish few materials
for a work like this, for where everything is misty and undefined,
there can be little opportunity for comparison. The wonderful poetic
talent displayed in their narration and embellishment has, however,
given them a place in history, and an importance otherwise undeserved,
and men study the actions and genealogy of an Achaian prince, as
gravely as if he had been really the descendant of Jupiter, and the
conqueror of monsters and oppressors innumerable. It becomes the more
interesting therefore to inquire into the actual condition of Greece
in its earliest times, and ascertain, if possible, whether the godlike
men, sprung from the Gods, of whose superhuman powers and exploits
succeeding ages have read, until by the mere force of repetition they
have half believed them, had in reality any advantage over barbarians
of other races and regions. To guide us in the inquiry we have two
sorts of information, totally distinct in their nature: the meagre
notices of authentic history, and a copious store of mythological and
poetical legends. So far as the former is available, we have no reason
to think that the heroic age had much advantage over those dark times
in which the foundations of modern Europe were laid. Passing over the
account given by Thucydides of the earliest inhabitants of Greece as
being applicable to any savage race, in the next stage of society, when
the arts had somewhat advanced, in the reign of Minos, the first person
perhaps of whom any rational and credible account is given, a code of
honour existed which made strength not only the first but the sum–total
of all virtues, and filled the sea with pirates and the land with
robbers.

“Minos was the most ancient of all that by report we know to have
built a navy, and he made himself master of the now Grecian sea, and
both commanded the Isles called Cyclades,[2] and also was the first
who sent colonies into most of the same, expelling thence the Carians,
and constituting his own sons there for governors, and also freed the
sea from pirates as much as he could, for the better coming in, as is
likely, of his own revenue.

“For the Grecians in old time and such barbarians[3] as in the
continent lived near unto the sea or else inhabited the islands, when
they began more often to cross over to one another in ships, became
thieves, and went abroad under the conduct of their most puissant men,
both to enrich themselves and to fetch in maintenance for the weak:
and falling upon towns unfortified, and scatteringly inhabited, rifled
them, and made this the best means of their living; being at that time
a matter nowhere in disgrace, but rather carrying with it something
of glory. This is manifest by some that dwell on the continent, among
whom, so it be performed nobly, it is still esteemed as an ornament.
The same also is proved by some of the ancient poets, who introduce
men questioning such as sail by, on all coasts alike, whether they be
thieves or not;[4] as a thing neither scorned by such as were asked,
nor upbraided by those that were desirous to know. They also robbed
one another within the main land: and much of Greece useth that old
custom, as the Locrians called Ozolæ (or _Stinkards_), the Acarnanians,
and those of the continent in that quarter unto this day. Moreover the
fashion of wearing iron remaineth yet with the people of that continent
from their old trade of thieving.

“For once they were wont throughout all Greece to go armed, because
their houses were unfenced and travelling unsafe, and accustomed
themselves like the barbarians to the ordinary wearing of their armour.
And the nations of Greece that live so yet, do testify that the same
manner of life was anciently universal to all the rest.”[5]

A condition of society identical with that described in the latter
part of this extract still exists among the Curdish and Caucasian and
other Asiatic mountaineers, and existed till lately in the Scottish
Highlands. But descriptions of the latter have been multiplied, until
they have become familiar in men’s mouths as household terms; and we
pass in preference to a less hackneyed subject. In the eighth and
ninth centuries the piratical spirit of ancient Greece was revived
among those fierce Danes and Norwegians, who led a life of constant
rapine and bloodshed; of interminable warfare at home, of frightful
devastation abroad. “The Sea–kings of the North were a race of beings
whom Europe beheld with horror. Without a yard of territorial property,
with no wealth but their ships, no force but their crews, and no
hope but from their swords, they swarmed upon the boisterous ocean,
and plundered in every district that they could approach.... It is
declared to have been a law or custom in the North, that one of the
male children should be selected to remain at home to inherit the
government. The rest were exiled to the ocean, to wield their sceptres
amid the turbulent waters. The consent of the northern societies
entitled all men of royal descent, who assumed piracy as a profession,
to enjoy the name of kings, though they possessed no territory. The
sea–kings had the same honour, but they were only a portion of those
pirates, or _vikingr_, who in the ninth century were covering the
ocean. Not only the children of the kings, but every man of importance
equipped ships, and roamed the seas to acquire property by force.
Piracy was not only the most honourable occupation and the best harvest
of wealth; it was not only consecrated to public estimation by the
illustrious who pursued it, but no one was esteemed noble, no one was
respected, who did not return in the winter to his home with ships
laden with booty.”[6] Part of the regulations of a band of pirates is
preserved by Bartholinus, and may serve as a specimen of the better
class, though the reader may not be inclined to agree with him in
considering them as men “devoted to virtue, bravery, and humanity,
rather than to the oppression of innocent persons.” These regulations
were called the Constitutions of King Half. “No one might wear a
sword more than an ell in length, that they might be compelled to
close in battle. Each was to be equal in strength to twelve ordinary
men. They made prisoners neither women nor boys. None was to bind his
wounds until the lapse of twenty hours. These men everywhere infested
the land, and everywhere were victorious. They lay at anchor at the
ends of headlands. They never raised bulwarks on their ships’ sides,
and never lowered their sails, let the wind blow as it would. Their
captain never had in his ship more than sixty men.” No less creditable
were the ordinances of Hialmar, the sum of which was, that his men
should plunder neither traders nor husbandmen; that they should neither
rob women of their money, nor carry them off against their consent:
and should not eat raw flesh.[7] The fiercer class indulged in this
disgusting food, and washed it down suitably with draughts of blood.
Savage in all things, it was an amusement to toss infants from one to
another, and catch them on the points of their lances. Many used to
work themselves literally into a state of bestial ferocity. Those who
were subject to these paroxysms were called Berserkir: they studied
to resemble wild beasts; they excited themselves to a strength which
has been compared to that of bears; and this unnatural power was
succeeded, as we may well suppose, by corresponding debility. In the
French and Italian romances, we frequently find a warrior endowed,
for a part of the day, with a double or treble share of strength;
and it is not improbable that the fiction may have been derived
from this species of frenzy, which is thus described by the Danish
historian, Saxo Grammaticus. “Sivald had seven sons, so skilled in
magic, that, impelled by the sudden access of fury, they used often
to howl savagely, to gnaw their shields, to devour live coals, and
rush fearlessly into fire; and this passion could only be appeased by
confinement in fetters, or by human blood.” This Sivald and Haldan
were rivals for the Swedish crown. Sivald challenged Haldan to decide
their quarrel by contending alone with himself and his seven sons. The
latter answered that the legitimate form of the duel did not admit of
more than two. “No wonder,” replied his antagonist, “that a man without
wife or offspring, whose mind and body are alike deficient in warmth,
should refuse the proffered encounter. But my children, who own me as
the author of their existence, and myself, have one common origin, and
must be considered as one man.” The force of the argument was admitted,
and, in obedience to this modest request, Haldan knocked out the brains
of the eight.

The same warrior was challenged by another Berserkir, named Harthben,
who always had twelve chosen men in attendance to prevent his doing
mischief when the fit was upon him. Upon hearing that Haldan undertook
to fight himself and his followers, he was seized with a paroxysm which
was not subdued until he had killed six of them, by way of trying his
hand: and then he was killed by his antagonist, as he richly deserved,
for throwing away half his chance.[8] So also we read that Odin could
blunt the weapons of his enemies; that his soldiers went to battle
without armour, biting their shields, raging like wolves or dogs: like
bears or bulls in strength, they slaughtered their foes, and were
themselves invulnerable to fire and sword.[9] At length, however, this
passion changed from a distinction to a reproach, and was ultimately
prohibited by penal laws.

Harold Harfager, or the Fairhaired, who consolidated Norway under
his sceptre, A.D. 910, cleared the Northern Ocean from the
scourge of piracy, as did Minos the Grecian seas. Still the spirit
of depredation was alive. The spread of Christianity moderated the
excesses of the Northmen, but it was long ere their fondness for
freebooting was extinguished; nay, the very rites of religion were
employed to give a sanction to robbery. Maritime expeditions seemed
to the Danes pious and necessary, that they might protect themselves
from the incursions of their Sclavonic neighbours on the continent, and
piracy was therefore practised under certain laws, which in the opinion
of Bartholinus breathe a spirit of defence rather than of aggression.
“Pirates had power to take such ships as appeared suited to their
purpose, even without consent of the owners, upon payment of one–eighth
of the booty by way of hire. Before a voyage they made confession to
the priests, and having undergone penance, they received the sacrament,
as if at the point of death, believing that things would go more
prosperously if they duly propitiated God before war. Content with
their food and armour, they avoided burdening their vessels, and took
nothing that could delay their voyage. Their watches were frequent,
their mode of life sparing. They slept leaning upon their oars. Their
battles were numerous: their victory ever easy, and almost bloodless.
The booty was shared equally, the master receiving no larger portion
than a common rower. Those Christians whom they found enslaved in the
captured vessels, they presented with clothing, and dismissed to their
own homes.”[10]

The frantic ravages of these barbarians have been described by the
sufferers, and belong in part to our own history; while those committed
by the unknown tribes who two thousand years before occupied the other
extremity of Europe, are long since forgotten, or remembered only in
the flattering traditions of their countrymen. The former, therefore,
are known and execrated, while the latter stand fair with the world:
and in the absence of evidence, we are far from wishing to impute to
them that bestial ferocity which so often disgraced the Northmen:
but who can compare the passages just given with that quoted from
Thucydides, without being convinced that they refer to corresponding
periods of civilization, and describe similar principles, if not
similar modes of action? And as the best historical accounts which we
can procure represent the feelings and habits of the early Greeks
as closely akin to those of our own barbarous ancestors, so their
traditions and fables lead us to the same conclusion. The Scaldic poems
bear, indeed, a more savage cast; some say from the inhospitable rigour
of our northern sky; but more probably because we possess them in their
original or nearly their original state, while the earliest Greek
compositions extant were written in an age comparatively civilized.
But the heroes of both were actuated by the same spirit. Siegfrid and
Wolf Dietrich differ little but in external ornament from Castor, or
Achilles, or Diomed; their pride was in the same accomplishments, their
delight in the same pleasures, their hope in an immortality of the same
sensual enjoyments.[11]

Some sketch of the life of Starchaterus, a purely fictitious person,
may serve as a specimen of these stories.

Starchaterus was born in Sweden, a few years after the Christian era.
He was of giant stature, and of strength and courage correspondent to
the magnitude of his frame, so that in prowess he was held inferior to
none of mortal parentage; and, as he excelled all in bodily endowments,
so his life was protracted to three times the usual duration of human
existence. Like his great prototype, the Grecian Hercules, he traversed
the neighbouring regions, and went even to Ireland and Constantinople
in quest of adventures; but, unlike him, he was animated by a most
intolerant hatred of everything approaching to luxury, insomuch that
he treated an invitation to dinner as an insult, and inflicted severe
punishment upon all who were so imprudently hospitable as to request
his company. For it was the mark of a buffoon and parasite, he said, to
run after the smell of another man’s kitchen, for the sake of better
fare.[12] In other respects the severity of his manners was more
commendable; when he found any of the classes who live by the follies
or vices of mankind mixing with soldiers, he drove them away with the
scourge, esteeming them unworthy to receive death from the hands of
brave men. In addition to his other accomplishments, he was skilled in
poetry, and persecuted luxury in verse no less successfully than by
corporeal inflictions, as is evident from certain of his compositions,
which have been translated into Latin by Saxo Grammaticus.

He went to Russia on purpose to fight Visin, who possessed the power
of blunting weapons with a look, and trusting in this magic power,
exercised all sorts of cruelty and oppression. Starchaterus rendered
the charm of no avail by covering his sword with thin leather, and then
obtained an easy victory.

Nine warriors of tried valour offered to Helgo, king of Norway, the
alternative of doing battle singly against the nine, or losing his
bride upon his marriage–day. Helgo thought it best to appear by his
champion, and requested the assistance of Starchaterus, who was so
eager for the adventure, that in following Helgo to the appointed
place, in one day, and on foot, he performed a journey which had
occupied the king, who travelled on horseback, during twelve days.
On the morrow, which was the appointed day, ascending a mountain,
which was the place of meeting, he chose a spot exposed to the wind
and snow, and then, as if it were spring, throwing off his clothes,
he set himself to dislodge the fleas that nestled in them. Then the
nine warriors ascended the mountain on the other side, and showed the
difference of their hardihood by lighting a fire in a sheltered spot.
Not perceiving their antagonist, one went to look out from the mountain
top, who saw at a distance an old man covered with snow up to the
shoulders. They asked him if it were he who was to fight with them, and
being answered in the affirmative, inquired further, whether he would
receive them singly or all together. His reply was rather more churlish
than the question deserved: “When the dogs bark at me, I drive them off
all together, and not one by one.” Then, after a severe battle, he
slew them all.

At last, being overtaken by age, he thought it fit to terminate his
life before his glory was dimmed by decrepitude; for men used to
consider it disgraceful for a warrior to perish by sickness. So he
hung round his neck one hundred and twenty pounds of gold, the spoil
of one Olo, to buy the good offices of an executioner, thinking it fit
that the wealth which he had obtained by another man’s death should be
spent in procuring his own. And meeting Hather, whose father he had
formerly slain, he exhorted him to take vengeance for that injury, and
pointed out what he would gain by doing so. Hather willingly consented,
and Starchaterus, stretching out his neck, bade him strike boldly,
adding, for his encouragement, that if he leaped between the severed
head and the trunk before the latter touched the earth, he would become
invincible in arms. Now, whether he said this out of good will, or to
be quits with his slayer, who ran a good chance of being crushed by the
falling giant, is doubtful. The head, stricken off at a blow, bit the
earth, retaining its ferocity in death: but Starchaterus’ real meaning
remained unknown, for Hather showed his prudence by declining to take a
leap, which had he taken, he might never have leaped again.[13]

This is an early and rude specimen of an errant knight; the same
character which was afterwards expanded into Roland and Launcelot, the
paladins and peers of Charlemagne and Arthur, worthies closely allied
to the heroes of Homer and Hesiod. The triple–bodied Geryon, the Nemean
lion and Lernæan hydra, the deliverance of Andromeda by Perseus, the
capture of the golden fleece, and above all, perhaps, Amycus, who
compelled all strangers to box with him, till he was beaten by Pollux,
and bound by oath to renounce the practice, are entirely in unison with
the spirit and imagery of chivalric romance. Examples to this effect
might easily be multiplied. But an essay on the fictions of the Greeks
would be foreign to the scope of this publication: and it would be
absurd to enter upon a critical investigation of a series of stories,
extended by some chronologers over seven centuries, from the foundation
of Argos to the Trojan war, while Newton contracts them within a
century and a half, which tell of little but bloodshed, abductions,
and violence of all sorts, intermixed, however, with notices of those
who invented the useful arts and fostered the gradual progress of
civilization. As we approach to the Trojan war, a sort of twilight
history begins to dawn upon us. It is to what may seem at first the
strongholds of fiction, to the exploits of Hercules and Theseus, that
we refer. The earliest ascertained fact is the establishment of a
regular government by Minos, who also cleared the sea from pirates.
At no long interval the above–named heroes made another step in
civilization; they cleared the land from rapine, as Minos had cleared
the sea. Other men, roaming in search of adventures, had carried
bloodshed through the land at the suggestion of their passions or for
the advancement of their fame; but Hercules first traversed the earth
with the express design of avenging the oppressed and exterminating
their oppressors, and the example was soon after followed by his
kinsman Theseus. Their exploits, of course, are chiefly fabulous:
but it is worthy of observation that those of Theseus approach much
nearer to probability than the far–famed labours of Hercules. Indeed
the history of the former presents this peculiarity, that the accounts
of his youth are consistent, and scarcely improbable, while those of
his age run into all the extravagance of romance. Theseus, travelling
from Trœzen to Athens, was strongly urged to go by sea, the way by
land being beset with robbers and murderers. He refused to do so,
being inflamed with emulation of Hercules’ renown; and on the journey
signalized himself by slaying Sinnis, surnamed the Pine–bender, because
he dismembered travellers by tying them to the tops of trees forcibly
brought together and then allowed to start asunder; Procrustes, who
exhibited a passion for uniformity worthy a German general of the
old school, in reducing all men to the measure of his own bed, by
stretching those who were too short, and docking those who were too
long; together with others of less note, and similar habits. That
Plutarch believed in these stories is evident, from the tone in which
he recites them; a corroboration, indeed, of no great weight, for
he proceeds with equal gravity to relate things which no one will
credit; but in this instance his account of the state of Greece gives
warranty for his belief, and is itself confirmed by our knowledge of
later ages. The passage has often been quoted, but it is striking and
to the purpose, and its want of novelty, therefore, shall be no bar
to its insertion. “The world at that time brought forth men, which
for strongness in their arms, for swiftness of their feet, and for
a general strength of the whole body, did far pass the common force
of others, and were never weary for any labour or travail they took
in hand. But for all this, they never employed these gifts of nature
to any honest or profitable thing; but rather delighted villainously
to hurt and wrong others; as if all the fruit and profit of their
extraordinary strength had consisted in cruelty and violence only,
and to be able to keep others under and in subjection; and to force,
destroy, and spoil all that came to their hands. Thinking that the more
part of those which think it a shame to do ill, and commend justice,
equity, and humanity, do it of faint, cowardly hearts, because they
dare not wrong others, for fear they should receive wrong themselves;
and, therefore, that they which by might could have vantage over
others, had nothing to do with such qualities.”[14]

The enormities ascribed to Sinnis and his fellows have discredited
the whole train of adventures to which they belong; but this is an
untenable ground of doubt. He who reads descriptions of the state of
England, before laws were strong enough to control private violence,
given by contemporaries who saw what they relate, and whose narratives
bear the impress of sincerity, will better appreciate the extent of
human ferocity. In the reign of Stephen disorder was at its height.
“The barons cruelly oppressed the wretched men of the land with
castle–works, and when the castles were made, they filled them with
devils and evil men. Then took they those whom they supposed to have
any goods, both by night and day, labouring men and women, and threw
them into the prison for their gold and silver, and inflicted on them
unutterable tortures: for never were any martyrs so tortured as they
were. Some they hanged up by the feet, and smoked them with foul smoke,
and some by the thumbs, or the head, and hung coats of mail on their
feet. They tied knotted cords about their heads, and twisted them until
the pain went to their brains. They put them into dungeons where were
adders, and snakes, and toads, and so destroyed them. Some they placed
in a crucet house; that is, in a chest that was short and narrow, and
not deep, wherein they put sharp stones, and so thrust the man therein,
that they broke all the limbs. In many of the castles were things
loathsome and grim, called Sachenteges, of which two or three men had
enough to bear one. They were thus made: they were fastened to a beam,
having a sharp iron to go about a man’s throat, so that he could in no
direction either sit, or lie, or sleep, but bear all that iron. Many
thousands they wore out with hunger. I neither can, nor may I tell
all the wounds and pains which they inflicted on wretched men in this
land.”[15]

“Some, seeing the sweetness of their country turned into bitterness,
went into foreign parts: others built hovels about churches in hope
of security, and there passed life in fear and pain, subsisting for
lack of food (for famine was felt dreadfully over all England) upon
the forbidden and unused flesh of dogs and horses, or relieving hunger
with raw herbs and roots, until throughout the provinces men, wasted
by famine, died in crowds, or went voluntarily with their families
into a miserable exile. You might see towns of famous name, standing
lonely, and altogether emptied by the death of their inhabitants of
all ages and sexes; the fields whitening under a thriving harvest, but
the husbandman cut off by pestilential famine ere it ripened: and all
England wore the face of grief and calamity, of misery and oppression.
In addition to these evils, the savage multitude of barbarians who
resorted to England for the gains of warfare was moved neither by the
bowels of piety nor by any feeling of human compassion for such misery:
everywhere they conspired from their castles to do all wickedness,
being always at leisure to rob the poor, to promote quarrels, and
intent everywhere upon slaughter with all the malice of a wicked
mind.” Even churchmen amused themselves with these pastimes. “The
bishops themselves, as I am ashamed to say, not all indeed, but many
of them, clad in handsome armour, rode up and down on prancing horses
with these upsetters of their country; shared in their booty; exposed
to fetters, or torture, knights, or any wealthy persons soever, whom
they intercepted; and being themselves the head and cause of all this
wickedness, they threw the blame not on themselves, but only upon their
followers.”[16]

Enough of general descriptions, which are fully borne out by the
particulars related. “In the reign of Stephen, Robert, the son of
Hubert, had gotten possession of the castle of Devizes. He was a man
exceeding all within memory in barbarity and blasphemy, who used
freely to make boast, that he had been present when twenty–four monks
were burnt together with their church, and profess that he would do
as much in England, and ruin utterly the abbey of Malmesbury. If he
ever dismissed a prisoner unransomed, and without the torture, which
very seldom happened, at such times, when they thanked him in God’s
name, I have with these ears heard him answer, ‘God will never own the
obligation to me.’ He would expose his captives naked to the burning
sun, anointed with honey, to attract flies, and such other tormenting
insects.”[17] This worthy met with a fit end, being taken and hanged;
but this act of retribution was one of illegal violence, being done by
a knight who held Marlborough Castle, without a shadow of authority,
and apparently on the principle that any one had a right to abate a
nuisance.

“In these times (the reign of William Rufus) men come not to great
name but by the highest wickedness. Thomas, a great baron near Laudun
in France, was great in name, because he was extreme in wickedness. At
enmity with the surrounding churches, he had brought all their wealth
into his own exchequer. If any one by force or guile were holden in his
keeping, truly might that man say, ‘the pains of hell got hold upon
me.’ Murder was his glory and delight. Against all usage, he placed
a countess in a dungeon, whom the foul ruffian harassed with fetters
and torments to extort money. He would speak words of peace to his
neighbour, and stab him to the heart with a smile, and hence, under his
cloak, he more often wore his sword naked than sheathed. Therefore,
men feared, respected, worshipped him. All through France was he
spoken of. Daily did his estate, his treasure, his vassalage increase.
Wouldst thou hear the end of this villain? Being stricken with a sword
unto death, refusing to repent, and turning away his head from the
Lord’s body, in such manner he perished: so that it might well be
said, ‘Befitting to your life was that death.’ You have seen Robert de
Belesme, a Norman baron, who when established in his castle was Pluto,
Megæra, Cerberus, or anything that can be named more dreadful. He took
pains not to dismiss, but to dispatch his captives. Pretending to be in
play, he put out his son’s eyes with his thumbs, while he was muffled
up in a cloak; he impaled persons of both sexes. Horrid slaughter was
as a meat pleasant to his soul: therefore was he found in all men’s
mouths, so that the wonderful doings of Robert de Belesme passed into
proverbs. Let us come at length to the end. He who had afflicted
others in prison, being at last thrown into prison by King Henry, ended
his wicked life by an enduring punishment.”[18]

It was this state of disorder which produced knight–errantry, and
there is nothing absurd in believing that equal lawlessness in another
country was checked by the same sort of interference. The reality of
knight–errantry has, indeed, been questioned; it has been pronounced a
fiction, suited to the wants of the period in which it was supposed to
exist. If this were so, and the tales of Hercules and Theseus equally
groundless, it would still be curious to see that men had been led to
imagine the same means of making amends for the want of an executive
power: but we do not believe this to be the case. The romances gave
system and consistency to the scattered acts of individuals; they
described the better qualities of knighthood in their own days, and
filled up the picture with imaginary virtues and preter–human prowess,
attributes which men are always ready to confer on their ancestors, as
Nestor makes the heroes with whom he fought in youth far superior to
those whom he lectured in old age, and Homer endows those who fought
under Troy with the strength of three or four men, “such as mortals now
are.” But their productions bear the stamp of copies, not originals,
and it is not very easy to believe that they would have invented, or
their audience and readers relished, characters and rules of action for
which their own experience gave no warrant.

There is, however, a double Theseus, of historic as well as legendary
fame. In his latter capacity, both for the degree of reality and
the nature of his exploits, he may be compared to Arthur; in his
former, still to draw an illustration from British history, he is not
unworthy to be placed by the side of Alfred. The union of these two,
discordant as it may appear, is not more so than that of the poetic
and the historical Theseus. Alfred, indeed, signalised his military
talents in many hard–fought fields, but his victories were those of
a general: the exploits of Theseus were those of a knight. But among
the mass of stories of questionable truth or unquestioned falsehood
relating to him, it is generally acknowledged that this man, whose
very existence we might else have doubted, was the author of extensive
and judicious reforms in government, such as proved the foundation
of Attic greatness: reforms which he effected by the rarest and most
virtuous of all sacrifices, the resignation of his own power.[19]
Attica was divided into twelve districts, shires we might call them,
except that, taken all together, they were less than one of the
larger English counties. Professedly forming one body, and owning a
precarious obedience to one prince, they had still their petty and
conflicting interests, and could with difficulty be induced to concur
in any measures for the benefit of the whole. Theseus, encouraged
by the popularity which he had gained by delivering Athens from its
subjection to Crete,[20] undertook to substitute a better polity. “He
went through the several towns, and persuaded the inhabitants to give
up their separate councils and magistrates, and submit to a common
jurisdiction. Every man was to retain his dwelling and his property
as before; but justice was to be administered and all public business
transacted at Athens. The mass of the people came into his measures,
and to subdue the reluctance of the powerful, who were loath to resign
the importance accruing from the local magistracies, he gave up much of
his own authority, reserving only the command of the army, and the care
of watching over the execution of the laws. Opposition was silenced
by his liberality, together with the fear of his power, ability, and
courage, and the union of Attica was effected by him and made lasting.
To bind it closer, without disturbing the religious observances of the
several towns, he instituted a common festival in honour of Minerva,
which was called the feast of union, and (_Panathenæa_) the feast of
all the Athenians.”[21]

This process bears some resemblance to the consolidation of the Saxon
Heptarchy, nominally effected by Egbert, but completed and made truly
beneficial by Alfred. The evils which were to be reformed were very
different in the two cases: at Athens civil dissension was to be
remedied; in England a rude people, intermixed with foreign barbarians
more ferocious than themselves, and reduced to poverty by a series of
destructive invasions, required a strong curb for the re–establishment
of order and security. We must not expect, therefore, to find any
resemblance between their institutions: the Saxons required no measures
to prevent civil war, and inspire a spirit of nationality; the
Athenians, though well inclined to civil broils, respected, from the
earliest dawn of history, the security of property, and in consequence
far outstripped the rest of Greece in wealth and refinement.
Nevertheless the names of these princes may fairly be selected to
adorn the same page: both advanced beyond their age in legislative and
political science; both directed their wisdom, power, and popularity to
truly noble ends; and therefore merit the respect of all who believe
rank and office to have been instituted for other ends than for the
advantage of those who possess them.

We have spoken of Hercules and Theseus as indicating the commencement
of Grecian history. Previous to them, facts are mentioned which we
have no ground to disbelieve, as the various settlements by Phœnician
or Egyptian emigrants; but all further particulars of these persons,
with the exception of Minos, are of such a nature, that where we find
no internal evidence to pronounce them fabulous we can yet assign but
scanty reasons for relying confidently upon their truth. But about
this era our knowledge begins to increase. We must refer to it an
event of which it is not easy to fix the date with certainty; namely,
the celebrated Argonautic expedition, in which both these heroes
are said to have joined: a statement, however, irreconcileable with
the accounts of Theseus’ introduction to Ægeus, and the plot formed
against him by Medea.[22] Without troubling ourselves to account for
these discrepancies, it is evident that the expedition, if it ever
took place, which there seems reason to believe in spite of Bryant’s
opposition, who would ascribe this, and almost all other legends, to
some faint traditions of the deluge and preservation of Noah, must have
borne a close resemblance to the Danish piratical excursions which we
have already described. Not long after occurs the first confederate war
mentioned in Grecian history, that of the Seven against Thebes;[23]
an event so closely connected with mythology that its reality might
reasonably be questioned, but for the testimony of Homer and Hesiod.
The revolting nature of the struggle between two brothers, for the
kingdom of a banished, miserable, and neglected father, would incline
us indeed to give as little credit to the concluding tragedy of the
house of Laius, as to the series of crimes and misery by which that
house had been polluted: but all arguments founded upon the horrors
of such fratricidal warfare fall to the ground, when in the brightest
period of chivalry we find it revived with no less rancour, and a no
less fatal end, and the flower of French knighthood a calm spectator,
nay, almost an actor in the scene. The strife between Don Pedro of
Castile, and his brother Henry of Transtamara, the deadly struggle in
which Pedro, who had already slain one brother, fell, when defeated
and a prisoner, by the dagger of another against whom his own hand was
armed, involve circumstances of horror scarce less adapted to dramatic
effect than those legends which have so often employed the Greek
tragedians.

Don Pedro was the legitimate heir to the crown of Castile. Don Henry
and Don Fadrique (or Frederick) were his half–brothers by Donna Leonora
de Guzman, whom their father had entertained as his mistress, and even
proclaimed queen, during the life–time of his lawful wife. When Pedro
succeeded to the throne, at his mother’s instigation he put her rival
to death: his brothers, Henry and Fadrique, escaped, and the former
renounced his allegiance: the latter fled into Portugal; but after
some time he made his peace, returned, and was appointed master of the
order of St. Iago. When several months had elapsed, he was invited to
join the court at Seville, and take his share in the amusements of an
approaching tournament. He accepted the invitation, but was sternly
and ominously received, and immediately executed within the palace.
The friends of Pedro asserted, that the king had, that very day,
detected Don Fadrique in a correspondence with his brother Henry and
the Arragonese; while popular belief attributed the slaughter of the
master to the influence of Pedro’s mistress, Maria de Padilla. The
circumstances of this event are powerfully described in one of the
Spanish ballads, so admirably translated by Mr. Lockhart. There is a
peculiarity of construction in the ballad, the person of the narrator
being changed in the course of it. It is commenced by the victim
himself, who describes the alacrity with which he obeyed his brother’s
summons.

  I sat alone in Coimbra—the town myself had ta’en,—
  When came into my chamber a messenger from Spain:
  There was no treason in his look, an honest look he wore,
  I from his hand the letter took—my brother’s seal it bore.

  “Come, brother dear, the day draws near (’twas thus bespoke the king)
  For plenar court and nightly sport, within the listed ring.”
  Alas, unhappy master, I easy credence lent:
  Alas, for fast and faster I at his bidding went.

  When I set out from Coimbra, and passed the bounds of Spain,
  I had a goodly company of spearmen in my train;
  A gallant force, a score of horse, and sturdy mules thirteen;
  With joyful heart I held my course, my years were young and green.

  A journey of good fifteen days within the week was done,
  I halted not, though signs I got, dark tokens many a one;
  A strong stream mastered horse and mule, I lost a poniard fine,
  And left a page within the pool, a faithful page of mine.

  Yet on to proud Seville I rode—when to the gate I came,
  Before it stood a man of God to warn me from the same:
  The words he spake I would not hear, his grief I would not see;
  “I seek,” I said, “my brother dear—I will not stop for thee.”

  No lists were closed upon the sand, for royal tourney dight,
  No pawing horse was seen to stand, I saw no armed knight:
  Yet aye I gave my mule the spur, and hasted through the town,
  I stopt before his palace–door, then gaily leapt I down.

  They shut the door—my trusty score of friends were left behind;
  I would not hear their whispered fear, no harm was in my mind;
  I greeted Pedro, but he turned—I wot his look was cold;
  His brother from his knee he spurned—“Stand off, thou master bold.

  “Stand off, stand off, thou traitor strong!” ‘twas thus he saith to me,
  “Thy time on earth shall not be long—what brings thee to my knee?
  My lady craves a new year’s gift, and I will keep my word;
  Thy head methinks may serve the shift—good yeoman, draw thy sword—“

  The master lay upon the floor, ere well that word was said,
  Then in a charger off they bore his pale and bloody head.
  They brought it to Padilla’s chair, they bowed them on the knee—
  “King Pedro greets thee, lady fair, his gift he sends to thee.”

  She gazed upon the master’s head, her scorn it could not scare,
  And cruel were the words she spoke, and proud her glances were.
  “Thou now shalt pay, thou traitor base, the debt of many a year,
  My dog shall lick that haughty face, no more that lip shall sneer.”

  She seized it by the clotted hair, and o’er the window flung:
  The mastiff smelt it in his lair, forth at her cry he sprung;
  The mastiff that had crouched so low, to lick the master’s hand,
  He tossed the morsel to and fro, and licked it on the sand.

  And ever as the mastiff tore, his bloody teeth were shown,
  With growl and snort he made his sport, and picked it to the bone!
  The baying of the beast was loud; and swiftly on the street
  There gathered round a gaping crowd to see the mastiff eat.

  Then out and spake King Pedro—“What governance is this?
  The rabble rout the gate without torment my dogs, I wiss.”
  Then out and spake King Pedro’s page—“It is the master’s head,
  The mastiff tears it in his rage, therewith they have him fed.”

  Then out and spake the ancient nurse, that nursed the brothers twain—
  “On thee, King Pedro, lies the curse; thy brother thou hast slain;
  A thousand harlots there may be within the realms of Spain,
  But where is she can give to thee thy brother back again?”

  Came darkness o’er King Pedro’s brow, when thus he heard her say;
  He sorely rued the accursed vow he had fulfilled that day;
  He passed unto his paramour, where on her couch she lay.
  Leaning from out her painted bower, to see the mastiff’s play.

  He drew her to a dungeon dark, a dungeon strong and deep;
  “My father’s son lies stiff and stark, and there are few to weep.
  Fadrique’s blood for vengeance calls, his cry is in mine ear;
  Thou art the cause, thou harlot false; in darkness lie thou here.”

After Pedro had alienated his people’s hearts by his cruelty, Don
Henry returned with a formidable body of French auxiliaries. At first
the fortune of the rightful owner of the throne, who was supported
by Edward the Black Prince, prevailed, and the invader was obliged
to retire back to France: but suddenly renewing the attack, assisted
by Du Guesclin, the flower of French knighthood, after the English
auxiliaries had quitted Spain, he defeated and took prisoner his
brother. Upon entering the chamber where he was confined, Henry
exclaimed, “Where is that whoreson and Jew, who calls himself King
of Castile?” Pedro, as proud and fearless as he was cruel, stepped
instantly forward, and replied, “Here I stand, the lawful son and heir
of Don Alphonso, and it is thou that art but a false bastard.” The
rival brothers instantly grappled like lions; the French knights, and
Du Guesclin himself, looking on. Henry drew his poniard, and wounded
Pedro in the face, but his body was protected by a coat of mail. A
violent struggle ensued. Henry fell across a bench, and his brother,
being uppermost, had well nigh mastered him, when one of Henry’s
followers seizing Don Pedro by the leg, turned him over, and his master
thus at length gaining the upper hand, instantly stabbed the king to
the heart. Menard, in his history of Du Guesclin, says that, while all
around gazed like statues on the furious struggle of the brothers, Du
Guesclin exclaimed to this attendant of Henry, “What! will you stand
by, and see your master placed at such a pass by a false renegade?
Make forward and help him, for well you may.”[24]

At Athens, the poets who contended for the tragic prize, were expected
to exhibit three pieces, which, from their number, were called
collectively a trilogy, together with a fourth, satirical, drama,
which came last in the order of representation, like our farces now.
Often they chose for the argument of these tragedies different events
in the same story, so that the three formed a connected whole: of
which an instance, the only instance extant, remains in the Agamemnon,
Choephoroi, and Eumenides of Æschylus. The tale which has just been
narrated is well fitted for this kind of representation, and would
furnish materials not unworthy even of that poet’s genius. In the first
play we may imagine an insulted queen and deserted wife, brooding over
past injuries, rejoicing in the prospect of revenge, and urging the
savage temper of her son to seek it in the blood of those who should
have been dearest to him; the play terminating with the death of
Leonora de Guzman, and the escape of her sons, preserved, like Orestes,
to be at once the ministers of vengeance and the instruments of further
crime. For the second the unsuspecting confidence of Don Fadrique, his
rejection of the signs and warnings, which were offered in vain, and
the successful machinations of a wicked, perhaps a rejected woman,
acting upon the proud and cruel Pedro, are well suited; while the
chorus would find a fitting part, at first, in dark and indistinct
presages of evil, and lamentations over the blindness with which the
fated victim rushed into the snare; and at the end, in indignant
description of the circumstances of horror narrated in the ballad, and
in joining the aged nurse to bewail the death of her foster son, and
denouncing vengeance upon the murderer’s head. The third would contain
the capture of Pedro, the mutual defiance and death–struggle of the
brothers, and the barbarous exposure by Henry of his brother’s corpse:
while at the end the impression of these horrors might be relieved by
the constant love of Maria de Padilla, who, now neglected and despised,
still watched over the forsaken body of her monarch and lover, with a
fidelity worthy of a purer bosom.[25]

We reach at length the Trojan war, the point assumed by Thucydides for
the commencement of his sketch of Grecian history: a circumstance alone
sufficient to discredit the scepticism of those who believe it to be
a mere fabulous legend. The universal voice of antiquity testifies to
its reality, and we know not of any arguments strong enough to shake
this testimony. Herodotus, on the authority of the Persians, mentions
the Rape of Helen as one of a series of reprisals consequent upon
the aggression of the Phœnicians, who carried off Io; the cause and
commencement of hostility between the Greeks and the Asiatic nations.
The former were clearly in the wrong, in the opinion of the Persians,
both because the rape of Helen only balanced accounts, and because
the Greeks made such injuries a ground for war. “Up to that time they
confined themselves to mutual depredations; but the Greeks set the
example of carrying war from one continent to the other. Now, to carry
off women is the act of rogues; but to be over eager to avenge their
loss is the part of fools; and wise men will take no thought for them
after they are gone: for it is plain that they would not have been
run away with, except with their own good will. And in truth, say
the Persians, the Asiatics made no account of the carrying off their
women: but the Greeks collected a mighty armament on account of a
Lacedæmonian female, and then came to Asia, to pull down the empire of
Priam!”[26] So thought the Persians. Herodotus confesses that he is not
prepared to say how these things took place, and sets us the example of
hastening to ground which he can tread with some certainty. That there
is no intrinsic improbability in the story, has already been asserted
by Mitford, on the ground of its close analogy to an incident in the
history of the British islands.

Dermod Mac Morough (or Mac Murchad), prince of Leinster, was attached
to Dervorghal, wife of Tiernan O’Ruark, another Irish chief, who held
the county of Leitrim, with some adjacent districts,—a lady of great
beauty, but small virtue, who took advantage of her husband’s being
driven into hiding by O’Connor, who was then predominant in Ireland, to
elope with her lover. “An outrage of this kind was not always regarded
with abhorrence by the Irish; they considered it rather as an act of
pardonable gallantry, or such an offence as a reasonable pecuniary
compensation might atone for. But the sullen and haughty prince,
provoked more by the insolence and treachery of his ravisher than
the infidelity of his wife, conceived the most determined animosity
against Dermod. He practised secretly with O’Connor, promised the most
inviolable attachment to his interest, and prevailed on him, not only
to reinstate him in his possessions, but to revenge the insult of
Mac Morough, whom he represented, and justly, as a faithless vassal,
really devoted to the service of his rival. The King of Connaught led
his forces into Leinster, rescued Dervorghal from her paramour, and
restored her to her friends; with whom she lived, if not in a state
of reconciliation with her husband, at least in that opulence and
splendour which enabled her to atone for the crime of infidelity, by
the usual method of magnificent donations to the church.”[27] This
domestic squabble led to more than usually important results, for
the expelled Dermod applied to our Henry II. for assistance, and the
conquest of Ireland followed.

The ambition of Agamemnon, however, is regarded by Thucydides as the
cause of the war; the abduction of Helen served only as the pretext.
“To me it seemeth that Agamemnon got together that fleet, not so much
for that he had with him the suitors of Helena, bound thereto by oath
to Tyndareus, as for that he exceeded the rest in power. For Atreus,
after that Eurystheus was slain by the Heraclidæ, obtained the kingdom
of Mycenæ, and whatever else had been under him, for himself. To which
greatness Agamemnon succeeding; and also far excelling the rest in
shipping, took that war in hand, as I conceive it, and assembled the
said forces, not so much on favour as by fear. For it is clear, that
he himself both conferred most ships to that action, and that some
also he lent to the Arcadians. And this is likewise confirmed by
Homer (if any think his testimony sufficient), who, at the delivery
of the sceptre unto him, calleth him, ‘Of many isles, and of all
Argos king.’”[28] Argos here signifies the whole peninsula, called
afterwards Peloponnesus. It is plain, however, from Homer, that the
sovereignty here ascribed to him was of a most uncertain and insecure
tenure; that his subordinate princes were in fact independent within
their own dominions, and were too high spirited and powerful to be
maltreated with impunity. Altogether, without the elaborate machinery
of the feudal system, the power and influence of Agamemnon seem to
have resembled that possessed by the kings of France, and emperors of
Germany, over those great vassals who held whole provinces, and singly
or united often proved an overmatch for their sovereign.

Here ends the Mythic age. We shall pass over the next three, or
according to most chronologers the next five centuries, which are but
partially filled up by notices of events, such as the return of the
Heraclidæ, the gradual subversion of monarchy throughout Greece, and
the great emigrations which peopled the Asiatic coast with a Hellenic
race. About the sixth century B.C. we begin to reap the
benefit of contemporary authorities; and thenceforward history, if not
free from an admixture of fiction, at least runs with a copious and
uninterrupted stream.

[Illustration]




CHAPTER II.

Aristomenes.[29]—Hereward le Wake.—Wallace.


Sparta had not long acquired strength under the institutions of
Lycurgus, before she discovered that thirst of dominion which
distinguished her after–history. The neighbouring state of Messenia
was the first to suffer. As usual, it is hard to say which party gave
the first provocation; but if the Lacedæmonians were ever in the
right, they lost that advantage when, in time of peace, with studied
secrecy they bound themselves never to return home until Messenia was
conquered; and when, without the formality of a declaration of war,
they stormed by night Ampheia, a frontier town, and put the unprepared
inhabitants to the sword. Their enterprise succeeded better than its
iniquity merited; for after a vigorous and protracted defence Messenia
was subdued, and continued in servitude for forty years. At the end
of that time a new race had grown up, ignorant of the evils of war,
and too high–spirited to bear their degradation tamely. A gallant
leader is seldom wanting to gallant men engaged in a good cause; and
Aristomenes might serve as a type for all later heroes, whose exploits
belong to the debateable ground which lies between truth and fiction.
He was a young Messenian of the royal line, according to the report of
his countrymen; but other Greeks, with a more unbounded admiration,
related that the hero Pyrrhus,[30] son of Achilles, was his father. His
valour, at least, did not disgrace his reputed parentage; and, though
daring in extremity even to desperation, was not of that blind and
foolish kind which hurries unprepared into action, and sacrifices a
good cause to the vanity and temerity of its supporters. Before taking
the field, he secured the co–operation of Argos and Arcadia, to support
and strengthen the eager spirit of his countrymen, and then, with a
force entirely Messenian, attacked the Lacedæmonians at a place called
Deræ. The event was doubtful; but that a conquered people should meet
its masters in battle, and part from them on equal terms, was in itself
equivalent to a victory. Aristomenes is said to have performed deeds
beyond human prowess, and was rewarded by his grateful countrymen with
a summons to the vacant throne. He declined the dignity, but accepted
of the power under the title of commander–in–chief.

His next exploit was of a singular and romantic cast, such as would
befit a knight of the court of Arthur, or Charlemagne, or the less
fabulous, but scarce less romantic era of Froissart, better than it
assorts with modern notions of a general’s or a sovereign’s duties.
Considering it important to alarm the Spartans, and impress them with
a formidable idea of his personal qualities, he traversed Laconia, and
entered Sparta by night, which, in obedience to Lycurgus’ precepts, was
unwalled and unguarded, to suspend from the temple of Pallas a shield,
inscribed “Aristomenes from the Spartan spoils dedicates this to the
goddess.”[31] Violence was not offered, and his object, therefore,
must have been to win her favour, or at least to alarm the Spartans,
lest their protecting deity should be wiled away. It is to be wished
that we knew the result of this exploit, of which, unfortunately,
no account remains. The year after the battle at Deræ, he again led
his countrymen, supported by their allies, into battle, at a place
called the Boar’s Tomb; and if upon this occasion fortune favoured the
rightful cause, it was again mainly owing to his personal exertions.
Supported by a chosen band of eighty men, who gloried in the privilege
of risking their lives by the side of Aristomenes, he attacked and
broke in detail the choice infantry of Sparta, committing to others the
task of routing a disordered enemy, himself ever present where they
showed the firmest front; till the Lacedæmonians forgot the precepts
of their lawgiver in a hasty flight. Their disorder was complete, but
the pursuit was early stopped, either by the prudence of Aristomenes,
or the promptitude with which the Spartans availed themselves of local
advantages. The latter is probably the real meaning of the following
legend. There lay a wild pear–tree in the track of the retreating
army; Theoclus, the Messenian seer, warned Aristomenes not to urge the
pursuit beyond this tree, for that Castor and Pollux, the tutelary
deities of Lacedæmon, were perched upon it. But Aristomenes thought as
little of his friend’s advice, as Hector of Polydamas’s warning not to
attack the Grecian camp, and was still hard pressing upon the enemy,
when suddenly his shield disappeared. The loss of this weapon was
esteemed disgraceful, and therefore we can scarcely wonder that even
Aristomenes, whose character stood above detraction, should have lost
time in a fruitless search, which, if improved to the full, might have
broken for ever the power of his country’s oppressor. So great was the
loss and dismay of Sparta, that the war was kept alive with difficulty,
and that only through the influence acquired by Tyrtæus, who devoted
his poetical talents to recruiting the courage and exasperating the
hatred of the Lacedæmonians.[32]

The history of this man is somewhat singular. At the beginning of the
war, the Lacedæmonians had been directed by the Delphic oracle to send
to Athens for an adviser: they did so, and the city, unwilling either
to aid in the aggrandizement of a rival, or to disobey the god, thought
to extricate itself from the dilemma by making choice of one Tyrtæus,
an obscure schoolmaster, halt of one leg, and esteemed to be of mean
ability. From the event, a Grecian would have argued in support of the
favourite doctrine, that the decrees of fate were inevitable; for to
the unknown talents of one so lightly valued did Sparta, upon this and
other occasions, owe the favourable issue of the war.

But the reader may be curious to know the fate of Aristomenes’ shield.
Applying at Delphi, he was informed that he would find it in the
cave of Trophonius,[33] at Lebadeia, in Bœotia, where he afterwards
dedicated it, “and I myself have seen it there,”[34] adds Pausanias,
lest any doubt should attach to a story which seems to border somewhat
on the marvellous. How it came there, we are left to conjecture: and
in these days of scepticism and research, may well envy the historian
whose readers’ incredulity was so easily overcome. But, with one or two
brilliant exceptions, it was sufficient for the Greeks that a story
passed current; they cared little to investigate probabilities, or
enter upon long and intricate inquiries, which in modern times have
been so successfully employed in disentangling the mingled web of
truth and fiction. It is curious to mark the importance attached to
this miraculous loss. Aristomenes thought it of sufficient consequence
to render necessary an immediate journey to Delphi; for we find that,
returning from Lebadeia, he renewed the war with his recovered shield,
which therefore must have been dedicated at a later period. At first
he confined himself to predatory incursions. Returning from “driving
a creagh,” in Laconia, he was attacked and wounded, but repelled the
assailants; and, on his recovery, projected an attack upon Sparta,
which, under such a leader, might have been fatal to an unfortified and
unwatched city; but was deterred a second time by the interposition of
Castor and Pollux. Turning aside, therefore, to Carya, he carried off
a band of Spartan maidens while engaged in a religious ceremony; and
on this occasion he showed that a life of warfare had not deadened the
kindlier feelings of his heart, by protecting them from the drunken
intemperance of his soldiers, even to the death of some who persisted
in their disobedience. The captives, according to the custom of the
age, were released upon ransom.

Another adventure terminated less happily, in which he attacked a
quantity of matrons employed in celebrating the rites of Ceres, with
similar views, but with a very different result. Armed only with spits
and the implements of sacrifice, they showed the value of their Spartan
breeding, animated by religious enthusiasm, in the entire defeat of
the marauding party. Aristomenes, beaten down with their torches,
was taken prisoner. This might have been an awkward and ill–sounding
termination to a life of lofty adventure: many a hero has fallen victim
to female wiles; but to be overcome and captured in open war by women
armed with spits and staves, is an event not to be matched since the
days of the Amazons, either in history or romance. The usual course
of events, indeed, was inverted; for love was his deliverer from the
dangers in which valour had involved him. Archidamia, the priestess
of the goddess, who had been previously enamoured of him, forgot her
patriotism, and set him free.

The Arcadians were zealous in the Messenian cause. Unhappily their
prince, Aristocrates, proved treacherous, and took bribes from Sparta
to betray his trust. “For the Lacedæmonians gave the first example
of setting warlike prowess up to sale: prior to the transgression of
Lacedæmon, and the treason of Aristocrates, combatants referred their
cause to the arbitration of valour, and the fortune which Providence
should allot to them. So also did they bribe the Athenian generals
at Ægos–Potami:[35] but in the end the poisoned shaft recoiled upon
themselves. It was through Persian gold, distributed at Corinth, Argos,
Athens, Thebes, that the victorious career of Lacedæmon was stopped
at its height, when, the Athenian fleet being destroyed, and a large
part of Asia delivered, Agesilaus was compelled by the disturbances
of Greece to lead home his victorious army. Thus did the gods turn
to their own ruin the fraud which the Lacedæmonians had devised.”[36]
Aristocrates kept his own counsel, until the eve of the battle of
Megaletaphrus (the great ditch), and then disseminated an opinion
among his countrymen that their position was bad, and offered no means
of retreat if they were worsted; and, moreover, that the omens were
unfavourable: finally, he advised all to betake themselves to flight,
so soon as he should give the word. The Arcadians were steady friends
to the Messenians, yet, strange to say, they became the abettors of
their prince’s baseness, without sharing his reward. They formed the
centre and left wing, and the consternation of the Messenians may be
imagined, when two–thirds of their army at once deserted them. To
complete his treachery, Aristocrates led the flying troops through the
Messenians, and threw them into irretrievable confusion; forgetful of
the battle, they betook themselves to expostulation and upbraiding of
their treacherous allies; and the Lacedæmonians readily surrounded and
defeated them with such slaughter, that from the hope of becoming lords
of their former masters, they were reduced even to despair of safety.
Aristomenes collected from all quarters the scattered remnant of his
countrymen, into one new city which he founded on Mount Eira.

By this step they gave up all their territory, except a strip along
the coast held by the Pylians and Methonæans. But they were not men to
starve peaceably in the neighbourhood of full garners,

      For why, the good old rule
  Contented them; the simple plan
  That they should take, who have the power,
  And they should keep, who can:

and in truth circumstances fully justified them in adopting this
simple and compendious rule of action, which they followed with no
ordinary success, carrying off corn, wine, and cattle, equally from
their own country, now occupied by Lacedæmonians, and from Laconia;
and providing for their other wants with the ransoms paid for men and
moveables captured in their predatory excursions. At last the Spartans
found out that it was worse than lost labour to sow, where an enemy was
to reap; and forbade the cultivation, not only of Messenia, but even of
the borders of Laconia. So great a sacrifice bespeaks the formidable
nature of the enemy, and produced disturbances, in appeasing which the
value of Tyrtæus was again displayed. The measure was highly politic,
for it compelled the Messenians to gain their livelihood by long and
dangerous excursions. In one of these Aristomenes, being surprised by
a superior force, was stunned by a blow, and taken, with fifty of his
comrades. Cruelty is almost the necessary consequence of injustice;
and though the Messenians, and especially Aristomenes, seem always to
have treated their prisoners with humanity, it was resolved to insure
future quiet by sacrificing a man whose only crime was perseverance in
his country’s cause. The Spartans executed criminals by throwing them
into a deep pit, called Ceada: into this Aristomenes and his companions
were precipitated. All, except the hero, were killed by the fall,
and he, reserved apparently for a more dreadful fate, retired to the
extremity of the cavern, and for three days sat, his head wrapped in
his cloak, in patient expectation of a lingering and painful death. At
the end of that time he heard a slight noise, and raising his head (his
eyes by this time had become accustomed to the gloom) perceived a fox
gnawing the dead bodies. It might have occurred to a less ready wit,
that where there is an entrance there may also be a way out; he caught
the fox, and allowing it to follow its own path without suffering it
to escape, was led along a dark passage, terminating in a crevice just
large enough to admit the animal, through which a glimmering of light
appeared. Dismissing his guide uninjured, he enlarged the opening with
his hands, and against hope even, as well as probability, stood once
more free to vindicate his country. It was of course supposed that a
special providence, on this as on other occasions, guarded his safety;
and many, to magnify the wonder, asserted that an eagle interposed
itself in the fall, and bore him down secure from all harm.

The whole event was considered marvellous: first, such was his lofty
spirit, and renown in arms, that none believed Aristomenes would be
taken alive; but his return from the bowels of the earth was still more
amazing, and was held to be a manifest interposition of the Deity.
The Lacedæmonians, indeed, refused to believe it, until the total
destruction of a body of Corinthians marching to assist in the siege of
Eira, “convinced them that Aristomenes, and no other of the Messenians,
had done this.”

After this occurrence he performed a second time a rite peculiar to
the Messenians, called Hecatomphonia; a sacrifice offered to the
Ithomæan[37] Jupiter, by such as had slain a hundred men in battle. He
had celebrated it for the first time after the battle at the Boar’s
Tomb; the slaughter of the Corinthians gave him a second opportunity;
and he is said to have offered it yet a third time. The Lacedæmonians
now concluded a truce for forty days, that they might go home, to
celebrate one of their great annual festivals. Aristomenes wandering
abroad without suspicion during its continuance, was seized by seven
Cretan bowmen, who, while the Spartans were feasting, amused themselves
by traversing the country. Two of them set off to bear the news to
Sparta: the others carried him to a neighbouring village, in which a
girl dwelt, who, in a dream in the preceding night, had seen a lion
brought thither in bonds, and deprived of claws, by wolves. She loosed
it, the claws returned, and it destroyed its captors. When Aristomenes
was brought in, and she heard his name, the interpretation of the dream
flashed across her mind. She intoxicated the soldiers, and set him
free; the treacherous Cretans fell an easy prey. In recompence for his
life, he gave his preserver in marriage to his son Gorgus.

Such was the fortune of the war for ten years. After the destructive
battle at Megaletaphrus, in the third year, when their cause was ruined
by the defection of the Arcadians, Aristomenes and the seer Theoclus
consulted the Delphic oracle concerning the fate of their country. The
answer ran thus—

  When the he–goat shall bend to drink where dimpling Neda flows,
  Messene’s fate draws nigh; no more can I avert her woes.

In the eleventh year of the siege of Eira, the fourteenth of the war,
Theoclus, while walking along the bank of the river Neda, observed a
wild fig–tree, which in the Messenian tongue was called by the same
word which signifies a he–goat, that had grown slanting out of the
bank, and then just swept the water with its branches. He brought
Aristomenes to the place, and they agreed that the prophecy had
received its fulfilment, and the hope of the nation was at an end.
There were certain objects preserved in secret, and invested with
peculiar sanctity, such as the Palladium enjoyed in Troy. If these were
lost, the fortune of Messenia sunk with them for ever; if not, ancient
oracles foretold that the Messenians should again enjoy their own.
Believing that the fated time had arrived, Aristomenes buried secretly
the mystic treasure in the wildest and most desolate part of Mount
Ithome; in the persuasion that the deities, who had till then supported
them in a righteous struggle, would still watch over the mysterious
pledge of their safety.[38]

Pausanias seems to take a malicious pleasure in observing that Eira,
no less than Troy, owed its ruin to a woman. A herdsman, belonging to
Emperamus, a Spartan of distinction, had fled from his master, and
lived near the river Neda. He gained the affections of a Messenian
woman, who dwelt without the walls of Eira, and used to visit her
when her husband was on guard. One night, the husband’s sudden return
compelled him to conceal himself: a storm of extraordinary violence
had caused the guard to disperse, trusting that the inclement season
would keep the Lacedæmonians quiet, and aware that Aristomenes could
not go the rounds, according to his custom, since he was lying ill of
a recent wound. The herdsman listened to this account, and perceived
that it was a favourable opportunity for making his peace, and even
securing reward. He hastened to Emperamus, his master, who was in
command at the camp, narrated what had happened, and conducted the army
to the assault. The way was difficult, and the night terrible, but they
surmounted these impediments, and entered the town before the alarm was
given. Taken by surprise, its devoted inhabitants still acted up to the
reputation they had so deservedly acquired. Aristomenes and Theoclus,
aware that Messenia at length must fall, yet concealed the fulfilment
of the oracle, and roused the courage of their comrades to desperation:
even the women showed that they preferred death to captivity, and
excited the men to higher daring by the participation of their danger.
The night passed without advantage to either party, but at day–break
the rain poured down in still greater fury, and drove in the faces of
the Messenians; and the lightning flashing from the left, an evil omen,
at once blinded them and depressed their spirits, while to the Spartans
it came from the right, and was welcomed as the harbinger of success.
The latter too were far superior in number; but since they could
not avail themselves of this advantage in the narrow streets, their
general sent back a part to the camp to rest and refresh themselves,
with orders to return in the evening, to relieve that division which
remained. Pressed thus continually by fresh foes, the wretched
Messenians yet protracted the struggle. Three days and three nights
they maintained an unceasing fight; at the end of these, watching, and
cold, and wet, and thirst, and hunger, had exhausted their strength.
Then Theoclus addressed Aristomenes: “Why do we still maintain this
fruitless labour? The decree has gone forth that Messene must fall:
that which we now see was foretold to us long since by the priestess
of Apollo, and the fig–tree lately warned us that the time was at
hand. God grants to me a common end with my country: it is your part
to preserve the Messenians and yourself.” He rushed among the enemy,
exclaiming, “Ye shall not rejoice in the possessions of the Messenians
for ever!” and, sated with slaughter, fell surrounded by the victims
of his despair. Aristomenes collected the survivors into a close
column, in the centre of which he placed their wives and children,
and stationing himself with his chosen band at their head, motioned
with his spear to the enemy to allow them a free passage; which the
Spartans granted, rather than exasperate their well–tried intrepidity
to frenzy. They found a hospitable and friendly reception in Arcadia,
the inhabitants of which supplied their wants, and would willingly have
assigned to them a portion of their lands; but the ardent spirit of
Aristomenes could not brook a quiet submission. Selecting five hundred
men, the flower of his army, he asked if they were prepared to die
with him in their country’s behalf; and having received their hearty
concurrence, proposed a scheme for surprising Sparta, and holding it as
a pledge for their own restoration. Three hundred Arcadians volunteered
to join him; but their hopes were frustrated a second time by the
traitor Aristocrates. On this occasion, however, he was detected, and
his former villainy being at the same time revealed, the Arcadians,
in just anger, stoned him to death. The Messenians, exhorted to join
in the punishment, looked to Aristomenes, who sat weeping, and in
imitation of their beloved leader, abstained from sharing in a merited
revenge. Tender by nature must have been the heart of one, who, after
having slain three hundred men with his own hand, could yet weep over
the deserved punishment of an old companion in arms; and it is pleasing
to contrast the staunch patriotism of the Messenians, still tempered by
moderation and mercy, with the savage and wanton cruelties acted by
the polished Greeks of later ages.

The Pylians and Methonæans, who had preserved their navy, invited their
countrymen in Arcadia to join them, and seek a settlement in some
foreign land. Aristomenes refused to accept the proffered command; he
would never cease, he said, to war against the Lacedæmonians, and well
knew that he should ever be the cause of some evil to them. His son
Gorgus, and Manticlus, son of Theoclus, supplied his place. Ere they
had resolved on their course, Anaxilas, prince of Rhegium, sent to
invite their co–operation in a war against the Zanclæans, promising,
in case of success, to assign to them that wealthy city. Zancle soon
fell before their joint efforts. Anaxilas wished to slay the male
citizens, and reduce their families to slavery; but the Messenians
had learnt pity in the school of adversity, and deprecated being
made the instruments of inflicting upon others the miseries which
they themselves deplored. Interchanging oaths of fidelity with the
inhabitants, they dwelt in union with them in the city, to which, in
memory of their beloved country, they gave the name of Messene, which
it bears to this day, under the slightly altered form of Messina.[39]

Shortly after their departure, Damagetus, king of Ialysus, in Rhodes,
inquiring at Delphi where he should seek a wife, was directed to choose
the daughter of the best of the Grecians. He hesitated not to fix
on Aristomenes, and took his youngest and only unmarried child. The
warrior passed with her into Rhodes, and died soon after, ungratified
in his wish of striking another blow at Lacedæmon. He was honoured with
a splendid monument, and worshipped as a hero in Rhodes, and by his
grateful countrymen.

Such of the Messenians as remained on the land were consigned to the
miserable class of Helots. But even in this degraded state they were
still a source of trouble to their masters; and at last revolting,
made so obstinate a defence, that they obtained permission to depart
unarmed, and were settled by the Athenians at Naupactus, on the
Corinthian gulf. Two centuries after their subjection, Epaminondas
collected the scattered remnants of the people, and re–established
them in possession of their country, in a new city, named Messene,
built under his patronage, on Mount Ithome. Thus ancient oracles were
fulfilled, the tutelary deities preserved their trust, and the dying
prophecy of Theoclus was accomplished.

The annals of the Norman conquest of England introduce us to a fit
companion for Aristomenes, in respect of similarity of fortunes, as
well as character. Hereward le Wake, a youth of noble Saxon family,
while yet a boy was distinguished for strength and turbulence of
character: so rough was he in play, that his hand was against every
one, and every one’s hand against him; and so impatient of superiority,
that if the prize of wrestling, or their other games, was awarded to
another, he would assert his own title by the cogent argument of an
appeal to the sword. His father’s love of quiet seems to have been
greater than his parental affection, for he took upon himself the task
of ridding the neighbourhood of his troublesome son, and set forth so
ably his violences against others, and certain boyish impertinences
committed against himself, that he obtained from Edward the Confessor
an order for his banishment. Hereward went to Northumberland, and
thence travelling to Cornwall, Ireland, and Flanders, he distinguished
himself everywhere so highly, for daring, skill in arms, and success
in extricating himself from the greatest dangers, that it was a doubt
whether his courage or his good fortune were the more admirable. His
fame, won in many a conflict, and confirmed even by the report of his
enemies, was not long in reaching England; and so entirely changed the
temper of father, mother, relations, and friends, that the worthy abbot
of Croyland, from whom our narrative is taken, can only account for the
sudden conversion of so much ill will into such violent affection, by
attributing it to the special interposition of Providence.

During his abode in Flanders, he received news of the Norman invasion,
of his father’s death, and the bestowal of his inheritance upon a
Norman, who insulted and oppressed his widowed mother. Hastening to
avenge her, he quickly expelled the spoiler; and then remembering that
he was no knight himself, though knights were now under his command,
he received the order from his uncle the Abbot of Peterborough. For
the English considered the investiture as a religious ceremony, and
whoever underwent it confessed himself, received absolution, and spent
the eve of his consecration in prayer in the church. In the morning,
after hearing mass, he offered his sword upon the altar; and after the
gospel had been read the priest blessed the weapon, and completed the
ceremony by laying it upon his shoulder. But the Normans, who looked
upon the order as exclusively military, held in abomination this method
of receiving it.[40]

A body of noble Saxons, who, like Hereward, had been expelled from
their inheritances, or driven by maltreatment into rebellion, occupied
the Isle of Ely, a tract then environed by morasses, which now have
almost disappeared, and admirably fitted to be a place of refuge from
a more powerful but less active enemy. They chose Hereward for their
leader, and he justified their preference and his own reputation by
a series of exploits, which continued long after to be favourite
subjects of the popular ballads; for the preservation of some of which
posterity would have owned a much greater obligation to Ingulph, than
for the minute details connected with the monastery of Croyland, which
he has thought it more important to preserve.

Upon his uncle’s death the abbey of Peterborough was bestowed by
the Conqueror upon a Norman, by name Thorold, to Hereward’s great
displeasure. In conjunction with the Danes, who then infested the
eastern coast, he resolved to disturb the temporal enjoyments at least
of the intruder. Let the Monk of Peterborough tell his own melancholy
history.

“Early in the morning of the above–mentioned day, came the aforesaid
evil doers, with many ships;[41] but the monks and their men shut the
gates, and bestirred themselves manfully in their defence from above,
so that the battle waxed very sore at the gate called Bulehithe.[42]
Then Hereward and his comrades, seeing they could by no means gain the
mastery, and force entrance, set fire to the houses near the gate,
and so made passage by burning; also, they consumed all the offices
of the monks, save the church and one house. Yet the monks met them,
and besought that they would not do this evil; but they listened not,
and went armed into the church, and would have carried away the great
crucifix, but they could not. Nevertheless they took from its head a
golden crown set with jewels, and a stool, also made of pure gold and
jewels, from under its feet; also two golden reliquaries, and nine
made of silver, fashioned with gold and jewels, and twelve crosses,
some made of gold, others of silver, gold, and jewels. Nor did this
content them, but they went up into the tower, and took thence a
great table made entirely of gold and gems and silver, which the monks
had hidden there, which used to stand before the altar; and they took
such a quantity of gold and silver in articles of all sorts, books,
and ornaments, as can neither be told nor valued. All these were of
the best quality, nor did the like of them remain in England. Yet they
said that out of fealty to the church they did thus, and that the Danes
would preserve those valuables for the use of the church, better than
the Normans. And, indeed, Hereward himself was of a monastic order,
and therefore they put some trust in him, and he afterwards made oath
that he had done this from good motives, because he thought they should
conquer King William, and themselves possess the land.

“So it came to pass that nothing that was taken away was ever restored,
and the monastery, which had been so rich, was now reduced to poverty.
And from that day nothing was ever added or restored to it, but its
wealth continually diminished. Since Abbot Thorold himself not only
added nothing, but dispersed its compact estates among his kinsmen and
the knights that came with him.”[43]

The Abbot gave away sixty–two knights’ fees (feoda) upon tenure of
military service. Not long after, being naturally anxious to dislodge
so formidable an enemy, he summoned his friends and vassals to drive
Hereward from the vicinity. Ivo Tailboys, a Norman baron, to whom
the Conqueror had granted the district of Hoyland, or Holland, in
Lincolnshire, still known by the latter name, entered the woods at the
head of his troops: the Abbot, with other dignitaries, kept warily on
the outside; but while Ivo entered upon the right, Hereward darted
round upon the left, carried off the Abbot and his companions, and made
them pay a ransom of three thousand marks. At length William in person
brought a powerful army against him, beleaguered the island closely
by land and water, and, at vast expense, proceeded to make causeways
across the marshes, by which his position was defended. Ivo Tailboys
was a great believer in witchcraft, and he prevailed upon the king to
try its efficacy. As the causeway proceeded, therefore, a witch was
kept in advance, in a wooden turret, to fulminate her incantations
against the enemy: but the farce soon met with a tragical conclusion,
for Hereward, watching his time when the soldiers and workmen had gone
somewhat forward, made a circuit, and by setting fire to the reeds
upon their flank, involved soldiers, witch, and works, in one common
ruin. But the odds were overwhelming, and at last the Saxons were
compelled to submit. The other chiefs, including some of the most noble
of the land, surrendered to the conqueror’s mercy, and suffered death,
mutilation, or fine, according to the sense entertained by him of their
guilt. Hereward alone, by his superior gallantry and conduct, provided
for the escape of his followers and himself, and was ultimately
rewarded for his valour and perseverance, by being admitted to favour,
and reinstated in his paternal estates. He finished his days in peace,
and was buried in Croyland Abbey.

But British history offers another character to our notice, who bears
perhaps a nearer personal resemblance to Aristomenes, although both
his own fate and the issue of the struggle in which he engaged were
different,—Wallace, the earliest, the stoutest, and the most fondly
remembered champion of Scottish independence: whose name has been
preserved and magnified in the recollection of his countrymen, with an
affection not inferior to that which led the Messenians to pay divine
honours to their departed hero. The fame of both rests chiefly upon
tradition, for the earliest Scottish author who gives the history of
Wallace wrote more than a century after his death, and the notices of
his exploits in the English chroniclers are meagre and unsatisfactory.
It is impossible therefore accurately to depict his character, or to
draw the line minutely between truth and fiction. We see a form of
commanding and colossal proportions, but we see it dimly, and the
features must be filled up from our own imaginations: but we may at
least trace indomitable courage, constancy, and patriotism; and if
these lofty qualities were sometimes sullied by ferocity, yet, in
justification of the sympathy and interest which his career excites,
we may plead not only the character of the age, and the sufferings
endured by Scotland under the English yoke, but the exacerbation of
temper which must necessarily arise from a life of constant hardship
and danger. Hunted continually from morass to forest, denied the
enjoyment of domestic happiness, dependent upon his own right hand for
the security which was to be found only in the death of his pursuers,
it is rather matter for regret, than for stern censure, if in the hour
of victory the call of mercy was unheeded. And in further extenuation
we may add, that to control the excesses of his followers does not
seem always to have been in the power even when it was in the wish of
their chief; and that it is reasonable and consistent with the bitter
spirit of national enmity which long prevailed, to conjecture that the
blind minstrel, who is his principal biographer, consulted the passions
and prejudices of his hearers no less by exaggerating the deeds of
vengeance acted by his hero, than his hair–breadth escapes, and almost
superhuman might.

It is amusing to note how party spirit has biassed the view taken of
his origin and motives. The English writers speak of him slightingly,
without notice of the extraordinary qualities ascribed to him, as a
common robber, who having by degrees collected round him a large band
of desperate men, was emboldened to attack and plunder the suite of
Ormesby, chief justiciary of Scotland. Compare this with the account
given by Bower,[44] in whose eyes, it is but fair to say, the having
fought stoutly in defence of Scotland was cloak enough to cover a
multitude of offences.

“In the same year (1297) that famous warrior William Wallace, the
hammer and the scourge of the English, son of a noble knight of the
same name, lifted up his head; and when he saw the affliction of his
nation, and the goods of the Scots delivered into the hands of their
enemies, his heart pined and was sore afflicted. For he was tall of
stature, gigantic in body, of calm aspect, and cheerful countenance,
broad shouldered, big boned, proportionately corpulent, pleasant, yet
stern to behold, thick loined, powerful of limb, a most stout champion,
and very strong, and well knit in all his joints. Moreover the Most
High had so distinguished him by a certain prepossessing mirthfulness,
had so graced with some heavenly gift both his deeds and words, that
by his mere aspect he disposed the hearts of all true Scots to love
him. And no wonder, for he was most generous, in judgment most just, in
ministering comfort most patient, in council most wise, in sufferance
most enduring, in speech most eloquent: above all things hostile to
lies and falsehood, and abhorrent of treachery: wherefore the Lord was
with him, through whom he was in all things prosperous, venerating the
church, revering churchmen, supporting the poor and widowed, cherishing
orphans, raising the oppressed, lying in wait for thieves and robbers,
and without reward inflicting deserved punishment upon them.”

The following extract comprises such particulars of his early career
as seem entitled to historical credit. “At this time (1297), and out
of this middle class of the lesser barons, arose an extraordinary
individual, who was at first driven into the field by intolerable
injury and despair, and who in a short period of time, in the
reconquest of his native country, developed a character which may
without exaggeration be termed heroic. This was William Wallace, or
Walays, the second son of Sir Malcolm Wallace, of Ellersley, near
Paisley, a simple knight, whose family was ancient, but neither rich
nor noble. In those days bodily strength and knightly prowess were of
the highest consequence in commanding respect and ensuring success.
Wallace had an iron frame. His make, as he grew up to manhood,
approached almost to the gigantic, and his personal strength was
superior to the common run of even the strongest men. His passions were
hasty and violent; a strong hatred to the English, who now insolently
lorded it over Scotland, began to show itself at a very early period of
his life; and this aversion was fostered in the youth by an uncle, a
priest, who, deploring the calamities of his country, was never weary
of extolling the sweets of liberty and the miseries of dependence.

“The intrepid temper of Wallace appears first to have shown itself in
a quarrel with one of the English officers, who insulted him. Provoked
by his taunts, Wallace, reckless of the consequences, stabbed him with
his dagger, and slew him on the spot. The consequence of this was to
him the same as to many others, who at this time preferred a life of
dangerous freedom to the indulgence and security of submission. He
was proclaimed a traitor, banished his home, and driven to seek his
safety in the wilds and fastnesses of his country. It was here that he
collected by degrees a little band, composed at first of a few brave
men of desperate fortunes who had forsworn their vassalage to their
lords, and refused submission to Edward, and who at first carried on
that predatory warfare against the English, to which they were impelled
as well by the desire of plunder, and the necessity of subsistence,
as by the love of liberty. These men chose Wallace for their chief.
Superior rank, for as yet none of the nobility or barons had joined
them, his uncommon courage and personal strength, and his unconquerable
thirst of vengeance against the English, naturally influenced their
choice, and the result proved how well it had fallen. His plans
were laid with so much judgment, that in his first attacks against
straggling parties of the English, he was generally successful; and if
surprised by unexpected numbers, his superior strength and bravery, and
the noble ardour with which he inspired his followers, enabled them to
overpower every effort which was made against them.

“To him these early and desultory excursions against the enemy were
highly useful; as he became acquainted with the strongest passes of
his country, and acquired habits of command over men of fierce and
turbulent spirits. To them the advantage was reciprocal, for they
began gradually to feel an undoubting confidence in their leader; they
were accustomed to rapid marches, to endure fatigue and privation, to
be on their guard against surprise, to feel the effects of discipline
and obedience, and by the successes which these ensured, to regard with
contempt the nation by whom they had allowed themselves to be overcome.

“The consequences of these partial advantages over the enemy were
soon seen. At first few had dared to unite themselves to so desperate
a band. But confidence came with success, and numbers flocked to the
standard of revolt. The continued oppressions of the English, the
desire of revenge, and even the romantic and perilous nature of the
undertaking recruited the ranks of Wallace, and he was soon at the head
of a great body of Scottish exiles.”[45]

About this time he was joined by Sir William Douglas at the head of
all his vassals. A series of brilliant successes followed the union of
their little armies: and such was the effect produced on the public
mind, that when their united strength broke in upon the West of
Scotland, they were joined by some of the most powerful of the Scottish
nobles, among whom we find the Steward of Scotland, Sir Andrew Moray of
Bothwell, his brother, and Wishart, Bishop of Glasgow.

Such is the outset of Wallace’s career, so far as it is matter of
authentic history. His biographer, Blind Harry, carries him through
a great number of adventures before this period; but they possess
so little of interest or poetical merit, and are written in such
antiquated language, that the reader would probably derive little
pleasure from them. They consist chiefly of rencontres with the
English soldiery; enterprising attacks upon the strongholds scattered
throughout Scotland, and the various events of a desultory and almost
predatory warfare, in all which his knightly prowess and sagacity
are represented as compensating for inferiority in numbers, and as
extricating his followers and himself even in the extremity of danger.
The following specimens will probably be sufficient.

The first relates to the surprisal of Dunbarton Castle. Wallace,
entering the town, found the captain and part of his garrison drinking,
and bragging of what they would do if the rebel leader and his men were
within reach.

  When Wallace heard the Southron made sic din,
  He garred all bide, and him alane went in;
  The lave[46] remained, to hear of their tithans,[47]
  He saluit them with sturdy countenance.
  “Fellows,” he said, “sen I come last fra hame
  In travail I was our land, and uncouth fame.
  Fra south Ireland I come in this countree,
  The new conquest of Scotland for to see.
  Part of your drink, or some good would I have.”
  The captain then a shrewish answer him gave;
  “Thou seemest a Scot unlikely, us to spy;
  Thou may be ane of Wallace company.
  Contrar our king he is risen again,
  The land of Fife he has rademyt in playne.[48]
  Thou sall here bide, while we wit how it be;
  Be thou of his, thou sall be hanged on high.”
  Wallace then thought it was no time to stand,
  His noble sword he grippit soon in hand;
  Athwart his face drew that captain in tene,[49]
  Strake all away that stood abowne his eyne;
  Ane othir braithly in the breast he bare,
  Baith brawn and bayn,[50] the burly blade through share;
  The lave rushed up to Wallace in great ire;
  The third he felled full fiercely in the fire.
  Stenyn of Ireland and Kerle, in that thrang,
  Kepyt na cherge, but entred them amang;
  And othir more that to the door can press:
  While they saw him, there could no man them cess,[51]
  The Southron men full soon were brought to dead.

The following extract is of a more romantic character. Wallace, being
closely pursued by the English, had, in a mingled fit of anger and
suspicion, struck off the head of one of his followers, by name
Fawdoun. At night, when he and his men had taken refuge in a tower,
they heard a horn blown at hand. Two of them went out to see what the
cause might be; they did not return, and the horn was again heard
louder than before. Two more were sent, and so, till Wallace was left
alone.

  When he alane Wallace was leavit there,
  The awfull blast abounded mickle mair.
  Then trowed he they had his lodging seen;
  His sword he drew, of noble metal keen,
  Syne[52] forth he went whereat he heard the horn.
  Without the door Fawdoun was them beforn,
  As till his sight, his awn head in his hand.
  A cross he made, when he saw him so stand.
  At Wallace in the head he swaket[53] there;
  And he in haste soon hynt[54] it by the hair,
  Syne out again at him he couth[55] it cast;
  Intil his heart he greatly was aghast.
  Right well he trowed that was no sprite of man,
  It was some devil, that sic malice began.
  He wist no waill[56] there longer for to byde.
  Up through the hall thus wight Wallace can glide,
  Till a close stair: the boards rave in twain.
  Fifteen foot large he lap out of that inn.[57]
  Up the water suddenly he couth fare;
  Again he blent[58] what perance he saw there.
  Him thought he saw Fawdoun, that hugly sir;
  That haill hall he had set in a fire;
  A great rafter he had intill his hand.
  Wallace as then no longer would he stand.
  Of his gude men full great merveill had he,
  How they were lost through his fell fantasy.

In the spring of 1297 his career of victory was checked at Irvine, by
the dissensions and desertion of his army; but the cloud soon passed
away, for in the autumn we find him engaged in the siege of Dundee,
from which he was recalled by the approach of the English, under the
command of Warenne, Earl of Surrey. Wallace determined to await the
enemy on the banks of the Forth, near Stirling, where the river could
be crossed only by a narrow and inconvenient bridge, that scarce
admitted the passage of two horsemen together. The Scottish army
consisted of forty thousand foot, and one hundred and eighty horse; the
English, of fifty thousand foot, and one thousand horse.

Surrey was probably aware of the strong position occupied by the
Scots, and the danger of passing the bridge in face of the enemy, for
he despatched two friars to propose terms to Wallace. “That robber,”
says Hemingford, “replied, ‘Tell your fellows, that we come not hither
for the benefit of peace, but are prepared for battle, to avenge and
to free our kingdom. Let them, therefore, come up when they will, and
they shall find us ready to meet them beard to beard.’ And when these
tidings came to our men, they that were hot–headed said, ‘Let us go up
against them, for these are but threats.’ But the wiser part added,
‘We may not yet advance, until we have well reflected what counsel
to pursue.’ Then said that stout knight, Sir Richard Lundy, who had
surrendered to us at Irvine,[59] ‘My lords, if it shall be that we
ascend the bridge, we are dead men. For we can only pass by two and
two, and the enemy are on our flank, and when they please, will form in
line and charge us. But not far off there is a ford where sixty men can
cross at once. Now then give me five hundred horse and a small body of
foot; and we will make a circuit in the enemy’s rear and overthrow him:
and meanwhile you, Lord Earl, and your company will pass the bridge in
safety.’ But they would not abide by his good counsel, saying that it
was unsafe to separate. So being divided in opinion, some cried out
to pass the bridge, others the contrary. Among whom Cressingham, the
king’s treasurer, a proud man and a child of perdition, said, ‘It is
not well, my Lord Earl, to put off this matter farther, and to spend
the king’s money in vain. Rather let us march up, and do our devoir
as we are bound.’ The earl, therefore, being moved by his words, gave
orders that they should pass the bridge. A strange thing was it, and
very direful in its issue, that so many, and such wise men, who knew
the enemy to be at hand, should venture on a narrow bridge, which
two horsemen could hardly pass abreast. So that, as some said, who
were in that battle, if they had filed over without bar or hindrance
from break of day till eleven o’clock, still a large part of the rear
would have remained behind. Neither was there a fitter place in all
Scotland to deliver over the English to the Scots, or the many into
the hands of the few. The banners of the king and earl passed over,
and among the first that most valiant knight, Sir Marmaduke Twenge.
And when the enemy saw that as many as they thought to overthrow had
crossed, they ran down the hill, and blocked up the bridge end with
their spearmen; so that from thenceforth there was neither passage nor
return, but in the attempt many were cast over the bridge and drowned.
As the Scots came down from the mountain, Sir Marmaduke said, ‘Is it
not time, my brethren, to charge them?’ And they assented, and spurred
their horses: and in the shock some of the Scots horsemen fell, and
the others, to a man, ran away. As our men pursued the fugitives, one
said to Sir Marmaduke, ‘Sir, we are betrayed, for our comrades do not
follow, and the banners of the king and earl are not to be seen.’
Then looking back, they saw that many of our men, and among them the
standard–bearers, had fallen, and said, ‘Our way to the bridge is cut
off, and we are barred from our friends: it is better to make trial
of the water, if it be that we may pass it, than to plunge into the
columns of the enemy, and fall to no purpose. It is difficult, yea,
impossible, for us to pass through the midst of the Scots.’ Then
replied that valiant knight, Sir Marmaduke, ‘Surely, my dear friends,
it shall never be said of me, that I drowned myself for nothing. Do
not ye so either, but follow me, and I will clear a passage through
them even to the bridge.’ Then spurring his charger, he plunged among
the enemy, and dealing blows on either side, passed unhurt through
the throng, and laid open a wide path for his followers. For he was
tall, and stout of body. And as he fought thus valiantly, his nephew,
who was wounded, his horse being slain, shouted after him, ‘Sir, save
me.’ He replied, ‘Get up behind me.’—‘I cannot,’ he answered, ‘for my
strength is gone.’ Presently his comrade, an esquire of the same Sir
Marmaduke, came up, and descending from his horse, he placed the young
man on it, and said to his master, ‘Sir, go where you will, I follow;’
and he followed him to the bridge, so that both were preserved. All
who remained, to the number of one hundred horsemen, and five thousand
foot, perished, except a few who swam the river. One knight, also, with
much difficulty, passed the water upon his barded horse.”[60]

The Earl of Surrey quitted the field as soon as he was rejoined by
Twenge, giving orders for the destruction of the bridge. The Scots,
therefore, did not cross to pursue their success: but notwithstanding,
quantities of plunder fell into their hands, and the decisive nature
of the defeat is evident from the consequences which attended it. In
the words of Knighton, “This awful beginning of hostilities roused the
spirit of Scotland, and sunk the hearts of the English.” In a short
time not a fortress of Scotland remained in Edward’s possession. The
castles of Edinburgh and Roxburgh were dismantled, and Berwick, being
abandoned by the English upon the advance of the Scots, was occupied by
Wallace, who resolved on an immediate expedition into England, with the
view of providing sustenance for his troops, and lightening the horrors
of famine, which now fell severely upon Scotland.

“After that ill–omened beginning,” Hemingford continues, “the Scots
were animated, and the hearts of the English troubled. Wallace overran
and devastated the whole of Northumberland. In that time the praise
of God ceased to be heard in all monasteries and churches from
Newcastle–upon–Tyne to Carlisle. For all monks, canons, and other
priests, with all the commons, fled before the face of the Scots.”
Turning then westward, he passed Carlisle, which refused to surrender,
ravaged Cumberland, and was advancing into Durham, when his progress
was stopped by the winter’s setting in with unusual severity: a
deliverance ascribed to the miraculous assistance of Cuthbert, the
patron saint of the diocese. “Returning to Hexham, where stood a
wealthy monastery, which the Scots had plundered on their advance,
three canons of that house, who, having no fear of death, had just
returned, fled into an oratory which they had rebuilt, that, if it
were the Divine will, they might there be offered as a sacrifice of
sweet savour. Presently the spearmen came in and shook their lances
over them, saying, ‘Show us the treasures of your church, or ye shall
instantly die.’ One of them replied, ‘It is not long since you and
your people carried off our property, as if it had been your own, and
you know where you have placed it. Since then we have sought out a few
things, as you now see.’ Meanwhile Wallace appeared and rebuked his
men, and bid them give way, and asked one of the monks to celebrate
mass, which was done. And at the moment of elevating the host, Wallace
went forth to lay aside his armour; and then, when the priest was about
to take the holy sacrament, the Scots gathered round him, to snatch
away the cup. And after Wallace had washed his hands, and returned
from the sacristy to the altar, he found the chalice and the napkins,
and other ornaments of the altar, carried off; even the book in which
the mass had been begun, was gone. And while the priest was hesitating
what he should do, Wallace returned, and seeing what had passed, he
gave order that those sacrilegious men should be sought out, and put to
death. But they were not found, inasmuch as they were not sought for in
earnest. And he said to the canons, ‘Go not away from me, but keep near
me, as you value your safety. For this people is ill–disposed, and may
neither be excused nor punished.’”[61]

Soon after his return from this expedition, he was elected governor
of Scotland, and his measures in this high office appear to have been
judicious and temperate. But the haughty barons could not bear the
superiority of one whose only claim was in his merit, and thus division
was sown in the Scottish councils at the time when unanimity was more
than ever needed. In the summer of 1298 Edward himself invaded Scotland
at the head of a powerful army. The plan adopted by Wallace upon this
occasion was the same as that which was afterwards so successfully
executed by Bruce. He avoided a general battle, which with an army far
inferior to the English must have been fought to a disadvantage,—he
fell back slowly before the enemy, leaving some garrisons in the most
important castles, driving off all supplies, wasting the country
through which the English were to march, and waiting till the scarcity
of provisions compelled them to retreat, and gave him a favourable
opportunity of breaking down upon them with full effect.[62]

They advanced unopposed, therefore, but found an inhospitable desert;
and Edward, unable to replace his exhausted stores, was at length
compelled to issue orders for a retreat to Edinburgh, hoping to meet
his fleet at Leith, and then to recommence offensive warfare. At
this critical juncture, when the military skill and wisdom of the
dispositions made by Wallace became apparent, and when the moment to
harass and destroy the invading army in its retreat had arrived, the
treachery of her nobles again betrayed Scotland to the enemy. Two
Scottish lords, Patrick, Earl of Dunbar, and the Earl of Angus, at
day–break privately sought the quarters of the Bishop of Durham, and
informed him that the Scots were encamped not far off in the forest
of Falkirk. The Scottish earls, who dreaded the resentment of Edward
on account of their late renunciation of allegiance, did not venture
to seek the king in person. They sent their intelligence by a page,
and added, that having heard of his projected retreat, it was the
intention of Wallace to surprise him by a night attack. Edward, on
hearing this welcome news, could not conceal his joy. “Thanks be to
God,” he exclaimed, “who hitherto hath extricated me from every danger.
They shall not need to follow me, since I shall forthwith go and meet
them.”[63]

The consequence of this treachery was the fatal battle of Falkirk, in
which the Scots were totally defeated, with vast slaughter, owing to
the jealousy and dissensions of the nobility; and Wallace, finding his
own exertions thwarted, resigned his office.

  “Beside the watyre of Forth, he
  Forsook Wardane ever to be.
  For lever[64] he had to lyve simply.
  Na under sic doubt in Seigniory.
  Na the leal comonys of Scotland
  He wold not had peryst under his hand.
    “Of his good deeds, and manhood
  Gret Gestis, I hard say, are made.
  But sa mony I trow not
  As he intil hys dayis wroucht.
  Wha all his Dedis of price wald dyte
  Him worthyd a gret Book to wryte
  And all thae to wryte in here
  I want both wyt and good laysere.”[65]

For several years after this, we do not meet with his name in the
records of authentic history. The blind minstrel transports him to
France during this period, where he goes through many adventures, and,
among others, kills a lion in single combat. But we must hasten to the
closing scene of his life. After Edward had overrun and subjected the
whole country in 1303, all others who had distinguished themselves in
the war were admitted to pardon upon terms more or less hard. “As for
William Wallace,” says the deed, “it is covenanted, that if he thinks
proper to surrender himself, it must be unconditionally to the will
and mercy of our lord the king.” To accept such terms was to deliver
himself over to death; he therefore betook himself to the woods and
mountains, and lived upon plunder.

It is amusing to trace the effects of national partiality in the
contradictory accounts of the Scottish and English historians. Bower
tells us that Wallace’s friends endeavoured to induce him to submit,
upon the same terms as themselves; and that Edward was so anxious upon
this head, that he offered, not only personal security, but an earldom,
with ample domains, to be selected by himself, either in Scotland or
England, as the price of his allegiance. But Wallace answered, that if
every other Scot should submit, still he and his companions would stand
up for the freedom of the kingdom; and never, as they hoped for God’s
favour, obey any one except their monarch or his deputy. Langtoft, on
the other hand, says that the Scottish hero offered to surrender upon
assurance of safety in life, limb, and estate; but Edward’s anger was
so hot against him, that he burst into a fury at the bare proposition.

  When they brought that tiding, Edward was full grim,
  And betaught him the fende,[66] als his traytoure in lond.
  And ever–ilkon his frende, that him susteyned, or fond.
  Three hundred marke he hette unto his warisoun,[67]
  That with him so met, or bring his hede to toun.
  Now flies William Wallis, of pes nought he spedis,[68]
  In mores and in mareis with robberie him fedis.

         *       *       *       *       *

  Ah Jhesu whan thou will, how rightwis is thy mede:
  That of the wrong has gilt, the endyng may he drede.
  William Waleis is nomen,[69] that maister was of theves.
  Tiding to the kyng is comen, that robberie mischeves.[70]
  Sir Jon of Menetest sewed William so nehi,[71]
  He took him whan he wend lest,[72] on nyght his lemman by.
  That was thought treson of Jak Short his man,
  He was the encheson,[73] that Sir Jon so him nam.[74]
  Jak’s brother had he slayn, the Waleis that is said,
  The more Jak was fayn to do William that braid.[75]
  Selcouthly[76] he endis, the man that is fals,
  If he trest on his frends, they begile him als.
  Begiled is William, taken is, and bondon.
  To Inglond with him thei came, and led him to London.
  The first dome he fanged,[77] for treson was he drawen.
  For robberie was he hanged, and for he had men slawen,
  And for he had brent abbeis, and men of religion,
  Eft[78] from the galweis quick[79] thei let him doun,
  And bouweld him all hote,[80] and brent them in the fire.
  His hede than of smote, swilk[81] was William’s hire;
  And for he had mayntend the werre at his myght,
  On lordship lended thore[82] he had no right,
  And stroied thore he knew, in fele stede sers.[83]
  His body thei hewed on four quarters,
  To hang in four tounes, to mene[84] of his maners,
  In stede of Gonfaynounes[85] and of his baners.
  At London is his heved, his quarters ere leved,[86] in Scotland spred,
  To wirschip ther isles,[87] and lere of his wiles, how well that he sped.
  It is not to drede, traytour sall spede,[88] als he is worthi,
  His lif sall he tyne, and die thorgh pyne, withouten merci.
  Thus may men here, a lad for to lere, to biggen in pays.[89]
  It fallis in his eye, that hewes over high, with the Walays.

  _Langtoft’s Chronicle of Edw. I._

“The day after his arrival at London, he was brought on horseback to
Westminster, the mayor, sheriffs, and aldermen, and many others, both
on foot and horseback, accompanying him; and in the greate hall at
Westminster, he being placed upon the south bench, crowned with laurel,
for that he had said in times past, that he ought to bear a crowne
in that Hall (as it was commonly reported), and being appeached for
a traytor by Sir Peter Mallorie, the king’s justice, hee answered,
that he never was traytor to the king of England, but for other things
whereof he was accused, he confessed them, and was after headed and
quartered.”[90]

His head was set up at London, his quarters were sent to Newcastle,
Berwick, Perth, and Aberdeen. But Edward reaped no advantage from
this act of cruelty and injustice, except the gratification of his
implacable temper. If intimidation was his object, it failed, as was to
be expected in the case of a high–spirited people: and the only effect
of raising these ghastly trophies was to inspire a deeper hatred of
the tyrant who commanded them, and of the treacherous minister of his
revenge. The latter long continued to be an object of especial hatred
to the Scottish nation; and is condemned to shame in its traditional
literature under the fitting title of the “false Menteith.”

Here, it might be supposed, history must end, and the ultimate destiny
of the oppressor and oppressed, the tyrant and his victim, remain a
mystery until the time when all things shall be brought to light.
But the patriotic chronicler before quoted, who probably could not
bear that the last scene of his hero should be one of suffering and
degradation, undertakes to enlighten our curiosity on this subject. We
read in the continuation of Fordun by Bower, that, according to the
testimony of many credible Englishmen, “an holy hermit, being rapt in
the spirit, saw innumerable souls delivered from purgatory marshalling
the way, while the spirit of Wallace was conducted to heaven by angels,
in reward of his inflexible patriotism. To whom the proverb may be
applied, ‘The memory of the just with praise, and the name of the
wicked stinketh.’”

Soon after, he proceeds to illustrate the latter clause of the proverb.
When Edward died upon his march to Scotland, an English knight,
Bannister by name, upon the night of his decease, saw in a trance his
lord the king, surrounded by a multitude of devils, who were mocking
him with much laughter, and saying,

  En rex Edwardus, debacchans ut leopardus!
  Olim dum vixit populum Dei maleflixit.
  Nobis viæ talis comes ibis, care sodalis,
  Quo condemneris, ut dæmonibus socieris.
  Te sequimur voto prorsus torpore remoto.[91]

Meanwhile they drove him on with whips and scorpions. “Let us sing,”
they said, “the canticle of death, beseeming this wicked soul; because
she is the daughter of death, and food of fire unquenchable; the friend
of darkness, and enemy of light.” And then they repeated _En rex_, &c.

While thus tormented by the evil spirits, he turned, said the knight,
his trembling and bloodless visage towards me, as if to implore the
aid which I was used to minister to him. But when voice and sense both
deserted me, he cast upon me such a dreadful look, that while I live
and remember it I can never more be cheerful. With that, he was in a
moment swallowed up into the infernal pit, exclaiming in a doleful
voice,

  Heu cur peccavi? fallor quia non bene cavi.
  Heu cur peccavi? perit et nihil est quod amavi.
  Heu cur peccavi? video, quia littus aravi,
  Cum sudore gravi mihimet tormenta paravi.[92]

Bannister was so terrified by this vision, that he forsook the
world and its vanities, and, for the improvement of his life and
conversation, spent his latter days in solitude.[93]

Scotland did not long languish in want of a deliverer. The place of
Wallace was quickly filled up by one scarce his inferior in knightly
renown, or in the affections of his countrymen. Were it not for the
length of this article, we should willingly narrate some of the
exploits and hair–breadth escapes which procured for Robert Bruce,
even among the English, the reputation of being the third best knight
in Europe; but we must hasten to conclude with the panegyric of the
affectionate Bower.

“There is no living man who is able to narrate the story of those
complicated misfortunes which befell him in the commencement of this
war; his frequent perils, his retreats, the care and weariness, the
hunger and thirst, the watching and fasting, the cold and nakedness,
to which he exposed his person, the exile into which he was driven,
the snares and ambushes which he escaped, the seizure, imprisonment,
execution, and utter destruction of his dearest friends and relatives.
And if, in addition to these almost innumerable and untoward events,
which he ever bore with a cheerful and unconquered spirit, any man
should undertake to describe his individual conflicts, and personal
successes, those courageous and single–handed combats in which, by the
favour of God, and his own great strength and courage, he would often
penetrate into the thickest of the enemy,—now becoming the assailant,
and cutting down all who opposed him; at another time acting on the
defensive, and evincing equal talents in escaping from what seemed
inevitable death;—if any writer shall do this, he will prove, if I am
not mistaken, that he had no equal in his own time, either in knightly
prowess, or in strength and vigour of body.”[94]




CHAPTER III.

 Treatment of Prisoners of War—Crœsus—Roman Triumphs—Sapor and
 Valerian—Imprisonment of Bajazet—His treatment of the Marshal
 Boucicaut and his Companions—Changes produced by the advance
 of Civilization—Effect of Feudal Institutions—Anecdote from
 Froissart—Conduct of the Black Prince towards the Constable Du Guesclin
 and the King of France.


The wealth of Crœsus is proverbial, and the vicissitudes of his fortune
have been a favourite subject for moralists in all ages. In Mitford’s
History of Greece, as well as in that published in the Library of
Useful Knowledge, all notice of them is confined to the simple
statement, that he was conquered by Cyrus. The circumstances of his
treatment, however, as they are related by Herodotus, are curious; and
we propose, therefore, to translate them literally from that author,
leaving it to the reader’s discretion to reject whatever is evidently
fabulous.

It is well known that he was induced to make war upon Cyrus by an
ambiguous response of the Delphic oracle, which predicted to him,
“that if he made war upon the Persians, he would destroy a great
empire.” The oracle was a very safe one. Crœsus understood it, that
the Persian empire would be destroyed; but the credit of the god was
equally supported by the event which really took place, the defeat of
Crœsus and the destruction of his kingdom. Upon his defeat he took
refuge in Sardis, which was besieged and ultimately stormed. “So the
Persians captured Sardis and took Crœsus alive, after he had reigned
fourteen years; and led him before Cyrus, who caused a mighty funeral
pile to be built, upon which he set Crœsus in fetters, and with him
fourteen Lydian youths; whether it were in his mind to offer them to
some deity as the first–fruits of his conquest, or with intention
to perform some vow, or because he had heard of Crœsus’s piety and
therefore set him upon the pile, that he might know whether any god
would deliver him from being burnt alive. Howbeit, he did so: but while
Crœsus stood upon the pile, it struck him, even in this extremity of
evil, that Solon was inspired when he said that no man ought to be
called happy while he was yet alive.[95] And when this thought occurred
to him, after being long silent, he thrice repeated with groans the
name of Solon. Cyrus heard him, and bade the interpreters ask who this
Solon, whom he invoked, might be; and they drew near, and did so. But
Crœsus spoke not for some time, and replied at length, when he was
compelled, ‘One whom I would rather than much wealth, were introduced
to the conversation of all monarchs.’ But as he spoke unintelligibly
to them, they again asked what he meant; and when they became urgent
and troublesome, he related at length how Solon, an Athenian, came to
him, and having beheld all his treasures, set them at nought, having
spoken to such purpose, that all things had happened according to his
words, which yet bore no especial reference to himself more than to the
rest of mankind, particularly to those who trusted in their own good
fortune. So by the time Crœsus had given this account, the pile being
lighted, the outside of it was in flames. And when Cyrus heard from
the interpreters what Crœsus said, he repented, and reflected that he,
being but a man himself, was casting another alive into the flames who
formerly had been no whit inferior to himself in prosperity: and being
also in dread of divine vengeance, and considering that nothing human
is unchangeable, he ordered the fire to be forthwith extinguished, and
Crœsus, with his companions, to be taken down; but his officers, with
all their endeavours, were unable to master it. Then Crœsus, as the
Lydians say, discovering that Cyrus had changed his purpose, when he
saw that all were endeavouring, and yet were unable to quench the fire,
called loudly upon Apollo, entreating the god, if that he ever had
offered any acceptable gifts, now to stand by, and deliver him from the
present evil. And as he called upon the god in tears, suddenly clouds
collected in the serene sky, and the storm broke down, and a torrent of
rain fell, and extinguished the fire. Cyrus, therefore, being by these
means instructed that Crœsus was a good man, and beloved by the gods,
inquired of him, when he was come down from the pile, ‘Crœsus, who
persuaded you to invade my kingdom, and thus become an enemy instead of
a friend?’ And he said, ‘O king, I have done thus to further your good,
and my own evil fate: but the god of the Grecians, who puffed me up to
war, has been the author of these events. For no man is so witless as
to choose war instead of peace, when, in the one, fathers bury their
sons, and in the other, sons their fathers. But it was the pleasure of
the gods that these things should turn out thus.’

“Thus spoke Crœsus, and Cyrus released him, and kept him near his
person, and thenceforth treated him with much respect.”[96]

The evident intermixture of fable with this tale is calculated to
throw doubt upon the whole of it, and indeed it seems at variance
with the character of Cyrus. That Xenophon omits all mention of the
circumstances related would be a strong argument in disproof of them,
if they were calculated to advance his hero’s reputation; but in the
present case his silence is of little weight. The close resemblance,
however, between the preservation of Crœsus, and the miraculous
deliverance of the Jewish youths condemned by Nebuchadnezzar to
the furnace, might warrant us in suspecting that some account of so
impressive a display of Divine power had reached the western coast of
Asia, and that the careless or unfaithful annalists of those early
times transferred the scene from Babylon to Lydia, and substituted the
names best known in their own history for the barbarian appellations
of the Assyrian monarch and his prisoners. This idea may be supported
by the expression of Herodotus, that Cyrus condemned Crœsus to be
burnt “because of his piety, that he might know whether any god would
deliver him from being burnt alive.” Cyrus was neither cruel nor a
scoffer, so that we cannot suppose it to have been an impious jest,
and can as little imagine that it was a serious experiment on the part
of the Persian to try the power of the Grecian deities. It is not very
likely, therefore, that such a reason was invented to account for the
action; but the recorded preservation of the Jews, and the decree of
Nebuchadnezzar “that there is no other god that can deliver after this
sort,” may well enough have led to the inference that the monarch’s
object was to prove the power which in the end he was obliged to
confess.

No extraordinary quantity either of humanity or reflection was
necessary to have impressed on Cyrus’s mind, in the first instance, the
truths contained in Solon’s warning to his rival. But humanity towards
prisoners was no virtue of antiquity; and in this respect the practice
of European nations of modern times offers a striking contrast to that
of heathenism in all ages and regions. Our Scandinavian ancestors
and the North American Indians put prisoners to death for revenge,
or for the mere pleasure of inflicting pain: the rude Druids and the
comparatively polished priests of Mexico alike esteemed an enemy’s
blood the most grateful offering to their savage deities. The histories
of Greece and Rome abound also with acts of atrocious cruelty; while
the East is notorious alike for the frequent changes of her dynasties,
and for the unsparing policy which has prompted successive conquerors
to establish their own thrones by the extermination of all possible
claimants.

It is not fair, however, to select none but unfavourable examples; and
of favourable ones, few or none are more celebrated than the generosity
of Alexander and the virtue of Scipio. After Alexander had gained the
important battle of Issus (B.C. 333), in the Persian war,
Darius’s family fell into the victor’s hands.[97] They were treated
with the respect due to their rank and their misfortunes. “Not long
after, one of his queen’s eunuchs escaped to Darius, who, when he
saw him, first asked whether his children and his wife and mother
were alive. And hearing that they were so, that they were addressed
as queens, and enjoyed all the respect and attention which they had
possessed at his own court, he inquired in addition, whether his wife
had preserved her faith; and being satisfied on this point also, he
again inquired whether any insult or violence had been offered to her.
The eunuch affirmed with an oath, ‘O king, your wife remains even as
you left her, and Alexander is the best and most temperate of men.’
Upon which Darius lifted up his hands towards heaven, and prayed, ‘O
sovereign Jupiter, in whose hands are placed the fortunes of kings upon
earth, above all things do thou maintain the kingdom of the Medes and
Persians, which thou hast given to me! But if thou wilt that I be king
of Asia no longer, then intrust my power to none but Alexander.’”[98]

Closely akin to this in all its circumstances is the celebrated story
of the continence of Scipio, who has obtained immortal praise by
surrendering untouched to her lover a beautiful Spanish lady who had
been selected from the other prisoners and presented to him; and from
the admiration testified by all antiquity for the virtue displayed
alike by the Grecian and the Roman hero, we may form an opinion of
the treatment which captives generally endured. We have no wish to
detract from the praise which is justly due to them, or to undervalue
the merit of those who precede their age in humanity and refinement;
but it is worthy of observation that in modern times, far from such
conduct being regarded as an effort of virtue almost super–human,
infamy or death would be the portion of a general who acted otherwise.
These exceptions therefore do really serve to confirm the rule; and the
extravagant commendation which has been bestowed upon such self–denial
bears incontrovertible evidence to the general want of generosity in
conquerors, and to the unhappy condition of the conquered.

Few foreigners of regal dignity or exalted fortune fell into the power
of the Grecian commonwealths: of their treatment of each other’s
citizens we shall have occasion to speak hereafter. But the gigantic
grasp of Roman ambition comprehended the most powerful of the earth,
and made them drink deep of degradation. The usual lot of prisoners
of war was slavery; a practice bad enough, but common to the rest of
antiquity with Rome: the institution of triumphs is her peculiar glory
and distinction. Something may be said in palliation of a victor,
who, having possession of his enemy, obviates the danger of further
resistance or revolt by committing him to that narrow prison from
which alone there is no chance of escape. But when a Roman general’s
arms were crowned with success, the prisoners of highest estimation
were carefully reserved; and when all danger from their life was at
an end, and their degradation, as far as external circumstances can
degrade, was complete, after they had been led in chains before their
conqueror’s car, to swell his vanity and satiate the pride of Rome,
they were sent to perish unheeded and unlamented by the hands of the
executioner, and the thanksgiving due to the gods and the triumphal
banquet were delayed until the savage ritual was duly performed. “Those
even who triumph, and therefore grant longer life to the hostile
chiefs, that from their presence in the procession the Roman people
may derive its fairest spectacle and fruit of victory, yet bid them
to be led to prison when they begin to turn their chariots from the
Forum to the Capitol; and the same day puts an end to the conqueror’s
command and to the life of the conquered.”[99] They led the prisoners
to execution at the moment when the triumphal chariot began to ascend
the Capitoline hill, in order, they said, that their moment of highest
exultation might be that of their enemies’ extremest agony. There is
a needless barbarity and insolence in the whole proceeding which is
peculiarly disgusting; and which was aggravated by the solemn hypocrisy
of placing in the triumphal chariot a slave to whisper in the victor’s
ear, “Remember that thou art a man,” when in the same instant they
displayed so signal a disregard for the reverses to which humanity is
exposed, and such contempt for the lessons which that warning ought to
have taught.

We may take as an example the treatment of Jugurtha, king of Numidia;
for whom, indeed, so far as his own merits are concerned, no treatment
could have been too severe. “Marius, bringing home his army againe out
of Lybia into Italy, took possession of his consulship the first day
of January, and therewithall made his triumph into the city of Rome,
shewing that to the Romans which they thought never to have seen;
and that was, king Jugurth prisoner, who was so subtill a man, and
could so well frame himself unto his fortune, and with his craft and
subtilty was of so great courage besides, that none of his enemies
ever hoped to have had him alive. But it is said that after he was
led in this triumph, he fell mad straight upon it; and the pompe of
triumph being ended, he was carried unto prison, where the serjeants,
for hast to have the spoil of him, tore his apparel by force from off
his back: and because they would take away his rich gold earrings,
that hung on his eares, they pulled away with them the tippe of his
eare, and then cast him naked to the bottome of a deep dungeon, his
wits being altogether troubled, Yet when they did throw him downe,
laughing he said, ‘O Hercules, how cold are your baths!’ He lived there
yet six days, fighting with hunger, and desiring alwaies to prolong
his miserable life to the last hour: the which was a just deserved
punishment for his wicked life.”[100]

Marius, however, with all his military talents was but a rude and
blood–thirsty soldier. From Cæsar, on the contrary, who throughout
the civil wars displayed signal generosity and mildness of temper, we
might have expected a fairer estimate of the treatment due to a noble
enemy. But in his treatment of Vercingetorix those noble qualities are
exchanged for the haughty and selfish cruelty which the foreign policy
of Rome was most admirably calculated to produce. That prince, after a
most gallant and almost successful stand in defence of the liberties
of Gaul, being shut up in Alesia, and reduced to extremity by Cæsar,
surrendered himself to the victor’s mercy in hope of obtaining better
terms for his comrades. The scene is thus described by Dion Cassius:—

“Vercingetorix being still at liberty, and unwounded, might have
escaped; but hoping, for the sake of their previous friendship, to
obtain forgiveness from Cæsar, he went out to him without notice of
his coming. And while the Roman general was seated on the tribunal,
he appeared suddenly, so as to alarm some persons, for he was tall of
stature, and made a gallant appearance in his armour. All around being
hushed, he said nothing, but fell on his knee, stretching out his hand
in gesture of supplication. All others were struck with compassion,
both by the recollection of his former high state, and by the exceeding
piteousness of the spectacle before them. But Cæsar made that from
which he chiefly expected to derive safety, the heaviest charge
against him; for, dwelling on the return for his friendship, he made
the injury appear the heavier. And therefore he pitied him not in that
conjuncture, but for the present cast him into bonds, reserving him
until his triumph, after which he slew him.”[101]

But Rome, which had so often insulted the majesty of fallen royalty,
endured in the person of one of her emperors a greater degradation
than any which she had inflicted. When the emperor Valerian was taken
prisoner by Sapor, king of Persia, his life was spared, but spared
that his age might waste in the most humiliating slavery; and when the
haughty monarch mounted his horse, he used the prostrate body of his
royal captive for a footstool. That, said the haughty Sapor, was a real
triumph; not painting imaginary processions upon walls, as the Romans
did. To gratify the victor’s pride still more, he was compelled to wear
the imperial purple and decorations, and in this attire, laden with
chains, he followed in the train of Sapor, and exhibited to the whole
Persian empire a striking picture of the fallen pride of Rome. This
system of insult extended even beyond the grave: his skin is related
to have been dyed scarlet, and stuffed, and then placed in a temple as
an enduring monument of the shame of Rome. The Christian writers, who
alone relate all the particulars of Valerian’s humiliation,[102] see
in it the just vengeance of God for his persecution of our faith: the
reason, probably, that Gibbon seems inclined to consider the story as
a pious fiction. If so, however, it soon obtained currency, for the
Emperor Constantine, who flourished not much more than half a century
after the event, alludes to it in a letter to the king of Persia: “All
these emperors (the persecutors of Christianity) have been destroyed by
such a dreadful and avenging end, that since their times all mankind
doth usually wish their calamities may fall as a curse and punishment
upon those who shall study to imitate them. One of which persons I
judge him to have been (him, I mean, whom divine vengeance like a
thunderbolt drove out of our regions, and conveyed unto your country)
who by his own disgrace and ignominy erected that trophy so much
boasted of among you.”[103]

Somewhat similar to the indignities offered to Valerian was the
treatment which the Sultan Bajazet is said to have experienced from
Tamerlane after his defeat and capture.

  Closed in a cage, like some destructive beast,
  I’ll have thee borne about in public view;
  A great example of the righteous vengeance
  That waits on cruelty and pride like thine.[104]

Voltaire and other modern writers have discredited this story, chiefly
on the authority of D’Herbelot. It has been shown, however, by Sir W.
Jones, that the premises of that distinguished orientalist are false,
and his authority therefore falls to the ground. On the other hand,
Leunclavius, in his History of the Turks, professes to have heard from
an old man, who was in Bajazet’s service at the time of his defeat,
“that an iron cage was made by Timour’s command, composed on every side
of iron gratings, through which he could be seen in any direction.
He travelled in this den slung between two horses. Whenever Timour
and his retinue, on moving his camp, made ready for a journey, he was
usually carried before; and after the march, when they dismounted, he
was placed upon the ground in his cage, before Timour’s tent.” Poggio
also, himself a contemporary, mentions this strange imprisonment as an
undoubted fact.[105]

The English reader will find some countenance for the story in Edward
the First’s inhuman treatment of the Countess of Buchan. That lady
having dared, it is said, in virtue of hereditary privileges, to place
the crown of Scotland on the Bruce’s head, and afterwards falling into
the English monarch’s hands, was confined in a cage built upon one of
the towers of Berwick Castle, exposed, as it should seem, to the rigour
of the elements and the gaze of passers by. One of Bruce’s sisters was
similarly dealt with. So much for the devoted respect paid to women in
the age of chivalry, and that by a prince who, when young, was inferior
to none in knightly renown. But the demoralizing effects of absolute
power found a fitting subject to work upon in Edward’s stern and
unforgiving temper. The original order for the Countess’s confinement
is to this effect:—

“Ordered and commanded, by letters under the privy seal, to the
Chamberlain of Scotland, or his deputy at Berwick–upon–Tweed, that in
one of the turrets, upon the castle of that place, in such place as he
shall chuse, and shall be most convenient, he do make a cage of strong
lattice–work and bars, and well strengthened with iron–work, in the
which he shall place the Countess of Buchan.

“And that he shall so well and surely guard her in the same cage, that
in no manner shall she pass out from it.

“And that he do appoint one or two English women of the said town of
Berwick who shall be in no wise suspected, who understand to serve the
said Countess with meat and drink, and all things pertaining to her.

“And that he do so well and strictly guard her in the cage, that she
speak to none, and that no man or woman of the Scotch nation, nor any
other appear before her, but only the woman or women who shall be
assigned her, and those who shall have guard of her.

“And that the cage be so made, that the Countess may have there the
convenience of a fair chamber, but that it be so well and surely
ordered, that no danger may betide in respect of the custody of the
said Countess.

“And that he who has care of her be charged to answer for her, body for
body, and that he be allowed her expenses.

“In like manner it is ordered that Mary, sister of Robert Bruce,
sometime Earl of Carrick, be sent to Roxburgh, to be kept there in the
castle, in a cage.”[106]

The reader will not sympathise much with the harshness of Bajazet’s
durance, if he knows the character of that redoubtable conqueror. The
following passage will convey a fair idea of it, and presents a good
specimen of the style of the 15th century:—

“In the year 1396, Sigismond, King of Hungry, sent sweet and amyable
letters to the French king by a notable ambassador, a bysshop and
two knights of Hungry. In the same letters was contayned a greate
parte of the state and doyng of the greate Turke (Bajazet), and how
that he had sent worde to the King of Hungry, that he would come and
fight with him in the middes of his realme, and would go fro thens
to the cytie of Rome, and would make his horse to eate otes upon the
high altar of Saynt Peter, and there to hold his see imperiale. Thus
the King of Hungry in his letters prayed the French king to ayde and
succour him.”[107] In consequence of this application, a strong body
of French and other knights marched into Hungary, under command of
John of Burgundy, Earl of Nevers. They crossed the Danube, and after
a successful campaign were besieging Nicopolis in union with the
Hungarian forces, when Bajazet marched to the relief of that city.
The loss of the battle which ensued is attributed by Froissart to the
precipitance of the French knights, who led the van, and rushed madly
into combat, against the order of the King of Hungary, and without
waiting for his support. The biographer of the Marshal Boucicaut, on
the other hand, throws the whole blame upon the cowardly desertion of
the Hungarians. However this may be, the French charged in a body not
exceeding 700 men,[108] routed the first body of Bajazet’s cavalry, and
penetrated through a line of stakes, behind which the infantry were
formed. “Then the noble Frenchmen, like men already enraged at the loss
which they had endured, ran upon them with such valour and hardihood
that they frightened all. I may not say how they laid upon them. For
never did foaming boar, or angry wolf, shew a fiercer recklessness of
life. There the valiant Marshal of France, Boucicaut, among other brave
men, thrust himself into the thickest press, and well proved whether he
were grieved or no. For there without fail did he so many acts of arms,
that all marvelled, and there bore himself so knightly, that whoso
saw him still avers there never was any man, knight or other, seen to
do in one day more brave and valiant acts than he did then.”[109] The
Earl of Nevers, the Lord of Coucy, and the other French nobility well
approved their valour; but Boucicaut, if we may trust his biographer,
was the hero of the day. Mounted on a powerful war–horse, he spurred
forwards, and struck so fiercely to the right and to the left that he
overthrew everything before him. “And ever doing thus, he advanced so
far, which is a marvellous thing to relate, and yet true, as all who
saw it can bear witness, that he cut through the whole Saracen array,
and then returned back through them to his comrades. Heaven, what a
knight! God protect his valour! Pity will it be when life shall fail
him! But it will not be so yet, for God will protect him. Thus fought
our countrymen as long as their strength lasted. Ah, what pity for
so noble a company, approved so gentle, so chivalrous, so excellent
in arms, which could have succour from no quarter, so ran they in to
their enemies’ throats, so as is the iron on the anvil![110] For they
were surrounded and oppressed so fatally on all sides that they could
no longer resist. And what wonder? for there were more than twenty
Saracens against one Christian! And yet our people killed more than
20,000 of them, but at last they could exert themselves no more. Ah,
what a misfortune, what pity! Ought not those disloyal Christians to
have been hanged who thus falsely abandoned them? Shame fall upon them,
for had they helped the valiant French and their comrades with good
will, not Bajazet nor one of his Turks would have escaped death or
captivity, which would have been a mighty good to all Christendom.

“Great pity was there again the morrow of this dolorous battle. For
Bajazet, sitting within a tent in the midst of the field, caused to
be led before him the Earl of Nevers and those of his lineage, with
all the French barons, knights, and esquires who remained after the
slaughter of that field. Sad was it to see these noble youths, in the
prime of life, of blood so lofty as that of the royal line of France,
fast bound with ropes, disarmed, in their under doublets, conducted by
these ugly, frightful dogs of Saracens before the tyrant enemy of the
faith who sat there. He knew for certain, through good interpreters,
that the Earl of Nevers was grandson and cousin–german to a king of
France, and that his father was a duke of great power and wealth, and
that others were of the same blood and nearly related to the king. So
he bethought himself, that for preserving them he might have great
treasure: therefore he did not put them to death, nor any other of
the greatest barons, but made them sit there on the ground before
him. Alas! immediately after began the cruel sacrifice. For then were
led before him the noble Christian barons, knights, and esquires,
naked; and then, as they paint on the walls King Herod sitting on a
chair, and the Innocents cut in pieces before him, there were our
faithful Christians cut in pieces by these Saracen curs before the
Earl of Nevers and under his very eyes. So you may understand, you
who hear this, what grief went to his heart, good and kind lord as
he is, and what pain it gave him to see thus martyred his good and
loyal companions, and his people that had been so faithful to him,
and who were so distinguished for gallantry. Certes I think he was so
grieved at heart, that fain would he have been of their company in that
slaughter. And so the Turks led them one after another to martyrdom,
as men led in old times the blessed martyrs, and struck their heads
and chests and shoulders fearfully with great knives, and felled them
without mercy. Well may one know with what woful countenances they went
in that sad procession. For even as the butcher drags a lamb to the
slaughter, so were our good Christians, without a word being spoken,
led to die before the tyrant. But notwithstanding that their death was
hard and their case pitiful, every good Christian should esteem them
thrice fortunate, and born in a happy hour, to receive such a death.
For they must sometime have died, and God gave them grace to die in
the advancement of the Christian religion, the holiest and worthiest
death (as we in our faith hold) that a Christian can die; and also he
made them to be the companions of the blessed martyrs, the happiest of
all the orders of Saints in Paradise. For there is no doubt but that
they are Saints in Paradise, if they met their fate with good will. In
this piteous procession was Boucicaut, the Marshal of France, naked,
except his small clothes (petits draps). But God, who willed not to
lose his servant, for the sake of the good service which he was to do
thereafter, as well in avenging the death of that glorious company
upon the Saracens, as in the other great benefits which were to follow
from his talents and by his means, caused the Earl of Nevers to look
at the Marshal and the Marshal at him right sorrowfully, at the very
moment that some one was about to strike him. Then was the foresaid
Earl wonderfully vexed at heart for the death of such a man, and he
called to mind the great good, the prowess, loyalty, and valour that
were in him. So, on a sudden, God put it in his mind to clasp his hands
together as he looked at Bajazet, and he made sign that the Marshal
was to him as a brother, and that he should respite him: which sign
Bajazet soon understood, and released him. When this stern execution
was complete, and the whole field was strewed with the bodies of
these blessed martyrs, as many French as others of divers countries,
that cursed Bajazet arose, and ordered the Marshal, who had been so
respited, to be committed to prison in a large handsome town of Turkey,
called Bursa. So his bidding was done, and he was kept there till the
arrival of the said Bajazet.”[111]

Innumerable instances of the like ferocity might be produced from
Eastern history. Rowe’s polished and pious Tamerlane put to death
100,000 persons in the streets of Delhi. Few men have so well and
fairly estimated their own character, and the class to which they
belong, as did Nadir Shah, when to the remonstrance, “If thou art a
king, cherish and protect thy people,—if a prophet, shew us the way
of salvation,—if a God, be merciful to thy creatures,” he replied,
“I am neither a king to protect my subjects, nor a prophet to teach
the way of salvation, nor a God to exercise the attribute of mercy;
but I am he whom the Almighty has sent in his wrath to chastise a
world of sinners.” The following anecdote, striking in itself, is the
more interesting as an exception to a general rule: “In the year 1068
Alp Arslan, the second sultan of Persia, of the Seljukian dynasty,
defeated and took prisoner Romanus Diogenes, husband of Eudocia, the
reigning empress of Constantinople. He treated his prisoner with
extreme kindness and distinction; he uttered no reproaches that could
wound a humbled monarch, but gave vent to the honest indignation of
a warrior at the base and cowardly conduct of those who had deserted
and abandoned so brave a leader. We are told that he asked his captive
at their first conference, what he would have done if fortune had
reversed their lot. ‘I would have given thee many a stripe,’ was the
imprudent and virulent answer. This expression of haughty and unsubdued
spirit excited no anger in the brave and generous conqueror. He only
smiled, and asked Romanus what he expected would be done to him? ‘If
thou art cruel,’ said the emperor, ‘put me to death. If vain–glorious,
load me with chains, and drag me to thy capital. If generous, grant
me my liberty!’ Alp Arslan was neither cruel nor vain–glorious: he
released his prisoner, gave all his officers who were captives dresses
of honour, and distinguished them by every mark of friendship and
regard.”[112]

Far from wishing to cast an undue reproach upon the past by these
melancholy details of cruelty and suffering, we should have been glad
to relieve the narrative by more numerous instances of generosity
and mercy. But that these virtues are not the attributes of a savage
race, will readily be granted by all: that they are not necessarily
the fruit of refinement and civilization (if that term be applicable
to an advanced stage of art and knowledge, without a corresponding
improvement in moral wisdom) is shown by the universal experience of
the past, and nowhere more forcibly than in the history of Greece and
Rome. The progress of society seems only to have taught one lesson;
that it is better to make the conquered subservient to the profit
or amusement of the conqueror, than to put him to death, like any
other formidable or offensive animal. In man’s earliest and rudest
condition, as a hunter, slaves are worse than useless; for sustenance
is of more value than labour, and the precarious supply of the chase
is insufficient to provide permanently and plentifully for his own
wants. The avenging or preventing encroachments upon each other’s
hunting–ground is therefore a most frequent cause of warfare among
neighbouring tribes, and the massacre of the conquered is prompted
equally by revenge and policy. We find accordingly that in North
America a prisoner’s only chance of escape lay in being adopted
into the hostile tribe in the place of some one who had fallen in
battle. The still more savage practice of feasting upon prisoners
is sufficiently proved to have existed at a very recent period in
New Zealand. In other heathen countries they have been reserved from
indiscriminate slaughter, only to perish on the altars of false gods.
But labour becomes valuable, and the command of labour an advantage,
in proportion as men emerge from barbarism, and apply themselves
to agriculture, or a pastoral life; and when it is found out that
a prisoner’s services may be made worth more than his maintenance,
the policy of the victor changes, and he preserves an enemy whom
formerly he was almost compelled to destroy. Slavery, therefore,
is, in the infancy of nations, an index of increasing civilization,
and an amelioration of human misery, since the bulk of mankind have
ever hailed with joy a respite from death, even though existence be
attended with degradation and suffering. A generous spirit, indeed,
would be little gratified at receiving life upon terms of hopeless
servitude; yet even to such the introduction of slave labour lightened
the evils of defeat. When men were detained merely for the value of
their services, it was natural to release them if an equivalent for
that value were paid, and hence arose the custom of admitting prisoners
to ransom, which exercised a two–fold influence in favour of slaves:
first by enabling them to acquire freedom at the sacrifice of wealth;
secondly, by removing the utter hopelessness and degradation of their
state, and introducing a possibility that the slave and master might
some day be replaced in their original relation to each other. This
practice was familiar in the Homeric age, though revenge or the heat
of battle often caused mercy and interest to be alike disregarded.
Melancholy indeed was the fate of a captured city. The adult males were
usually slaughtered, the females and children reserved for slavery;
those even of the highest rank were employed as menial servants in the
victor’s household. “What evils,” says Priam, “does Jupiter reserve me
to behold on the threshold of age! My sons slain, my daughters dragged
into slavery, my chambers plundered, the very infants dashed against
the ground in mournful warfare, and my sons’ wives dragged by the
destructive hands of the Greeks. The dogs which I fed in my palace,
at my own table, to protect it, will tear me, even me, stretched dead
at the outer door, as they lie ravening in the vestibule lapping my
blood. To a young man it is becoming to lie slain in warfare, pierced
by the sharp sword; to such nothing that can happen in death is
unseemly. But that dogs should defile the grey head and the grey beard
of a slaughtered elder, this is the mournfulest thing that happens to
wretched mortals.”[113]

For the lot of those who were reserved, we may quote Hector’s parting
speech to Andromache.

  I know the day draws nigh when Troy shall fall,
  When Priam and his nation perish all:
  Yet less forebodings of the fate of Troy,
  Her king, and Hecuba, my peace destroy;
  Less that my brethren, all th’ heroic band,
  Should with their blood imbrue their native land;
  Than thoughts of thee in tears, to Greece a prey,
  Dragged by the grasp of war in chains away,
  Of thee in tears, beneath an Argive roof
  Labouring reluctant the allotted woof,
  Or doomed to draw, from Hypereia’s cave,
  Or from Messeis’ fount, the measured wave.
  A voice will then be heard which thou must bear,
  ‘See’st thou yon captive, pouring tear on tear?
  Lo! Hector’s wife, the hero bravest far
  When Troy and Greece round Ilion clashed in war.’[114]

As time advanced the Greeks became more humane, and the treatment
of their prisoners improved; insomuch that about the year 500
B.C. it seems to have been usual among the Peloponnesian
states to admit each other’s citizens to ransom at a fixed sum of two
minæ, something less than eight pounds of our money;[115] and the
Athenians released certain Bœotians for the same sum.[116] The meridian
splendour of Greece, as we shall have future occasion to notice, is
more especially dimmed by the cold–blooded cruelty of her civil wars.
It is observable, however, that in the 10th year of the Peloponnesian
war, the mutual restoration of prisoners formed a condition in a treaty
of peace; and this, we believe, is the first instance on record at all
resembling the humane usage of the present day.

In the youth of Rome, as she gradually extended her dominion,
cities were depopulated to be refilled by her citizens, and their
inhabitants sold like cattle, by public auction.[117] In her days of
greatness, when whole kingdoms fell before her, the rights of conquest
were necessarily more leniently exercised; for nations cannot be
dispossessed and enslaved in mass. But the number of Greek and of
Syrian slaves in Rome shows that the independence of those nations
was not overturned without a corresponding loss of private freedom;
and those uncivilised countries, which could contribute little else
of wealth to satiate a Roman general’s extortion, saw droves of
their inhabitants sold into captivity to supply the labourers and
gladiators of an idle and dissolute empire.[118] The exemption of
modern Europe, from these horrors is chiefly referable to the influence
of Christianity, which, however ineffectual to purify the minds and
lives of a vast majority of those who have outwardly embraced it, has
given unquestionable proof of its intrinsic excellence by refining
and enlarging men’s views of morality and benevolence, wherever its
doctrines have not been altogether obscured and corrupted.[119] It is
true that in the reign of Justinian, Constantinople witnessed for the
first and only time the insolent splendour of a Roman triumph, granted
to Belisarius after the reduction of the Vandal kingdom; on which,
as on former occasions, the noblest of the conquered nation, headed
by Gelimer, their king, swelled the vainglorious procession. But the
changed spirit of the times is shown in the subsequent treatment of
them. To the king and his family a safe retirement and an ample estate
in Galatia were allotted; and the flower of the Vandal youth were
enlisted, and served with distinction in the Persian wars. Among other
claims to our gratitude, the clergy of the dark ages have the merit of
steadily resisting the practice of enslaving Christians. The working of
the feudal system was also beneficial in this respect. The aristocracy
of the land were also its soldiery; to make prisoners, therefore,
was a greater object than to kill, for the ransom of prisoners was
a never–failing source of revenue to the brave and powerful. And as
the inferior classes might not be reduced to domestic servitude, and
besides passed naturally with the land, whether as serfs, in absolute
and acknowledged bondage, or as vassals, free in name, but bound to the
soil by all the ties of property, the victor had no interest in the
detention of prisoners, except such as were able to purchase freedom.
The singular institutions of chivalry also exercised a strong influence
in humanizing warfare. Knighthood formed a bond of union throughout
Europe. Men fought for gain, for honour, for revenge; but victory,
which ensured all but the last, was seldom tarnished by cruelty,
except in instances of deadly feud. We are by no means inclined to
overrate the savage virtues of those times, or to deny that they
abound in examples of most flagrant cruelty and oppression; but we
contend, that compared with earlier ages, place even barbarism against
refinement, the half–savage Teuton against the polished Greek or Roman,
we see the tokens of a vast improvement in this respect. And we may
further observe that of the cruelties recorded a large proportion
are foreign to the question, being perpetrated in prosecution of the
cherished spirit of revenge, or to extract wealth from Jews, or others
of inferior rank, and not on prisoners of war. We do not plead this
in extenuation of those enormities; the evil passions of the heart
sprung up unchecked into a plentiful harvest of evil actions: but
of cruelty to their prisoners of war, the Europeans and the middle
ages were comparatively guiltless. Among them, for the first time in
history, the victor and the defeated mixed in social intercourse upon
terms of equality, without degradation being felt by the one, or an
undue and ungenerous superiority assumed by the other; each aware that
on the morrow the turn of fortune might reverse their situations,
and that disgrace attached to misfortune only when occasioned by
misconduct.[120] And the lofty, though fantastic notions of honour
which prevailed, tended still further to lighten captivity, when the
word of a knight was considered as sufficient surety for his ransom,
and prisoners were enabled to obtain their release upon parole. Nowhere
is this courteous and humane spirit more strongly marked than in the
wars of England and Scotland during the 14th century. Yet we might
expect to find the warfare of that century distinguished by more than
usual inhumanity. The perfidious aggression, the inveterate hostility
of Edward I., were calculated to raise in the Scotch a most implacable
resentment; while the obstinate resistance and successful reprisals in
which our northern counties were repeatedly devastated, were equally
well fitted to inspire the English with no friendly feelings towards
their northern brethren. A hundred years had elapsed since the first
quarrel, during which the sword had scarcely been sheathed, the fire
of burning villages scarcely quenched. We might reasonably then expect
to find these wars carried on “à outrance;” to find no mercy in their
battles, no gentleness or generosity in their intercourse. But the
account of Froissart is very different.

“Englysshmen on the one partye, and scottes on the other partye, are
goode men of warre, for when they mete there is a hard fight, without
sparynge; there is no troo bytwene them as long as speares, swordes,
axes, or dagers wyll endure, but lay on eche upon other; and whan they
be well beaten, and that the one parte hath optaygned the victory, they
then glorifye so in their dedes of armes, and are so ioyfull, that
such as be taken, they shall be raunsomed or they go out of the felde,
so that shortely eche of them is so content with other, that at their
departynge curtoysly they will saye, Gode thank you, but in fyghtynge
one with another there is no playe, nor sparynge; and this is trewe,
and that shall well apere by this sayde rencounter (of Otterbourn), for
it was as valyauntly foughten as coulde be devysed.... This batayle was
fierse and cruell, tyll it came to the end of the discomfiture; but
whan the scottes saw the englysshmen recule, and yelde themselves, than
the scottes were curtes, and sette them to their raunsom, and every
manne sayde to his prisoner, Sirs, go and unarm you and take your ease,
I am your mayster; and so made their prisoners as goode chere as though
they had been brethern, without doyng them any damage.”[121]

Another anecdote of the same battle, from the same graphic and
delightful historian, will serve to illustrate more than one of the
points to which the reader’s attention has been drawn. Sir Matthew
Reedman, the governor of Berwick, fought under Percy at Otterbourn and
endeavoured to escape when fortune declared against the English.

“Now I shall shewe you of sir Mathue Reedman, who was on horsback
to save himselfe, for he alone coulde not remedy the mater: at his
departing sir James Lynsay was nere to hym, and sawe how sir Mathue
departed, and this sir James, to wyn honour, folowed in chase sir
Mathue Reedman, and came so nere hym, that he myght have stryken hym
with his speare if he had lyst; than he sayd, Ah sir knyght, tourne,
it is a shame thus to flye: I am James of Lynsay: if ye will not
tourne I shall stryke ye on the back with my spere. Sir Mathue spake
no worde, but strake his horse with the spurs sorer than he dyde
before. In this maner he chased hym more than thre myles, and at last
sir Mathue Reedman’s horse foundred and fell under hym: than he stepte
forthe on the erthe, and drewe oute his sworde, and took corage to
defende hymselfe: and the scotte thought to have stryken him on the
brest, but sir Mathue Reedman swarved from the stroke, and the speare
poynt entred into the erthe: then sir Mathue strake asonder the spere
with his sworde; and whan sir James Lynsay sawe howe he had loste his
speare, he caste awaye the tronchon, and lyghted afote, and toke a
lytell batayle–axe that he caryed at his backe, and handeled it with
his one hande, quickely and delyverly, in the whiche feate scottes be
well experte, and than he set at sir Mathue and he defended hymselfe
properly. Thus they tourneyed toguyder, one with an axe, and the other
with a swerde, a long season, and no man to lette them: fynally, sir
James Lynsay gave the knyght suche strokes, and helde hym so shorte,
that he was putte out of brethe in such wyse that he yelded hymselfe
and sayde, Sir James Lynsay, I yelde me to you. Well, quod he, and I
receyve you, rescue or no rescue. I am content, quod Reedman, so you
deale with me lyke a good companyon. I shall nat fayle that, quod
Lynsay, and so putte up his swerde. Well, sir, quod Reedman, what wyll
you nowe that I shall do? I am your prisoner, ye have conquered me; I
wolde gladly go agayne to Newcastell, and within fyftene dayes I shall
come to you into Scotlande, whereas ye shall assigne me. I am content,
quod Lynsay: ye shall promyse by your faythe to present yourself within
this thre wekes at Edenborowe, and wheresoever ye go, to reporte
yourselfe my prisoner. All this sir Mathue sware, and promysed to
fulfyll. Than eche of them toke their horses, and toke leave, eche of
other. Sir James returned, and his entent was to go to his owne company
the same way as he came, and sir Mathue Reedman to Newcastell. Sir
James Lynsay could nat keep the ryght waye as he came: it was darke,
and a myst, and he hadde nat rydden halfe a myle, but he met face to
face with the bysshoppe of Durham and mo than v hundred Englysshmen
with hym: he myght wel have escaped, if he had wolde, but he supposed
it had been his owne company that had pursued the Englisshmen: whan he
was among them, one demaunded of hym what he was. I am, quod he, sir
James Lynsay. The bysshoppe herde those words, and stepte to hym, and
sayde, Lynsay, ye are taken; yelde ye to me. Who be you? quod Lynsay.
I am, quod he, the bysshop of Durham. And fro whens come ye, sir? quod
Lynsay. I come fro the batayle, quod the bysshoppe, but I strake never
a stroke there; I go back to Newcastell for this night, and ye shall
go with me. I may nat chuse, quod Lynsay, sithe you will have it so:
I have taken, and I am taken; such is the adventures of armes. Whom
have ye taken? quod the bysshop. Sir, quod he, I toke in the chase sir
Mathue Reedman. And where is he? quod the bysshop. By my faythe, sir,
he is retourned to Newcastell: he desyred me to trust hym on his fayth
for thre wekes, and so have I done. Well, quod the bysshop, lette us
go to Newcastell, and there ye shall spake with hym. Thus they rode to
Newcastell toguyder, and sir James Lynsay was prisoner to the bisshop
of Durham.”

“After that sir Mathue Reedman was retourned to Newcastell, and hadde
shewed to dyvers howe he had been taken prisoner by sir James Lynsay;
than it was shewed him howe the bisshoppe of Durham had taken the
sayd sir James Lynsay, and how that he was thene in the towne as his
prisoner: as sone as the bysshoppe was departed, sir Mathue Reedman
wente to the bysshoppes lodgyng to see his mayster, and there he founde
hym in a studye, lyeng in a wyndowe, and sayd, What, sir James Lynsay,
what make you here? Than sir James came forth of the studye to hym,
and gave hym good morowe, and sayd, By my fayth, sir Mathue, fortune
hath brought me hyder; for as sone as I was departed fro you, I mette
by chaunce the bysshoppe of Durham, to whome I am prisoner, as ye
be to me. I beleve ye shall nat nede to come to Edenborowe to me to
make your fynaunce: I think rather we shall make an exchaunge one for
another, if the bysshoppe be so contente. Well, sir, quod Reedman, we
shall accorde ryght well toguyder: ye shall dyne this daye with me; the
bysshop and our men be gone forthe to fyght with your men. I can not
tell what shall fall; we shall know at their retourne. I am content to
dyne with you, quod Lynsay. Thus these two knyghtes dyned toguyder in,
Newcastell.”[122]

Some danger unquestionably there was, that where the marketable value
of prisoners was so clearly recognised, humanity would be forgotten
in avarice; a lapse of memory which our acquaintance with Algiers
and other piratical states proves not altogether impossible. One
of the causes which prevented this, the union and equality produced
by knighthood, has been alluded to; and we may find another in the
high–spirited notions of personal honour which prevailed.[123] To
refuse a prisoner his liberty upon payment of ransom, either directly
or covertly, by demanding a sum disproportionate to his rank and means,
was held dishonourable; for a knight would have esteemed himself
disgraced if it could be suspected that he retained an enemy in prison
through fear of meeting him in the open field. “After that the Prince
of Wales was returned from Spain into Acquitayne, and his brother,
the Duke of Lancastre, into Englande, and every lorde into his owne,
sir Bertram du Guesclin was styll prisoner with the prince, and with
sir Johan Chandos, and coulde nat come to his raunsome, nor fynaunce,
the whiche was sore displeasaunt to kyng Henry,[124] if he might have
mended it: and it so fortuned after, as I was enformed, that on a
day the prince called to hym sir Bertram du Guesclin, and demaunded
of hym how he dyde; he answered and sayd, Sir, it was never better
with me; it is reason that it shulde be so, for I am in prison with
the most renowned knyght of the worlde. With whome is that? sayd the
prince. Sir, quoth he, that is with Sir Johan Chandos; and, sir, it is
sayd in the realme of Fraunce, and in other places, that ye feare me
so moche, that ye dare nat let me out of prison, the whiche to me is
full great honour. The prince, who understode well the wordes of sir
Bertram du Guesclin, and parceyved well how his own counsayle wolde in
no wyse that he shuld delyver hym, unto the tyme that king Don Peter
had payed him all suche sommes as he was bound to do. Than he sayd to
sir Bertram, Sir, then ye thinke that we kepe you for feare of your
chivalry; nay, thynke it nat, for I swere by saint George, it is nat
so; therfore pay for your raunsome an hundred thousand fraunkes, and ye
shall be delyvered. Sir Bertram, who desyred gretly to be delyvered,
and herde on what poynt he might depart, toke the prince with that
worde, and sayd, Sir, in the name of God so be it, I wyll pay no
lasse. And whan the prince herde hym say so, he wolde than gladly have
repented hymselfe; and also some of his counsayle came to hym, and
sayd, Sir, ye have nat done well so lightly to put him to his raunsome.
And so they wolde gladly have caused the prince to have revoked that
covenant; but the prince, who was a true and noble knight, sayd, Sithe
that we agreed therto, we wyll nat breke our promise; it shulde be to
us a grete rebuke, shame and reproche, if we shulde nat put him to
raunsome, seyng he is content to pay such a grete somme as an hundred
thousand fraunkes.”[125]

The following story of William Rufus, which is told by William of
Malmsbury, illustrates the character of the man, rather than the spirit
of the age. Helias de Flechia laid claim to the city of Mans, part of
that monarch’s continental possessions. He was taken and brought before
William, who said insultingly, “I have you, sir.” “You have taken me by
chance,” said the baron; “could I escape, I should find something new
to do.” The hot–headed king, shaking his fist, replied, “You rascal,
what would you do? Troop, shog off, make yourself scarce—you may do
what you can; and by the face of St. Luke, if you get the better of me,
I will ask you nothing for this favour.”[126]

In conclusion we give a celebrated passage from English history, which
is strongly and pleasantly contrasted with the early part of the
chapter. It is well known that the king of France was taken prisoner by
the Black Prince at the battle of Poictiers. “The day of the batayle at
night, the prince made a supper in his lodginge to the frenche kyng,
and to the moost parte of the great lordes that were prisoners: the
prince made the kynge, and his son, the lorde James of Bourbon, the
lorde John D’Artois, the erle of Tancarville, the erle D’Estampes, the
erle Dampmertyne, the erle of Gravyll, and the lorde of Pertenay, to
syt all at one borde, and other lordes, knyghtes, and squiers at other
tables; and alwayes the prince served before the kyng as humbly as he
coude, and wolde nat syt at the kynges borde, for any desyre that the
kynge could make: but sayd he was nat sufficient to syt at the table
with so great a prince as the kyng was; but than he sayd to the kyng,
Sir, for goddes sake make none yvell, nor heavy chere, though god this
day dyd not consent to folowe your wyll: for syr, surely the kyng my
father shall bere you as moche honour and amyte as he may do, and shall
acorde with you so reasonably that ye shall ever be frendes toguyder
after; and sir, methinke ye ought to reioyse, though the journey[127]
be nat as ye wolde have had it, for this day ye have wonne the hygh
renome of prowes, and have past this day in valyantnesse all other of
your partie: sir, I say natte this to mocke you, for alle that be on
our partie that saw every mannes dedes are playnly acorded by true
sentence to gyve you the price and chapelette. Therewith the frenchemen
began to murmure, and sayd among themselves how the prince had spoken
nobly; and that by all estimation he shulde prove a noble man, if Gode
send him lyfe, to perceyver in such good fortune. Whan supper was done,
every man went to his lodgyng with their prisoners: the same night
they put many to raunsome, and beleyved them upon their faythes and
trouthes, and raunsomed them but easily, for they sayde, _they wolde
sette no knyghts raunsom so hygh, but that he might pay at his ease and
mayntaygne still his degree_.

“The same wynter the prince of Wales, and such of Englande as were
with him at Bardeaux, ordayned for shippes, to convey the frenche
king and his son and all other prisoners into Englande. Then he took
the see, and certayne lordes of Gascoyne with hym: the frenche kyng
was in a vessell by hymselfe, to be the more at hys ease, accompanyed
with two hundred men at arms, and two thousand archers: for it was
showed the prince that the thre estates, by whom the realme of France
was governed, had layed in Normandy and Crotoy two great armyes to
the entent to mete with hym, and to gette the frenche kyng out of his
handes if they might: but there were no such that apered, and yet thei
were on the see xi dayes, and on the xii day they aryved at Sandwych;
then they yssued out of their shyppe, and lay there all that nyghte,
and taryed there two dayes to refresh them; and on the therde day
they rode to Canterbury. When the kynge of Englande knew of their
commynge, he commaunded them of London to prepare theym, and their
cyte, to receyve suche a man as the frenche kyng was: then they of
London arrayed themselfe, by companyes, and the chief maisters clothing
different fro the other; at saynt Thomas of Canterbury the frenche
kyng and the prince made their offerynges, and there taryed a day, and
than rode to Rochester, and taryed there that day, and the next day
to Dartforde, and the fourth day to London, wher they were honourably
receyved, and so they were in every good towne as they passed: the
frenche kynge rode through London on a whyte courser, well aparelled,
and the prince on a lyttell black hobbey by hym: thus he was conveyed
along the cyte till he came to the Savoy, the which house pertayned to
the heritage of the duke of Lancaster; there the frenche kynge kept hys
house a long season, and thyder came to se hym the kyng and the quene
ofttimes, and made him great feest and chere.”[128]

It has been said that the Prince’s conduct was too ostentatiously
humble; that in refusing to sit at table with the King of France, and
in making him the principal object of attention in their entry into
London, he exceeded the modesty of a conqueror, and exposed himself
to the charge of hypocrisy. The censure is, we think, erroneous, and
arises from ignorance of the feelings of the times. The humility of the
Black Prince was that of a vassal in presence of his feudal lord, due,
not because he owed allegiance to the King of France, but because that
monarch was the peer of the King of England, and in courtesy entitled,
especially as a visitor, though a forced one, to an equal measure of
respect from his subjects. The victor merely overlooked the fortune
of war, and paid to his royal prisoner the homage which he would have
shown to his father, and which the King of France would have received
from the heir to his own crown.




EXTRACT FROM THE LIFE OF MESSIRE BERTRAND DU GUESCLIN.

(_Referred to in the Note, p. 104._)


“One day the Prince of Wales was risen from dinner, and gone into
a private chamber with his barons, who had been served with wine
and spices. So they began to speak of many a bold deed of arms, of
love–passages, of battles, and of prisons, and how St. Louis to save
his life was made prisoner in Tunis, from whence he was ransomed for
fine gold, paid down by weight. Until the Prince, who spoke without
caution, said, ‘When a good knight well approved in battle is made
prisoner in fair feat of arms, and has rendered himself, and sworn to
abide prisoner, he should on no account depart without his master’s
leave. And also one should not demand such portion of his substance,
that he be unable to equip himself again.’ When the Sire de Lebret
heard these words, he began to take heed, and said to him, ‘Noble Sire,
be not angry with me if I relate what I have heard said of you in your
absence.’ ‘By my faith,’ said the Prince, ‘right little should I love
follower of mine sitting at my table, if he heard said a word against
my honour, and apprised me not of it.’ ‘Sire,’ said he of Lebret, ‘men
say that you hold in prison a knight whose name I well know, whom you
dare not delyver.’ ‘It is true,’ said Oliver de Clisson, ‘I have heard
speak of it.’ Then the Prince swore and boasted, ‘that he knew no
knight in the world, but, if he were his prisoner, he would put him to
a fair ransom, according to his ability.’ And Lebret said, ‘How then do
you forget Bertrand du Guesclin, that he cannot get away?’ And when the
Prince heard this, his colour changed; and he was so tempted by pride,
anger, and disdain, that he commanded Bertrand to be brought before
him; with whom he wished to make terms, in spite of all who had spoken
of the matter, and would fain not let him be ransomed, unless they
themselves should fix the amount. Then certain knights went and found
Bertrand, who, to amuse himself and forget his weariness, was talking
with his chamberlain. Which knights saluted him. And Bertrand arose
towards them, and showed a fair seeming, saying ‘that they were come in
good time.’ Then he ordered the aforesaid chamberlain to bring wine.
The knights answered ‘that it was right fitting they should have much
wine, good and strong; for they brought him good, joyful, and pleasant
news with good will.’ Then one of them who was wise and discreet said,
‘that the Prince sent for him to appear in his presence, and he thought
that he would be ransomed by help of those friends he had at court, who
were many.’ ‘What say you?’ said Bertrand; ‘I have neither halfpenny
nor penny, and owe more than ten thousand livres, that have been lent
me, which debt has accrued in this city while I have been prisoner.’
One of them inquired of him, ‘How have you accounted for so much?’ ‘I
will answer for that,’ said Bertrand; ‘I have eaten, drunk, given,
and played at dice with it. A little money is soon spent. But if I be
set free, I shall soon have paid it: he saves his money, and has it
in good keeping, who shall for my help lend me the keys of it.’ And
an officer who heard him said, ‘Sir, you are stout–hearted, it seems
to you that every thing which you would have must happen.’ ‘By my
faith,’ said Bertrand, ‘you are right, for a dispirited man is nothing
better than beaten and discomfited.’ And the rest said, ‘that he was
like one enchanted, for he was proof against every shock.’ Then he was
brought to the chamber where was the Prince of Wales, and with him John
Chandos, a true and valiant knight. And had they chosen to believe
him, they would long before have disposed of the war: for he gave much
good advice. And also there were Oliver de Clisson and other knights,
before whom came Bertrand, wearing a grey coat. And when the Prince
saw him, he could not keep from laughing, from the time he saw him.
Then he said, ‘Well, Bertrand, how fare you?’ And Bertrand approached
him, bowing a little, and said, ‘Sir, when it shall please you, I may
fare better: many a day have I heard the rats and mice, but the song of
birds it is long since I heard.[129] I shall hear them when it is your
pleasure.’ ‘Bertrand,’ said the Prince, ‘that shall be when you will;
it will depend only on yourself, so that you will swear, and make true
oath, never to bear arms against me, nor these others, nor to assist
Henry of Spain. So soon as you will swear this, we will fully set you
free, and pay that you owe, and besides give 10,000 florins to equip
you anew, if you consent to this; else you shall not go.’ ‘Sire,’ said
Bertrand, ‘my deliverance then will not come to pass; for before I do
so, may I lie by the leg in prison while I live. God willing, I will
never be a reproach to my friends. For by Him who made the world, I
will serve with my whole heart those whom I have served, and whose I
have been from my outset. These are the good King of France, the noble
Dukes of Anjou, of Berry, of Burgundy, and of Bourbon; whose I have
been, as became me. But so please you, suffer me to go. For you have
held me too long in prison, wrongfully and without cause; and I will
tell you how I had gone from France, I and my people meaning to go
against the Saracens. And so I had promised Hugh de Carvalay, intending
to work out my salvation.’ ‘Why then went you not straight without
stopping?’ said the Prince. ‘I will tell you,’ said Bertrand in a loud
voice. ‘We found Peter,—the curse of God confound him! who had long
since thrice falsely murdered his noble Queen, born of the noble line
of Bourbon, and of the blood of my Lord, St. Louis, which lady was
your cousin by the best blood in your body. Straightway then I stopped,
to take vengeance for her, and to help Henry; for well I know, and
surely I believe, that he is the right king and the true heir of Spain.
And also to destroy, and put to an end, Jews and Saracens, of whom
there are too many in these parts. Now through great pride you have
come to Spain to the best of your ability, both through covetousness of
gold and silver, and that you may have the throne after the death of
Peter, who reigns wrongfully, by which journey you have, in the first
place, injured your own blood, and troubled me and my people: whence
it has come to pass, that after you have so ruined your friends, and
you and your people have been all famished, and suffered great pain
and labour, Peter has deceived you by cheating and trickery, for he
has not kept faith nor covenant with you, for which, by my faith, I
thank him heartily.’ When Bertrand had related his reasons, the Prince
rose, and could not help saying that on his soul Bertrand was right,
and the barons said that he had spoken truth. Then was there great
joy stirring all round and about, and they said of Bertrand, one to
another, ‘See there a brave Breton.’ But the Prince called, and said
to him, ‘You shall not escape me without paying a good ransom; and yet
it vexes me that you obtain such favour. But men say that I keep you
prisoner because I fear you; and to the end that every one may cease to
suspect this, and may know that I neither fear nor care for you, I will
deliver you on payment of sufficient ransom.’ ‘Sir,’ said Bertrand,
‘I am a poor knight of little name, and not so born as that I should
find help in plenty. And besides, my estate is mortgaged for purchase
of war–horses, and also I owe in this town full ten thousand florins.
Be moderate, therefore, and deliver, me.’ ‘Where will you go, fair
Sir?’ said the Prince. ‘Sir,’ said Bertrand, ‘I will go where I may
regain my loss, and more I say not.’ ‘Consider then,’ said the Prince,
‘what ransom you will give me: for what you will shall be enough for
me.’ ‘Sir,’ said Bertrand, ‘I trust you will not stoop to retract your
meaning. And since you are content to refer it to my pleasure, I ought
not to value myself too low. So I will give and engage for my freedom
one hundred thousand double golden florins.’ And when the Prince heard
him his colour changed, and he looked round at his knights, saying,
‘Does he mean to make game of me that he offers such a sum? for I
would gladly quit him for the quarter.’ ‘Bertrand,’ said he, ‘neither
can you pay it, nor do I wish such a sum; so consider again.’ ‘Sire,’
said Bertrand, ‘since you will not so much, I place myself at sixty
thousand double florins; you shall not have less, sobeit you will
discharge me.’ ‘Well,’ said the Prince, ‘I agree to it.’ Then said
Bertrand loudly, ‘Sir, Prince Henry may well and truly vaunt that he
will die King of Spain, cost him what it may, and he will lend me one
half my ransom, and the King of France the other; and if I can neither
go nor send to these two, I would get all the spinstresses in France to
spin it rather than that I should remain longer in your hands.’[130]
And when the Prince had heard him he thus said: ‘What sort of man is
this? He startles at nothing, either in act or thought, no more than
if he had all the gold which is in the world. He has set himself at
sixty thousand double florins, and I would willingly have quitted him
for ten thousand.’ And all the barons also marvelled greatly. ‘Am I
then at liberty?’ said the gallant Bertrand. And Chandos asked him
whence the money should come. ‘Sir,’ said he, ‘I have good friends, as
I shall find, I am certain.’ ‘By my faith,’ said Chandos, ‘I am much
rejoiced therefore, and if you have need of my help, thus much I say,
I will lend you ten thousand.’ ‘Sir,’ said Bertrand, ‘I thank you. But
before I seek anything of you I will try the people of my own country.’
The news of this matter went through the city of Bordeaux. There you
might see all persons, great and small, citizens, and artisans of all
sorts, run towards the mansion of the Prince to see Bertrand. And
when the Prince’s knights saw the people assemble thus, and knew the
cause of their coming, they brought the said Bertrand to lean out at
a window, who laughed heartily at the matter. And when the commoners
saw him from a distance, they said, ‘He is a downright enemy! cursed
be the hour that he escapes alive. He h

Showing first 200,000 characters. Full text: gutenberg.org/ebooks/47302