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 SKETCHES 
 
 FROM 
 
 ENGLISH HISTORY, 
 
 SELECTED AND EDITED 
 
 WITH AN 
 
 INTRODUCTION, 
 
 (FROM THE ROMAN CONQUEST TO THE REVOLUTION OF 1688.) 
 
 ARTHUR M. WHEELER, 
 
 PROFESSOR OF HISTORY IN YALE COLLEGE. 
 
 TWO PARTS IN ONE VOLUME. 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 PHILLIPS <fc HUNT. 
 
 CRA A'S T N d- ,S' 7 O 1C K. 
 
 1886.
 
 COPYRIGHT 1886, BY 
 
 NEW YORK.
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 THE history of England really begins with the conquest of the 
 island of Britain, in the fifth and sixth centuries of our era, by some 
 German tribes known as the Jutes, the Saxons, and the Angles 
 the last ultimately giving their name to the whole country Angle- 
 land, Engla-land, England. It is necessary, however, to go back a 
 little in order to understand the condition of both the conquered and 
 conquerors at the time of the invasion. 
 
 Britain, at the opening of its history, was inhabited by the Celts, a 
 race which, at that time, was spread over a large portion of western 
 Europe. During the first century of the Christian era, the greater 
 part of it was conquered by the Romans, and was held by them as a 
 province of the empire for about three hundred and fifty years. In 
 spite of this long occupation, however, the Roman civilization did not 
 strike deep root in the island. Perhaps because it was her latest 
 conquest in the west, perhaps because she did not find it worth her 
 while to make the effort, Rome, in fact, never succeeded in incorpo- 
 rating the Celts of Britain into her system, as she had succeeded in 
 incorporating the Celts of Gaul. The inhabitants of Britain, while 
 they accepted Christianity, the religion of the conquerors, and sub- 
 mitted to the Roman rule, kept for the most part their native cus- 
 toms, and above all their native speech, which is still spoken in some 
 portions of the island. When Rome, pressed by dangers nearer 
 home, was compelled to withdraw her army from Britain, about the 
 year 402, the Romanized Britons were left to defend themselves. 
 They succeeded in maintaining their independence for a time ; but, 
 long accustomed as they had been to rely on foreign protection, and 
 apparently without any national organization, they were unable to re- 
 sist either the attacks of the Pictsfrom the north, who had never come 
 under the Roman sway, or the inroads of the German tribes from the 
 east. The latter proved to be the more dangerous, and, in the end, 
 the successful enemy. 
 
 The German invaders came from the Baltic lands lying about the 
 mouths of the Elbe and the Weser. They were heathen, and, unlike 
 their brethren who invaded the continental provinces of Rome, they had 
 never been brought into contact with the Roman civilization. They 
 had, therefore, no reverence either for the religion or the institutions 
 which they found in Britain ; and, as the Britons, though unorgan-
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 ized, were brave, and defended their homes with the greatest obsti- 
 nacy, the war was necessarily a war of extermination. The invaders 
 were forced to win the land bit by bit by hard fighting. They destroyed 
 cities, and towns, and churches; the natives were either driven back 
 or killed ; and the Roman civilization was obliterated. The English 
 conquest, as far as it extended, was a well-nigh complete displace- 
 ment of one people by another. 
 
 Thus, during a century and a half (449-600) the invaders succeeded 
 in establishing a number of petty states on the soil of Britain, seven 
 or eight of which soon became prominent. They retained their own 
 language, they brought with them their own laws and customs, and, 
 excepting such modifications as were necessary in consequence of 
 their new surroundings, they organized themselves in their new home 
 as they had been organized in the old one. A king at the head ; 
 local assemblies for local purposes, general assemblies for general 
 purposes, each of which all freemen of each tribe or state had the 
 right to attend ; an armed force made up of all freemen capable of 
 bearing arms ; these were the general features of their organization 
 (see p. 32, ff.). It contained nearly all the germs of the later system 
 of self-government, and its development has been continuous from 
 that day to this. 
 
 At the close of the sixth century the Britons still held all of the 
 land beyond the Forth, and a belt of territory extending up the 
 western coast ; the rest of the country was in the hands of the in- 
 truders. And now a change began which was to exert a vast influ- 
 ence on the destinies of England. This was the conversion of the 
 heathen English to Christianity. 
 
 The work of conversion was accomplished in the south by mission- 
 aries from the Church of Rome, and in the north by missionaries 
 from the Irish Church. There were some ritualistic differences 
 between the two Churches which, however, were happily adjusted at 
 the synod of Whitby (664), where the Roman influence prevailed ; 
 and, five years later. Archbishop Theodore began the ecclesiastical 
 organization of the country on the Roman model, and "converted 
 what had been a missionary station into an established Church." 
 England thus acquired ecclesiastical unity as a daughter of the 
 Church of Rome, and was brought through her into direct contact 
 with all the civilization and culture of the time. Moreover, the exam- 
 ple of unity in the Church had a direct influence in bringing about 
 unity in the state. It was impossible that so many petty kingdoms, 
 without natural boundaries, should long remain independent ; the 
 work of consolidation began early, and, helped by the example of 
 the Church, was continued with varying success until Ecgberht, king 
 of Wessex (800-839), succeeded in extending his authority over all the 
 English-speaking peoples of the island. 
 
 But the work of consolidation was still incomplete when the coun- 
 try was confronted with a new and formidable danger. The Danes,
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 or Northmen, who were of the same German stock ns th'e English, 
 hut who were still heathen, and but little farther advanced in civiliza- 
 tion than the English had been three hundred years before, had earlier 
 begun their terrible inroads, and now came in ever-increasing num- 
 bers. They devastated the north and center of the country with fire 
 and sword, and even broke into Wessex itself. It seemed as if the 
 new Church and State in England were to go down before this fresh 
 onslaught of heathenism, when, in the very crisis of peril, King Alfred 
 appeared. He could not drive out the Danes, but he succeeded in 
 re-establishing the boundaries of Wessex, and, by abandoning to the 
 intruders nearly half of England, induced them to make peace (878). 
 The Danish leader, Guthrum, embraced the Christian faith, and his 
 example was soon imitated by his followers. The successors of 
 Alfred on the West Saxon throne set to work to recover the lost 
 supremacy. Their progress was slow, but in the end they succeeded. 
 The peace and prosperity of Eadgar's reign (959-975) was largely due 
 to Dunstan's wise and vigorous administration, but also to the fact 
 that there had been no tresh Danish inroads for nearly a century 
 because the Danish energies had been directed elsewhere. 
 
 Thus far, aside from the general devastation and misery they had 
 caused, the "chief result of the Danish invasions had been to check 
 the growth of English unity, and to interrupt the progress of educa- 
 tion and culture. Now the Danish settlers were gradually absorbed 
 by the larger English population, without adding much to the strength 
 oi" the nation. Meanwhile, however, in Skanclinavia, the home of the 
 Northmen, the same process of unification and consolidation had 
 been going on which had earlier taken place in England itself. Great, 
 kings had risen to power there, and the petty leaders who opposed 
 the national movement were forced to seek refuge in other lands. 
 The isolated attacks on England began again, but they soon passed 
 under the control of Swegen, the king of all Denmark, who now 
 attempted the conquest of England. After many failures he suc- 
 ceeded. The weak king, yEthelred the Unready, was driven out, 
 Swegen was accepted as king by the English people, and handed on 
 his power to his son Cnut. The reign of Cnut was of great political 
 importance, " because it produced, on a small scale, the same tenden- 
 cies which were to be developed on a large scale by the Norman con- 
 quest ;" but the misrule and the early death of his two sons led to the res- 
 toration of the old West Saxon line of kings in Eadward the Confessor. 
 
 England was now to be brought into closer contact with the land 
 and the people that were destined to exert such a vast influence upon 
 her future. The Normans or Northmen, of the same race as the 
 Danes and the English, had conquered Normandy, a province of 
 V ranee, about one hundred and fifty years be.bre this time. They 
 had speedily accepted the religion, the language, and the institutions 
 of the conquered province, were now farther advanced in civilization 
 than their English neighbors, and were noted lor their energy, their
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 boldness, tlieir love of war and of distant foreign enterprises. Their 
 present duke, William, had been left, at the death of his father, a boy 
 of eight years of age, in circumstances of great difficulty and danger, 
 out of which he had extricated himself with rare ability, and he had 
 already won a European reputation by the vigor and wisdom of his 
 rule. He was second cousin to the new English king. Eadward him- 
 self had spent his earlier years at the Norman court, where he had 
 acquired strong predilections for French ways of thinking and living, 
 and it was natural, now that he was on the throne, that he should 
 surround himself with French influences by appointing Normans to 
 high offices in Church and State. Opposed to this foreign tendency 
 stood the national party headed by Earl Godwine, whose daughter the 
 king had married. The fact that Eadward was childless, and that the 
 only direct heir to the crown was an exile, living in remote Hungary, 
 doubtless suggested to the ambitious duke of the Normans the idea 
 that he might, one day, add a royal crown to his ducal coronet. He 
 visited England in 1051, and is said to have received from Eadward 
 the assurance that he should be his successor. Such a promise, how- 
 ever, Eadward had no right to make. The disposal of the crown was 
 in the hands of the national assembly of wise men the Witenage- 
 mot. William's sole rival was Godwine's son, Earl Harold, who, 
 since his father's death, had become the first subject in the land. 
 Chance placed him, later, in William's power for a time, and the 
 duke did not release him until he had exacted from him a pledge 
 made, if Norman writers are to be believed, in the most solemn form, 
 that he would marry William's daughter, and support his claim to 
 the English throne. At the death of Eadward (January, 1066) the 
 national assembly promptly chose Earl Harold as king. William at 
 once proclaimed Harold as a perjurer ; by adroit representations he 
 succeeded in making men believe that he had been defrauded of his 
 rights ; he persuaded his Norman nobles to assist him in recovering 
 what he represented as his own ; at his call volunteers from many 
 lands Hocked to his standard ; he even obtained the papal sanction to 
 his enterprise ; and, in September, 1066, he landed, at the head of a 
 large army, on the English coast. 
 
 The moment was opportune. The English fleet, which had been 
 watching his movements all the summer, had temporarily retired, and 
 Harold, himself, was in the north engaged in repelling a dangerous 
 attack headed by his rebellious brother and the Norwegian king. At 
 the news of William's landing he hurried southward, gathering his 
 forces as he went, and met his rival on the hill of Senlac. The terri- 
 ble battle which was fought there, lasting all day, in which Harold, 
 two of his brothers, and the chief of the English nobility were slain, 
 practically decided the fate of England. 
 
 The immediate changes wrought by the Norman conquest were 
 few, yet of immense significance. As the new king claimed to be the 
 legitimate successor ol Eadward, he could treat all those who had op-
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 posed him as rebels and traitors. The vast estates of Harold and 
 his supporters were, therefore, confiscated, and were either held by 
 William or bestowed upon the chiefs of his army ; and within a 
 few years all the high offices in Church and State were in the hands 
 of Normans. The classes that had hitherto ruled in England 
 were thus forced to take a subordinate position, and that change, of 
 itself, was pregnant with meaning to the English people. But a still 
 greater change was in the spirit and tone of the new order of things, 
 a change which grew out of the personal views and character of the 
 new sovereign. William regarded kingship as a possession rather 
 than as an office, and the kingdom as a private estate to be managed 
 primarily in the interests of the king rather than as a trust to be ad- 
 ministered for the good of the nation. But the old laws were con- 
 tinued in force, and under them the rights of the conquered were 
 strictly maintained ; the old institutions were preserved, and were 
 modified only so far as the conqueror thought necessary in order to 
 establish a strong centralized government, which was the great need 
 of the time. 
 
 The indirect influence of the conquest can be traced in all the sub- 
 sequent history of the country. It made itself felt in manifold ways 
 on the judicial, legislative, and administrative systems, on foreign and 
 ecclesiastical relations, on language, literature, architecture, and so- 
 ciety. The energy and vigor infused by the Norman nobles into the 
 English people prevented them from falling into a state of stagnation 
 and isolation toward which they were tending, and ultimately enabled 
 them to recover the liberties which they had temporarily lost. 
 
 Under the Conqueror Normandy was naturally regarded as the 
 chief possession, and England as a dependency ; under his sons this 
 relation was reversed. The kingdom became the basis of their pow- 
 er, and the duchy an appendage of the English crown. In the dis- 
 putes with their brother Robert, as well as in their conflicts with the 
 turbulent feudal nobility, both the Red King and the first Henry re- 
 lied for support upon the conquered English. Henry, who was born 
 in England, strengthened his position among the conquered race by 
 marrying an English wife, and in all his measures showed a deter- 
 mination to mete out strict justice to Norman and Englishman alike. 
 His chief aim, like that of his father, was to build up and extend the 
 royal authority, and to make its influence felt in every corner of the 
 land. The imperative need of such an authority was made more 
 manifest than ever by the anarchy of Stephen's reign. At the close 
 of that terrible score of years, so full of confusion and bloodshed, all 
 men in England who loved law and order were ready to join hands in 
 hearty support of the new sovereign. Fortunately Henry the Second 
 was in many ways eminently qualified for his high position. The gen- 
 eral success of his administration stamps him as a man who was born 
 to rule. He destroyed a great multitude of the feudal castles which 
 had been illegally erected and were centers of oppression. He dimin-
 
 8 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 ished the military strength of the nobles by his law of scutage, which 
 allowed them to substitute a money payment in place of the personal 
 service in the field, which they were bound to render as the condition 
 on which they held their lands. By his assize of arms he revived 
 and reorganized the old English militia system, and made it an effect- 
 ive means of national defense. He sent out his judges, at regular 
 intervals, to hold court in every county, thus securing to all his sub- 
 jects a uniform, cheap, and prompt administration of justice. He 
 revolutionized the methods of judicial procedure then in vogue by 
 substituting the sworn testimony of twelve men, both in civil and 
 criminal cases, for the crude and clumsy ordeal and trial by battle. 
 He failed, indeed, to gain the points at issue in the quarrel with Beck- 
 et, yet the contest aroused a spirit in the nation which proved fatal 
 to papal claims and exactions in the later years. In all these meas- 
 ures Henry seems to have had the steady support and sympathy of 
 the great mass of the people. It is evident that all distinctions of 
 race were rapidly disappearing. The nobles, themselves, began to 
 feel that they were Englishmen, and that their interests lay chiefly in 
 England. Henry's system, with their support, proved strong enough 
 to bear the strain to which it was subjected during the reign of the 
 absentee Richard, and, a few years later, we see the descendants of 
 the men who had fought for the Conqueror uniting with the con- 
 quered race to wrest the Great Charter from the tyrant John. 
 
 The Great Charter, at the time it received the royal signature, was 
 the supreme constitutional effort of the nation. Clergy and laymen, 
 nobles and commoners, had united to obtain it, It embodied all that 
 men had regarded as good law and custom for -the last hundred 
 years. It was direct and practical, free from political abstractions, 
 designed to meet wants which actually existed or which were likely 
 to arise in the immediate future. The fact that it was afterward so 
 otten appealed to, and so often re-affirmed, proves that it was, on the 
 whole, well adapted to accomplish the objects which its framers had 
 in view. Yet it did not, and could not, in the very nature of the case, 
 embody a complete constitutional system. The political machinery 
 for such a system did not then exist. The highest judicial, legisla- 
 tive, and administrative body in the land was the king's council, which 
 was composed exclusively of the higher clergy and the baronage. 
 These were the men who framed the Charter, and it did not enter their 
 thoughts to change the composition and character of their own as- 
 sembly. Just then their interests coincided with those of the nation ; 
 but the time might come when, under other circumstances and influ- 
 ences, they might combine with the king against the liberties of the 
 people. If the nation was ever to govern itself, it must have a really 
 national assembly through which it could act, one in which all class- 
 es should be represented, in which chosen men from the shires and 
 from the cities and boroughs should be associated with the higher 
 clergy and the baronage ; in a word, it must have a Parliament.
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 The principle of representation had long been familiar to the En- 
 glish mind. It had been applied for ages in the local assemblies, in 
 shire court and hundred court, and therefore it was now compara- 
 tively easy to extend it to the national assembly. Already, on rare 
 occasions, the shires, and, again, the cities and boroughs, had been 
 summoned to send chosen men to the king to consult with him and 
 his council ; but the great merit of having, for the first time, united 
 all the elements of the future Parliament prelates, nobles, knights, 
 citizens, and burgesses in one assembly belongs to Earl Simon de 
 Montfort. The famous body which he summoned in 1265 was not, 
 however, a complete Parliament. Besides being imperfect in the 
 mode of summons, it was made up chiefly of the earl's supporters, 
 and, moreover, was called in opposition to the king ; it was a revolu- 
 tionary rather than a legal body. A national Parliament, if it was 
 ever to become a permanent feature of the constitutional system, 
 must, necessarily, have the sanction of the king as the constitutional 
 head. But De Montfort's example was not forgotten. Thirty years 
 later (1295) the work which he had left unfinished was completed by 
 King Edward I. 
 
 In yielding to the demand for a national Parliament Edward proved 
 himself a really great as well as a thoroughly English king. That 
 his action was prompted largely by his pecuniary necessities does not 
 detract trom his greatness. He knew that it would be impossible to 
 accomplish the great enterprises he had in hand without the hearty 
 support of the entire nation, and he clearly saw that the best and 
 simplest way to gain that support was through an assembly in which 
 all classes ot the nation were represented. A little later, when under 
 still greater pecuniary stress, he yielded to the Parliament the sole 
 right of taxation, and thus placed in its hands a perpetual check on 
 the power of the crown. 
 
 At the close of his reign Parliament consisted of one assembly; in 
 the course of a generation it divided into two. The prelates and bar- 
 ons united to form the House of Lords, the other component parts 
 crystallized into the House of Commons. That the knights of the 
 shire, that is, the country gentlemen, coalesced with the citizens and 
 burgesses the trading classes rather than with the barons, with 
 whom they were much more closely connected by birth and social 
 position, was due, far more than to any other one cause, to the fact 
 that they had, for ages, acted with the citizens and burgesses in the 
 local assemblies. Their political union with the classes below them 
 gave to the House of Commons a dignity and importance which it 
 cou.d not otherwise have acquired. The Parliament thus constituted 
 suon made its influence felt in all departments of the government, and, 
 in a few years, we see it exercising the highest of parliamentary func- 
 tions, that of deposing the king (Edward II.). 
 
 In the next reign the nation, at length conscious of its unity, 
 plunged into a war with France. The war was a truly national one, 
 1*
 
 io INTRODUCTION. 
 
 although it was conducted by a sovereign who was half French by 
 birth, and who was under the influence of French ideas (Edward 
 III.). Since the days of the Conqueror, the situation had been com- 
 pletely reversed. Then a French people had conquered England ; 
 now the English nation goes forth to the conquest of France. The 
 great successes of the war (Crecy and Poitiers) were won by the 
 English archers, who were drawn from the middle classes. It was 
 only natural that these classes should claim, as a reward for such 
 service, a larger share in the government of the country. The in- 
 fluence of the Parliament, and especially of the Lower House, 
 steadily increased. Besides the right of taxation, it acquired a voice 
 in general legislation and in all affairs of state. It obtained control 
 over the appointment of the king's ministers ; it acquired the right 
 of appropriating money to specific objects, and of examining into the 
 public accounts. It established the principle that no law was valid 
 without its own consent ; it surrounded itself with a code of rules to 
 guide its conduct ; it made itself an integrant part of the constitu- 
 tional system ; and soon, for the second time within three quarters of 
 a century, it exercised a paramount authority in the deposition of an 
 intractable king (Richard II.). 
 
 As Henry IV., the first of the Lancastrian kings, owed his crown 
 to an act of Parliament, it was inevitable that, under him, that body 
 should establish more firmly the great powers it had already ac- 
 quired. In a certain sense, the Parliament was now complete ; it was 
 invested with all the authority which it wields to-day, and in some 
 respects its influence was, perhaps, more potent because more direct. 
 But the Parliament was essentially an aristocratic body. The 
 balance of power lay in the Upper House, which was composed 
 exclusively of the great land-holders; and in the Lower House the 
 land-holding interest, represented by the country gentlemen (knights 
 of the shire), was largely predominant. The representatives of the 
 trading classes were overawed by their aristocratic associates. The 
 towns, indeed, were rapidly growing in importance, but in them the 
 tendency was toward the formation of an aristocracy of wealth which 
 was gathering into its own hands whatever political power and 
 influence the towns possessed. At this stage of parliamentary 
 development, then, the lower half of the nation was without any 
 direct representation in the national assembly. 
 
 Moreover, causes were now at work which tended to increase the 
 political influence of the great land-holders. Wool-growing had long 
 been one of the leading industries of the country. From the time of 
 Edward I. the woolen mills of Flanders 'had drawn their supply of 
 the raw material, to a great extent, from England. In the reign 
 of Edward III. a terrible pestilence swept away more than half of the 
 laboring population. Owing to the consequent scarcity of labor, the 
 rate of wages rose so high that the great land-holders preferred to 
 turn those portions of their lands which had been under tillage into
 
 INTRODUCTION. n 
 
 pasturage for sheep, since sheep-farms could he managed with com- 
 paratively few laborers. The large class of laborers who had 
 hitherto gained a living by tilling the great estates of the nobles 
 were now turned adrift to become vagabonds and beggars. Further- 
 more, the profits of wool-growing tempted the nobles to add to their 
 already vast estates by buying up small farms, and by fencing in the 
 great tracts of common lands adjoining their properties, from which 
 the peasantry had drawn, in part, their subsistence. The peasants, 
 cut off from their means of livelihood, oppressed by harsh laws, and 
 inflamed by the preaching of some of Wyclifs followers, rose in re- 
 volt. But the insurrection was crushed ; the nobles retained all 
 they had, and, moreover, they secured the enactment of laws which 
 guaranteed to them the hereditary possession of their enormous 
 estates intact. Their power was now disproportionately great, and 
 might have proved destructive to the constitutional system, had it 
 not been greatly diminished by subsequent events. 
 
 Henry V. renewed the struggle with the old enemy across the 
 Channel. Though the war was utterly unjust, and though it could 
 not be successful in the end, yet, as the king was popular, the nation 
 obeyed his call. For many years the energies of England were ex- 
 pended in a vain attempt to effect the conquest of France. So long 
 as Henry lived, his military genius and his statesmanship made the war 
 a succession of triumphs; hut, soon after his death (1422), in spite 
 of the great ability of his brother, the duke of Bedford, it took a dis- 
 astrous turn. At last the French had found a leader in the Maid of 
 Orleans. The spirit of nationality awoke among them ; and the 
 English, though fighting desperately, were steadily forced back, and 
 at length driven from the country. The leaders with their large 
 bands of lawless retainers returned home demoralized by a war 
 which they had entered into for plunder and glory, and thorough- 
 ly disappointed at its failure. It was natural that the House of 
 Lancaster, now represented by the weak and unfortunate Henry VI., 
 should be held responsible for the disasters which had overtaken the 
 English arms. The government was also intensely unpopular on 
 other grounds; and now the rival claim of the House of York, 
 which had lain dormant for fifty years, was revived by Richard, duke 
 of York, the most popular nobleman of his day ; and the partisans 
 of the two claimants soon began an open conflict, which lasted, with 
 short intervals of truce, for thirty years. When the struggle ended, 
 it was found that the balance of the constitution was changed ; the 
 old nobility had been nearly destroyed; their vast estates had been 
 confiscated to the crown, and the remnant of the baronage was un- 
 able to offer any effectual resistance to the arbitrary power of the 
 sovereign. Moreover, the Church, which, in the earlier ages, had 
 often helped to keep the royal authority in check, had lost her hold 
 upon the nation ; and, no longer able to rely for support upon the 
 papacy, whose influence, especially in England, had been steadily de-
 
 12 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 dining, she now, in order to retain her great possessions, allied her- 
 self with the king. The only remaining harrier was the Commons ; 
 but they, too, had lost ground during the civil war, and were now 
 too weak to battle alone successfully with the crown. The nation, 
 too, was weary of strife, and ready to welcome a strong centralized 
 government. Thus the ground was prepared for the practically un- 
 limited despotism of the first two Tudors. 
 
 The sovereigns of the Tudor line were unquestionably gifted ; they 
 all showed far more than the average ability of princely houses. 
 Though differing widely in personal appearance and personal char- 
 acteristics, they all had the same inexorable will, the same irresistible 
 impulse to rule as autocrats; and they all showed, though in unequal 
 degree, a marvelous skill in recognizing and using the moments when 
 their own personal interests and wishes coincided with those of the 
 nation. At the close of the mediaeval period they found England 
 prostrate, suffering terribly from the effects of civil war, near to in- 
 ward dissolution ; without influence abroad, and threatened on her 
 northern border with a ruinous invasion from Scotland, whom she 
 had so often made to tremble. They left to the Stuarts a kingdom 
 strengthened and developed internally in every direction, freed from 
 its subjugation to Rome, in union with Scotland, on the high road 
 to the formation ot the British Empire of our day, while on the Con- 
 tinent it had set limits to the imperious ambition of the great Spanish 
 monarchy, and had laid, both in the east and in the west, the foun- 
 dations of its colonial greatness. Much of this wondrous change 
 was certainly due to general causes which were working every-wheie 
 in Europe during the i6th century to the revival of learning, the 
 invention of printing, and of the mariner's compass but much, also, 
 was due to the energy, the ability, the fostering care, the tack and skill 
 of the Tudor sovereigns. 
 
 For England the central fact of the period was the great political 
 and religious revolution which brought about her separation from 
 the Church of Rome. Whatever the motives of Henry VIII. may 
 have been, and some of them were certainly base, he could never 
 have Accomplished such a work, had it not been for the deep-seated 
 and wide-spread feeling of dissatisfaction toward Rome which had 
 existed for ages among the English people. The opposition to Rome 
 had begun away back in the days of the Red King, and had mani- 
 fested itself in a long series of statutes against papal exactions and 
 aggressions. Wyclif, in his day, had struck the key-note of English 
 feeling in his attack upon the organization and discipline ot the 
 Church, and, though the nation was not ready to follow him in his 
 attack upon her doctrines, yet the example he had set was not for- 
 gotten. The opposition was intensified rather by the alliance of the 
 papacy with France during a portion of the Hundred Years' War, by 
 the growing corruption of the clergy, by their enormous and, in part, 
 ill-gotten wealth, and l>y the fact that, although they maintained all
 
 INTRODUCTION. 13 
 
 their high pretensions, they had ceased to perform conscientiously 
 and fully the duties of their office. The English clergy stood as a 
 body by itself, divorced from the nation, and owing allegiance pri- 
 marily to a foreign power. The antagonism between Church and 
 State in England had reached its limit. 
 
 Henry now made use of this situation in order to accomplish his 
 own objects and in his own way. But reckless as he was by nature, 
 and intense as his personal interest was in the dispute with Pope 
 Clement VII. over the divorce question, he moved forward slowly, 
 and cautiously felt his way. More than six years elapsed after the 
 divorce was first mooted, before final action was taken on his side. 
 The succession of measures which severed the connection with 
 Rome and broke up the monastic system in England met with sur- 
 prisingly little opposition, and that was easily crushed. The nation 
 looked on in silence while blow after blow was struck at the papal 
 supremacy. The Parliament acquiesced in every thing, even in the 
 most despotic measures of the king; its power seemed to be in 
 abeyance. The new nobles, in fact, were entirely dependent on the 
 sovereign; and, moreover, they were soon gorged with the plunder 
 of the monasteries, and so were bound by the strongest tie, that of 
 self-interest, to the new regime. The Commons, even if they wished 
 to oppose, were too weak to do so ; they were apparently content to 
 merely preserve the constitutional lotms out of which the spirit had 
 temporarily vanished. Henry, however, made no important changes 
 in the doctrines of the old Church. The ecclesiastical system which 
 he established was simply " popery without the pope ; " or, rather, it 
 was popery with himself as pope. He gave, indeed, the English Bible 
 to his subjects, but he himself was to be its interpreter. As the 
 creed of the prince so the creed of the people was a principle some- 
 what widely accepted in those days ; but Henry was the first secular 
 prince, and also the last, who arrogated to himself the sole right of shap- 
 ing the creed. It was impossible that such a state of things should 
 continue long. It was certain that the nation would either go forward 
 or go back. Though the king arranged in his will to perpetuate his 
 system, the will was broken before he was in his grave. Under his 
 son doctrinal changes followed each other in quick succession. Un- 
 der his daughter Mary the nation swung back, for a brief period, to 
 the old faith ; it had not yet fully made up its mind. But under Eliz- 
 abeth it again moved onward, and within a year after her accession 
 the new creed assumed definite shape, and the Church of England 
 was separated, forever, as it proved, from the Church of Rome. 
 
 The English Church was now the State Church, established by law, 
 and, in theory, the whole nation was included in it ; but, in fact, the 
 Catholics, who still composed nearly half of the nation, already stood 
 outside of it ; and within it there was a small, but growing, opposi- 
 tion party the later Puritans who advocated still further change. 
 Between these two extremes the government of Elizabeth attempted
 
 14 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 to steer a middle course, and to make the Catholics and Puritans con- 
 form to the established system. The principle of toleration was then 
 acknowledged by no sect or party. The mediaeval, idea that Church 
 and State were inseparable, that those who stood outside of the one 
 stood outside of the other, and were, therefore, not only heretics, but 
 also rebels and traitors, was still preValent in the minds of men. In 
 attempting to enforce conformity, the ministers of Elizabeth were 
 acting in accordance with the accepted ideas of the age. But neither 
 the English Catholics nor the Church of Rome were inclined to 
 accept the situation and give up the struggle. They still hoped that 
 England might yet be recovered to the papal see, and the temptation 
 to undertake its recovery was well-nigh irresistible. Elizabeth stood 
 alone, the last of her race in the direct line. In the eyes of the Cath- 
 olics her title was worthless. They regarded her Catholic rival, 
 Mary Stuart, as the rightful queen. To dethrone Elizabeth and put 
 Mary in her place seemed to them simple and feasible, and the most 
 direct way to secure the restoration of Catholicism in England. The 
 personal rivalry between the two queens soon divided the nation, 
 and ultimately broadened out into a struggle between Protestant 
 England and Catholic Europe, a struggle which was brought to a 
 close by the execution of Mary and the defeat of the Armada. 
 
 Meanwhile the Puritans had been increasing in numbers and influ- 
 ence. They did not at first propose to go out of the established 
 Church, but, remaining in it, to introduce a simpler and, in their view, 
 a purer form of worship. Possibly, if a few concessions as to out- 
 ward forms and ceremonies had been promptly made, a schism might 
 have been prevented. But the government showed an uncompro- 
 mising spirit, and the Puritans passed from outward forms to attack 
 the very basis of the established Church. They denied the right of 
 the State to coerce in matters of religion. They formed separate 
 assemblies, and at length organized separate Churches, worshiping 
 in their own way, and growing apace in spite of penal laws. They 
 began to appear in considerable numbers in the House of Commons, 
 and their influence in that body was relatively all the greater because 
 the Catholics had already been, by law, excluded from it. Since the 
 days of Henry VIII. the Commons had been gradually recovering 
 their lost prestige and power. Their growing importance is evi- 
 denced by the various devices to which the government resorted to 
 keep them under control. The Puritan element added largely to 
 their strength, for the Puritans, unlike the Anglicans, thoroughly 
 believed in the right and duty of resisting the encroachments of 
 arbitrary power. They often came into collision with Elizabeth, but 
 she never allowed a quarrel to go too far; her unerring tact told her 
 when and how to yield. Above all, she never challenged them to a 
 combat over the disputed ground. Moreover, she was greatly beloved, 
 and the Commons themselves, now that she was growing old, were 
 not inclined to force her hand. But they stood ready, as soon as the
 
 INTRODUCTION. 15 
 
 grave closed over her, to assert and maintain their rights and privi- 
 leges against her successor. 
 
 James met the Commons with the peculiarly Stuart doctrine of the 
 divine right of kings. That doctrine was the cardinal point in his 
 political creed. He also firmly believed that the Established Church 
 was an indispensable support of the monarchy. " No bishop, no 
 king," was his favorite saying. He told the Puritan clergy that they 
 must conform, or he would harry them out of the land. He told the 
 Commons that his prerogative was above the law, and could not be 
 touched ; that their so-called rights and privileges were merely mat- 
 ters of grace, conceded to them by former sovereigns, and revocable 
 at his pleasure. He forbade them to meddle with affairs of state, as 
 these were matters too high for their comprehension. He presumed 
 to tax the country without the authority of Parliament, and he pur- 
 sued a foreign policy which he knew to be highly distasteful to the 
 nation. By dismissing Chief-Justice Coke, the greatest lawyer of his 
 day, from his high position, because he showed a spirit of independ- 
 ence, he taught the judges that he would brook no opposition from 
 them. He silenced the bar by imprisoning some of its most promi- 
 nent members, and he alienated the House of Lords, which had 
 regained a portion of its earlier power, by a wanton attack upon its 
 rights. And withal, in sharp contrast with his lofty pretensions and 
 arbitrary acts, he was defective in body and mind, lacking in courage, 
 low in his tastes, and thoroughly unkingly in all his ways. 
 
 Among all the natural and constitutional barriers which then existed 
 against the power of the crown the church, the bench, the bar, the 
 House of Lords, and the House of Commons the last was the only 
 one that had both the ability and the inclinaiion to offer any effectual 
 resistance. The Commons met the encroachments of James with 
 becoming spirit ; they protested in firm, but temperate, language, and 
 in a thoroughly loyal tone, against his violations of their privileges 
 and of the rights of the nation. They successfully asserted their 
 right to withhold grants of money until grievances were redressed ; 
 they impeached two of his ministers; and in other points they man- 
 aged to hold their own against James. But in his son, Charles I., 
 they had to deal with a far more dangerous antagonist. In him they 
 found a man who, though conscientious in private life, was, in all his 
 public acts, and especially in his dealings with his Parliaments, false 
 to the core; who was capable of making a solemn public promise, 
 of putting his name to a statute, without any realizing sense of the 
 moral obligation thus assumed. They found it impossible to control 
 such a king by strictly constitutional means ; and, as he persisted in 
 his arbitrary courses, and, as the conflict between him and them 
 developed, they were fairly forced to encroach on his lawful preroga- 
 tive, to make him harmless by depriving him even of those powers 
 which a constitutional king ought to wield. In the first three Parlia- 
 ments of the reign which were called, quarreled with, and dissolved in
 
 16 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 quick succession, and in the fourth, which came together after a long 
 interval of arbitrary power, the Commons presented a united front 
 against the king. Even in the famous Long Parliament itself, which 
 met when the situation was already revolutionary, they at first stood to- 
 gether as one man in the assertion of their rights. The attainder of 
 Strafforcl (May, 1641) was the first measure on which the House divided, 
 and on that there was only a small minority in favor of the earl. But 
 from this time on, the minority steadily increased. In revolutions, 
 men and parties are generally driven beyond the goal at which they 
 originally aimed. In this revolution the Commons had started with 
 the idea of compelling the king to exerci.se his sovereign power within 
 constitutional limits, and now, whether they were, distinctly conscious 
 of it or not, they were, in reality, seeking to transfer the sovereign 
 power to themselves. This they regarded as the only way in which 
 they could secure the nation's liberties against such an inveterate 
 cozener as Charles. They had already shorn him of much of his 
 prerogative, and when they now proceeded to take away the rest, 
 and make him a king merely in name, many of those who had 
 hitherto acted with them drew back. Some were moved to pity by 
 his delenseless condition ; others were sincerely attached to the 
 established Church, whose very existence was threatened by the Puri- 
 tan party ; others still were actuated by a feeling of loyalty to the 
 reigning house. And so, as the dispute drifted into civil war, nearly 
 half of the Parliament and of the nation sided with the king. 
 
 On the parliamentary side the war was, at first, conducted in a 
 lame and spiritless way. The Presbyterians, who were the conserva- 
 tive wing of the Puritan party, predominated both in the House of 
 Commons and in the army. They, in union with the Scots, wished 
 to establish their own religious system in place of Anglicanism, and 
 to beat the king just enough to bring him to their own terms, but, in 
 no case, to depose him or overthrow the monarchy. The Independ- 
 ents, on the other hand, who were the radical Puritans, believed in 
 religious toleration and in the right of each separate congregation to 
 organize itself in its own way; and they were ready, in case of ne- 
 cessity, to get rid of Charles and of the monarchy as well. The 
 wonderful success of their leader, Oliver Cromwell, and of his famous 
 cavalry, the Ironsides, soon brought them to the front. They got 
 control of the army, reorganized it, under Fairfax and Cromwell, in 
 accordance with their own ideas, and practically ended the war by 
 their great victory over the king's forces at Naseby (1645). The 
 king took refuge with the Scots (May, 1646). The Scots, tailing to 
 convert him to Presbyterianism, delivered him over to the English 
 Presbyterians (January, 1647), and a little later he was seized by the 
 army (June, 1647). The Presbyterians, who were still a majority in 
 the Parliament, thereupon attempted to get rid of the army by dis- 
 banding it ; and the army, refusing to disband until it had secured 
 the great object for which it had entered the war, liberty of con-
 
 INTRODUCTION. 17 
 
 science, marched upon London, and expelled from the Parliament 
 some of the obnoxious Presbyterian leaders. Thus the independ- 
 ence of the Parliament was destroyed. 
 
 The army leaders, with Cromwell at the head, now made an hon- 
 est, but ineffectual, attempt to come to terms with the king. Charles 
 intrigued with all parties, and was false toward all. His intrigues, 
 however, soon led to a combination between the Scots and the En- 
 glish Presbyterians and royalists against the Independent army, and 
 the result was a renewal of the civil war (1648). Before marching 
 out to battle the army resolved, in case it should be successful in sup- 
 pressing this new movement, to call " Charles Stuart, that man of 
 blood," to a strict account for his misdeeds. The combination was 
 speedily crushed, and the army at once proceeded to bring the king 
 to justice. It weeded out the Presbyterians from the Parliament, 
 leaving "the Rump," which was composed entirely of Independents. 
 That body established an extraordinary tribunal which tried and con- 
 demned the king ; it voted the House of Lords to be useless, declared 
 that all power rested with the Commons, abolished the monarchy, 
 and set up a republic or commonwealth in its place. 
 
 But the situation of the new government was exceedingly precari- 
 ous. Nine tenths of the English people were opposed to it, Ireland 
 and Scotland rejected it altogether, while abroad it encountered at 
 once the bitter hostility of foreign powers. It owed its existence en- 
 tirely to the army, and by the army alone it could be maintained. 
 The task of establishing firmly its authority was intrusted to Crom- 
 well. His brilliant campaigns in Ireland (1649) and Scotland (1650) 
 reduced those countries to obedience, and made organized resistance 
 in England impossible. At the same time they made him predomi- 
 nant in the new commonwealth, and he now used his great influence 
 in trying to bring the country back as speedily as possible to a con- 
 stitutional basis. He wanted a new Parliament, freely chosen, which 
 should represent the three nations ; he wanted reforms in the law and 
 in the Church ; and, above all, he wanted liberty of conscience. The 
 Rump Parliament, on the other hand, already distrustful of the suc- 
 cessful general and fearing a military dictatorship, sought to perpet- 
 uate its own power; and when it refused to fix a limit to its ses- 
 sions, Cromwell drove it out (April, 1653). He then called a con- 
 vention, composed of prominent men of his own party, to whom he 
 intrusted the work of reconstructing the government. After a few 
 months of trial, they resigned their authority back into his hands, and 
 a Protectorate was established with him at the head (December, 1653). 
 In a constitution which was drawn up, his power was limited by a 
 council and a Parliament. Cromwell earnestly strove to rule within 
 the limits imposed, and to prevent his government from degenerating 
 into a military despotism. But he met with opposition on every side ; 
 many of his own party distrusted him ; the new Parliament refused 
 to recognize his authority, and had to be dissolved ; the royalists and
 
 i8 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 radicals intrigued against him ; and he was forced, for a time, to rule 
 as a despot. Yet his despotism was of a different kind from that of 
 Charles. Cromwell userl his power for the good of the nation, not 
 for the destruction of its liberties, By his brilliant foreign policy he 
 made the influence of England in Europe far greater than it had ever 
 been before. The energy and ability he displayed surprised and daz- 
 zled even his enemies. A part of the nation, at last, began to real- 
 ize, in some degree, at least, the inestimable value of the man as a ruler. 
 A new constitution was drawn up, making him protector for life, and 
 empowering him to name his successor. A new Parliament was 
 called, and it seemed for the moment as if harmony would be re- 
 stored, as if Parliament would become reconciled with Protectorate, 
 and the proper limits of power be assigned to each. Many of the 
 leading men of the nation urged Cromwell to take the title of king, 
 but this he refused out of deference to the feelings of the army. In 
 other matters, however, he complied with the wishes of those who 
 were trying to work back to the forms of the old constitution. But 
 the temporary harmony was destroyed by the establishment of a new 
 House of Lords, a measure which aroused strong opposition among 
 the well-meaning, but fanatical, republicans of the Lower House, and 
 Cromwell was forced to dissolve this his last Parliament. His power 
 still rested on the support of the army, and all his efforts to secure 
 for it a legal and constitutional basis proved unavailing. For a few 
 months alter his death, the different factions were held in awe by the 
 influence of his name ; then party spirit broke forth, and, after a brief 
 interval of chaos, the mass of the nation hastened with feverish anxi- 
 ety to welcome back the returning Stuarts. 
 
 The Restoration was followed by a period of degradation without 
 a parallel in the nation's history. In the earlier years of the reign of 
 Charles the Second the reaction against Puritan England was ex- 
 treme ; the men and the measures of the commonwealth and of the 
 protectorate were cast aside ; even the Presbyterians, who had helped 
 to restore the monarchy, were subjected to a bitter persecution. The 
 royal palace was little better than a brothel. Every thing that sa- 
 vored of morality was laughed at. The literature of the day, with 
 some noble exceptions, reeked with sensuality. The Church, content 
 with her recovered wealth, made little effort to stem the tide of cor- 
 ruption. The government was brought, by the royal extravagance, 
 to the verge of bankruptcy. The Parliament was subservient, and 
 pandered to the vices of the sovereign. The king became the tool 
 and pensioner of France. Both he and his ministers seemed alike 
 destitute of political honor. The influence of England abroad, which 
 had been so great in Cromwell's time, was almost annihilated, and 
 important changes, directly affecting her interests, went forward on 
 the Continent with as little regard for her as if she had been blotted 
 from the map of Europe. But the reaction gradually spent its force, 
 and then it appeared that the work of Cromwell and his associates
 
 INTRODUCTION. 19 
 
 had not been done in vain. Slowly, but surely, an opposition to the 
 prevailing regime arose and grew both in the Parliament and in the 
 nation. Jt culminated in the formation of the great Whig party 
 (1679), while the supporters of the king took the name of Tories. 
 The Whigs were temporarily overthrown in consequence of the fac- 
 tious spirit of their leaders in fomenting the Popish Plot and in trying 
 to exclude the popish duke of York, later James the Second, from the 
 succession to the crown. But they rose again under James, and when 
 that monarch attempted to subvert the laws by means of a standing 
 army, a packed bench of judges, and a packed House of Commons, 
 Whigs and Tories united in inviting William, prince of Orange, to 
 invade the country and assist in restoring the ancient liberties of the 
 nation. Soon after William's landing James, deserted by all parties, 
 fled to France, and the Convention Parliament, which was called, de- 
 clared that he had abdicated, and elected William and Mary to fill 
 the vacant throne. The Declaration of Right, which took the form 
 of a statute in the Bill of Rights, fixed in definite terms the relations 
 between king and Parliament and between Parliament and the peo- 
 ple ; and a later statute, the Act of Settlement (1700), "made the 
 English sovereign as much the creature of an act of Parliament as 
 the pettiest tax-gatherer in his realm." 
 
 Thus the revolution of 1688 was accomplished, " the least violent 
 and the most beneficent of all revolutions." The result of causes 
 which had been in operation for centuries, it definitely established the 
 leading principles of the constitution, both in theory and in practice. 
 The change of sovereign was one of the lesser benefits it conferred. 
 It swept away forever, besides much other political rubbish, the doc- 
 trines of the divine right of kings, of absolute royal authority, and of 
 the passive obedience of the subject, which had so long obstructed 
 constitutional progress. It transferred the paramount authority in 
 .the State from the king to the House of Commons, and gave the 
 nation guarantees of liberty so simple, broad, and strong that they 
 could neither be evaded nor revoked. It fitly closed a long era of 
 constitutional struggle, and at the same time prepared the way for a 
 new development. 
 
 YALE COLLEGE, May 29, 1886.
 
 20 CONTENTS. 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PART I. 
 
 PAOE 
 
 I. THE ROMAN OCCUPATION. Green 25 
 
 II. THE ENGLISH CONQUE;T AND SETTLEMENT. Gardiner. . . 30 
 
 III. CONVERSION OF THE ENGLISH. Milman 35 
 
 IV. THE EARLY MONASTERIES. Allen 40 
 
 V. ALFRED'S EARLY YEARS. Freeman 44 
 
 VI. DUNSTAN, THE ECCLESIASTICAL STATESMAN. Green 51 
 
 VII. CNUT, THE GREAT DANISH KING. Freeman 57 
 
 VIII. THE CLERGY IN THE EARLY MIDDLE AGES. Stevenson. . 61 
 
 IX. BATTLE OF SENLAC OR HASTINGS. Freeman 67 
 
 X. THE CONQUEROR AND HIS POLICY. Green 72 
 
 XI. THE RED KING. Hunt 77 
 
 XII. HENRY I., THE SCHOLAR-KING. Pearson 82 
 
 XIII. THE ASSASSINATION OF BECKET. Milman 86 
 
 XIV. DEATH OF HENRY II. Stubbs 92 
 
 XV. How THE GREAT CHARTER WAS WON. Pearson 96 
 
 XVI. DEATH OF KING JOHN. Pearson 100 
 
 XVII. ENGLAND IN THE ISTH CENTURY. Longman 103 
 
 XVIII. THE MENDICANT FRIARS. Geikie 109 
 
 XIX. DEATH OF DE MONTFORT. Gardiner. 116 
 
 XX. WALLACE, THE SCOTCH PATRIOT. Pearson 121 
 
 XXI. BRUCE AND BANNOCKBURN. Longman 126 
 
 XXII. BATTLE OF CRECY. Froissart 134 
 
 XXIII. THE BLACK DEATH. Wat-burton 140 
 
 XXIV. JOHN WYCLIF. Shirley 144 
 
 XXV. DEPOSITION OF RICHARD II. York Powell 149 
 
 XXVI. BATTLE OF AZINCOURT. Martin 154 
 
 XXVII. JEANNE DARC. Guest 161 
 
 XXVIII. WARS OF THE ROSES. Guest 166 
 
 XXIX. BOSWORTH FIELD. Gairdner 176
 
 CONTENTS. 21 
 
 PART II. 
 
 PACK 
 
 XXX. THE CARDINAL'S LAST JOURNEY. Brewer 183 
 
 XXXI. THE ENGLISH TERROR. Green 190 
 
 XXXII. A HOLY MISSION. Ewald 195 
 
 XXXIII. CHARACTER AND POLICY OF ELIZABETH. Green 200 
 
 XXXIV. EXECUTION OF MARY STUART. Fronde 206 
 
 XXXV. ARRIVAL OF THE ARMADA. Ewald 213 
 
 XX XVI. SIR WALTER RALEIGH. Farrar 220 
 
 XXXVII. GATHERING OF THE STORM. Ewald 226 
 
 XXXVIII. TRIAL OF STRAFFORD. Mozley 232 
 
 XXXIX. ATTEMPT TO ARREST THE FIVE MEMBERS. Gardiner. . 237 
 
 XL. EXECUTION OF CHARLES THE FIRST. Guizot 244 
 
 XLI. THE DECISION AT WORCESTER. Forster 250 
 
 XLII. DISSOLUTION OF THE LONG PARLIAMENT. Gardiner. . 256 
 
 XLIII. LAST DAYS OF CROMWELL. Masson 260 
 
 XLIV. THE RESTORATION. Guizot 267 
 
 XLV. EXECUTION OF MONMOUTH. Macaulay 272 
 
 XLVI. EXIT JAMES THE SECOND. Cooke 278 
 
 XLVII. KlLLIECRANKIE. Scott 282 
 
 XLVIII. DOWNFALL OF MARLBOROUGH. Lecky 286 
 
 XLIX. WALPOLE AS A PEACE MINISTER. Green 294 
 
 L. THE PREACHING OF WHITEFIELD. Lecky 298 
 
 LI. AFTER CULLODEN. Stanhope 305 
 
 LII. PITT AS A WAR MINISTER. Macaulay 311 
 
 LIU. AN EMPIRE WON IN THE EAST Macaulay 318 
 
 LIV. AN EMPIRE LOST IN THE WEST. Stanhope 324 
 
 LV. THE TERRIBLE PENAL CODE. Lecky 330 
 
 LVI. IMPEACHMENT OF HASTINGS. Macaulay 335 
 
 LVII. TRAFALGAR DEATH OF NELSON. Southey 341 
 
 LVIII. BOMBARDMENT OF COPENHAGEN. Fyffe 347 
 
 LIX. BATTLE OF WATERLOO. Creasy 351 
 
 LX. CORONATION OF QUEEN VICTORIA. Gremlle 356 
 
 LXI. BATTLE OF THE ALMA. McCarthy 360 
 
 LXII. THE STORY OF CAWNPORE. Kaye 366 
 
 CHRONOLOGICAL TABLES . . 370
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 ALFRED IN THE HERDSMAN'S HUT 50 
 
 ST. DUNSTAN 53 
 
 PLAN OF THE BATTLE OF BANNOCKBURN 129 
 
 L.UTTERWORTH WYCLIF'S ClIURCH 147 
 
 RICHARD II 149 
 
 EDWARD IV 166 
 
 RICHARD III 176 
 
 CHAPEL AND TOMB OF HENRY VII 1 8 1 
 
 HENRY VIII 185 
 
 QUEEN ELIZABETH 200 
 
 EXECUTION OF KING CHARLES 1 248 
 
 OLIVER CROMWELL 261 
 
 JAMES II 278 
 
 GEORGE 1 294 
 
 GEORGE III 324 
 
 DUKE OF WELLINGTON 351
 
 PART I
 
 SKETCHES 
 
 FROM 
 
 ENGLISH HISTORY, 
 
 I* 
 
 THE ROMAN OCCUPATION. GREEN. 
 
 [At the time of Caesar's invasion of Britain, B.C. 55, the land was inhab- 
 ited by the Celts, who were members of the great Aryan family of nations 
 to which the Romans themselves belonged. The natives were in a semi- 
 barbarous condition, and, though they fought bravely for their homes, were 
 no match for the trained legions of the Empire. Caesar himself made no 
 systematic attempt to subjugate the island ; but about a hundred years after 
 him the work of conquest was begun in earnest and pushed steadily until 
 all the country south of the Forth had submitted to the Roman arms. 
 Britain remained a province of the Empire for three hundred and fifty years.] 
 
 THE island of Britain was the latest of Rome's conquests 
 in the west. Though it had been twice attacked by Julius 
 Caesar, his withdrawal and the inaction of the earlier emperors 
 promised it a continued freedom ; but a hundred years after 
 Caesar's landing, Claudius undertook its conquest, and so 
 swiftly was the work carried out by his generals, and those 
 of his successors, that before thirty years were over, the bulk 
 of the country had passed beneath the Roman sway. The 
 island was thus fortunate in the moment of its conquest. It 
 was spared the pillage and exactions which ruined the prov- 
 inces of Rome under the Republic, while it felt little of the 
 evils which still clung to their administration under the ear- 
 lier Empire. The age in which its organization was actively 
 
 carried out was the age of the Antonines, when the provinces 
 2
 
 26 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 became objects of special care on the part of the central gov- 
 ernment, and when the efforts of its administration were aided 
 by peace without and a profound tranquillity within. The 
 absence of all record of the change indicates the quietness 
 and ease with which Britain was transformed into a Roman 
 province. A census and a land-survey must have formed 
 here, as elsewhere, indispensable preliminaries for the exac- 
 tions of the poll-tax and the land-tax, which were the main 
 burdens of Rome's fiscal system. Within the province the 
 population would, in accordance with her invariable policy, be 
 disarmed ; while a force of three legions was stationed, partly 
 in the north to guard against the unconquered Britons, and 
 partly in the west to watch over the tribes which still remained 
 half-subdued. Though the towns were left in some measure 
 to their own self-government, the bulk of the island seems to 
 have been ruled by military and financial administrators, 
 whose powers were practically unlimited. But, rough as their 
 rule may have been, it secured peace and good order ; and 
 peace and good order were all that was needed to insure 
 material development. This development soon made itself 
 felt. Commerce sprang up in the ports of Britain. Its har- 
 vests became so abundant that it was able at need to supply 
 the necessities of Gaul. Tin mines were worked in Corn- 
 wall, lead mines in Somerset and Northumberland, and iron 
 mines in the Forest of Dean. The villas and homesteads 
 which, as the spade of our archaeologists prove, lay scattered 
 over the whole face of the country, show the general prosper- 
 ity of the island. 
 
 The extension of its road system, and the upgrowth of its 
 towns, tell above all how rapidly Britain was incorporated into 
 the general body of the empire. It is easy, however, to exag- 
 gerate the civilization of Britain. Even within the province 
 south of the firths the evidence of inscriptions shows that 
 large tracts of country lay practically outside the Roman life. 
 Though no district was richer or more peopled than the
 
 THE ROMAN OCCUPATION. 27 
 
 south-west, our Devonshire and our Cornwall seem to have 
 remained almost wholly Celtic. Wales was never really 
 Romanized ; its tribes were held in check by the legionaries 
 at Chester and Caerleon, but as late as the beginning of the 
 third century they called for repression from the Emperor 
 Severus as much as the Picts. The valleys of the Thames 
 and of the Severn were fairly inhabited, but there are fewer 
 proofs of Roman settlement in the valley of the Trent; and, 
 though the southern part of Yorkshire was rich and populous, 
 Northern Britain, as a whole, was little touched by the new 
 civilization. And even in the south this civilization can have 
 had but little depth or vitality. Large and important as were 
 some of its towns, hardly any inscriptions have been found to 
 tell of the presence of a vigorous municipal life. Unlike its 
 neighbor, Gaul, Britain contributed nothing to the intellect- 
 ual riches of the empire ; and not one of the poets or rheto- 
 ricians of the time is of British origin. Even moral move- 
 ments found little foothold in the island. When Christianity 
 became the religion of the empire, under the house of Con- 
 stantine, Britain must have become nominally Christian ; and 
 the presence of British bishops at ecclesiastical councils is 
 enough to prove that its Christianity was organized in the 
 ordinary form. But as yet no Christian inscription or orna- 
 ment has been found in any remains of earlier date than the 
 close of the Roman rule; and the undoubted existence of 
 churches at such places as Canterbury, or London, or St. 
 Albans, only gives greater weight to the fact that no trace of 
 such buildings has been found in the sites of other cities 
 which have been laid open by archreological research. 
 
 Far, indeed, as was Britain from the center of the em- 
 pire, had the Roman energy wielded its full force in the 
 island it would have Romanized Britain as completely as it 
 Romanized the bulk of Gaul. But there was little in the 
 province to urge Rome to such an effort. It was not only the 
 most distant of her western provinces, but it had little natural
 
 28 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 wealth, and it was vexed by a ceaseless border warfare with 
 the unconquered Britons, the Picts, or Caledonians, beyond 
 the northern firths. There was little in its material resources 
 to tempt men to that immigration from the older provinces of 
 the empire which was the main agent in civilizing a new con- 
 quest. On the contrary, the harshness of a climate that knew 
 neither olive nor vine deterred men of the south from such a 
 settlement.. The care with which every villa is furnished 
 with its elaborate system of hot-air flues shows that the cli- 
 mate of Britain was as intolerable to the Roman provincial as 
 that of India, in spite of punkahs and verandas, is to the 
 English civilian or the English planter. The result was that 
 the province remained a mere military department of the 
 empire. It is a significant fact that the bulk of the monu- 
 ments which have been found in Britain relate to military 
 life. Its inscriptions on tombs are mostly those of soldiers. 
 Its mightiest work was the great wall and line of legionary 
 stations which guarded the province from the Picts. Its only 
 historic records are records of border forays against the 
 barbarians. 
 
 It was not merely its distance from the seat of rule, or the 
 later date of its conquest that hindered the province from pass- 
 ing completely into the general body of the empire. Its phys- 
 ical and its social circumstances offered yet greater obstacles to 
 any effectual civilization. In spite of its roads, its towns, and 
 its mining works, it remained, even at the close of the Roman 
 rule, an " isle of blowing woodland," a wild and half-reclaimed 
 country, the bulk of whose surface was occupied by forest 
 and waste. The rich and lower soil of the river valleys, in- 
 deed, what is now the favorite home of agriculture, had, in the 
 earliest times, been densely covered with primaeval scrub ; and 
 the only open spaces were those whose nature fitted them less 
 for the growth of trees, the chalk downs and oolitic uplands 
 that stretched in long lines across the face of Britain from the 
 Channel to the Northern Sea. It is mainly in the natural
 
 THE ROMAN OCCUPATION. 29 
 
 clearings of the uplands that the population concentrated itself 
 at the close of the Roman rule, and it is over these districts 
 that the ruins of the villas or country houses of the Roman 
 land-owner are most thickly scattered. 
 
 The cities of the province were, indeed, thoroughly 
 Romanized. Within the walls of towns such as Lincoln 
 or York, towns governed by their own municipal officers 
 guarded by massive walls, and linked together by the net- 
 work of roads which reached from one end of the island to 
 the other, law, language, political and social life, all were of 
 Rome. But if the towns were thoroughly Romanized, it seems 
 doubtful, from the few facts that remain to us, whether Ro- 
 man civilization had made much impression on the bulk of the 
 provincials, or whether the serf-like husbandmen, whose cab- 
 ins clustered round the luxurious villas of the provincial 
 land-owners, or the yet more servile miners of Northumbria, 
 and the Forest of Dean, were touched by the arts and knowl- 
 edge of their masters. The use of the Roman language may 
 be roughly taken as marking the progress of the Roman civ- 
 ilization; and, though Latin had all but wholly superseded 
 the languages of the conquered peoples in Spain and Gaul, its 
 use was probably limited in Britain to the townsfolk, and to 
 the wealthier proprietors without the towns. Over large 
 tracts of country the rural Britons seem to have remained 
 apart from their conquerors, not only speaking their own 
 language, and owning some traditional allegiance to their 
 native chiefs, but retaining their native system of law. Im- 
 perial edicts had long since extended Roman citizenship to 
 every dweller within the empire; but the wilder provincials 
 may have been suffered to retain in some measure their own 
 usages, as the Zulu or Maori is suffered to retain them, though 
 subject in theory to British law, and entitled to the full privi- 
 leges of British subjects. The Welsh laws, which we possess in 
 a later shape, are undoubtedly, in the main, the same system of 
 early customs which Rome found existing among the Britons
 
 30 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 in the days of Claudius and Caesar; and the fact that they 
 remained a living law when her legions withdrew proves their 
 continuance throughout the four hundred years of her rule, 
 as it proves the practical isolation from Roman life and Roman 
 civilization of the native communities which preserved them. 
 
 II. 
 
 THE ENGLISH CONQUEST AND SETTLEMENT. GARDINER. 
 
 [At the beginning of the fifth century the Roman Empire was in a state 
 of dissolution. The barbarian tribes had broken into it in many directions, 
 and in 410 the Goths, under Alaric, took and sacked Rome itself. In the 
 following year the government, needing all its available forces at home, 
 withdrew its army of occupation from Britain. The Britons, thus left to 
 themselves, remained nominally independent for sixty years. But, accus- 
 tomed as they had so long been to imperial protection, they were unable 
 to defend themselves. They were attacked from the north by the Picts 
 and Scots, who had never been brought under the Roman sway, as well as 
 by the Teutonic or German pirates from the south. The latter they in- 
 vited to assist them against their northern enemies. Quarrels arose be- 
 tween them and their allies. The Teutons, among whom the Angles pre- 
 dominated, came in ever-increasing numbers. The natives made a des- 
 perate resistance. The struggle lasted a hundred and fifty years. At the 
 end of that period the invaders had succeeded in establishing ten or twelve 
 petty kingdoms on the soil of Britain.] 
 
 WHEN, in the middle of the fifth century, our Teutonic 
 ancestors landed on the shores of Britain, they carved out 
 settlements for themselves ; they were Jutes and Saxons 
 and Angles from the coast which stretches from Jutland to 
 the mouths of the Elbe and Weser. Over the horror of the 
 struggle a thick darkness has settled down, and, with the 
 exception of one lightning-flash from a Celtic writer, it was 
 only by its leading features, by a battle or a siege traditional- 
 ly remembered, that any portion of it could be recovered when 
 civilization and its power of recording events again spread 
 over the land. At the end of a century and a half the Teu-
 
 THE ENGLISH CONQUEST AND SETTLEMENT. 31 
 
 tonic settlers occupied the whole of the eastern half of the 
 land, from the Forth to the Straits of Dover, and from the 
 coast of the German Ocean to the Severn. Over all this 
 tract the Low German speech of the invaders was to be 
 heard. To what extent the British population had disap- 
 peared is a matter of controversy. It is a point on which no 
 certain knowledge is attainable. The invaders did not enter 
 the island impressed with the dignity of Roman civilization. 
 They knew nothing of the Roman speech. They seized 
 upon the lands of the Britons. They stormed and sacked 
 their cities. They probably carried off their daughters to be 
 their wives or concubines. The men who resisted were 
 slain as wild beasts are slain, without thought of mercy. Of 
 the rest, some were reduced to slavery, some may have kept 
 up a precarious independence in the woods. Under such 
 circumstances a population suffers fearful diminution from 
 misery and starvation. The weak and the old, with the young 
 child, the hope of future generations, perish for lack of food. 
 Yet, whatever the numerical amount of the survivors may 
 have been, the general result is certain. The Teutonic 
 speech, save in a few words used principally by women and 
 slaves, prevailed every-where. The Teutonic law, the Teu- 
 tonic way of life, was the rule of the land. The Teutonic 
 heathenism was unchanged. The Celtic element, whether it 
 was larger or smaller, was absorbed, and left scarcely a trace 
 behind. 
 
 If the history of the settlement is to be gathered from 
 scanty tradition, the character and institutions of the settlers 
 have to be inferred from that which is known of them in 
 their own land, and from that which is known of them 
 later in the land of their adoption. Fierce and masterful as 
 they were, they were not barbarians, except in antithesis to 
 the civilization of Rome. The stage which they had reached 
 was very much that of the Homeric Greeks, if we allow for 
 the greater inclemency of a northern sky. Each tribe was
 
 32 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 complete in itself. It had its own assembly of freemen, 
 whose voice was decisive in regulating its actions. At its 
 head was a chief, the ealdorman, as he .was named, who 
 guided its deliberations, and who, after its arrival in England 
 at least, headed it in war. The freemen themselves were 
 composed of two ranks, eorls and ceorls. The eorls, or no- 
 bles by birth, whose origin is lost in the mists of the past, 
 had an honorary pre-eminence. Their voice was of greate' 
 weight, their life was of greater value, their share of booty 
 larger. But they did not make the State, though they had, 
 doubtless, much to do with its direction. In fact, there was 
 nothing that we should now call political life in existence. 
 New legislation there was none. The old customs, handed 
 down from father to son in Germany, were adhered to in En- 
 gland, and the only question which could arise for delibera- 
 tion was whether some new expedition should be undertaken 
 against the enemy. Outside the assembly, as well as within 
 it, all freemen were equal, however much they might differ 
 in influence or wealth. Each man had his own share of the 
 conquered land, and his share of pasturage or wood-cutting 
 in the folkland the common land that had been left undi- 
 vided. The organization of which he formed a part did not, 
 as in the empire, reach from the State to the individual, but 
 from the individual to the State. Each township which, in 
 an ecclesiastical form, became the parish of modern days, 
 made its appearance once a month, in the hundred mote, to 
 decide quarrels and to witness contracts ; while the members 
 of the tribe met twice a year to decide matters of more gen- 
 eral importance. As every man was a judge unless, in- 
 deed, the practice of attending the hundred mote by a depu- 
 tation of the reeve, or head man, and four best men of the 
 township, had already been adopted so every man was a 
 soldier. The assembly was, in truth, the tribe in arms, and 
 the eorls and the ealdormen could but lead, they could not 
 constrain, the will of their fellow-tribesmen.
 
 THE ENGLISH CONQUEST AND SETTLEMENT. 33 
 
 Left in the positions they had originally occupied, the 
 tribes might have retained these institutions unaltered for 
 centuries. The progress of the war necessitated expansion 
 and amalgamation in order that greater force might be 
 brought to bear on the enemy. As it had been with Rome 
 so it was now with the English tribe. The system of popu- 
 lar assemblies had reached its limit. The men of Dorset or 
 the men of Norfolk could come up without difficulty to the 
 place of meeting. The men of a State reaching from the 
 Severn to the borders of Sussex could not come up. The 
 idea of delegation, if it had as yet existed at all, had not 
 acquired sufficient strength to suggest the idea of a general 
 collective council. Recourse was had to a different factor 
 in the commonwealth. Of all human occupations war re- 
 quires the most complete discipline and the most prompt 
 obedience to a single chief. Naturally, therefore, it was the 
 chief, the ealdorman, who gained most by the changes wrought 
 by war. Every-where he took the higher title of king, and 
 in taking its title he gained a higher standing-point. He was 
 the bond of union between many tribes. The ealdorman who 
 now presided in the tribal .assembly derived his authority 
 from him, even if he owed his position to an older tribal au- 
 thority. At the end of the sixth century some ten or twelve 
 kingdoms existed, and the authority of the kings would, 
 doubtless, tend to increase in civil matters as they grew more 
 successful as leaders in war. 
 
 Yet, growing as it was, the king's authority was by no 
 means absolute. The power which the king wielded could 
 only be exercised in accordance with the wishes of the armed 
 force, and that armed force was still, in great measure, com- 
 posed of the contingents of the freemen of the several tribes. 
 It is true that it was not so altogether. By an old German 
 custom a great man had been accustomed to entertain a body 
 of followers gesiths, as they were called in England who 
 
 attached themselves, not to the tribe, but to the person of 
 o*
 
 34 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 him whom they followed, and upon whose bounty they lived. 
 For him they fought, and for him they were ready to die. 
 They held it disgraceful to forsake him in battle, or even to 
 leave the field alive if he were lying dead upon it. No 
 doubt, if we possessed a history of those times, we should 
 find that these two component parts of the king's army were 
 also component parts of his council, and the witan, or wise 
 men, without whose advice he did not venture to act in any 
 important matter, were, some of them, the chief men of his 
 personal following ; some of them leading eorls, or land-own- 
 ers, from the various populations which were blended to- 
 gether under his rule. But, however this council may have 
 been formed, it had no immediate organic connection with 
 the people. Its members were not elected from beneath. 
 They became councilors either from their own position in 
 life, or as selected by the king. As long as there was a pow- 
 erful enemy in the field this breach in the continuity of the 
 constitution might not be felt ; but it was, none the less, a 
 source of danger. 
 
 The judicial arrangements of our ancestors were those of 
 a strong-handed but law-loving race, in which each man was 
 ready to do himself right with his own hand, but in which 
 there was a general understanding that feuds should not be 
 perpetual. The notion that it was the duty of the State to 
 punish crime, and the notion that the criminal himself was 
 any the worse for the crime which he had committed, would 
 have been alike unintelligible to them. All that they saw 
 was that it was in their power to enforce upon the kindred 
 of a murdered man, or upon him who had suffered a loss of 
 property, the acceptance of a weregild, or money payment, 
 in satisfaction of the injury done to them, which they might 
 otherwise have avenged by the slaughter of the aggressor. 
 As, again, the power of taking vengeance was different in 
 different ranks as the relations of a murdered king were 
 more likely to take effectual vengeance than the relations of
 
 THE ENGLISH CONQUEST AND SETTLEMENT. 35 
 
 an eorl or a simple ceorl, and as they, therefore, required 
 more to induce them to draw back a larger money payment 
 was enforced in proportion to the rank of the person injured. 
 As, too, the State had no interest in the matter, excepting to 
 prevent continual private warfare, it had no trained police to 
 seize the criminal, and no trained advocates or judges to in- 
 vestigate evidence. It looked to the kindred of the accused 
 person to present him before the popular assembly at which 
 he was to be tried, or to pay his weregild in his stead. If 
 he denied his guilt he had to bring others to swear that he 
 was innocent, and the declaration of the belief of these 
 compurgators in his favor was accepted as satisfactory. If 
 he failed to find compurgators he had still the resource of ap- 
 pealing to the ordeal, doubtless performed, in heathen times, 
 in some specially sacred spot. The assembled people, who 
 acted as his judges, contented themselves with seeing that the 
 provisions of ancient customs were duly carried out. 
 
 III. 
 CONVERSION OF THE ENGLISH. MILMAN. 
 
 [The conquerors had scarcely established themselves in the land when 
 a contest began between the different English kingdoms for supremacy. To 
 the war between Britons and Englishmen was added a war between En- 
 glishmen and Englishmen. The struggle went on for two hundred years, 
 and culminated in the final supremacy of Wessex. Long before the end 
 of this period, however, an event had occurred which contributed power- 
 fully to the work of consolidation and unification. This was the conver- 
 sion of the heathen English to Christianity. The work was accomplished 
 in the south by Roman, in the north by Irish, missionaries. The two 
 tides of Christian influence met in the center of England. After a brief 
 struggle the Roman party triumphed, in 664, at the Synod of Whit by, and 
 Archbishop Theodore organized the new Church on the Roman model.] 
 
 NOTHING certain is known concerning the first promulga- 
 tion of the Gospel in Roman Britain. There can be no doubt,
 
 36 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 however, that conquered and half-civilized Britain, like the 
 rest of the Roman Empire, gradually received, during the 
 second and third centuries, the faith of Christ. The depth of 
 her Christian cultivation appears from her fertility in saints, 
 and in heretics. But all were swept away, the worshipers of 
 the saints and the followers of the heretics, by the Teutonic 
 conquest. The German races which overran the island came 
 from a remote quarter yet impenetrated by the missionaries 
 of the Gospel. They knew nothing of Christianity but as the 
 religion of that abject people whom they were driving before 
 them into their mountains and fortresses. Christianity re- 
 ceded, with the conquered Britons, into the mountains of 
 Wales, or toward the borders of Scotland, or took refuge 
 among the peaceful and flourishing monasteries of Ireland. 
 The clergy fled, perhaps fought, with their flocks, and neither 
 sought nor found opportunities of amicable intercourse, which 
 might have led to the propagation of their faith ; while the 
 savage pagans demolished the churches and monasteries, with 
 the other vestiges of Roman civilization. They were little 
 disposed to worship the God of a conquered people or to 
 adopt the religion of a race whom they either despised as 
 weak and unwarlike, or held as stubborn and implacable ene- 
 mies. Nor was there sufficient charity in the British Chris- 
 tians to enlighten the paganism of their conquerors. 
 
 Happily Christianity appeared in an opposite quarter. Its 
 missionaries from Rome were unaccompanied by any of these 
 causes of mistrust and dislike. It came into that part of the 
 kingdom the farthest removed from the hostile Britons. It 
 was the religion of the powerful kingdom of the Franks; the 
 influence of Bertha, the Frankish princess, the wife of King 
 Ethelbert, wrought, no doubt, more powerfully for the recep- 
 tion of the faith than the zeal and eloquence of Augustine. 
 
 Gregory the Great, it has been said, before his accession to 
 the papacy, had set out on the sublime though desperate mis- 
 sion of the reconquest of Britain from idolatry. It was Greg-
 
 CONVERSION OF THE ENGLISH. 37 
 
 ory who commissioned the monk Augustine to venture on this 
 glorious service. Yet so fierce and savage, according to the 
 common rumor, were the Anglo-Saxon inhabitants of Britain, 
 that Augustine shrank from the wild and desperate enter- 
 prise; he hesitated before he would throw himself into the 
 midst of a race of barbarous unbelievers, of whose language 
 he was ignorant. Gregory would allow no retreat from a 
 mission which he had himself been prepared to undertake, 
 and which would not have appalled, even under less favor- 
 able circumstances, his firmer courage. 
 
 The fears of Augustine as to this wild and unknown land 
 proved exaggerated. The monk and his forty followers landed 
 without opposition on the shores of Britain. They sent to 
 announce themselves as a solemn embassage from Rome, to 
 offer to the King of Kent the everlasting bliss of heaven, 
 an eternal kingdom in the presence of the true and living 
 God. To Ethelbert, though not unacquainted with Chris- 
 tianity, for, by the terms of his marriage, Bertha, the Prankish 
 princess, had stipulated for the free exercise of her religion, 
 there must have been something strange and imposing in the 
 landing of these peaceful missionaries on a shore still con- 
 stantly swarming with fierce pirates, who came to plunder or 
 to settle among their German kindred. The name of Rome 
 must have sounded, though vague, yet awful, to the ear of the 
 barbarian. Any dim knowledge of Christianity which he had 
 acquired from his Prankish wife would be blended with 
 mysterious veneration for the pope, the great high-priest, the 
 vicar of Christ and of God upon earth. With the cunning 
 suspicion which mingles with the dread of the barbarian, the 
 king insisted that the first meeting should be in the open air, 
 as giving less scope for magic arts, and not under the roof of 
 a house. Augustine and his followers met the king with all the 
 pomp which they could command, with a crucifix of silver in 
 the van of their procession, a picture of the Redeemer borne 
 aloft, and chanting their litanies for the salvation of the king
 
 38 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 and his people. "Your words and offers," replied the king, 
 "are fair; but they are new to me, and, as yet, unproved; I 
 cannot abandon at once the faith of my Anglian ancestors." 
 But the missionaries were entertained with courteous hospi- 
 tality. Their severely monastic lives, their constant prayers, 
 fastings, and vigils, with their confident demeanor, impressed 
 more and more favorably the barbaric mind. Rumor at- 
 tributed to them many miracles. Before long the king of 
 Kent was an avowed convert; his example was followed by 
 many of his noblest subjects. No compulsion was used, but 
 it was manifest that the royal favor inclined to those who 
 received the royal faith. 
 
 The British Church, secluded in the fastnesses of Wales, 
 could not but hear of the arrival of the Roman missionaries, 
 and of their success in the conversion of the Saxons. Au- 
 gustine and his followers could not but inquire with deep 
 interest concerning their Christian brethren in the remote 
 parts of the island. It was natural that they should enter 
 into communication ; unhappily they met to dispute on points 
 of difference, not to join in harmonious fellowship on the 
 broad grounds of their common Christianity. The British 
 Church followed the Greek usage in the celebration of Easter ; 
 they had some other points of ceremonial, which, with their 
 descent, they traced to the East; and the zealous missiona- 
 ries of Gregory could not comprehend the uncharitable inac- 
 tivity of the British Christians, which had withheld the bless- 
 ings of the Gospel from their pagan conquerors. The Roman 
 and the British clergy met, it is said, in solemn synod. The 
 Romans demanded submission to their discipline, and the 
 implicit adoption of the western ceremonial on the contested 
 points. The British bishops demurred ; Augustine proposed 
 to place the issue of the dispute on the decision of a miracle. 
 The miracle was duly performed a blind man brought for- 
 ward and restored to sight. But the miracle made not the 
 slightest impression on the obdurate Britons. They demanded
 
 CONVERSION OF THE ENGLISH. 39 
 
 a second meeting and resolved to put the Christianity of the 
 strangers to a singular test, a moral proof with them more 
 convincing than an apparent miracle. True Christianity, 
 they said, " is meek and lowly of heart. Such will he this 
 man (Augustine), if he be a man of God. If he be haughty 
 and ungentle he is not of God, and we may disregard his 
 words. Let the Romans arrive first at the synod. If on our 
 approach he rises from his seat to receive us with meekness 
 and humility, he is the servant of Christ, and we will obey 
 him. If he despises us and remains seated, let us despise 
 him." Augustine sat, as they drew near, in unbending dig- 
 nity. The Britons at once refused obedience to his com- 
 mands, and disclaimed him as their metropolitan. The indig- 
 nant Augustine (to prove his more genuine Christianity) burst 
 out into stern denunciations of their guilt in not having 
 preached the Gospel to their enemies. He prophesied a 
 prophecy which could hardly fail to hasten its own fulfillment 
 the divine vengeance by the arms of the Saxons. So com- 
 plete was the alienation, so entirely did the Anglo-Saxon 
 clergy espouse the fierce animosities of the Anglo-Saxons, 
 and even imbitter them by their theologic hatred, that the 
 gentle Beda relates with triumph, as a manifest proof of 'the 
 divine wrath against the refractory Britons, a great victory 
 over that wicked race, preceded by a massacre of twelve 
 hundred British clergy, chiefly monks of Bangor, who stood 
 aloof on an eminence praying for the success of their coun- 
 trymen.
 
 40 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 IV. 
 
 THE EARLY MONASTERIES. ALLEN. 
 
 [The religious activity of the time showed itself mainly in the planting 
 and endowment of monastic colonies, which gradually transformed the 
 face of the country. " In this monastic movement two strangely contrasted 
 impulses worked together to change the very aspect of the new England 
 and the new English society. The one was the passion for solitude, the 
 first outcome of the religious impulse given by the conversion ; a passion 
 for communing apart with themselves and with God, which drove men into 
 waste and woodland and desolate fen. The other was the equally new 
 passion for social life on the part of the nation at large; the outcome of its 
 settlement and well-doing on the conquered soil, and yet more of the influ- 
 ence of the new religion, coming as it did from the social civilization of 
 the older world, and invariably drawing men together by the very form of 
 its worship and its belief."] 
 
 IT was mainly by means of the monasteries that Christianity 
 became a great civilizing and teaching agency in England. 
 Those who judge monastic institutions only by their later and 
 worst days, when they had, perhaps, ceased to perform any 
 useful function, are apt to forget the benefits which they con- 
 ferred upon the people in the earlier stages of their exist- 
 ence. The state of England during this first Christian 
 period was one of chronic and bloody warfare. There was 
 no regular army, but every freeman was a soldier, and raids 
 of one English tribe upon another were every-day occur- 
 rences ; while pillaging frays on the part of the Welsh, fol- 
 lowed by savage reprisals on the part of the English, were 
 still more frequent. We catch glimpses, from time to time, 
 of the unceasing strife between each folk and its neighbors, 
 besides many hints of intestine struggles between prince 
 and prince, or of rivalries between one petty shire and oth- 
 ers of the same kingdom. 
 
 With such a state of affairs as this it became a matter of 
 deep importance that there should be some one institution
 
 THE EARLY MONASTERIES. 41 
 
 where the arts of peace might be carried on in safety, where 
 agriculture might be sure of its reward, where literature and 
 science might be studied, and where civilizing influences 
 might be safe from interruption or rapine. The monasteries 
 gave an opportunity for such an ameliorating influence to 
 spring up. They were spared, even in war, by the reverence 
 of the people for the Church ; and they became places where 
 peaceful minds might retire for honest work and learning and 
 thinking, away from the fierce turmoil of a still essentially 
 barbaric and predatory community. At the same time they 
 encouraged the development of this very type of mind by 
 turning the reproach of cowardice, which it would have car- 
 ried with it in heathen times, into an honor and a mark of 
 holiness. Every monastery became a center of light and of 
 struggling culture for the surrounding district. They were 
 at once, to the early English recluse, universities and refuges, 
 places of education, of retirement, and of peace in the midst 
 of a jarring and discordant world. 
 
 In the Roman south many, if not all, of the monasteries 
 seem to have been planned on the regular models; but in 
 the north, where the Irish missionaries had borne the largest 
 share in the work of conversion, the monasteries were irregu- 
 lar bodies on the Irish plan, where an abbot or abbess ruled 
 over a mixed community of monks and nuns. Hild, a mem- 
 ber of the Northumbrian princely family, founded such an 
 abbey at Streoneshalch (Whitby), made memorable by num- 
 bering among its members the first known English poet, 
 Caedmon. St. John of Beverley, Bishop of Hexham, set 
 up a similar monastery at the place with which his name is 
 so closely associated. The Irish monks themselves founded 
 others at Lindisfarne and elsewhere. Even in the south 
 some Irish abbeys existed. In process of time, however, as 
 the union with Rome grew stronger, all these houses con- 
 formed to the more regular usage, and became monasteries 
 of the ordinary Benedictine type.
 
 42 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 The civilizing value of the monasteries can hardly be over- 
 rated. Secure in the peace conferred upon them by a religious 
 sanction, the monks became the builders of schools, the drain- 
 ers of marsh-land, the clearers of forest, the tillers of heath. 
 Many of the earliest religious houses rose in the midst of 
 what had been trackless wilds. Peterborough and Ely grew 
 up on islands of the fen county. Crowland gathered round 
 the cell of Guthlac in the midst of a desolate mere. Evesham 
 occupied a glade in the wild forests of the western march. 
 Glastonbury, an old Welsh foundation, stood on a solitary 
 islet where the abrupt knoll of the Tor looks down upon the 
 broad waste of the Somersetshire marshes. Beverley, as its 
 name imports, had been a haunt of beavers before the monks 
 began to till its fruitful dingles. In every case agriculture 
 soon turned the wild lands into orchards and corn-fields, or 
 drove drains through the fens which converted their marshes 
 into meadows and pastures for the long-horned English cat- 
 tle. Roman architecture, too, came with the Roman Church. 
 We hear nothing before of stone buildings ; but Eadvvine 
 erected a church of stone at York, under the direction of 
 Paulinus ; and Bishop Wilfrith, a generation later, restored 
 and decorated it, covering the roof with lead and filling the 
 windows with panes of glass. Masons had already been set- 
 tled in Kent, though Benedict, the founder of Wearmouth 
 and Jarrow, found it desirable to bring over others from the 
 Franks. Metal-working had always been a special gift of 
 the English, and their gold jewelry was well made even be- 
 fore the conversion, but it became still more noticeable after 
 the monks took the craft into their own hands. Beda men- 
 tions mines of copper, iron, lead, silver, and jet. Abbot 
 Benedict not only brought manuscripts from Rome, which 
 were copied and imitated in his monasteries at Wearmouth 
 and Jarrow, but he also brought over glass-blowers, who in- 
 troduced the art of glass-making into England. Cuthbreht, 
 Beda's scholar, writes to Lull, asking for workmen who
 
 THE EARLY MONASTERIES. 43 
 
 can make glass vessels. Bells appear to have been equally 
 early introductions. Roman music, of course, accompanied the 
 Roman liturgy. The connection established with the clergy 
 of the continent favored the dispersion of European goods 
 throughout England. We constantly hear of presents, con- 
 sisting of skilled handicraft, passing from the civilized south 
 to the rude and barbaric north. Wilfrith and Benedict jour- 
 neyed several times to and from Rome, enlarging their own 
 minds by intercourse with Roman society, and returning 
 laden with works of art or manuscripts of value. Beda was 
 acquainted with the writings of all the chief classical poets 
 and philosophers, whom he often quotes. We can only liken 
 the results of such intercourse to those which, in our own 
 time, have proceeded from the opening of Japan to western 
 ideas, or of the Hawaiian Islands to European civilization 
 and European missionaries. The English school, which soon 
 sprang up at Rome, and the Latin schools, which soon sprang 
 up at York and Canterbury, are precise equivalents of the 
 educational movements in both those countries which we see 
 in our own day. The monks were to learn Latin and Greek 
 " as well as they learned their own tongue," and were so to 
 be given the key of all the literature and all the science that 
 the world then possessed. 
 
 The monasteries thus became real manufacturing, agri- 
 cultural, and literary centers on a small scale. The monks 
 boiled down the salt of the brine-pits ; they copied and illu- 
 minated manuscripts in the library ; they painted pictures 
 not without rude merit of their own ; they ran rhines 
 through the marshy moorlands ; they tilled the soil with 
 vigor and success. A new culture began to occupy the land 
 the culture whose fully-developed form we now see around 
 us. But it must never be forgotten that in its origin it is 
 wholly Roman and not at all Anglo-Saxon. Our people 
 showed themselves singularly apt at embracing it, like the 
 modern Polynesians, and unlike the American Indians; but
 
 44 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 they did not invent it for themselves. Our existing culture 
 is not home-bred at all ; it is simply the inherited and 
 widened culture of Greece and Italy. 
 
 V. 
 
 ALFRED'S EARLY YEARS.- FREEMAN. 
 
 [It was in the reign of Ecgberht, king of Wessex, that all the English 
 kingdoms were united for the first time under one ruler. But the young 
 State was no sooner formed than it was forced to face a new danger in the 
 invasion of the Northmen or Danes. These people came from the Scan- 
 dinavian kingdoms of the north of Europe, were of the same blood as the 
 English, but were far behind them in civilization, and were still heathen- 
 They began to land in England, to harry the country, and to carry off 
 their spoil. At first as robbers, then as settleis, and finally as conquerors, 
 for two centuries they occupy a large space in English history. In the 
 midst of their invasions Alfred ascended the West-Saxon throne, and a 
 large portion of his life was devoted to beating off their attacks.] 
 
 WE now come to our great King Alfred, the best and 
 greatest of all our kings. We know quite enough of his his- 
 tory to be able to say that he really deserves to be so called, 
 though I must warn you that, just because he left so great a 
 name behind him, people have been fond of attributing to 
 him things which really belonged to others. Thus you may 
 sometimes see nearly all our laws and customs attributed to 
 Alfred, as if he had invented them all for himself. You will 
 sometimes hear that Alfred founded trial by jury, divided 
 England into counties, and did all kinds of other things. 
 Now the real truth is that the roots and beginnings of most of 
 these things are very much older than the time of Alfred, while 
 the particular forms in which we have them now are very 
 much later. But people have a way of fancying that every 
 thing must have been invented by some particular man, and, 
 as Alfred was more famous than any body else, they hit upon
 
 ALFRED'S EARLY YEARS. 45 
 
 Alfred as the most likely person to have invented them. 
 But, putting aside fables, there is quite enough to show that 
 there have been very few kings, and very few men of any 
 sort, so great and good as King Alfred. Perhaps the only 
 equally good king we read of is Saint Lewis of France ; and, 
 though he was quite as good, we cannot set him down as 
 being so great and wise as Alfred. Certainly no king ever 
 gave himself up more thoroughly than Alfred did fully to do 
 the duties of his office. His whole life seems to have been 
 spent in doing all he could for the good of his people in 
 every way. And it is wonderful in how many ways his pow- 
 ers showed themselves. That he was a brave warrior is in 
 itself no particular praise in an age when almost every man 
 was the same. But it is a great thing for a prince, so large 
 a part of whose time was spent in fighting, to be able to say 
 that all his wars were waged to set free his country from the 
 most cruel enemies. And we may admire, too, the wonder- 
 ful way in which he kept his mind always straight and firm, 
 never either giving way to bad luck or being puffed up by 
 good luck. We read of nothing like pride or cruelty or in- 
 justice of any kind either toward his own people or toward 
 his enemies. And if he was a brave warrior, he was many 
 other things besides. He was a lawgiver ; at least he col- 
 lected and arranged the laws, and caused them to be most 
 carefully administered. He was a scholar, and wrote and 
 translated many books for the good of his people. He en- 
 couraged trade and enterprise of all kinds, and sent men to 
 visit distant parts of the world and bring home accounts of 
 what they saw. And he was a thoroughly good man and a 
 devout Christian in all relations of life. In short, one hardly 
 knows any other character in all history so perfect, there is 
 so much that is good in so many different ways ; and, though 
 no doubt Alfred had his faults, like other people, yet he 
 clearly had none, at any rate in the greater part of his life, 
 which took away at all seriously from his general goodness.
 
 46 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 One wonders that such a man was never canonized as a 
 saint ; most certaintly many people have received that name 
 who did not deserve it nearly so well as he did. 
 
 Alfred, or, as his name should really be spelled, Alfred, 
 was the youngest son of King ^Ethelwulf, and was born at 
 Wantage, in Berkshire, in 849. His mother was Osburh, the 
 first, or perhaps the second, wife of ^Ethelwulf, She was the 
 daughter of Oslac, the king's cup-bearer, who came of the 
 royal house of the Jutes in Wight. Now a story is told of 
 Alfred and his mother, which you may, perhaps, have heard 
 already, and which is such a beautiful tale that I am really 
 sorry to have to say that it cannot possibly be true. We are 
 told that up to the age of twelve years Alfred was fond of 
 hunting and other sports, but that he had not been taught 
 any sort of learning, not so much as to read his own 
 tongue. But he loved the old English songs; and one day 
 his mother had a beautiful book of songs, with rich pictures 
 and fine painted initial letters, such as you may often see in 
 ancient books. And she said to her children, " I will give 
 this beautiful book to the one of you who shall first be able 
 to read it." And Alfred said, " Mother, will you really give 
 me the book when I have learned to read it ? " And Osburh 
 said, " Yes, my son." So Alfred went and found a master, 
 and soon learned to read. Then he came to his mother and 
 read the songs in the beautiful book, and took the book for 
 his own. 
 
 Now it is a great pity that so pretty a story cannot be true, 
 and I must tell you why it cannot. Alfred was sent to Rome 
 to the pope when he was four years old; and if the pope took 
 him as his "bishop-son," and anointed him to be king, one 
 cannot help thinking that he would have taught him to read, 
 and to learn Latin. And it is quite certain that he could do 
 both very well in after life. Still this is not quite certain 
 proof, as he might have learned afterward. But one thing is 
 quite certain. Alfred was not twelve years old till 86 1. By
 
 ALFRED'S EARLY YEARS. 47 
 
 that time his brothers were not children playing round their 
 mother, but grown men and kings, and two of them, ^Ethel- 
 Stan and ^thelbald, were dead. Moreover, in 861 Alfred's 
 father, vEthelwulf, was dead, and his mother must have been 
 dead also, as ^Ethelwulf married Judith in 856, when Alfred 
 was only seven years old. If, then, any thing of the kind 
 happened, it could not have been when Alfred was twelve 
 years old, but before he was four. For in that year he went 
 to Rome, and could never have seen his mother again, even 
 if she were alive when he went. And for a child of four years 
 old not to be able to read, is not so very wonderful a thing, 
 even in our own time.* 
 
 In 871, on ./Ethelred's death, Alfred came to the crown, 
 and he had at once to fight for his kingdom. The battle was 
 at Wilton, near Salisbury, and does not seem to have been a 
 very decisive one, as we read that the Danes were put to 
 flight, and yet that they kept possession of the place of battle. 
 And after the battle the Danes seem to have been tired : we 
 read that they made peace with the West-Saxons, and there 
 was peace, as far as Wessex was concerned, for a few years. 
 
 * I have seen in different books two attempts to get out of this difficulty, 
 but I do not think either of them will do. 
 
 First, some suggest that Osburh was not dead when yEthelwulf married 
 Judith, but that he had put her away, and that she might still have had her 
 children about her. But of this there is no sort of proof, and when we 
 read that a man, and especially a good man like ^Ethelwulf, married a sec- 
 ond wife, we are bound to suppose that his first wife was dead, unless we 
 have some clear proof that she was alive. And granting this, we still have 
 the difficulty that, when Alfred was twelve years old, his brothers were not, 
 as ihe story clearly implies, boys, but grown men and kings, and that some 
 of them were dead. 
 
 Secondly, some suggest that the story really belongs, not to Alfred's 
 mother, Osburh, but to his step-mother, Judith. Now it is really ridiculous 
 to fancy that this young foreign girl would act as a careful mother to yEthel- 
 wulf 's sons, some of whom must have been older than herself, and one of 
 whom (./Ethelbald) she was unprincipled enough to marry. Moreover, in 
 861 yEthelbald was already dead, and Judith had gone back into Gaul.
 
 48 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 But they were all the while fighting and plundering and set- 
 tling in other parts of Britain, and in 876 they came again into 
 Wessex. We thus come to that part of Alfred's life which is 
 at once the saddest and the brightest. It was the time when 
 his luck was lowest and his spirit was highest. The army 
 under Guthrum, the Danish king of East-Anglia, came sud- 
 denly to Wareham, in Dorsetshire. The "Chronicle" says 
 that they " bestole " that is, came secretly, or escaped 
 from the West- Saxon army, which seems to have been 
 waiting for them. This time Alfred made peace with the 
 Danes, and they gave him some of their chief men for hos- 
 tages, and they swore to go out of the land, but they did not 
 keep their oath. . . . 
 
 And now we come to the terrible year 878, the greatest 
 and saddest and most glorious in all Alfred's life. In the 
 very beginning of the year, just after Twelfth-night, the Dan- 
 ish host again came suddenly "bestole," as the Chronicle 
 says to Chippenham. Then " they rode through the West- 
 Saxon's land, and there sat down, and mickle of the folk over 
 sea they drove, and of the others the most deal they rode 
 over, all but the King Alfred ; he with a little band hardly 
 fared (went) after the woods and on the moor-fastnesses." 
 How can I tell you this better than in the words of the 
 Chronicle itself, only altering some words into their modern 
 shape, that you may the better understand them ? But it is 
 quite certain that this time of utter distress lasted only a 
 very little while, for in a few months Alfred was again at the 
 head of an army and able to fight against the Danes. It must 
 have been at this time that the story of the cakes happened, 
 if it ever happened at all. The tale is quite possible, but 
 there is no proof of it being true. It is said that Alfred went 
 and stayed in the hut of a neatherd or swineherd of his, who 
 knew who he was, though his wife did not know him. One 
 day the woman set some cakes to bake, and bade the king, 
 who was sitting by the fire mending his bow and arrows, to
 
 ALFRED'S EARLY YEARS. 51 
 
 tend them. Alfred thought more of his bow and arrows than 
 he did of the cakes, and let them burn. Then the woman 
 ran in, and cried out : '' There, don't you see the cakes on 
 fire? Then wherefore turn them not? You're glad enough 
 to eat them when they're piping hot ! "* 
 
 It is almost more strange when we are told by some that 
 this swineherd or neatherd afterward became Bishop of Win- 
 chester. They say that his name was Denewulf, and that the 
 king said that, though he was in so lowly a rank, he was nat- 
 urally a very wise man. So he had him taught, and at last 
 gave him the bishopric. But it is hard to believe this, espe- 
 cially as Denewulf, Bishop of Winchester, became bishop the 
 very next year. 
 
 VI. 
 
 DUNSTAN, THE ECCLESIASTICAL STATESMAN. GREEN. 
 
 [The struggle with the Danes gave a new direction to the growth of 
 Wessex. By the Treaty of Wedmore (878) England was divided between 
 Alfred and the Danish leader. Wessex lost her external supremacy, but 
 her immediate territory was largely increased. The impulse, thus given, 
 continued under Alfred's son and grandsons, until, in the reign of Eadgar, 
 the boundaries of Wessex became co-extensive with those of the kingdom 
 of England. This result seems to have been largely due lo the able admin- 
 istration of Archbishop Dunstan.] 
 
 THE completion of the West-Saxon realm was, in fact, 
 reserved for the hands, not of a king or warrior, but of a 
 priest. Dunstan stands first in the line of ecclesiastical states- 
 men, who counted among them Lanfranc and Wolsey, and 
 ended in Laud. He is still more remarkable in himself, in 
 his own vivid personality, after eight centuries of revolution 
 and change. He was born in the little hamlet of Glaston- 
 bury, the home of his father, Heorstan, a man of wealth and 
 
 * The woman's speech is put into two Latin verses. Most likely the 
 whole- story comes from a ballad. 
 3
 
 52 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 brother of the Bishop of Wells and of Winchester. It must have 
 been in his father's hall that the fair, diminutive boy, with his 
 scant but beautiful hair, caught his love for "the vain songs 
 of heathendom, the trifling legends, the funeral chaunts," 
 which afterward roused against him the charge of sorcery. 
 Thence, too, he might have derived his passionate love of 
 music, and his custom of carrying his harp in hand on journey 
 or visit. Wandering scholars of Ireland had left their books 
 in the monastery of Glastonbury, as they left them along the 
 Rhine and the Danube; and Dunstan plunged into the study 
 of sacred and profane letters till his brain broke down in 
 delirium. So famous became his knowledge in the neighbor- 
 hood that news of it reached the Court of ^Ethelstan; but 
 his appearance there was the signal for a burst of ill-will 
 among the courtiers. They drove him from the king's train, 
 threw him from his horse as he passed through the marshes, 
 and, with the wild passion of their age, trampled him under 
 foot in the mire. The outrage ended in fever, and Dunstan 
 rose from his sick-bed a monk. But the monastic profession 
 was then little more than a vow of celibacy, and his devotion 
 took no ascetic turn. His nature, in fact, was sunny, versatile, 
 artistic, full of strong affections, and capable of inspiring 
 others with affections as strong. Quick-witted, of tenacious 
 memory, a ready and fluent speaker, gay and genial in ad- 
 dress, an artist, a musician, he was at the same time an inde- 
 fatigable worker at books, at building, at handicraft. As his 
 sphere began to widen we see him followed by a train of 
 pupils, busy with literature, writing, harping, painting, design- 
 ing. One morning a lady summons him to her house to 
 design a robe which she is embroidering, and as he bends 
 with her maidens over their toil, his harp, hung upon the 
 wall, sounds, without mortal touch, tones which the excited 
 cars around frame into a joyous antiphon. 
 
 From this scholar-life Dunstan was called to a wider sphere 
 of activity by the accession of Eadmund. But the oldjeal-
 
 St. Dunstan
 
 DUNSTAN, THE ECCLESIASTICAL STATESMAN. 55 
 
 ousies revived at his re-appearance at court, and, counting the 
 game lost, Dunstan preferred again to withdraw. The king 
 had spent the day in the chase ; the red deer which he was 
 pursuing dashed over Cheddar cliffs, and his horse only 
 checked itself on the brink of the ravine at the moment 
 when Eadmund, in the bitterness of death, was repenting of 
 his injustice to Dunstan. He was at once summoned on the 
 king's return. "Saddle your horse," said Eadmund, ''and 
 ride with me." The royal train swept over the marshes to 
 his home ; and the king, bestowing on him the kiss of peace, 
 seated him in the abbot's chair as Abbot of Glastonbury. 
 Dunstan became one of Eadmund's councilors, and his hand 
 was seen in the settlement of the North. The league be- 
 tween Scot and Briton was finally broken up, and the fidelity 
 of the Scots secured by their need of help in holding down 
 their former ally. The settlement was soon troubled by the 
 young king's death. As he feasted at Pucklechurch, in the 
 May of 946, Leofa, a robber whom Eadmund had banished 
 from the land, entered the hall, seated himself at the royal 
 board, and drew sword on the cup-bearer when he bade him 
 retire. The king sprang in wrath to his thane's aid, and 
 seizing Leofa by the hair, flung him to the ground ; but in 
 the struggle the robber drove his dagger to Eadmund's heart. 
 His death at once stirred fresh troubles in the North ; the 
 Danelagh rose against his brother and successor, Eadred, and 
 some years of hard fighting were needed before it was again 
 driven to own the English supremacy. But with its submis- 
 sion, in 954, the work of conquest was done. Dogged as 
 his fight had been, the Northman at last owned himself 
 beaten. From the moment of Eadred's final triumph all 
 resistance came to an end. The Danelagh ceased to be 
 a force in English politics. North might part anew from 
 South; men of Yorkshire might again cross swords with 
 men of Hampshire, but their strife was henceforth a local 
 strife between men of the same people ; it was a strife of
 
 56 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 Englishmen with Englishmen, and not of Englishmen with 
 Northmen. 
 
 The death of Eadred, in 955, handed over the realm to a 
 child-king, his nephew, Eadwig. Eadwig was swayed by a 
 woman of high lineage, ^Ethelgifu ; and the quarrel between 
 her and the older councilors of Eadred broke into open 
 strife at the coronation feast. On the young king's insolent 
 withdrawal to her chamber, Dunstan, at the bidding of the 
 Witan, drew him roughly back to his seat. But the feast 
 was no sooner ended than a sentence of outlawry drove the 
 abbot over sea, while the triumph of ^Ethelgifu was crowned, 
 in 957, by the marriage of her daughter to the king, and the 
 spoliation of the monasteries which Dunstan had befriended. 
 As the new queen was Eadwig's kinswoman, the religious 
 opinion of the day regarded his marriage as incestuous, and 
 it was followed by a revolution. At the opening of 958 Arch- 
 bishop Odo parted the king from his wife by solemn sentence; 
 while the Mercians and Northumbrians rose in revolt, pro- 
 claimed Eadwig's brother Eadgar their king, and recalled 
 Dunstan. The death of Eadwig, a few months later, restored 
 the unity of the realm; but his successor, Eadgar, was only 
 a boy of fourteen, and throughout his reign the actual direc- 
 tion of affairs lay in the hands of Dunstan, whose elevation 
 to the see of Canterbury set him at the head of the Church 
 as of the State. The noblest tribute to his rule lies in the 
 silence of our chroniclers. His work, indeed, was a work of 
 settlement, and such a work was best done by the simple en- 
 forcement of peace. During the years of rest in which the 
 stern hand of the Primate enforced justice and order, Northmen 
 and Englishmen drew together into a single people. Their 
 union was the result of no direct policy of fusion; on the con- 
 trary, Dunstan's policy preserved to the conquered Danelagh 
 its local rights and local usages. But he recognized the men 
 of the Danelagh as Englishmen: he 'employed Northmen in 
 the royal service, and promoted them to high posts in Church
 
 DUNSTAN, THE ECCLESIASTICAL STATESMAN. 57 
 
 and State. For the rest he trusted to time, and time justified 
 his trust. The fusion was marked by a memorable change 
 in the name of the land. Slowly as the conquering tribes 
 had learned to know themselves by the one national name 
 of Englishmen, they learned yet more slowly to stamp their 
 name on the land they had won. It was not till Eadgar's 
 day that the name of Britain passed into the name of Engla- 
 land, the land of Englishmen, England. The same vigorous 
 rule which secured rest for the country during these years 
 of national union, told on the growth of material prosperity. 
 Commerce sprang into a wider life. The laws of yEthelred, 
 which provide for the protection and regulation of foreign 
 trade, only recognize a state of things which grew up under 
 Eadgar. It was in Eadgar's day that London rose to com- 
 mercial greatness. 
 
 VII. 
 CNUT, THE GREAT DANISH KING. FREEMAN. 
 
 [On the accession of the second ^thelred, named the Unready, the Danish 
 wars began again, and soon passed into their third phase an attempt on the 
 part of the King of all Denmark to subjugate the kingdom of England. 
 The fatal policy was adopted of buying off the invaders. This led to more 
 frequent invasions, and to ever-increasing demands for money, until at 
 length the country was exhausted and could pay no more ; while, under the 
 enervating influences of the time, the English military system seems to have 
 utterly broken down. The Conquest, nearly finished by Swegen, was com- 
 pleted by his son Cnut, who thus became King of all England. He won 
 his success by unscrupulous means, but a great change came over him as 
 soon as his power was firmly established.] 
 
 THIS gradual change in the disposition of Cnut makes him 
 one of the most remarkable, and, to an Englishman, one of 
 the most interesting, characters in history. There is no 
 other instance unless Rolf, in Normandy, be admitted as a 
 forerunner on a smaller scale of a barbarian conqueror, en-
 
 58 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 tering a country simply as a ruthless pirate, plundering, burn- 
 ing, mutilating, slaughtering, without remorse, and then, as 
 soon as he is seated on the throne of the invaded land, 
 changing into a beneficent ruler and lawgiver, and winning 
 for himself a place side by side with the best and greatest of 
 its native sovereigns. Cnut never became a perfect prince 
 like ^Elfred. An insatiable ambition possessed him through- 
 out life, and occasional acts of both craft and violence disfig- 
 ure the whole of his career. He always found some means, 
 by death, by banishment, by distant promotion, of getting rid 
 of any one who had once awakened his suspicions. Reasons 
 of State were as powerful with him, and led him into as many 
 unscrupulous actions as any more civilized despot of later 
 times. But Englishmen were not disposed to canvass the 
 justice of wars in which they won fame and plunder, while no 
 enemy ever set foot on their own shores. They were as little 
 disposed to canvass the justice of banishments and executions 
 when, for many years, it was invariably a Dane, never an 
 Englishmen, who was the victim. The law by which the 
 Dane settled in England presently became an Englishman, 
 received its highest carrying out in the person of the illustri- 
 ous Danish king. As far as England and Englishmen were 
 concerned, Cnut might seem to have acted on the principle 
 of the Greek poet, that unrighteousness might be fittingly 
 practiced in order to obtain a crown, but that righteousness 
 should be practiced in all other times and places. The throne 
 of Cnut, established by devastating wars, by unrighteous exe- 
 cutions, perhaps even by treacherous assassinations, was, when 
 once established, emphatically the throne of righteousness and 
 peace. As an English king, he fairly ranks among the noblest 
 of his predecessors. 
 
 His best epitaph is his famous letter to his people on his 
 Roman pilgrimage. Such a pilgrimage was an ordinary de- 
 votional observance, according to the creed of those times. 
 But in the eyes of Cnut it was clearly much more than a mere
 
 CNUT, THE GREAT DANISH KING. 59 
 
 perfunctory ceremony. The sight of the holy places stirred 
 him to good resolves in matters both public and private, and, 
 as a patriotic king, he employed his meeting with the pope, 
 the emperor, and the Burgundian king, to win from all of 
 them concessions which were profitable to the people of his 
 various realms. No man could have written in the style in 
 which Cnut writes to all classes of his English subjects, unless 
 he were fully convinced that he possessed and deserved the 
 love of his people. The tone of the letter is that of an 
 absent father writing to his children. In all simplicity and 
 confidence, he tells them the events of his journey, with 
 what honors he had been received, and with what presents 
 he had been loaded by the two chiefs of Christendom, and 
 what privileges for his subjects, both English and Danish, he 
 had obtained at their hands. He confesses the errors of his 
 youth, and promises reformation of any thing which may still 
 be amiss. All grievances shall be redressed; no extortions 
 shall be allowed ; King Cnut needs no money raised by injus- 
 tice. These are surely no mere formal or hypocritical profes- 
 sions; every word plainly comes from the heart. 
 
 The same spirit reigns in the opening of his laws. The 
 precept to fear God and honor the king here takes a more 
 personal and affectionate form. First, above all things, are 
 men one God ever to love and worship, and one Christendom 
 with one consent to hold, and Cnut king to love with right 
 truthfulness. The laws themselves embrace the usual sub- 
 jects, the reformation of manners, the administration of justice, 
 the strict discharge of all ecclesiastical duties, and the strict 
 payment of all ecclesiastical dues. The feasts of the two new 
 national saints, Eadward the King and Dunstan the Primate, 
 are again ordered to be observed, and the observance of the 
 former is again made to rest in a marked way on the author- 
 ity of the Witan. The observance of the Lord's Day is also 
 strongly insisted on ; on that day there is to be no market- 
 ing, no hunting; even the holding of folkmotes is forbidden,
 
 60 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 except in cases of absolute necessity. All heathen supersti- 
 tion is to be forsaken, and the slave-trade is again denounced. 
 The whole fabric of English society is strictly preserved. 
 The king legislates only with the consent of his Witan. The 
 old assemblies, the old tribunals, the old magistrates, retain 
 their rights and powers. The king, as well as all inferior 
 lords, is to enjoy all that is due to him ; the royal rights, dif' 
 fering somewhat in the West-Saxon and the Danish portioni 
 of the kingdom, are to be carefully preserved, and neither 
 extended nor diminished in either country. No distinction, 
 except the old local one, is made between Danes and En- 
 glishmen, and no sort of preference is made in favor of Quit's 
 own Danish followers. 
 
 And as Cnut's theory was, so was his practice. No king 
 was more active in what was then held to be the first duty of 
 kingship, that of constantly going through every portion of his 
 realm to see with his own eyes whether the laws \\hich he 
 enacted were duly put in force. In short, after Cnut's power 
 was once fully established, we hear no complaint against his gov- 
 ernment from any trustworthy English source. His hold upon 
 the popular affection is shown by the number of personal 
 anecdotes of which he is the hero. The man who is said, in 
 the traditions of other lands, to have ordered the cold-blooded 
 murder of his brother-in-law, and that in a church at the holy 
 season of Christmas, appears in English tradition as a prince 
 whose main characteristic is devotion mingled with good- 
 humor. In the best-known tale of all, he rebukes the impi- 
 ous flattery of his courtiers, and hangs his crown on the image 
 of the crucified Saviour. He bursts into song as he hears the 
 chant of the monks of Ely, and rejoices to keep the festivals 
 of the Church among them. He bountifully rewards the sturdy 
 peasant who proves the thickness of the ice over which the 
 royal sledge has to pass. 
 
 In ecclesiastical matters Cnut mainly, though not exclu- 
 sively, favored the monks. His ecclesiastical appointments,
 
 CNUT, THE GREAT DANISH KING. 61 
 
 especially that of the excellent Archbishop ^Ethelnoth, who 
 had baptized or confirmed him, do him high honor. He was 
 also, after the custom of the age, a liberal benefactor to vari- 
 ous ecclesiastical foundations. He made provision for all the 
 holy places which had in any way suffered during his own or 
 his father's wars. Nor was his bounty confined to England, 
 or even to his own dominions. On his Roman pilgrimage 
 the poor and the churches of every land through which he 
 passed shared his bountiful alms. 
 
 Such, then, was Cnut's internal government of England. 
 The conqueror had, indeed, changed into a home-born king. 
 At no earlier time had the land ever enjoyed so long a term 
 of such unmixed prosperity. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 THE CLERGY IN THE EARLY MIDDLE AGES. STEVENSON. 
 
 [It is almost impossible to estimate too highly the influence of the clergy 
 during the five hundred years that followed the conversion of the English to 
 Christianity. Foremost in Church and State, they were the civilizers and 
 educators of the English people. They fostered agriculture and the arts ; 
 they protected the poor and weak against the rich and powerful ; they were 
 the only barrier against the brute force of the times, and in a thousand chan- 
 nels they made their influence fell for good. Their very success, however, 
 demoralized them, and we shall find them, in the later ages, working rather 
 for the interests of their own order t!:an for the good of the nation.] 
 
 THROUGHOUT the earlier ages the clergy represented the 
 true principles of democracy. In the best sense of the woid 
 they were popular. They were of the people and for the 
 people. They mediated between the commonalty and th'e 
 nobles ; they were a barrier and a protection of the weak 
 against the strong at a time when the throne was none. But 
 for that interposition there would have been more grinding 
 oppression, a-nd more revolting cruelty. Men who laughed 
 3*
 
 62 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 at the laws enacted by the State, trembled at the censure of 
 an ecclesiastical judge. That an independent power should 
 be recognized as existing somewhere in the midst of the gen- 
 eral anarchy, was an advantage; that it should be in the 
 hands of those whose position secured them from abusing it, 
 as the nobles did, was a blessing. 
 
 The Church did what the crown could not do; it enforced 
 its own decisions. It established a system of legislation, and 
 its sanctions reached the noble no less than the peasant. 
 To give free scope to this system, it reconstructed society by 
 introducing a new classification of ranks and dignities. The 
 world and the Church had each their peculiar system ; the 
 rank which a man occupied in the State was not necessarily 
 that which he occupied in the Church. No sooner did he 
 cross the threshold of the sacred building than he was 
 measured by a standard different from that which prevailed 
 outside the fabric. Here worldly rank and power and influ- 
 ence went for nothing; he took his place, whoever he might 
 be, according to his moral worth and his religious educa- 
 tion. The Church exercised her authority over the serf 
 and the sovereign equally, and this authority was not to be 
 gainsaid. The system of public penance placed in the hands 
 of the priesthood an authority from the operation of which 
 no state, no condition of life, was exempted. It was for them 
 to specify the nature of the temporal punishment due to the 
 transgression of the law, to limit its application, and to fix its 
 continuance. Except in a few extreme cases, its severity 
 might be modified, or it might be withdrawn altogether, at 
 the .discretion of the bishop. In cases of extraordinary guilt 
 the penitent was forbidden to enter the church, a distinctive 
 dress was assigned him; he walked barefoot, his food was 
 bread, water, and herbs. Mere worldly rank could plead no 
 exemption for the guilty. 
 
 At a time when every man went armed, when human life 
 was little valued, when it was considered meritorious to
 
 THE CLERGY IN THE EARLY MIDDLE AGES. 63 
 
 avenge upon the spot every wrong, imaginary or real, when 
 the opportunities of escape from the pursuit of justice were 
 many, when the law was slow of foot and weak of hand, 
 originated the privilege of sanctuary. It was a revival of 
 that earlier law which had provided a place of refuge, " that 
 the slayer might flee thither that should kill his neighbor 
 unawares, and hated him not in times past, and that fleeing 
 thither he might live." What the cities of refuge had been 
 to the Jew, the Church was to the Christian. For centuries 
 the clergy were the only representatives of the principle, now 
 so generally acknowledged in all free states, that, until a man 
 has been proved to be guilty, he shall be considered to be 
 innocent. They went a step further, and declared that no 
 man should be accuser, witness, advocate, judge, and exe- 
 cutioner in his own cause. They preached and wrote, 
 against the dangerous theory, always apt to become dominant 
 in an imperfect degree of civilization, that the survivor must 
 avenge the blood of the slain. They refused to join in the 
 cry which deifies " the wild justice of revenge." By extend- 
 ing its protection over those who fled to it for safety, the 
 Church afforded time for the first burst of passion to subside, 
 and the voice of reason to be heard, and all must have seen 
 that, in mediating between the offender and the offended, it 
 did so for the good of both. 
 
 The middle classes, to which England is indebted fora very 
 large share of the wealth, intelligence, and independence 
 which have made her what she is, originated in that fusion 
 of ranks which constituted the clergy. In the earlier ages of 
 society the two great divisions of the people are the noble and 
 the ignoble, and the Church afforded the only common ground 
 of approximation. Here, and here only, their interests met, 
 blended, and harmonized. Recognizing, as has already been 
 stated, none of the distinctions which prevailed in the world, 
 the Church welcomed the highest and the lowest. It offered 
 the same advantages and the same rewards to both. If the
 
 64 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 son of the poor man could rise above the condition of his 
 father, and emerge from the degradation to which feudalism 
 had consigned the class to which he belonged, it was through 
 the agency of the Church. The history of the Middle 
 Ages shows how frequently the highest dignities which the 
 State had to offer have been attained by ecclesiastics of the 
 humblest parentage. If we have examples of kings, like Offa 
 and Ceadwalla, Ceolwulf and Ini, who became monks, we 
 have instances of monks, like Dunstan and Anselm, who be- 
 came archbishops, and as such governed kingdoms and kings. 
 Nicholas Breakspear, from a poor serving-lad at St. Albans, 
 became pope of Rome. If the Church of the poor man opened 
 up to him and his the road to fame and honor, we cannot 
 wonder that it had his respect and his affection in return, 
 and, as a thank-offering, the best that he had to give. 
 
 Again, the clergy of the Middle Ages secured no small ac- 
 cession of strength in public estimation from the struggle 
 which they carried on against slavery. Here they fought the 
 battle of the weak against the powerful, and in the end they 
 were victorious through the force of public opinion. The 
 circumstances of the times afforded ample scope for the 
 exercise of this active benevolence. According to the spirit 
 in which war was then conducted, the goods, the person, and 
 the life of the vanquished were at the disposal of the victor. 
 If he sacrificed his defeated enemy to the war-god of his na- 
 tion, it was justice; if he sold him into captivity, or made 
 him labor in his own service, it was clemency. Further, men 
 might become slaves as a punishment for certain crimes, or 
 they might be born in a state of slavery. Against this system 
 in all its forms the clergy protested upon principles of pure 
 and genuine philanthropy. They opposed it because they 
 regarded it, as all good men will ever regard it, as affecting 
 the dignity, the happiness, and the welfare, temporal and spir- 
 itual, of all who fall under its power ; and the Church, by its 
 laws and its example, its wealth and its influence, succeeded
 
 THE CLERGY IN THE EARLY MIDDLE AGES. 65 
 
 first in mitigating, and then in suppressing, the crime of slav- 
 ery, which for centuries polluted every nation of Europe. 
 
 Intimately connected with this subject, and with the whole 
 condition of society in those early times, is the care with 
 which the clergy watched over the poor, the widow, and the 
 orphan. These they regarded as their especial inheritance, 
 and upon them they spent willingly and liberally the funds 
 which had been placed at their disposal. 
 
 But, more lasting still, as outliving all change of society, 
 was the care taken by the clergy for the education of the 
 people. For a long time they were the only teachers of the 
 entire population of England. Instruction was nowhere to be 
 had but from them. They collected, preserved, and trans- 
 mitted the scattered fragments of learning which had de- 
 scended to their own time. The monastery was the only 
 school, the monk or the cleric the only teacher. The edu- 
 cation which they could give was no trifling boon ; and the 
 laity could not fail to notice that it led to the substan- 
 tial prizes of wealth, honor, and influence. With no better 
 advantages than those which the school of the monastery at 
 Wearmouth afforded, Beda achieved a reputation which car- 
 ried his name over Europe. Alcuin, educated within the 
 monastery of York, was competent to teach the teachers of 
 Charlemagne, and he obtained from that monarch the proud 
 title of the restorer of letters in France. The bishop in his 
 palace, the monk in his monastery, and the parish priest in 
 his parsonage, each contributed to the great work of educa- 
 tion. Ecclesiastical laws were enacted to secure for the peo- 
 ple the advantages which it was believed would result from a 
 system so comprehensive. Nor were these schools instituted 
 for professional purposes only. The benefits they conferred 
 were not limited to those persons who were intended to re- 
 cruit the ranks of the priesthood ; for, although these schools 
 were founded by the clergy, supported by the clergy, and 
 conducted by the clergy, yet free access was afforded to all
 
 66 SKETCHES FR'OM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 who chose to profit by the advantages which they offered. 
 Persons of different ranks of life were thus instructed in sec- 
 ular and religious learning, who might afterward marry and 
 enter the world as laymen. 
 
 From these considerations it appears that during the early 
 period there existed a remarkable unity of sentiment and in- 
 terest between the clergy and the people. We have seen 
 that the bishop and the parish priest cared as well for the 
 temporal happiness as the spiritual progress of all sorts and 
 conditions of men. They could help the Saxon serf and the 
 Norman villein and his family in various ways, and they did 
 not hesitate to lend a helping hand. By their influence the 
 chain of the bondman's slavery was made less galling; his 
 children were educated and advanced in life. They stood 
 between him and the oppression of his feudal superior; and, 
 if this were not enough, through them his wrongs found a 
 way to the ear of the sovereign. They were his advocates in 
 the courts of law, in prison they visited and comforted him. 
 If he had been plundered, they (if any one could) obtained 
 for him the restitution of his property. In sickness they 
 were the physician of the body as well as of the soul, for the 
 little skill in the art of healing which then existed was in 
 the hands of the clergy. If the disease was of long continu- 
 ance, the monastery was at once dispensary and hospital. 
 The various offices of charity, kindness, usefulness, and broth- 
 erly love which were discharged by Churchmen alone for cent- 
 uries, are now parceled out among a variety of religious and 
 benevolent societies, each of which stands high in public esti- 
 mation. They did the work of Scripture readers at home and 
 of missionaries abroad. Their system, so long as it existed, 
 rendered it unnecessary to tax the country for the support of 
 the poor. For a. long period, the monastery was the only 
 inn; there the traveler was welcomed", housed, and fed; if 
 overtaken by sickness he was tended there with unpaid skill 
 and watchfulness until he could proceed upon his journey.
 
 THE CLERGY IN THE EARLY MIDDLE AGES. 67 
 
 Their ready benevolence and untiring zeal originated and 
 carried on the machinery which in our day requires the sup- 
 port of thousands of voluntary subscribers, and millions of 
 involuntary taxpayers. 
 
 IX. 
 
 BATTLE OF SENLAC OR HASTINGS. FREEMAN. 
 
 [The two sons of Cnut, Harold and Harthacnut, died childless, after 
 brief and disgraceful reigns, and the nation restored the old line of kings in 
 the person of Eadward, called the Confessor, son of yEthelred the Un- 
 ready and a Norman princess. He had spent most of his youth at the 
 Norman court. Weak, pious, well-intentioned, he was better fitted for a 
 Norman monastery than for the English throne. His court became a 
 gathering-place for Norman courtiers and ecclesiastics, whose influence, 
 however, was largely counteracted by Earl Godwine.who had risen to power 
 in the days of Cnut, and who had the chief management of affairs under 
 Eadward, with one brief interval, until his death, in 1053. He was suc- 
 ceeded by his son, Earl Harold, who had married the king's sister. On 
 the death of Eadward, without issue, early in 1066, Harold was elected to 
 the vacant throne. His right was at once disputed by William, Duke of 
 the Normans, on the ground that Eadward had promised him the crown, 
 and that Harold had sworn to maintain William's claim. Though Will- 
 iam's title had no legal basis, he determined to enforce it with the sword, 
 and the two rivals met on the field of Hastings.] 
 
 MEANWHILE King Harold marshaled his army on the hill, 
 to defend their strong post against the attack of the Nor- 
 mans. All were on foot ; those who had horses made use of 
 them only to carry them to the field, and got down when the 
 time came for actual fighting. The army was made up of 
 soldiers of two very different kinds. There was the king's 
 personal following, his housecarls, his own thanes, and the 
 picked troops generally, among them the men of London, 
 who claimed to be the king's special guards, and the men of 
 Kent, who claimed to strike the first blow in the battle. They
 
 68 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 had armor much the same as that of the Normans, with jave- 
 lins to hurl first of all, and for the close fight either the 
 sword, the older English weapon, or more commonly the 
 great Danish ax, which had been brought in by Cnut. This 
 was wielded with both hands, and was the most fearful of all 
 weapons if the blow reached its mark, but it left its bearer 
 specially exposed while dealing the blow The men were 
 ranged as closely together as the space needed for wielding 
 their arms would let them ; and, besides the palisade, the 
 front ranks made a kind of inner defense with their shields, 
 called the shield-wall. The Norman writers were specially 
 struck with the close array of the English, and they speak of 
 them as standing like trees in a wood. Besides these choice 
 troops there were also the general levies of the neighboring 
 lands, who came armed anyhow, with such weapons as they 
 could get, the bow being the rarest of all. These inferior 
 troops were placed to the right, on the least exposed part of 
 the hill, while the king, with his choice troops, stood ready 
 to meet Duke William himself. The king stood between his 
 two ensigns, the national badge, the dragon of Wessex, and 
 his own standard, a great flag with the figure of a fighting 
 man wrought on it in gold. Close by the king stood his 
 brothers, Gyrth and Leofwine, and his other kinsfolk. 
 
 By nine in the morning the Normans had reached the hill 
 of Senlac, and the fight began. But before the real attack 
 was made a juggler, or minstrel, in the Norman army, known 
 as Taillefcr, that is, the Cleaver of Iron, asked the duke's 
 leave to strike the first blow. So he rode out, singing songs 
 of Charlemagne, as the French call the Emperor Charles the 
 Great, and of Roland, his paladin. Then he threw his sword 
 up in the air and caught it again ; he cut down two English- 
 men, and then was cut down himself. After this mere 
 bravado came the real work. First came a flight of arrows 
 from each division of the Norman army. Then the heavy- 
 armed foot pressed on, to make their way up the hill and to
 
 BATTLE OF SENLAC OR HASTINGS. 69 
 
 break down the palisade. But the English hurled their jave- 
 lins at them as they came up, and cut them down with their 
 axes when they came near enough for hand-strokes. The 
 Normans shouted, " God help us ! " the English shouted, 
 " God Almighty ! " and the king's own war-cry of " Holy 
 Cross" the Holy Cross of Waltham. William's heavy- 
 armed foot pressed on along the whole line, the native Nor- 
 mans having to face King Harold's chosen troops in the 
 center. The attack was vain ; they were beaten back, and 
 they could not break down the palisade. Then the horsemen 
 themselves, the duke at their head, pressed on up the hill- 
 side. But all was in vain. ; the English kept their strong 
 ground ; the Normans had to fall back ; the Bretons on the 
 left actually turned and fled. Then the worse-armed and 
 less-disciplined English troops could not withstand the 
 temptation to come down from the hill and chase them. The 
 whole line of the Norman army began to waver, and in many 
 parts to give way. A tale spread that the duke was killed. 
 William showed himself to his troops, and, with his words, 
 looks, and blows, helped by his brother, the bishop, he 
 brought them back to the fight. The flying Bretons now 
 took heart ; they turned and cut in pieces the English who 
 were chasing them. Thus far the resistance of the English 
 had been thoroughly successful, wherever they had obeyed 
 the king's orders, and kept within their defenses. But the 
 fault of those who had gone down to follow the enemy had 
 weakened the line of defense, and had shown the Normans 
 the true way of winning the day. 
 
 Now came the fiercest struggle of the whole day. The 
 duke and his immediate following tried to break their way 
 into the English inclosure at the very point where the king 
 stood by his standard with his brothers. The two rivals 
 were near coming face to face. At that moment Earl Gyrth 
 hurled his spear, which missed the duke, but killed his horse 
 and brought his rider to the ground. William then pressed
 
 70 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 to the barricade on foot, and slew Gyrth in hand-to-hand fight. 
 At the same time the king's other brother, Earl Leofwine, 
 was killed. The duke mounted another horse, and again 
 pressed on ; but the barricade and the shield-wall withstood 
 all attempts. On the right the attack of the French division 
 had been more lucky ; the palisade was partly broken down, 
 But the English, with their axes and shields, still kept their 
 ground, and the Normans were still unable to gain the top 
 of the hill or to come near the standard. 
 
 The battle had now gone on for several hours, and Duke 
 William saw that, unless he quite changed his tactics, he had 
 no hope of overcoming the resistance of the English. They 
 had suffered a great loss in the death of the two earls, and 
 their defenses were weakened at some points ; but the army, 
 as a whole, held its ground as firmly as ever. William then 
 tried a most dangerous stratagem, his taking to which shows 
 how little hope he now had of gaining the day by any direct 
 attack. He saw that his only way was to bring the English 
 down from the hill, as part of them had already come down. 
 He, therefore, bade his men feign flight. The Normans 
 obeyed ; the whole host seemed to be flying. The irregular 
 levies of the English on the right again broke their line; they 
 ran down the hill, and left the part where its ascent was most 
 easy open to the invaders. The Normans now turned on their 
 pursuers, put most of them to flight, and were able to ride 
 up the part of the hill which was left undefended, seemingly 
 about three o'clock in the afternoon. The English had thus 
 lost the advantage of the ground ; they had now, on foot, with 
 only the bulwark of their shields, to withstand the horsemen. 
 This, however, they still did for some hours longer. But the 
 advantage was now on the Norman side, and the battle 
 changed into a series of single combats. The great object 
 of the Normans was to cut their way to the standard, where 
 King Harold still fought. Many men were killed in the at- 
 tempt ; the resistance of the English grew slacker, but yet,
 
 BATTLE OF SENLAC OR HASTINGS. 71 
 
 when evening was coming on, they still fought on with their 
 king at their head, and a new device of the duke's was 
 needed to bring the battle to an end. 
 
 This new device was to bid his archers shoot in the air, 
 that their arrows might fall, as he said, like bolts from heaven. 
 They were, of course, bidden specially to aim at those who 
 fought around the standard. Meanwhile twenty knights 
 bound themselves to lower or bear off the standard itself. 
 The archers shot ; the knights pressed on ; and one arrow 
 had the deadliest effect of all ; it pierced the right eye of 
 King Harold. He sank down by the standard ; most of the 
 twenty knights were killed, but four reached the king while 
 he still breathed, slew him with many wounds, and carried 
 off the two ensigns. It was now evening ; but though the 
 king was dead, the fight still went on. Of the king's own 
 chosen troops it would seem that not a man either fled or 
 was taken prisoner. All died at their posts, save a few 
 wounded men who were cast aside as dead, but found strength 
 to get away on the morrow. But the irregular levies fled, 
 some of them on the horses of the slain men. Yet even in 
 this last moment they knew how to revenge themselves on 
 their conquerors. The Normans, ignorant of the country, 
 pursued in the dark. The English were thus able to draw 
 them to the dangerous place behind the hill, where not a few 
 Normans were slain. But the duke himself came back to the 
 hill, pitched his tent there, held his midnight feast, and 
 watched there with his host all night.
 
 72 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 X. 
 
 THE CONQUEROR AND HIS POLICY. GREEN. 
 
 [Although the great victory at Senlac did not put William in possession 
 of the whole country, it, nevertheless, decided the fate of England. He 
 advanced upon the capital and, two months after the battle, was elected 
 and crowned as king. Even then he was in real possession of only a third 
 of the kingdom. Hut he met, henceforth, with no general, organized resist- 
 ance. Revolts here and there were easily crushed, and gradually his 
 authority was extended over the whole land. In three years the Conquest 
 was complete. It was not a conquest in the ordinary sense. It was not 
 the complete "subjugation of one people by another people. The Norman 
 duke had taken the place of the English king, and he had taken it by 
 force ; but he presented himself to the conquered nation as its legitimate 
 ruler. The ultimate results of the change were almost incalculable, but the. 
 immediate results were few. The old laws and customs were preserved, 
 and the continuity of English history remained unbroken.] 
 
 IT is to the stern discipline of our foreign kings that we 
 owe not merely English wealth and English freedom, but 
 England herself. And of these foreign masters the greatest 
 was William of Normandy. In William the wild impulses 
 of the Northman's blood mingled strangely with the cool 
 temper of the modern statesman. As he was the last, so he 
 was the most terrible outcome of the northern race. The 
 very spirit of the sea-robbers, from whom he sprang, seemed 
 embodied in his gigantic form, his enormous strength, his 
 savage countenance, his desperate bravery, the fury of his 
 wrath, the ruthlessness of his revenge. " No knight under 
 heaven," his enemies owned, "was William's peer." Boy as 
 he was at Val-es-dunes, horse and man went down before his 
 lance. All the fierce gayety of his nature broke out in the 
 warfare of his youth. No man could bend William's bow. 
 His mace crashed its way through a ring of English warriors 
 to the foot of the standard. He rose to his greatest height 
 at moments when other men despaired. His voice rang out 
 as a trumpet when his soldiers fled before the English charge
 
 THE CONQUEROR AND His POLICY. 73 
 
 at Senlac, and his rally turned the flight into a means of vic- 
 tory. In his winter march on Chester he strode at the head 
 of his fainting troops, and helped with his own hand to clear 
 a road through the snow-drifts. And with the Northman's 
 daring broke out the Northman's pitilessness. When the 
 townsmen of Alencon hung raw hides along their walls, in 
 scorn of the " tanner's " grandson, William tore out his pris- 
 oners' eyes, hewed off their hands and feet, and flung them 
 into the town. Hundreds of Hampshire men were driven 
 from their homes to make him a hunting-ground, and his 
 harrying of Northumbria left Northern England a desolate 
 waste. Of men's love or hate he recked little. His grim 
 look, his pride, his silence, his wild outbursts of passion, left 
 William lonely even in his court. His subjects trembled as 
 he passed. " Stark man he was," writes the English chron- 
 icler, " and great awe men had of him." His very wrath was 
 solitary. " To no man spake he, and no man dared speak to 
 him," when the news reached him of Harold's seizure of the 
 throne. It was only when he passed from his palace to the 
 loneliness of the woods that the king's temper unbent. "He 
 loved the wild deer as though he had been their father." 
 
 It was the genius of William which lifted him out of this 
 mere Northman into a great general and a great statesman. 
 The wary strategy of his French campaigns, the organization 
 of his attack upon England, the victory of Senlac, the quick 
 resource, the steady perseverance which achieved the Con- 
 quest, showed the wide range of his generalship. His polit- 
 ical ability had shown itself from the first moment of his acces- 
 sion to the ducal throne. William had the instinct of govern- 
 ment. He had hardly reached manhood when Normandy lay 
 peaceful at his feet. Revolt was crushed; discord was tram- 
 pled under foot. The Duke "could never love a robber," be 
 he baron or knave. The sternness of his temper stamped it- 
 self throughout upon his rule. " Stark he was to men that 
 withstood him," says the chronicler of his English system
 
 74 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 of government ; "so harsh and cruel was he that none dared 
 withstand his will. Earls that did aught against his bidding 
 he cast into bondage. If a man would live and hold his 
 lands, need it were he followed the king's will." Stern as 
 such a rule was, it gave rest to the land. Even amid the suf- 
 ferings which necessarily sprang from the circumstances of 
 the Conquest itself, from the erection of castles or the in- 
 closure of forests or the exactions which built up William's 
 hoard at Winchester, Englishmen were unable to forget "the 
 good peace he made in the land, so that a man might fare 
 over his realm with a bosom full of gold." Strange touches, 
 too, of a humanity far in advance of his age contrasted with 
 this general temper of the Conqueror's government. One 
 of the strongest traits in his character was an aversion to 
 shed blood by process of law ; he formally abolished the 
 punishment of death, and only a single execution stains the 
 annals of his reign. An edict yet more honorable to his 
 humanity put an end to the slave-trade which had, till then, 
 been carried on at the port of Bristol. The contrast between 
 the ruthlessness and pitifulness of his public acts sprang, 
 indeed, from a contrast within his temper itself. The pitiless 
 warrior, the stern and awful king, was a tender and faithful 
 husband, an affectionate father. The lonely silence of his 
 bearing broke into gracious converse with pure and sacred 
 souls like Anselm. If William was "stark "to rebel and baron, 
 men noted that he was "mild to those that loved God." 
 
 But the greatness of the Conqueror was seen in more than 
 the order and peace which he imposed upon the land. Fort- 
 une had given him one of the greatest opportunities ever 
 offered to a king of stamping his own genius on the destinies 
 of a people ; and it is the way in which he seized on this op- 
 portunity which has set William among the foremost states- 
 men of the world. The struggle which ended in the fens of 
 Ely had wholly changed his position. He no longer held the 
 land merely as its national and elected king. To his elective
 
 THE CONQUEROR AND His POLICY. 75 
 
 right he added the right of conquest. It is the way in which 
 William grasped and employed this double power that marks 
 the originality of his political genius, for the system of gov- 
 ernment which he devised was, in fact, the result of this double 
 origin of his rule. It represented neither the purely feudal 
 system of the Continent nor the system of the older English 
 royalty; more truly, perhaps, it may be said to have repre- 
 sented both. As the conqueror of England, William devel- 
 oped the military organization of feudalism so far as was 
 necessary for the secure possession of his conquests. The 
 ground was already prepared for such an organization. We 
 have watched the beginnings of English feudalism in the 
 warriors, the "companions" or "thegns" who were personally 
 attached to the king's war-band and received estates from 
 the folkland in reward for their personal services. In later 
 times this feudal distribution of estates had greatly increased, 
 as the bulk of the nobles followed the king's example, and 
 bound their tenants to themselves by a similar process of sub- 
 infeudation. The pure freeholders, on the other hand, the 
 class which formed the basis of the original English society, 
 had been gradually reduced in number, partly through imi- 
 tation of the class above them, but more through the pressure 
 of the Danish wars and the social disturbances consequent 
 upon them which forced these freemen to seek protection 
 among the thegns at the cost of their independence. Even 
 before the reign of William, therefore, feudalism was super- 
 seding the older freedom in England as it had already super- 
 seded it in Germany and France. But the tendency was 
 quickened and intensified by the Conquest. The desperate 
 and universal resistance of the country forced William to 
 hold by the sword what the sword had won ; and an army 
 strong enough to crush at any moment a national revolt, was 
 needful for the preservation of his throne. Such an army 
 could only be maintained by a vast confiscation of the soil, 
 ami the failure of the English risings cleared the ground for
 
 76 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 its establishment. The greater part of the higher nobility 
 fell in battle or fled into exile, while the lower thegnhood 
 either forfeited the whole of their lands or redeemed a por- 
 tion by the surrender of the rest. We see the completeness 
 of the confiscation in the vast estates which William was en- 
 abled to grant to his more powerful followers. Two hundred 
 manors in Kent, with more than an equal number elsewhere, 
 rewarded the services of his brother Odo, and grants almost 
 as large fell to William's counselors, Fitz-Osborn and Mont- 
 gomery, or to barons like the Mowbrays and the Clares. But 
 the poorest soldier of fortune found his part in the spoil. 
 The meanest Norman rose to wealth and power in this new 
 dominion of his lord. Great or small, each manor thus 
 granted was granted on condition of its holder's service at 
 the king's call ; a whole army was by this means encamped 
 upon the soil, and William's summons could at any hour 
 gather an overwhelming force around his standard. 
 
 Such a force, however, effective as it was against the con- 
 quered English, was hardly less formidable to the crown 
 itself. When once it was established, William found himself 
 fronted in his new realm by a feudal baronage, by the men 
 he had so hardly bent to his will in Normandy, and who 
 were as impatient of law, as jealous of the royal power, as 
 eager for an unbridled military and judicial independence 
 within their own manors here as there. The political genius 
 of the Conqueror was shown in his appreciation of this danger 
 and in the skill with which he met it. Large as the estates 
 he granted were, they were scattered over the country in 
 such a way as to render union between the great landhold- 
 ers, or the hereditary attachment of great areas of population 
 to any one separate lord, equally impossible. A yet wiser 
 measure struck at the very root of feudalism. When the 
 larger holdings were divided by their owners into smaller 
 sub-tenancies, the under-tenants were bound by the same 
 conditions of service to their lord as he to the Crown. "Hear,
 
 THE CONQUEROR AND His POLICY. 77 
 
 my lord," swore the vassal, as kneeling bareheaded and with- 
 out arms he placed his hands within those of his superior, 
 " I become liege man of yours for life and lirnb and earthly 
 regard ; and I will keep faith and loyalty to you for life and 
 death, God help me ! " Then the kiss of his lord invested 
 him with land as a "fief" to descend to him and his heirs 
 forever. In other countries such a vassal owed fealty to his 
 lord against all foes, be they king or no. B) the usage, how- 
 ever, which William enacted in England each sub-tenant, in 
 addition to his oath of fealty to his lord, swore fealty di- 
 rectly to the Crown, an<f loyalty to the king was thus estab- 
 lished as the supreme and universal duty of all Englishmen. 
 
 XL 
 
 THE RED KING. HUNT. 
 
 [On the death of the Conqueror, and in accordance with his wishes, the 
 duchy of Normandy went to his eldest son, Robert, while England fell to 
 his second son, William Rufus. William succeeded in making good his 
 claim to the kingdom, notwithstanding the opposition of Robert and the 
 Norman nobles, who did not like to have their hereditary estates in Nor- 
 mandy separated from their conquered estates in England. After a few 
 years Robert pledged Normandy to William in order to raise money with 
 which to join in the first Crusade, so that the duchy and the kingdom were 
 again virtually united under one ruler. The Red King, as he was called, 
 had great energy and ability, but he was utterly reckless and unscrupulous, 
 and a man of the foulest life. " Never day dawned," says his chronicler, 
 "but he was a worse man than when he lay down; never sun set, but 
 he lay down a worse man than he had risen." ] 
 
 No form of election seems to have preceded the corona- 
 tion of William Rufus. His accession to the throne was 
 the work of Archbishop Lanfranc, acting on the instructions 
 of the Conqueror. Conscious of the character of Rufus, 
 who had been his pupil, Lanfranc made him, in addition to 
 the ordinary coronation oath, give a special promise that he 
 would govern well, and would in all things be ruled by him. 
 4
 
 78 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 For, as he had knighted him, and had brought him up, Lanfranc 
 had a claim on his reverence, besides that which the arch- 
 bishop derived from his office, and from having been the chief 
 minister of his father. Promises had little sanctity in the eyes 
 of Rufus, unless they concerned some matter of military honor. 
 "Who is there that can do all he promises? " was his wrath- 
 ful answer to the archbishop, when he reminded the king of 
 his own words. In 1089 the death of Lanfranc freed him 
 from a restraint which he regarded with impatience. From 
 this date his true character showed itself. Unlike his father, 
 William Rufus put no check on his evil nature. Of no other can 
 it be more truly said that he feared not God, neither regarded 
 man. The hideous depravity of his life reveals the depth to 
 which man can sink when, owning no law, he gives himself 
 up to work all uncleanness with greediness. The special 
 form of his immorality was, perhaps, an effect of the connection 
 of the Normans with the people of the south and east of Eu- 
 rope, which arose from the conquest of Sicily. Thence, too, 
 it may be, came that habit of speaking evil of God and his 
 saints, in which he constantly indulged. When he recovered, 
 for instance, from an illness in which, with the fear of death 
 before him, he promised to live a better life, he swore that 
 " God should never find him a good man in return for the ill 
 He had done him." And when certain men, accused of deer- 
 stealing, were acquitted by the ordeal, he loudly impugned the 
 justice of God's judgment. For such offenses men were, in 
 his reign, condemned to death, for he set aside the law of his 
 father, which forbade capital punishment. Although he was 
 not guilty of delighting in the bodily suffering of others, he 
 was utterly careless of the welfare of his subjects. He re- 
 joiced in hurting men's feelings, and in shocking their preju- 
 dices. He took a bribe from the Jews of Rouen to make some 
 of their people who had become Christians turn back to their 
 old religion. In a spirit of mockery he made the bishops 
 m England hold a set disputation with the Jews, and declared
 
 THE RED KING. 79 
 
 that if they were worsted he would become a Jew himself. 
 William Rufus was a dutiful son to his father while he lived, 
 and ever held his memory in honor. His filial admiration led 
 him to try to imitate his father's dignity, and his boastful in- 
 solence was a travesty of his father's majesty. The mighty 
 oath of the Conqueror gave place to the adjuration, " By the 
 holy face of Lucca ! " or the yet more senseless form, " By 
 this and by that." He loved to boast of his power, and to 
 talk of his kingly dignity ; but there was, in truth, nothing 
 kingly in him. An assumed scowl and a blustering tone were 
 the means by which he sought to make men feel the fear 
 inspired by the fierceness of his father's mien and his terrific 
 voice. At the same time Rufus loved to jest with his com- 
 panions, and to make his own wickedness the subject of their 
 laughter. Men bandied words with him as they would not 
 have dared to do with his father. They even played tricks 
 upon him. Thus one day it chanced, as he was putting on 
 some new boots, that he asked his chamberlain how much 
 they cost, and when he said, " three shillings," Rufus abused 
 him, for he held them to be too cheap for a king's use. The 
 man went and fetched a cheaper pair, telling him that they 
 cost more. "Ay," said he, "these are fit for a king's maj- 
 esty." Not so, we may be sure, did his servants treat his 
 father. The story is told by William of Malmesbury to illus- 
 trate the king's wastefulness. New fashions of effeminate 
 luxury prevailed in his court. Men went about with long 
 hair and flowing robes, and long, pointed shoes. Extrava- 
 gance and folly were encouraged by the example and by the 
 prodigal gifts of the king. His empty treasury was supplied 
 by the devices of his low-born minister, Ranulf Flambard, 
 who oppressed all alike, caring for no man's hatred if only he 
 might please his master. These extortions were the more 
 galling because they were committed under the guise of law, 
 for every court was made by the justiciary the means of 
 pressing the claims of the Crown.
 
 8o SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 Chief among the causes of the extravagance of Rufus was 
 his love of all that pertained to arms. From his youth he 
 excelled in all knightly exercises. A man-at-arms was to him 
 something different from the rest of mankind. The word of 
 such a one was more worthy of belief than that of others, and 
 to such a one he held that a man should keep his word. To 
 speak " as a good soldier " was to give another the highest 
 assurance of truth. Some relation there was between such 
 ideas and the arbitrary and imperfect code of chivalry. Yet, 
 while chivalry exalted certain virtues to the neglect of 
 others, and regarded a certain part of mankind as alone 
 worthy of consideration, the system was founded on the idea 
 that this regard was paid to the members of an order on the 
 ground that they were pledged to exercise the virtues which 
 were thus honored. Rufus, on the other hand, exalted no 
 virtue, and honored men, not because they spoke the truth, 
 but because they belonged to a profession which he loved. For 
 this reason he held them to be entitled to privileges which he 
 would not extend to others, and was careful to attach them to 
 his service. When Rufus rewarded and enlisted a soldier 
 who unhorsed him at St. Michael's Mount, or when he refused 
 to believe that the knights at Ballon could break their word, 
 he seems to exhibit the spirit of Francesco Sforza when, in 
 1424, he spared the lives of the captains whom his father 
 bade him put to death, rather than to resemble Bayard, who, 
 imperfect as were his ideas of right, poured scorn with his 
 dying breath on the greatest captain of his age because he 
 was " false to his country, his king, and his oath." Nor do 
 the ideas of Rufus seem to me to have much in common with 
 those of his ancestor, Richard the Good ; for the king made his 
 privileged class of soldiers, while an accident of birth was the 
 sole recommendation for promotion at the court of the duke. 
 Rufus would have made no bad captain of mercenaries, and 
 these troops flocked to him in great numbers. He paid them 
 highly, and if sometimes his treasury was empty, still their
 
 THE RED KING. . 81 
 
 services were not unrequited, for he let them do as they liked. 
 The license extended to these men caused much suffering to 
 his people. In other cases he was stern enough. Death 
 was a common penalty, until he found it more profitable to 
 make men give him money than to hang them. 
 
 No dependence could be placed on the word of Rufus. 
 Three times he promised that he would govern well, and 
 three times those who believed him were deceived. The 
 first of these promises he made to Lanfranc. Again, in ro88, 
 when the Normans rebelled against him, and he was driven to 
 seek the support of the English, "he promised them the best 
 laws that ever were before in this land ; and every unjust 
 geld he forbade, and granted them their woods and hunting, 
 but it stood no while." The third time he made such a 
 promise was in 1093, when he was sick, and this, too, he 
 broke when he recovered from his sickness. Great as the 
 help was that he gained from the English fyrd^ on one nota- 
 ble occasion he shamefully betrayed the loyalty of the people. 
 In his war with Robert, in 1094, he sent over from Normandy 
 to Flambard and bade him levy twenty thousand Englishmen 
 to come over to him. The English then, as ever, obeyed the 
 call of their king. The host came together at Hastings, each 
 man with ten shillings given him by his shire for his expenses 
 on the campaign. Then Flambard came and took this money 
 away, and dismissed the men. So the king gained ^10,000 
 by this transaction, and used the money in buying off the 
 French king from his brother's side. Impetuous at the be- 
 ginning of all his undertakings, Rufus lacked the steadfast- 
 ness to carry them out to a distinct issue. Unstable as water, 
 he never made a great war or a firm peace. In his attempt, in 
 1098, to bring Maine again under the Norman power, he took 
 Le Mans, and then left the country unsubdued. Before he 
 finished his work there, he began a war in the French Vexin, 
 and that also, after a while, ceased without any definite end- 
 ing. The vague and spasmodic character of his foreign rela-
 
 8a SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 tions make them of no real importance. At last the life of 
 foul depravity and the reign of great undertakings and of 
 small achievements came to an end; the tongue that boasted 
 great things was silenced; the time of military license and 
 administrative iniquity was cut short; the Red King was 
 slain in the place made desolate by his father's cruel selfish- 
 ness, and was carted away like one of those high deer which 
 the Conqueror loved so well. 
 
 XII. 
 
 HENRY I., THE SCHOLAR-KING. PEARSON. 
 
 [The tragic death of the Red King summoned his younger brother, Henry, 
 to the throne. The claim of the elder brother, Robert, who was still absent 
 in the east, was simply ignored. Robert, on his return, attempted to assert 
 his rights in England, but without success. Weak, vacillating, and extrav- 
 agant, he was soon unable to maintain his ground against the powerful 
 barons in his own duchy. Henry, on pretext of being alarmed for the 
 safety of his continental possessions, invaded Normandy, met Robert in 
 battle, captured him, and kept him in prison until his death, in 1134. 
 Henry's rule both in Normandy and England was stern, but, perhaps, no 
 sterner than the times demanded.] 
 
 THE Conqueror's youngest son had the stature and general 
 features of his family; but the high forehead, inherited from 
 his father, the dark complexion and quie f , thoughtful eyes 
 peculiar to himself, indicated a statesman rather than a sol- 
 dier. Thrown early upon the world, Henry had been trained 
 in a rough school. He had spent a large portion of his inherit- 
 ance in buying the government of the Cotentin from Robert, 
 who discharged the obligation by throwing him into prison. 
 A reconciliation was effected, and Henry did good service in 
 the revolt of Rouen, recovering the town when the duke fled 
 from it in a panic. A few weeks passed, and the fickle Rob- 
 ert had united with William to besiege Henry in his castle of
 
 HENRY I., THE SCHOLAR-KING. 83 
 
 Mont St. Michel. That Robert behaved with knightly 
 courtesy, in refusing to starve his brother out, is true; but he 
 continued the siege till the castle was surrendered; and 
 Henry spent the next few years of his life without money or 
 men, with a beggarly household of one squire and a priest. 
 He was, probably, the better scholar, but not the milder man, 
 for these experiences. As king he soon made himself re- 
 spected; he was a pleasant companion at times; but no man 
 could withstand " the imperious thunder of his voice ; " and 
 it was remarked that he was inscrutable ; his praise was often 
 a sure sign that he meant to ruin. He brooked no rivalry, 
 and forgave no insult; the old favorite, who had boasted that 
 he could build as grand a monastery as the king, was ruined 
 by suits at law, and died broken-hearted. The foreign knight, 
 who satirized Henry in songs, was blinded, in spite of the 
 Earl of Flanders' intercession, and dashed out his brains in 
 despair. When the king's ambition was interested, he was 
 careless what suffering he caused ; he oppressed the people 
 with intolerable taxes; and punished one of his own daugh- 
 ters for rebellion by dragging her through a fro/en moat. 
 
 Yet Henry possessed merits of a high order. He was not 
 moral, but he was not shamelessly vicious; he was moderate 
 in dress and food; his conversation was pure, and his court 
 decorous. He honored learning and talent, formed a menag- 
 erie at Woodstock, and promoted the formation of a vernac- 
 ular Norman literature. He advanced the fortunes of Robert 
 the Great, whom he had chosen chaplain for his skill in hur- 
 rying through the mass, but who proved a first-rate justiciary, 
 and adorned his see with the splendid cathedral of Salisbury. 
 He brought over Gilbert the Universal, the first scholar north 
 of the Alps, to be bishop of London. A great historical 
 school flourished in his reign, and the zeal of his son, the 
 Earl of Gloucester, for these studies, may well have been de- 
 rived from a father who looked back with affection on his 
 own " tumultuary "scholarship through all the troubles of his
 
 84 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 life. Nor was he indifferent to religion; he preferred being 
 served by good men if good men would do his will. He was 
 clear-sighted enough to perceive the importance of uniform- 
 ity in standards. He fixed the length of the English yard, it 
 is said, by his own arm ; and at some immediate hardship he 
 substituted payments in coin, which was instantly smelted 
 down, for payments in kind by which the taxes had been dis- 
 charged. Above all, he had a statesmanlike love of order; 
 and devoted himself to the cares of government, when his 
 ambition was satisfied by the conquest of Normandy. He 
 was called by one who survived him: "The peace of his 
 country, and the father of his people." . . . 
 
 It is difficult to say whether Henry introduced any new 
 principles into his government ; but he struck vigorously at 
 the great abuses. The most monstrous of all, the purveyance 
 of the royal officers, was repressed. The coinage had been 
 debased until the king's soldiers in Normandy were unable !o 
 use it. Accordingly the coiners throughout England were 
 summoned to Winchester, and were there one by one blinded 
 and otherwise mutilated. It does not seem that any trial was 
 held ; it was mere Lynch law ; but the people applauded it. 
 A new coinage was issued, and the old withdrawn. The 
 stern measure dealt out to outlaws was less popular. Henry 
 revived the punishment of death; in 1124 the grand jus- 
 ticiary was sent down into Leicester, which had been pecul- 
 iarly infested with thieves, and forty-four men, accused of 
 burglary, were hanged, and six mutilated, at a single session. 
 The sympathies of the people were with the sufferers, of whom 
 several were said to be innocent, while the guilty had prob- 
 ably practiced upon the rich. These executions, however, 
 effected their purpose ; the land was restored to complete 
 order, and Henry obtained the title of the Lion of Justice. . . 
 
 Henry's marvelous prosperity was darkened by one great 
 loss. His only legitimate son, William, had already received 
 the barons' oath of homage as their future king, when he ac-
 
 HENRY I., THE SCHOLAR-KING. 85 
 
 companied Henry on a visit to Normandy (1120). When 
 they were about to return by the port of Barfleur, a Nor- 
 man captain, Thomas Fitz-Stephen, appeared, and claimed 
 the right of taking them in his ship, on the ground that 
 his father had been captain of the Mora in which the Con- 
 queror crossed to invade England. The king did not care 
 to alter his own arrangements, but agreed that his son 
 should sail in the Blanche Nef with Fitz-Stephen. William 
 ^Etheling, as the English called him, was accompanied by a 
 large train of unruly courtiers, who amused themselves by 
 making the sailors drink hard before they started, and dis- 
 missed the priests who came to bless the voyage with a cho- 
 rus of scoffing laughter. It was evening before they left the 
 shore, and there was no moon ; a few of the more pru- 
 dent quitted the ship, but there remained nearly three hun- 
 dred a dangerous freight for a small vessel. However, 
 fifty rowers flushed with wine made good way in the waters; 
 but the helmsman was less fit for his work, and the vessel 
 struck suddenly on a sunken rock, the Ras de Catte. The 
 water rushed in, but there was time to lower a boat, which 
 put off with the prince. When in safety, he heard the cries 
 of his sister, the Countess of Perche, and returned to save 
 her. A crowd of desperate men leaped into the boat; it was 
 swamped, and all perished. As the ship settled down, all but 
 three of those on board were washed away. One of these, Fitz- 
 Stephen, drowned himself when he learned that the prince was 
 lost; one perished from cold; the third, a common sailor, was 
 kept warm by his thick sheep-skin dress, and survived to tell 
 the tale. It was a fresh horror of this tragedy that scarcely 
 any bodies were found to receive Christian burial. For more 
 than a day no one dared to tell the king of his loss; at last a 
 page was sent weeping to his feet. Three of Henry's children, 
 but, above all, the heir of all his hopes, for whom he had 
 plotted and shed blood, were taken from him at a blow. It 
 is said that from that hour he was never known to smile. 
 4*
 
 86 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 XIII. 
 THE ASSASSINATION OF BECKET.-MiLMAN. 
 
 [The untimely death of Prince William seemed certain to involve the 
 country in all the miseries of a disputed succession. Henry I. made every 
 effort to secure the succession to his only remaining legitimate child, his 
 daughter Matilda. She had married the German emperor, Henry V., and, 
 after his death, in 1125, she became the wife of Geoffrey Plantagenet, count 
 of Anjou. This second marriage was displeasing to the English barons, 
 who feared the influence of a foreign prince in England ; and, moreover, 
 it was repugnant to feudal principles that a woman should wear the crown. 
 At Henry's death the throne was seized by Stephen, count of Blois, who 
 was the third son of Adela, fourth daughter of the Conqueror. Matilda 
 attempted to make good her claim, and the result was civil war. The 
 barons divided between the two claimants, or went from one to the other, as 
 their own interests demanded. For nearly twenty years the feudal spirit 
 was rampant in England. At length the ruinous contest was stopped by 
 the treaty of Wallingford (1153), brought about by the influence of the 
 clergy, by which it was agreed that Stephen should remain king during his 
 life-time, and that Henry, son of Matilda, should succeed him. In less than 
 a year after the treaty was ratified Stephen died. 
 
 The young Henry the first of the Plantagenets stood pledged to 
 reform. He proved equal, on the whole, to the gigantic problem which 
 he had to solve, that of bringirg order out of chaos, and of establishing a 
 strong centralized government, which was the greatest need of his time. He 
 had difficulties to meet such as had confronted no other English king. By 
 inheritance and by marriage he was ruler over many heterogeneous peoples, 
 with varied and often conflicting interests. His dominions stretched from 
 the Scottish borders lo the Pyrenees. 
 
 In the work of governing his vast dominions Henry was ably assisted, 
 during the first few years, by his chancellor, Thomas Becket. One of the 
 king's chief objects was to bring all classes of his subjects, rich and poor, 
 high and low, clergy and laity alike, under the rule of the common law. 
 In furtherance of this object, he determined to make Becket archbishop of 
 the realm. This was a great mistake. As chancellor, Becket had steadily 
 upheld the royal authority ; as archbishop he felt it his duty to uphold the 
 authority of the Church. The antagonism between Church and State was 
 ruch as to make a collision between them inevitable. It soon came, Becket 
 fled from the country. Henry, whose aims were largely right, resorted
 
 THE ASSASSINATION OK BECKET. 87 
 
 to unwise and unwarrantable means to bring him to terms, and the arch- 
 bishop retaliated by measures equally unwise. At length a partial recon- 
 ciliation was effected, and Becket returned to England. But his temper 
 was unchanged ; he seemed to have a veritable passion for the glory of 
 martyrdom, and it may be fairly said that he forced the issue between him- 
 self and the king. Henry lost patience. In his rage he uttered some 
 hasty words, which were interpreted too literally by a few of his attend- 
 ants. They hastened to England, sought out the archbishop in his own 
 cathedral, and entered into an angry altercation with him, which resulted 
 in his death.] 
 
 THE assassination of Becket has something appalling, with 
 all its terrible circumstances seen in the remote past. What 
 was it in its own age? The most distinguished churchman 
 in Christendom, the champion of the great sacerdotal order, 
 almost in the hour of his triumph over the most powerful 
 king in Europe; a man, besides the awful sanctity inherent 
 in the person of every ecclesiastic, of most saintly holiness; 
 soon after the most solemn festival of the Church, in his own 
 cathedral, not only sacrilegiously but cruelly murdered, with 
 every mark of hatred and insult. Becket had all the daunt- 
 lessness, none of the meekness, of the martyr; but while his 
 dauntlessness would command boundless admiration, few, if 
 any, would seek the more genuine sign of Christian martyrdom. 
 
 The four knights do not seem to have deliberately deter- 
 mined on their proceedings, or to have resolved, except in 
 extremity, on the murder. They entered, but unarmed, the 
 outer chamber. The archbishop had just dined, and with- 
 drawn from the hall. They were offered food, as was the 
 usage; they declined, thirsting, says one of the biographers, 
 for blood. The archbishop obeyed the summons to hear a 
 message from the king; they were admitted to his presence. 
 As they entered there was no salutation on either side, till 
 the primate, having surveyed, perhaps recognized them, 
 moved to them with cold courtesy. Fitz-Urse was the 
 spokesman in the fierce altercation which ensued. Becket 
 replied with haughty firmness. Fitz-Urse began by re-
 
 88 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 preaching him with his ingratitude and seditious disloyalty 
 in opposing the coronation of the king's son, and commanded 
 him, in instant obedience to the king, to absolve the prelates. 
 Becket protested, that so far from wishing to diminish the 
 power of the king's son, he would have given him three 
 crowns and the most splendid realm. For the excommuni- 
 cated bishops he persisted in his usual evasion, that they had 
 been suspended by the pope, by the pope alone could they 
 be absolved; nor had they yet offered proper satisfaction. 
 " It is the king's command," spake Fitz-Urse, " that you 
 and the rest of your disloyal followers leave the kingdom." 
 " It becomes not the king to utter such command : hence- 
 forth no power on earth shall separate me from my flock." 
 " You have presumed to excommunicate without consulting 
 the king, the king's servants and officers." " Nor will I ever 
 spare the man who violates the canons of Rome, or the rights 
 of the Church." " From whom do you hold your arch- 
 bishopric ? " " My spirituals from God and the pope, my 
 temporals from the king." " Do you not hold all from the 
 king?" "Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, 
 and unto God the things that are God's." "You speak in 
 peril of your life!" "Come ye to murder me? I defy 
 you, and will meet you front to front in the battle of the 
 Lord." He added that Rome among them had sworn fealty 
 to him. At this, it is said, they grew furious, and gnashed 
 with their teeth. The prudent John of Salisbury heard, with 
 regret, this intemperate language: "Would it may end 
 well!" Fitz-Urse shouted aloud, "In the king's name I 
 enjoin you all, clerks and monks, to arrest this man till the 
 king shall have done justice on his body." They rushed 
 out, calling for their arms. 
 
 His friends had more fear for Becket than Becket for him- 
 self. The gates were closed and barred, but presently 
 sounds were heard of those without, striving to break in. 
 The lawless Randulph de Broc was hewing at the door with
 
 THE ASSASSINATION OF BECKET. 89 
 
 an ax. All around Becket was the confusion of terror; he 
 only was calm. Again spoke John of Salisbury with his cold 
 prudence: "Thou wilt never take counsel: they seek thy 
 life." "I am prepared to die." "We who are sinners are 
 not so weary of life." " God's will be done." The sounds 
 without grew wilder. All around him entreated Becket to 
 seek sanctuary in the church. He refused, whether from 
 religious reluctance that the holy place should be stained 
 with his blood, or from the nobler motive of sparing his 
 assassins this deep aggravation of their crime. They urged 
 that the bell was already tolling for vespers. He seemed to 
 give a reluctant consent ; but he would not move without the 
 dignity of his crozier carried before him. With gentle com- 
 pulsion they half-drew, half-carried him through a private 
 chamber, they in all the hasty aony of terror, he striving 
 to maintain his solemn state, into the church. The din of 
 the armed men was ringing in the cloister. The affrighted 
 monks broke off the service ; some hastened to close the 
 doors; Becket commanded them to desist: " No one should 
 be debarred from entering the house of God." John of 
 Salisbury and the rest fled and hid themselves behind the 
 altars and in other dark places. The archbishop might have 
 escaped into the dark and intricate crypt, or into a chapel in 
 the roof. There remained only the canon, Robert (of Mer- 
 ton), Fitz-Stephen, and the faithful jMlward Grim. Becket 
 stood between the altar of St. Benedict and that of the 
 Virgin. It was thought that Becket contemplated taking his 
 seat on his archiepiscopal throne, near the high altar. 
 
 Through the open door of the cloister came rushing in the 
 four, fully armed, some with axes in their hands, with two or 
 three wild followers, through the dim and bewildering twi- 
 light. The knights shouted aloud, " Where is the traitor? " 
 No answer came back. "Where is the archbishop? " "Be- 
 hold me, no traitor, but a priest of God." Another fierce 
 and rapid altercation followed : they demanded the absolu-
 
 90 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 tion of the bishops, his own surrender to the king's justice. 
 They strove to seize him and to drag him forth from the 
 church (even they had awe of the holy place), either to kill 
 him without, or carry him in bonds to the king. He clung 
 to the pillar. In the struggle he grappled with De Tracy, 
 and with desperate strength dashed him on the pavement. 
 His passion rose ; he called Fitz-Urse by a foul name, a 
 pander. These were almost his last words (how unlike those 
 of Stephen and the greater than Stephen !) He taunted 
 Fitz-Urse with his fealty sworn to himself. " I owe no 
 fealty but to my king! " returned the maddened soldier, and 
 struck the first blow. Edward Grim interposed his arm, 
 which was almost severed off. The sword struck Becket, 
 but slightly, on the head. Becket received it in an attitude 
 of prayer " Lord, receive my spirit," with an ejaculation to 
 the saints of the Church. Blow followed blow (Tracy seems 
 to have dealt the first mortal wound), till all, unless per- 
 haps De Morville, had wreaked their vengeance. The last, 
 that of Richard de Brito, smote off a piece of his skull. 
 Hugh of Horsea, their follower, a renegade priest, surnamed 
 Mauclerk, set his heel upon his neck and crushed out the 
 blood and brains. "Away! "said the brutal ruffian, " it is 
 time that we were gone." They rushed out to plunder the 
 archiepiscopal palace. 
 
 The mangled body was left on the pavement; and when 
 his affrighted followers ventured to approach, to perform their 
 last offices, an incident occurred which, however incon- 
 gruous, is too characteristic to be suppressed. Amid thc.'ir 
 adoring awe at his courage and constancy, their profound 
 sorrow for his loss, they broke out into a rapture of wonder 
 and delight on discovering not merely that his whole body 
 was swathed in the coarsest sackcloth, but that his lower 
 garments were swarming with vermin. From that moment 
 miracles began. Even the populace had before been divided ; 
 voices had been heard among the crowd denying him to be
 
 THE ASSASSINATION OF BECK.ET. 91 
 
 a martyr; he was but the victim of his own obstinacy. The 
 archbishop of York, even after this, dared to preach that it 
 was a judgment of God against Becket that " he perished, 
 like Pharaoh, in his pride." But the torrent swept away at 
 once all this resistance. The government inhibited the 
 miracles, but faith in miracles scorns obedience to human 
 laws. The Passion of the martyr, Thomas, was saddened and 
 glorified every day with new incidents of its atrocity, of his 
 holy firmness, of wonders wrought by his remains. 
 
 The horror of Becket's murder ran throughout Christen- 
 dom. At first, of course, it was attributed to Henry's direct 
 orders. Universal hatred branded the king of England with 
 a kind of outlawry, a spontaneous excommunication. William 
 of Sens, though the attached friend of Becket, probably does 
 not exaggerate the public sentiment when he describes this 
 deed as surpassing the cruelty of Herod, the perfidy of 
 Julian, the sacrilege of the traitor Judas. 
 
 It were injustice to King Henry not to suppose that with the 
 dread as to the consequences of this act must have mingled 
 some reminiscence of the gallant friend and companion of 
 his youth and of the faithful minister, as well as religious 
 horror at a cruel murder, so savagely and impiously exe- 
 cuted. He shut himself for three days in his chamber, ob- 
 stinately refused all food and comfort, till his attendants 
 began to fear for his life. He issued orders for the appre- 
 hension of the murderers, and dispatched envoys to the 
 pope to exculpate himself from all participation or cog- 
 nizance of the crime. His embassadors found the pope at 
 Tusculum ; they were at first sternly refused an audience. 
 The afflicted and indignant pope was hardly prevailed on to 
 permit the execrated name of the king of England to be 
 uttered before him. The cardinals still friendly to the king 
 with difficulty obtained knowledge of Alexander's determina- 
 tion. It was, on a fixed day, to pronounce, with the utmost 
 solemnity, excommunication against the king by name, and
 
 92 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 an interdict on all his dominions, on the continent as well as 
 in England. The embassadors hardly obtained the abandon- 
 ment of this fearful purpose, by swearing that the king would 
 submit in all things to the judgment of his Holiness. With 
 difficulty the terms of reconciliation were arranged. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 DEATH OF HENRY II. STUBBS. 
 
 [Political and domestic troubles brooded over the last years of Henry's 
 reign. With the former he would have been able to cope, but the latter 
 weighed heavily upon him, and ultimately broke him down. His own 
 wife and children made common cause with his enemies against him. 
 Their disaffection was partly due, no doubt, to his own injudicious man- 
 agement and conduct ; yet he was an indulgent father, and had striven to 
 do his best for his children. Only Geoffrey, his natural son, remained 
 faithful to him to the last. Worn-out with chagrin and disappointment and 
 ceaseless toil, he died at the age of fifty-six.] 
 
 AND now Henry nerved himself for an interview which he 
 knew could have but one issue. Ill as he was, he moved 
 from Saumur to Azai, and in the plain of Colombieres met 
 Philip and Richard on the day after the capture of Tours. 
 
 Henry, notwithstanding his fistula and his fever, was able 
 to sit on horseback. His son Geoffrey had begged leave of 
 absence, that he might not see the humiliation of his father ; 
 but many of his other nobles, and probably two of his three 
 archbishops, rode beside him. The terms which he had 
 come to ratify had been settled beforehand. He had but to 
 signify his acceptance of them by word of mouth. They 
 met face to face, the unhappy father and the undutiful son. 
 It was a clear, sultry day, a cloudless sky, and still air. As 
 the kings advanced toward one another a clap of thunder 
 was heard, and each drew back. Again they advanced, and 
 again it thundered louder than before. Henry, wearied and
 
 THE DEATH OF HENRY II. 93 
 
 excited, was ready to faint. His attendants held him up on 
 his horse, and so he made his submission. He had but one 
 request to make ; it was for a list of the conspirators who had 
 joined with Richard to forsake and betray him. The list 
 was promised, and he returned to Azai. Before he parted 
 with Richard he had to give him the kiss of peace ; he did 
 so, but the rebellious son heard his father whisper, and was 
 not ashamed to repeat it, as a jest, to Philip's ribald courtiers, 
 " May God not let me die until I have taken me due venge- 
 ance on thee." 
 
 But not even his submission and humiliation procured him 
 rest. Among the minor vexations of the last months had 
 been the pertinacious refusal of the monks of Canterbury to 
 obey the archbishop in certain matters in which they believed 
 their privileges to be infringed. Henry had, as usual with 
 him in questions of ecclesiastical law, taken a personal inter- 
 est in the matter, and had not scrupled to back the archbishop 
 with arms at Canterbury and support of a still more effective 
 kind at Rome. A deputation from the convent, sent out in 
 the vain idea that Henry's present misfortunes would soften 
 his heart toward them, had been looking for him for some 
 days. They found him at Azai, most probably on his return 
 from the field of Colombieres. " The convent of Canterbury 
 salute you as their lord," was the greeting of the monks. 
 " Their lord I have been, and am still, and will be yet," was 
 the king's answer ; " small thanks to you, ye traitors," he 
 added, below his breath. One of his clerks prevented him 
 from adding more invective. He bethought himself, proba- 
 bly, that even now the justiciar was asking the convent for 
 money toward the expenses of the war ; he would temporize, 
 as he had always seemed to do with them. " Go away, and 
 I will speak with my faithful," he said, when he had heard 
 their plea. He called William, of S. Mere 1'Eglise, one of 
 the chiefs of the chancery, and ordered him to write in his 
 name. The letter is extant, and is dated at Azai. It is
 
 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 probably the last document he ever issued. It begins, 
 " Henry, by the grace of God, king of England, duke of Nor- 
 mandy and Aquitaine, and count of Anjou, to the convent 
 of Christ Church, Canterbury, greeting, and by God's mercy 
 on his return to England, peace." The substance of the let- 
 ter is, that the monks should take advantage of the delay in 
 his return to reconsider their position and the things that 
 make for peace, that they might find an easier way out of 
 their difficulties when he should come. 
 
 The monks, delighted with their success, retired, and the 
 king lay down to rest. It was then, probably, that the fatal 
 schedule was brought him, which he had so unwisely demand- 
 ed at Colombieres. It was drawn up in the form of a release 
 from allegiance ; all who had adhered to Richard were al- 
 lowed to attach themselves henceforth to him, in renunciation 
 of the father's right over them. He ordered the names to be 
 read. The first on the list was that of John. The sound of 
 the beloved name startled him at once. He leaped up from 
 his bed, as one beside himself, and, looking round him with 
 a quick, troubled glance, exclaimed, " Is it true that John, 
 my very heart, the best-beloved of all my sons, for whose ad- 
 vancement I have brought upon me all this misery, has for- 
 saken me ? " The reader had no other answer to make than 
 to repeat the name. Henry saw that it was on the list, and 
 threw himself back on the couch. He turned his face to the 
 wall, and groaned deeply. " Now," he said, " let all things go 
 what way they may ; I care no more for myself nor for the 
 world." His heart was broken, and his death-blow struck. 
 
 He could not, however, remain at Azai. His people car- 
 ried him in a litter to Chinon, where Geoffrey was waiting 
 for him. It was the fifth day of the fever, and, in all proba- 
 bility, he was delirious with the excitement of the morning. 
 It was remembered and reported in England that after he 
 was brought to Chinon he cursed the day on which he was 
 born, and implored God's malison on his sons; the bish-
 
 THE DEATH OF HENRY II. 95 
 
 ops and priests about him implored him to revoke the curse, 
 but he refused. But Giraldus, bitter enemy as he \vas, 
 somewhat softened by his misfortune, tells a different tale. 
 He draws the picture of the dying king leaning on Geof- 
 frey's shoulder, while one of his knights held his feet in his 
 lap. Geoffrey was fanning the flies from the king's face, as 
 he seemed to be sleeping. As they watched, the king revived 
 and opened his eyes. He looked at Geoffrey and blessed 
 him. " My son," he said " my dearest, for that thon hast 
 ever striven to show toward me such faithfulness and grati- 
 tude as son could show to father, if by God's mercy I shall 
 recover of this sickness, I will of a surety do to thee the 
 duty of the best of fathers, and I will set thee among the 
 greatest and mightiest men of my dominion. But if I am to 
 die without requiting thee, may God, who is the author and 
 rewarder of all good, reward thee, because in every fortune 
 alike thou hast shown thyself to me so true a son." Geoffrey, 
 of whose sincere sorrow there can be no doubt, was over- 
 whelmed with tears ; he could but reply that all he prayed 
 for was his father's health and prosperity. Another day 
 passed, and the king's strength visibly waned. He kept cry- 
 ing at intervals, " Shame, shame on a conquered king." At 
 last, when Geoffrey was again by his side, the poor king kept 
 telling him how he had destined him for the see of York, or, 
 if not York, Winchester ; but now he knew that he was 
 dying. He drew off his best gold ring, with the device of 
 the panther, and bade him send it to his son-in-law, the king 
 of Castile ; and another very precious ring, with a sapphire 
 of great price and virtue, he ordered to be delivered out of 
 his treasure. Then he desired that his bed should be car- 
 ried into the chapel and placed before the altar. He had 
 strength still to say some words of confession, and received 
 the " Communion of the Body and Blood of the Lord with de- 
 votion." And so he died, on the seventh day of the fever, on 
 the sixth of July, the octave of the apostles Peter and Paul.
 
 96 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 XV. 
 
 HOW THE GREAT CHARTER WAS WON. PEARSON. 
 
 [Richard, the Crusader, was remarkable for his personal prowess, but 
 lacked the essential characteristics of a great military leader. As king, ha 
 spent but a brief period in England, and cared nothing for English interests, 
 His exploits in the East, his captivity, and the tragic circumstances of his 
 death, have surrounded his name with a halo of romance ; but he was 
 selfish, cruel, tyrannical, vicious, a bad son, and a bad husband. During 
 his reign the strong administrative system which his father had built up 
 was successfully maintained by such statesmen as William Longchamp and 
 Hubert Walter, in spite of the intrigues of his brother John. 
 
 John began his reign under favorable auspices, but the essential badness 
 of the man soon displayed itself. He quarreled with his suzerain, the king 
 of France, and thereby lost a large portion of his continental possessions. 
 He quarreled with the Church, brought an interdict upon England and 
 excommunication on himself, and then pusillanimously yielded up his king- 
 dom, to be held as a fief from the Holy See He quarreled with his 
 barons, and at length united nine tenths of the English people against him. 
 It was this last quarrel which led to the signing of Magna Charta.] 
 
 ALTHOUGH John had been able to keep an army and a 
 contingent in the field, many of his barons had remained 
 behind in England, and those of the north especially had 
 again put forward their plea of exemption from all service 
 except on the marches. As it was certain from the first that 
 the king would try, on his return, to revenge himself, and as 
 the government of Peter des Roches, bishop of Winchester, 
 who had succeeded Geoffrey Fitz-Petre as justiciary, was 
 intolerably oppressive, the nobles resolved on resistance ; 
 and, within a few days after John had landed and begun to 
 levy scutage on all who had neglected to follow him, a meet- 
 ing of nobles was held at Bury St. Edmunds, under pretext 
 of celebrating the saint's festival (November 20). The char- 
 ter of Henry I. and the laws of Edward the Confessor were 
 read aloud, and the barons swore, one by one, on the high 
 altar, to demand the observance of these liberties from the
 
 How THE GREAT CHARTER WAS WON. 97 
 
 king, and to constrain him by arms and the withdrawal of 
 fealty if he refused a peaceable consent. As men, however, 
 who knew the risk of their enterprise, at a time when every 
 fortress in England was garrisoned by royal mercenaries, 
 they agreed to collect men and arms, and to meet after the 
 approaching Christmas and urge their petition with an army 
 at their back. The precaution was the more necessary as 
 John, vaguely sensible that there was thunder in the air, and 
 alarmed by the recall of his partisan, the legate, tried to 
 detach the clergy from the national cause by granting them 
 absolute liberty of election. 
 
 This remarkable charter was issued the very day after the 
 barons' meeting at Bury St. Edmunds, and it reflects the 
 highest credit on Stephen Langton and his followers that the 
 enormous bribe to their feelings as churchmen, backed, as it 
 was in many cases, by restitution of honor and estates, failed 
 to make them forget that they were citizens. To the barons, 
 of course, the new charter was of no interest, except as an item 
 in John's degradation, and a declaration of war against them- 
 selves. Accordingly, as soon as John came from Worcester, 
 where he had held his Christmas court, to London, the con- 
 federates, in unwonted military array, waited upon him, and 
 claimed that he should perform the oath which he had sworn 
 at Stephen Langton's bidding in Winchester, and confirm the 
 constitution as denned by the charter of Henry I. The king 
 feared to refuse compliance with the 'demand of armed men, 
 ready for action, and begged for time, that he might think 
 the matter over and give his answer at Easter. The barons 
 reluctantly consented, their cause being as yet espoused only 
 by about half of the nobility, and the primate, the bishop of 
 Ely, and the earl-marshal, were persuaded to become sponsors 
 for the king's good faith. 
 
 The pledge was a perilous one, for John meditated noth- 
 ing less than observance of his word. He was singularly 
 destitute of* counselors and supporters, for the legate had
 
 98 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 left the country in disgrace for maladministration, and Geof- 
 frey Fitz-Petre and the bishop of Norwich were dead ; but 
 he took instant steps to procure the release of the earl of 
 Salisbury, abstained for a time from any gross act of op- 
 pression, and sent commissioners to the different counties to 
 explain his quarrel with the lords and enforce new oaths of 
 homage on the free tenants. But he counted too much, in a 
 time of popular excitement, on the silent, unceasing feuds 
 between gentry and baronage. Men generally refused to 
 take the oath with the new clause inserted, that they would 
 support the king against " the now talked-of charter," and 
 John was obliged to desist from the attempt. He had 
 thought of bringing over troops from Poitou, but the tidings 
 of disaffection alarmed him, and he hastily recalled his or- 
 ders. Nothing now remained but to claim the protection of 
 the Church, and hold his castles till the barons were wearied 
 out, or till a royal party arose. That no precaution might be 
 omitted, he assumed the white cross, in the hope of investing 
 himself with the inviolable character of a crusader. But his 
 chief trust was in Innocent. The pope had been applied to 
 by Eustace de Vesci, as the barons' agent, in the preceding 
 autumn, and had sternly admonished them not to disturb the 
 course of royal justice. The cruel irony fell upon deaf ears. 
 Both parties now sent commissioners to Rome, and Innocent 
 unhesitatingly supported his vassal. He blamed the barons, 
 who demanded, sword i'n hand, the rights they ought to have, 
 prayed humbly and devoutly of " our dearest son in Christ, 
 the illustrious King John," and he blamed the bishops who 
 had sympathized with the barons. But the apostolical coun- 
 sels reached England when the whole nation was in revolt. 
 
 By Easter the party of reform, numbering four earls and 
 forty great barons, had assembled a large and well-appointed 
 army. They halted at Brackley, in Northamptonshire, to re- 
 ceive the primate and earl-marshal, who came as royal com- 
 missioners to learn their demands. When these w'ere reported
 
 How THE GREAT CHARTER WAS WON. 99 
 
 to John, who was then at Oxford, he asked, with a bitter 
 laugh, why the barons did not at once ask for the kingdom, 
 and swore that he would never yield liberties which would 
 leave himself in the position of a slave. As soon as his answer 
 was known, the barons declared Robert Fitz-Walter " Marshal 
 of the Army of God and of Holy Church," and proceeded to 
 invest Northampton. But, wanting all engines of war, they 
 could effect nothing, and accordingly marched on London, re- 
 ceiving admittance, by the way, into Bedford from the gov- 
 ernor, William Beauchamp. London was opened to their ad- 
 vance-guard by a friendly party among the citizens (May 24), 
 and the royal troops were easily overpowered, though the gar- 
 rison of the Tower held out to the last. The soldiers of the 
 Church filled their purses with the spoil of royal partisans and 
 of the Jews, who always suffered in time of civil commotion, 
 and who saw the very stones of their houses taken away to 
 strengthen the city walls. The metropolis became the cen- 
 ter of operations ; but the whole country was in rebellion. 
 Alexander of Scotland and Llewellyn of Wales were said to 
 favor the revolt, and it often happened that where the father 
 was royalist the son was in the camp of the insurgents. 
 Presently one party seized Exeter, another Lincoln, and a 
 riot took place in the streets of Northampton, in which many 
 of the king's garrison were slain, the remainder retaliating 
 by burning part of the town. As always happened in civil 
 wars, the royal parks and forests were among the first objects 
 of attack. 
 
 John had tried in vain to induce the primate to excommu- 
 nicate the rebels, and the letters of Innocent were mere waste 
 paper. In his extremity the king resorted to his favorite 
 expedient, and called over his mercenaries from Poitou and 
 other parts. The unpopular act probably contributed to de- 
 tach the remainder of his adherents, and he found himself, 
 by the beginning of June, with scarcely seven horsemen in 
 his train. Even the bishops, who were nominally on his
 
 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 side, except the deeply injured Giles de Braose of Hereford, 
 were of doubtful loyalty, and the earl-marshal himself had a 
 son, his eldest, among the insurgents. In this extremity, 
 fearing to be overpowered and dreading the arrival of the 
 northern barons, who were known to be on their way, and 
 who were his bitterest foes, John consented to a conference 
 between Staines and Windsor. The army of the barons en- 
 camped on the broad plain of Runnimede, on the southern 
 bank of the Thames ; the royal forces were on the north, and 
 the negotiations were carried on in an island. John came 
 prepared to concede every thing, and the Great Charter was 
 agreed to and received the royal seal in a day. 
 
 XVI. 
 
 DEATH OF KIXG JOHN. PEARSON. 
 
 [John at once sought to break away from the obligations of the Great 
 Charter. He summoned mercenaries to his aid, and displayed so much 
 ability and energy that the barons were forced to look abroad for assist- 
 ance. They invited Lewis, son of the king of France, to become king of 
 England It was a dangerous move, and would probably have resulted in 
 a hopeless division of the baronial party, had not the timely death of John 
 relieved it from its embarrassing situation. 
 
 As soon as he had effected the object of relieving Lincoln 
 and learned that the barons were not in pursuit of him, John 
 decided to march southward again. In passing over the 
 Wash, between the Cross -keys and the Foss-dike, he 
 marched too near the sea at a time when the tide was still 
 high, and lost many of his sumpter-mules and household 
 retinue, with his jewels, including the crown, and a shrine 
 containing relics which he especially prized. At the abbey 
 of Swineshead, where he passed the night, he is said, by the 
 more credible account, to have eaten peaches in excess;
 
 DEATH OF KING JOHN. 
 
 vexation, fatigue, and the surfeit bringing on a dysentery. 
 Later legends declared that a monk, who heard him boast he 
 would raise the price of the loaf from a half-penny to a shil- 
 ling, devoted himself for his country and poisoned the fruit 
 he presented, eating of it himself, to inspire confidence, and 
 dying. The illness, however caused, did not hinder John 
 from proceeding the next day, to Sleaford, where he learned 
 that Dover still held out and had obtained a truce till 
 Easter, but was probably bound to surrender if it were not 
 relieved by that date. 
 
 The news was bad medicine for a sick spirit, and the 
 king's next stage, to Newark, was his last. His last acts 
 were to write a letter to Pope Honorius (Oct. 15), recom- 
 mending his young son to him, and to dictate a short will, by 
 which he constituted what may be called a council of re- 
 gency, with the legate Gualo at its head. But its provisions 
 are chiefly the work of a craven conscience, desiring to pur- 
 chase pardon of heaven by alms to the poor, and to religious 
 houses, by " aid to the land of Jerusalem," and " by making 
 satisfaction to God and holy Church for the damage and in- 
 jury done them." The sacrilege wrought in Croyland mon- 
 astery, where Savary de Mauleon's men had carried off spoils 
 and captives in mid-mass, not three weeks before, may, per- 
 haps, have risen up accusingly before the king's fevered 
 fancy. On whom the furies should wait, if not on John, may 
 indeed well be questioned. We seem to trace his gradual 
 depravation in his history. The fair boy, his father's dar- 
 ling, who lets his courtiers pull the beards of his Irish lords, 
 in the very wantonness of youthful arrogance, and bandies 
 rough jokes with Giraldus Cambrensis, grows up reckless of 
 all self-restraint, of all honorable sentiment, false to his 
 father, false to his brother, false to his associates in treason, 
 casting off the wife who has made his fortunes, slaying the 
 nephew whom he has sworn to spare. He has all the lower 
 talent of his family, is a pleasant boon companion, fond of 
 5
 
 io2 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 books and of learned men, irresistible among women. A 
 few friends held by him to the last, with more of what seems 
 personal regard than Edward II. or Richard II. conciliated. 
 He has partisans in London at the time of his deepest 
 humiliation, and is welcomed rapturously in Lynne a few 
 days before his death. The Cinque-ports seem to have been 
 steadily faithful to his interests. It is evident that, while his 
 clergy and his nobles hated him, a portion of the towns were 
 with him, either grateful for past favors or liking his enemies 
 less. The loss of Normandy was chiefly due to his quarrel 
 with his English subjects ; he held England against the pope 
 with singular success ; and his last campaigns prove that he 
 had organized his tyranny till he was an overmatch for half 
 the realm, and could still do something when France had 
 succored the rebellion. 
 
 Yet, allowing all this, which has, perhaps, been too often 
 overlooked, it may be doubted if it be not an aggravation 
 of the infamy that clings to John's name. He favored the 
 cities, not in the interest of freedom, but to gain money by 
 the sale of charters, or to set class against class. His power 
 was based on the systematic employment of foreign merce- 
 naries ; he tortured to extort wealth, and murdered freely 
 when his avarice was disappointed. His great struggle 
 against Innocent began in the attempt to usurp the rights of 
 a corporate body, and was carried on by confiscations and 
 violence. Lastly, like all voluptuaries, John perpetually 
 broke down at the critical moment of his fortunes. He 
 scoffed at religion, and was cowed by a strolling prophet's 
 utterances. Bearing to be excommunicated for years, giving 
 churches freely to be plundered, he yet attached a supersti- 
 tious reverence to the relics he carried with him. Perhaps 
 the best summary of his life is the simple record of the great 
 facts of his reign, that he lost Normandy, that he became the 
 pope's vassal, and that he died fighting against Magna 
 Charta. Never, probably, was there an English king who
 
 DEATH OF KING JOHN. 103 
 
 would more cordially have indorsed the Roman tyrant's 
 wish : " When I am dead let the earth be consumed in fire; " 
 never one of whom the poet might have said, with greater 
 truth, that " he wearied God." 
 
 XVII. 
 ENGLAND IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY. LONGMAN. 
 
 [John left, as his heir and successor, a little boy nine years old Henry 
 III. His long reign covers more than half of the thirteenth century, one of 
 the most brilliant and eventful periods of the world's history. It was the 
 age of great statesmen, great scholars, and great architects. It was, for 
 England, an age of great constitutional progress ; but in this the king 
 himself had little share. He was essentially weak and untrustworthy a 
 mere figure-head ; during his minority under the control of able ministers ; 
 then the tool of foreign favorites ; while, later, he became involved in a 
 fateful struggle with the baronial party. Some idea of the condition of 
 England at this period may be obtained from the following sketch of domes- 
 tic life and manners.3 
 
 ABOUT twenty years before Edward became king, more than 
 seventy woods and forests belonged to the Crown ; and this 
 was one of the great grievances of the people. These woods 
 were full of game of all kinds : wolves were far from uncom- 
 mon ; wild cattle were found so near London as in Osterly 
 Wood, in Middlesex; and the fens and marshes were the 
 abode of cranes, storks, and bitterns. 
 
 Besides these woods belonging to the Crown, the whole land 
 was scattered over with forest. Between London and St. 
 Albans the country was so thickly wooded, and the woods 
 were so much frequented by lawless freebooters, who robbed 
 the passing travelers, that the abbots of St. Albans kept armed 
 men to guard the road to London. Throughout the whole 
 country, indeed, the woods were so much the haunts of 
 robbers, that, in 1285, a law was passed, ordering that all
 
 104 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 highways leading from one market-town to another, should, 
 be widened, so that there might be no bushes, woods, or dikes 
 within two hundred feet of each side of the road ; and those 
 owners of land who refused to cut down underwoods close 
 to the high-roads were held answerable for all crimes com- 
 mitted by men lurking in them. Even the boundaries of 
 parks were to be set farther back when they approached too 
 near the highway. 
 
 This was the state of the high-roads; but there were cross- 
 roads, from one town to another, so little known that guides 
 shepherds and men of like degree were hired to show 
 the way to travelers. There were but few bridges, and guides, 
 therefore, were needed to show the fords across the streams 
 and rivers. 
 
 Such were the roads ; let us now see how men traveled on 
 them. There were no carriages in those days ; or, at least, 
 they were so uncommon, and their use so completely con- 
 fined to ladies of rank, that they cannot be looked upon as 
 the means by which people got from one place to another. 
 Such as were to be found, were a kind of covered car, fitted 
 with a weather-tight roof, from which hung curtains of leather, 
 or of heavy silk ; the wood-work was painted, and the nail- 
 heads and wheels were often gilt ; there were plenty of cush- 
 ions inside, but there were no springs. Edward's queen, 
 Eleanor of Castile, and his daughter, the duchess of Brabant, 
 each had a carriage of this kind. Henry III. had " a house 
 of deal " made for him, which ran on six wheels, and was roofed 
 with lead. In all likelihood this was meant for traveling, but 
 it must have been ill-suited to the roads of those days. Lit- 
 ters, or covered couches, supported by horses, were also made 
 use of, and must have been more convenient than wagons on 
 wheels, on most of the roads. 
 
 The usual mode of traveling, therefore, was on horseback, 
 and the number of horses wanted by the nobles was very 
 great. Thus, in the year 1265, when Simon de Montfort was
 
 ENGLAND IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY. 105 
 
 at Odiham with his wife, the countess of Leicester, he had 
 the surprising number of three hundred and thirty-four 
 horses in his stables for himself and his retinue, and not for mil- 
 itary purposes. Those who had no horses of their own hired 
 horses of "hackney-men." Thus, a traveler going from Lon- 
 don to Dover hired one horse as far as Rochester, for which 
 he paid one shilling four pence, being about sixteen shillings 
 of our money; the same from Rochester to Canterbury, and 
 so on, in like proportion, to Dover. It was far from uncom- 
 mon for travelers to steal these horses, and to cut off their 
 ears and tails to prevent their being recognized. This prac- 
 tice was carried to such a length that, in the following cent- 
 ury, a law was passed to put a stop to it. 
 
 There were other men who let out carts for carrying lug- 
 gage ; but the state of the roads, in some districts, was so bad 
 that the cattle had to rest four days after traveling two. The 
 general custom was to travel for four days, and then rest for 
 three. At night travelers used to lodge at farms, or religious 
 houses, where they were able to buy any food they wanted. 
 
 As an illustration of the traveling at this time, I may de- 
 scribe the way in which a large sum of money was carried 
 from Chester to London. The sum of one thousand pounds, 
 which meant one thousand pounds weight of silver, was 
 due to Prince Edward from his barony of Chester. It was 
 packed, by the prince's cook, in ten panniers, which were put 
 on five horses, and thus carried to London, under the charge 
 of two knights, attended by sixteen armed men on foot. Two 
 cooks went with them to provide them with food, for there 
 were no inns except in towns. It took the guard eight days 
 to reach London, and six days to return without the heavy 
 weight. 
 
 The houses of the barons, and, indeed, the king's palaces, 
 were, most of them, very simply built. The hall was the 
 great place of assembly, where all ate together, and, except 
 at the dais, where the nobles sat, the dwelling-rooms on the
 
 io6 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 ground-story were seldom boarded over, the floor being 
 nothing more than the natural soil, well rammed down, with 
 litter spread over it. The tables were stuck into the ground. 
 This part of the hall was, therefore, often damp, and it was 
 sometimes called the marsh of the hall, a name it, no doubt, 
 well deserved. An idea of its state, even in a royal residence, 
 may be gathered from the fact that at the king's palace at 
 Winchester the door-way was widened to let in carts. This 
 rude condition of the houses is very remarkable considering the 
 luxury and splendor with which the ladies were often dressed. 
 
 The upper floors were generally boarded, but carpets were 
 uncommon, and were looked on as a luxurious innovation. 
 Thus, on the arrival of Eleanor of Castile, to be married to 
 Edward, the Londoners were angry " at the very floors being 
 covered with costly carpets." 
 
 As a general rule, the houses were built of timber, but 
 sometimes of wood and stone. Bricks were very uncommon. 
 In the hall the fire was in the middle, and the smoke escaped 
 through the roof, but in the kitchen the fires were in large 
 fire-places built in the walls, and there was a hole in the roof 
 to let out the smoke. 
 
 Whether the houses were built of wood, stone, or rubble, 
 they were almost all plastered and whitewashed, both inside 
 and out. Wainscoting was not much used in domestic build- 
 ings, but the royal chambers and chapels, and probably also 
 the large and wealthy monasteries, were generally wainscoted. 
 Fir was generally used for this purpose, and Norway planks 
 were brought into England in great quantities. The wain- 
 scoting was sometimes worked in patterns, but it was usually 
 painted with subjects from sacred or profane history. 
 
 To the king's houses there were always attached apart- 
 ments called "wardrobes," where the heavy and costly stuffs 
 and cloths wanted for the dress of the king and his house- 
 hold were kept; and where, also, the royal tailors worked. 
 When it is remembered that the summer and winter dresses
 
 ENGLAND IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY. 107 
 
 of the king's attendants were furnished at his cost, and made 
 under his roof, and that it was difficult to buy any large quan- 
 tity of the cloths and furs necessary for the clothing of a 
 numerous retinue, except at the great fairs, it is easy to 
 see that the wardrobes needed ample room. In the ward- 
 robes were also kept the rare productions of the East, which 
 then found their way to England ; such as almonds, ginger, 
 the rosy and violet-colored sugars of Alexandria, and other 
 " stomachics," as they were called. 
 
 Glass for windows was but little used. The windows were 
 usually simply closed by wooden shutters, iron stanchions 
 being sometimes added for greater safety. Canvas, or some 
 such material, was often used to keep out the weather, and 
 to admit a dim light. Glass for windows was a luxury, barely 
 known to kings ; and it seems that no glass was made in this 
 country until much later times. Window-glass was one of 
 the things we got from the Flemings in exchange for our 
 wool ; and so scarce was it, even in the next century, that 
 the king ordered as much glass as was needed for the repairs 
 of the windows of one of his chapels, to be searched for in 
 the counties of Norfolk, Northampton, Leicester, and Lincoln. 
 The wooden shutters cannot have afforded much defense 
 against rough weather, and charges were often made for 
 "making the windows shut better than usual." Draughts 
 of cold air were somewhat prevented by putting the windows 
 nearer the roof than the floor of the room. 
 
 The entrance to the manor-houses was usually by an outer 
 staircase, shielded from the weather by an overhanging shed 
 or pent-house ; but the way from the hall to the first story was 
 sometimes through a trap-door. From this it seems that the 
 chief dwelling-rooms in these manor-houses were on the first 
 story, and the ground floor was probably used only as the 
 hall. 
 
 I will now try to give you a sketch of the way in which 
 people lived inside their houses. Let us imagine ourselves
 
 io8 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 in one of them, as lookers-on, and that we see a lord sitting 
 down to dinner with his guests and his vassals. All are gath- 
 ered together in the hall. At the upper end, on the dais, 
 where the ground is somewhat raised and boarded over, sit the 
 lord and his chief guests. They are protected by a covering 
 which, as our host is a great man, is made of silk. Below, in 
 " the marsh," sit the vassals, farm-servants, and others. The 
 door, which has lately been widened to let in carts mon 
 easily, is closed, to keep out the wind; a dim light is let in 
 through the canvas windows, and " the marsh " is made tol- 
 erably dry and clean by litter and rushes. Fish in plenty is 
 served up; eels and pike, and even whale, grampus, porpoise, 
 and " sea-wolves " may be had. There is plenty of beef, and 
 plenty of mutton, but it is nearly all salted; and the bread is 
 rather black. Vegetables are plentiful enough ; there are no 
 potatoes, but there are peas, beans, onions, garlic and leeks, 
 pot-herbs and sweet herbs. There is fruit enough, though 
 not equal to what we now have. There are pears, and par- 
 ticularly one sort grown by the monks of Warden, in Bedford- 
 shire, which are made into Wardon pies. Then there are 
 apples, particularly of the sort called "costard." These cost 
 one shilling per hundred, or about twelve shillings of our 
 money. Peaches, and cherries, and mulberries, too, are not 
 wanting. If we suppose the entertainment to be given in 
 London, the garden of the earl of Lincoln, in Holborn, would 
 be ready to furnish a good supply, for the fruit out of it was 
 sold for above one hundred pounds of our money in one 
 year alone. There is plenty of claret, or clairets so called 
 because the wine was sweetened with honey, and afterward 
 strained till it became clear from our possessions in 
 Gascony, and some sort of sherry from Spain, for those who 
 sit on the dais; and beer and cider enough for those who sit 
 in "the marsh." But the beer is made of a mixture of bar- 
 ley, wheat, and oats, without hops, which have not yet been 
 "found out." The insipidity of the beer is taken off by
 
 ENGLAND IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY. 109 
 
 spices. There is wine, too, made from English vineyards, but 
 it must be sour stuff, and fit only for "the marsh." Nobody 
 but the king has glass to drink out of, and he has none to 
 spare for his friends ; but he has cups made of cocoa-nuts, of 
 gourds, of buffalo horns, and of beautiful agates for his prin- 
 cipal guests. The wooden bowl, the earthen jug, and the 
 leathern jack, serve well enough for the great bulk of the 
 assemblage. The tables are pretty firm, for their legs are 
 well stuck into the mud floor. Now that the guests are 
 seated, and ready for their repast, up comes the meat on a 
 spit, served round by the servants, and each man cuts off a 
 bit with his knife, and puts it into his wooden bowl or on 
 his trencher. Most of the people have wooden spoons, but 
 nobody has a fork. The pitchers and j'ugs are made of earth- 
 enware, but the plates or dishes are all of wood. 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 THE MENDICANT FRIARS. GEJKIE. 
 
 [With the increase of wealth and power corruption crept into the Church, 
 and she lost much of her early purity and influence. At the end of the 
 twelfth century many eminent men recognized the necessity of making 
 some great effort to arrest her downward progress, and recover the lost 
 ground. For this purpose the various orders of mendicant friars were es- 
 tablished. Their special mission was to carry the Gospel to the poor. 
 The most important of these orders were the Dominicans, or Black Friars ; 
 the Franciscans, or Gray Friars ; and the Carmelites, or White Friars. 
 The Dominicans and Franciscans exercised great influence in the social 
 and political development of England.] 
 
 THE thirteenth century saw the Church rise to its most 
 extravagant pretensions and sink to its deepest corruption. 
 Its worldly splendor was at its height, but its spiritual con- 
 dition was appalling. All its institutions had been noble in 
 their first years, but success had ruined them. The vast 
 5*
 
 i io SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 cathedrals had once been the pride of the serf, who felt him- 
 self on a level with his oppressors when within their walls, 
 and saw the sons of his despised class set above barons and 
 princes as their ministers. But their clergy had gradually 
 secured independence of the bishops, and now transferred 
 their duties to vicars, preferring worldly indulgence for them- 
 selves. The appointment of titular bishops had, in the same 
 way, enabled the wealthier prelates to find substitutes, and 
 few of them any longer troubled themselves about their sees, 
 further than to draw the revenues. 
 
 The independent episcopal courts, in their early history, 
 had been a bulwark to the weak and oppressed in rough and 
 lawless ages, against civil misrule and injustice. To the 
 Church, Europe had owed the Truce of God, which sought, 
 though vainly, to establish a cessation of private and national 
 wars, then universal, for three days a week ; it had aided 
 emancipation of the slave in many ways in earlier times ; the 
 legislation of its courts against piracy, wrecking, incendia- 
 rism, usury, false coinage, tournaments, trial by ordeal, and 
 much else, was of benefit to the nation and to morality. But 
 ere long its claims became so excessive, and its tribunals so 
 venal, that they lost all credit, and became a public scandal 
 and oppression. 
 
 The efforts to enforce the celibacy of the clergy, which had 
 been made unceasingly since Dunstan's day, through more 
 than three hundred years, had only resulted in wide-spread 
 immorality. The Church laws against married or immoral 
 clergy could not be carried out from the number of offenders. 
 This immorality of the clergy, their worldliness, their avarice, 
 and notorious simony, were by turns rebuked with solemn 
 earnestness by the few faithful men left in the Church, or up- 
 braided with biting sarcasm by the wits of the age. Eccle- 
 siastics, high and low, had, in fact, well-nigh lost the respect 
 of the laity. " You are a worthy man, though you be a 
 priest," says a female speaker in one of the poems of the
 
 THE MENDICANT FRIARS. in 
 
 time. Nothing could be more bitter than the language in 
 which ecclesiastical persons, as a class, are described by the 
 writers of the day. 
 
 The enormous wealth of the Church had, in great measure, 
 led to this state of things. The laity had gradually submitted 
 to the demand for tithes ; wills of all kinds, and all suits re- 
 specting them, were ecclesiastical matters ; dispensations for 
 marriage were needed, at heavy cost, on every hand , posses- 
 sion of ready money facilitated purchases of land, often at a 
 nominal value ; the safety of property held by the Church 
 led many to make over their possessions to it, and rent them 
 again from it, and a thriving trade in mortgages added to the 
 whole. 
 
 The monks, also, had gradually become as corrupt as the 
 rest. There was no end of orders Carthusians, Cistercians, 
 Carmelites, Benedictines, and a host besides. Exemption 
 from episcopal authority and growth in wealth had done their 
 work. The abbots obtained, in many cases, episcopal priv- 
 ileges, and in many others forged th? right to them. Many 
 parishes were united to monasteries to escape the oversight 
 of the bishops. There were convents for both sexes under 
 the same roof, and men, like Bernard in the century before, 
 denounced the pride and luxury of abbots and monks alike. 
 Bernard had, indeed, founded a stricter rule among the Cis- 
 tercians, which, for a time, gave them great popularity, but 
 they, too, after a while, became as corrupt as the others. 
 
 It was under these circumstances that the mendicant or- 
 ders were founded, to try if the laity, scandalized by the cor- 
 ruption of the monks and clergy, could not be won back to 
 the Church. From the year 1207 Francis of Assisi had first 
 begun to gather round him a society which should reproduce 
 apostolic life and labor, in strict obedience to Rome; and 
 such had been the effect of his saintly life, disinterested love, 
 transparent sincerity, and simple preaching, in an age of 
 hypocrisy and vice, that before his death, in 1226, many
 
 ii2 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 thousands had joined his order. " The Lord added, not so 
 much a new order," says a contemporary (in the foundation 
 of the " Begging Friars "), " as renewed the old, raised the 
 fallen, and revived religion, now almost dead, in the evening 
 of the world, hastening to its end, in the near time of the Son 
 of Perdition ; that He might prepare new athletes against the 
 dangerous times of Antichrist, and might protect the Church 
 by fortifying it beforehand. The Lord Pope confirmed their 
 rule, and gave them authority to preach in any churches, the 
 bishop of the diocese permitting. They are sent two by two 
 to preach, as before the face of the Lord and before His sec- 
 ond Advent. These paupers of Christ carry neither purse, 
 nor scrip, nor bread, and have no shoes on their feet, for no 
 brother of this order can own any thing. They have no 
 monasteries or churches, no fields, or vines, or beasts, or 
 houses, or lands, or even where they may lay their head. 
 They do not wear furs or linen, but only woolen gowns with 
 a hood: no head-coverings, or cloaks, or mantles, or any 
 other garments have they. If any one invite them, they eat 
 and drink what is set before them. If any one, in charity, 
 give them any thing, they keep nothing of it to the morrow. 
 Yet, not by preaching only, but also by the example of a holy 
 life and blameless conversation, do they attract many, not of 
 the poor alone, but of the rich and noble, to despise the 
 world, forsaking their towns, and houses, and great posses- 
 sions, and giving up earthly wealth, by a happy exchange, 
 for spiritual to put on the habit of the ' lesser brethren ' 
 a tunic of no value and to gird themselves with their cord. 
 For, in a short time they have so increased that there is no 
 Christian land in which some are not found, for they let all 
 join them, if unmarried, and not already under a vow. All 
 but these they welcome, committing themselves to the provi- 
 dence and love of God, and not fearing for support." 
 
 Beginning with professions so noble and, at first, so sincere, 
 it was found desirable, in 1212, to found a Franciscan sister-
 
 THE MENDICANT FRIARS. 113 
 
 hood as well, and to this was added, in 1221, a third order 
 the Tertiaries of both sexes, who were not required to take 
 the vows of the order or to live apart, but were rather Asso- 
 ciates, carrying out, as far as might be, the spirit of the or- 
 der without leaving their ordinary callings or their place in 
 life. The order of Dominican Friars, founded at first for the 
 conversion of the Albigenses (1205) who were soon, how- 
 ever, to be given over to pitiless massacre, when found obsti- 
 nate grew, also, apace. A generation later came the Car- 
 melite Friars (1245) and the Augustines (1256); and all 
 these, like the Franciscans, had their sisterhoods and their 
 countless associates, or tertiaries, of both sexes. 
 
 The friars were, in fact, the Methodists, or revivalists of 
 six hundred years ago; but it would have been well for them 
 if they had been as permanently faithful to their mission as 
 Wesley's great communion. The people flocked every-vvhere 
 to their preaching. It was like a new Gospel. Seeing their 
 power to work on the masses, the pope soon granted them 
 privileges which speedily corrupted them. Bishops were or- 
 dered to secure them a hearty reception, to urge all to come 
 to their preaching, and personally to help them in every way ; 
 nor were they to be hindered from confessing those who at- 
 tended their services. They were to be independent of 
 episcopal supervision, and had the right to bury any who de- 
 sired it in their churches and inclosures. The door was 
 thus opened for their gaining wealth, and wealth brought 
 spiritual ruin. 
 
 Meanwhile they streamed into England hailed by the 
 people, hated and feared, in anticipation, by the clergy and 
 monks. Foreigners, they had to beg their way, with only 
 their rags and their mission to recommend them. But they 
 soon learned English enough to begin their vocation actively, 
 and, ere long, every parish priest found them unwelcome in- 
 truders on his bounds, for they set up their movable pulpit 
 at any cross, without consulting him, and carried the irulti-
 
 ii4 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 tude away by their enthusiasm and the novelty and nobility 
 of their principles and mission. Self-sacrificing love, for the 
 sake of Christ, was the sum of their lives, and the only re- 
 ward they asked, food and shelter. For a time they kept 
 nobly true to the spirit of their rule. The towns of the Mid- 
 dle Ages were wretched in the extreme ; fever and pestilence 
 were permanently established in them, as in modern cities 
 of the East ; leprosy had its special houses, and little care was 
 taken of the wretched inmates. But the Gray Brothers at 
 once betook themselves to the most miserable quarters of the 
 boroughs and to the foul leper houses, to alleviate suffering, 
 and, if possible, remove it. Barefooted by day, they lay with- 
 out a pillow by night. Their houses were as mean as the 
 wretched hovels around them. True work, honestly done, 
 had its ample reward in enthusiastic admiration. 
 
 Their preaching, ready, fluent, and familiar, was no less a 
 wonder. The ignorant mass-priest, who depended on his 
 fees, had been almost the only ecclesiastic with whom the 
 lower towns-people had hitherto come in contact. The serv- 
 ices of the Church were in an unknown language, the ritual 
 was unmeaning, and the pictures or statues on the church 
 walls needed an explanation which they did not receive. 
 In contrast with this the friar addressed the crowd with fervid 
 appeals, rough wit, or telling anecdote, as best suited the 
 moment, with no attempt at studied harangues. It was a re- 
 ligious revolution, and gave the Church another lease of 
 popular favor. 
 
 But they did not long confine themselves to preaching or 
 tending the sick; they soon aimed also at higher flights. The 
 universities were in their first glory : humble enough com- 
 pared with their state to-day, but immensely popular. Thirty 
 thousand students are said to have attended Oxford at one 
 time. The revival of mental activity, however, was danger- 
 ous, and the friars resolved to check, or at least to direct, it. 
 Their care of the sick had soon drawn them to study the
 
 THE MENDICANT FRIARS. 115 
 
 physical sciences, and their preaching led them to study the- 
 ology. In 1230 the Dominicans had already gained a theo- 
 logical professorship in the University of Paris, and the 
 Franciscans soon after secured another. The schools of 
 both, at both the English universities, became famous. 
 Theology resumed its old supremacy, and for a time such 
 men as Roger Bacon, Duns Scotus, and Ockham gave a true 
 glory to the new orders. 
 
 But the corruption of the rest of the Church ere long in- 
 vaded the ranks of the Brethren, and speedily brought them 
 to its own miserable level. Even so early as 1243 Matthew 
 Paris writes of them : " It is only twenty-four years since 
 they built their first houses in England, and now they raise 
 buildings like palaces, and show their boundless wealth by 
 making them daily more sumptuous, with great rooms and 
 lofty ceilings, impudently transgressing the vows of poverty 
 which are the very basis of their order. If a great or rich 
 man is like to die, they take care to crowd in, to the injury 
 and slight of the clergy, that they may hunt up money, extort 
 confessions, and make secret wills, always seeking the good 
 of their order as their one end. They have got it believed 
 that no one can hope to be saved if he do not follow the 
 Dominicans or Franciscans. They are restless in trying to 
 get privileges, to get the ear of kings and princes, to be 
 chamberlains, treasurers, bridesmen, match-makers, and 
 agents of papal extortion. In their preaching they either 
 flatter or abuse without bounds, or reveal confessions, or 
 gabble nonsense." The monks and the clergy soon came to 
 regard them as their mutual enemies, and the 'peace of the 
 towns was often disturbed by riots caused by their mutual 
 hatreds.
 
 n6 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 XIX. 
 
 DEATH OF DE MONTFORT. GARDINER. 
 
 [The weakness and incapacity of Henry III., and his reliance upon for- 
 eign favorites, led gradually to the development of an opposition baronial 
 party. The nobles were the natural leaders of the people ; but they were 
 disorganized, and powerless, without a leader, to withstand the wretched 
 system of government that prevailed. 
 
 At length they found a leader in Earl Simon de Montfort, himself a 
 foreigner. He became the head of the national party. Under his direc- 
 tion, the opposition culminated in the Mad Parliament (1258). which forced 
 upon the king the constitution known as the " Provisions of Oxford." It 
 practically substituted a baronial oligarchy for the royal power. De Mont- 
 fort, however, was not content with this, for he had wider plans of popular 
 government. His attempt to realize these led to a division of the national 
 party itself ; recourse was had to arms, and the combatants met on the field 
 of Lewes in 1264. Here the royalist party was overthrown, the king and 
 Prince Edward were taken prisoners, and all the power passed into De 
 Montfort's hands. His triumph led to the famous Parliament of 1265, to 
 which he summoned representatives from the towns as well as from the 
 shires, and a new constitution was drawn up, which put the government 
 into the hands of the commonalty of the realm. A reaction followed against 
 De Montfort. Prince Edward escaped from captivity, gathered an army, 
 destroyed a large force under De Montfort's son, and defeated the earl 
 himself in the battle of Evesham.J 
 
 IF the great barons were weary of Simon, he had full con- 
 fidence in himself, and he determined to show that he could 
 do without them. When the Parliament which contained for 
 the first time representatives of the towns met, very few of 
 the great men had been asked to attend. Simon seems to 
 have felt that he could not trust many of them. He attempted 
 to do everything himself, and to rule the kingdom as if all 
 men in it were his subjects. His sons were more arrogant 
 and more unwise than he was. Even while Parliament was sit- 
 ting news was brought that the young men and their friends 
 had arranged to engage in a tournament against the earl of
 
 DEATH OF DE MONTFORT. 117 
 
 Gloucester and his supporters. A tournament was intended 
 to be an imitation of a fight, in which knights rode at one 
 another and attempted to thrust one another off their horses. 
 But it might easily lead to a real fight, and Simon sent orders 
 to stop it. Gloucester was angry with Simon for interfering 
 with his amusement; and he was still more angry with him 
 for keeping the king's castles in his hands. Gloucester was 
 himself one of the three electors, and he may very well have 
 thought himself aggrieved when he was treated as a man of 
 little importance. Before long he was preparing to attack 
 Simon, as soon as he could find a favorable opportunity. 
 
 Gloucester was not likely to have any lack of followers. 
 Before the end of May he obtained help in an unexpected 
 way. Prince Edward had been kept as a prisoner ever since 
 the battle of Lewes. One evening he went out with his 
 guards, and invited them to try which of them had the swiftest 
 horse. As soon as they had tired their horses by galloping 
 them one against another, he rode off, and was once more at 
 liberty. 
 
 At once Prince Edward summoned to his aid all Simon's 
 enemies. He was soon at the head of a large army. Glouces- 
 ter and his friends, who had fought by Simon's side at Lewes, 
 now followed the prince. Simon's supporters were but few, 
 and he had little to trust to but his own skill. If Edward 
 behaved as he had behaved at Lewes, a victory might yet be 
 won. Edward, however, had learned much since the day 
 when in hot haste he galloped after the Londoners, and left 
 his father a prey to the enemy. He was one of those who 
 was made wiser and better by adversity, and he was now as 
 skillful a general as Simon himself. In the meanwhile 
 Simon had been gathering forces in Wales, and was still on 
 the western side of the Severn when he summoned one of his 
 sons, a younger Simon, to join him with all the troops he 
 could collect in London and the South. The young man 
 after some delay arrived at his father's strong castle of Kenil-
 
 n8 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 worth. He and his men took no precautions against sur- 
 prise, and even slept outside the castle walls. Early in the 
 morning of August i, Prince Edward and his men were upon 
 them while they were still asleep. Young Simon and a few 
 others escaped into the castle, which was too well fortified to 
 be easily taken, but the greater part of his troops were 
 obliged to surrender. The elder Simon would hardly have 
 had a sufficient force if his son's army had joined him ; he 
 was now terribly outnumbered. 
 
 Of this disaster he knew nothing when, on the following 
 morning, he crossed the Severn, and marched toward Kenil- 
 worth, where he expected to find his son. On the 4th he 
 arrived at Evesham, bringing King Henry with him under 
 guard. Before long he was told that a body of armed men 
 was coming toward him. He heard the news with joy, as he 
 believed the soldiers to be his son's; and, in order to be sure 
 of the truth, he sent his barber, who was a long-sighted man, 
 to the top of the abbey tower. The barber's intelligence was 
 encouraging. He saw young Simon's banners floating at the 
 head of the advancing troops. As they drew nearer Simon 
 learned that he had been bitterly deceived. The banners 
 were indeed his son's, but they were in the hands of the 
 enemy. That enemy was too strong to be overcome, and 
 even flight was impossible for a whole army. Evesham lies 
 within a loop of the winding river Avon, some miles below 
 the town of Stratford, where the great Shakespeare was after- 
 ward born. Edward had men enough to spare, and he had 
 sent a detachment round to block the way of retreat over 
 the bridge at the end of the loop. He himself bore down 
 upon the town across the fields. 
 
 No one knew better than the old warrior that he had no 
 hope of escape. " May the Lord have mercy on our souls," 
 he prayed, " for our bodies are.undone ! " He himself would 
 stand and perish where he was; but a few might fly, and keep 
 themselves for better times. One and all refused to live
 
 DEATH OF DE MONTFORT. 119 
 
 when their captain and their leader was dead. " Come, then," 
 said Simon, "and let us die like men; for we have fasted 
 here, and we shall breakfast in heaven." Simon and his 
 faithful band knelt down to ask forgiveness of their sins, and, 
 in God's name, the bishop of Worcester declared them to 
 be absolved. Then Simon rose, and with his whole force 
 dashed forward to meet the foe. " By the arm of St. James ! " 
 he said, as he saw the orderly advance of the enemy, " they 
 come on well ; they learned that not of themselves, but of me." 
 
 The battle, if indeed it deserves the name, could not be of 
 long duration. Prince Edward bore down upon Simon's lit- 
 tle army in front, Gloucester charged, upon its flank, a third 
 force which had been sent to watch the bridge charged it in 
 the rear. Simon's band of heroes was surrounded and out- 
 numbered. Henry de Montfort, Simon's eldest son, was one of 
 the first to be struck down. " Is it so ? " said the father, when 
 the news was brought to him. " Then, indeed, it is time for 
 me to die." He rushed into the thickest ranks of the enemy, 
 slashing, as he went, with his sword. Prince Edward's men 
 pressed round him, and one, coming behind him, lifted his 
 coat of mail, and stabbed him in the back with a mortal 
 wound. 
 
 The noblest heart in England had ceased to beat. Edward, 
 barbarous in his triumph, allowed the body of the great leader 
 to be brutally mutilated in scorn, and his comrades to be 
 pitilessly slaughtered. The common people indeed reverenced 
 him as a martyr and a saint, and believed that miracles 
 were wrought at his tomb. Poets sang how the precious 
 flower of warriors had faded away, and how the land wept 
 for the loss of him who had been victorious even in death. 
 
 It seems a strange thing to speak of him whose torn and 
 bleeding corpse had lain upon the field at Evesham as victo- 
 rious in his death. Yet no words could be more true. In 
 the pages of history, as in our own experience, we sometimes 
 meet with men who accomplish some great work which they
 
 I2O SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 have undertaken, and who die full of years and honors amid 
 the grateful thanks of those who have enjoyed the fruit of 
 their labors. But there are others who specially call for our 
 gratitude, whose whole life seems at the time to have been 
 thrown away, who have aimed at that which they could not win, 
 and who have struggled always against the stream, to be 
 swept away in the end in some dark day of storm. These 
 are, indeed, the heroes of the earth. It is not what a man 
 accomplishes, but what he aims at, which is the measure of 
 his greatness, for it is the noble aim which makes him great 
 and good. 
 
 " That low man seeks a little thing to do, 
 Sees it and does it ; 
 
 This high man, with a great thing to pursue, 
 Dies ere he knows it." 
 
 Simon had sought to accomplish no less a thing than to 
 make England self-governing, that it might no longer be the 
 prey of a spendthrift king, and of his foreign hangers-on 
 who flocked across the Channel, like vultures to the carcass. 
 When he died he left the country in the hands of that king 
 who had done the wrong, and who seemed likely to return to 
 his evil ways. Yet it was not so. By the side of Henry was 
 now his son Edward, firm of will, and victorious in war. 
 Edward had learned other things from Simon than the mili- 
 tary art. He had learned to do justice, and to seek for jus- 
 tice by seeking to know the opinions of every class of the 
 people. During the remainder of Henry's reign, Edward 
 took care that wise laws should be made, and that English- 
 men should have the mastery in England. When he him- 
 self came to be king, he upheld the principle that what 
 was for the good of all should be consulted on by all. He 
 gathered round him Parliaments even more complete than 
 that which Simon had summoned, and there he strove to do 
 justice to all. The spirit of the slain leader seemed to have 
 passed into his conqueror.
 
 DEATH OF DE MONTFORT. 121 
 
 It is given to no man, not even to Simon or to Edward, to 
 make a free country. England is free, because for centu- 
 ries before Simon was born Englishmen had been in the 
 habit of discussing their own concerns, at least in their local 
 assemblies, in meetings in town and country. But Simon is 
 none the less worthy to be held in remembrance because he 
 found followers ready to support him. His immediate fail- 
 ure may, in part indeed, be attributed to his own faults, his 
 quick temper, and his contempt of men who were less in 
 earnest than himself; but it was far more to be attributed to 
 the jealousies of the great men, and to the unpreparedness of 
 the middle class to combine permanently in his support. He 
 needs no monument of marble to be remembered by. Wher- 
 ever a free Parliament meets and gives laws in the English 
 tongue, there is Earl Simon's monument. 
 
 XX. 
 
 WALLACE, THE SCOTCH PATRIOT. PEARSON. 
 
 [Edward I., son of Henry III., had profited by the troubles of his fa- 
 ther's reign. He realized the needs of his people, and sought to meet 
 them by enacting wise and just laws. His maxim was, " What concerns 
 all should be approved by all." He was brave and prudent, and, above 
 all, faithful to his word. He completed the parliamentary system, re-or- 
 ganized the courts of law, improved the system of police, and developed 
 the resources of the country. In many ways he was really a great king. 
 
 His kingly pride and love of order led him to wish to extend the 
 supremacy of England over the entire island. He, no doubt, honestly be- 
 lieved that the action of the Scottish nobles, in inviting him to decide be- 
 tween the different claimants to the Scottish crown, gave him the right to 
 exercise a paramount authority over Scotland. This explains his policy 
 toward that country ; it also explains, though it does not justify, his savage 
 treatment of the patriot leader, William Wallace.] 
 
 IN the spring of 1303 Edward at last saw all difficulties 
 removed. The treaty with France only awaited signature ;
 
 122 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 the pope was occupied with troubles in Italy ; the English 
 estates were thoroughly reconciled to the crown. Edward 
 summoned an overpowering army to Roxburgh, and, disre- 
 garding the Scotch borderers, who ravaged Cumberland be- 
 hind him, he carried fire and sword through the whole coun- 
 try, penetrating even to Caithness. Debarred of all hope of 
 foreign assistance, the Scotch nobles lost heart, and were 
 only anxious to make terms. Two years before they had 
 demanded that their lands in England should be restored, 
 and the king had indignantly refused the request. They now 
 stipulated only for the recovery of their Scotch estates, on 
 the payment of reasonable fines, and Edward admitted them, 
 by a general amnesty, to his peace. Probably the English 
 earls, who had received grants of Scotch forfeitures, were 
 bought off, or easily consented to renounce dangerous titles 
 of doubtful value. John de Soulis, with a noble constancy, 
 refused these terms, and retired to die, beggared and free, in 
 France ; but there was only one exception to the king's clem- 
 ency. William Wallace, who had taken part in the earlier 
 negotiations, applied, like others, for the king's grace and for 
 permission to hold the lands he had acquired. The expres- 
 sion points to transactions, now unknown, by which his serv- 
 ices had been rewarded with manors, so that he was, nomi- 
 nally at least, an estated gentleman. But Edward would not 
 recognize the titles derived from war against himself, or 
 could not bring himself to pardon the adventurer who had 
 held all the force of England at bay. He would only agree 
 that Wallace should come in and make his peace, that is to 
 say, should make unconditional submission, with the under- 
 standing that he should be tenderly handled. Wallace re- 
 fused these terms, and was proclaimed an outlaw, with a price 
 set upon his head. 
 
 Unhappily for Edward and England, the measures taken 
 to apprehend Wallace were crowned with a fatal success. By 
 the late peace Wallace was debarred his old refuge in France.
 
 WALLACE, THE SCOTCH PATRIOT. 123 
 
 After a long vagrancy in the moors and fens, where he sup- 
 ported himself by plunder, he incautiously ventured to Glas- 
 gow, and was taken in the house of his mistress, through the 
 treachery of his servant, Jack Short, who bore a grudge 
 against him for the death of a brother. The earl of Mon- 
 teith, then governor of Dunbarton, and one of the few Scotch 
 nobles who had served Edward with fidelity, shares with his 
 brother, Sir John Monteith, the discredit of a service to his 
 country's enemy against his country's defender. The large 
 rewards showered upon the captors, and the strong escort un- 
 der which Wallace was hurried through the lowlands, attest 
 the importance which Edward attached to his capture. 
 Faithful to his maxim, that he would not see any one to 
 whom he would not show grace, the king sent his great an- 
 tagonist to London (August 22, 1305), where he was taken 
 through the streets in a mock procession, with a crown of 
 laurel on his head, and tried by a special commission, consist- 
 ing of three judges, the lord mayor, and John de Segrave, the 
 beaten general of Roslyn. By strict law, as soon as the fact 
 of Wallace's outlawry was proved against him by record of 
 the coroner's roll, he was to be hanged, and his property 
 forfeited to the crown ; but this summary process would not 
 have suited the English policy, which desired, before it slew 
 its victim, to brand him as a felon. Accordingly the forms 
 of trial were observed, and Wallace was indicted for treason, 
 for murders and robberies, for sacrilege in churches, and for 
 not having come to the king's peace. It is said that Wallace 
 answered to the first count, denying that he was a traitor, as 
 he had never sworn allegiance to the king of England. By 
 the ideas of that time the defense was valid, for allegiance 
 was a personal tie rendered in return for certain advantages, 
 and which gentlemen at least might withhold at pleasure, so 
 that Wallace was not necessarily bound by the acts of his 
 countrymen. His refusal exposed him to forfeiture of his 
 land, and might put him out of the king's peace, but did not
 
 124 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 make him a traitor. If, however, this plea was overruled 
 Wallace had no answer, as he seems, in fact, to have made 
 none, to the other counts of the indictment. He had un- 
 doubtedly headed a war in which men and women had been 
 slain under circumstances of great ferocity, and churches 
 burned or plundered by his followers. He had certainly 
 not been worse, and probably had been more merciful, than 
 other Scotch leaders ; but he was not justified by ancestral 
 rank in putting himself at the head of a national movement, 
 and English pride could not forgive the mere squire who had 
 defeated nobles and knights with burghers and Highland 
 kerns. To Edward and his people as even to Philip of 
 France, and perhaps to some Scotchmen of the day Wallace 
 was no better than a brigand leading an armed rabble against 
 their natural lords, and subverting the foundations of a po- 
 litical order more valuable to every statesman than a mere 
 principle of nationality. Accordingly the sentence pro- 
 nounced, though it struck men who remembered better 
 times as horrible, did not seem to them unjust. By a new 
 refinement of cruelty, Wallace was not only to be dragged 
 to the gallows and hanged, but to be cut down while yet liv- 
 ing, and disemboweled. This atrocious sentence was actu- 
 ally carried out. 
 
 Those who remember how Henry II. had spared the pro- 
 moters of a wanton rebellion ; how King Richard had acted by 
 his brother John and his followers; how John himself had been 
 compelled to plead at the bar of public opinion for the mur- 
 der of the younger De Braose, and never dared to bring a 
 rebel to formal trial ; how Fawkes de Breaute was suffered to 
 leave the country, and William de Marsh only hanged for 
 complicity in rebellion and assassination, will understand 
 what the clemency of our old judicial practice to all offend- 
 ers in the rank of gentlemen had been, and how completely 
 it was transformed, under Edward, into an impartial barbar- 
 ity. The early lenity was, perhaps, excessive, but it did not
 
 WALLACE, THE SCOTCH PATRIOT. 125 
 
 demoralize, like the executions which are henceforth crowded 
 thickly into the king's bitter old age. 
 
 It is possible that Wallace's fame has been better served 
 by his death than it could have been by his life. Though a 
 man of rare capacity, who called the first army of independ- 
 ence, as it were, out of the earth, and who gave body and 
 enthusiasm to the war, he was unfitted by position to com- 
 mand the allegiance of the great nobles, who could alone 
 insure success. He would probably have weakened Bruce 
 by dividing the patriotic interest, or else have degenerated 
 into a mere partisan leader. From the little we know of him, 
 he was no faultless hero of romance, or absolutely without 
 reproach among bloody and faithless men. It is probable 
 that he permitted a savage license before he was sobered by 
 success and a high position ; and he seems to have lost heart 
 in the last campaign, and to have wished to renounce a strug- 
 gle which he was left to maintain alone. But these frailties, 
 dearly expiated, cannot detract from the great facts of his 
 life : that he was the first man who fought, not to support a 
 dynasty, but to free Scotland ; and the first general who 
 showed that citizens could be an overmatch for trained sol- 
 diers ; that no reproach of cruelty or self-seeking attaches 
 to his term of government ; and that the enemy of Tiis coun- 
 try selected him as its first martyr. 
 6
 
 126 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 XXI. 
 
 BRUCE AND BANNOCKBURN. LONGMAN. 
 
 [Edward II. was as weak and cowardly as his father was brave and 
 noble. He fell at once under the influence of favorites and parasites, and 
 the greater part of his reign was occupied with struggles between him and 
 his barons, whose object was to secure good government, and save the king 
 from the consequences of his own folly. He undertook to carry out his 
 father's policy in Scotland, but his overwhelming and disgraceful defeat at 
 Bannockburn robbed him of the little influence he possessed. He was at 
 length deposed, and the crown was given to his son. Though his fate is 
 somewhat doubtful, it is generally supposed that he was secretly murdered 
 in Berkeley Castle in 1327.] 
 
 THE almost inaccessible castle of Stirling was nearly the 
 last fortress of importance which still held out against the 
 Scots, and Bruce's brother, Sir Edward Bruce, now laid siege 
 to it. Its governor, Philip de Mowbray, was hard pressed, 
 and feared his garrison would be starved out before it was 
 possible to get help from England. He therefore concluded 
 a truce with Sir Edward Bruce, on the condition of surrender- 
 ing the castle by the 241)1 of June, the feast of St. John the Bap- 
 tist, in the following year, if it were not previously relieved by 
 an English army. Bruce justly blamed his brother for mak- 
 ing so disadvantageous an agreement, but he did not attempt 
 to break it. 
 
 King Edward, having made a kind of peace with his barons, 
 was now able to turn his mind seriously to the war with Scot- 
 land. Had he not now roused himself from his supir.eness, 
 he would, in fact, have left Scotland to its fate. But, on 
 learning De Mowbray's agreement about Stirling Castle, he 
 made immense preparations for its relief. He summoned the 
 whole military force of the kingdom to meet him at Berwick 
 on the nth of June, 1314. To this general muster ninety- 
 three barons were commanded to repair, with horse and arms, 
 while the different counties of England and Wales were or-
 
 BRUCE AND BANNOCKBURN. 
 
 dered to raise a body of twenty-seven thousand foot-soldiers. 
 The whole army is said to have exceeded one hundred thou- 
 sand men, of whom forty thousand were cavalry, three thou- 
 sand of these being, man and horse, in complete armor, and 
 fifty thousand were archers. A fleet of about fifty ships was 
 appointed to co-operate with the army; ample stores of pro- 
 visions for the troops, and forage for the horses, were collected 
 from all quarters; smiths, carpenters, masons, and armorers 
 joined the grand array; and numerous wagons and carts, for 
 the conveyance of the tents, pavilions, and baggage, formed a 
 necessary part of the well-appointed army. 
 
 Bruce on his side was not idle. But he found he could not 
 muster above forty thousand fighting men, and his horses were 
 not equal to those of the English. He therefore determined 
 to fight principally on foot, and to c'loose ground where the 
 English cavalry could not act with advantage. His soldiers 
 were armed with battle-axes, long spears, knives or daggers, 
 and bows and arrows. The formidable weapons, called 
 Lochaber-axes, spiked flails, and claymores, are, however, 
 said to have been also used at the time. 
 
 Stirling is situated on the south side of the river Forth, 
 which winds round it, in a very devious course, on all sides 
 but the south. On the north and east this river formed in 
 those days a strong natural defense of the town ; but on the 
 west it was not near enough to protect it. The castle, how- 
 ever, stands on a precipitous rock, which is, for all military 
 purposes, inaccessible on the western and southern sides. 
 The only side, therefore, from which a successful attack could 
 be made was the south-east. It was from that side that the 
 English were approaching, but they could reach the castle 
 only by crossing the little river Bannock. The Bannock, 
 from Milton Marsh as far as the village of Bannockburn, runs 
 through a deep ravine, which the English could not pass in 
 the face of the Scotch army; below the village it turns to 
 the north, and flows into the Forth. The ground in this
 
 128 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 direction, lying between the Forth and the Bannockburn, was 
 a level marsh, unfit for the passage of a large army, but prac- 
 ticable for a small body of troops. 
 
 Bruce, therefore, seeing that the English must advance by 
 the Falkirk road, expected that they would cross the Ban- 
 nock at a ford on the Kilsyth road, and consequently posted 
 his army across it, on sloping ground to the north of the Hal- 
 bert and Milton Marshes. The right of his army rested on 
 a deep marshy hollow, lying on the west and north sides of 
 the Coxe Hill, and through which ran a little stream. The 
 left rested on the Bannock, at Milton Mill, where the river 
 runs through the deep ravine already mentioned. In order, 
 however, to strengthen his position further, he caused a num- 
 ber of pits to be dug in the ground from the Halbert Marsh 
 to the marshy hollow under Coxe Hill. In these pits sharp 
 stakes were placed, and they were then covered over with 
 turf. On the Coxe Hill Bruce placed a body of men to 
 observe the movements of the enemy, and to resist any treach- 
 erous attack from Stirling Castle, the garrison of which was 
 bound by the truce to take no part in the battle. Lastly, he 
 placed a body of wild, undisciplined Highlanders, with the 
 sutlers and camp followers, concealed in a valley which di- 
 vides a hill, called the Gillies' Hill, from east to west. These 
 men might be very useful in an irregular fight, or in case of 
 any reverse to Bruce's army, but would have done more 
 harm than good in a well-arranged plan of battle. His 
 reserved forces were placed in the rear. 
 
 Bruce, having thus made all his plans with great skill, 
 reviewed his troops, and declared himself satisfied with their 
 appearance and equipment. The leaders of his army were, 
 his brother, Sir Edward Bruce ; Sir James Douglas ; Randolph, 
 earl of Moray ; and Walter, the high steward of Scotland. To 
 them he fully explained his intended order of battle, and 
 then quietly awaited the approach of the enemy. He soon 
 received intelligence that the English had lain all night at
 
 BRUCE AND BANNOCKBURN. i-ir 
 
 Edinburgh. This was on Saturday, the 22d of June. On the 
 following day, Sunday, the soldiers heard mass and confessed 
 themselves with great solemnity. They were fully impressed 
 with the importance of the coming fight, and of the superior 
 numbers likely to be opposed to them, but they were deter- 
 mined to overcome the English or die in the attempt. 
 
 Bruce now, expecting the approach of the English, arranged 
 his army in order of battle. He divided his soldiers into 
 three masses and a reserve. Sir Edward Bruce commanded 
 the right division ; Sir James Douglas and Walter, the stew- 
 ard, the left; Randolph the center; and Bruce himself took 
 charge of the reserve, placing himself on a hill called the 
 Caldon Hill. He fixed the staff of his standard into a mass- 
 ive stone in front of the reserve. This stone still remains in 
 its original position. 
 
 Bruce then sent out messengers to reconnoiter, and they 
 soon returned saying that the English army was advancing in 
 great strength, and making a very warlike appearance. Ed- 
 ward was evidently well informed of the position of Bruce's 
 army, and saw that, if a body of cavalry could cross the 
 Bannockburn, to the left of the Scotch, he might get to their 
 rear, enter Sterling, relieve the garrison, and thus enable them 
 to take part in the battle. Bruce had seemingly relied on the 
 marshy nature of the ground beyond the ravine through which 
 the little river flowed, as a sufficient protection to his army, and 
 had made no preparation to resist this flank movement. In 
 order, therefore, to gain the rear of the Scotch army, Edward, 
 early in the morning, had sent forward a body of eight hun- 
 dred horse, led by Sir Robert Clifford, to cross the Bannock 
 and relieve the castle. Clifford succeeded in crossing the 
 stream, his forces being concealed by a bank which lies on 
 the west side of the carse, or marshy plain, and was making 
 his way to the castle, when Bruce discovered the movement 
 of his troops, and dispatched Randolph, with a* select body of 
 foot-soldiers, to intercept them. So soon as Clifford saw the
 
 132 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 approach of the Scotch he ordered his soldiers to wheel round 
 and charge. Randolph formed his men into a square, and 
 received the shock of the English horse without wavering, 
 and at length, after desperate attempts on the part of the 
 English, and determined resistance on the part of the Scots, 
 the English were compelled to retreat. 
 
 In the meantime the English army had steadily advanced, 
 till Edward ordered a halt to consult with his leaders, whether 
 they should give battle at once, or wait till the following day, 
 in order to let the soldiers have a night's rest. By some mis- 
 take, the English center continued to advance, and Bruce, 
 therefore, rode forward to make some fresh arrangements. An 
 English knight, Sir Henry De Bohun, or Boune, well mount- 
 ed, seeing that Bruce was alone, rode forward to attack him. 
 Bruce was mounted only on a weak horse, but was too brave 
 to shun the conflict. The English knight galloped forward 
 at great speed, charging with his lance, but Bruce parried the 
 attack, and, as the knight passed him, he raised his battle-ax, 
 and, with one blow, laid him dead at his feet. 
 
 " High in his stirrups stood the king, 
 And gave his battle-ax the swing. 
 Right on De Boune, the whiles he passed, 
 Fell that stern dint the first the last! 
 Such strength upon the blow was put, 
 The helmet crashed like hazel-nut ; 
 The ax-shaft, with its brazen clasp, 
 Was shivered to the gauntlet's grasp. 
 Springs from the blow the startled horse, 
 Drops to the plain the lifeless corse ; 
 First of that fatal field, how soon, 
 How sudden, fell the fierce De Boune." 
 
 Scoff's " Lord of tlie Isles" Canto vi, 15. 
 
 The Scotch now rushed forward with great fury, and drove 
 back the English in confusion; but Bruce, fearing to disar- 
 range his order of battle, called his soldiers back, and both
 
 BRUCE AND BANNOCKBURN. 133 
 
 sides tacitly determined to delay the battle till the next 
 day. 
 
 On the following morning, Monday, June 241)1, the Scot- 
 tish king confessed, and, along with his army, heard mass; 
 and the soldiers then arranged themselves in battle-array. 
 The English advanced, led on by the king in person, who had 
 with him a chosen body-guard of five hundred horse. As 
 they approached, the Scotch all knelt down, in reverence to a 
 crucifix carried through their ranks by the Abbot of Inchaf- 
 fray. "See," cried Edward, " they are kneeling; they ask 
 mercy." "They do, my liege," answered Sir Ingram Umfra- 
 ville, " but it is from God, and not from us. Trust me, yon 
 men will win the day, or die upon the field." "Be it so, 
 then," replied the king, and ordered the charge to be sounded. 
 The English, owing to a dispute among their leaders, charged 
 irregularly, but with great fury. The Scotch received their 
 attack with steady courage, and the English fell in great num- 
 bers. But the Scotch were terribly galled by the showers of 
 arrows poured upon them by the English bowmen. Bruce, 
 therefore, ordered Sir Robert Keith to take a body of five 
 hundred horse, the only cavalry in the Scotch army, around 
 Milton Marsh, and charge the English archers. The archers 
 had no weapons but their bows and arrows, and their quivers 
 being emptied, they were unable to resist the attack of the 
 Scotch cavalry and fled. Bruce now saw signs of wavering 
 among the English, and, bringing up his whole reserve, 
 charged the English with his entire army in one line. At this 
 critical moment, by Bruce's orders, the Highlanders made 
 their appearance on the top of Gillies' Hill, and the English, 
 supposing them to be a fresh army advancing to the attack, 
 fled in confusion. This last charge of Bruce decided the fate 
 of the day, and the Scots now obtained a complete victory 
 over their opponents. Thirty thousand of the English are 
 said to have been left dead on the field, but Edward escaped 
 in safety, and took refuge in Berwick.
 
 134 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 It was still many years before the wars between England 
 and Scotland ceased, but the battle of Bannockburn had the 
 effect of securely establishing Bruce and his successors as 
 kings of Scotland. 
 
 XXII. 
 
 BATTLE OF CRECY FROISSART. 
 
 [The real cause of the Hundred Years' War, begun by Edward III., was 
 an attempt on the part of the French king, Philip of Valois, to annex Ed- 
 ward's province of Aquitaine to the crown of France. The preposterous 
 claim of Edward to the French throne was urged mainly as a pretext for 
 the war. The age of Edward was pre-eminently the age of chivalry, and lie 
 made war in the spirit of a knight-errant, without much plan or purpose, 
 for personal glory. After having undertaken several expeditions against 
 France, he landed at La Hogue, in Normandy, in July, 1346, intending to 
 join the Flemings. But the French king, with a large army, lay between 
 him and Flanders, on the right bank of the Seine. By a feint upon Paris, 
 however, Edward succeeded in crossing the river, and advanced toward 
 the Somme, which he also crossed, near Abbeville, and there won the great 
 victory of Crecy (August 6, 1346), against enormous odds. But even this 
 surprising success brought no permanent advantage to England ; neverthe- 
 less it was a "glorious" victory.] 
 
 THAT night the English king lay in the fields with his 
 host, and made a supper to all his chief lords of his host and 
 made them good cheer. And when they were all departed to 
 take their rest, then the king entered into his oratory, and 
 kneeled down before the altar, praying God devoutly that if 
 he fought the next day, that he might achieve the journey to 
 his honor. Then, about midnight, he laid him down to rest, 
 and in the morning he rose betimes, and heard mass, and the 
 prince, his son (the Black Prince), with him, and the most 
 part of his company were confessed and houseled. And, 
 after the mass said, he commanded every man to be armed,
 
 BATTLE OF CRECY. 
 
 135 
 
 and to draw to the field, to the same place before appointed. 
 Then the king caused a park to be made by the wood-side, 
 behind his host, and there was set all carts and carriages, 
 and within the park were all their horses, for every man was 
 afoot; and into this park there was but one entry. After ar- 
 ranging the army in three battalions, the king leapt on a hob- 
 by, with a white rod in his hand, one of his marshals on the 
 one hand, and the other on the other hand ; he rode from 
 rank to rank, desiring every man to take heed that day to his 
 right and honor; he spake it so sweetly, and with so good 
 countenance and merry cheer, that all such as were dis- 
 comfited took courage in the seeing and hearing of him. 
 And when he had thus visited all his battles (battalions) it 
 was then nine of the day: then he caused every man to eat 
 and drink a little, and so they did at their leisure; and after- 
 ward they ordered again their battles. Then every man lay 
 down on the earth, and by him his salet and bow, to be 
 the more fresher when their enemies should come. It was in 
 
 \ EN CL/SH CHANNEL 
 
 6* 
 
 BATTI.K OK CRECY.
 
 136 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 this position that they were found by the tumultuous French 
 army, which came rushing on, crying "Down with them," 
 " Let us slay them." in such a manner, that, says Froissart, 
 there was no man, though he were present at the journey, 
 that could imagine or show the truth of the evil order that 
 was among them. The day of this meeting was Saturday. 
 August 6, 1346. 
 
 The Englishmen, who were in three battles, lying on the 
 ground to rest them, as soon as they saw the Frenchmen ap- 
 proach, they rose upon their feet, fair anH easily, without any 
 haste, and arranged their battles : the first, which was the 
 prince's battle; the archers there stood in the manner of a 
 herse (harrow), and the men-of-arms in the bottom of the 
 battle. The earl of Northampton and the earl of Arundel, 
 with the second battle, were on a wing in good order, ready 
 to comfort the prince's battle, if need were. The lords and 
 knights of France came not to the assembly together in good 
 order; for some came before, and some came after, in such 
 haste and evil order that one of them did trouble another. 
 When the French king saw the Englishmen, his blood 
 changed, and (he) said to his marshals, " Make the Genoese 
 go on before, and begin the battle in the name of God and 
 St. Denis." There were of the Genoese cross-bows about 
 fifteen thousand; but they were so weary of going a-foot that 
 day a six league, armed with their cross-bows, that they said 
 to their constables, " We be not well ordered to fight this 
 day, for we be not in the case to do any great deed of 
 arms, as we have more need of rest." These words came to 
 the duke of Alenfon, who said, " A man is well at ease to be 
 charged with such a sort of rascals, to be faint and fail now 
 at most need." Also at the same season there fell a great 
 rain and eclipse, with a terrible thunder; and before the rain 
 there came flying over both battles a great number of crows, 
 for fear of the tempest coming. Then anon the air began to 
 wax clear and the sun to shine fair and bright, the which was
 
 BATTLE OF CRECY. 137 
 
 right in the Frenchmen's eyes and on the Englishmen's 
 backs. When the Genoese were assembled together, and be- 
 gan to approach, they made a great leap and cry to abash the 
 Englishmen, but they stood still, and stirred not for all that. 
 Then the Genoese again the second time made another leap, 
 and a fell cry. and stept forward a little, and the Englishmen 
 removed not one foot ; thirdly, again they leaped and cried, 
 and went forth till they came within shot, then they shot 
 fiercely with their cross-bows. Then the English archers 
 stept forth one pass (pace), and let fly their arrows so wholly, 
 and so thick, that it seemed snow. When the Genoese felt 
 the arrows pressing through heads, arms, and breasts, many 
 of them cast down their cross-bows, and did cut their 
 strings, and returned discomfited. When the French king saw 
 them flee away, he said, "Kill me these rascals; for they 
 shall lett (hinder) and trouble us without reason." Then ye 
 should have seen the men-of-arms da<jh in among them, and 
 kill a great number of them ; and ever still the Englishmen 
 shot whereas they saw thickest press ; the sharp arrows ran 
 into the men-of-arms and into their horses, and many fell, 
 horse and men, among the Genoese; and when they were 
 down, they could not relyne again, the press was so thick 
 that one overthrew another. And also among the English- 
 men there were certain rascals that went on foot, with great 
 knives, and they went in among the men-of-arms, and slew 
 and murdered many as they lay on the ground, both earls, 
 barons, knights, and squires, whereof the king of England 
 was after displeased, for he had rather they had been taken 
 prisoners. 
 
 The valiant king of Bohemia, called Charles of Luxen- 
 bourg, son to the noble Emperor Henry of Luxenbourg, for 
 all that he was nigh blind, when he understood the order of 
 the battle, he said to them about him, " Where is the Lord 
 Charles, my son ? " His men said, u Sir, we cannot tell, we 
 think he be fighting." Then he said, " Sirs, ye are my men,
 
 138 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 my companions and friends in this journey; I require you 
 bring me so forward that I may strike one stroke with my 
 sword." They said they would do his commandment; and 
 to the intent that they might not lose him in the press, they 
 tied all the reins of their bridles each to other, and set 
 the king before to accomplish his desire, and so they went 
 on their enemies. The Lord Charles of Bohemia, his son, 
 who wrote himself king of Bohemia, and bare the arms, he 
 came in good order to the battle ; but when he saw that the 
 matter went awry on their party, he departed, I cannot tell 
 you which way. The king, his father, was so far forward, that 
 he struck a stroke with his sword, yea, and more than four, 
 and fought valiantly, and so did his company, and they ad- 
 ventured themselves so forward that they were all slain, and 
 the next day they were found in the place about the king, 
 and all their horses tied to each other. 
 
 The prince's battalion at one period was very hard 
 pressed ; and they with the prince sent a messenger to the 
 king, who was on a little windmill-hill ; then the knight said 
 to the king, " Sir, the earl of Warwick, and the earl of Ox- 
 ford, Sir Reynold Cobham, and others, such as be about the 
 prince, your son, are fiercely fought withal, and are sore 
 handled, wherefore they desire you that you and your battle 
 will come and aid them, for if the Frenchmen increase, as 
 they doubt they will, your son and they will have much ado." 
 Then the king said, " Is my son dead or hurt, or on the earth 
 felled?" "No, sir," quote 'he knight, "but he is hardly 
 matched, wherefore he hath need of your aid." ' Well," 
 said the king, " return to him and to them that sent you 
 hither, and say to them, that they send no more to me for 
 any adventure that faileth, as long as my son is alive ; and 
 also say to them, that they suffer him this day to win his 
 spurs, for if God be pleased, I will this journey be his, and the 
 honor thereof, and to them that be about him." Then the 
 knight returned again to them, and showed the king's words,
 
 BATTLE OF CRECY. 139 
 
 the which greatly encouraged them, and they repined in that 
 they had sent to the king as they did. The king of France 
 stayed till the last. It was not until the evening that he 
 could be induced to acknowledge that all was lost. Then, 
 when he had left about him no more than a threescore per- 
 sons, one and other, whereof Sir John of Heynault was one, 
 who had remounted once the king for his horse was slain 
 with an arrow then he said to the king, " Sir, depart hence, 
 for it is time ; lose not yourself willfully ; if ye have loss this 
 time, ye shall recover it again another season ; " and so he 
 took the king's horse by the bridle and led him away in a 
 manner per force. Then the king rode till he came to the 
 castle of La Broyes ; the gate was closed, because it was 
 by that time dark ; then the king called the captain, who 
 came to the walls, and said, " Open your gate quickly, for 
 this is the fortune of France." The captain knew then it 
 was the king, and opened the gate and let down the bridge ; 
 then the king entered, and he had with him but five barons, 
 Sir John of Heynault and four others. The unhappy king, 
 however, could not rest there, but drank and departed thence 
 about midnight.
 
 140 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 XXIII. 
 THE BLACK DEATH. WARBURTON. 
 
 [The great pestilence which swept over England in 1348-49 was by far 
 the most important event of Edward III.'s reign. It destroyed nearly 
 half of the population, and raged most fiercely among the working classes. 
 It more than doubled the rate of wages, in spite of the stringent laws 
 enacted to keep the price of labor at its former standard. It led to the 
 rising of the peasants in the next reign, to the re-organization of the agri- 
 cultural system of the time, and ultimately to the emancipation of the 
 peasant class from serfdom or villeinage.] 
 
 IN the interval between the capture of Calais and this 
 attempt to recover it, a visitation occurred which turned all 
 the gay prosperity of England into mourning, and brought 
 the French nation to the very brink of ruin. The outbreak 
 of the Plague, or the " Black Death," as it was then called, 
 has been left comparatively in the background by contempo- 
 rary historians ; but it is undoubtedly the central fact of the 
 reign of Edward III. and of the fourteenth century, and, in 
 the opinion of some writers, the most important economic 
 fact in modern history. Among its consequences may be 
 reckoned an immense advance in the social condition of the 
 working classes, owing to the scarcity of labor, and conse- 
 quent increase in its value as a commodity ; the substitution 
 of what we should call tenant-farming for landlord occupa- 
 tion ; and a " strike " of fifty years' duration, which culmi- 
 nated in the rebellion of Wat Tyler in the following reign, 
 and, though then cruelly and treacherously put down, re- 
 sulted at last in the emancipation of the English peasantry. 
 
 The local origin of the Plague is mysterious, and it has, 
 therefore, perhaps, been traced to Cathay, the land of mys- 
 tery ; but it is an ascertained fact that all the most devastat- 
 ing epidemics which have visited Europe have had their 
 cradle in the far East. Tidings of the Plague's ravages in
 
 THE BLACK DEATH. 141 
 
 Central Asia had reached England as far back as the year 
 1333 ; but the western peoples thought little of it as long as 
 it was talked of only as one of the many scourges of imper- 
 fectly known and half-barbarous nations. Constantinople 
 was then, as now, the great frontier city between European 
 civilization and the far East, and through it flowed one of the 
 three principal tides of Oriental traffic. Thither, in 1347, the 
 destroyer came, along with the caravans laden with Asiatic 
 produce, and followed the westward course of commerce by 
 easy stages along the shores and islands of the Mediterranean, 
 sometimes pausing, sometimes doubling back, but always 
 gaining ground, till it reached the uttermost north-western 
 boundary of Europe, not sparing Iceland, and even leaping 
 over to Greenland where it probably extirpated the Euro- 
 pean colony and returning by Norway and Sweden, through 
 Russia, in 1351. 
 
 In Provence the chief cities were almost depopulated. 
 At Avignon, where Pope Clement VI. held the most extrav- 
 agant and dissolute court in Europe, three fourths of the 
 people died. The pope shut himself up a close prisoner 
 in his palace-fortress, and kept huge fires burning day and 
 night. 
 
 In Cypress, Sicily, and Florence the Plague was felt with 
 extraordinary severity. In the last place only it would seem 
 that some efforts, though ineffectual, were made by the author- 
 ities to check the spread of the disease, among the victims 
 of which was Petrarch's " Laura." During its ravages in that 
 city a number of ladies and gentlemen withdrew together 
 from all communication with the outer world, diverting 
 themselves with music and dancing and other in-door enter- 
 tainments, eating and drinking of the best, and never listen- 
 ing to or thinking about any thing which might check their 
 good spirits or disturb their serenity. Stories by which they 
 are supposed to have amused each other have been preserved, 
 or invented, in the " Decameron " of Boccaccio, the effect of
 
 142 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 whose gay and festive pictures is heightened by contrast with 
 the somber background on which they are drawn. 
 
 The Black Death, which made the tour of Europe in 
 1349-51, is undoubtedly the same disease as the Plague, 
 now, or till quite lately, endemic on the shores of the Levant 
 and in Egypt, having been, as it were, domesticated there 
 by the lazy, filthy, and fatalistic habits of the people. Its 
 specific causes are as much unknown as its original seat. 
 The opinion of the time and some modern authorities agree 
 in connecting its appearance with contemporary physical 
 phenomena of a very remarkable kind ; but it would seem as 
 if these phenomena must have been of too limited and local 
 a character to account for a pestilence which spread over a 
 whole continent. Parching droughts, as it is said, were 
 succeeded by convulsions of the earth and crackings of its 
 surface, from which a fetid and poisonous vapor was projected 
 into the atmosphere, the corruption of which was afterward 
 increased by malarious exhalations from swamps caused by 
 incessant deluges of rain. To the panic-struck imagination 
 of the people the Black Death seemed to be advancing to 
 their destruction in the palpable form of a " thick, stinking 
 mist." 
 
 In some rare and frightful cases of seizure the victims fell 
 down and died without premonitory symptoms, but in the 
 majority of instances the attack began with shiverings and 
 bristling of the hair, succeeded by burning internal fever 
 with a cold skin, and the rapid formation of boils, first in the 
 axillae and the groin, and afterward in the internal organs. 
 The appearance of these boils was the most characteristic of 
 all the symptoms of the Black Death, but the advance of 
 dissolution was often so rapid as to outstrip these forerun- 
 ners, which were, indeed, due to a strong effort of nature to 
 expel the matter of the disease from the blood. 
 
 The terror of the Plague was every-where, inviting death ; 
 men's vital powers were so depressed by anticipation that they
 
 THE BLACK DEATH. 143 
 
 were already half-dead before they were attacked ; the throat 
 parched, the pulse quickened, by nervous anxiety, were 
 taken for the fatal symptoms of seizure. And next to the 
 fear of death was that of previous desertion. Men and 
 women feared to look in each other's faces lest they should 
 be betrayed by the "muddy glistening" of the eye, or de- 
 tected in feeling with feverish finger for " the little hard 
 kernel, no bigger than a pea, which moved with the touch 
 under the skin of the armpit," the sure precursor, as it was 
 thought, of doom inevitable, irremediable, inexorable, and 
 irrespective of persons, ages, or conditions of life. To im- 
 aginations morbid with terror pestilence indeed seemed to 
 lurk in every thing in every morsel eaten, in every rag that 
 fluttered in the wind. But who would be so fool-hardy and 
 irrational as to " throw good life after bad," by nursing a dy- 
 ing friend, when Black Death was in the breathing of his last 
 sigh or the farewell pressure of his hand? So the nearest 
 and dearest ties were dissolved, the calls of kindred and hu- 
 manity neglected, and the sick were left to die and then be 
 carted to the grave by hirelings. Numbers were driven, by 
 an unreasoning terror, away from human habitations, and 
 perished miserably in the solitude of the fields. 
 
 In England, however, by far the most memorable results 
 of the Black Death were its social and economical effects. 
 It made its appearance in Dorsetshire, in the month of August 
 of the fatal year 1348, but it was three months before it had 
 reached London. Knyghton, who lived at the time, says that 
 " many villages and hamlets were desolated, without a house 
 being left in them, all those who dwelt in them being dead." 
 The country places which the Plague attacked were soon 
 silenced, for the pestilence did not even spare the brute cre- 
 ation ; and the carcasses of sheep, horses, and oxen lay putre- 
 fying in the fields, untouched by dogs or birds of prey. But 
 in London the streets and public places were, for a time at 
 least, all alive and brisk with funerals "alive with death."
 
 144 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 First single biers, and then cart-loads of corpses hurried along 
 to the grave-yards : no time was to be lost, for there would 
 soon be too few left living to bury the dead. 
 
 It is said on contemporary authority and the statement is 
 confirmed by modern research that no less than one-half of 
 the population perished. The immediate consequence was 
 an enormous increase in the value of labor, and a correspond- 
 ing depreciation in the value of land. In the winter which 
 followed the Plague " flocks and herds wandered about the 
 fields and corn without any that could drive them." Land- 
 lords excused their tenants' rents for one, two, or three years, 
 lest they should desert their holdings, and leave them uncul- 
 tivated on their owners' hands. Wages were so high as to 
 swallow up the farmer's profit, and it frequently became a 
 question whether it would be more ruinous to leave the crops 
 ungathered or to comply with the extravagant demands of the 
 laborers. 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 JOHN WYCLIF. SHIRLEY. 
 
 [The career of Wyclif, as a reformer, included the later years of Ed- 
 ward III., and the earlier years of his grandson and immediate successor, 
 Richard II. He attacked both the discipline and doctrine of the Church 
 of his time, and in many points anticipated the great Reformation of the 
 sixteenth century. When he first rose into prominence the papal court was 
 at Avignon, in France. A few years later occurred what is known as the 
 Great Schism. Two popes were elected, one at Rome and the other at 
 Avignon, and Europe was divided between them. The schism caused 
 great scandal and corruption, and did much to destroy the influence of the 
 papacy. In England the French pope was regarded as an enemy ; hence, 
 to a large extent, the popular sympathy for Wyclif.] 
 
 OF all external events perhaps the great schism of the 
 West exercised the most important influence on the career of 
 the reformer; it strengthened his theological, but it under-
 
 JOHN WVCLIF. 145 
 
 mined his political, position. He may not have been aware, 
 certainly John of Gaunt, if we may judge by his acts, was 
 not aware, how large a portion of the antipathy of English- 
 men to the papal court was due to its residence at Avignon. 
 The pope was, to Englishmen of the time of Edward III., 
 the obedient slave of France, through whose coffers the 
 treasure of this country passed to feed the war against her- 
 self, whose partisans, especially among the mendicant friars, 
 were perpetually engaged in fostering an unpatriotic, unnu- 
 tional feeling, and who appeared, an advocate in the garb of 
 mediator, to throw the weight of his influence in every ne- 
 gotiation into the scale of the enemies of England. 
 
 With the great schism all this was changed. Not only did 
 the common feeling of reverence for the head of the Church 
 naturally return when the causes which had for a time de- 
 stroyed it were removed, but the nation must have witnessed, 
 with novel delight, the " king's adversary of France " falling 
 under the ban of the papacy. The violence of the Lancas- 
 trian government, and its mad defiance of popular feeling, 
 hastened the reaction, and thus before long Wyclif, sanguine 
 as he was, had probably abandoned all serious hope of any 
 practical reform of the Church. 
 
 From this time the theological element, in our modern and 
 narrower sense of the word, becomes predominant in his 
 works ; he begins to write English tracts, to speak of the 
 translation of the Bible, which was probably in progress at 
 this time, and lastly, arriving at a conclusion to which he had 
 long been tending, he put out, in the spring of 1381, a paper 
 containing twelve propositions, in which he denied the doc- 
 trine of transubstantiation. 
 
 It was on these propositions that his prosecution by the 
 archbishop was framed a prosecution which, unlike that of 
 four years before, was really theological, not political, in its ob- 
 ject. Whatever share old party feeling may have had in stir- 
 ring Courtney's theological zeal, no archbishop of Canterbury,
 
 146 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 even if inclined, could safely have neglected to proceed 
 against the author of opinions so profoundly at variance with 
 the ecclesiastical, even more than with the theological, prin- 
 ciples of the day. 
 
 Yet the first attack on the new doctrine was not made by 
 him. Almost immediately after its appearance it was con- 
 demned by the chancellor of the university and a select 
 meeting of doctors. Wyclif appealed to John of Gaunt, who 
 came down to Oxford, and, caring little to be embroiled in a 
 theological dispute, confirmed the sentence of the chancellor 
 by an injunction to the reformer not to speak further on the 
 subject of the eucharist. A political partisan would have 
 been silenced : Wyclif replied by his memorable confession. 
 Help came to him from a quarter whence, perhaps, it was 
 little expected. 
 
 The popular cry of heresy, then as ever, was far less tell- 
 ing within the university than in the country at large. The 
 theological alarms of John of Gaunt were little felt by the 
 masters of arts. Their common enmity to the religious, and 
 especially to the mendicant, orders, attached the secular 
 clergy of Oxford, as a body, to the cause of Wyclif. They 
 did not forget that three years before the monks, in gratify- 
 ing their animosity against him, had sacrificed the independ- 
 ent pride of the university, and they could not but foresee, 
 in the new prosecutions which were preparing, fresh sources 
 of humiliation for her. This feeling, re-enforcing the strength 
 of Wyclif s own party, told in the university elections. In the 
 annual change of officers, the incoming chancellor and proc- 
 tors were all more or less inclined to his cause, and the uni- 
 versity troubled him no more 
 
 Thus checked, the leaders of the movement turned to the 
 archbishop, and, in consequence of their representations, in 
 May, 1382, a provincial council was assembled at the Black 
 Friars, in London. 
 
 The form of the proceedings was remarkable. Wyclif
 
 JOHN WYCLIF. 147 
 
 himself was never summoned before the council, but twenty- 
 four conclusions, extracted from his writings, were condemned, 
 search was ordered to be made in Oxford for copies of his 
 works, and he himself was banished from the university. 
 For his followers severer measures were in store. The Lol- 
 lard chancellor, Rigge, after a bold but short resistance, was 
 compelled to submit ; the heads of the party were made to 
 recant, and the whole party in Oxford received a blow from 
 which it seems to have never thoroughly recovered. 
 
 LUTTERWORTH WYCLIF'S CHURCH. 
 
 Wyclifs enemies, however, were not satisfied. From his 
 retreat at Lutterworth they summoned him before the papal 
 court. The citation did not reach him till 1384. But he 
 was then dying of paralysis. His reply to the pope, excus- 
 ing himself from attendance, is preserved to us. From its 
 half-enigmatical language we could scarcely guess, what we 
 know from another source, that his failing strength was un-
 
 148 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 equal to the journey. On the 2pth of December, of the 
 same year, as he was hearing mass in his parish church, a 
 fatal stroke deprived him of speech, and on the 3151 he 
 breathed his last. 
 
 No friendly hand has left us any, even the slightest, me- 
 morial of the life and death of the great reformer. A spare, 
 frail, emaciated frame, a quick temper, a conversation " most 
 innocent," the charm of every rank ; such are the scanty but 
 significant fragments we glean of the personal portraiture of 
 one who possessed, as few ever did, the qualities which give 
 men power over their fellows. His enemies ascribed it to 
 the magic of an ascetic habit ; the fact remains engraven 
 upon every line of his life. 
 
 To the memory of one of the greatest of Englishmen his 
 country has been singularly and painfully ungrateful. On 
 most of us the dim image looks down, like the portrait of the 
 first of a long line of kings, without personality or expression 
 he is the first of the reformers. To some he is the watch- 
 word of a theological controversy, invoked most loudly by 
 those whom he would most have condemned. Of his works, 
 the greatest, "one of the most thoughtful of the Middle 
 Ages, "has twice been printed abroad, in England never. Of 
 his original English works nothing beyond one or two short 
 tracts has seen the light.* If considered only as the father 
 of English prose, the great reformer might claim more rev- 
 erential treatment at our hands. It is not by his translation 
 of the Bible, remarkable as that work is, that Wyclif can be 
 judged as a writer. It is in his original tracts that the ex- 
 quisite pathos, the keen, delicate irony, the manly passion of 
 his short, nervous sentences fairly overmasters the weakness 
 of the unformed language, and gives us English which cannot 
 be read without a feeling of its beauty to this hour. 
 
 * Since this was written (1858) the English works of Wyclif have been 
 printed, with a very able and interesting introduction by F. D. Matlhew 
 (1880).
 
 JOHN WYCLIF. 
 
 149 
 
 As it is in the light of subsequent events that we see the 
 greatness of Wyclif as a reformer, so it is from the later 
 growth of the language that we best learn to appreciate the 
 beauty of his writing. But it was less The reformer, or the 
 master of English prose, than the great schoolman, that in- 
 spired the respect of his contemporaries ; and, next to the 
 deep influence of personal holiness and the attractive great- 
 ness of his moral character, it was to his supreme command 
 of the weapons of scholastic discussion that he owed his 
 astonishing influence. 
 
 XXV. 
 
 DEPOSITION OF RICHARD II. YORK POWELL. 
 
 [During the first twelve years of Richard II. 's reign, the conduct of affairs 
 was largely in the hands of his uncle, the duke of Lancaster, and, after him, 
 of another uncle, the duke of Gloucester. Richard however, was allowed 
 to choose his own ministers. In 1387, through the efforts of Gloucester and 
 four other nobles, called Lords Appellant, the ministers were impeached 
 in Parliament and condemned to death. Two years later the king sud- 
 denly assumed sole authority, and for nearly eight years ruled wisely and 
 successfully. In 1389 he entered upon a course of arbitrary government 
 which led to his deposition. His cousin, Henry of Holingbroke, duke of 
 Hereford, took the vacant throne, with the title of Henry IV.] 
 
 THE earl of March had been 
 killed by the " wild Irish " at 
 Kenlys, July 20, 1398, and now, 
 that all was outwardly at peace in 
 England, Richard was minded to 
 go over to Ireland, and stay there 
 till he had established good gov- 
 ernment once for all. He made 
 his will, leaving all his money to 
 his heir, on condition that he up- RICHARD n.
 
 150 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 held the acts of the last two Parliaments, appointed his uncle, 
 the duke of York, Keeper of the Realm, and then sailed, 
 with many of his nobles, May, 1399. As soon as Henry heard 
 that he was gone, he" set out from Brittany with Archbishop 
 Arundel and his nephew (the dead earl's son), Sir Thomas 
 Erpingham, and forty men, and landed at Ravenspur, July 4, 
 swearing to the northern lords who joined him that he was 
 come to claim his heritage, and to put an end to the bad rule 
 of the king's friends, but not to touch the crown. The 
 Keeper was won over July 27, Bristol surrendered, and the 
 king's friends there were hanged. Richard sent Salisbury to 
 gather troops at Conway, promising to follow him at once; 
 yet he did not come for three weeks, when he landed at Beau- 
 maris. But there his own men fled from him, and he fell 
 into despair, and cursed the untruth of England, saying, 
 "Alas! what faith is there in this false world?" and, instead 
 of going to Bordeaux, where he would have found help and 
 welcome, left his treasure and fled, in disguise, to Conway. 
 He found no help there ; Salisbury's levies had gone home, 
 tired of waiting for him. Ere he could make fresh plans, 
 he was lured, by Northumberland's false oath, out of his 
 stronghold and brought to Flint. " Fool that I was! " he 
 cried, when he found himself betrayed, "to have saved the 
 life of this Henry of Lancaster three times, as I have, yea, 
 when his own father would have had him die for his treason 
 and wickedness! 'Tis a true saying, indeed, 'Your worst foe 
 is him you free from the gallows.' " 
 
 When he saw Lancaster, he smiled and said, " Welcome, fair 
 cousin! " "I am come home before my time, sir," answered 
 Lancaster, bowing, " for your people complain that you have 
 ruled them harshly for a score of years or more, but now, if it 
 please God, I will help you to rule better." " If it please 
 you, it pleaseth us well," replied Richard. They then started 
 for London. 
 
 At Lichfield the king tried to escape, but was retaken,
 
 DEPOSITION OF RICHARD II. 151 
 
 and henceforth strictly guarded. The Londoners wel- 
 comed Henry with joy, but hooted and groaned as the 
 king was led to the Tower. Before the Parliament that had 
 been called could meet, Richard, seeing no present hope, 
 agreed, in writing, to give up the crown. When the Parlia- 
 ment met, the resignation was read in English and Latin, and 
 accepted. Thirty-three charges against Richard were then 
 read, which accused him of having acted wrongfully toward 
 Archbishop Arundel and the appellants; of having packed 
 Parliaments by means of the sheriffs, and got them to give up 
 their lawful rights to him ; of having lowered the free crown 
 of England by seeking the pope's approval of acts of Parlia- 
 ment; of having raised unlawful taxes, loans, purveyance, and 
 ransoms ; of having broken the laws as to the sheriffs, and 
 royal officers, and judges; of having made an unrighteous 
 will ; of having said and held that the laws lay in his own 
 mouth, and that he could change them as he liked, and that 
 the life, lands, and goods of every man were at his mercy 
 without trial. 
 
 The Parliament voted these charges true, and sufficient 
 grounds for setting the king aside, and sent seven com- 
 missioners to tell him so. Only one man, Thomas Marks, 
 bishop of Carlisle, spoke up for his master, and asked for a 
 fair trial, but he was not listened to. As soon as the throne 
 was declared vacant, the duke of Lancaster rose, and, 
 crossing himself, said, "In the name of God, I, Henry of 
 Lancaster, claim this realm, and the crown thereof, with all 
 the members and appurtenances thereto, as coming of the 
 right blood of King Henry, and through that right which 
 God, of his grace, hath sent me, with the help of my kin and 
 of my friends, to recover it, the which realm was in point to 
 be undone for default of governance and undoing of laws." 
 And with that he showed the signet which Richard had given 
 him at Flint. 
 
 Whereon the Three Estates, severally and together, agreed 
 
 7
 
 15-' SKlirCHKS FROM ENGLISH HlSTORY. 
 
 to take him as king. Then Henry, having knelt down and 
 prayed a while in their midst, was handed to the throne by 
 the two archbishops. After a sermon by Arundel, on the 
 text, " Behold the man whom I spake to thee of, the same 
 shall rule over my people," Henry spoke again : " Sirs, I 
 thank you, both spiritual and temporal, and all the estates 
 of the land, and I do you to wit that it is not my will that 
 any man should think that by way of conquest I would disin- 
 herit any man of his heritage, liberties, or other rights that he 
 ought to have, or put him out of that he hath and hath had 
 by the good laws of this realm, save those that have been 
 against the good state and common profit of the realm." 
 And on the morrow, October ist, Sir William Thirning, as 
 the spokesman of the Seven Commissioners, went to the 
 Tower and addressed Richard, saying, " Sir, ye remember you 
 well that ye renounced and put off the state of king and lord- 
 ship, and of all the dignity that belongeth thereto." " Yea," 
 said Richard, " but not the ghostly honor of the royal anoint- 
 ing, which I could not renounce or put off." But Thirning 
 went on to say that " his renunciation and cession was plainly 
 accepted and agreed to by all the estates and people. And 
 besides this, sir, at the instance of all the estates and people, 
 there were certain articles of default in your governance there 
 read, and there well heard and plainly understood by all the 
 the estates aforesaid, and by them thought so true and notO' 
 rious and well-known that for .these two causes, and for others 
 also, as they said, and having consideration to your own 
 words in your renunciation and cession, that ye were not 
 worthy nor sufficient nor able for to govern because of your 
 own demerits (as it is more fully declared therein), they 
 therefore thought that it was reasonable and cause for to 
 depose you." " Nay, nay," cried Richard, " not for any 
 lack of power, but because my rule did not please the peo- 
 .ple." "I am but using your words, sir," answered Thirning. 
 "Well," said Richard, smiling, " I look for no more, but, after
 
 DEPOSITION OF RICHARD II. 153 
 
 all this, I hope that my cousin will be good lord to me." 
 This was the imprisoned king's last free utterance. On the 
 271)1 he was condemned by the Lords and Council to per- 
 petual imprisonment, and two days after sent from the Tower 
 to Pomfret. His after fate is as yet unknown. 
 
 Richard was ruined, as William Langland says, by redeless- 
 ness, or lack of good counsel. He was not an idle trifler, like 
 Edward II., nor a shiftless spendthrift, like Henry III. ; but a 
 singularly gifted man, handsome, brave, generous, intelligent, 
 merciful, and able to act boldly and quickly when he chose. 
 His path was never free from difficulty and danger, family 
 quarrels, foreign hatred, and English discontent, a heritage 
 of trouble that came to him with his crown ; but he was on 
 the verge of safety when he ruined himself by two or three 
 false steps taken in the interest of his friends, rather than 
 of himself or his people. He was ill-advised when, for the 
 sake of peace, he let the irritating misdeeds of his brothers, 
 his officers, and his guard go unpunished; ill-advised when, 
 out of love for art, splendor, and a fair life, he kept up a 
 grand court, and was the patron of poets, painters, and archi- 
 tects, though he knew that his people grudged spending 
 money on any thing but war; ill-advised when, impatient 
 at the ceaseless falsehood and plots of his kinsmen, he used 
 haughty language, and spoke of his royal rights as above the 
 law ; and still more ill-advised when he tried to govern well 
 without consulting the likes and dislikes of the people he had 
 to rule, banishing their favorites, breaking down their privi- 
 leges, mocking at their cherished beliefs, and overriding the 
 rights to which they clung. But Richard was no brutal or 
 heartless tyrant, and if his luck had not left him, he might 
 have put away the follies, set right the mistakes into which his 
 youth and his young counselors had led him, and so reigned 
 more happily than his supplanter. However, he had had his 
 chance and failed, and the English people, perhaps rightly, 
 would not give him another, though he had a few warm
 
 154 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 friends who could not forget his fair face and open hand, and 
 pitied his fate. 
 
 "Ah, Richard, with the eyes of heavy mind 
 I see thy glory like a shooting star 
 Fall to the bare earth from the firmament. 
 Thy sun sets weeping in the lowly west, 
 Witnessing storms to come, war, and unrest." 
 
 XXVI. 
 
 BATTLE OF AZINCOURT. MARTIN. 
 
 [The reign of Henry IV., the first of the Lancastrian kings, was a con- 
 stant struggle against treason and revolt. His son, Henry V., strong in his 
 position at home, renewed the old quarrel with France. In 1415 he landed 
 with an army in Normandy, captured Harfleur, after a hard siege, and then 
 marched to Calais. On his way thither he encountered and overthrew the 
 French army at Azincourt.] 
 
 ON Thursday evening, October 24, Ihe English were 
 encamped in and around the little village of Maisoncelle ; the 
 French lay in the open fields near the village of Azincourt, 
 through which ran the road to Calais. The night was cold, 
 dark, and rainy. The French, with feet in the mud, and 
 bodies exposed to the rain, gathered around large fires which 
 had been built near the banners of their chiefs, and awaited 
 the tardy coming of an autumnal dawn. Among them there 
 was a great noise of pages, varlets, and " all sorts of fellows," 
 calling and shouting; "but they had few musical instruments 
 to cheer them, and few of the horses neighed during the night, 
 a fact which many marveled at, and thought full of omen. 
 The English, on the other hand, though weary, hungry, and 
 cold, kept their trumpets and various musical instruments 
 sounding all night long, so that the whole region round about 
 was filled with the noise ; and they made their peace Avith 
 God, confessing their sins with tears, and many partaking of
 
 BATTLE OF AZINCOURT. 155 
 
 the sacrament, for they expected certain death on the mor- 
 row." But not a shout, not a useless word, was heard among 
 them ; the men-at-arms refitted the lacings of their armor, 
 and the archers put new strings to their bows. 
 
 At length morning dawned. The French army drew up 
 on the narrow plain of Azincourt, in three deep lines of bat- 
 tle, each directly behind the other, so that neither could ren- 
 der the others any assistance. The little English army pre- 
 sented a front of equal extent to this great multitude, which 
 gained no advantage from the depth of its lines. Nearly all 
 the princes, lords, and great nobles had insisted on placing 
 themselves in the advance-guard, sending to the rear the 
 infantry, the bowmen, and probably the artillery also, as there 
 is no mention of it during the day. Eight thousand gentle- 
 men, magnificently arrayed, pressed into the front line of bat- 
 tle, with the constable, the dukes of Orleans and Bourbon, 
 the counts of Eu and Richemont, and the Marshal Boucicaut, 
 grand-master of the cross-bowmen. Five hundred of these 
 eight thousand nobles, including the duke of Orleans and the 
 count of Nevers, had had themselves invested with knight- 
 hood the preceding day. The dukes of Alencon and Bar, and 
 the count of Nevers had very reluctantly consented to take 
 command of the second line ; the rear-guard had been 
 intrusted to the counts of Dammartin, Marie, and Fau- 
 quemberg; but these noblemen and their followers imme- 
 diately abandoned their posts, and, rushing on, helped to 
 encumber the advance-guard. With the exception of the 
 two wings, each composed of several hundred lancers, and 
 destined u to strike" the English archers and "break their 
 fire," all the men-at-arms of the first two lines had dismounted, 
 and had shortened their lances so as to fight on foot. These 
 warriors, heavily armed as they were, sank half-way to the 
 knee in the freshly-plowed ground, which was soaked with 
 rain, and had been trampled into mud by the horses during 
 the night. They could not move, and so resolved, instead of
 
 156 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 attacking the enemy, to await his attack. A vague feeling of 
 sadness spread through the ranks ; affecting scenes took 
 place. Gentlemen " pardoned each other for the hatreds 
 they had cherished, many embraced and made peace, which 
 was a touching sight to see." The solemnity of the situation 
 awakened kindly feelings in the souls of even these men, 
 steeped, as they were, in pride and sensuality ; they became 
 serious in the presence of death. 
 
 The English had arrayed themselves by placing the mass 
 of their archers in front; behind these came the men-at-arms 
 on foot, and on the wings were men-at-arms and bowmen 
 intermingled. The archers were protected by a movable 
 palisade, each man carrying a stake sharpened at both ends, 
 which he fixed in the ground in front of him, with the point 
 inclined toward the enemy. The English presented a strange 
 contrast to the French nobles, who were all resplendent in 
 their steel breast-plates, and their coats of mail, embroidered 
 with gold and silver, and variegated with brilliant colors. 
 The archers had suffered so much in this campaign that they 
 looked like a troop of vagabonds and. beggars ; many of them 
 were barefoot and without helmets; others had head-pieces 
 of waxed leather or of willow, guarded only by a cross-piece 
 of iron, and most of them were without mailed doublets; 
 but they were all the more active for fighting on this muddy 
 and slippery ground, and though their "jackets" were worn- 
 out, and their breeches in tatters, their weapons were in 
 good condition, as they speedily proved. 
 
 King Henry had begun the day by hearing three masses in 
 succession ; then he put on his helmet, surmounted by a crown 
 of gold, mounted a charger, and ordered his men forward into 
 a field of young grain, where the soil was less soaked than 
 elsewhere. He rode along the lines, and reminded them of 
 the " fine affairs which the kings, his predecessors, had won 
 over the French. . . . Moreover he told them that the 
 French boasted they would take all the archers prisoners, and
 
 BATTLE OF AZINCOURT. 157 
 
 cut off the three fingers of the right hand." The English 
 answered, with a great shout, " Sire, God give you long life 
 and victory." 
 
 The two armies were within bow-shot. But Henry hesi- 
 tated to begin a conflict with thirteen or fourteen thou- 
 sand combatants against fifty thousand. Conferences had 
 already taken place in the preceding days; and he now sent 
 a message to the chiefs of the French army, offering, it is said, 
 to give up his claim to the French crown, and to surrender 
 Harfleur, if they would restore to him the county of Ponthieu 
 and five cities, which ought to belong to his duchy of Guyenne, 
 and give him in marriage the Princess Catherine of France, 
 with eight hundred thousand crowns of gold. The French 
 demanded Harfleur, and renunciation of the crown, without 
 compensation. They consented to leave to the English only 
 Calais, and what they actually held in Guyenne. The English 
 refused. 
 
 It was now eleven o'clock in the morning ; and, as soon as 
 the conference was broken off, the marshal of the English 
 army, Sir Thomas Erpingham, exhorted his troops again to 
 fight well, then, throwing his staff in the air, cried out, " Ne 
 strecke!" (Now strike!) The English army raised a great 
 shout, and advanced several paces. The French remained 
 motionless ; they were nearly knee-deep in mud. The En- 
 glish gave another shout, advanced nearer, and the archers 
 began the battle with a volley of ten thousand arrows, which 
 was followed by many more. The French at last began to 
 move, and, bowing their heads so that the arrows might not 
 penetrate the openings in their visors, they struggled labori- 
 ously against the enemy's line, and forced it back a little, 
 while at the same time the men-at-arms on the two wings, 
 who had remained mounted, started from Azincourt and 
 Tramecourt to take the archers in flank. 
 
 This cavalry charge, if it could have been properly exe- 
 cuted, would have decided the fortune of the day ; but the
 
 158 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 condition of the ground was such that it failed completely. 
 Most of the cavalry stumbled and fell in the furrows of the 
 newly-plowed fields ; not more than one in ten succeeded in 
 reaching the enemy. A few of the bravest and best-mounted 
 came on against the pointed stakes of the archers, and were 
 slain ; the others, recoiling before the hail of arrows, struggled 
 out of the mud in which they were nearly mired, fell back on 
 the first line of battle, and their horses, wounded, and furious 
 with pain, plunged into the ranks, causing frightful disorder. 
 The line of the advance-guard was broken; the men-at-arms 
 fell one upon the other, and were unable to rise; "many got 
 out of the melee, and fled." 
 
 The archers seeing these breaks in the French line, threw 
 down their bows and arrows, and, seizing their swords, hatch- 
 ets, loaded clubs, and hawk-bills, charged through their pali- 
 sade of stakes into the gaps of the opposing ranks. The 
 French men-at-arms, weighed down by their armor, sinking 
 at every step into the spongy soil, and already exhausted 
 before having fought at all, were so crowded together that 
 they could scarcely raise their arms to strike. "The aichers 
 smote them down in heaps; it seemed as if they were ham- 
 mering on anvils; and the French nobles fell one upon 
 another, some being suffocated, the rest killed or captured." 
 
 The archers broke through to the second line of battle, open- 
 ing a way for King Henry and his men-at-arms, who followed 
 and supported them with the greatest energy. The second 
 line met the fate of the first, which it had been unable to 
 assist, and was now involved with it in irretrievable disaster. 
 Desperate efforts were made to dispute the victory, but any 
 general maneuver on the part of the French was impossible ; 
 the flower of their nobility could only sell their lives or their 
 liberty as dearly as possible. Lefevre, an eye-witness, reports 
 that eighteen French knights had solemnly sworn to get at 
 the English king and strike the crown from his head, or lose 
 their lives in the attempt. They did, in fact, get so near him
 
 BATTLE OF AZINCOURT. 159 
 
 that one of them, with a blow of his ax, struck one of the 
 jewels from the crown ; but he and all the rest were speedily 
 cut down and killed. The duke of Alencon, with his men, 
 forced his way nearly through the English line, killed the duke 
 of York, the king's cousin, close by his side, but was cut 
 down by the royal guard just as Henry advanced to spare his 
 life. Duke Antoine de Brabant, who was hastening up by 
 forced marches to join the French army, reached the field 
 at this juncture with the best-mounted of his men. Without 
 stopping even to put on his coat of mail, he seized an em- 
 blazoned banner from one of his trumpeters, cut a hole in it, 
 slipped it over his head, and, with drawn sword, rushed upon 
 the English. He was at once unhorsed and slain. The 
 English archers and men-at-arms advanced steadily, always 
 in good order, " fighting, killing, and taking prisoners," with- 
 out ever breaking their lines to pursue the fugitives, until they 
 were face to face with the French rear-guard, which had 
 remained mounted. The latter did not await their onset ; 
 they broke and fled, with the exception of the leaders and 
 some six hundred lancers, who perished in a last charge 
 against the victorious foe. 
 
 The English were already complete masters of the field 
 when it was announced to the English king that a new enemy 
 had appeared in his rear, and was plundering his baggage. 
 Henry, alarmed at this unexpected attack, and seeing, in the 
 distance, the fugitives of the French rear-guard gathering 
 again in companies, gave orders, at the sound of the trumpet, 
 for every Englishman to slay his prisoners. The English 
 refused to obey, not from any feeling of humanity, but Tor fear 
 of losing the great ransoms they expected to get from their 
 captives. Henry then detailed a knight and two hundred 
 archers to do the <4 business, and there, in cold blood, all that 
 French nobility was killed and cut to pieces, a pitiable 
 sight to see." A multitude of persons had been slaugh- 
 tered when the king, seeing that the men who had attacked 
 7*
 
 160 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORV. 
 
 the baggage were fleeing with their booty, revoked his bar- 
 barous order. The attack had been made by only a few 
 hundred soldiers and peasants, under the command of the 
 lord of Azincourt. The men of the French rear-guard, who 
 had tried to rally, fled as soon as they saw that the English 
 were ready to fight them. 
 
 The English remained till evening, plundering the dead 
 and succoring those of the wounded from whom they hoped 
 to receive a ransom. The next morning they returned to 
 finish their work and turned over all the heaps of wounded 
 that lay scattered about the plain, choosing whom to kill and 
 whom to take away. 
 
 Never had the French nobility experienced a disaster com- 
 parable to that of Azincourt. Coartrai, Crecy, and Poitiers 
 had been surpassed. Of the ten thousand dead, there were 
 counted more than eight thousand nobles, a great part of 
 whom had been massacred after they had surrendered, when 
 Henry V. gave orders to slay the prisoners. Among these 
 were the dukes of Alencon and Brabant, the duke of Bar 
 and his two brothers, the Constable d'Albret, the counts of 
 Nevers, Marie, Fauquemberg, and others, the warlike bishop 
 of Sens, about one hundred and twenty great barons, etc. 
 The duke of Orleans was drawn out, alive, from a heap of 
 dead and wounded, and remained a prisoner, together with 
 the duke of Bourbon, the counts of Eu, Vendome, and 
 Richemont, the Marshal Boucicaut, and fifteen hundred 
 knights and esquires. The English lost the duke of York, 
 the earl of Suffolk, and about sixteen hundred men.
 
 JEANNE DARC. 161 
 
 XXVII. 
 JEANNE DARC. GUEST. 
 
 [Henry V. pursued his French conquests until his death, ia 1422, He 
 left to his brother, the duke of Bedford, the care of his French dominions. 
 At that time France was in a deplorable condition, rent with faction, and 
 a prey to anarchy. Her imbecile king, Charles VI., died, and his son, the 
 dauphin, was unable to unite the nation, restore order, and drive out the 
 English. What was needed was a leader, and one came at last in the peasant 
 girl, Jeanne Dare. At the time of her appearance, the English were en- 
 gaged in besieging the city of Orleans.] 
 
 THERE is no story in all the long history of the world more 
 strange and beautiful than the story of the Maid of Orleans. 
 She was born in a wild and woody country, on the borders of 
 Lorraine and Champagne. Her father, Jacques Dare, was a 
 poor laborer. His little Joan, or Jeanne, was bred up like 
 any other poor man's child ; but before we can understand 
 either the maiden or her story, we must try to realize a little, 
 if we can, the world she lived in, and how different it was 
 from our world. When she was taken to the little country 
 church, on Sundays and holy days, she would, doubtless, see 
 on the walls the images of crowned saints and angels, of 
 Christ, and the Virgin Mary. They might be very roughly 
 painted, but to the poor village people they would seem beau- 
 tiful and glorious ; nor would they be looked upon as mere 
 pictures. Jeanne and all the others in the church thought they 
 were actually like the real saints and angels in heaven, and 
 would kneel and pray before them without a moment's doubt 
 that they would hear and answer. If the world seemed cold 
 and bleak, the poor cottages rude and bare, and men were 
 rough and miserable, they would like to think of the happy, 
 glorious world, where their friends the saints sat in glory, with 
 a kind thought of pity for them and their troubles. Jeanne 
 loved going to church above all other things. 
 
 But when she walked in the great oak forests, near her home,
 
 1 62 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 she would have a visionary world about her there, too. Where 
 we should only see trees and streams and grass and flowers, 
 and might half fancy, from their beauty and brightness, that 
 they must be alive and happy in a way of their own, every 
 body then thought that there were fairies and wood-spirits. 
 In England, indeed, it was believed that the elves and fairies 
 had been driven away by priests and friars, and that that was 
 the reason they could no longer be seen, as they used to be, 
 dancing in the green meadows. In the forests where Jeanne 
 lived the priest used to drive the fairies away, too ; he came 
 to say mass every year beside their favorite fountain, and 
 under a great tree, on which the children would hang gar- 
 lands to please the " ladies," as they called them. The priests, 
 like every body else, believed in the fairies, but as the tales 
 of them had come down from the old heathen times, they 
 considered them unchristian, and that they ought to be 
 banished. 
 
 Thus these people did really and truly seem to live in two 
 worlds, the visible and the invisible ; and though the com- 
 monplace, the busy, and the dull would half forget the invis- 
 ible world, the gentle and quiet and thoughtful ones would 
 live in it more than in the visible. Jeanne, besides being a 
 good and pious girl, was full of poetry and imagination ; when 
 she was not sewing or spinning by her mother's side she loved 
 dearly to go and pray in the quiet church where the saints 
 were, or to wander in the woods, feeding the wild birds and 
 listening to the church bells. 
 
 As she was growing up, this peaceful, visionary life was dis- 
 turbed by the same miseries which disturbed the rest of the 
 country. Sometimes poor fugitives, who had been driven out 
 of their homes by the war, came through the village ; some- 
 times her own people had to flee, and when they came back 
 would find every thing destroyed or burned. Thus she began 
 to think about the war and her unhappy country, and her 
 whole heart was filled with pity and sorrow. She did what
 
 JEANNE DARC. 163 
 
 she could to help the sufferers ; when the poor refugees came 
 by she gave them up her own bed, and went to sleep in the 
 barn. She prayed and fasted ; and as she brooded over these 
 sad things, and longed to do more, she seemed to be lifted 
 out of herself and the little world about her. The saints 
 seemed to come nearer to her ; she began to see bright lights, 
 and to hear strange voices, which no one else could see or 
 hear. From out of the bright light a noble figure with shin- 
 ing wings spoke, and told her it was she who was to help the 
 king of France, and to give him back his kingdom. The poor 
 child was frightened ; she was now seventeen or eighteen 
 years old ; she said she knew nothing about riding on horse- 
 back or leading soldiers. But as time went on she saw more 
 and more visions, heard more and more voices, all bidding 
 her rise and rescue her country. 
 
 No one believed her at first ; her father and mother were 
 angry, and forbade her leaving home ; they even tried to 
 marry her to an honest man of the village. But the impulse 
 was too strong ; she felt that she must go. At last she per- 
 suaded an old village wheelwright, her uncle, to take her to 
 the nearest town, where she would find soldiers and a captain, 
 who would send her to the dauphin. The captain was greatly 
 puzzled when he saw this village girl arrive, and heard her 
 say that the Lord had sent her to the aid of the dauphin. He 
 was quite ready to think there was something supernatural in 
 the matter, but he was by no means sure that it might not 
 be the work of the devil instead of the saints ; for, besides 
 believing in the agency of the invisible saints and angels, 
 every one believed, also, quite as firmly in the power of evil 
 spirits, wizards, and witches ; and to the end of her life half 
 the world believed that poor Jeanne Dare was a sorceress in- 
 spired by the devil. The parish priest was sent for to sprinkle 
 holy water, and to drive away the evil spirit, if there was one. 
 
 But Jeanne was so gentle, so modest, and so firm in declar- 
 ing that she was sent by God, that people began to believe in
 
 164 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 her. The captain decided that he would send her to the king, 
 or the dauphin, as she called him, for he had not yet been 
 crowned. She was dressed in armor, and five or six armed 
 men were appointed to attend her, though they did not know 
 what to think about it, and were half afraid she might be a 
 witch after all. But she stopped to pray at every church she 
 passed, and at last arrived safely at the French court. When 
 she saw the king, whom she recognized at once among the 
 crowd of courtiers, she knelt down before him, saying : "Gen- 
 tle dauphin, I am called Jeanne the Maid. The King of 
 Heaven sends to tell you, by me, that you shall be consecrated 
 and crowned in the city of Reims." It was in Reims Cathe- 
 dral that all the kings of France were crowned, and the 
 French people thought as much of that sacred city as the 
 English did of Westminster Abbey. 
 
 Whether Charles believed in her divine inspiration or not, 
 it seemed as if there was no other way of saving Orleans, and 
 that this last desperate chance had better be tried. But, be- 
 fore that, it should be inquired into once more whether she 
 might not be influenced by the devil, instead of by God. 
 Four or five bishops examined her this time, but they could 
 find nothing against her. When they desired that she would 
 show a sign to prove that God had sent her, she said : " My 
 sign will be to raise the siege of Orleans." Every one in the 
 whole region declared that she was a saint ; the defenders of 
 Orleans had heard that a miraculous virgin was coming to 
 
 o o 
 
 help them, and sent earnestly entreating for her aid. 
 
 At last she was allowed to go. She rode forth, no longer 
 like a poor peasant girl, but fully clad in beautiful white 
 armor, mounted on a splendid black horse, and bearing a 
 sacred sword, called the sword of St. Katherine, which, it was 
 said, she had miraculously discovered in the church. Before 
 her was carried a white standard, on which was the picture 
 of God holding the world in his hands, and two angels, each 
 with a lily-flower.
 
 JEANNE UAKC. 165 
 
 It is easy to imagine what an effect this wonderful sight 
 would produce both on friend and foe. The poor discouraged 
 French roused up suddenly to hope and confidence. Here 
 was this beautiful girl, this beautiful saint, sent expressly by 
 God, to lead them to victory ; and if God were for them, who 
 could be against them ? As she marched to Orleans, followed 
 by her troop of soldiers, she had an altar set up in the open 
 air, and they all received the sacrament. .These wild, fierce 
 men, who would obey no one else, would have followed the 
 maid to the end of the world. 
 
 The English, on the other hand, lost heart. They, too, 
 believed Jeanne was miraculously inspired. If it were God 
 fighting against them, what could they do? But in their 
 hearts many of them thought she was a witch and led by the 
 devil. This seemed more terrible still. They were ready 
 enough to fight against men against the Frenchmen, whom 
 they had beaten so often ; but how could they resist the spells 
 of a sorceress ? 
 
 It was no wonder that it all ended as it did. When Jeanne 
 led the French soldiers against the besiegers, the English, 
 brave as they were, were terrified ; they began to see visions, 
 too. Sometimes they saw white butterflies fluttering around 
 her sacred banner; sometimes they saw the saints or Michael, 
 the archangel, among her troops. The siege of Orleans had 
 lasted seven months ; in ten days all the English forts were 
 in the hands of the French, and the city was free. It was on 
 a Sunday morning that the English retreated. The maiden 
 caused an altar to be raised in the plain, and before the er.e- 
 my was well out of sight the rescued people were kneeling 
 around it giving God thanks. 
 
 Thus Jeanne had given the " sign " she had promised, and 
 Orleans was delivered. Now she turned to the great work 
 she had at heart the coronation of the dauphin. It was a 
 long journey to Reims, and a great part of the country through 
 which they must pass wrs in the hands of the English or the
 
 1 66 
 
 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 Burgundians. But the French knew no fears now ; they 
 crowded around the maid ; always more and more of them 
 followed her standard as she led the king to Reims. Wher- 
 ever they went they were successful. They took one town 
 after another even Troyes, where Henry V. had been mar- 
 ried ; they defeated the English in the battle of Patay. At 
 last they reached Reims, and in its venerable cathedral Charles 
 was anointed, crowned, and consecrated king of France. 
 
 XXVIII. 
 
 WARS OF THE ROSES. GUEST. 
 
 [After the raising of the siege of Orleans and the death of the duke of 
 Bedford, the English were rapidly expelled from France. In England a 
 child, Henry VI., was on the throne. The lawless habits acquired by the 
 English nobles during the French war could not be restrained when they 
 returned home. They divided into two factions, one rallying around the 
 house of York and the other around the house of Lancaster, and they soon 
 drifted into civil war. The struggle was ostensibly for the possession of 
 the crown, but there were many causes at work to produce discontent.] 
 
 IT is hardly necessary to study 
 and recollect all about the twelve 
 battles that were fought, and all 
 the changes and chances of the 
 war. Sometimes one side con- 
 quered, and sometimes the other. 
 In the end we may say neither, or 
 perhaps both, conquered, since a 
 member of the house of Lancaster, 
 marrying a member of the house 
 of York, became undisputed king. 
 But though we may be inclined to say, then, that the wars 
 were all for nothing, and nothing came of them, they had in 
 
 EDWARD IV.
 
 WARS OF THE ROSES. 167 
 
 reality a very great effect on the whole future history and 
 state of England. After those wars were over England was 
 much more like what she is now than she ever could have 
 been without them. 
 
 In all the past history we have seen what an enormous 
 power the nobles possessed ; how they could help or hinder 
 the king and government just as they chose ; how they re- 
 belled and led armies about, fighting each other or fighting 
 the king, just as it happened ; or, if they had a strong, clever 
 king, whom they respected, following him and fighting for 
 him. How different all that is from any thing we ever see 
 or hear of now ! Imagine now if we were to hear that some 
 great duke or earl was going to lead an army against the 
 government ! 
 
 We all know it is impossible. Dukes and earls have no 
 armies now. They may give their opinions and advice and 
 votes and money, they may serve in the queen's army, as any 
 other gentleman may, and that is all they can do. But up 
 till this time the great lords had always little armies, or even 
 rather large armies sometimes, of their own. They were 
 bound, indeed, to have them ; it was on that very condition 
 that they held their estates. The theory of the feudal sys- 
 tem was, that the vassals of the king were obliged to furnish 
 so many men to help him in his wars. But when they did 
 not like the king it was quite probable that they would fit 
 out those said men to oppose him ; and, if there was a rival 
 claimant to the throne, some of the nobles would take one 
 side and some the other, according as it suited their interest, 
 or, perhaps, according as they thought was their duty. 
 
 In such times a rich nobleman, who had a large following, 
 who could make himself popular, and perhaps hire many 
 other soldiers besides his own under-vassals and tenants, 
 would be very powerful indeed, even more powerful than the 
 king himself, like Warwick, the king-maker. In those days 
 there was no regular standing army, such as we have now.
 
 168 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 At that time every body was a soldier, and nobody was a sol- 
 dier. So, when the nobles went to muster up an army, the 
 plowmen, the weavers, the laborers of all sorts, would leave 
 their work and follow them to fight. They were, doubtless, 
 better soldiers than such men would be at present, for they 
 were regularly trained and practiced at certain times, and 
 every man knew, more or less, how to fight, though they were 
 not like the disciplined regiments we have now. In a little 
 while, after a battle or two perhaps, they would go back 
 again to their work, to their plows or their looms. There 
 were some regular soldiers, too, whose regular profession was 
 war, " companions," as they were called, who were trained 
 men, but who belonged to no side and no chief, and who 
 could be hired by any party, city, or rich man who wanted 
 them ; and who, when wanted by no one, generally became 
 brigands. 
 
 At the time of the Wars of the Roses all the principal 
 nobles of the kingdom took one side or the other, either that 
 of York or Lancaster ; each brought his little army behind 
 him, and it was they who fought those twelve battles. At 
 the end of the wars they were nearly all gone all killed. 
 The family feeling was very strong in those times, and it was 
 a point of honor for a man to revenge the deaths of his re- 
 lations ; then the other side would revenge themselves in 
 return, till we can hardly believe the men who worked these 
 cruel deeds could have called themselves Christians at all. 
 Thus the war became bitterly cruel and savage. 
 
 In looking over the pedigrees of those great old families 
 it is quite startling to see how many times we read " killed 
 at Tewkesbury," "killed at St. Albans," "beheaded after 
 Wakefield," and the like. No less than four dukes of Somer- 
 set, one after the other, perished in these wars. The end of 
 it all was that the old nobility was almost destroyed, and the 
 feudal system vanished forever. Things began to be much 
 more like what they are now ; so this period is generally
 
 WARS OF THE ROSES. 169 
 
 looked on as the end of the Middle Ages, and the beginning 
 of modern times. 
 
 We cannot suppose the great nobles, or any body else, 
 would have taken all this trouble, raised their armies, and 
 hurried about all over the country, fighting, killing, and being 
 killed, all for love of Henry or Edward, Lancaster or York. 
 Had there not been some grave causes of discontent, it is 
 pretty certain both York and Mortimer would have been for- 
 gotten, now that the Lancasters had been sitting on the throne 
 for fifty years, whatever their exact rights might have been 
 at the outset. But there was, in fact, a great deal of discon- 
 tent, and a spirit of entire disaffaction spread abroad 
 among the nation. Every one was ashamed and disgusted 
 at the disgraceful end of the French war, and the pride of 
 the people was not much comforted by the death of the duke 
 of Suffolk or the bishop of Chichester. The state of En- 
 gland itself was also unsatisfactory. Jack Cade and the 
 Kentish men, as we saw, had complained about the way Par- 
 liaments were elected. A great many people who formerly 
 used to vote for members were no longer allowed to do so at 
 all, and many of those who still had votes had to give them 
 according to orders, and not according to their own wishes. 
 And Parliament very seldom met at all. Nor was the gov- 
 ernment strong enough to keep the country quiet and peace- 
 ful. High and low were able to defy the law with impunity ; 
 the great families were continually carrying on little wars of 
 their own ; innumerable robbers ranged over the land, keep- 
 ing the people in constant alarm and distress, and nobody had 
 power to punish the evil-doers or protect the helpless and 
 innocent. 
 
 Moreover the house of Lancaster, both Henry IV. 
 and Henry V., had, in a mistaken zeal for religion, made 
 common cause with the Church, and had persecuted and 
 burnt the Lollards. But, though the Lollards appeared to 
 be quite crushed and put down, in the bottom of their hearts
 
 170 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 immense numbers of people believed them to be right and 
 sympathized with them; so that when they had time to think, 
 and were not dazzled and absorbed by Henry's splendid vic- 
 tories, it caused a vast deal of hidden discontent, and turned 
 men's hearts away from their rulers. 
 
 Thus with all these grievances, either spoken or unspoken, 
 a great many people were ready for a change. Not that the 
 princes of the house of York were at all likely to remedy any 
 of these things, or ever did so, but that when people are dis- 
 satisfied they are willing to hope that any change will be for 
 the better; though it had need to be very, very much better 
 indeed, to make up for the misery of a civil war. We have 
 seen how cruel and hard-hearted the nobles became toward 
 one another; what their followers were obliged to suffer we 
 may imagine. In one beautiful passage which Shakespeare 
 added to the old play of Henry VI. he paints it for us very 
 vividly. He shows us how, in one of these battles, a father 
 has unknowingly killed his own son, and a son his own fa- 
 ther, who were fighting in opposite ranks ; and, as they both 
 lament their cruel fortunes, they think of what is so often for- 
 gotten, of the poor wife and mother at home, to whom they 
 must carry the bitter news. 
 
 But, though sad and terrible things like this must often 
 have happened, and though the nobles, many of them, be- 
 came little better than murderers, there is a great consolation 
 in knowing that, on the whole, the mass of the people did 
 not suffer so much as might have been expected. In some 
 of the battles the leaders on both sides gave orders that the 
 poorer people were to be spared, and that only'the principal 
 men were to be killed. For the most part the people, ex- 
 cept those who were dependent upon the nobles, took no 
 part at all. The merchants and shopkeepers went on 
 with their business; the judges went on circuit and held 
 their assizes, as if nothing was the matter. No towns, no 
 churches, were destroyed, and we have the comfort of
 
 WARS OF THE ROSES. 171 
 
 thinking that those who made the quarrel bore the brunt 
 of the punishment. 
 
 There is good reason to believe, in fact, that the poor peo- 
 ple were better off than they ever were before ; for while 
 Edward IV. was king new laws were made to prevent them 
 from spending too much money on their clothes. This sub- 
 ject seems to be always cropping up ; we are perpetually 
 having sermons and laws against finery, and very little good 
 they seem to have done. In the very midst of the war a law 
 was passed beginning in this way : " The commons, as well 
 men as women, have worn, and daily do wear, excessive and 
 inordinate array and apparel, to the great displeasure of God, 
 and impoverishing of this realm of England." It goes on to 
 command that common laborers and servants, and their 
 wives, are never to wear cloth costing more than two shillings 
 a yard ; nor are they to wear girdles ornamented with sil- 
 ver. Another law was passed forbidding the wives to get 
 their veils and handkerchiefs too fine. Thus it is evident 
 they must have been well off and receiving good wages, or 
 they would never have thought of wanting expensive things 
 of this kind. 
 
 But, though the emancipation of the serfs had done a great 
 deal of good and the laborers were in this prosperous condi- 
 tion, some evil had come with it too, and that was that there 
 were now a great many people who had no work and no wages 
 at all. As we saw, after the plague of the Black Death, when 
 there were so few men, and wages rose so high, many land- 
 lords would not, or could not, pay them. They left off tilling 
 the land, and turned it into great sheep-farms. Then only 
 two or three men would be wanted, instead of a great many, 
 and the sheep were very profitable, both for food and for 
 their wool. Now there was this to be said in favor of villein- 
 age, that the owner of the land had at least to feed, clothe, 
 and shelter all his villeins, or to see that they had land 
 enough to support them. Even when they were ill or old
 
 172 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 they still had to be maintained, and we never hear that they 
 were badly treated in this respect. 
 
 But now that was all over ; they were free and their own 
 masters, and it was nobody's duty to look after them any 
 longer. They had to try how they liked " a crust of bread 
 and liberty." There began to be a great many beggars; 
 some " sturdy beggars," who would not work; others old and 
 feeble, who could not work ; others who could find no work 
 to do. It was very hard to know what to do with all of them ; 
 there was always the fear that many of them might turn 
 thieves, as, indeed, they often did. The government did 
 its utmost, and passed a great many laws, many of them 
 very harsh and cruel, about vagabonds and beggars ; but it 
 was a long time before it found out any thing like a rea- 
 sonable way of dealing with them. 
 
 We must now see how some of the more distinguished peo- 
 ple, the kings and princes, were behaving. The reign of 
 Henry VI., if it can be called a reign, is generally reckoned 
 to have ended after the battle of Towton (1461), which was 
 one of the most cruel and bloody of all the twelve, and in 
 which the Lancastrians were utterly defeated. Henry and 
 Margaret fled, and Edward IV. was crowned king. But the 
 Wars of the Roses were by no means over yet, and it was 
 not very long before he in his turn had to flee, and Henry, 
 who had been caught and imprisoned in the Tower, came 
 forth again a king. For, though Edward was so clever, hand- 
 some, and popular, he contrived to give dire offense to the 
 nobles who supported him, and, above all, to the earl of War- 
 wick, the king-maker. The way in which he did this was in 
 choosing to make a love-match instead of marrying accord- 
 ing to prudence or policy. The marriage he made was very 
 much beneath his position, since, though his wife was a lady 
 by birth and breeding, she was only the widow of an obscure 
 gentleman, and, to make it still worse, her husband had been 
 on the Lancastrian side.
 
 WARS OF THE ROSES. 173 
 
 In these wars it was the practice that whichever side con- 
 quered took revenge on the other by depriving all the lords 
 and gentlemen of their estates (even if they escaped with 
 their lives) and dividing them among their own party; so that 
 many great lords and gentlemen were reduced to literal beg- 
 gary. They might be seen wandering about barefoot and beg- 
 ging their bread in France, while their enemies at home were 
 sitting in their fine houses, eating their bread, and spending 
 their money. Among others there was one John Grey, of 
 whom we read that " King Henry made him knight at the 
 last battle of St. Albans, but little while he enjoyed his 
 knighthood, for in the same field he was slain." His prop- 
 erty had been confiscated, and his children were left destitute. 
 His widow, who was young and beautiful, appeared before 
 Edward to implore his compassion. The king was also 
 young, and always ready to fall in love. The lady behaved 
 very modestly and very cleverly ; she quite won his heart ; 
 and, casting away all thought of prudence or worldly wis- 
 dom, Edward determined to marry her. 
 
 The English had been very angry at Henry VI. 's marrying 
 a princess who brought no dowry and no high alliances ; but 
 assuredly this match would seem worse still, as Margaret had 
 at least been a princess of royal blood. Moreover, Edward 
 had half promised to marry a French princess himself, a sis- 
 ter of the queen of France ; and Warwick, who, besides being 
 king-maker, would have wished to be queen-maker also, was 
 very keen in promoting that alliance. He, likewise, wished 
 Edward to give his sister in marriage to a French prince, 
 but he chose to marry her to the duke of Burgundy instead. 
 It was also believed that Warwick would have desired Ed- 
 ward, if he married an English woman at all, to have married 
 one of his own daughters. 
 
 Thus he was quite alienated from Edward, though he did 
 not, as yet, take part with Henry. He first made friends 
 with Edward's brother, George, the duke of Clarence, and
 
 174 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 gave him the daughter, Isabel, whom he had, perhaps, intended 
 for the king. Through all these wars the nobles were con- 
 stantly changing sides and betraying one another. Even the 
 royal family itself was not faithful, and Clarence now con- 
 spired to betray his brother. Afterward he changed again, 
 and betrayed his father-in-law. He himself was finally be- 
 trayed and murdered. 
 
 Perhaps the king thought, as he had married greatly be- 
 neath his dignity, and his wife and her relations were looked 
 down upon by all the aristocracy of the land, that it would 
 set things right to make them noble now. Accordingly, all 
 the greatest honors and riches were poured out upon them. 
 Her father and her brothers received great titles and estates ; 
 her son was married to the heiress of the duke of Exeter, 
 whom Warwick wanted for his own nephew ; her sisters were 
 married to the richest young men who could be found, heirs 
 of earls and dukes, whom the lords would have liked to 
 marry their own daughters. All this, therefore, instead of 
 setting things right, angered the earl of Warwick and the rest 
 of the old nobility beyond bearing. 
 
 Except for their being " upstarts," however, there was 
 nothing to be said against these relations of the queen. One 
 of them in particular, her brother, Lord Rivers, was good, 
 accomplished, and faithful. But their glory was short-lived, 
 and they paid very dear for it. At last things came to an 
 open rupture, and Warwick, forsaking Edward, allied him- 
 self with his most bitter enemy, Margaret of Anjou, who had 
 never ceased stirring and striving to reinstate her husband 
 and son. He now married his other daughter to her son, Ed- 
 ward, so that he had, we may say, two strings to his bow 
 two daughters who might, in the changes of that changing 
 time, come to be queens of England. This second daugh- 
 ter, Anne, was, indeed, queen for a short time, though not at 
 all by the means her father expected. 
 
 As soon as Warwick appeared in England the people, who
 
 WARS OF THE ROSES. 175 
 
 loved and admired him, flocked around him in crowds. Ed- 
 ward had to flee out of the country, and to flee in such haste 
 that he took nothing with him, and had no means of paying 
 the captain of the ship which carried him across but by giving 
 him a cloak lined with sable. As to his poor wife, whom he 
 left behind him, as well as his luggage, she took refuge with 
 her young daughters in the sanctuary at Westminster. 
 
 Here the poor queen remained, and here her unhappy little 
 son, Edward V., was born. Shakespeare makes her say, 
 " Small joy have I in being England's queen." Katherine of 
 France, who was so despised for descending to marry a pri- 
 vate gentleman, was, perhaps, a good deal wiser and happier 
 than poor Elizabeth Woodville, who rose from being a pri- 
 vate lady to marry a king. However, it was not very long 
 before Edward returned. His brother Clarence was treach- 
 erous again, and deserted Warwick. Two great battles were 
 fought, in both of which Edward was victorious. The first 
 was at Barnet (1471), and there Warwick, the king-maker, 
 was slain ; the second was at Tewkesbury, and it utterly ru- 
 ined the Lancastrian house. The poor young Prince Edward, 
 son of Henry and Margaret, was brutally murdered, it is said 
 by Edward's two brothers, Clarence and Gloucester. Mar- 
 garet was made prisoner, and Henry was taken back to the 
 Tower, where he very soon after died. The Yorkists gave 
 out that he died of a broken heart, but every body believed 
 that he was murdered, and Richard, duke of Gloucester, 
 had all the credit of it, whether he really deserved it or not. 
 The people soon began to look on poor King Henry as a 
 saint, and said that wonderful miracles were worked at his 
 tomb. 
 8
 
 176 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 XXIX. 
 
 BOSWORTH FIELD. GAIRDNER. 
 
 [Edward IV. left two young sons, Edward V. and Richard, duke of 
 York. Their uncle, Richard, duke of Gloucester, was appointed Protector 
 of the Realm, and then claimed the crown on the ground that his nephews 
 were illegitimate. He was crowned July 6, 1483, and soon afterward the 
 young princes disappeared. Though nothing absolutely certain is known 
 as to their fate, it is exceedingly probable that they were murdered by 
 Richard's order. As king, he pursued a conciliatory policy ; but there was 
 much disaffection, and it gradually centered around Henry, earl of Rich- 
 mond, the representative of the Lancastrian line. In 1485 Henry invaded 
 the kingdom, and the two rivals met on Bosworth Field.] 
 
 BY repeated proclamations Rich- 
 ard called upon his subjects to 
 resist the intended invasion of 
 Richmond with all their force. 
 He denounced the earl and his 
 followers as men who had for- 
 saken their true allegiance, and 
 put themselves in subjection to 
 the French king. He pointed out 
 
 that, owing to the illegitimacy of 
 RICHARD in. . ' r __ . '* 
 
 the Beauforts, Henry could have 
 
 no claim to the crown, and that even on the father's side he 
 was come of bastard blood. He declared that he had bar- 
 gained to give up forever all claims hitherto made by the 
 kings of England either to the crown of France, the duchy 
 of Normandy, Gascony, or even Calais. Richmond, how- 
 ever, had sent messages into England by which he was 
 assured of a considerable amount of support ; and he bor- 
 rowed money from the king of France with which he fitted 
 out a small fleet at Harfleur, and embarked for Wales, where 
 his uncle, Jasper Tudor, earl of Pembroke, possessed great 
 influence.
 
 BOSWORTH FIELD. 177 
 
 Richard, knowing of the intended invasion, but being un- 
 certain where his enemy might land, had taken up his position 
 in the center of the kingdom. Following a plan first put in 
 use by his brother, Edward, during the Scotch war, he had 
 stationed messengers at intervals of twenty miles along all the 
 principal roads to the coast to bring him early intelligence. 
 But Henry landed at Milford Haven, at the farthest extremity 
 of South Wales, where, perhaps, Richard had least expected 
 him ; and so small was the force by which he was accompa- 
 nied, that the news did not, at first, give the king very much 
 anxiety. He professed great satisfaction that his adversary 
 was now coming to bring matters to the test of battle. The 
 earl, however, was among friends from the moment he landed. 
 Pembroke was his native town, and the inhabitants expressed 
 their willingnesss to serve his uncle, the earl of Pembroke, 
 as their natural and immediate lord. The very men whom 
 Richard had placed to keep the country against him at once 
 joined his party, and he passed on to Shrewsbury with little 
 or no opposition. 
 
 The king's " unsteadfast friendships," on the other hand, 
 were now rapidly working his ruin. His own attorney-gen- 
 eral, Morgan Kidwelly, had been in communication with the 
 enemy before he landed. Richard, however, was very natur- 
 ally suspicious of Lord Stanley, his rival's step-father, who, 
 though he was steward of the royal household, had asked 
 leave, shortly before the invasion, to go home and visit his 
 family in Lancashire. This the king granted only on con- 
 dition that he would send his son George, Lord Strange, to 
 him at Nottingham in his place. Lord Strange was, accord- 
 ingly, sent to the king ; but when the news arrived of Henry's 
 landing, Richard desired the presence of his father also. 
 Stanley pretended illness, an excuse which could not fail to 
 increase the king's suspicions. His son at the same time 
 made an attempt to escape, and, being captured, confessed 
 that he himself and his uncle, Sir William Stanley, had formed
 
 178 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 a project, with others, to go over to the enemy ; but he pro- 
 tested his father's innocence, and assured the king that he 
 would obey his summons. He was made to understand that 
 his own life depended on his doing so, and he wrote a letter 
 to his father accordingly. 
 
 Richard, having mustered his followers at Nottingham, went 
 on to Leicester to meet his antagonist, and encamped at Bos- 
 worth on the night of August 21. The earl of Richmond had 
 arrived near the same place with an army of 5,000 men, which 
 is supposed to have been not more than half that of the king. 
 That day, however, Lord Stanley had come to the earl secretly 
 at Atherstone to assure him of his support in the coming battle. 
 He and his brother, Sir William, were at the head of a force 
 not far off, and were only temporizing to save the life of his 
 son, Lord Strange. This information relieved Henry's mind 
 of much anxiety, for at various times since he landed he had 
 felt serious misgivings about the success of the enterprise. 
 The issue was now to be decided on the following day. 
 
 Early in the morning both parties prepared for the battle. 
 Richard arose before day-break, much agitated, it is said, by 
 dreadful dreams that had haunted his imagination in the night- 
 time. But he entered the field wearing his crown upon his 
 head, and encouraged his troops with an eloquent harangue. 
 There was, however, treason in his camp, and many of his 
 followers were only seeking an opportunity to desert and take 
 part with the enemy. A warning, indeed, had been conveyed 
 by an unknown hand to his foremost supporter, the duke of 
 Norfolk, in the following rhyme, which was discovered the 
 night before, written on the door of his tent : 
 
 "Jack of Norfolk, be not too bold, 
 
 For Dickon, thy master, is bought and sold." 
 
 Lord Stanley, who had drawn up his men at about equal 
 distance from both armies, received messages early in the 
 morning from both leaders desiring his immediate assistance.
 
 BOSWORTH FIELD. 179 
 
 His policy, however, was to stand aloof to the very last mo- 
 ment ; and he replied, in each case, that he would come at a 
 convenient opportunity. Dissatisfied with this answer, Rich- 
 ard ordered his son to be beheaded, but was persuaded to sus- 
 pend the execution of the order till the day should be decided. 
 
 After a discharge of arrows on both sides the armies soon 
 came to a hand-to-hand encounter. Lord Stanley joined the 
 earl in the midst of the engagement, and the earl of North- 
 umberland, on whose support Richard had relied, stood still 
 with all his followers and looked on. The day was going 
 hard against the king. Norfolk fell in the thickest of the 
 fight, and his son, the earl of Surrey, after fighting with great 
 valor, was surrounded and taken prisoner. Richard endeav- 
 ored to single out his adversary, whose position on the field 
 was pointed out to him. He suddenly rushed upon Henry's 
 body-guard, and unhorsed successively two of his attendants, 
 one of whom, the earl's standard-bearer, fell dead to the 
 ground. The earl himself was in great danger, but that 
 Sir William Stanley, who had hitherto abstained from joining 
 the combat, now endeavored to surround the king with his 
 force of 3,000 men. Richard perceived that he was betrayed, 
 and crying out, "Treason, Treason!" endeavored only to sell 
 his life as dearly as possible. Overpowered by numbers, he 
 fell dead in the midst of his enemies. 
 
 The battered crown that had fallen from Richard's head 
 was picked up upon the field of battle, and Sir William Stan- 
 ley placed it upon the head of the conqueror, who was saluted 
 as king by his whole army. The body of Richard, on the 
 other hand, was treated with a degree of indignity which ex- 
 pressed but too plainly the disgust excited in the minds of 
 the people by his inhuman tyranny. It was stripped naked 
 and thrown upon a horse, a halter being placed round the 
 neck, and in that fashion carried into Leicester, where it was 
 buried with little honor in the Grey Friars' church. 
 
 Such was the end of the last king of England of the line of
 
 180 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 the Plantagenets. In warlike qualities he was not inferior to 
 the best of his predecessors, but his rule was such as alienated 
 the hearts of the greater part of his subjects, and caused him 
 to be remembered as a monster. In person, too, he is repre- 
 sented to have been deformed, with the right shoulder higher 
 than the left; and he is traditionally regarded as a hunchback. 
 But it may be that even his bodily defects were exaggerated 
 after he was gone. Stories got abroad that he was born with 
 teeth, and hair coming down to the shoulders, and that his 
 birth was attended by other circumstances altogether repug- 
 nant to the order of nature. One fact that can hardly be a 
 misstatement is, that he was small of stature which makes it 
 all the more remarkable, that in this last battle he overthrew, 
 in personal encounter, a man of great size and strength named 
 Sir John Cheyney. He was, in fact, a great soldier-king, in 
 whom alike the valor and the violence of his race had been 
 matured and brought to a climax by civil wars and family 
 dissensions.
 
 Tomb of Henry VII.
 
 PART II.
 
 THE CARDINAL'S LAST JOURNEY. 
 
 185 
 
 XXX. 
 
 THE CARDINAL'S LAST JOURNEY. BREWER 
 
 [Henry VII. was really the founder of a new dynasty, and his efforts 
 were mainly directed to securing the throne for himself and his family. 
 This he did by strong rule at home, and by skillful diplomacy abroad. 
 His son, Henry VIII., under the guidance of his famous minister, Cardinal 
 Wolsey, took a much more active pan in European politics. In 1527 he 
 determined, from a variety of motives, to obtain a divorce from his queen, 
 Catherine of Aragon. This brought him into collision with the papal 
 power. Wolsey, having promised to gratify the king in the matter of the 
 divorce, and having failed to do so, was deprived of nearly all his offices in 
 1529, and, a little later, arrested on a charge of high treason.] 
 
 ON Sunday, after dinner, as it 
 drew toward night, he was con- 
 ducted to Pomfret with five of his 
 attendants only. At his departure, 
 which had now got wind, a multi- 
 tude of the country people assem- 
 bled to testify their grief at his 
 arrest, praying that " the foul fiend 
 might catch " all those who had 
 taken the cardinal from them. 
 From the Abbey of Pomfret he 
 proceeded next day to Doncaster where he lodged with the 
 Black Friars ; the day after, to Sheffield Park, where he was 
 received by the earl and countess of Shrewsbury with great 
 affability. There he remained for eighteen days, and was 
 treated by his host with great consideration and generosity. 
 Once every day he was visited by the earl, who sought to 
 comfort his unfortunate prisoner. But lie resolutely repelled 
 all the efforts that were made to console him, applying him- 
 self wholly to devotion, and renouncing all earthly pleasure. 
 Though he was not more than fifty-nine years of age, his 
 health and strength had been completely broken down by his 
 8* 
 
 HENRY VIII.
 
 iC6 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 long and laborious occupations, and the incessant vexations 
 to which he had been exposed since his disgrace. Even in 
 his most prosperous days he had never been a strong man : 
 now his great anxiety of mind, and the enormous pressure 
 upon his faculties during the progress of the divorce, had 
 wholly undermined his constitution. 
 
 The final and heaviest blow was reserved for his last mo- 
 ments. The reasons for his arrest had been studiously kept 
 from him, but as upon all occasions when the king had resolved 
 to strike he struck once and never wavered, so it was now. 
 When Henry had abandoned himself to his resentment, he was 
 borne along its current with the blind impetuosity of fate. No 
 doubt was allowed to enter his mind. No question of the wis- 
 dom or justice of his own determination, no feeling of pity, no 
 sense of past services, however great, were allowed to arrest 
 his hand. He had ordered Sir William Kingston, the keeper of 
 the Tower, to proceed to Sheffield to receive the earl's pris- 
 oner, and bring him to the Tower. It required the greatest 
 delicacy to break the dreadful news to the unhappy cardinal. 
 For this purpose, the earl, who seems to have been unusually 
 humane and considerate, hit upon the following expedient. 
 During his conversations with Wolsey, when the latter ex- 
 pressed his apprehensions lest he should be condemned 
 unheard, the earl either took, or pretended to take, an oppor- 
 tunity of writing to the king in Wolsey's behalf. Then, call- 
 ing Cavendish to him, he said : 
 
 " My lord, your master, has often desired me to write to 
 the king, that he might answer his accusers in the king's 
 presence. Even so have I done ; and this day I have re- 
 ceived letters from his grace, by Sir William Kingston, by 
 which I perceive that the king holds the cardinal in very 
 good estimation, and has sent for him by Sir William, who 
 is now here, to come up and make his answer. But do 
 you play the part of a wise man, and break the matter 
 unto him warily ; for he is always so full of sorrow when
 
 THE CARDINAL'S LAST JOURNEY. 187 
 
 he is in my company that I am afraid he will not take it 
 quietly." 
 
 Cavendish proceeded to break the news. " I found him," 
 he says, " sitting at the upper end of the gallery upon a trus- 
 sing chest of his own, with his beads and staff in hand." 
 
 "What news?" said he, seeing Cavendish come from the 
 earl. 
 
 "Forsooth, sir," he replied, assuming the best appearance 
 of cheerfulness he could muster, though his voice sadly belied 
 his words, " I bring you the best news that ever came to you 
 in your life." 
 
 " I pray God it be so," said Wolsey. " What is it? " 
 
 " Forsooth, sir," replied Cavendish, " my lord of Shrewsbury, 
 perceiving how desirous you were to come before the king, 
 has so exerted himself that the king has sent Master Kings- 
 ton with twenty-four of his guard to bring you into his 
 presence." 
 
 "Master Kingston! Master Kingston!" exclaimed the 
 unhappy cardinal, musing for a time, as if to recollect himself, 
 and then, clapping his hand on his thigh, he gave a deep 
 sigh. Cavendish endeavored to cheer him. He urged the 
 old argument that the king had no other intention by this act 
 than to bring Wolsey into his presence, and had sent the con- 
 stable with a guard of honor out of consideration for Wolsey's 
 high estate, and he had no reason, therefore, to mistrust his 
 master's kindness. All his efforts were useless. The cardi- 
 nal knew too well the king's temper to be deceived. He had 
 not served him so long without being fully aware how implac- 
 able and immovable were his resentments. 
 
 " [ perceive," he said, with very significant words, ''more 
 than you can imagine or can know. Experience of old has 
 taught me." 
 
 It was the sentence of death, and he knew it full well ; but 
 his despondency and waning health anticipated the sword of 
 the executioner, and disappointed the malice of his enemies.
 
 i88 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 That night his disease increased rapidly ; he became very 
 weak and was scarce able to move. 
 
 The next day he commenced his journey, and lodged at 
 night, still very sick, at Hardwick Hall. The day after he 
 rode to Nottingham, his sickness and infirmity increasing at 
 every stage. On Saturday, November 26, he rode his last 
 stage to Leicester Abbey, "and by the way he waxed so sick 
 that he was divers times likely to have fallen from his mule." 
 
 As the journey was necessarily impeded by these delays, Sir 
 William and his prisoner did not reach Leicester until late at 
 night ; where, on his entering the gates, the abbot with all his 
 convent went out to meet him, with the light of many torches, 
 and received him with great demonstrations of respect. " To 
 whom my lord said : ' Father Abbot, I am come hither to 
 leave my bones among you.' " 
 
 They then brought him on his mule to the stair's foot of his 
 chamber, where Kingston took him by the arm and led him up. 
 Immediately he went to his bed. On the Monday morning, 
 "as I stood by his bedside," says Cavendish, "about eight of 
 the clock, the windows being close shut, having lights burning 
 upon the cupboard, I beheld him, as meseemed, drawing fast 
 to his end. He, perceiving my shadow upon the wall by his 
 bedside, asked who was there ; and inquiring what was the 
 clock, ' Sir,' said Cavendish, ' it is past eight of the clock in 
 the morning.' 'Eight of the clock, eight of the clock,' slowly 
 repeated the dying man ; ' nay, that cannot be, for by eight 
 of the clock you must lose your master. My time draweth 
 nigh.' " 
 
 But even in these last faltering moments he was not allowed 
 to remain unmolested. The king had received information 
 from Northumberland that by an account found in Cawood 
 the cardinal had in his possession ^"1,500, of which no portion 
 could be found. Anxious to obtain the money, the king's im- 
 patience could brook no delay, although the cardinal was now 
 on his way to the Tower. He sent a special messenger to
 
 THE CARDINAL'S LAST JOURNEY. 189 
 
 Kingston, commanding him to examine the cardinal, and dis- 
 cover where this money was deposited. The commission would 
 have been immediately executed, but the weakness of the 
 cardinal was so great, and increased so rapidly, that Kingston 
 was obliged to put off the examination till the next day. The 
 same night Wolsey was very sick, and swooned often, but ral- 
 lied a little at four the next morning. About seven Kingston 
 entered the room, intending to fulfill the king's command 
 respecting the money. But seeing the feeble condition of the 
 patient, he endeavored to encourage him with the usual topic, 
 telling the cardinal he was sad and pensive from dread of 
 that which he had no occasion to apprehend. 
 
 " Well, well, Master Kingston," replied Wolsey, " I see the 
 matter against me, how it is framed ; but if I had served God 
 as diligently as I have served the king, he would not have 
 given me over in my gray hairs. Howbeit, this is the just 
 reward that I must receive for my worldly diligence and 
 pains that I have had to do him service. Commend me to 
 his majesty, beseeching him to call to his remembrance all 
 that has passed between him and me to the present day, and 
 most chiefly in his great matter; then shall his conscience 
 declare whether I have offended him or no. He is a prince 
 of royal courage, and hath a princely heart ; and rather than 
 he will miss or want part of his appetite he will hazard the 
 loss of one half of his kingdom. I assure you I have often 
 kneeled before him in his privy chamber, the space of an hour 
 or two, to persuade him from his will and appetite, but I 
 could never dissuade him." Then his words and his voice 
 failed him. His eyes grew fixed and glazed. Incontinently 
 the clock struck eight, and he breathed his last. "And calling 
 to our remembrance," says Cavendish, " his words the day 
 before, how he said that at eight of the clock we should lose 
 our master, we stood looking upon each other, supposing he 
 had prophesied of his departure." 
 
 As the lieutenant of the Tower had now no further charge,
 
 190 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 and was anxious to be gone, the burial was fixed for the 
 next day. The body was placed in a rude coffin of wood, 
 with miter, cross, and ring, and other archiepiscopal orna- 
 ments. He lay in state until five o'clock in the afternoon, 
 when he was carried down into the church, with great solem- 
 nity, by the abbot and convent, with many torches. Here 
 the body rested all night in the Lady Chapel, watched by 
 four men holding lights in their hands, while the convent 
 chanted the old and solemn office for the dead. About four 
 in the morning, while it was yet dark, they sung a mass. 
 By six they had laid him in his grave, on that cold and 
 dreary November morning, unwept and unlamented by all, 
 except by the very few who, for the glory of human nature, 
 amid so much of baseness, greed, ingratitude, and cruelty, 
 remained loving and faithful to the last. 
 
 XXXI. 
 
 THE ENGLISH TERROR. GREEN. 
 
 [After the fall of Wolsey, events marched rapidly in England. The king, 
 impatient of the delays of the Papal Court in granting the divorce, deter- 
 mined to take matters into his own hand. Statute after statute was enacted 
 in quick succession by the " Reformation Parliament " to break the con- 
 nection between England and the Church of Rome. Thomas Cromwell 
 became Henry's chief adviser, and was made "vicar-general." He forced 
 the clergy to accept the king as Supreme Head of the Church of England, 
 destroyed the great and wealthy monasteries, and ruled the country with 
 an iron hand. But in 1540 he was overthrown, and executed on a charge 
 of treason.] 
 
 WHILE the great revolution which struck down the Church 
 was in progress, England looked silently on. In all the 
 earlier ecclesiastical changes, in the contest over the Papal 
 jurisdiction and Papal exactions, in the reform of the Church 
 courts, even in the curtailment of the legislative independence
 
 THE ENGLISH TERROR. 191 
 
 of the clergy, the nation as a whole had gone with the king. 
 But from the enslavement of the priesthood, from the gagging 
 of the pulpits, from the suppression of the monasteries, the 
 bulk of the nation stood aloof. There were few voices, in- 
 deed, of protest. As the royal policy disclosed itself, as the 
 monarchy trampled under foot the tradition and reverence 
 of ages gone by, as its figure rose bare and terrible out of the 
 wreck of old institutions, England simply held her breath. 
 It is only through the stray depositions of royal spies that we 
 catch a glimpse of the wrath and hate which lay seething 
 under this silence of the people. For the silence was a silence 
 of terror. Before Cromwell's rise, and after his fall from 
 power, the reign of Henry the Eighth witnessed no more than 
 the common tyranny and bloodshed of the time. But the 
 years of Cromwell's administration form the one period in 
 our history which deserves the name that men have given to 
 the rule of Robespierre. It was the English Terror. It was 
 by terror that Cromwell mastered the king. Cranmer could 
 plead for him at a later time with Henry as "one whose 
 surety was only by your majesty, who loved your majesty, as 
 I ever thought, no less than God." But the attitude of 
 Cromwell toward the king was something more than that of 
 absolute dependence and unquestioning devotion. He was 
 "so vigilant to preserve your majesty from all treasons," adds 
 the primate, " that few could be so secretly conceived but 
 he detected the same from the beginning." 
 
 Henry, like every Tudor, was fearless of open danger, but 
 tremulously sensitive to the lightest breath of hidden dis- 
 loyalty; and it was on this dread that Cromwell based the 
 fabric of his power. He was hardly secretary before spies 
 were scattered broadcast over the land. Secret denuncia- 
 tions poured into the open ear of the minister. The air was 
 thick with tales of plots and conspiracies, and, with the detec- 
 tion and suppression of each, Cromwell tightened his hold 
 on the king. As it was by terror that he mastered the king,
 
 192 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 so it was by terror that he mastered the people. Men felt in 
 England, to use the figure by which Erasmus paints the time, 
 " as if a scorpion lay sleeping under every stone." The con- 
 fessional had no secrets for Cromwell. Men's talk with their 
 closest friends found its way to his ear. " Words idly spoken," 
 the murmurs of a petulant abbot, the ravings of a moon- 
 struck nun, were, as the nobles cried passionately at his fall, 
 "tortured into treason." The only chance of safety lay in 
 silence. "Friends who used to write and send me presents," 
 Erasmus tells us, "now send neither letter nor gifts, nor 
 receive any from any one, and this through fear." But even 
 the refuge of silence was closed by a law more infamous than 
 any that has ever blotted the statute-book of England. Not 
 only was thought made treason, but men were forced to reveal 
 their thoughts on pain of their very silence being punished 
 with the penalties of treason. All trust in the older bulwarks 
 of liberty was destroyed by a policy as daring as it was un- 
 scrupulous. The noblest institutions were degraded into 
 instruments of terror. Though Wolsey had strained the law 
 to the utmost he had made no open attack on the freedom of 
 justice. If he shrank from assembling Parliaments, it was 
 from his sense that they were the bulwarks of liberty. But 
 under Cromwell the coercion of juries and the management 
 of judges rendered the courts mere mouth-pieces of the royal 
 will; and where even this shadow of justice proved an obsta- 
 cle to bloodshed, Parliament was brought into play to pass 
 bill after bill of attainder. " He shall be judged by the 
 bloody laws he has himself made," was the cry of the Coun- 
 cil at the moment of his fall, and, by a singular retribution, the 
 crowning-piece of injustice which he sought to introduce even 
 into the practice of attainder, the condemnation of a man 
 without hearing his defense, was only practiced on himself. 
 
 But ruthless as was the Terror of Cromwell, it was of a nobler 
 type than the Terror of France. He never struck uselessly 
 or capriciously, or stooped to the meaner victims of the guil-
 
 THE ENGLISH TERROR. 193 
 
 lotine. His blows were effective just because he chose his 
 victims from among the noblest and the best. If he struck at 
 the Church, it was through the Carthusians, the holiest and 
 the most-renowned of English churchmen. If he struck at the 
 baronage, it was through Lady Salisbury, in whose veins 
 flowed the blood of kings. If he struck at the new learning, 
 it was through the murder of Sir Thomas More. But no per- 
 sonal vindictiveness mingled with his crime. In temper, 
 indeed, so far as we can judge from the few stories which lin- 
 gered among his friends, he was a generous, kindly-hearted 
 man, with pleasant and winning manners, which atoned for a 
 certain awkwardness of person, and with a constancy of 
 friendship which won him a host of devoted adherents. But 
 no touch either of love or hate swayed him from his course. 
 The student of Machiavelli had not studied the " Prince " 
 in vain. He had reduced bloodshed to a system. Fragments 
 of his papers still show us with what a business-like brevity 
 he ticked off human lives among the casual remembrances of 
 the day: "Item, the abbot of Reading to be sent down to 
 be tried and executed at Reading." " Item, to know the 
 king's pleasure touching Master More." " Item, when Mas- 
 ter Fisher shall go to his execution, and the other." It is, 
 indeed, this utter absence of all passion, of all personal feeling, 
 that makes the figure of Cromwell the most terrible in our 
 history. He has an absolute faith in the end he is pursuing, 
 and he simply hews his way to it, as a woodman hews his way 
 through the forest, ax in hand. 
 
 The choice of his first victim showed the ruthless pre- 
 cision with which Cromwell was to strike. In the general 
 opinion of Europe, the foremost Englishman of his time 
 was Sir Thomas More. As the policy of the divorce ended 
 in an open rupture with Rome, he had withdrawn silently 
 from the ministry, but his silent disapproval of the new 
 policy was far more telling than the opposition of obscurer 
 foes. To Cromwell there must have been something
 
 194 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 specially galling in More's attitude of reserve. The religious 
 reforms of the new learning were being rapidly carried 
 out, but it was plain that the man who represented the 
 very life of the new learning believed that the sacrifice of 
 liberty and justice was too dear a price to pay even for 
 religious reform. In the actual changes which the divorce 
 brought about there was nothing to move More to active or 
 open opposition. Though he looked on the divorce and 
 re-marriage as without religious warrant, he found no diffi- 
 culty in accepting an Act of Succession passed in 1534, which 
 declared the marriage of Anne Boleyn valid, annulled the 
 title of Catherine's child, Mary, and declared the children of 
 Anne the only lawful heirs to the crown. His faith in the 
 power of Parliament over all civil matters was too complete 
 to admit a doubt of its competence to regulate the succes- 
 sion to the throne. But, by the same act, an oath recogniz- 
 ing the succession as then arranged, was ordered to be taken 
 by all persons; and this oath contained an acknowledgment 
 that the marriage with Catherine was against Scripture, and 
 invalid from the beginning. Henry had long known More's 
 belief on this point ; and the summons to take this oath was 
 simply a summons to death. More was at his house at Chel- 
 sea when the summons called him to Lambeth, to the house 
 where he had bandied fun with Warham and Erasmus, or 
 bent over the easel of Holbein. For a moment there may 
 have been some passing impulse to yield. But it was soon 
 over. Triumphant in all else, the monarchy was to find its 
 power stop short at the conscience of man. The great battle 
 of spiritual freedom, the battle of the Protestant against 
 Mary, of the Catholic against Elizabeth, of the Puritan against 
 Charles, of the Independent against the Presbyterian, began 
 at the moment when More refused to bend, or to deny his 
 convictions at a king's bidding.
 
 A HOLY MISSION. 
 
 XXXII. 
 
 A HOLY MISSION. EWALD. 
 
 [Henry VIII. severed England from the papacy, and yet he did not 
 reform the English Church. Under his young son, Edward VI., England 
 became nominally Protestant, but the religious changes were made so rap- 
 idly that they had not time to take root among the mass of the people. 
 On the accession of Edward's half-sister, Mary, all the religious innovations 
 made by him and his father were annulled, and England again became 
 Catholic. Mary chose, as her chief adviser in ecclesiastical affairs, Reg- 
 inald Pole, a cardinal of the Church of Rome, whom she made archbishop 
 of Canterbury. He was of royal blood, being a Plantagenet by descent. 
 In consequence of his opposition to the measures of Henry VIII. he had 
 been forced to flee to the Continent to save his life, had been prominent, 
 for many years, in Catholic councils abroad, and, it is said, once narrowly 
 missed an election to the papal chair. In the autumn of 1554 he was at 
 Brussels, patiently waiting to be summoned home, in order to take part in 
 the great work of restoring England to the old Church.] 
 
 IF Pole was ever to land in England, the present moment 
 was as opportune for the purpose as any other. A messenger 
 was, accordingly, dispatched to Brussels to arrange certain 
 details. The legate was to pledge himself not to interfere 
 with such church property as had been secularised in the 
 last two reigns ; and, as it was considered advisable that 
 he should enter England, not as a legate, but as a prince 
 of the Church and an Englishman, he was to comply with 
 this decision. These points being settled, Pole prepared for 
 his journey. 
 
 Lord Paget and Sir Edward Hastings crossed the Channel 
 to escort him to England. The envoys were charmed with 
 the cardinal. " Whensoever he shall be in England," they 
 wrote to their queen, " believe that country shall fare the 
 better for him, for he is the man of God, full of all godliness 
 and virtue, ready to humble himself to all fashions that may 
 do good." From Brussels to Calais his eminence traveled
 
 196 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 by easy stages, " for his weak body," says Paget, " can make 
 no great journeys, and his estate is also to be considered." 
 At Calais he was received by the governor with every honor ; 
 the bells rang, the men-of-war in the harbor fired salutes, 
 and an enthusiastic crowd cheered his name and mission in 
 front of his lodgings. The next day, the weather being pro- 
 pitious, Pole crossed over to Dover, and, having rested the 
 night, took horse, escorted by a powerful cavalcade of neigh- 
 boring gentry, to Canterbury. As the legate passed slowly 
 along that undulating highway, trod by the feet of so many 
 pilgrims, which leads to the famous cathedral town, not a 
 hostile glance was leveled at him, not an irreverent remark 
 was heard. Some looked on in silent curiosity ; others knelt 
 in the roadway, and bent their heads beneath the blessing 
 hand ; from the throats of most of them rose the cry, " God 
 save your grace ! " for, cardinal or no, he came of the proud 
 stock of the Plantagenets, and in those days Englishmen 
 thought far from lightly of the names which were then histor- 
 ical in the land. From Canterbury Pole rode slowly on to 
 Rochester, where he became the guest of Lord Cobham. At 
 Gravesend was moored the legate's barge, splendid in its 
 trappings, and with the silver cross, which Pole had now re- 
 ceived permission to exhibit, conspicuous at its prow. The 
 cardinal sailed up the Thames, the river being crowded with 
 gayly-dressed craft, and, after a voyage of three hours, landed 
 at Whitehall Stairs, where he was received by Philip and 
 Mary with every appearance of homage and affection. Lam- 
 beth Palace, now that Cranmer had been deposed, was as- 
 signed to him as his quarters. 
 
 St. Andrew's Day had been fixed for the solemn ceremony 
 of restoring backsliding England to the apostolic fold, When 
 the appointed time arrived the greatest excitement prevailed, 
 and it was remarked that many of the lower classes, who 
 hung about Lambeth and the palace gates, were in tears. 
 Those who spoke disparagingly of what was about to take
 
 A HOLY MISSION. 197 
 
 place were in the minority, and but few dared to give open 
 expression to adverse opinions. The tone of the people was 
 reverent, and charged with deep emotion. Parliament met in 
 the early dusk of a November afternoon at Whitehall. On a 
 raised dais sat the king and queen, under a canopy of cloth 
 of gold, with the cardinal on their right, his chair slightly 
 in advance of the royal seat. Facing the distinguished three, 
 crowding every inch of the great hall, were the nobles and 
 the commons, with such spectators as had obtained permis- 
 sion to attend. When silence had been restored, Gardyner, 
 now lord chancellor, at the bidding of their majesties, opened 
 the proceedings. He read from a written paper, and his words 
 were to the effect that England, represented by her Parlia- 
 ment, expressed her deep repentance for her past schism 
 and disobedience, and implored the apostolic see to receive 
 her again into the bosom and unity of Christ's Church. The 
 perusal finished, all eyes were fixed upon Pole. The moment 
 that he had so long prayed for in his cell, by the waters of 
 the Lago di Guarda, had at last arrived ; the end for which 
 he had defied sickness and fatigue had been attained ; the 
 goal of his ambition had been reached ; and before him stood 
 the once proud, rebellious England, penitent and submissive, 
 begging grace for her misdeeds. His heart was full, and his 
 voice trembled as he spoke a few prefatory words from his 
 chair. England, he said, should indeed be grateful to the 
 Almighty for bringing her to the unity of the Church and to 
 the obedience of the see apostolic. As in the days of the 
 primitive Church, she had been the first to be called from 
 heathenism to Christianity, so now she was the first of the 
 Protestant peoples to whom grace had been granted to repent 
 her of her past heresy. If heaven, he exclaimed, rejoiced 
 over the conversion of one penitent sinner, how great must 
 be the celestial joy over the conversion of an entire nation ! 
 Then he rose from his seat and lifted his right hand. 
 
 The moment of reconciliation had arrived ; the whole au-
 
 198 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 dience fell on their knees and awaited in the stillest silence, 
 broken only now and then by the smothered sob of an emo- 
 tion that could not be controlled, the removal of the ban of 
 excommunication. " Our Lord Jesus Christ," said the legate, 
 in tones that filled every corner of the chamber, " who has, 
 through his most precious blood, redeemed and washed us 
 from all our sins and iniquities, that he might purchase unto 
 himself a glorious spouse without spot or wrinkle, whom the 
 Father has appointed head over all his Church ; He by his 
 mercy absolves you, and we, by apostolic authority given unto 
 us by the Most Holy Lord Pope, Julius the Third, his vice- 
 gerent on earth, do absolve and deliver you, and every of you, 
 with this whole realm and the dominions thereof, from all 
 heresy and schism, and from all and every judgment, censure, 
 and pain for that cause incurred. And we do restore you 
 again into the unity of our mother, the Holy Church, in the 
 name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." 
 His words ended, there rose up from the relieved, yet awe- 
 stricken, congregation "a spontaneous and repeated shout of 
 Amen, Amen." Their majesties now made a move, followed 
 by their subjects, to the palace chapel, where the organ 
 pealed forth the jubilant strains of the Te Deum. 
 
 England had sworn fealty to the pope ; still, the object of 
 the legate was twofold to have the papal supremacy ac- 
 knowledged, and to stamp out the heresies that had sprung 
 up in the English Church. A kind and amiable man in pri- 
 vate life, Pole was severity itself when the favorite tenet of 
 his creed was concerned. He would use all his persuasive 
 powers to convert the heretic from his errors ; but if such a 
 one persistently refused to turn toward the light, let him at 
 once be put away and cast into outer darkness. In the mem- 
 orable Marian persecutions Cardinal Pole took a leading 
 part. His voice was ever in favor of mercy, provided there 
 seemed a prospect of a recantation from the heretic ; but 
 when no such hope was held out, no judge was sterner or
 
 A HOLY MISSION. 199 
 
 more inflexible than the legate. Hard and intolerant as he 
 was on these occasions, his conduct was but the logical 
 result of a sincere belief in his creed. Outside the pale of 
 the Catholic Church he thought there was no salvation ; to 
 bring all within the fold was, therefore, the object of every 
 true son of the Church ; those who created schisms and 
 disseminated heresies were guilty of the most awful of all 
 crimes the eternal destruction of immortal souls. To the 
 man who destroyed the body the penalty of death was dealt 
 out ; was he who damned the soul to be more mercifully 
 treated ? In the eyes of Pole a heretic was the greatest 
 enemy of God and man. " For be you assured," said he, 
 when lecturing the citizens of London upon their sympathy 
 with the Protestant martyrs, " there is no kind of men so 
 pernicious to the commonwealth as these heretics be ; there 
 are no thieves, no murderers, no adulterers, nor no kind of 
 treason to be compared to theirs, who, as it were, undermin- 
 ing the chief foundation of all commonwealths, which is 
 religion, maketh an entry to all kinds of vices in the most 
 heinous manner." The conduct of Pole, during the short 
 period he held office in England, reveals the true nature of 
 the creed of Rome where its actions are unfettered by the 
 civil power. As a consistent Catholic, possessing the op- 
 portunity of enforcing his principles, the legate could not, 
 and ought not to, have acted otherwise.
 
 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 XXXIII. 
 CHARACTER AND POLICY OF ELIZABETH. GREEN. 
 
 [The terrible persecution of Mary's reign, and her anti-national policy, 
 led to a strong reaction against her. If she had lived longer, it is probable 
 that she would have been hurled from the throne by a revolution. At her 
 death the English people eagerly welcomed her successor. But the young 
 queen was not inclined, at first, to play the role of a Protestant leader. She 
 wished to become queen of the nation, and not of a party ; and throughout 
 her reign she followed public opinion rather than led it.] 
 
 To the world about her the tem- 
 per of Elizabeth recalled, in its 
 strange contrasts, the mixed blood 
 within her veins. She was at 
 once the daughter of Henry and 
 of Anne Boleyn. From her father 
 she inherited her frank and hearty 
 address, her love of popularity and 
 of free intercourse with the peo- 
 QUEEN ELIZABETH. p\ Qj ner dauntless courage, and her 
 
 amazing self-confidence. Her harsh, manlike voice, her im- 
 petuous will, her furious outbursts of anger, came to her with 
 her Tudor blood. She rated great nobles as if they were 
 school-boys; she met the insolence of Lord Essex with a box 
 on the ear; she broke now and then into the gravest deliber- 
 ations to swear at her ministers like a fish-wife. Strangely in 
 contrast with these violent outlines of her father's temper 
 stood the sensuous, self-indulgent nature she drew from 
 Anne Boleyn. Splendor and pleasure were with Elizabeth 
 the very air she breathed Her delight was to move in per- 
 petual progresses from castle to castle through a series of gor- 
 geous pageants, fanciful and extravagant as a caliph's dream. 
 She loved gayety, and laughter, and wit. A happy retort or 
 a finished compliment never failed to win her favor. She
 
 CHARACTER AND POLICY OF ELIZABETH. 201 
 
 hoarded jewels. Her dresses were innumerable. Her vanity 
 remained, even to old age, the vanity of a coquette in her 
 teens. No adulation was too fulsome for her, no flattery of 
 her beauty too gross. She would play with her rings that her 
 courtiers might note the delicacy of her hands ; or dance a 
 coranto that an embassador, hidden dexterously behind a cur- 
 tain, might report her sprightliness to his master. Her lev- 
 ity, her frivolous laughter, her unwomanly jests, gave color to 
 a thousand scandals. Her character, in fact, like her por- 
 traits, was utterly without shade. Of womanly reserve or 
 self-restraint she knew nothing. No instinct of delicacy 
 veiled the voluptuous temper which broke out in the 
 romps of her girlhood, and showed itself almost ostenta- 
 tiously through her later life. Personal beauty in a man was 
 a sure passport to her liking. She patted handsome young 
 squires on the neck when they knelt to kiss her hand, and 
 fondled her " sweet Robin," Lord Leicester, in the face of 
 the court. 
 
 It was no wonder that the statesmen whom she outwitted 
 held Elizabeth to be little more than a frivolous woman, or 
 that Philip of Spain wondered how " a wanton " could hold in 
 check the policy of the Escurial. But the Elizabeth whom 
 they saw was far from being all of Elizabeth. Wilfulnessand 
 triviality played over the surface of a nature hard as steel, a 
 temper purely intellectual, the very type of reason untouched 
 by imagination or passion. Luxurious and pleasure-loving as 
 she seemed, the young queen lived simply and frugally, and 
 she worked hard. Her vanity and caprice had no weight 
 whatever with her in state affairs. The coquette of the pres- 
 ence-chamber became the coolest and hardest of politicians 
 at the council-board Fresh from the flattery of her courtiers, 
 she would tolerate no flattery in the closet ; she was herself plain 
 and downright of speech with her counselors, and she looked 
 for a corresponding plainness of speech in return. The very 
 Choice of her advisers, indeed, showed Elizabeth's ability. She 

 
 202 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 had a quick eye for merit of any sort, and a wonderful power 
 of enlisting its whole energy in her service. The sagacity 
 which chose Cecil and Walsingham was just as unerring in 
 its choice of the meanest of her agents. Her success, indeed, 
 in securing, from the beginning of her reign to its end, with 
 the single exception of Leicester, precisely the right men for 
 the work she set them to do, sprang, in great measure, from 
 the noblest characteristic of her intellect. If in loftiness of 
 aim the queen's temper fell below many of the tempers of her 
 time in the breadth of its range, in the universality of its sym- 
 pathy it stood far above them all. Elizabeth could talk poe- 
 try with Spenser, and philosophy with Bruno; she could dis- 
 cuss Euphuism with Lilly, and enjoy the chivalry of Essex; 
 she could turn from talk of the last fashions to pore with 
 Cecil over dispatches and treasury-books; she could pass 
 from tracking traitors with Walsingham, to settle points of 
 doctrine with Parker, or to calculate with Frobisher the 
 chances of a north-west passage to the Indies. The versatil- 
 ity and many-sidedness of her mind enabled her to under- 
 stand every phase of the intellectual movement about her ? 
 and to fix, by a sort of instinct, on its higher representatives. 
 It was only on its intellectual side, indeed, that Elizabeth 
 touched the England of her day. All its moral aspects were 
 simply dead to her. It was a time when men were being 
 lifted into nobleness by the new moral energy which seemed 
 suddenly to pulse through the whole people, when honor and 
 enthusiasm took colors of poetic beauty, and religion became 
 a chivalry. But the finer sentiments of the men about her 
 touched Elizabeth simply as the fair tints of a picture would 
 have touched her. She made her market with equal indiffer- 
 ence out of the heroism of William of Orange or the bigotry 
 of Philip. The noblest aims and lives were only counters on 
 her board. She was the one soul in her realm whom the news 
 of St. Bartholomew stirred to no thirst for vengeance ; and 
 while England was thrilling with the triumph over the
 
 CHARACTER AND POLICY OF ELIZABETH. 203 
 
 Armada, its queen was coolly grumbling over the cost, and 
 making her profit out of the spoiled provisions she had or- 
 dered for the fleet that saved her. No womanly sympathy 
 bound her even to those who stood closest to her life. She 
 loved Leicester, indeed ; she was grateful to Cecil. But for 
 the most part she was deaf to the voices either of love or 
 gratitude. She accepted such services as were never ren- 
 dered to any other English sovereign without a thought of 
 return. Walsingham spent his fortune in saving her life and 
 her throne, and she left him to die a beggar. But, as if by 
 a strange irony, it was to this very lack of womanly sympathy 
 that she owed some of the grandest features of her character. 
 If she was without love, she was without hate. She cher- 
 ished no petty resentments; she never stooped to envy or 
 suspicion of the men who served her. She was indifferent to 
 abuse. Her good-humor was never ruffled by the charges of 
 wantonness and cruelty with which the Jesuits filled every 
 court in Europe. She was insensible to fear. Her life 
 became at last a mark for assassin after assassin, but the 
 thought of peril was the thought hardest to bring home to 
 her. Even when Catholic plots broke out in her own house- 
 hold she would listen to no proposals for the removal of 
 Catholics from her court. 
 
 Nothing is more revolting, but nothing is more character- 
 istic of the queen than her shameless mendacity. It was an 
 age of political lying, but in the profusion and recklessness 
 of her lies Elizabeth stood without a peer in Christendom. A 
 falsehood was to her simply an intellectual means of meeting 
 a difficulty ; and the ease with which she asserted or denied 
 whatever suited her purpose was only equaled by the cyn- 
 ical indifference with which she met the exposure of her lies 
 as soon as their purpose was answered. Her trickery, in fact, 
 had its political value. Ignoble and wearisome as the queen's 
 diplomacy seems to us now, tracking it as we do through a 
 thousand dispatches, it succeeded in its main end, for it gained
 
 204 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 time, and every year that was gained doubled Elizabeth's 
 strength. She made as dexterous a use of the foibles of her 
 temper. Her levity carried her gayly over moments of detec- 
 tion and embarrassment, where better women would have died 
 of shame. She screened her tentative and hesitating states- 
 manship under the natural timidity and vacillation of her 
 sex. She turned her very luxury and sports to good account. 
 There were moments of grave danger in her reign when the 
 country remained indifferent to its perils, as it saw the queen 
 give her days to hawking and hunting, and her nights to danc- 
 ing and plays. Her vanity and affectation, her womanly 
 fickleness and caprice, all had their part in the diplomatic 
 comedies she played with the successive candidates for her 
 hand. If political necessities made her life a lonely one, she 
 had at any rate the satisfaction of averting war and conspira- 
 cies by love sonnets and romantic interviews, or of gaining a 
 year of tranquillity by the dexterous spinning out of a flirtation. 
 As we track Elizabeth through her tortuous mazes of lying 
 and intrigue, the sense of her greatness is almost lost in a 
 sense of contempt. But, wrapped as they were in a cloud of 
 mystery, the aims of her policy were, throughout, temperate 
 and simple, and they were pursued with a rare tenacity. The 
 sudden acts of energy which from time to time broke her 
 habitual hesitation proved that it was no hesitation of weak- 
 ness. Elizabeth could wait and finesse; but when the hour 
 was come she could strike, and strike hard. Her natural 
 temper, indeed, tended to a rash self-confidence rather than 
 to self-distrust. " I have the heart of a king," she cried, at a 
 moment of utter peril, and it was with a kingly unconscious- 
 ness of the dangers about her that she fronted them for 
 fifty years. She had, as strong natures always have, an 
 unbounded confidence in her luck. " Her majesty counts 
 much on fortune," Walsingham wrote bitterly ; " I wish she 
 would trust more in Almighty God." The diplomatists who 
 censured at one moment her irresolution, her delay, her
 
 CHARACTER AND POLICY OF ELIZABETH. 205 
 
 changes of front, censured at the next her " obstinacy," her 
 iron will, her defiance of what seemed to them inevitable 
 ruin. " This woman," Philip's envoy wrote after a wasted 
 remonstrance, " this woman is possessed by a hundred thou- 
 sand devils." To her own subjects, who knew little of her 
 maneuvers and flirtations, of her "by-ways" and "crooked 
 ways," she seemed the embodiment of dauntless resolution. 
 Brave as they were, the men who swept the Spanish Main 
 or glided between the icebergs of Baffin's Bay never doubted 
 that the palm of bravery lay with their queen.
 
 206 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 XXXIV. 
 EXECUTION OF MARY STUART. FROUDE. 
 
 [Events soon forced Elizabeth to assume the leadership of the Protestant 
 party in England, and, to some extent, in Europe. This brought her into 
 antagonism with Spain, the great Catholic power of the age, and it also 
 brought her face to face with her Catholic rival, Mary Stuart, who had a 
 strong claim to the English throne. In the summer of 1568 Mary, fleeing 
 from her rebellious subjects in Scotland, took refuge in England, and was 
 detained there against her will. Many conspiracies were formed to liber- 
 ate her, to assassinate Elizabeth, and to place Mary on the throne. At length, 
 after nearly twenty years of anxiety and trouble, Elizabeth and her advisers 
 thought it necessary to put her out of the way. She was executed on a 
 charge of treason in 1587.] 
 
 THE end had come. She had long professed to expect it, 
 but the clearest expectation is not certainty. The scene for 
 which she had affected to prepare she was to encounter in 
 its dread reality, and all her busy schemes, her dreams of 
 vengeance, her visions of a revolution, with herself ascend- 
 ing out of the convulsion and seating herself on her rival's 
 throne all were gone. She had played deep, and the dice 
 had gone against her. . . . Her last night was a busy one. 
 As she said herself, there was much to be done, and the time 
 was short. A few lines to the king of France were dated 
 two hours after midnight. They were to insist, for the last 
 time, that she was innocent of the conspiracy, that she was 
 dying for religion, and for having asserted her right to the 
 crown ; and to beg that, out of the sum which he owed her, 
 her servants' wages might be paid, and masses provided for 
 her soul. After this she slept for three or four hours, then 
 rose, and with the most elaborate care prepared to encounter 
 the end. 
 
 At eight in the morning the provost-marshal knocked at 
 the outer door which communicated with her suite of apart- 
 ments. It was locked, and no one answered. He went
 
 EXECUTION OF MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS. 207 
 
 back in some trepidation lest the fears might prove true 
 which had been entertained the preceding evening. On his 
 returning with the sheriff, however, a few minutes later, the 
 door was open, and they were confronted with the tall, 
 majestic figure of Mary Stuart standing before them in 
 splendor. The plain, gray dress had been exchanged for a 
 robe of black satin ; her jacket was of black satin also, looped 
 and slashed, and trimmed with velvet. Her false hair was 
 arranged studiously with a coif, and over her head, and fall- 
 ing down over her back, was a white veil of delicate lawn. 
 A crucifix of gold hung from her neck. In her hand she 
 held a crucifix of ivory, and a number of jeweled paternos- 
 ters was attached to her girdle. Led by two of Paulet's 
 gentlemen, the sheriff walking before her, she passed to the 
 chamber of presence in which she had been tried, where 
 Shrewsbury, Kent, Paulet, Drury, and others were waiting to 
 receive her. 
 
 Andrew Melville, Sir Robert's brother, who had been 
 master of her household, was kneeling in tears. " Melville," 
 she said, "you should rather rejoice than weep that the end 
 of my troubles is come. Tell my friends I die a true Catho- 
 lic. Commend me to my son. Tell him I have done noth- 
 ing to prejudice his kingdom of Scotland, and so, good 
 Melville, farewell." She kissed him, and turning, asked for 
 her chaplain, Du Preau. He was not present. There had 
 been a fear of some religious melodrama which it was 
 thought well to avoid. Her ladies, who had attempted to 
 follow her, had been kept back also. She could not afford 
 to leave the account of her death to be reported by enemies 
 and Puritans, and she required assistance for the scene 
 which she meditated. Missing them, she asked the reason of 
 their absence, and said she wished them to see her die. 
 Kent said he feared they might scream or faint, or attempt, 
 perhaps, to dip their handkerchiefs in her blood. She un- 
 dertook that they should be quiet and obedient. " The
 
 208 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 queen," she said, "would never deny her so slight a re- 
 quest ; " and when Kent still hesitated, she added, with 
 tears, " You know I am cousin to your queen, of the blood 
 of Henry VII., a married queen of France, and anointed 
 queen of Scotland." It was impossible to refuse. She 
 was allowed to take six of her own people with her, and 
 select them herself. She chose her physician Burgoyne, 
 Andrew Melville, the apothecary Gorion, and her sur- 
 geon, with two ladies, Elizabeth Kennedy and Curie's 
 young wife, Barbara Mowbray, whose child she had bap- 
 tized. 
 
 " Allons done" she then said, " let us go," and passing out 
 attended by the earls, and leaning on the arm of an officer of 
 the guard, she descended the great staircase to the hall. The 
 news had spread far through the country. Thousands of 
 people were collected outside the walls. About three hun- 
 dred knights and gentlemen of the county had been admit- 
 ted to witness the execution. The tables and forms had 
 been removed, and a great wood-fire was blazing in the 
 chimney. At the upper end of the hall, above the fire-place, 
 but near it. stood the scaffold, twelve feet square and two 
 feet and a half high. It was covered with black cloth ; a 
 low rail ran round it covered with black cloth also, and the 
 sheriff's guard of halberdiers were ranged on the floor below 
 on the four sides, to keep off the crowd. On the scaffold was 
 the block, black like the rest ; a square black cushion was 
 placed behind it, and behind the cushion a black chair; on 
 the right were two other chairs for the earls. The ax leant 
 against the rail, and two masked figures stood like mutes on 
 either side at the back. The Queen of Scots, as she swept 
 in, seemed as if coming to take a part in some solemn pa- 
 geant. Not a muscle of her face could be seen to quiver ; 
 she ascended the scaffold with absolute composure, looked 
 round her smiling, and sat down. Shrewsbury and Kent 
 followed and took their places, the sheriff stood at her left
 
 EXECUTION OF MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS. 209 
 
 hand, and Beale then mounted a platform and read the war- 
 rant aloud. 
 
 In all the assembly Mary Stuart appeared the person least 
 interested in the words which were consigning her to 
 death. 
 
 " Madam," said Lord Shrewsbury to her, when the reading 
 was ended, "you hear what we are commanded to do." 
 
 " You will do your duty," she answered, and rose as if to 
 kneel and pray. 
 
 The dean of Peterborough, Dr. Fletcher, approached the 
 rail. " Madam," he began, with a low obeisance, " the 
 queen's most excellent majesty" " Madam, the queen's 
 most excellent majesty " Thrice he commenced his sen- 
 tence, wanting words to pursue it. When he repeated the 
 words a fourth time she cut him short. 
 
 " Mr. Dean," she said, " I am a Catholic, and must die a 
 Catholic. It is useless to attempt to move me, and your 
 prayers will avail me but little." " Change your opinion, 
 madam," he cried, his. tongue being loosed at last ; " repent 
 of your sins, settle your faith in Christ, by him to be saved." 
 " Trouble not yourself further, Mr. Dean," she answered ; 
 " I am settled in my own faith, for which I mean to shed my 
 blood." "I am sorry, madam," said Shrewsbury, " to see 
 you so addicted to popery." 
 
 " That image of Christ you hold there," said Kent, " will 
 not profit you if he be not engraved in your heart." She did 
 not reply, and, turning her back on Fletcher, knelt for her 
 own devotions. He had been evidently instructed to impair 
 the Catholic complexion of the scene, and the Queen of 
 Scots was determined that he should not succeed. When 
 she knelt he commenced an extempore prayer, in which the 
 assembly joined. As his voice sounded out in the hall she 
 raised her own, reciting with powerful, deep-chested tones 
 the penitential psalms in Latin, introducing English sentences 
 at intervals, that the audience might know what she was 
 
 9*
 
 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 saying, and praying with especial distinctness for her holy 
 father, the pope. 
 
 From time to time, with conspicuous vehemence she struck 
 the crucifix against her bosom, and then, as the dean gave 
 up the struggle, leaving her Latin, she prayed in English 
 wholly, still clear and loud. She prayed for the Church 
 which she had been ready to betray, for her son whom she 
 had disinherited, for the queen whom she had endeavored to 
 murder. She prayed God to avert his wrath from England 
 that England which she had sent a last message to Philip to 
 beseech him to invade. She forgave her enemies, whom she 
 had invited Philip not to forget, and then, praying to the 
 saints to intercede for her with Christ, and kissing the cru- 
 cifix and crossing her own breast, " Even as thy arms, O 
 Jesus," she cried, " were spread upon the cross, so receive 
 me into thy mercy and forgive my sins." 
 
 With these words she rose. The black mutes stepped 
 forward, and in the usual form begged her forgiveness. " I 
 forgive you," she said, " for now I hope you shall end all my 
 troubles." They offered their help in arranging her dress. 
 " Truly, my lords," she said, with a smile, to the earls, " I 
 never had such grooms waiting on me before." Her ladies 
 were allowed to come up upon the scaffold to assist her ; 
 for the work to be done was considerable, and had been 
 prepared with no common thought. 
 
 She laid her crucifix on her chair. The chief executioner 
 took it as a perquisite, but was ordered instantly to lay it 
 down. The lawn vail was lifted carefully off, not to disturb 
 the hair, and was hung upon the rail. The black robe was 
 next removed. Below it was a petticoat of crimson velvet. 
 The black jacket followed, and under the jacket was a body 
 of crimson satin. One of her ladies handed her a pair of 
 crimson sleeves, with which she hastily covered her arms ; 
 and thus she stood on the black scaffold with the black 
 figures all around her, blood-red from head to foot. Her
 
 EXECUTION OF MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS. 211 
 
 reasons for adopting so extraordinary a costume must be left 
 to conjecture. It is only certain that it must have been care- 
 fully studied, and that the pictorial effect must have been 
 appalling. 
 
 The women, whose firmness had hitherto borne the trial, 
 began now to give way, spasmodic sobs bursting from them 
 which they could not check. " Ne criez vous" she said; 
 " j 'at promts pour vous," (" Do not cry ; I have promised for 
 you.") Struggling bravely, they crossed their breasts again 
 and again, she crossing them in turn and bidding them pray 
 for her. Then she knelt on the cushion. Barbara Mowbray 
 bound her eyes with a handkerchief. "Adieu," she said, 
 smiling for the last time, and waving her hand to them, 
 "Adieu, au revoir." They stepped back from off the scaf- 
 fold, and left her alone. On her knees she repeated the 
 psalm, " /// te, Domine, confido" (" In thee, O Lord, have I 
 put my trust.") Her shoulders being exposed, two scars be- 
 came visible, one on either side, and, the earls being now a 
 little behind her, Kent pointed to them with his white wand 
 and looked inquiringly at his companion. Shrewsbury whis- 
 pered that they were the remains of two abscesses from 
 which she had suffered while living with him at Sheffield. 
 
 When the psalm was finished she felt for the block, and, 
 laying down her head, muttered, " In manus, Domine tuas, 
 cornmendo animam meant." The hard wood seemed to hurt 
 her, for she placed her hands under her neck". The execu- 
 tioners gently removed them, lest they should deaden the 
 blow, and then, one of them holding her slightly, the other 
 raised the ax and struck. The scene had been too trying 
 even for the practiced headsman of the Tower. His arm 
 wandered. The blow fell on the knot of the handkerchief 
 and scarcely broke the skin. She neither spoke nor moved. 
 He struck again, this time effectively. The head hung by a 
 shred of skin, which he divided without withdrawing the ax; 
 and at once a metamorphosis was witnessed strange as was
 
 2i2 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 ever wrought by wand of fabled enchanter. The coif fell 
 off, and the false plaits. The labored illusion vanished. 
 The lady who had knelt before the block was in the maturity 
 of grace and loveliness. The executioner, when he raised 
 the head, as usual, to show it to the crowd, exposed the 
 withered features of a grizzled, wrinkled old woman. 
 
 " So perish all enemies of the queen ! " said the dean of 
 Peterborough. A loud "Amen!" rose over the hall. "Such 
 end," said the earl of Kent, rising and standing over the 
 body, "to the queen's and the Gospel's enemies! " 
 
 Orders had been given that every thing which she had 
 worn should be immediately destroyed, that no relics should 
 be carried off to work imaginary miracles. Sentinels stood 
 at the doors, who allowed no one to pass out without permis- 
 sion ; and after the first pause, the earls still keeping their 
 places, the body was stripped. It then appeared that a fa- 
 vorite lap-dog had followed its mistress unperceived, and 
 was concealed under her clothes. When discovered it gave 
 a short cry, and seated itself between the head and the neck, 
 from which the blood was still flowing. It was carried away 
 and carefully washed, and then beads, paternoster, handker- 
 chief each particle of dress which the blood had touched 
 with the cloth on the block and on the scaffold, was burnt in 
 the hall-fire in the presence of the crowd. The scaffold it- 
 self was next removed ; a brief account of the execution was 
 drawn up, with which Henry Talbot, Lord Shrewsbury's son, 
 was sent to London, and then every one was dismissed. 
 Silence settled down on Fotheringay, and the last scene of 
 the life of Mary Stuart, in which tragedy and melodrama 
 were so strangly intermingled, was over.
 
 ARRIVAL OF THE ARMADA. 213 
 
 XXXV. 
 
 ARRIVAL OF THE ARMADA. EWALD. 
 
 [The great effort of Spain and Philip II. to subjugate England was to 
 have been made in favor of Mary Stuart. But Mary was destroyed before 
 the preparations for the expedition could be completed. The attempt, 
 therefore, when it was made, the year after Mary's death, appeared as a 
 bald design to crush England under a foreign yoke, and the result was that 
 every Englishman, old and young, Catholic and Protestant, rallied under 
 the banner of the queen.J 
 
 THE summer sun was casting its lengthening shadows 
 upon the bowling-green behind that hotel well known to all 
 officers of her majesty's navy, the Pelican Inn, Plymouth. It 
 was the evening of July 19, 1588. An exciting game of bowls 
 was about to be interrupted. Standing around the bowling- 
 alley watching the play was a little throng whose names naval 
 warfare and the story of adventure will not easily let die. 
 There on that memorable occasion stood Lord Howard, of 
 Effingharn, the lord high admiral of England ; Sir Robert 
 Southwell, his son-in-law, the captain of the Elizabeth 
 Jorcas; Sir Walter Raleigh and Sir Richard Grenville; Mar- 
 tin Frobisher and John Davis ; and last, but far from least, 
 Sir John Hawkins, " the patriarch of Plymouth seamen," 
 lazily watching the movements of his pupil, Sir Francis 
 Drake, vice-admiral of the fleet. Raising his form to his 
 full height, then slowly bending forward, the better to give 
 impetus to the swing of his right arm, Sir Francis was about 
 to send the bowl speeding along the alley, when he suddenly 
 stayed his hand and gazed open-mouthed at an old sailor 
 who, with the news-fever burning hot within him, had rushed 
 into their midst. " My lord, my lord ! " cried the weather- 
 beaten old salt to the lord high admiral, " they're coming 
 I saw 'em off the Lizard last night ; they're coming full 
 sail, hundreds of 'em a darkening the waters ! " The cool
 
 214 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 vice-admiral turned to his chief, as he hurled the bowl along 
 the smooth, worn planks, and said, "There will be lime 
 enough to finish the game, and then we'll go out and give 
 the dons a thrashing ! " 
 
 It was the first intimation of the arrival of the long-ex- 
 pected "dons." The opal even-tide was fast deepening into 
 night when the towering hulls of the Armada were seen 
 rounding the Lizard. At last the shores of England were 
 before the Spaniards, and the object of their ambition was 
 about to be attained. The weary months passed in busy 
 preparation, the anxious nights spent amid the storms of the 
 Atlantic, the fatigues and privations that had been endured, 
 were now to receive their reward. The spirits of the men 
 on board the galleons rose high, for all were convinced that 
 success was about to crown their efforts. The moment had 
 arrived when vengeance was to be theirs. Within sight was 
 the England who had shown herself, on every occasion, the 
 enemy of Spain, who had encouraged the Protestant revolt 
 in the Low Countries, who had robbed the West Indies of their 
 treasures, who had captured wealthy galleons bound for Ca- 
 diz or Lisbon, and brought them in triumph to the mouth 
 of the Thames ; whose famous mariners had, within the very 
 fortifications which commmanded the Spanish forts, fallen 
 upon the fleets of the most Catholic king, plundered them of 
 their goods, and then left them a mass of wrecked timber. 
 But the hour of revenge was at hand, and haughty England, 
 who styled herself the mistress of the seas, was to be hum- 
 bled on her own element, or yield her lands to the foreigners. 
 Forming his ships in the shape of a crescent, which stretched 
 some seven miles from horn to horn, Medina Sidonia came 
 full sail toward Plymouth. Hastily weighing anchor, Lord 
 Howard hurried out of the harbor to give battle to the enemy 
 in the Channel. 
 
 Meanwhile the beacon -lights had flashed through the 
 country the news of the arrival of the Armada. In every
 
 ARRIVAL OF THE ARMADA. 215 
 
 shire men were looking up their arms and saddling their 
 horses, ready for any emergency. Shipping was placed at 
 the Nore to protect both Sheppey and the Thames. A camp 
 was formed at Tilbury to cover London ; and the earl of Lei- 
 cester, who had shown himself both incompetent and improv- 
 ident in the Low Countries, and who owed all his advancement 
 to the favor in which he was held by the queen, was ap- 
 pointed commander-in-chief. The hour of danger, however, 
 stimulated him to unwonted activity. " Nothing must be 
 neglected," he wrote to the Council, "to oppose this mighty 
 enemy now knocking at our gates." The queen herself came 
 down to the camp, rode along the lines, and exhorted her 
 troops to remember their duty to their country and their 
 religion. " She had come among them at this time," she 
 cried, amid the enthusiastic che.ers of the troops, "not for her 
 sport or recreation, but being resolved, in the midst and heat 
 of the battle, to live or die among her people to lay down, 
 for her God and for her kingdom, her honor and her blood 
 even in the dust. She knew she had but the body of a weak 
 and feeble woman, but she had the heart of a king, and of a 
 king of England, too; and thought foul scorn that Parma, or 
 Spain, or any prince of Europe should dare to invade the 
 borders of her realm. Rather," she exclaimed, with all the 
 fire of her Tudor blood, " than any dishonor should grow by 
 her, she herself would take up arms, she herself would be 
 their general, their judge and rewarder of every one of their 
 virtues in the field ! " 
 
 Her soldiers, however, required little pressing to go forth 
 and attack the enemy. They burned to meet the foe who had 
 the audacity to attempt the invasion of their country, or to 
 dream of forcing upon Protestant England the hated creed 
 of Rome. Stories of the terrors of the Inquisition, of the 
 cruelties that had been practiced by Alva in the Low Coun- 
 tries, and of the fate that was to be in store for Englishmen, 
 should the forces of Medina and Parma win the day, were
 
 216 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 freely circulated. It was said that the houses and parks of 
 the English nobles were to be parceled out among the Spanish 
 grandees, and that a list -had been drawn up to that effect, 
 which was in the pocket of every Spaniard. English women 
 were to be spared only to be consigned to a fate worse 
 than death. The houses of the wealthy merchants in Lon- 
 don had been inserted in a Spanish register, and were to 
 be divided among the squadrons of the navy for their spoil. 
 Every galleon had hundreds of halters on board where- 
 with to hang the English people, while children under 
 seven years of age were to be branded upon their faces, so 
 as to be known hereafter as the offspring of the conquered 
 nation. Such tales were fully credited, and goaded the 
 patriotism of the country into a perfect frenzy of wild and 
 vindictive hate. 
 
 On issuing from Plymouth harbor into the open Channel, 
 Lord Howard gave orders to his men not to come to close 
 quarters with the towering unwieldly galleons, but to pour 
 broadside after broadside into them at a distance, and to bide 
 their opportunity to fall upon them. They had not long to 
 wait. One of the galleons, the Capitana, carrying the flag 
 of Pedro de Valdez, ran foul of the Santa Cataliua, and 
 broke her bowsprit. She was disabled ; it was in vain that 
 the Spaniards tried to take her in tow, and Drake timely 
 coming up, she struck her flag, and was tugged at the stern 
 of the Revenge, a prize into Torbay. Among the prison- 
 ers was De Valdez, " the third in command of the fleet," and 
 Juan Martinez de Recaldo, vice-admiral. As the Armada 
 advanced up the Channel the English hung upon its rear, 
 firing shot after shot into the lofty hulls of the galleons and 
 galleasses, yet all the while taking excellent care to give them 
 a wide berth. "The enemy pursue me," moans Medina Sido- 
 nia; "they fire upon me most days from morning till night- 
 fall; but they will not close and grapple. I have purposely 
 left ships exposed to tempt them to board, but they decline
 
 ARRIVAL OF THE ARMADA. 217 
 
 to do it ; and there is no remedy, for they are swift, and we 
 are slow." 
 
 The Spanish captain-general was fairly nonplussed. The 
 smart, well-handled English ships ran in and out, doing him 
 as much damage as it was possible, always declining to come 
 to close quarters, while his lumbering craft were useless to 
 chase and cripple the agile enemy. Medina resolved to bear 
 up for Calais, in hope that Parma was ready to put to sea. 
 Shortly after the galleons had anchored in Calais roads, Lord 
 Howard, whose ammunition and provisions, owing to the 
 short-sighted stinginess of Elizabeth, were running terribly 
 low, and who, consequently, was most anxious not to pro- 
 tract proceedings, practiced a successful ruse upon the Span- 
 iards. Filling certain of his smaller ships with combustible 
 materials, he dispatched them, one after the other, into the 
 midst of the enemy. The Spaniards, panic-stricken, cut their 
 cables, and, utterly demoralized, took to flight in all speed. 
 The next morning Howard, seizing the opportunity of their 
 confusion, fell upon them and destroyed about a dozen of 
 their ships, besides inflicting considerable damage upon their 
 fleet generally. 
 
 It was now evident to the most ardent Spaniard that the 
 object of the expedition was completely frustrated. The 
 duke of Parma declined to quit the harbor to land his forces 
 in England unless protected by the Spanish fleet, and the 
 Armada was now flying northward for dear life, intent far 
 more upon seeing the coast of Spain than that of England. 
 "God grant ye have a good eye to the duke of Parma," writes 
 Drake cheerily to Walsingham, " for with the grace of God,* 
 if we live, I doubt not, ere it be long, so to handle the matter 
 with the duke of Sidonia as he shall wish himself at St. Mary 
 Port among his orange-trees." The duke must have already 
 wished himself at his country seat. Nervous and confused 
 by the complete collapse of the expedition, he knew not what 
 course to pursue. He dared not return home by the Channel,
 
 218 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 for his men refused to encounter the English again in the 
 narrow seas ; it was idle for him, with his dismantled fleet 
 and dispirited crews, to remain in the Downs; where further 
 action was impossible, retreat became necessary ; and so, 
 after an anxious parliament with his lieutenants, it was re- 
 solved to seek Spain by way of the North Sea. Crowding all 
 sail, and throwing overboard useless cargo, the Armada steered 
 for the Orkneys. Howard, however, had no intention of 
 seeing the hostile fleet sneak off like a whipped cur without 
 receiving the full punishment she so richly deserved. Leav- 
 ing Lord Henry Seymour's squadron to guard "the narrow 
 seas," the English admiral gave chase to the Spaniard. But 
 English courage, though capable of great efforts, requires to 
 be supplied with the ordinary means of subsistence. A stern 
 chase is proverbially a long chase, but it becomes infinitely 
 longer where the crews in pursuit are decimated by scurvy 
 and dysentery, are weakened by absolute hunger, are in want 
 of water, and are only animated by the undying pluck of their 
 race. 
 
 Sadder reading there is not than the piteous moans for 
 provisions, to be met with in the State Papers of this date, 
 from the captains of the different men-of-war then watching 
 the Channel for the protection of England. Wages were in 
 arrears, every farthing of extra expenditure had to be rigidly 
 accounted for to the queen, while sailors brought on shore 
 sick or dying had no place to receive them. " It would 
 grieve any man's heart," writes Howard, " to see men who 
 had served so valiantly die so miserably." Yet Elizabeth, 
 'who owed her realm to the efforts of these her gallant sub- 
 jects, though she could speak brave words to them, which 
 stirred their blood like a trumpet, would permit no lavish en- 
 croachments upon her exchequer. She doled out in miserable 
 portions, money, food, drink, and clothes. Even her cherished 
 favorite, Leicester, had to complain that on four thousand 
 men coming into Tilbury, after twenty miles' march, " as for-
 
 ARRIVAL OF THE ARMADA. 219 
 
 ward and willing men as ever I saw," there was not "a barrel 
 of beer nor a loaf of bread " to give them. The one cry 
 throughout the correspondence of this period is: "Nothing can 
 exceed the patient and willing spirit of both sailors and sol- 
 diers; but, for God's sake, send us provisions, send us powder, 
 send us money, clothes, and drink, else we be too enfeebled 
 to fight." Still, the miserable parsimony of the queen was deaf 
 to all entreaties, in spite of Drake's advice, that it was an ill 
 policy " to hazard a kingdom with saving a little charge." 
 
 The result of all this cheese-paring was now to tell its tale. 
 Off Norfolk a storm arose; the men under Howard in pur- 
 suit of the Armada were too weak to work the ships ; the ad- 
 miral himself was compelled to satisfy the pangs of hunger 
 with a few coarse beans, while the crews were forced for 
 drink the story can hardly be credited to fall back upon 
 the resources of human nature, and the chase had to be 
 abandoned. With extreme difficulty Howard, accompanied 
 by the largest of his ships, reached Margate ; the rest of the 
 fleet were driven into Harwich. " Our parsimony at home," 
 writes Captain Whyte to Walsingham, "hath bereaved us of 
 the famousest victory that ever our nation had at sea."
 
 22O SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 XXXVI. 
 
 SIR WALTER RALEIGH. FARRAR. 
 
 [The sovereign who succeeded Elizabeth had been king of Scotland for a 
 quarter of a century, but he had had little real power, and had busied 
 himself with devising a scheme of absolute government which was to be 
 tried in his new kingdom of England. Lacking tact and skill, he soon 
 came into collision with the English House of Commons, and sowed 
 trouble for his son to reap. He reversed the foreign policy of his prede- 
 cessor by at once making peace with Spain, and through all his life he as- 
 siduously courted the favor of that power. It was mainly to the Spanish 
 policy of James that Raleigh was sacrificed. Raleigh had grown up among 
 the great men who had been so conspicuous as navigators and discoverers 
 in Elizabeth's reign.] 
 
 AMONG souls so pure and noble the boy Raleigh passed his 
 earlier years. After brilliant promise at school and college, 
 by the age of seventeen he was righting for Protestants in 
 France, and beginning his many-sided career as soldier, 
 sailor, courtier, poet, discoverer, and author. If you would 
 understand his life, and the glorious years of Queen Eliza- 
 beth, you must remember three things that it was the era of 
 the Renascence, the era of the Reformation, and the era of 
 the colonization of America. 
 
 It was the era of the Renascence. That new boyhood of 
 life produced splendid daring. The glory of England, in that 
 day, was as when the aloe rushes into its crimson flower. 
 Around the queen stood men crowned with many laurels, 
 men of strong passions, of deep feelings, of large hopes, of 
 dauntless endurance, of ardent imagination, of magnificent pur- 
 poses. Think of the day when Hooker was preaching at the 
 Temple; and Bacon meditating on the " Novum Organum;" 
 and Spenser writing the " Faerie Queene ; " and Sidney fight- 
 ing in the Netherlands ; and Galileo reading the secrets of 
 the stars ; and Drake singeing the beard of the king of
 
 SIR WALTER RALEIGH. 221 
 
 Spain ; and Shakspere, Marlowe, Chapman, and Ben Jonson 
 were pouring forth all the passion of which man's heart is 
 capable ; and Milton was a little boy ; when trade, art, sci- 
 ence, learning, burst into new life ; when England was ac- 
 quiring the empire of the sea ; and the queen was telling 
 Mendoza in quite her natural voice, and as though it was 
 the most natural thing in the world, though he was the em- 
 bassador of a king at whom the world trembled that if he 
 talked to her about Philip's threats again she would fling him 
 into a dungeon. Yes ! England was the England of Sliaks- 
 pere and Raleigh, and spoke in the voice of England then, 
 because her sons were neither cynical unbelievers nor gilded 
 effeminates, but feared God, and were noble and great and 
 true. 
 
 And this era of the Renascence was, on the religious side, 
 the era of the Reformation. In these our days love of popery 
 shows itself in coquetting with dead usages, and hatred of 
 popery has dwindled down into the feeble spite of religious 
 newspapers ; and most men, caring nothing about either tend- 
 ency, walk in the cold mid region between a boundless skep- 
 ticism and an unfathomable superstition. But in those days 
 hatred of popery was no mere intolerance about minor relig- 
 ious opinions. It was, and had a right to be, a holy and 
 mighty passion. It meant hatred of popes like Pius V., who 
 sent his soldiers into France with the words, " Slay imme- 
 diately whatever heretics fall into your hands," and who 
 taught Englishmen to defy and plot against their queen. It 
 meant hatred of Moloch fires which flamed through all lands; 
 hatred of queens steeped, like Mary, in murder and adultery ; 
 hatred of generals, like Alva, reeking with the blood of 
 saints ; hatred of blood which cried to heaven from an earth 
 which would not cover her slain. Hatred of popery meant, 
 in that day, hatred of the sanguinary alliance between 
 priestly usurpation and monarchic despotism ; between cruel 
 tyranny and deadly superstition. It meant hatred of burn-
 
 222 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 ings, tortures, butcheries ; hatred of the dark, crooked dev- 
 il's work of a plotting, murdering Jesuitism, which absolved 
 the reckless perjuries of the conspirator, and consecrated the 
 cursed dagger of the assassin ; it meant hatred of the Inquis- 
 itor, wielding the sword of the tyrant and wearing the ephod 
 of the priest. But with Raleigh born when the fires of 
 Smithfield were barely extinguished, reading Foxe's " Mar- 
 tyrs " at his mother's knee, who, as a boy, had fought against 
 Alva in the Netherlands, and seen Conde die at Jarnac, whose 
 ears had thrilled with the shrieks of St. Bartholomew, and 
 who knew how Philip of Spain had laughed aloud when he 
 heard of that awful massacre, and how Pope Gregory XIII. 
 had struck medals and sung Te Deums in its honor to Ra- 
 leigh hatred of popery was, in that day, inevitably one with 
 loyalty to Elizabeth and love of England, and passion for the 
 primary rights, the natural liberty and free conscience of 
 mankind. And because he was a life-long foe to popery he 
 was a life-long foe to Spain, which was then trying to blight 
 the whole world with the upas shadows of abhorrent abso- 
 lutism. 
 
 The great men of Elizabeth knew that the triumph of 
 Spain, the triumph of popery, would have meant the holi- 
 ness of racks and the beatitude of thumbscrews. It would 
 have meant that the England of Elizabeth would have reeked, 
 as did the England of James II., with the odors of the char- 
 nel-house. It was this that made Raleigh fight papists in 
 Ireland, which he called then, as it is now, " not the com- 
 mon weal, but the common woe ; " and fight papists in 
 France, and in the Netherlands, and on the Armada, and in 
 the New World. It was this which made him burn the Span- 
 ish fleet in Cadiz Bay. It was this that made him tell in 
 immortal prose, as Tennyson has told in immortal verse, that 
 death of Sir Richard Grenville, when one English ship fought 
 for fifteen mortal hours against fifty-three Spanish ships at 
 the Azores. Yes, in the era of the Reformation hatred of
 
 SIR WALTER RALEIGH. 223 
 
 popery meant love of truth, love of England, love of freedom, 
 love of progress, air, and light. 
 
 But, nobly as Raleigh served the cause of England and the 
 cause of the Reformation, it is with the New World and its 
 colonization that his name will be most gloriously and most 
 permanently connected. To Raleigh and the old sea worthies 
 of England the New World meant Eldorado. But Spain, 
 forsooth, claimed the whole of this New World by virtue of 
 a trumpery parchment signed by a meddling Italian priest ! 
 And how did this land of promise and golden dreams fare in 
 the hands of popery and Spain ? The tale of their greed 
 and cruelty rang through all lands. The flames woven on the 
 banners 'of Cortez were the accursed emblem of the Inquisi- 
 tion. But they had not occupied a third, even, of the coast; 
 and was that land of boundless wonder and beauty, of bound- 
 less fertility and wealth, to be abandoned to them ? Were 
 millions of innocent Indians to be treated like brute beasts ? 
 Were the English, whom they called " Lutheran devils," to 
 be handed over to the rack and the galleys, if they ventured 
 to trade, nay, if they were but shipwrecked, on those shores? 
 Not if Raleigh could help it ! His genius fixed upon, and 
 his dauntless patience and princely munificence secured re- 
 gions which had almost escaped the notice of Spain. On the 
 colonization of Virginia he spent ^40,000, and was ready to 
 spend his whole fortune, to the last coin. 
 
 Let me for one moment glance at his life and end. If 
 you would judge of his zenith, see him in the splendor of 
 Durham House, his beautiful wife beside him, his noble boy 
 at his knee, sometimes flashing about as captain of Eliza- 
 beth's guard, in his armor of enameled silver ; sometimes 
 in his "doublet of white satin, all embroidered with rich 
 pearls, and a weighty chain of great pearls around his neck ; " 
 the friend of Sidney, the patron of Spenser, the companion 
 of Ben Jonson and Shakspere, lord of the Stannaries, gov- 
 ernor of Munster, governor of Jersey, rear-admiral of the
 
 224 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 fleet against the Azores ; ruffling it with Leicester and Es- 
 sex, their equal in manly beauty ; " lording it with awful as- 
 cendency " in the fairy-land of Gloriana's Court " a man at 
 whom men gazed as at a star." Envy not his splendor ! 
 All the while he was struggling in a net-work of base in- 
 trigues. Long before pride and passion led him into sin, he 
 had learned as his poem, " The Lie," shows how hollow and 
 disappointing it all was. And then see the plunge right down 
 to the very nadir of human misery and ruin. I know few 
 tragedies to equal those last twelve years of his in the Tower 
 of London. Elizabeth had died, " with the whole Book of 
 Ecclesiastes written on her mighty heart," and the very basest 
 and meanest of English kings, with no fear except to offend 
 Spain and no money except to lavish on infamous favorites, 
 disgraced her throne. Such a man as James naturally hated 
 such a man as Raleigh. His fair day at once drew to even- 
 ing. " I am left of all men," he wails, " that have done good 
 to many. All my good turns forgotten, all my errors revived 
 and expounded to all extremity of ill, all my services, haz- 
 ards, and expenses for my country plantings, discoveries, 
 fights, counsels, and whatsoever dire malice has now covered 
 over." Ah ! what a shipwreck of man's ingratitude ! and how 
 common on the treacherous sea of life ! And then came the 
 midnight. Imprisoned, robbed, slandered, yet enriching even 
 his prison hours with the " History of the World ; " in vain 
 attempting suicide, betrayed by his own king, suffering from 
 fever, losing his gallant boy in battle, and his devoted adher- 
 ent by suicide ; old, gray-headed, lame, worn with sickness, 
 anguish, and watching ; penniless, ruined, dishonored find- 
 ing the whole world turned for him to thorns after being 
 belied for a while in a hubbub of lies, he is, at a day's notice, 
 infamously doomed to the scaffold. In all those awful fires 
 God had purged away all his dross. He had long learned to 
 defy death in all his ugly and misshapen forms. " O, elo- 
 quent, just, and mighty death," he wrote at the end of his
 
 SIR WALTER RALEIGH. 225 
 
 " History of the World," " whom none could advise, thou 
 hast persuaded ; what none hast dared, thou hast done ; and 
 whom the world flattered, thou hast cast out of the world 
 and despised ; thou hast drawn together all the far-fetched 
 greatness, all the pride, cruelty, and ambition of man, and 
 covered it all over with these two narrow words, 'hicjacet.'" 
 Even such, he wrote in his cell the evening before his 
 
 execution : 
 
 " E'en such is time who takes in trust 
 Our youth, our hopes, our all we have, 
 And pays us but with earth and dust ; 
 Who, in the dark and silent grave, 
 When we have wandered all our ways, 
 Shuts up the stoiy of our days. 
 But from this earth, this grave, this dust, 
 My God shall raise me up, I trust ! " 
 
 " Prythee, let me see the ax," he says to the executioner. 
 " Dost thou think, man, I am afraid of it ? " " A sharp med- 
 icine, but a sound cure for all diseases." "I entreat you," 
 he says, "that you will all join with me in prayer to the God 
 of heaven, whom I have grievously offended, being a man full 
 of all vanity, who have lived a sinful life, that the Almighty 
 Goodness will forgive ; that he will cast away my sins from 
 rne ; that he will receive me into everlasting life. So I take 
 leave of you all, making my peace with God." He says but one 
 more word. Asked to face toward the east, he says " If the 
 heart be right, it matters not which way the head lies." So 
 dies the most brilliant of Englishmen; so fades all glory into 
 darkness, and all life into dust, that we may give God the 
 splendor. 
 10
 
 226 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 XXXVII. 
 
 GATHERING OF THE STORM. EWALD. 
 
 [In view of the training in absolute government which Charles had had 
 under his father, it is no wonder that his reign ended in revolution. Un- 
 der the influence of an unprincipled favorite, Buckingham, and to gratify 
 personal whims, he plunged recklessly into foreign wars. He summoned 
 two Parliaments in quick succession, and when they refused to vote him 
 all the money he wanted for his useless military expeditions, which were 
 led by incompetent commanders, he dissolved them in anger, and under- 
 took to supply his necessities by means of forced loans. Hence " the 
 gathering of the storm."] 
 
 IN the meantime the unconstitutional proceedings instituted 
 by Charles, though they inflamed the country with wrath and 
 sedition, failed to replenish the coffers of his exhausted ex- 
 chequer. The general loan had been well subscribed to, 
 but all its proceeds were swallowed up by the pressing ne- 
 cessities of the Crown. In the expenditure of the past year 
 there was a vast deficit. The preparations for war now 
 amounted to a fearful total. The pay of the soldiers and 
 the seamen was rated at some ^200,000 a year, and if 
 Rochelle was to be relieved in the spring, another ^100,000 
 would be required. How, and from whom, were these sums 
 to be obtained? The king was aware that the inevitable must 
 be boldly faced, and he summoned his memorable third 
 Parliament. We all remember the scenes that took place. 
 The Commons, conscious of their power and of the justness of 
 the grievances they complained of, refused to be brow-beaten, 
 or to yield one jot of their demands. Five subsidies were 
 voted, but before they were handed to the king the repre- 
 sentatives of the people determined to obtain a guarantee 
 against the abuses of the past. The Petition of Right was 
 drawn up. Charles was asked to pledge himself that he 
 would never raise loans or levy taxes without the consent of
 
 GATHERING OF THE STORM. 227 
 
 1 . 
 
 Parliament; that his subjects should be free from arbitrary 
 imprisonment; that soldiers should not be billeted upon the 
 people; and that martial law should be abolished. The king 
 attempted to evade the clauses of the Petition. Instead of 
 pronouncing the usual words which signify the royal assent 
 to a bill, he, inspired by Buckingham, replied: " The king 
 willeth that right be done according to the laws and customs 
 of the realm, and that the statutes be put into execution; 
 that his subjects may have no cause to complain of any 
 wrong or oppression contrary to their just rights and liberties, 
 to the preservation whereof he holds himself in conscience as 
 much obliged as of his own prerogative." The Commons 
 were not to be hoodwinked by so elastic an answer; they did 
 not want the statutes confirmed by simple words, but in- 
 terpreted according to the hard and fast limits they had as- 
 signed to them. For a time the king refused to return any other 
 answer, and threatened the House with instant dissolution. 
 Then, after some delay, advised by Buckingham, who had 
 been concerned at the fierce censure poured upon his con- 
 duct by the Commons, and pressed by a joint application 
 from the two Chambers, Charles came down to Westminster 
 and agreed to the terms of the Petition, by pronouncing the 
 usual form, " Let it be law as is desired." 
 
 " The king came to the House at two o'clock," writes Sec- 
 retary Conway, " and gave an answer which begat such an 
 acclamation as made the House ring several times. I never 
 saw a more general joy in all faces than spread itself sud- 
 denly and broke out into ringing of bells and bonfires mi- 
 raculously." "It is not possible," writes Sir Francis Nether- 
 sole to the queen of Bohemia, " to express with what joy this 
 answer was heard, nor what joy it causes in all the city, where 
 they are making bonfires at every door, such as were never 
 seen but upon his majesty's return from Spain." This fran- 
 tic delight was, however, soon checked. In the struggle be- 
 tween the inquisitorial power of Parliament and the despotism
 
 28 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 of prerogative the Commons had been victorious. Flushed 
 with success, they now pressed the Crown still further with 
 their demands. They requested that the penal laws against 
 the Catholics should be fully enforced, that the Arminians 
 should be silenced, and that the duke of Buckingham should 
 be removed. To satisfy the religious prejudices of the Com- 
 mons the king had no objection, but to dismiss the duke 
 from his councils was an interference with the royal prerog- 
 ative which Charles declined to entertain for a moment. 
 Irritated at this refusal, the Lower House now proceeded in a 
 spirit of mischievous intrusion, to meddle with the grant of 
 tonnage and poundage (the duties on exports and imports), 
 which ever since the days of our sixth Henry had been 
 voted by Parliament during the life-time of each successive 
 monarch, on the ground that the king had relinquished his 
 claim to this taxation by his assent to the Petition of Right. 
 Charles loudly raised his voice against this strained interpre- 
 tation of the favors he had recently granted; and seeing that 
 the position of affairs was now reversed, that it was the Com- 
 mons who were encroaching upon the rights of the Crown, 
 and not the sovereign upon the rights of the subject, he 
 hastily prorogued the Parliament. 
 
 And now he who had been the head and front of all the 
 evils under which the country was then laboring was to fall a 
 victim, not to the vengeance of a justly angered legislature, 
 but to the hand of an unknown assassin. The duke of 
 Buckingham had gone down to Portsmouth to superintend 
 the preparations for an expedition to relieve Rochelle. 
 While engaged in conversation with one of his colonels, a 
 man, who had long been on the watch for his opportunity, 
 suddenly pressed against him and stabbed him in the breast. 
 The blow had been well directed; the duke unsheathed the 
 knife from his wound, crying out, " Villain! " and attempted to 
 pursue his murderer; but he was mortally struck, and after 
 an unsuccessful effort to steady himself fell to the ground a
 
 GATHERING OF THE STORM. 229 
 
 dead man. The assassin was John Felton, a young Puritan 
 officer, who had conceived a deadly hatred against Bucking- 
 ham on account of having been disappointed of his promo- 
 tion when serving in the expedition against Rhe. " Our 
 noble duke," writes Lord Dorchester, " in the greatest joy 
 and alacrity I ever saw him in my life, at news received 
 about eight o'clock in the morning of Saturday last, of the 
 relief of Rochelle, wherewith he was hastening to the king, 
 who had that morning sent for him by me, at his going out 
 of a lower parlor, in presence of many standers-by, was 
 stabbed into the breast with a knife by one Felton, a re- 
 formed lieutenant, who hastening out of the door, and the 
 duke having pulled out the knife and following him out of 
 the parlor into the hall, with his hand put to his sword, there 
 fell down dead with much effusion of blood. The Lady 
 Anglesea, then looking down into the hall, went immediately 
 with a cry into the duchess's chamber, who was in bed, and 
 there fell down on the floor. The murderer in the midst of 
 the noise and tumult slipped out into the kitchen, when a 
 voice being current in the court, ' A Frenchman! a French- 
 man! ' his guilty conscience making him believe it was 
 'Felton! Felton!' he came out of the kitchen, said, 'I am 
 the man,' and rendered himself to the company." 
 
 So terrible a tragedy, its victim the foremost man in the 
 kingdom, created a profound sensation, and not a detail re- 
 specting the history of the murderer, the sorrow of the king, 
 the grief of the widow, the burial of the duke, and the senti- 
 ments of the nation upon the dread event is omitted in the 
 State Papers before us. There we learn how Felton had come 
 " from London expressly the Wednesday, arriving at Ports- 
 mouth the very morning, not above half an hour before he com- 
 mitted the deed; " how " he gloried in his act the first day, but 
 when told that he was the first assassin of an Englishman, a 
 gentleman, a soldier, and a Protestant, he shrank at it, and 
 is now grown penitent; how it was wished to have him
 
 230 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORV. 
 
 racked, should the law sanction such punishment, to find out 
 his accomplices;" how " he confessed his offense to ' be a 
 fearful and crying sin," and requested that he might do some 
 public penance before his death, in sackcloth, with ashes on 
 his head and ropes about his neck; " how verses were written 
 in his honor, and how he was hanged at Tyburn, and the 
 body then carried to Portsmouth to be suspended in chains. 
 There we read hovv " the king took the duke's death very 
 heavily, keeping his chamber all that day, as is well to be 
 believed; but the base multitude in London drink health to 
 Felton, and there are infinitely more cheerful than sad faces 
 of bitter degree; " how " there never was greater demonstra- 
 tion of affection than his majesty showed to the deceased 
 duke in all which concerns his honor, estate, friends, and ene- 
 mies, whom he cannot well look upon if any come in his 
 way; " how "the king omitted nothing which may in any way 
 concern the doing honor to the body of the duke," and how 
 the corpse was privately interred in the Abbey to escape the 
 fury of the mob; and how passionate was the sorrow of the 
 bereaved duchess. Still in the nation at large, though it 
 regretted the act of the assassin, few beyond the king and 
 the widow mourned the death of the duke. " The stone of 
 offense being now removed by the hand of God," writes a 
 courtier, " it is to be hoped that the king and his people will 
 come to a perfect unity." 
 
 The vacancy left in the councils of the king by the murder 
 of Buckingham was soon to be filled up by a far more dan- 
 gerous favorite, Thomas Wentworth, later earl of Strafford. 
 In the first three Parliaments summoned by Charles he had 
 sided with the popular party, not because he was opposed to 
 the policy of the Crown, but because he detested, with a 
 malignity which knew no rest, the man who was then the 
 adviser of the king and the sole minister of the nation. He 
 is the first on the list of those English statesmen who have 
 gone into factious opposition, not because they disapprove of
 
 GATHERING OF THE STORM. 231 
 
 the measures of the government, but because they hate the 
 minister who suggests them. 
 
 It is absurd to class Wentworth in the same category with 
 the leaders of the popular party, with Eliot, with Pym, with 
 Hampden. He was no friend to democracy; he had no wish 
 to see the prerogative domineered over by the Parliament; 
 if there was to be a battle between the sovereign and the 
 subject, he did not desire to see the latter supreme. In his 
 sympathies, in his prejudices, in his views of government, he was 
 thoroughly the aristocrat. When he stood forward as the oppo- 
 nent of the Crown, he was always most careful to distinguish 
 between the acts of the sovereign and the acts of the min- 
 ister. After the passing of the Petition of Right, he severed 
 himself entirely from his colleagues. He had no sympathy 
 with the course the House of Commons was then pursuing. 
 He made overtures to the Court, which were accepted; the 
 death of Buckingham removed the great bar to his progress, 
 and henceforth the chief author of the Petition of Right was 
 to be the firm friend and confidential adviser of the king.
 
 232 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 XXXVIII. 
 
 TRIAL OF STRAFFORD. MOZLEY. 
 
 [After the dissolution of his third Parliament the king entered upon a 
 course of absolute power. For eleven years he refused to summon the rep- 
 resentatives of the nation. Ably seconded by Strafford and Laud, lie 
 attempted to establish an " enlightened despotism," and at one time it 
 seemed as if he might succeed. But the petty ecclesiastical measure* of 
 Laud not only roused strong opposition in England, but so exasperated the 
 Scots that they rose in rebellion. Attempts to pacify them failed, and in 
 the spring of 1640 Charles was forced to call a Parliament. He quarreled 
 with it, however, and sent it home in disgrace. But the Scotch difficulty 
 was increasing, the king was unable to meet it, and so he reluctantly sum- 
 moned his fifth Parliament. This was the famous Long Parliament ; and 
 it proceeded at once to call the king's ministers to account. In its eyes 
 Strafford was the arch criminal.] 
 
 STRAFFORD came up to town late on Monday, rested on 
 Tuesday, came to Parliament on Wednesday, and that very 
 night was in the Tower. The Lower House closed their 
 doors, and the speaker kept the keys till the debate was over, 
 when Pym, attended by a number of members, went up to the 
 Upper House, and, in a short speech, accused, in the name of 
 the Commons of England, Thomas, earl of Strafford and lord- 
 lieutenant of Ireland, of high treason. The sudden step as- 
 tounded the Lords ; word went to Strafford, who was just then 
 closeted with the king; he returned instantly to the House, 
 called loudly at the door for Maxwell (keeper of the black rod) 
 to open, and, with firm step and proudly darkened countenance, 
 marched straight up to his place at the board head. A host 
 of voices immediately forced him to the door again. The 
 consultation over, he was called back and stood before the 
 House. "Kneel, kneel," he was told; he knelt, and on his 
 knees was delivered into the custody of the black rod, to be 
 a prisoner till cleared of the Common's charges. He offered 
 to speak, but was commanded to be gone without a word.
 
 TRIAL OK STRAFFORD. 233 
 
 The black rod bore off his great charge, and apparently felt 
 his importance on the occasion. " In the outer room," says 
 Baillie, "James Maxwell required him, as a prisoner, to give 
 up his sword. When he had got it he cried with a loud 
 voice for his man to carry my lord-lieutenant's sword. This 
 done, he makes through a number of people toward his coach, 
 all gazing, no man capping to him before whom that morning 
 the greatest of England would have stood discovered; all 
 crying, "What is the matter?" He said, "A small matter 
 I warrant you." They replied, " Yes, indeed, high treason is 
 a small matter." Coming to the place where he expected his 
 coach, it was not there, so he behoved to return that same 
 way, through a world of gazing people. When at last he 
 found his coach, and was entering, James Maxwell told him, 
 "Your lordship is my prisoner, and must go in my coach." 
 This great step taken, the Commons were all activity. Pur- 
 suivants dispatched to Ireland and the north sounded the 
 trumpet, and summoned all who had any complaint against 
 the lord-deputy and president to appear at the approaching 
 trial. Strafford was busily employed with his counsel in the 
 Tower preparing his defense. 
 
 Four months passed, and the two sides met to encounter in 
 the court of justice, before they tried their strength at Mars- 
 ton Moor and Worcester. On the 2ist of March, Westmin- 
 ster Hall, railed and platformed, and benched, and scaffolded 
 up to the roof, showed an ascending crowd of heads judges, 
 lawyers, peers of Parliament, Scotch commissioners, aggrieved 
 gentlemen from the north, incensed Irish lords; the look of 
 strife, of curiosity, and here and there of affection and pity, 
 turned, in the excitement of the opening trial, on the illustri- 
 ous prisoner. From a high scaffold at the north end an 
 empty throne looked disconsolately over the scene, a chair 
 for the prince on ore side of it, which he occupied during the 
 proceedings. "Before it" the accurate and characteristic 
 account of an eye-witness shall continue the description 
 10*
 
 234 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 " lay a large wool-sack, covered with green, for my lord stew- 
 ard, the earl of Arundel. Beneath it lay two other sacks for 
 the lord keeper and the judges, with the rest of the Chancery, 
 all in their red robes. Beneath this, a little table for four or 
 five clerks of the Parliament, in their black gowns. Round 
 about these some forms covered with green frieze, whereupon 
 the earls and lords did sit in their red robes of the same 
 fashion, lined with the same white ermine skin, as ye see the 
 robes of our lords when they ride to Parliament. Behind the 
 forms, where the lords sit, there is a bar covered with green. 
 At the one end stands the committee of eight or ten gentle- 
 men appointed by the House of Commons to pursue. At the 
 midst there is a little desk, where the prisoner stands or sits 
 as he pleases, together with his keeper, Sir William Balfour, 
 the lieutenant of the Tower. This is the order of the House 
 below on the floor; the same that is used daily in the higher 
 House. Upon the two sides of the House, east and west, there 
 arose a stage of eleven ranks of forms, the highest almost 
 touching the roof; every one of these forms went from the one 
 end of the room to the other, and contained about forty men ; 
 the two highest were divided from the rest by a rail, and a 
 rail at every end cut off some seats. The gentlemen of the 
 Lower House sat within the rails, others without. All the doors 
 were kept very straitly with guards. We always behoved to 
 be there a little after five in the morning. Lord Willoughby, 
 earl of Lindsey, lord-chamberlain of England (Pembroke is 
 chamberlain of the court) ordered the House with great diffi- 
 culty. James Maxwell, black rod, was great usher; a num- 
 ber of other servants, gentlemen, and knights, assisted. The 
 House was full daily before seven; the lords, in their- robes, 
 were set about eight. The king was usually half an hour 
 before them. He came not into his throne, for that would 
 have marred the action ; for it is the order of England, when 
 the king appears, he speaks what he will, but no other speaks 
 in his presence. At the back of the throne were two rooms
 
 TRIAL OF STRAFFORD. 235 
 
 on the two sides. In the one duke de Vanden, duke de 
 Valler, and other French nobles, sat ; in the other, the king, 
 queen, princess Mary, the prince elector, and other court 
 ladies. The tirlies, that made them to be secret, the king 
 brake down with his own hands, so that they sat in the eyes 
 of all ; but little more regarded than if they had been absent, 
 for the lords sat all covered. Those of the Lower House, 
 and all others, except the French noblemen, sat discovered 
 when the lords came, not else. A number of ladies were in 
 boxes above the rails, for which they paid much money." 
 Private persons of place and distinction were admitted to 
 place among the Commons ; one of whom was Baillie, prin- 
 cipal of the University of Glasgow, and one of the commis- 
 sioners from Scotland, from whose letters we borrow this 
 description. By the force of a clear, strong mind, the intel- 
 lectual Scotchman proceeds, in spite of himself, to describe, in 
 Strafford, a fallen greatness, before which the noisy bustling 
 scene sank into vulgarity ; and, while his hatred of the cham- 
 pion of Church and king is as intense as ever, his intellect 
 bows to the nobleness and grandeur of the man. 
 
 At eight o'clock the lieutenant and a guard brought up 
 Strafford in a barge from the Tower ; the lord-chamberlain 
 and black rod met him at the door of the court. On his 
 entrance he made a low courtesy, when he had proceeded a 
 little way a second, and, on coming to his place, a third ; he 
 then kneeled, with his forehead upon his desk, rose quickly, 
 saluted both sides of the court, and sat down ; some few of 
 the lords lifted their hats to him. Every day he was attired 
 in the same deep suit of black. Four secretaries sat at a 
 desk just behind him, whom he kept busily employed read- 
 ing and writing, arranging and handing him his papers; and 
 behind them his counsel, five or six able lawyers, who were 
 not permitted to argue upon matters of fact, but only on 
 points of law. 
 
 A day or two were occupied in preambles and general
 
 236 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 statements, and a declamatory speech from Pym gave a 
 sketch of all the charges against Strafford, and endeavored 
 to destroy all the merit of those parts of his administration 
 which the accused could appeal to. The regular business of 
 the court followed ; twenty-eight charges of treason and mal- 
 administration were formally preferred against Strafford ; 
 every high proceeding and act of power, every harshness, 
 and every case of grievance of the subject, noble and aristo- 
 cratical, that they thought could tell upon the court; all the 
 knots and rough spots and corners that an administration of 
 unparalleled activity had, in the full swing and impetus of its 
 course, contracted, were brought up, singly and isolatedly 
 enlarged upon, and exhibited in the very worst color. Straf- 
 ford was asserted to have done every thing with a view to 
 the most selfish ends, to establish his own tyranny, oppression, 
 and extortion ; and the very idea of a respectable intention in 
 what he did, of any view to public good, mistaken, irregular, 
 as they might think it, but still real, was not alluded to. 
 
 Strafford was fully equal to the emergency, and played off 
 his host of papers with all the self-possession and dexterity 
 possible. No knowledge of what a thread his life hung by 
 ever unsteadied for a moment his thorough coolness and pres- 
 ence of mind ; no unfair play, time after time, throughout the 
 trial, put him the least out of temper; he let nothing pass 
 without a struggle, he fought for a point of law or court prac- 
 tice stoutly, determinately ; when decided against him, the 
 fine, well-tempered spirit was passive again, took, with a nil 
 admirari, what it could not help, and workrd upon the bad 
 ground as if it were its own choice. A charge was made with 
 every skillful exaggeration and embellishment ; he simply 
 asked time to get up his reply it was refused ; without " sign 
 of repining " it is the unconsciously beautiful expression of 
 Baillie he turned round and conferred with his counsel. For 
 a few minutes a little nucleus of heads, amid the general tur- 
 moil, were seen in earnest consultation, eyes bent downward,
 
 TRIAL OF STRAFFORD. 237 
 
 and hands shuffling and picking out papers : the defense 
 arranged with that concentrated attention which shortness of 
 time and necessity inspire, Strafford was ready again, and 
 faced the court. Great was the contrast of the rest of the 
 scene ; these pauses were the immediate signal for a regular 
 noise and hubbub, and it was with laughing, chattering, walk- 
 ing about, eating and drinking, close to him and echoed from 
 all sides, that the tall, black figure of Strafford was seen, " seri- 
 ous with his secretaries," and life and death were at work in 
 his small isolated knot. The general behavior in court 
 throughout was gross and vulgar in the extreme, and scan- 
 dalized Baillie. There was a continual noise, movement, and 
 confusion of people leaving and returning, doors slamming, 
 and enormous eating and drinking; bread and meat and 
 confections were dispatched greedily; the bottle went round 
 from mouth to mouth, and the assembled company mani- 
 fested by the freest signs their enjoyment of the occasion. 
 
 XXXIX. 
 
 ATTEMPT TO ARREST THE FIVE MEMBERS. GARDINER. 
 
 [Strafford was condemned and executed in May of 1641. In the summer 
 of that year Charles visited his northern capital. His plan was to make 
 peace with the Scots, which he did by yielding all the points in dispute, 
 and then to turn upon and crush the English opposition. Returning to 
 London toward the close of the year, he brought a charge of high treason 
 against five of the leaders of the House of Commons. There were consti- 
 tutional methods by which these men might have been arrested, and, if 
 guilty, punished. But Charles disdained constitutional ways and chose to 
 resort to force. He grossly violated the privileges of the Parliament by 
 going to the House of Commons at the head of a body of armed men and 
 attempting to arrest his enemies in their places in the House.] 
 
 IF the blow had not already fallen, it was because Charles 
 had been involved in his usual vacillation. According to a
 
 238 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 not improbable account, he had that morning sought out the 
 queen, and had given strong reasons against the execution of 
 the plan. Henrietta Maria was in no mood to accept ex- 
 cuses. " Go, you coward ! " she cried, " and pull these rogues 
 out by the ears, or never see my face more." Charles bowed 
 to fate and his high-spirited wife, and left her, resolved to 
 hang back no longer. Again there was delay, perhaps on 
 account of the adjournment at midday; and before Charles 
 actually left Whitehall the queen had trusted the secret to 
 her ill-chosen confidante, Lady Carlisle, and Lady Carlisle 
 at once conveyed the news to Essex. 
 
 Before dinner was over the five accused members received 
 a message from Essex, telling them that the king was coming 
 in person to seize them, and recommending them to with- 
 draw. They could not make up their minds as yet to fly. 
 In truth, Charles was still hesitating, in his usual fashion, and 
 it might be that he would never accomplish his design. 
 When the House met again at one, satisfactory replies were 
 received from the inns of court. The lawyers said that they 
 had gone to Whitehall, because they were bound to defend 
 the king's person, but that they were also ready to defend 
 the Parliament. The Lords, too, had shown themselves res- 
 olute, ar.d had agreed to join the Commons in styling the 
 attorney-general's articles a scandalous paper. 
 
 It may be that the contemptuous term applied to the accu- 
 sation which he had authorized had at last goaded Charles 
 to action. Late but, as she fondly hoped, not too late 
 the queen had her way. About three o'clock Charles, taking 
 with him the elector palatine, hurried down stairs, calling 
 out, " Let my faithful subjects and soldiers follow me." 
 Throwing himself into a coach, which happened to be near 
 the door, he drove off, followed by some three or four hun- 
 dred armed men. 
 
 Such a number could not march at any great speed. A 
 Frenchman, named Langres, who had probably been set to
 
 ATTEMPT TO ARREST THE FIVE MEMBERS. 239 
 
 watch by the ambassador, La Ferte, pushed through the 
 crowd, and ran swiftly to the House of Commons. He at 
 ohce called out Fiennes and told him what he had seen. 
 The five members were at once required to withdraw. Pym, 
 Hampden, Hazlerigg, and Holies took the course which 
 prudence directed. Strode, always impetuous, insisted on 
 remaining to face the worst, till Erie seized him by the cloak 
 and dragged him off to the river-side, where boats were 
 always to be found. The five were all conveyed in safety to 
 the city. 
 
 It was high time for them to be gone. Charles's fierce ret- 
 inue struck terror as it passed. The shopkeepers in the 
 mean buildings which had been run up against the north end 
 of Westminster Hall hastily closed their windows. Charles 
 alighted and strode rapidly through the Hall between the 
 ranks of the armed throng. As he mounted the steps which 
 led to the House of Commons he gave the signal to them to 
 await his return there. About eighty of them, however, 
 probably in consequence of previous orders, pressed after 
 him into the lobby, and it was afterward noticed that "divers 
 of the late army in the north, and other desperate ruffians " 
 had been selected for this post. 
 
 Charles did his best to maintain a show of decency. He 
 sent a message to the House, informing them of his arrival. 
 As he entered, with the young elector palatine at his side, 
 he bade his followers on their lives to remain outside. But 
 he clearly wished it to be known that he was prepared to 
 use force if it were necessary. The earl of Roxburgh 
 leaned against the door, keeping it open so that the members 
 might see what they had to expect in case of resistance. By 
 Roxburgh's side stood Captain David Hyde, one of the 
 greatest scoundrels in England. The rest were armed with 
 swords and pistols, and many of them had left their cloaks 
 in the Hall, with the evident intention of leaving the sword- 
 arm free.
 
 240 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 As Charles stepped through the door, which none of his 
 predecessors had ever passed, he was, little as he thought 
 it^ formally acknowledging that power had passed into new 
 hands. The revolution, which his shrewd father had de- 
 scried when he bade his attendants to set stools for the depu- 
 ties of the Commons as for the embassadors of a king, was 
 now a reality before him. He had come to the Commons 
 because they would no longer come to him. To Charles the 
 new constitutional fact was merely a temporary interruption 
 of established order. In his eyes there was visible no more than 
 a mortal duel between King Charles and King Pym. As he 
 moved forward, the members standing bare-headed on either 
 side, his glance, perhaps involuntarily, sought the place on 
 the right-hand side near the bar which was usually occupied 
 by Pym. That seat was empty. It was the one thing for 
 which he was unprepared. "By your leave, Mr. Speaker," 
 he said, as he reached the upper end of the House, "I must 
 borrow your chair a little." Standing in front of it, he cast 
 his eyes around, seeking for those who were by this time far 
 away. 
 
 "Gentlemen," he said at last, "I am sorry for this occa- 
 sion of coming unto you. Yesterday I sent a sergeant-at~ 
 arms upon a very important occasion to apprehend some 
 that by my command were accused of high treason, where- 
 unto I did expect obedience, and not a message ; and I must 
 declare unto you here that, albeit no king that ever was in 
 England shall be more careful of your privileges to maintain 
 them to the uttermost of his power than I shall be, yet you must 
 know that in cases of treason no person hath a privilege; and, 
 therefore, I am come to know if any of these persons that 
 were accused are here." 
 
 Once more he cast his eyes around. " I do not see any of 
 them," he muttered, "I think I should know them." "For 
 I must tell you, gentlemen," he went on to say, in continua- 
 tion of his interrupted address, "that so long as those per-
 
 ATTEMPT TO ARREST THE FIVE MEMBERS. 241 
 
 sons that I have accused for no slight crime, but for treason 
 are here, I cannot expect that this House can be in the 
 right way that I do heartily wish it. Therefore, I am come 
 to tell you that I must have them wheresoever I find them." 
 
 Then, hoping against hope that he had not come in vain, 
 he put the question, " Is Mr. Pym here ?" There was no re- 
 ply, and a demand for Holies was no less fruitless. Charles 
 turned to Lenthall. "Are any of these persons in the 
 House ?" he asked. " Do you see any of them ? Where are 
 they ?" Lenthall was not a great orheroic man, but he knew 
 what his duty was. He now gave voice, in words of singular 
 force and dexterity, to the common feeling that no individual 
 expression of the intentions or opinions of the House was 
 permissible. " May it please your majesty," he said, falling 
 on his knee before the king, " I have neither eyes to see, nor 
 tongue to speak, in this place but as this House is pleased to 
 direct me, whose servant I am here; and I humbly beg your 
 majesty's pardon that I cannot give any other answer than 
 this to what your majesty is pleased to demand of me." 
 
 " Well," replied Charles, assuming a cheerfulness which he 
 can hardly have felt, " I think my eyes are as good as an- 
 other's." Once more he looked carefully along the benches. 
 " Well," he said, " I see all the birds are flown. I do expect 
 from you that you shall send them unto me as soon as they 
 return hither. If not, I will seek them myself, for their trea- 
 son is foul, and such a one as you will thank me to discover. 
 But I assure you, on the word of a king, I never did intend 
 any force, but shall proceed against them in a legal and fair 
 way, for I never meant any other. I see I cannot do what I 
 came for. I think this is no unfit occasion to repeat what 
 I have said formerly, that whatsoever I have done in favor, 
 and to the good of my subjects, I do mean to maintain it." 
 
 So Charles spoke, and so, no doubt, he thought. He did 
 not intend to assassinate the five whom he accused, any more 
 than Pym had a year before intended to assassinate Straf-
 
 242 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 ford. But he meant again to be king of England, as he and 
 his father before him had understood kingship. It would not 
 be his fault if resistance brought bloodshed with it. 
 
 He knew now that, for the time at least, he was baffled. As 
 he left the House, with gloom on his brow, he could hear the 
 cries of " Privilege ! Privilege !" raised behind him. His 
 armed followers were exasperated at his failure. Those min- 
 utes of waiting had sadly tried their patience. Strange words 
 had fallen from the lips of some of them. "I warrant you," 
 said one, cocking his pistol, " I am a good marksman, I will 
 hit sure." " A pox take the House of Commons," growled 
 another, " let them be hanged if they will." When the king 
 re-appeared, there was a general cry for the word which was 
 to let them loose. " How strong is the House of Commons?" 
 asked one. " Zounds !" cried another, as soon as the absence 
 of the five was known, "they are gone, and now we are never 
 the better for our coming." The general feeling of these men 
 was doubtless expressed by an officer on the following day. 
 He and his comrades, he said, had come, " because they 
 heard that the House of Commons would not obey the king, 
 and therefore they came to force them to it; and he believed, 
 in the posture that they were set, that if the word had been 
 given, they should certainly have fallen upon the House of 
 Commons." 
 
 Such was the shape which Charles's legal and peaceable ac- 
 tion took in the eyes of those whom he had called on to exe- 
 cute his design. The Commons at once adjourned, with the 
 sense that they had but just escaped a massacre. 
 
 Charles could not afford to acknowledge that he had failed. 
 The next day he set out for the city, hoping to obtain there 
 what he had not obtained at Westminster. He took with 
 him in his coach, Hamilton, Essex, Holland, and Newport, 
 perhaps with the idea of sheltering himself under their popu- 
 larity. The rumor spread that he was carrying them with 
 him in ord^r to imprison them in the Tower. Multitudes
 
 ATTEMPT TO ARREST THE FIVE MEMBERS. 243 
 
 poured into the streets in no gentle humor. At last he reached 
 Guildhall, and made his demand to the common council. 
 After he had spoken there was a long silence, broken at last 
 by shouts of " Parliament ! Privileges of Parliament !" The 
 meeting was, however, not unanimous. Cries as loud of 
 "God bless the king" were heard. Charles asked that those 
 who had any thing to say should speak their minds. " It is 
 the vote of this court," cried one, " that your majesty hear 
 the advice of your Parliament." "It is not the vote of this 
 court," cried another, " it is your own vote." " Who is it," 
 asked the king, " that says I do not take the advice of my 
 Parliament? I do take their advice; but I must distinguish 
 between the Parliament and some traitors in it. Those I 
 would bring to a legal trial." On this a man sprang on a 
 form and shouted out, " Privileges of Parliament !" Charles 
 repeated what he had said, in a slightly altered form. " I 
 have and will observe all privileges of Parliament, but no 
 privileges can protect a traitor from a legal trial." In spite 
 of the division of opinion, it was evident that there would be 
 no surrender of the members. As the king passed out, there 
 was a loud shout of "Privileges of Parliament!" from the 
 crowd outside. He stopped to dine with one of the sheriffs. 
 On his way back to Whitehall the streets rang with the cry 
 of " Privileges of Parliament." One bold man threw into his 
 coach a paper, on which was written, " To your tents, O Is- 
 rael !" The allusion to Rehoboam's deposition was one 
 which Charles could not fail to understand.
 
 244 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 XL. 
 
 EXECUTION OF CHARLES THE FIRST. GUIZOT. 
 
 [The attempt upon the five members resulted in a triumph for them, and 
 the country rapidly drifted into civil war. During the first eighteen months 
 of the struggle the advantage lay witli the king, owing chiefly to his supe- 
 riority in cavalry. But the formation of Cromwell's famous "Ironsides" 
 turned the scale in favor of the Parliament. At Marston Moor the royal- 
 ist army, under Rupert, was disastrously defeated in July of 1644, and the 
 king himself was overthrown at Naseby in June of 1645. Charles took 
 refuge with the Scots, who had joined the side of the Parliament in the war ; 
 the Scots, failing to convert him to their creed, delivered him over to the 
 English Presbyterians, and from the hands of the latter he passed into the 
 keeping of the army, which was composed chiefly of Independents, and 
 whose ruling spirit was Cromwell. The king played a shuffling game with 
 all parties. In 1648 a reaction took place in his favor. The Scots and the 
 English royalists and Presbyterians united against the Independent army to 
 place him back upon the throne. The army crushed the movement, and 
 resolved to call the king to account for the blood that had been shed. He 
 was tried and condemned by a tribunal, which was virtually a court-mar- 
 tial.] 
 
 THE king, after a few hours of tranquil sleep, left his bed. 
 " I have a great affair to terminate," he said to Herbert, " I 
 must get up immediately ; " and he went to his toilet. Her- 
 bert was agitated, and did not comb his hair with his usual 
 care. "I pray you," said Charles, "take as much pains as 
 usual; though my head is not to remain long upon my shoul- 
 ders, I will be dressed like a bridegroom to-day." As he was 
 dressing he asked for a second shirt; "the season is so cold," 
 he said, "that I might tremble; some people would attribute 
 it to fear, and I would not have such a supposition possible." 
 As soon as day dawned the bishop arrived, and began his pi- 
 ous office; as he read, in the twenty-seventh chapter of the 
 Gospel according to St. Matthew, the passion of Jesus Christ, 
 the king asked him, " My lord, did you choose this chapter
 
 EXECUTION OF CHARLES THE FIRST. 245 
 
 as applicable to my situation ?" "I beg your majesty to ob- 
 serve," said the bishop, " that it is the gospel of the day, as 
 the calendar indicates." The king appeared deeply affected, 
 and continued his devotions with greater fervor. At about 
 ten a gentle knock was heard at the door; Herbert paid no 
 heed to it; a second, rather louder, though still gentle knock 
 succeeded. "Go," said the king, "and see who is there." It 
 was Hacker. " Tell him to come in," said the king. " Sir," 
 said the colonel, with a low and trembling voice, ''it is time 
 to go to Whitehall; your majesty will still have an hour there 
 to compose yourself." " I will go directly," answered Charles; 
 "leave me." Hacker went out; the king bent for a few mo- 
 ments more in silent prayer; and then, taking the bishop by 
 the hand, " Come," he said, " let us go ; Herbert, open the 
 door, Hacker knocks again; " and he went down into the park, 
 through which he was to pass on his way to Whitehall. 
 
 Several companies of infantry awaited him, forming a doub- 
 le line on each side of his road; a detachment of halberdiers 
 marched on before, with banners flying; the drums beat; not 
 a voice could be heard for the noise. On the right of the 
 king was the bishop; on the left, with his head uncovered, was 
 Colonel Tomlinson, the commander of the guard, whom 
 Charles, touched by his attentions, had requested not to leave 
 him till his last moment. He talked with him, as they ad- 
 vanced, of his funeral, of the persons to whom he wished the 
 care of it to be intrusted, with a serene air, a beaming eye, a 
 firm step, walking even faster than the troops, and wondering 
 at their slowness. One of the officers on duty, probably think- 
 ing to confuse him, asked him whether he had not concurred 
 with the late duke of Buckingham in causing the death of his 
 father. " My friend," answered Charles, with gentle contempt, 
 "if I had no other sin than that, I call God to witness that I 
 should not have any need to beg his forgiveness." Arrived 
 at Whitehall, he ascended the stairs with a light step, passed 
 through the long gallery, and gained his bedroom, where he
 
 246 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 was left alone with the bishop, who was preparing to give him 
 the communion. A few Independent ministers, Nye and 
 Goodwin among the rest, came and knocked at the door, say- 
 ing that they wished to offer their services to the king. " The 
 king is at prayers," answered Juxon; yet they still insisted. 
 " Well, then," said Charles to the bishop, " thank them in my 
 name for their offer; but tell them frankly that after having 
 so often prayed against me, and without any reason, they shall 
 not pray with me in my agony. They can, if they like, pray 
 for me; for that I shall be grateful." They thereupon re- 
 tired ; and the king knelt down, received the communion 
 from the hands of the bishop, and then, rising with alacrity, 
 said: "Now let these rascals come; I have forgiven them 
 from my heart, and I am prepared for all that I have to go 
 through." His dinner had been prepared, but he refused to 
 eat any of it. " Sir," said Juxon, " your majesty has long been 
 fasting; the weather is so cold, perhaps on the scaffold some 
 fainting . . ." "You are right," interrupted the king, and he 
 took a piece of bread and drank a glass of wine. It was then 
 one o'clock; Hacker knocked at the door. Juxon and Herbert 
 fell on their knees; "Rise, my old friend," said Charles, hold- 
 ing out his hand to the bishop. Hacker knocked again, and 
 Charles ordered the door to be opened. "Go on," he said to 
 the colonel, " I will follow you." He advanced through the 
 banqueting hall, still between a double line of soldiers; a 
 multitude of men and women, who had rushed in at the peril 
 of their lives, stood motionless behind the guard, praying for 
 the king as he passed; the soldiers themselves were silent, and 
 did not insult him. At the farther end of the hall an opening 
 had been made in the wall leading immediately to the scaf- 
 fold, which was entirely covered with black. Two men, 
 dressed as sailors and both wearing masks, stood by the block. 
 The king arrived, carrying his head erect, and looking on all 
 sides for the people to speak to them; but, seeing that only 
 soldiers filled the place, and that none could approach, he
 
 Execution of King Charles.
 
 EXECUTION OF CHARLES THE FIRST. 249 
 
 turned toward Juxon and Tomlinson, and said, " I cannot be 
 heard by many but yourselves, therefore to you I will speak a 
 few words;" and he delivered to them a short speech which 
 he had prepared, and which was calm and grave to coldness, 
 and merely intended to maintain that he had been right ; that 
 contempt of the rights of the sovereign was the true cause of 
 the people's misfortunes ; that the people ought not to take any 
 part in government ; that upon this condition only would the 
 country ever regain peace and its liberties. While he was 
 speaking, some one touched the ax ; he turned hastily, say- 
 ing, " Do not spoil the ax, it would hurt me more; " and when 
 he had finished his speech, some one again approaching it, 
 " Take care of the ax, take care ! " he repeated, in a tone of 
 terror. The most profound silence reigned; he put a silk cap 
 on his head, and, addressing the executioner, said : " Is my 
 hair in the way?" "I beg your majesty to push it more un- 
 der your cap," replied the man, bowing. The king, with the 
 help of the bishop, pushed his hair aside. As he was doing 
 this he said : " I have on my side a good cause, and a merci- 
 ful God." " Yes, sir," said the bishop, " there is but one stage 
 more, which, though turbulent and troublesome, is yet a very 
 short one. Consider, it will soon carry you a great way; it 
 will carry you from earth to heaven ! " "I go," replied the 
 king, " from a corruptible to an incorruptible crown, where no 
 disturbance can take place ! " and, turning toward the execu- 
 tioner, "Is my hair now right?" he said. He took off his 
 cloak and George, gave the George to Juxon, saying, "Re- 
 member ! " He then took off his coat, put on his cloak again, 
 and, looking at the block, said to the executioner, " Place it 
 so that it will not shake." "It is firm, sir," replied the man. 
 The king said : " I shall say a short prayer, and when I hold 
 out my hands, then . . ." 
 
 He stood in meditation, said a few words to himself, raised 
 his eyes to heaven, knelt down, and laid his head upon the 
 block; the executioner touched his hair to push it still farther
 
 250 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 under his cap ; the king thought he was going to strike. 
 "Wait for the signal," he said. "I shall wait for it, sir, with 
 the good pleasure of your majesty." In about a minute the 
 king held out his hands; the executioner struck; the head 
 was severed at a blow. "This is the head of a traitor," he 
 cried, as he held it up to the people; a long, deep murmur 
 spread around Whitehall; many persons rushed to the scaf- 
 fold to dip their handkerchiefs in the king's blood. Two 
 troops of horse, advancing in different directions, slowly dis- 
 persed the crowd. When the scaffold was at length clear, the 
 body was taken away; it was already inclosed in the coffin 
 when Cromwell wished to see it. He considered it attentive- 
 ly, and, taking up the head in his hands, as if to make sure 
 that it was severed from the body, said: " This was a well-con- 
 stituted frame and promised a long life." 
 
 XLI. 
 THE DECISION AT WORCESTER. FORSTER. 
 
 [The execution of Charles was followed by the overthrow of the mon- 
 archy and the establishment of a republic or : ' commonwealth." But the 
 new state was forced at once to enter upon a struggle for existence. Wide- 
 spread disaffection existed in England ; in Scotland, the son of the "mar- 
 tyr-king" was called to the throne; in Ireland there was open rebellion. 
 Cromwell's vigorous campaign restored order in Ireland, and in the summer 
 of 1650 he was sent against the Scots. He defeated them disastrously at 
 Dunbar, but they rallied the next year, and staked all on an invasion of 
 England. Cromwell followed and overtook them at Worcester.] 
 
 WITH the advance of winter an attack of ague seized 
 Cromwell, but after severe suffering he rallied, and in time 
 for that ill-judged movement of the young king of Scots 
 which brought on the battle of Worcester. 
 
 The Presbyterian army, restored to a numerous and most 
 effective force, now held a strong position near Stirling.
 
 THE DECISION AT WORCESTER. 251 
 
 Charles II. commanded it in person. Taught by the fatal 
 experience of Dunbar, however, he kept acting on the 
 defensive, and could not be drawn from his well-selected 
 ground. As a last effort with this view, Cromwell, with sin- 
 gular daring, transported his army into Fife, and proceeded 
 toward Perth, which he captured after a siege of two days. 
 The stratagem succeeded, in one sense, but, besides moving 
 the Scots from their stronghold, it had also induced Charles to 
 ydopt the plan of marching into England. It is said that in 
 this he yielded to the advice of his English followers, who 
 overruled the more prudent Argyle, looked with contempt upon 
 the Parliament, and counted upon the numerical majority of 
 the English nation as unquestionably in his favor. On the 
 3ist of July he broke up his camp near the Torvvood, and on 
 the 6th of August reached Carlisle. 
 
 Cromwell was engaged in the superintendence of a new 
 citadel by means of which he designed to hold Perth in sub- 
 jection, when the news reached him of the movement of the 
 Presbyterians and the king. His spirit rose to that crisis 
 with a renewal of the excitement which men noted in him at 
 Dunbar. He wrote at once to London to give all necessary 
 courage and confidence to the council and citizens. After 
 informing them of the meditated invasion hanging over them, 
 he observed that it " was not out of choice on our part ; " 
 and did not conceal his fear that it would trouble some 
 men's thoughts, and occasion some inconvenience. But, he 
 adds, "this is our comfort, that, in simplicity of heart as to God, 
 we have done to the best of our judgments, knowing that, if 
 some issue were not put to this business, it would occasion 
 another winter's war, to the ruin of your soldiery, for whom 
 the Scots are too hard in respect of enduring the winter dif- 
 ficulties of this country, and have been under the endless 
 expense of the treasury of England in prosecuting this war. 
 It may be supposed we might have kept the enemy from this 
 by interposing between him and England, which I truly 
 11
 
 252 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 believe we might ; but hmu to remove him out of this place 
 without doing what we have done, unless we had a commanding 
 army on both sides of the river of Forth, is not clear to us. or 
 how to answer the inconveniences afore-mentioned, we under- 
 stand not." He then entreats that the council of state would 
 collect what forces they could without loss of time, to give 
 the enemy some check, until he should be able to overtake 
 them. Meantime, he sent Lambert at the head of the cav- 
 alry, who, upon joining with Harrison, whose forces were at 
 Newcastle, was ordered to advance through the western parts 
 of Northumberland, to intercept the Scots in their progress 
 through Lancashire, to watch their motions, straiten their 
 quarters, impede their progress in every way, but not to risk 
 a battle. 
 
 Charles, meanwhile, with but sorry success, had pushed on 
 by Kendal and Preston to Warrington, where, at the bridge, 
 he received a momentary check from Lambert and Harrison. 
 He still forced his way, summoned Shrewsbury in passing, but 
 without effect, and at last made for Worcester, where he was 
 proclaimed, according to Clarendon, king of England, Scot- 
 land, France, and Ireland. 
 
 London, anticipating his entry almost every hour, gave way 
 to fearful alarms. Even Bradshaw himself, it is said, lion- 
 hearted as he was, could not among his private friends con- 
 ceal his fears. Some raged against Cromwell, and uttered 
 deep suspicions of his fidelity. No one could understand his 
 intentions, nor where he was, nor why he had allowed an 
 enemy to enter the land when there were no troops to 
 oppose him. Both the city and the country, says Mrs. 
 Hutchinson, were all amazed, and doubtful of their own and 
 the commonwealth's safety. Some could not hide very pale 
 and unmanly fears, and were in such distraction of spirit as 
 much disturbed their counsels. 
 
 Yet truly there was little need. The genius of Cromwell 
 had already saved them. He had collected a tremendous
 
 THE DECISION AT WORCESTER. 253 
 
 force nearly thirty thousand men and on the 28th of Au- 
 gust had them all in position within two miles of Worcester. 
 The Presbyterian force was greatly inferior, but the almost 
 impregnable site of the city of Worcester was an ample set- 
 off against that circumstance. 
 
 Built along the right bank of the Severn, it defied immedi- 
 ate assault, and Charles's officers had, of course, done their best 
 to increase its already splendid resources of resistance and 
 defense. Cromwell found the bridges broken above and 
 below, every boat removed not even a punt to be seen and, 
 in the extensive line of fires above, saw how strongly the 
 heights of the place were occupied. But not for a moment 
 did he hesitate. Inspired by the genius which had served 
 him so often, and never failed him yet, he took the sudden 
 and daring resolve of throwing his army astride upon two 
 rivers. of forcing at their higher transits a passage across both 
 the Severn and the Teme and of coming down at once upon 
 the enemy from the eastern and western heights overlooking 
 Worcester! 
 
 The preparations for this daring exploit were completed on 
 the 2d of September, for Cromwell had, moreover, deter- 
 mined to fight this decisive battle for the possession of three 
 disputed kingdoms on what he called his fortunate day his 
 day of Dunbar. Skirmishes meanwhile took place between 
 the out-posts on both sides of the river, and before the morn- 
 ing of the 3d a desperate struggle had passed at the half- 
 broken Upton bridge, between Lambert and its gallant 
 defender, Massey. Lambert carried it at last, repaired the 
 broken arch, and conducted across ten thousand men, who 
 took their ground along the course of the Teme. 
 
 It was now the morning of the 3d. The Presbyterians had 
 the day before, in alarm at Lambert's movement, destroyed 
 every bridge upon that river. Yet Cromwell, not caring to 
 husband life at any time, and still less now when his superior 
 numbers gave him so many lives to play with sent out an
 
 254 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 order to Fleetwood to force, at any loss, his detached corps 
 across the Teme. Cromwell at the same moment threw a 
 bridge of boats over the Severn at Bunshill, near the conflu- 
 ence of the two rivers, and restored the communication that 
 had been partially cut off. A hot fire near Powick so sud- 
 den were these movements was the first thing that attracted 
 the attention of Charles, who, from one of the towers of the 
 cathedral, was examining the positions of the enemy, when, 
 finding that an attack was begun in that quarter, he instantly 
 dispatched a re-enforcement of horse and foot to the spot, 
 and gave instructions to the commanding officer to prevent, if 
 possible, the formation of the bridge. But a similar addition 
 had been made to the detachment under Fleetwood, who 
 again outnumbered his opponents, and pressed them with 
 great vivacity toward Worcester. " The Scots, in the hope 
 that, by occupying so large a force, they might afford to their 
 countrymen on the other side of the Severn an opportunity of 
 breaking the regiments under Cromwell, maintained the most 
 obstinate resistance." They disputed every inch of ground 
 which presented the slightest advantage; fought from hedge 
 to hedge, and frequently charged with the pike, to check the 
 advance of the enemy. 
 
 For an instant this rolled the tide of battle back toward 
 the Teme ; but fresh battalion after battalion arrived to the 
 support of Fleetwood, who then bore the Scots by fair force 
 of numbers even across the bridge. 
 
 Cromwell was meanwhile deciding the battle under the 
 walls of the town ; and here, or on both sides of the river, 
 from two o'clock in the morning till night-fall, had this terri- 
 ble contest raged with unceasing fury. The main body of 
 the enemy's infantry had advanced out of the city against the 
 renowned chief of the Ironsides, and the conflict upon one 
 spot in this quarter, Cromwell wrote in his dispatch, lasted 
 three hours. It was closed by the veteran regiment which 
 had so often closed the battles of the Parliament, and which
 
 THE DECISION AT WORCESTER. 255 
 
 now, for the last time, advanced at the word of Cromwell. 
 The victory was complete gloriously complete, as the lord- 
 general exultingly wrote, and " gained after as stiff a contest 
 for many hours including both sides of the river" as he 
 had ever seen. The fort having been summoned, and Colo- 
 nel Drummond still refusing to surrender it, it was cairied, 
 in all the wild triumph of the victory, by a furious storm, 
 wherein fifteen hundred men were put to the sword. Charles, 
 flying through the streets in piteous despair, in vain attempted 
 to rally his troops, and, finding they would no longer move, 
 is said to have cried out, with a burst of passionate tears, 
 " Then shoot me dead, rather than let me live to see the sad 
 consequences of this day." A crown had vanished from his 
 grasp. 
 
 On another man, who still stood upon that field, a crown 
 was now descending. He stood there, some time after the 
 day was won, in a state of uncontrollable emotion. Then, 
 calling Fleetwood and Lambert to his side, he told them, 
 with a fit of boisterous laughter, that he would knight them, 
 as heroes of old were knighted (he did not say by kings), on 
 the field where they had achieved their glory. The excite- 
 ment subdued, he retired to his tent, and there, at "ten 
 o'clock at night," " weary, and scarce able to write," he yet 
 wrote to the Parliament of England these memorable words : 
 "The dimensions of this mercy are above my thoughts. It is 
 for aught I know a crowning mercy."
 
 256 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY, 
 
 XLII. 
 DISSOLUTION OF THE LONG PARLIAMENT. GARDINER. 
 
 [The Long Parliament, or what was left of it, was now the highest legit- 
 imate authority in the land. In the course of the revolution, however, it 
 had been weeded out several times, and, in its present maimed and 
 shrunken form, could not pretend to represent the public sentiment of the 
 country. Nevertheless it clung to power, and steadily refused to make 
 way for a new Parliament, freely chosen. For this reason Cromwell drove 
 it out.] 
 
 " PEACE," sung Milton, in his sonnet to Cromwell, " hath 
 her victories no less renowned than war." Peace, too, has 
 her forlorn hopes, her stout battling for a cause lost by an- 
 ticipation, and destined only to re-appear in other days when 
 the standard shall have been intrusted to arms more fortu- 
 nate, if not more stalwart. Cromwell and the higher officers 
 in the army, Sir Henry Vane and the nobler spirits yet re- 
 maining in the Parliament, were alike bent upon realizing the 
 same high object a free state governed in accordance with 
 the resolutions of its elected representatives, and offering 
 guarantees for individual liberty of thought and speech, with- 
 out which Parliamentary government is only another name for 
 tyranny. But their powers were not equal to their wishes. 
 The revolutionary force in the country had been spent long 
 before the execution of Charles ; and now that his possible 
 successor was a youth of whom no harm was known, the 
 Royalist flood was mounting steadily. Even the original 
 feeling of the nation had not been against royalty, but against 
 the particular way in which the king had acted ; and the ne- 
 cessity for dethronement, and the supposed necessity for ex- 
 ecution, had been founded upon reasoning which had never 
 stirred the popular heart. The nation at large did not really 
 care for a commonwealth, did not care for religious liberty. 
 The violent suppression of the Episcopalian worship had
 
 DISSOLUTION OF THE LONG PARLIAMENT. 257 
 
 alienated as many as had been alienated by Laud's injudi- 
 cious resuscitation of obsolete forms. Most Englishmen would 
 have been quite content if they could have got a king who 
 would have shown some reasonable respect for the wishes of 
 Parliament, and who would abstain from open illegality. 
 
 In short, the leaders of the commonwealth found them- 
 selves, in some sort, in the same position as that in which 
 Laud found himself in 1629. They had an ideal of their own, 
 which they believed to be really good for the nation, and they 
 hoped that, by habituating the nation to that which they 
 thought best, they could at last bring it to a right frame of 
 mind. If their experiment and its failure is more interesting 
 than Laud's experiment and its failure, it is because their 
 ideal was far higher than his. It broke down, not because 
 they were wrong, but because the nation was not as yet ripe 
 for acceptance of any thing so good. 
 
 The difference of opinion which slowly grew up between 
 army leaders and Parliamentary leaders was only the natural 
 result of the tacit acknowledgment of this rock ahead, which 
 was none the less felt because both parties shrank from 
 avowing it. A free Parliament would, perhaps, be a Royal- 
 ist Parliament. In that case it would probably care nothing 
 about liberty, and would certainly care nothing about Puri- 
 tanism. How was the danger to be met ? The fifty or sixty 
 men who called themselves a Parliament had their own rem- 
 edy for the disease. Let there be new elections to the vacant 
 seats, but let their own seats not be vacated. Let these old 
 members have power to reject such new members as seemed 
 to them unfit to serve in Parliament. There would be some- 
 thing that looked like a free Parliament, and yet it would not 
 be a free Parliament at all. Those only would be admitted 
 who were thought by the old members to be the right sort 
 of persons to influence the nation. 
 
 The scheme, in fact, was a sham, and Cromwell disliked 
 shams. He had another objection equally strong. If there
 
 258 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 was one thing for which he and his soldiers had fought and 
 bled, it was for the sake of religious liberty, a liberty which 
 was real enough as far as it went, even if it was much less 
 comprehensive than that which has been accepted in later 
 times. No security was offered for religious liberty under 
 the new-old Parliament. There was nothing to prevent it 
 from abolishing all that existed at any moment it pleased. 
 
 As often happens, moral repugnance came to the help of 
 logical reasoning. Not a few of the members of Parliament 
 were conducting themselves in such a way as to forfeit the 
 respect of all honest men. Against foreign foes, indeed, the 
 commonwealth had been successful. The navy, reorganized 
 by Vane, had cleared the seas of Royalist privateers. Com- 
 mercial jealousy against the Dutch had mingled with the tide 
 of political ill-feeling. In 1651 the Navigation Act was aimed 
 at the Dutch carrying trade, which had flourished simply 
 because the Dutch vessels were better built, and long expe- 
 rience had enabled them to transport goods from one coun- 
 try to another more cheaply than the merchants of other na- 
 tions. Henceforth English vessels alone were to be allowed 
 to import goods into England, excepting in the case of vessels 
 belonging to the country in which the goods were produced. 
 
 War was the result. In January, 1652, the seizure of 
 Dutch ships began. The two sturdy antagonists were well 
 matched. There were no decisive victories ; but, on the 
 whole, the English had the upper hand. 
 
 Such a war was expensive. Royalists were forced to com- 
 pound for their estates, forfeited by their adoption of the 
 king's cause. Even if this measure had been fairly carried 
 out, the attempt to make one part of the nation pay for the 
 expenses of the whole was more likely to create dissension 
 than to heal it. But it was not fairly carried out. Members 
 of Parliament took bribes to let this man and that man off 
 more easily than those who were less able to pay. The ef- 
 fects of unlimited power were daily becoming more manifest.
 
 DISSOLUTION OF THE LONG PARLIAMENT. 259 
 
 To be the son or a nephew of one of the holders of author- 
 ity was a sure passport to the public service. Forms of jus- 
 tice were disregarded, and the nation turned with vexation 
 upon its so-called liberators, whose yoke was as heavy to bear 
 as that which had been shaken off. 
 
 Of this dissatisfaction Cromwell made himself the mouth- 
 piece. His remedy for the evil, which both sides dreaded, 
 \vas not the perpetuation of a Parliament which did not rep- 
 resent the nation, but the establishment of constitutional 
 securities which would limit the powers of a freely elected 
 Parliament. He and his officers proposed that a committee, 
 formed of members of Parliament and officers, should be 
 nominated to deliberate on the requisite securities. 
 
 On April 19 he was assured, or believed himself to be as- 
 sured, by one of the leading members that nothing would be 
 done in a hurry. On the morning of the zoth he was told 
 that Parliament was hurriedly passing its own bill, in defiance 
 of his objections. Going at once to the House, he waited 
 till the decisive question was put to vote. Then he rose. 
 The Parliament, he said, had done well in their pains and 
 care for the public good. But it had been stained with " in- 
 justice, delays of justice, self-interest." Then, when a mem- 
 ber interrupted him, he blazed up into anger. " Come, 
 come ! we have had enough of this. I will put an end to 
 this. It is not fit you should sit here any longer." Calling 
 in his soldiers, he bade them clear the House, following the 
 members with words of obloquy as they were driven out. 
 " What shall we do with this bauble ?" he said, taking up the 
 mace. " Take it away." Then, as if feeling the burden of 
 the work which he was doing pressing upon him, he sought 
 to excuse himself, as he had sought to excuse himself after 
 the slaughter of Drogheda. " It is you," he said, " that have 
 forced me to do this. I have sought the Lord night and day 
 that he would rather slay me than put me upon the doing of 
 this work." 
 11*
 
 260 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 XLIII. 
 LAST DAYS OF CROMWELL. MASSON. 
 
 [Cromwell was now virtually supreme. In December, 1653, he was made 
 Lord Protector of the three kingdoms, and entered, with characteristic 
 energy, upon the herculean task of establishing a permanent civil organ- 
 ism, and of securing recognition for his government abroad. Both his 
 home and his foreign policy were exceedingly brilliant, challenging the 
 admiration even of his enemies ; but he was constantly harassed by fac- 
 tions, was often compelled to resort to force when he would have ruled 
 constitutionally, and at last broke down under a burden which proved to 
 be greater than even he could bear.] 
 
 THOUGH but in his sixtieth year, and with his prodigious 
 powers of will, intellect, heart, and humor unimpaired visibly 
 in the least atom, his frame had for some time been giving 
 way under the pressure of his ceaseless burden. For a year 
 or two his handwriting, though statelier and more deliberate 
 than at first, had been singularly tremulous, and to those clos- 
 est about him there had been other signs of physical breaking 
 up. Not till late in July, however, or early in August, was 
 there any serious cause for alarm; and then in consequence 
 of the terrible effects upon his highness of his close attend- 
 ance on the death-bed of his second daughter, the much- 
 loved Lady Claypole. She had been lingeringly ill for some 
 time of a most painful internal disease, aggravated by the 
 death of her youngest boy, Oliver. Hampton Court had re- 
 ceived her as a dying invalid, "tortured by frequent and long 
 convulsion-fits;" and here, through a great part of July, the 
 fond father had been hanging about her, broken-hearted and 
 unfit for business. 
 
 Before her death his grief had passed into an indefinite ill- 
 ness, described as " of the gout and other distempers ; " and 
 though he was able to come to London on the loth of August, 
 he returned to Hampton Court greatly the worse. But, after 
 four or five days of confinement, he was out again for an hour
 
 Oliver Cromwell.
 
 LAST DAYS OF CROMWELL. 263 
 
 on the 1 7th; and thence till Friday, the 2oth, he seemed so 
 much better that Thurloe and others thought the danger past. 
 From the public at large the fact of his illness had been 
 hitherto concealed as much as possible; and hence it may 
 have been, that on two or three of those days of convales- 
 cence, he showed himself, as usual, riding with his life-guards 
 in Hampton Court Park. It was on one of them, most probably 
 Friday, the 2oth, that George Fox had that final meeting with 
 him, which he describes in his journal. The good, but ob- 
 trusive, Quaker had been writing letters of condolence and 
 mystical religious advice to Lady Claypole in her illness, and 
 had recently sent one of mixed condolence and rebuke to 
 Cromwell himself, and now, not knowing of Cromwell's own 
 illness, he had come to have a talk with him about the suffer- 
 ings of the Friends. " Before I came to him, as he rode at 
 the head of his life-guard," says Fox, " I saw and felt a waft 
 of death go forth against him; and, when I came to him, he 
 looked like a dead man." Fox, nevertheless, had his conver- 
 sation with the protector, who told him to come again. Next 
 day, Saturday, August 21, when Fox went to Hampton Court 
 Palace to keep his appointment, he could not be admitted. 
 Harvey, the groom of the bed-chamber, told him that .his 
 highness was very ill, with his physicians about him, and must 
 be kept quiet. That morning his distemper had developed 
 itself distinctly into "an ague;" which ague proved, within the 
 next few days, to be of the kind called by the physicians " a 
 bastard tertian," that is, an ague with the cold and hot shiv- 
 ering fits recurring most violently every third day, but with 
 the intervals also troublesome. The physicians, thinking the 
 London air better for the malady than that of Hampton 
 Court, his highness was removed to Whitehall on Tuesday, 
 the 24th. 
 
 Saturday, the 28th, was a day of marked crisis. The ague 
 had then changed into a " double tertian," with two fits in the 
 twenty-four hours, both extremely weakening. So Sunday
 
 264 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 passed, with prayers in all the churches; and then came that 
 extraordinary Monday, August 30, which lovers of coipci- 
 dence have taken care to remember as the day of most tre- 
 mendous hurricane that ever blew over London and England. 
 From morning to night the wind raged and howled, emptying 
 the streets, unroofing houses, tearing up trees in the parks, 
 foundering ships at sea, and taking even Flanders and the 
 coasts of France within its angry whirl. The storm was felt, 
 within England, as far as Lincolnshire, where, in the vicinity 
 of an old manor-house, a boy of fifteen years of age, named Isaac 
 Newton, was turning it to account, as he afterward remem- 
 bered, by jumping first with the wind, and then against it, and 
 computing its force by the difference of the distances. 
 Through all this storm, as it shuddered round Whitehall, 
 shaking the doors and windows, the sovereign patient had 
 lain on, passing from fit to fit, but talking in the intervals 
 with the lady protectress, or with his physicians, while Owen, 
 Thomas Goodwin, Sterry, or some other of the preachers 
 that were in attendance, went and came between the cham- 
 ber and an adjoining room. A certain belief that he would 
 recover, which he had several times before expressed to the 
 lady protectress and others, had not yet left him, and had 
 communicated itself to the preachers as an assurance that 
 their prayers were heard. Writing to Henry Cromwell at 
 nine o'clock that night, Thurloe could say: "The doctors 
 are yet hopeful that he may struggle through it, though their 
 hopes are mingled with much fear." Even the next day, 
 Tuesday, August 31, Cromwell was still himself, still con- 
 sciously the lord protector. Through the storm of the pre- 
 ceding day, Ludlow had made a journey to London from 
 Essex, on family business, beaten back in the morning by a 
 wind against which two horses could not make way, but con- 
 triving late at night to push on as far as Epping. "By this 
 means," he says, ' I arrived not at Westminster till Tuesday 
 about noon, when, passing by Whitehall, notice was immcdi-
 
 LAST DAYS OF CROMWELL. 265 
 
 ately given to Cromwell that I was come to town. Where- 
 upon he sent for Lieutenant-General Fleetwood, and ordered 
 him to inquire concerning the reason of my coming at such 
 haste and at such a time." At the end of the day, Fleet- 
 wood, writing to Henry Cromwell, reported: "The Lord is 
 pleased to give some little reviving this evening; after few 
 slumbering sleeps, his pulse is better." As near as can be 
 guessed, it was that same night that Cromwell himself uttered 
 the well-known short prayer, the words of which, or as nearly 
 as possible the very words, were preserved by the pious care 
 of his chamber-attendant, Harvey. It is to the same authority 
 that we owe the most authentic record of the religious de- 
 meanor of the protector from the beginning of his illness. 
 Very beautifully and simply Harvey tells us of his "holy ex- 
 pressions," his fervid references to Scripture texts, and his 
 repetitions of some texts in particular, such repetitions " usu- 
 ally being very weighty, and with great vehemency of spirit." 
 One of them was: " It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands 
 of the living God." Three times he repeated this; but the 
 texts of promise and of Christian triumph had all along been 
 more frequently on his lips. All in all, his single short 
 prayer, which Harvey places l< two or three days before his 
 end," may be read as the summary of all we need to know of 
 the dying Puritan in these eternal respects. " Lord," he 
 muttered, " though I am a miserable and wretched creature, 
 I am in covenant with Thee through grace, and I may, I will, 
 come to Thee. For Thy people, Thou hast made me, though 
 very unworthy, a mean instrument to do them some good, and 
 Thee service; and many of them have set too high a value 
 upon me, though others wish and would be glad of my death. 
 But, Lord, however Thou dost dispose of me, continue and 
 go on to do good for them. Give them consi tency of judg- 
 ment, one heart, and mutual love; and go on to deliver them, 
 and with the work of reformation; and make the name of 
 Christ gloiious in the world. Teach those who look too
 
 266 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 much upon Thy instruments to depend more upon Thyself; 
 pardon such as desire to trample upon the dust of a poor 
 worm, for they are Thy people too; and pardon the folly of 
 this short prayer, even for Jesus Christ's sake; and give us a 
 good night, if it be Thy pleasure." 
 
 Wednesday, September i, passed unmarked, unless it may 
 be for the delivery to the lady protectress, in her watch over 
 Cromwell, of a letter dated that day, and addressed to her 
 and her children, from the Quaker, Edward Burrough. It 
 was long and wordy, but substantially an assurance that the 
 Lord had sent this affliction upon the protector's house, on 
 account of the unjust sufferings of the Quakers. " Will not 
 their sufferings lie upon you ? For many hundreds have 
 suffered cruel and great things, and some the loss of life 
 (though not by, yet in the name of, the protector); and about 
 a hundred at this present day lie in holes, and dungeons, and 
 prisons, up and down the nation." The letter, we may sup- 
 pose, was not read to Cromwell, and the Wed'nesday went by. 
 On Thursday, September 2, there was an unusually full coun- 
 cil meeting, close to his chamber, at which order was given 
 for the removal of Lords Lauderdale and Sinclair from Wind- 
 sor Castle to Warwick Castle, to make more room at Wind- 
 sor for the duke of Buckingham. That night Harvey 
 sat up with his highness, and again noted some of his sayings. 
 One was, " Truly, God is good; indeed He is; He will not 
 He did not complete the sentence. " His speech failed him," 
 says Harvey; '' but, as I apprehended, it was, 'He will not 
 "leave me.' This saying, that God was good, he frequently 
 " used all along, and would speak it with much cheerfulness 
 " and fervor of spirit in the midst of his pain. Again, he said, 
 " ' I would be willing to live to be further serviceable to God 
 "and His people; but my work is done.' He was very rest- 
 " less most part of the night, speaking often to himself. And, 
 " there being something to drink offered him, he was desired 
 "to take the same, and endeavor to sleep; unto which he an-
 
 LAST DAYS OF CROMWELL. 267 
 
 '' svvered, ' It is not my design to drink or to sleep, but my 
 " design is to make what haste I can to be gone.' Afterward, 
 " toward morning, using divers holy expressions, implying 
 " much inward consolation and peace, among the rest, he spake 
 " some exceeding self-debasing words, annihilating and judg- 
 " ing himself." This is the last. The next day, Friday, was 
 his twice victorious 3d of September, the anniversary of 
 I) unbar and Worcester. That morning he was speechless; 
 and, though the prayers in Whitehall, and in all London and 
 the suburbs, did not cease for him, people in the houses and 
 passers in the streets knew that hope was over, and Oliver at 
 the point of death. 
 
 LXIV. 
 THE RESTORATION. GUIZOT. 
 
 [Two troublous years came after Cromwell's death. Though his 
 son Richard quietly succeeded to the office of protector, it soon became 
 apparent that the protectorate must fall. Only another Oliver could have 
 upheld it, and there was none at hand. The sentiment in favor of calling 
 back the banished Stuarts was too strong to be resisted. For a few months 
 Richard's tottering authority was upheld by the influence of his father's 
 name. Then came a brief succession of factions, and then the inevitable 
 thi Restoration. The tardy action of General Monk was scarcely more 
 than incidental.] 
 
 AT day-break the army, more than thirty thousand strong, 
 was drawn out in battle-array on Blackheath, where it silently 
 awaited the coming of the king. It was sad and disquieted 
 but resigned to its fate ; it had seen all the governments that 
 it loved the commonwealth, Cromwell, and its own do- 
 minion fall one after another ; among its leaders, the ma- 
 jority, and those the greatest of them all, had gone over to 
 the royal cause ; others, still popular among the rank and 
 file, were proscribed and compelled to fly, for having for- 
 merly maintained a deadly conflict against the king. The
 
 268 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 republican spirit, military pride, and religious zeal were still 
 powerful in the army; but it no longer had confidence either 
 in those who commanded it or in itself; and bowing its head 
 beneath the secret consciousness of its errors, it accepted the 
 restoration of the monarchy as necessity, regarded submis- 
 sion to the civil power as a duty, and devoted itself to the 
 maintenance of public order and the preservation of private 
 interests. The king arrived, accompanied by his brothers, 
 and attended by his staff, with Monk at its head, and by a 
 brilliant cavalcade of volunteers elegantly dressed, and 
 adorned with plumes and scarfs. As they pranced about in 
 every direction, an officer, bending toward Monk, whispered 
 in his ear, "You had none of these at Coldstream ; but 
 grasshoppers and butterflies never come abroad in frosty 
 weather." Many men in the ranks shared in this feeling of 
 ill-humor. But Charles was young, vivacious, and affable ; 
 he presented himself gracefully to the army; and, singularly 
 enough, it was the anniversary of his birthday ; he was just 
 thirty years of age. He was well received. Colonel Knight, 
 on behalf of all the regiments, presented to him an ad- 
 dress full of the utmost protestations of loyalty, which the 
 soldiers confirmed rather by their submissive countenance 
 than by their acclamations. The king left Blackheath, 
 delighted at having got through this ordeal satisfactorily. On 
 arriving at St. George's Fields, he met the lord mayor, alder- 
 men, and common council of the city of London, who were 
 awaiting him in a richly decorated tent, to offer him their 
 address and a collation. He halted there for a few moments, 
 and was more cordially received and felt more at his ease 
 among the throng of citizens than among the ranks of the 
 army. His road from St. George's Fields to Whitehall was 
 one continued ovation. He was preceded and followed by 
 numerous squadrons of mounted guards and volunteers, mag- 
 nificently dressed and caparisoned; the trnin-bands of the 
 city and of Westminster, and the various corporations with
 
 THE RESTORATION. 269 
 
 their banners, formed a double line through which he passed; 
 the sheriffs, the aldermen, and all the municipal officers of 
 the city, with a host of servants in splendid liveries, crowded 
 around him ; the lord mayor, with Monk on his right hand 
 and the duke of Buckingham on his left, bore the sword be- 
 fore him ; five regiments of cavalry formed his escort ; the 
 streets were strewn with boughs and flowers, the houses 
 hung with flags, the windows, balconies, and roofs crowded 
 with innumerable spectators, men and women, nobles and 
 citizens, all in their gayest attire ; the cannon of the Tower, 
 the bells of the churches, the bands of the regiments, and the 
 shouts of the crowd, filled the air with a deafening and joyous 
 sound. " I stood in the strand and beheld it, and blessed 
 God," says an eye-witness. " All this was done without one 
 drop of bloodshed, and by that very army that rebelled 
 against him ; but it was the Lord's doing, for such a restora- 
 tion was never mentioned in any history, ancient or modern, 
 since the return of the Jews from the Babylonish cap- 
 tivity ; ror was so joyful a day and so bright ever seen in 
 this nation, this happening when to expect or effect it was 
 past all human policy." 
 
 Charles himself expressed his delight and surprise with 
 some little irony. "I doubt not," he said, "it has been my 
 own fault I was absent so long, for I see no one who does 
 not protest he has ever wished for my return." 
 
 He arrived at Whitehall somewhat later than he had an- 
 nounced, for it was nearly seven o'clock when he reached 
 the palace. The two Houses were awaiting him. He re- 
 ceived them each in turn, the Lords in the great hall of the 
 palace, and the Commons in that same banqueting hall 
 through which, eleven years before, the king, his father, had 
 walked on his way to the scaffold. The two speakers, the 
 earl of Manchester and Sir Harbottle Grimstone, addressed 
 the king in speeches at once pompous and sincere, express- 
 ing, in terms of somewhat labored eloquence, enthusiasm for
 
 270 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 monarchy and attachment to the religion and liberties of the 
 country. Lord Manchester more particularly explained his 
 views with firm frankness. "Great king," he said, "permit 
 me to speak the confidence as well as the desires of the peers 
 of England. Be you the powerful defender of the true Prot- 
 estant faith, the just asserter and maintainer of the laws and 
 liberties of your subjects ; so shall judgment run down like a 
 river, and justice like a mighty stream." Charles was, doubt- 
 less, struck by this expression ; for, in replying to Manches- 
 ter, he repeated it almost literally. " I am so disordered by 
 my journey," he said, " and with the noise still sounding 
 in my ears, which I confess was pleasing to me because it ex- 
 pressed the affections of my people, that I am unfit at the pres- 
 ent to make such a reply as I desire. Yet thus much I shall 
 say unto you, that I take no greater satisfaction to myself in 
 this my change than that I find my heart really set to endeavor 
 by all means the restoring of this nation to freedom and hap- 
 piness, and I hope by the advice of my Parliament to effect 
 it. Of this also you may be confident, that next to the honor 
 of God, from whom principally I shall ever own this restora- 
 tion to my crown, I shall study the welfare of my people, and 
 shall not only be a true defender of the faith, but a just as- 
 serter of the laws and liberties of my subjects." The king's 
 answer to the House of Commons was very similar, but some- 
 what shorter ; and he excused himself from further discourse 
 with them on the ground of extreme fatigue. The two 
 Houses took their leave. The king was, in fact, so utterly 
 wearied that he was unable to proceed, as he had intended, 
 to Westminster Abbey, on that day, in order to take part in 
 a solemn thanksgiving service ; and he ended the day which 
 had witnessed the re-establishment of monarchy in England, 
 by offering up his prayers to God in the reception-room at 
 Whitehall. 
 
 At the same moment, throughout the kingdom, thousands 
 of hearts, full of joy, weie also raising themselves in thanks
 
 THE RESTORATION. 271 
 
 to the Almighty and praying him to bless the king whom he 
 had restored to his people. The restoration of Charles the 
 Second was not the consequence, but the cause, of a pas- 
 sionate outburst of the monarchical spirit. Decimated by the 
 civil war, ruined by confiscations, baffled in all its attempts 
 at insurrection and conspiracy, conquered in turn by all its 
 enemies, by the Presbyterians, the Republicans, the Crom- 
 wellians, and the soldiers, the Royalist party had given up 
 the conflict, but had not renounced, its opinions or its hopes. 
 At once inactive and persevering, it had endured the rule of 
 all successive tyrannies, whether strong or weak, glorious or 
 disgraceful, watching them pass with anger or contempt, and 
 waiting until God and necessity should put the king once 
 more in the place of this chaos. While thus waiting, the 
 Royalists found themselves joined by most of their former 
 adversaries in succession; from conviction, from passion, 
 from resignation, or from personal interest, the Presby- 
 terians, the political reformers, who would not be and did 
 not think themselves revolutionists, a great many Crom- 
 wellians, both civilians and soldiers, and even some Repub- 
 licans, took advantage of one conjuncture or another to 
 range themselves beneath the banner of monarchy. And 
 what was still more important, that portion of the population 
 which had held aloof from all parties, those innumerable and 
 unknown spectators who merely look on at political strug- 
 gles, and derive from them only their emotions and their 
 fate, this vast mass of the people could now see safety and find 
 hope only in the re-establishment of the monarchy. On the 
 29th of May, 1660, the Royalist party, which had not con- 
 quered, which had not even fought, was nevertheless national 
 and all-powerful. It was England.
 
 272 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 XLV. 
 EXECUTION OF MONMOUTH. MACAULAY. 
 
 [Charles the Second was easy, good-natured, and popular in his ways, 
 but he was unprincipled and utterly selfish. His chief aim was to avoid 
 trouble, so that he might pursue his pleasures unmolested. Almost from the 
 outset he played into the hands of the French king, Louis XIV., and en- 
 abled that monarch to build up a power which proved dangerous to 
 Europe. As Charles had no legitimate children, his lawful heir was his 
 brother James, who was a Catholic. There were many in England who 
 thought that a Catholic king should not be allowed to rule, and they made 
 a determined effort to have a law enacted excluding James from the suc- 
 cession. But the measure failed, and, on the death of Charles, in 1683, 
 James became king. 
 
 Me was exceedingly unpopular, and his first acts made him still more so. 
 So strong was the feeling against him that the duke of Monmouth, the 
 eldest of Charles's illegitimate children, and a Protestant, believed that he 
 could be dethroned by force. In 1685 Monmouth invaded the kingdom ; 
 but he had mistaken the temper of the English people. They refused to 
 support the claim of a bastard, and the duke was defeated and captured at 
 the battle of Sedgemoor.] 
 
 THE king cannot be blamed for determining that Mon- 
 mouth should suffer death. Every man who heads a re- 
 bellion against an established government stakes his life on 
 the event; and rebellion was the smallest part of Mon- 
 mouth's crime. He had declared against his uncle a war 
 without quarter. In the manifesto put forth at Lyme, James 
 had been held up to execration as an incendiary, as an as- 
 sassin, who had strangled one innocent man and cut the 
 throat of another, and, lastly, as the poisoner of his own 
 brother. To spare an enemy who had not scrupled to resort 
 to such extremities would have been an act of rare, perhaps 
 of blamable, generosity. But to see him and not to spare 
 him was an outrage on humanity and decency. This out- 
 rage the king resolved to commit. The arms of the prisoner 
 were bound behind him with a silken cord; and, thus secured,
 
 EXECUTION OF MONMOUTH. 273 
 
 he was ushered into the presence of the implacable kinsman 
 whom he had wronged. 
 
 Then Monmouth threw himself on the ground, and crawled 
 to the king's feet. He wept. He tried to embrace his 
 uncle's knees with his pinioned arms. He begged for life, 
 only life, life at any price. He owned that he had been 
 guilty of a great crime, but tried to throw the blame on 
 others, particularly on Argyle, who would rather have put his 
 legs into the boots than have saved his own life by such 
 baseness. By the ties of kindred, by the memory of the late 
 king, who had been the best and truest of brothers, the un- 
 happy man adjured James to show some mercy. James 
 gravely replied that this repentance was of the latest; that he 
 was sorry for the misery which the prisoner had brought on 
 himself; but that the case was not one for lenity. A decla- 
 ration, filled with atrocious calumnies, had been put forth. 
 The regal title had been assumed. For treasons so aggra- 
 vated there could be no pardon on this side of the grave. 
 The poor, terrified duke vowed that he had never wished to 
 take the crown, but had been led into that fatal error by 
 others. As to the declaration, he had not written it; he had 
 not read it; he had signed it without looking at it; it was all 
 the work of Ferguson, that bloody villain; Ferguson. " Do 
 you expect me to believe," said James, with contempt but 
 too well merited, " that you set your hand to a paper of such 
 moment without knowing what it contained ? " One depth 
 of infamy only remained, and even to that the prisoner de- 
 scended. He was pre-eminently the champion of the Prot- 
 estant religion. The interest of that religion had been his 
 plea for conspiring against the government of his father, and 
 for bringing on his country the miseries of civil war; yet he 
 was not ashamed to hint that he was inclined to be recon- 
 ciled to the Church of Rome. The king eagerly offered him 
 spiritual assistance, but said nothing of pardon or respite. 
 "Is there, then, no hope?" asked Monmouth. James turned
 
 274 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 away in silence. Then Monmouth strove to rally his cour- 
 age, rose from his knees, and retired with a firmness which he 
 had not shown since his overthrow. 
 
 The hour drew near, all hope was over, and Monmouth 
 had passed from pusillanimous fear to the apathy of despair. 
 His children were brought to his room that he might take 
 leave of them, and were followed by his wife. He spoke to 
 her kindly, but without emotion. Though she was a woman 
 of great strength of mind, and had little cause to love him, 
 her misery was such that none of the by-standers could re- 
 frain from weeping. He alone was unmoved. 
 
 It was ten o'clock. The coach of the lieutenant of the 
 Tower was ready. Monmouth requested his spiritual advisers 
 to accompany him to the place of execution, and they con- 
 sented; but they told him that, in their judgment, he was 
 about to die in a perilous state of mind, and that, if they at- 
 tended him, it would be their duty to exhort him to the last. 
 As he passed along the ranks of the guards he saluted them 
 with a smile; and he mounted the scaffold with a firm tread. 
 Tower Hill was crowded, up to the chimney-tops, with an in- 
 numerable multitude of gazers, who, in awful silence, broken 
 only by sighs and the noise of weeping, listened for the last 
 accents of the darling of the people. " I shall say little," he 
 began. " I come here not to speak, but to die. I die a 
 Protestant of the Church of England." The bishops inter- 
 rupted him, and told him that, unless he acknowledged re- 
 sistance to be sinful, he was no member of their Church. He 
 went on to speak of his Henrietta.* She was, he said, a 
 young lady of virtue and honor. He loved her to the last, 
 and he could not die without giving utterance to his feelings. 
 
 The bishops again interfered, and begged him not to use 
 such language. Some altercation followed. The divines 
 have been accused of dealing harshly with the dying man. 
 
 * Henrietta, Baroness Wentworth, bad followed Monmouth to Holland, 
 and had sacrificed her jewels to provide funds for his expedition.
 
 EXECUTION OF MONMOUTH. 275 
 
 But they appear to have only discharged what, in their view, was 
 a sacred duty. Monmouth knew their principles, and, if he 
 wished to avoid their importunity, should have dispensed with 
 their attendance. Their general arguments against resistance 
 had no effect on him. But when they reminded him of the 
 ruin which he had brought on his brave and loving followers, 
 of the blood which had been shed, of the souls which had 
 been sent unprepared to the great account, he was touched, 
 and said, in a softened voice, " I do own that. I am sorry 
 that it ever happened." They prayed with him long and 
 fervently; and he joined in their petitions till they invoked a 
 blessing on the king. He remained silent. " Sir," said one of 
 the bishops, " do you not pray for the king with us?" Monmouth 
 paused some time, and, after an internal struggle, exclaimed, 
 " Amen." But it was in vain that the prelates implored him to 
 address to the soldiers and to the people a few words on the duty 
 of obedience to the government. " I will make no speeches," 
 he exclaimed. " Only ten words, my lord." He turned away, 
 called his servant, and put into the man's hand a tooth-pick 
 case, the last token of ill-starred love. " Give it," he said, 
 " to that person." He then accosted John Ketch, the exe- 
 cutioner, a wretch who had butchered many brave and noble 
 victims, and whose name has, during a century and a half, 
 been vulgarly given to all who have succeeded him in his 
 odious office. " Here," said the duke, " are six guineas for 
 you. Do not hack me as you did my Lord Russell. I have 
 heard that you struck him three or four times. My servant will 
 give you some more gold if you do the work well." He then 
 undressed, felt the edge of the ax, expressed some fear that 
 it was not sharp enough, and laid his head on the block. The 
 divines in the meantime continued to ejaculate with great 
 energy : " God accept your repentance ! God accept your 
 imperfect repentance ! " 
 
 The hangman addressed himself to his office; but he had 
 been disconcerted by what the duke had said. The first
 
 276 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 blow inflicted only a slight wound. The duke struggled, rose 
 from the block, and looked reproachfully at the executioner. 
 The head sank down once more. The stroke was repeated 
 again and again ; but still the neck was not severed, and the 
 body continued to move. Yells of rage and horror rose from 
 the crowd. Ketch flung down the ax with a curse. " I can- 
 not do it," he said; "my heart fails me." "Take up the 
 ax, man," cried the sheriff. *' Fling him over the rails ! " 
 roared the mob. At length the ax was taken up. Two more 
 blows extinguished the last remains of life ; but a knife was 
 used to separate the head from the shoulders. The crowd 
 was wrought up to such an ecstasy of rage that the executioner 
 was in danger of being torn in pieces, and was conveyed 
 away under a strong guard. 
 
 In the mean time many handkerchiefs were dipped in the 
 duke's blood ; for, by a large part of the multitude, he was 
 regarded as a martyr who had died for the Protestant religion. 
 The head and body were placed in a coffin covered with 
 black velvet, and were laid privately under the communion 
 table of St. Peter's Chapel, in the Tower. Within four years 
 the pavement of the chancel was again disturbed, and hard 
 by the remains of Monmouth were laid the remains of Jeffreys. 
 In truth, there is no sadder spot on earth than that little cem- 
 etery. Death is there associated, not, as in Westminster Ab- 
 bey and St. Paul's, with genius and virtue, with public ven- 
 eration and imperishable renown ; not, as in our humblest 
 churches and church-yards, with every thing that is most en- 
 dearing in social and domestic charities ; but with whatever 
 is darkest in human nature and in human destiny, with the 
 savage triumph of implacable enemies, with the inconstancy, 
 the ingratitude, the cowardice of friends, with all the miseries 
 of fallen greatness and of blighted fame. Thither have been 
 carried, through successive ages, by the rude hands of jailers, 
 without one mourner following, the bleeding relics of men 
 who had been the captains of armies, the leaders of parties,
 
 EXECUTION OF MONMOUTH. 277 
 
 the oracles of senates, and the ornaments of courts. Thither 
 was borne, before the window where Jane Grey was praying, 
 the mangled corpse of Guilford Dudley. Edward Seymour, 
 duke of Somerset, and protector of the realm, reposes there 
 by the brother whom he murdered. There has moldered 
 away the headless trunk of John Fisher, bishop of Roches- 
 ter and cardinal of St. Vitalis, a man worthy to have lived 
 in a better age, and to have died in a better cause. There 
 are laid John Dudley, duke of Northumberland, lord high ad- 
 miral ; and Thomas Cromwell, earl of Essex, lord high 
 treasurer. There, too, is another Essex, on whom nature 
 and fortune had lavished all their bounties in vain, and whom 
 valor, grace, genius, royal favor, popular applause, conducted 
 to an early and ignominious doom. Not far off sleep two 
 chiefs of the great house of Howard Thomas, fourth duke 
 of Norfolk, and Philip, eleventh earl of Arundel. Here and 
 there, among the thick graves of unquiet and aspiring states- 
 men, lie more delicate sufferers : Margaret of Salisbury, the 
 last of the proud name of Plantagenet, and those two fair 
 queens who perished by the jealous rage of Henry. Such 
 was the dust with which the dust of Monmouth mingled. 
 
 Yet a few months, and the quiet village of Toddington, in 
 Bedfordshire, witnessed a still sadder funeral. Near that 
 village stood an ancient and stately hall, the seat of the 
 Wentworths. The transept of the parish church had long 
 been their burial-place. To that burial-place, in the spring 
 which followed the death of Monmouth, was borne the coffin 
 of the young Baroness Wentworth of Nettlestede. Her 
 family reared a sumptuous mausoleum over her remains; 
 but a less costly memorial of her was long contemplated with 
 far deeper interest. Her name, carved by the hand of him 
 whom she loved too well, was, a few years ago, still discern- 
 ible on a tree in the adjoining park. 
 12
 
 278 
 
 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 XLVI. 
 
 EXIT JAMES THE SECOND. COOKE. 
 
 [James went on from bad to worse, and in the end succeeded in alien- 
 ating nearly all classes of his subjects. In this state of affairs some of the 
 most prominent party leaders entered into negotiations with William, 
 prince of Orange, and secretly invited him to invade the country. The 
 prince had married James's elder daughter, Mary, and he had, besides, an 
 eventual claim to the crown in his own right, for he was a grandson of 
 Charles the First. He accepted the invitation, and, on his landing, in 
 1688, James's army melted away, his friends deserted him, and he fled in 
 terror to the Continent. Parliament met, of course without the sanction of 
 the king, declared the throne vacant, and elected William and Mary as joint 
 sovereigns of England.] 
 
 THE desertions which immedi- 
 ately ensued have been recorded 
 as examples of the blackest in- 
 gratitude, and, in too many in- 
 stances, the imputation cannot be 
 denied. Men who had owed their 
 whole advancement to James, now 
 promised fidelity, were trusted, and 
 betrayed him. No consideration 
 can make us regard with pleas- 
 ure the dissimulation of Ormond 
 
 JAMES II. 
 
 or Drtimlawrig, or read without strong reprobation the re- 
 fined treachery of Churchill. It must, however, be remem- 
 bered that those who are most prominent in the catalogue of 
 traitors could have procured, upon the condition of their con- 
 version, far higher honors under James than any they could 
 hope to receive from the prince of Orange. Whether the 
 crusade which James had commenced against all who con- 
 tinued steadfast to the English Church had absolved him 
 from all ties of gratitude, was a question which the casuistry
 
 EXIT JAMES THE SECOND. 279 
 
 of a courtier would probably solve in the affirmative ; and 
 since he was persecuted for his religion, he might easily 
 persuade himself that he was justified in joining a prince 
 who treated the report that he had a design upon the crown 
 as a calumny, and stated his object to be, not the dethrone- 
 ment of the monarch, but the protection of the religion and 
 liberty of the subject. 
 
 That many of those who now forsook the king had no far- 
 ther intention than the redress of grievances is proved by 
 their after-conduct. Among the present partisans of the 
 prince appear the most illustrious of those names which were 
 afterward reckoned among the party of the Jacobites and in 
 the muster-rolls of the Pretenders. These observations apply 
 only to individuals of the Tory party. The Whigs had no 
 favors to requite ; in too many instances they had wrongs to 
 revenge. 
 
 Upon the landing of the prince it became immediately evi- 
 dent how impotent the priests behind the throne were to 
 avert the ruin they had called down. Petre* had obtained 
 the disgrace of Sunderland, who, dismissed from all his of- 
 fices, and, perhaps, trembling for his head, declared to his 
 former dependents that he merely retired because it was, at 
 present, inexpedient to employ Catholics. For a moment 
 Petre and his fellow-laborer, the earl of Melford, held the 
 ascendency, but James, alarmed by the suddenness and mag- 
 nitude of his danger, was now really aware of their incapacity, 
 and turned for advice to those of the Protestants who were 
 still with him. These, however, could already read the signs 
 of the times. They had nothing to expect from his success, 
 every thing from his failure. Halifax and Rochester now in- 
 trigued, not for the honor of serving, but for the opportunity 
 of betraying, him. Halifax was the successful competitor ; 
 joined with Nottingham, who had refused to sit at the coun- 
 cil-board, and, with Godolphin, who had already changed his 
 * Fetre was James's clerk of the closet.
 
 280 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 allegiance, in a commission to treat with the king, he, at his 
 first meeting with the confidential agent of the prince, ex- 
 pressed his determination to use his powers as he might 
 direct. After an interview with the prince he wrote to the 
 king, declaring that he thought there was a design against his 
 person, and Godolphin seconded the intrigue by a letter of 
 advice to withdraw, and within a year his people would invite 
 him back upon their knees. 
 
 It was, doubtless, this letter from Halifax which caused 
 James's suddenly conceived and rapidly executed project of 
 flight. The services of that nobleman in bringing about the 
 revolution were so great, that we could wish to remove from 
 him that stigma of treachery which renders deeds that were 
 the salvation of his country, the dishonor of the man. 
 
 The sufferings of James were now, doubtless, great; desert- 
 ed by all those who had been accustomed to deem themselves 
 honored by his slightest command, a terrified fugitive, stealing 
 under the cover of darkness and disguise from his capital and 
 his kingdom, then a captive in the hands of the rabble of a 
 small fishing-town, cringing, entreating, and imploring his life 
 from these ignoble masters of his fate, while the nobles of his 
 council sought, in affected ignorance of his situation, an ex- 
 cuse for conniving at his destruction; then again, when for a 
 moment installed in his former dignity, and when beginning 
 to remember the language of command, banished at midnight 
 from his palace by the voice of the man he had confided in as 
 his embassador, reduced to the necessity of borrowing so small 
 a sum as a hundred guineas from a subject; and, lastly, ob- 
 taining, by favor of his enemy, an ignominious safety in a sec- 
 ond secret flight; these were sufferings which, having none of 
 the dignity that commonly ennobles the reverses of royalty, 
 must have borne with tenfold weight upon the haughty spirit 
 of the last of the Stuart kings. Yet, amid all this misfortune, 
 he must be possessed of a very morbid sensibility who can 
 pity James. When we picture him kneeling and crying before
 
 EXIT JAMES THE SECOND. 281 
 
 the hooting rabble, we see, also, Monmouth kneeling at his 
 feet; the rude jests which assailed James from the fishermen 
 of Feversham, were not nearly so savage as the cool denial of 
 mercy with which the duke was dismissed from the presence- 
 chamber to the scaffold. What suffering, which James under- 
 went, can we compare with the horrors which he jested of as 
 Jeffreys's campaign in the West ? No one ever thought of 
 pitying the fate which now overtook that instrument of hu- 
 man butchery ; why, then, should we waste comnr'seration 
 upon him who was the real author of all the other's crimes, 
 and who superadded to them the diabolical deeds which he 
 personally perpetrated in the torture-chamber in Scotland ? 
 
 In the midst of all his distress one act in the dark catalogue 
 of his crimes was brought before him with its full force. Pre- 
 vious to his flight he called together those nobles who were 
 within reach of his summons, to advise with them upon his af- 
 fairs. The earl of Bedford, whom age and despondency had 
 long secluded from public business, came among the rest. 
 "You, my lord," said James, to this popular nobleman, as he 
 sat at the council-board, " could do much for me in this ex- 
 tremity." The earl replied that he was now old and incapa- 
 ble of exertion ; "but," he added, with a sigh, " I once had a 
 son who might have been of infinite service to your majesty at 
 this moment." It is said that James was pale and confounded 
 at the reply. It was the rebuke of a father to the murderer 
 of his son. 
 
 Even the treachery of which James was the victim was, in 
 many instances, of a character to excite only disapprobation 
 of the traitors, not commiseration for the betrayed. Their 
 master had rivaled them all in ingratitude. Hyde, earl of 
 Rochester, at one time his chief, at all times his devoted sup- 
 porter, who had served him faithfully through his difficult and 
 apparently hopeless struggle for the crown, was cast aside like 
 a worn garment, when success had rendered him unnecessary. 
 The eloquence of Halifax, to which he was not less indebted
 
 282 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 for his throne, could not protect him from similar treatment; 
 and not the most unconditional compliance, even to the aban- 
 donment of his religion, could preserve Sunderland, when he 
 halted for a moment in the course he was given to run. 
 The king arrived in France on the last day of the year 1688. 
 
 XLVII. 
 KILLIECRANKIE. SCOTT. 
 
 [William came as a mediator between parties, and his influence told ben- 
 eficially in nearly all directions. The Catholics of Ireland and the Catho- 
 lic Highlanders of Scotland, however, refused to submit to his authority, 
 and both had to be reduced by force. The Highland clans gathered under 
 Viscount Dundee as leader, and defeated the royal army at Killiecrankie, 
 where Dundee was slain. But if Dundee had lived, the ultimate result 
 would have been practically the same. A Highland army was never so lit- 
 tle to be feared as the day after a victory, for the clans were wont to dis- 
 perse at once to their homes to secure the booty they had won.] 
 
 IN this celebrated defile, called the Pass of Killiecrankie, 
 the road runs for several miles along the banks of a furious 
 river, called the Garry, which rages below, among cataracts 
 and water-falls which the eye can scarcely discern, while a se- 
 ries of precipices and wooded mountains rise on the other hand; 
 the road itself is the only mode of access through the glen, and 
 along the valley which lies at its northern extremity. The 
 path was then much more inaccessible than at the present day, 
 as it ran close to the bed of the river, and was narrower and 
 more rudely formed. 
 
 A defile of such difficulty was capable of being defended to 
 the last extremity by a small number against a considerable 
 army; and considering how well adapted his followers were 
 for such mountain warfare, many of the Highland chiefs were 
 of opinion that Dundee ought to content himself with guard- 
 ing the pass against Mackay's superior army, until a rendez-
 
 KlLLIECRANKIE. 283 
 
 vous, which they had appointed, should assemble a stronger 
 force of their countrymen. But Dundee was of a different 
 opinion, and resolved to suffer Mackay to march through the 
 pass without opposition, and then to fight him in the open val- 
 ley, at the northern extremity. He chose this bold measure, 
 both because it promised a decisive result to the combat which 
 his ardent temper desired ; and also because he preferred 
 fighting Mackay before that general was joined by a consider- 
 able body of English horse who were expected, and of whom 
 the Highlanders had at that time some dread. 
 
 On the i yth of June, 1689, General Mackay, with his troops, 
 entered the pass, which, to their astonishment, they found un- 
 occupied by the enemy. His forces were partly English and 
 Dutch regiments, who, with many of the Lowland Scots them- 
 selves, were struck with awe, and even fear, at finding them- 
 selves introduced by such a magnificent and, at the same time, 
 formidable avenue, to the presence of their enemies, the inhab- 
 itants of these tremendous mountains, into whose recesses they 
 were penetrating. But besides the effect produced on their 
 minds by the magnificence of natural scenery, to which 
 they were wholly unaccustomed, the consideration must have 
 hung heavy on them, that if a general of Dundee's talents suf- 
 fered them to march unopposed through a pass so difficult, it 
 must be because he was conscious of possessing strength suf- 
 ficient to attack and destroy them at the farther extremity, 
 when their only retreat would lie through the narrow and per- 
 ilous path by which they were now advancing. 
 
 Midday was passed ere Mackay's men were extricated from 
 the defile, when their general drew them up in one line three 
 deep, without any reserve, along the southern extremity of 
 the narrow valley into which the pass opens. A hill on the 
 north side of the valley, covered with dwarf trees and bushes, 
 formed the position of Dundee's army, which, divided into 
 columns, formed by the different clans, was greatly outflanked 
 by Mackay's troops.
 
 284 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 The armies shouted when they came within sight of each 
 other ; but the enthusiasm of Mackay's soldiers being damped 
 by the circumstances we have observed, their military shout 
 made but a dull and sullen sound compared to the yell of 
 the Highlanders, which rang far and shrill from all the hills 
 around them. Sir Evan Cameron of Lochiel called on those 
 around him to attend to this circumstance, saying, that in all 
 his battles he observed victory had ever been on the side o' 
 those whose shout before joining seemed most sprightly and 
 confident. It was accounted a less favorable augury by some 
 of the old Highlanders that Dundee at this moment, to render 
 his person less distinguishable, put on a sad-colored buff-coat 
 above the scarlet cassock and bright cuirass in which he had 
 hitherto appeared. 
 
 It was some time ere Dundee had completed his prepara- 
 tions for the assault which he meditated, and only a few drop- 
 ping shots were exchanged, while, in order to prevent the risk 
 of being outflanked, he increased the intervals between the 
 columns with which he designed to charge, insomuch that 
 he had scarce men enough left in the center. About an 
 hour before sunset he sent word to Mackay that he was about 
 to attack him, and gave the signal to charge. 
 
 The Highlanders stripped themselves to their shirts and 
 doublets, threw away every thing that could impede the fury of 
 their onset, and then put themselves in motion, accompanying 
 with a dreadful yell the discordant sound of their war-pipes. 
 As they advanced, the clansmen fired their pieces, each col- 
 umn thus pouring in a well-aimed though irregular volley^ 
 when, throwing down their fusees, without waiting to reload, 
 they drew their swords, and, increasing their pace to the ut- 
 most speed, pierced through and broke the thin line which was 
 opposed to them, and profited by their superior activity, and 
 the nature of their weapons, to make a great havoc among the 
 regular troops. When thus mingled with each other, hand to 
 hand, the advantages of superior discipline on the part of the
 
 KlLLIECRANKIE. 285 
 
 Lowland soldier were lost agility and strength were on the 
 side of the mountaineers. Some accounts of the battle give a 
 terrific account of the blows F truck by the Highlanders, which 
 cleft heads down to the breast, cut steel head-pieces asunder as 
 night-caps, and slashed through pikes like willows. Two of 
 Mackay's English regiments in the center stood fast, the inter- 
 val between the attacking columns being so great that none 
 were placed opposite to them. The rest of King William's 
 army were totally routed, and driven headlong into the river. 
 
 Dundee himself, contrary tD the advice of the Highland 
 chiefs, was in front of the battle, and fatally conspicuous. By 
 a desperate attack, he possessed himself of Mackay's artil- 
 lery, and then led his handful of cavalry, about fifty men, 
 against two troops of horse, which fled without fighting. Ob- 
 serving the stand made by the two English regiments already 
 mentioned, he galloped toward the clan of Mac Donald, and 
 was in the act of bringing them to the charge, with his right 
 arm elevated as if pointing the way to victory, when he was 
 struck by a bullet beneath the arm-pit, where he was unpro- 
 tected by his cuirass. He tried to ride on, but being unable 
 to keep the saddle, fell mortally wounded, and died in the 
 course of the night. 
 
 It was impossible for a victory to be more complete than 
 that gained by the Highlanders at Killiecrankie. The can- 
 non, baggage, and stores of Mackay's army fell into their 
 hands. The two regiments which kept their ground suffered 
 so much in their attempt to retreat through the pass, now oc- 
 cupied by the Athole-men, in their rear, that they might be 
 considered as destroyed. Two thousand of Mackay's army 
 were killed or taken, and the general himself escaped with dif- 
 ficulty to Stirling, at the head of a few horse. The Highland- 
 ers, whose dense columns, as they came down to the attack, 
 underwent three successive volleys from Mackay's line, had 
 eight hundred men slain. 
 
 But all other losses were unimportant compared to that of 
 u*
 
 286 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 Dundee, with whom were forfeited all the fruits of that bloody 
 victory. Mackay, when he found himself, free from pursuit, 
 declared his conviction that his opponent had fallen in the 
 battle. And such was the opinion of Dundee's talents and 
 courage, and the general sense of the peculiar crisis at which 
 his death took place, that the common people of the low coun- 
 try cannot, even now, be persuaded that he died an ordinary 
 death. They say that a servant of his own, shocked at the 
 severities which, if triumphant, his master was likely to accom- 
 plish against the Presbyterians, and giving way to the popular 
 prejudice about his having a charm against the effect of lead 
 balls, shot him, in the tumult of the battle, with a silver button 
 taken from his livery coat. The Jacobites and the Episcopal 
 party, on the other hand, lamented the deceased victor, as 
 the last of the Scots, the last of the Grahams, and the last of 
 all that was great in his native country. 
 
 XLVIII. 
 DOWNFALL OF MARLBOROUGH. LECKY. 
 
 [While William, by his wise statesmanship, conferred great benefits upon 
 England, he rendered still greater service to the Continental states in 
 checkmating the ambition of Louis XIV. Death came to him, however, 
 before the struggle with Louis was over, and the work which he had begun 
 was committed to other hands. John Churchill, earl of Marlborough, was 
 appointed by William's successor, Queen Anne, commander-in-chief of the 
 army. By a series of remarkably brilliant campaigns which proved him to 
 be the greatest general of his age, he forced the French king to sue for 
 peace. But, as the proffered terms were rejected through Marlborough's 
 influence, it was thought that he was prolonging the war for his own 
 advantage. Therefore, the Tories, who strongly opposed the war, and who 
 hated Marlborough because of his great successes, determined to accom- 
 plish his ruin.] 
 
 MEANWHILE the government at home had been pressing 
 on the peace by measures of almost unparalleled violence.
 
 DOWNFALL OF MARLBOROUGH. 287 
 
 Supported by a large majority in the House of Commons, it 
 resolved to silence or crush all opposition. The first and 
 most conspicuous victim was Marlborough. It was alleged, 
 and alleged with truth, that, while commanding in the Nether- 
 lands, he had during several years received an annual pen- 
 sion of about ^6,000 from the contractor who supplied his 
 army with bread, and also that he had appropriated two and 
 a half per cent, of the money which had been voted by Par- 
 liament for paying the subsidized troops, and on these grounds 
 he was accused of peculation. The answer, however, in or- 
 dinary times would have been accepted as conclusive. It was 
 shown that the former sum was a perquisite always granted to 
 the commander in the Netherlands, and employed by him for 
 obtaining that secret intelligence which is absolutely essential 
 to a general, and which was never more complete than under 
 Marlborough, and that the deduction from the subsidies was 
 expressly authorized by the foreign powers who were subsi- 
 dized, and by a royal warrant which granted it to the com- 
 mander-in-chief "for extraordinary contingent expenses." 
 Whatever irregularity there might be in providing by these 
 means a supply of secret-service money, it was of old standing ; 
 there was no reason whatever to believe that the fund was 
 misappropriated, though from its very nature it could not be 
 accounted for in detail, and it was proved that the expendi- 
 ture of secret-service money in the campaigns of Marlborough 
 was considerably smaller than it had been in the incomparably 
 less successful campaigns of William. Prince Eugene after- 
 ward very candidly declared that he had himself given for 
 intelligence three times as much as Marlborough was charged 
 with on that head. 
 
 The object of the dominant party, however, was, at all costs, 
 to discredit Marlborough. He was dismissed from all his em- 
 ployments, pronounced guilty by a party vote of the House 
 of Commons, and exposed to a storm of mendacious obloquy. 
 When Eugene came over to England in order to use his
 
 288 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 influence against the peace in January of 1711-12, he per- 
 ceived, with no little generous indignation, that every effort 
 was made to extol his military talents at the expense of the 
 great English commander. Marlborough was assailed as he 
 drove through the streets with cries of " Stop thief! " He 
 was grossly insulted in the House of Lords. He was accused 
 of the most atrocious plots against the queen and against the 
 state. The scurrilous pens of Mrs. Manley and of a host of 
 other libelers were employed against him. Ballads, describ- 
 ing him as the basest of men, were sung publicly in the high- 
 ways. The funds which the queen had hitherto provided for 
 the construction of Blenheim were stopped, and the tide of 
 calumny and vituperation ran so strongly that he thought it 
 advisable to abandon the country, and accordingly proceeded, 
 in November, 1712, almost alone, to Flanders, and soon after 
 to Germany. He was received in both countries with a 
 respect and an enthusiasm that contrasted strangely with his 
 treatment at home, and heat the same time invested ^50,000 
 in Holland, in case the state of home politics should exclude 
 him forever from his country. 
 
 English history contains no more striking instance of the 
 sudden revulsion of popular feeling. Beyond comparison, the 
 greatest of English generals, Marlborough, had raised his 
 country to a height of military glory such as it had never at- 
 tained since the days of Poitiers and Agincourt, and his vic- 
 tories appeared all the more dazzling after the ignominious 
 reigns of the last two Stuarts, and after the many failures that 
 checkered the enterprises of William. His military genius, 
 though once bitterly decried by party malignity, will now be 
 universally acknowledged, and it was sufficient to place him 
 among the greatest captains who have ever lived. Hardly any 
 other modern general combined to an equal degree the three 
 great attributes of daring, caution, and sagacity, or conducted 
 military enterprises of equal magnitude and duration without 
 losing a single battle, or failing in a single siege. He was
 
 DOWNFALL OF MARLBOROUGH. 289 
 
 one of the very few commanders who appear to have shown 
 equal skill in directing a campaign, in winning a battle, and 
 in improving a victory. It cannot, indeed, be said of him, as 
 it may be said of Frederick the Great, that he was at the head 
 of a small power, with almost all Europe in arms against it, 
 and that nearly every victory he won was snatched from an 
 army enormously outnumbering his own. Nor did the circum- 
 stances of Marlborough admit of a military career of the same 
 brilliancy, variety, and magnitude of enterprise as that of 
 Napoleon. But both Frederick and Napoleon experienced 
 crushing disasters, and both of them had some advantages 
 which Marlborough did not possess. Frederick was the ab- 
 solute ruler of a state which had for many years been governed 
 exclusively on the military principle, in which the first and 
 almost the sole object of the government had been to train 
 and discipline the largest and most perfect army the nation 
 could support. Napoleon was the absolute ruler of the fore- 
 most military power on the Continent, at a time when the en- 
 thusiasm of a great revolution had given it an unparalleled 
 energy, when the destruction of the old hierarchy of rank 
 and the opening of all posts to talent, had brought an ex- 
 traordinary amount of ability to the forefront, and when the 
 military administrations of surrounding nations were singu- 
 larly decrepit and corrupt. Marlborough, on the other hand, 
 commanded armies consisting, in a great degree, of confed- 
 erates and mercenaries of many different nationalities, and 
 under many different rulers. He was thwarted at every step 
 by political obstacles, and by the much graver obstacles aris- 
 ing from divided command and personal or national 
 jealousies; he contended against the first military nation of 
 the Continent, at a time when its military organization had 
 attained the highest perfection, and when a long succession 
 of brilliant wars had given it a school of officers of consum- 
 mate skill. 
 ,But, great as were his military gifts, they would have been
 
 290 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 insufficient had they not been allied with other qualities, well 
 fitted to win the ad.niration of men. Adam Smith has said, 
 with scarcely an exaggeration, that "it is a characteristic al- 
 most peculiar to the great duke of Marlborough, that ten years 
 of such uninterrupted and such splendid successes as scarce 
 any other general could boast of, never betrayed him into a 
 single rash action, scarcely into a single rash word or expres- 
 sion." Nothing in his career is more admirable than the un- 
 wearied patience, the inimitable skill, the courtesy, the tact, 
 the self-command with which he employed himself during 
 many years in reconciling the incessant differences, overcom- 
 ing the incessant opposition, and soothing the incessant jeal- 
 ousies of those with whom he was compelled to co-operate. 
 His private correspondence abundantly shows how gross was 
 the provocation he endured, how keenly he felt it, how nobly 
 he bore it. As a negotiator, he ranks with the most skillful 
 diplomatists of his age, and it was, no doubt, his great tact in 
 managing men that induced his old rival Bolingbroke, in one 
 of his latest writings, to describe him as not only the greatest 
 general, but also ''the greatest minister our country or any 
 other has produced." Chesterfield, while absurdly depreci- 
 ating his intellect, admitted that '* his manner was irresist- 
 ible," and he added that, of all men he had ever known,. 
 Marlborough " possessed the graces in the highest degree." 
 
 Nor was his character without its softer side. Though he 
 cannot, I think, be acquitted of a desire to prolong war, in the 
 interests of his personal or political ambition, it is at least true 
 that no general ever studied more, by admirable discipline and 
 by uniform humanity, to mitigate its horrors. Very few friend- 
 ships, among great political or military leaders, have been as 
 constant, or as unclouded by any shade of jealousy, as the 
 friendship between Marlborough and Godolphin, and between 
 Marlborough and Eugene. His conjugal fidelity, in a time of 
 great laxity, and under temptations and provocations of no 
 common order, was beyond reproach. His attachment to the
 
 DOWNFALL OF MARLBOROUGH. 291 
 
 Church of England was at one time the great obstacle to his 
 advancement. It appears never to have wavered through all 
 the vicissitudes of his life; and no one who reads his most 
 private letters with candor, can fail to perceive that a certain 
 vein of genuine piety ran through his nature, however incon- 
 sistent it may appear with some portions of his career. 
 
 Yet it may be questioned whether, even in the zenith of his 
 fame, he was really popular. He had grave vices, and they 
 were precisely of that kind which is most fatal to public men. 
 His extreme rapacity in acquiring, and his extreme avarice 
 in hoarding money, contrasted forcibly with the lavish gener- 
 osity of Ormond, and alone gave weight to the charges of 
 peculation that were brought against him. It is true that 
 this, like all his passions, was under control. Torcy soon 
 found that it was useless to attempt to bribe him, and he de- 
 clined, as we have seen, with little hesitation, the enormously 
 lucrative post of governor of the Austrian Netherlands, when 
 he found that the appointment aroused the strong and dan- 
 gerous hostility of the Dutch. In these cases, his keen and 
 far-seeing judgment perceived clearly his true interest, and 
 he had sufficient resolution to follow it. Yet still, like many 
 men who have risen from great poverty to great wealth, ava- 
 rice was the passion of his life, and the rapacity, both of him- 
 self and of his wife, was insatiable. Besides immense grants 
 for Blenheim, and marriage portions given by the queen to 
 their daughters, they at one lime received between them an 
 annual income of public money of more than ^64,000. 
 
 Nor can he be acquitted of very gross and aggravated 
 treachery to those he served. It is, indeed, not easy to form 
 a fair estimate in this respect of the conduct of public men at 
 the period of the Revolution. Historians rarely make sufficient 
 allowance for the degree in which the judgments and disposi- 
 tions even of the best men are colored by the moral tone of 
 the age, society, or profession in which they live, or for the 
 temptations of men of great genius and of natural ambition in
 
 292 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 times when no highly scrupulous man could possibly succeed 
 in public life. Marlborough struggled into greatness from a 
 very humble position, in one of the most profligate periods of 
 English politics, and he lived- through a long period when the 
 ultimate succession of the crown was very doubtful. A very 
 large proportion of the leading statesmen, during this long 
 season of suspense, made such overtures to the deposed dy- 
 nasty as would at least secure them from absolute ruin in the 
 event of a change ; and their conduct is surely susceptible of 
 much palliation. The apparent interests and the apparent 
 wishes of the nation hung so evenly, and oscillated so fre- 
 quently, that strong convictions were rare, and even good 
 men might often be in doubt. 
 
 But the obligations of Marlborough to James were of no 
 common order, and his treachery was of no common dye. He 
 had been raised by the special favor of his sovereign from the 
 position of a page to the peerage, to great wealth, to high com- 
 mand in the army. He had been trusted by him with the 
 most absolute trust. He not only abandoned him in the cri- 
 sis of his fate, with circumstances of the most deliberate and 
 aggravated treachery, but also employed his influence over the 
 daughter of .his benefactor to induce her to fly from her father, 
 and to array herself with his enemies. Such conduct, if it had 
 indeed been dictated, -as he alleged, solely by a regard for the 
 interests of Protestantism, would have been certainly, in the 
 words of Hume, "a signal sacrifice to public virtue of every 
 duty in private life ; " and it " required ever after the most 
 upright, disinterested, and public-spirited behavior, to render 
 it justifiable." How little the later career of Marlborough ful- 
 filled this condition is well known. When we find that, hav- 
 ing been loaded under the new government with titles, honors, 
 and wealth, having been placed in the inner council and in- 
 trusted with the most important state secrets, he was one of 
 the first Englishmen to enter into negotiations with the exiled 
 king; that he purchased his pardon from James by betraying
 
 DOWNFALL OF MARLBOROUGH. 293 
 
 important military secrets to the enemies of his country, and 
 that during a great part of his subsequent career, while hold- 
 ing office under the government, he was secretly negotiating 
 with the pretender, it is difficult not to place the worst con- 
 struction upon his public life. It is probable, indeed, that his 
 negotiations with the Jacobites were never sincere, that he 
 had no real desire for a restoration, and that his guiding 
 motive was much less ambition than a desire to secure what 
 he possessed; but these considerations only slightly palliate 
 his conduct. At the period of his downfall his later acts of 
 treason were, for the most part, unknown; but his conduct 
 toward James weighed heavily upon his reputation, and his 
 intercourse with the pretender, though not proved, was sus- 
 pected by many. Neither Hanoverians nor Jacobites trusted 
 him; neither Whigs nor Tories could regard him, without re- 
 serve, as their own. 
 
 And with this feeling of distrust there was mingled a strong 
 element of fear. In the latter years of Queen Anne the shad- 
 ow of Cromwell fell darkly across the path of Maryborough. 
 The profound horror of military despotism, which is one of 
 the strongest and most salutary of English sentiments, has 
 been, perhaps, the most valuable legacy of the commonwealth. 
 In Maryborough, for the first time since the Restoration, men 
 saw a possible Cromwell, and they looked forward with alarm 
 to the death of the queen as a period peculiarly propitious to 
 military usurpation. 
 
 These considerations help to explain the completeness of 
 the downfall of Marlborough.
 
 294 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 XLIX. 
 
 WALPOLE AS A PEACE MINISTER. GREEN. 
 
 [By a law enacted during the life-time of William it was settled that, if 
 neither he and Queen Mary, nor Queen Anne, left any children, the crown 
 should go to the German branch of the Stuart family. The head of this 
 branch, at the time of Queen Anne's death, was George, elector of Han- 
 over, and he accordingly became the first English king of the house of 
 Hanover, or Brunswick, as it is often called. As he was a foreigner, igno- 
 rant of English politics, and even of the English language, it was almost 
 inevitable that the administration of affairs should fall into the hands of his 
 ministers. Among these Sir Robert Walpole soon rose to prominence, and 
 became prime minister in 1721. From that time on until his retirement, 
 in 1742, his history is the history of the nation.] 
 
 BUT it was no mere chance or 
 good luck which maintained Wal- 
 pole at the head of affairs for more 
 than twenty years. If no minister 
 has fared worse at the hand of po- 
 ets or historians, there are few 
 whose greatness has been more 
 impartially recognized by practical 
 statesmen. His qualities, indeed, 
 were such as a practical statesman 
 GEORGE i. can alone do f u jj justice to There 
 
 is nothing to charm in the outer aspect of the man; nor is there 
 any thing picturesque in the work which he set himself to do, 
 or in the means by which he succeeded in doing it. But pict- 
 uresque or no, the work of keeping England quiet, and of giv- 
 ing quiet to Europe, was in itself a noble one ; and it is the 
 temper with which he carried on this work, the sagacity with 
 which he discerned the means by which alone it could be 
 done, and the stubborn, indomitable will with which he faced 
 every difficulty in the doing it, which gives Walpole his place
 
 WALPOLE AS A PEACE MINISTER. 295 
 
 among English statesmen. He was the first and he was the 
 most successful of our peace ministers. " The most pernicious 
 circumstances," he said, " in which this country can be are 
 those of war; as we must be losers while it lasts, and cannot 
 be great gainers when it ends." It was not that the honor or 
 influence of England suffered in Walpole's hands, for he won 
 victories by the firmness of his policy and the skill of his ne- 
 gotiations as effectual as any that are won by arms. But up 
 to the very end of his ministry, when the frenzy of the nation 
 at last forced his hand, in spite of every varying complication 
 of foreign affairs, and a never-ceasing pressure alike from the 
 opposition and the court, it is the glory of Walpole that he 
 resolutely kept England at peace. And as he was the first of 
 our peace ministers, so he was the first of our financiers. He 
 was far indeed from discerning the powers which later states- 
 men have shown to exist in a sound finance powers of pro- 
 ducing both national development and international amity ; 
 but he had the sense to see, what no minister till then had 
 seen, that the only help a statesman can give to industry or 
 commerce is to remove all obstacles in the way of their natu- 
 ral growth, and that beyond this the best course he can take 
 in presence of a great increase in national energy and nation- 
 al wealth is to look quietly on and to let it alone. At the out- 
 set of his rule he declared in a speech from the throne that 
 nothing would more conduce to the extension of commerce 
 " than to make the exportation of our own manufactures, and 
 the importation of the commodities used in the manufactur- 
 ing of them, as practicable and easy as may be." 
 
 The first act of his financial administration was to take off 
 the duties from more than a hundred British exports, and 
 nearly forty articles of importation. In 1730 he broke, in the 
 same enlightened spirit, through the prejudice which re- 
 stricted the commerce of the colonies to the mother country 
 alone, by allowing Georgia and the Carolinas to export their 
 rice directly to any part of Europe. The result was, that
 
 296 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 the rice of America soon drove that of Italy and Egypt from 
 the market. His excise bill, defective as it was, was the 
 first measure in which an English minister showed any real 
 grasp of the principles of taxation. The wisdom of W.il- 
 pole was rewarded by a quick up-growth of prosperity. Tire 
 material progress of the country was such as England had 
 never seen before. Our exports, which were only six millions 
 in value at the beginning of the century, had reached the 
 value of twelve millions by the middle of it. It was, above 
 all, the trade with the colonies which began to give England 
 a new wealth. The whole colonial trade at the time. of the 
 battle of Blenheim (1704) was no greater than the trade with 
 the single isle of Jamaica at the opening of the American 
 war. At the accession of George the Second the exports to 
 Pennsylvania were valued at ^15,000. At his death they 
 reached half a million. In the middle of the eighteenth 
 century the profits of Great Britain from the trade with the 
 colonies were estimated at two millions a year. And with 
 the growth of wealth came a quick growth in population. 
 That of Manchester and Birmingham, whose manufactures 
 were now becoming of importance, doubled in thirty years. 
 Bristol, the chief seat of the West Indian trade, rose into new 
 prosperity. Liverpool, which owes its creation to the new 
 trade with the West, sprang up from a little country town 
 into the third port of the kingdom. With peace and security, 
 and the wealth that they brought with them, the value of 
 land, and with it the rental of every country gentleman, rose 
 fast. " Estates which were rented at two thousand a year 
 threescore years ago," said Burke, in 1766, "are at three 
 thousand at present." 
 
 Nothing shows more clearly the soundness of his political 
 intellect than the fact that this up-growth of wealth around 
 him never made Walpole swerve from a rigid economy, from 
 a steady reduction of the debt, or a diminution of fiscal du- 
 ties. Even before the death of George the First the public
 
 WALPOLE AS A PEACE MINISTER. 297 
 
 burdens were reduced by twenty millions. It was, indeed, 
 in economy alone that his best work could be done. In 
 finance, as in other fields of statesmanship, Walpole was for- 
 bidden from taking more than tentative steps toward a wiser 
 system by the needs of the work he had specially to do. 
 To this work every thing gave way. He withdrew his excise 
 bill rather than suffer the agitation it roused to break the 
 quiet which was reconciling the country to the system of the 
 revolution. His hatred of religious intolerance, or the sup- 
 port he hoped for from the dissenters, never swayed him to 
 rouse the spirit of popular bigotry, which he knew to be ready 
 to burst out at the slightest challenge, by any effort to repeal 
 the laws against non-conformity. His temper was naturally 
 vigorous and active, and yet the years of his power are years 
 without parallel in our annals for political stagnation. His 
 long administration, indeed, is almost without a history. All 
 legislative and political action seemed to cease with his entry 
 into office. Year after year passed by without a change. In 
 the third year of Walpole's ministry there was but one divis- 
 ion in the House of Commons. Such an inaction gives lit- 
 tle scope for the historian ; but it fell in with the temper of 
 the nation at large. It was popular with the class which 
 commonly presses for political activity. The energy of the 
 trading class was absorbed, for the time, in the rapid exten- 
 sion of commerce and accumulation of wealth. So long as 
 the country was justly and temperately governed the mer- 
 chant and shopkeeper were content to leave government in 
 the hands that held it. All they asked was to be let alone to 
 enjoy their new freedom and develop their new industries. 
 And Walpole let them alone. 
 
 On the other hand, the forces which opposed the revolu- 
 tion lost, year by year, somewhat of their energy. The fervor 
 which breeds revolt died down among the Jacobites as their 
 swords rusted idly in their scabbards. The Tories sulked 
 in their country houses; but their wrath against the house of
 
 298 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 Hanover ebbed away for want of opportunities of exerting 
 itself. And, meanwhile, on opponents as on friends, the 
 freedom which the revolution had brought with it was doing 
 its work. 
 
 It was to the patient influence of this freedom that Wai- 
 pole trusted ; and it was the special mark of his admin- 
 istration that, in spite of every temptation, he gave it full 
 play. Though he dared not touch the laws that oppressed 
 the Catholic or the dissenter, he took care that they should 
 remain inoperative. Catholic worship went on unhindered. 
 Yearly bills of indemnity exempted the non-conformists from 
 the consequences of their infringement of the test act. 
 There was no tampering with public justice or with personal 
 liberty. Thought and action were alike left free. No min- 
 ister was ever more foully slandered by journalists and 
 pamphleteers, but Walpole never meddled with the press. 
 
 L. 
 
 THE PREACHING OF WHITEFIELD. LECKY. 
 
 [The great Methodist revival dates from the later years of Walpole's 
 ministry. The Church of England was in a state of great stagnation, and 
 a group of Oxford students, among whom John and Charles Wesley were 
 the most prominent, determined to regenerate it. But the wonderful 
 preaching of Whitefield was the main instrument in spreading the move- 
 ment, especially among the lower classes.] 
 
 His eloquence had nothing of that chaste and polished 
 beauty which was displayed in the discourses of the great 
 French preachers, and which, in the present century, has led 
 so many men of fastidious taste to hang spell-bound around 
 the pulpit of Robert Hall. It had none of that force of rea- 
 soning, that originality of thought, or that splendor of lan- 
 guage, which constituted the great charm of the sermons of
 
 THE PREACHING OF WHITEFIELD. 299 
 
 Chalmers. Yet, while exercising a power which has, proba- 
 bly never been equaled on the most ignorant and the most 
 vicious, Whitefield was quite capable of fascinating the most 
 refined audiences in London, and he extorted the tribute of 
 warm admiration from such critics as Hume and Franklin, 
 from such orators as Bolingbroke and Chesterfield. His 
 preaching combined almost the highest perfection of acting 
 with the most burning fervor of conviction. No man ever 
 exhibited more wonderfully that strange power which great 
 histrionic talent exercises over the human mind investing 
 words which are, in truth, the emptiest bombast with all the 
 glow of the most majestic eloquence, and imparting, for a 
 moment at least, to confident assertions more than the weight 
 of the most convincing arguments. His gestures were fault- 
 less in their beauty and propriety, while his voice was so 
 powerful that Franklin, who was the most accurate of men, 
 ascertained by experiment that it could be heard distinctly 
 in the open air by 30,000 persons. It was, at the same time, 
 eminently sweet, musical, and varied, and it was managed 
 with perfect skill. Garrick is reported to have said, with a 
 pardonable exaggeration, that Whitefield could pronounce 
 the word Mesopotamia in such a way as to move an audience 
 to tears. With the exception of a slight squint of one eye, 
 which was much dwelt on by his satirists, his person was un- 
 usually graceful and imposing, and, like Chatham, the pierc- 
 ing glance of a singularly brilliant eye contributed, in no 
 small measure, to the force of his appeals. 
 
 To these gifts we must add a large command of vivid, 
 homely, and picturesque English, and an extraordinary meas- 
 ure of the tact which enables a practiced orator to adapt 
 himself to the character and dispositions of his audience. 
 We must add, above all, a contagious fervor of enthusiasm, 
 which, like a resistless torrent, bore down every obstacle. 
 Of no other preacher could it be more truly said that he 
 preached "as a dying man to dying men." His favorite
 
 300 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 maxim was that " a preacher, whenever he entered the pul- 
 pit, should look upon it as the last time he might preach, and 
 the last time his people might hear." To his vivid imagina- 
 tion heaven and hell, death and judgment, appeared palpably 
 present. His voice was sometimes choked with tears ; he 
 stamped vehemently on the pulpit floor ; every nerve was 
 strained ; his whole frame was convulsed with passion. 
 One who heard him described how, during the whole re- 
 mainder of his life, he was haunted by the recollection of the 
 tone of piercing pathos with which Whitefield once inter- 
 rupted the course of his remarks, as if overpowered by a 
 sudden thought : " O, my hearers, the wrath to come ! the 
 wrath to come ! " 
 
 One of the great peculiarities of the Methodist preachers 
 was the personal application they gave to their exhorta- 
 tions. It was their main object, by gesture, by look, by 
 the constant use of the singular pronoun, to preach so 
 that each member of the congregation might imagine the 
 whole force of the denunciations or of the pleadings of the 
 preacher was directed individually to himself. In this art 
 Whitefield especially excelled, and he sometimes carried it to 
 strange lengths, and employed it with strange effects. On 
 one occasion he saw the actor Shuter, who was then attracting 
 much notice in the part of Ramble in the "Rambler," seated 
 in a front pew of the gallery. He at once turned toward him 
 and exclaimed, " And thou, too, poor Ramble, who hast ram- 
 bled so far from him, O ! cease thy ramblings, and come to 
 Jesus." On another, when appealing to a Negro congregation, 
 he asked whether they did not desire to go to heaven, the 
 audience was amused by an old Negro audibly exclaiming, 
 " Yes, sir." " The gentleman put the question once or twice," 
 he afterward explained, "till at last he seemed to point to 
 me, and I was ashamed that nobody should answer him, and, 
 therefore, I did." Very frequently, by his glance, he singled 
 out, or appeared to single out, one member of his vast con-
 
 THE PREACHING OF WHITEFIELD. 301 
 
 gregation, and a great part of the tremendous power which his 
 appeals exercised over some minds is ascribed to this habit. 
 
 He delighted in strokes of dramatic oratory, which, with an or- 
 dinary man, would have appeared simply ludicrous or intolera- 
 bly tawdry, but to which his transcendent power of acting never 
 failed to impart an extraordinary power. On one occasion 
 the scene is described by no less a person than David Hume 
 " after a solemn pause, he thus addressed the audience : 
 ' The attendant angel is just about to leave the threshold of this 
 sanctuary, and ascend to heaven. And shall he ascend and 
 not bear with him the news of one sinner among all this mul- 
 titude reclaimed from the error of his way ?' To give the 
 greater effect to this exclamation, Whitefield stamped with his 
 foot, lifted up his hands and eyes to heaven, and cried aloud, 
 ' Stop, Gabriel, stop, ere you enter the sacred portals, and yet 
 carry with you the news of one sinner converted to God !' " 
 " This address," adds Hume, <l was accompanied by such ani- 
 mated yet natural action, that it surpassed any thing I ever 
 saw or heard in any other preacher." He was fond of paint- 
 ing the denial by Peter, and when he came to describe the 
 apostle as going out and weeping bitterly, he had always ready 
 a fold of his gown in which to bury his face. Sometimes he 
 would visit a court of justice, and afterward reproduce the 
 condemnation scene in the pulpit. With his eyes full of 
 tears, and his voice trembling with pity, he would begin, after 
 a momentary pause: "I am now going to put on the con- 
 demning cap. Sinner, I must do it. I must pronounce sen- 
 tence upon you." Then changing his tone, he thundered 
 over his awe-struck congregation the solemn words, " De- 
 part from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire !" Of the ve- 
 hemence of his manner, and the extraordinary effect which 
 that vehemence produced, it is difficult, from any example of 
 our own day, to form a conception. " I hardly ever knew him 
 to go through a sermon," wrote one who knew him well, 
 "without weeping more or less, and I truly believe his were 
 13
 
 302 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 the tears of sincerity. His voice was often interrupted by his 
 affection, and I have heard him say in the pulpit, 'You 
 blame me for weeping, but how can I help it when you will 
 not weep for yourselves, though your immortal souls are on 
 the verge of destruction, and, for aught you know, you are 
 hearing your last sermon.' " " God always makes use of strong 
 passions," he was accustomed to say, "for a great work," 
 and it was his object to rouse such passions by his eloquence 
 to the highest point. Hume describes almost the whole as- 
 sembly as weeping, and, though himself one of the most deli- 
 cate of critics, and one of the coldest and most skeptical of 
 men, he pronounced VVhitefield the most ingenious preacher 
 he had ever heard, and declared that it was worth going 
 twenty miles to hear him. 
 
 The account which Franklin has given of the effects of the 
 eloquence of Whitefield, though well known, is too character- 
 istic to be omitted. Franklin, strongly disapproving of the 
 scheme of building an orphanage in Georgia, which was but 
 thinly populated, and where workmen and materials were 
 scarce, instead of at Philadelphia, determined not to support 
 it. " I happened soon after," he tells us, " to attend one of 
 his sermons, in the course of which I perceived he intended 
 to finish with a collection, and I silently resolved he should 
 get nothing from me. I had in my pocket a handful of cop- 
 per money, three or four silver dollars, and five pistoles in 
 gold. As he proceeded I began to soften, and concluded to 
 give the copper. Another stroke of his oratory made me 
 ashamed of that, and determined me to give the silver, and 
 he finished so admirably that I emptied my pocket wholly into 
 the collector's dish, gold and all. At this sermon there was 
 also one of our club, who, being of my sentiments respecting 
 the building in Georgia, and suspecting a collection might be 
 intended, had, by precaution, emptied his pockets before he 
 came from home. Toward the conclusion of the discourse, 
 however, he felt a strong inclination to give, and applied to a
 
 THE PREACHING OF WHITEFIELD. 303 
 
 neighbor, who stood near him, to lend him some money for 
 the purpose. The request was made to, perhaps, the only 
 man in the company who had the firmness not to be affected 
 by the preacher. His answer was, ' At any other time, friend 
 Hopkinson, I would lend thee freely, but not now, for thee 
 seems to me to be out of thy right senses.' " 
 
 The effect of this style of preaching was greatly enhanced 
 by an extreme variety of gesture, intonation, and manner. 
 Considering the very small number of his ideas, it is a remark- 
 able proof of the oratorical talents of Whitefield that his ser- 
 mons were never charged with monotony. He frequently 
 interspersed the more serious passages with anecdotes or il- 
 lustrations. He sometimes even relieved them by a jest. 
 Often, when the audience had been strung to the highest 
 pitch of excitement, he would suddenly make a long, solemn, 
 and dramatic pause. He painted scenes as if they were vis- 
 ibly present to the eye, with all the fire and the animation of 
 the most perfect actor. On one occasion, when illustrating 
 the peril of sinners, he described, with such admirable power, 
 an old blind man, deserted by his dog, tottering feebly over 
 the desolate moor, endeavoring in vain to feel his way with 
 his staff, and gradually drawing nearer and nearer to the 
 verge of a dizzy precipice, that when he arrived at the final 
 catastrophe, no less a person than Lord Chesterfield lost all 
 self-possession, and was heard audibly exclaiming, " Good 
 God ! he is gone." On another occasion, preaching before 
 seamen at New York, he adopted a nautical tone. "Well, 
 my boys, we have a clear sky, and are making fine headway 
 over a smooth sea before a light breeze, and we shall soon 
 lose sight of land. But what means this sudden lowering of 
 the heavens, and that dark cloud arising from beneath the 
 western horizon? Hark! Don't you hear distant thunder? 
 Don't you see those flashes of lightning ? There is a storm gath- 
 ering ! Every man to his duty ! How the waves arise and dash 
 against the ship ! The air is dark ! The tempest rages ! Our masts
 
 304 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 are gone! The ship is on her beam-ends! What next?" "The 
 long boat, take to the long boat !" shouted his excited hearers. 
 
 A very great part of his influence depended, no doubt, upon 
 the matter of his discourses. He avoided all abstract reflec- 
 tions, all trains of reasoning, every thing that could fatigue the 
 attention, or rouse the intellect to question or oppose. His 
 preaching was based upon the most confident assertions, and 
 it dealt almost exclusively with topics which, if firmly be- 
 lieved, could hardly fail to have a deep influence upon men. 
 The utter depravity of human nature the eternal tortures 
 which are the doom of every unconverted man the free sal- 
 vation by Christ the imminence of death the necessity to 
 salvation of a complete, supernatural change of character and 
 emotions, were the subjects upon which he continually di- 
 lated. It is easy to understand that such topics, urged by a 
 great orator, at a time when some of them were by no means 
 familiar, should have exercised a far deeper influence than 
 any dissertation upon the duties of man, or the authority of 
 revelation. Besides this, Whitefield was perpetually changing 
 his audience. His style was never suffered to pall upon his 
 hearers. The same sermon was again and again repeated, 
 and at every repetition, passages which appeared ineffective 
 were retrenched, and a greater perfection of emphasis and 
 intonation was acquired. Garrick and Foote declared that 
 he never reached his highest perfection till the fortieth repe- 
 tition. The picturesque scenes and the striking contrasts 
 which out-of-door preaching furnished, added to the effect, 
 and the great multitude who were attracted by his eloquence 
 gave in turn to that eloquence an additional power. A con- 
 tagion of excitement was aroused, and an irresistible wave of 
 sympathetic feeling rolled through the mighty host. 
 
 I have dwelt at some length upon the preaching of White- 
 field, for it was of vital importance to the religious revival of 
 the eighteenth century. But for the simultaneous appearance 
 of a great orator and a great statesman, Methodism would
 
 THE PREACHING OF WHITEFIELD. 305 
 
 probably have smoldered, and at last perished, like the very 
 similar religious societies of the preceding century. White- 
 field was utterly destitute of the organizing skill which could 
 alone give a permanence to the movement, and no talent is 
 naturally more ephemeral than popular oratory; while Wesley, 
 though a great and impressive preacher, could scarcely have 
 kindled a general enthusiasm had he not been assisted by an 
 orator who had an unrivaled power of moving the passions of 
 the ignorant. The institution of field-preaching by White- 
 field, in the February of 1739, carried the impulse through 
 the great masses of the poor, while the foundation by Wesley, 
 in the May of the same year, of the first Methodist chapel, 
 was the beginning of an organized body capable of securing 
 and perpetuating the results that had been achieved. 
 
 LI. 
 
 AFTER CULLODEN. STANHOPE. 
 
 [While the Church of England was being stirred to its depths by the 
 preaching of Whitefield and his associates, Prince Charles Edward Stuart, 
 the young pretender, as he was called, made an attempt to recover his an- 
 cestral throne. Landing in Scotland, in 1745, with only six companions, he 
 rallied many of the Highland clans around him, and gained brilliant suc- 
 cesses at Preston Pans and at Falkirk, but was disastrously defeated at 
 Culloden. After wandering for five months as a fugitive in the Highlands, 
 he succeeded in making his escape to France.] 
 
 BUT where was he, the young and princely chief of this 
 ill-fated enterprise, the new Charles of this second Worces- 
 ter ? His followers dismissed to seek safety as they could for 
 themselves, he sometimes alone, sometimes with a single 
 Highlander as his guide and companion, sometimes begirt 
 with strange faces, of whose fidelity he had no assurance, a 
 price set upon his head, hunted from mountain to island, and 
 from island to mountain, pinched with famine, tossed by
 
 306 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 storms, and unsheltered from the rains such was now the 
 object of so many long-cherished and lately towering hopes ! 
 In the five months of his weary wanderings from April to 
 November almost every day might afford its own tale of 
 hardship, danger, and alarm, and a mere outline must suffice 
 for the general historian. It is much to Charles's honor, that, 
 as one of his chance attendants declares, " he used to say that 
 the fatigues and distresses he underwent signified nothing at 
 all, because he was only a single person, but when he reflected 
 upon the many brave fellows who suffered in his cause, that, 
 he behoved to own, did strike him to the heart, and did sink 
 very deep within him." But most of all entitled to praise 
 appear the common Highlanders around him. Though in 
 the course of these five months the secrets of his concealment 
 became intrusted to several hundred persons, most of them 
 poor and lowly, not one of them was ever tempted by the 
 prize of ,30,000 to break faith, and betray the suppliant 
 fugitive, and, when destitute of other help and nearly, as it 
 seemed, run to bay, he was saved by the generous self-devo- 
 tion of a woman. 
 
 In the hope of finding a French ship to convey him, Charles 
 had embarked, only eight days after Culloden, for that remote 
 cluster of isles, to which the common name of Long Island 
 is applied. Driven from place to place by contrary winds and 
 storms, and having sometimes no other food than oatmeal and 
 water, he at length gained South Uist, where his wants were 
 in some degree relieved by the elder Clanranald. But his 
 course being tracked or suspected, a large body of militia and 
 regular troops, to the number of two thousand men, landed on 
 the island, and commenced an eager search, while the shores 
 were surrounded by small vessels of war. Concealment or 
 escape seemed alike impossible, and so they must have 
 proved, but for Miss Flora Macdonald, a name, says Dr. 
 Johnson, which will forever live in history. This young lady 
 was then on a visit to Clanranald's family, and was step-
 
 AFTER CULLODEN. 307 
 
 daughter of a captain in the hostile militia which occupied 
 the island. Being appealed to in Charles's behalf, she nobly 
 undertook to save him at all hazards to herself. She obtained 
 from her step-father a passport to proceed to Skye, for her- 
 self, a man-servant, and a maid who was termed Betty Burke, 
 the part of Betty to be played by the chevalier. When Lady 
 Clanranald and Flora sought him out, bringing with them a 
 female dress, they found him alone in a little hut upon the 
 shore, employed in roasting the heart of a sheep upon a 
 wooden spit. They could not forbear from shedding tears at 
 his desolate situation, but Charles observed, with a smile, that 
 it would be well, perhaps, for all kings if they had to pass 
 through such an ordeal as he was now enduring. On the 
 same evening he took advantage of the passport, embarking 
 in his new attire, with Flora and a faithful Highlander, Neil 
 MacEachan, who acted as their servant. The dawn of the 
 next day found them far at sea in their open boat, without any 
 land in view ; soon, however, the dark mountains of Skye rose 
 on the horizon. Approaching the coast at Waternish, they 
 were received with a volley of musketry from the soldiers sta- 
 tioned there, but none of the balls took effect, and the rowers, 
 vigorously plying their oars, bore them away from that scene 
 of danger, and enabled them to disembark on another point. 
 Charles was now in the country of Sir Alexander Macdon- 
 ald, at first a waverer in the contest, but of late a decided foe. 
 When the prudent chief saw the Jacobite cause decline, he 
 had been induced to levy his clan against it, and was now on 
 the main-land in attendance upon the duke of Cumberland. 
 Yet it was of his wife, Lady Margaret, a daughter of the earl 
 of Eglinton, that Flora determined to implore assistance, hav- 
 ing no other resource, and knowing from herself the courageous 
 pity of a female heart. Lady Margaret received the news with 
 pain and surprise, but did not disappoint Flora's firm reli- 
 ance ; her own house was filled with militia officers, but she 
 intrusted Charles, with earnest injunctions for his safety, to the
 
 308 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 charge of Macdonald of Kingsburgh, the kinsman and factor 
 of her husband. As they walked to Kingsburgh's house, 
 Charles still in woman's disguise, they had several streams to 
 pass, and the prince held up his petticoats so high as to excite 
 the surprise and laughter of some country people on the road. 
 Being admonished by his attendants, he promised to take bet- 
 ter care for the future, and accordingly, on passing the next 
 stream, allowed the skirts to hang down and float upon the 
 water. "Your enemies," said Kingsburgh, "call you a pre- 
 tender, but if you be, I can tell you, you are the worst of your 
 trade I ever saw! " 
 
 1 Next day, at Portree, Charles took leave of the noble- 
 minded Flora with warm expressions of his gratitude, and 
 passed over to the Isle of Rasay, under the less inconvenient 
 disguise of a male servant, and the name of Lewis Caw. His 
 preservers soon afterward paid the penalty of their compas- 
 sion, both Kingsburgh and Flora Macdonald being arrested 
 and conveyed in custody, the former to Edinburgh, the latter 
 to London. The conduct of Lady Margaret likewise was 
 much inveighed against at court, but once, when it provoked 
 some such censure from the princess of Wales, " And would 
 not you, madam," asked Frederick, with a generous spirit, 
 "would not you in like circumstances have done the same? 
 I hope, I am sure you would! " It was at the intercession, it 
 is said, of his royal highness, that Flora was released from 
 prison after a twelvemonth's confinement. A collection was 
 made for her among the Jacobite ladies in London, to the 
 amount of nearly fifteen hundred pounds. She then married 
 Kingsburgh's son, and many years afterward went with him to 
 North America, but both returned during the civil war, and 
 died in their native Isle of Skye. 
 
 From Rasay Charles again made his way to the main-land, 
 where he lay for two days cooped up within a line of senti- 
 nels, who covered each other upon their posts, so that he 
 could only crouch among the heather, without daring to light
 
 AFTER CULLODEN. 309 
 
 a fire, or to dress his food. From this new danger he at 
 length escaped, by creeping at night down a narrow glen, the 
 bed of a winter stream, between two of the stations. Another 
 vicissitude in his wanderings brought him to a mountain cave, 
 where seven robbers had taken their abode; and with these 
 men he remained for nearly three weeks. Fierce and lawless 
 as they were, they never thought for an instant of earning " the 
 price of blood ; " on the contrary, they most earnestly applied 
 themselves to secure his safety and supply his wants. Some- 
 times they used singly, and in various disguises, to repair to 
 the neighboring Fort Augustus, and obtain for Charles a 
 newspaper or the current reports of the day. On one occa- 
 sion they brought back to the prince, with much exultation, 
 the choicest dainty they had ever heard of a pennyworth of 
 gingerbread ! 
 
 On leaving these generous outlaws, and after other perils 
 and adventures, Charles effected a junction with his faithful 
 adherents, Cluny and Lochiel, who was lame from his wound. 
 There he found a rude plenty to which he had long been un- 
 used. "Now, gentlemen, I live like a prince! " cried he, on 
 his first arrival, as he eagerly devoured some collops out of a 
 saucepan with a silver spoon. For some time they resided in 
 a singular retreat called the Cage, on the side of Mount 
 Benalder; it was concealed by a close thicket, and half-sus- 
 pended in the air. At this place Charles received intelli- 
 gence that two French vessels, sent out expressly for his de- 
 liverance, under the direction of Colonel Warren, of Dillon's 
 regiment, and with that officer on board, had anchored in 
 Lochnanuagh. Immediately setting off for that place, but 
 traveling only by night, he embarked on the 2oth of Septem- 
 ber, attended by Lochiel, Colonel Roy Stuart, and about one 
 hundred other persons, who had gathered at the news. It 
 was the very same spot where Charles had landed fourteen 
 months before, but how changed since that time both his fate 
 and his feelings! With what different emotions must he have 
 '3*
 
 3io SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 gazed upon these desolate mountains, when stepping from his 
 ship in the ardor of hope and coming victory; and now, when 
 he saw them fade away in the blue distance, and bade them 
 an everlasting farewell! Rapidly did his vessel bear him 
 from the Scottish shores ; concealed by a fog, he sailed 
 through the midst of the English fleet; and he safely landed 
 at the little port of Roscoff, near Morlaix, on the 2Qth of 
 September. 
 
 He went but not with him departed his remembrance 
 from the Highlanders. For years and years did his name 
 continue enshrined in their hearts and familiar to their 
 tongues; their plaintive ditties resounding with his exploits, 
 and inviting his return. Again, in these strains do they 
 declare themselves ready to risk life and fortune for his cause ; 
 and even maternal fondness the strongest, perhaps, of all 
 human feelings yields to the passionate devotion to " Prince 
 Charlie." 
 
 " I ance had sons, but now hae nane, 
 
 I bred them toiling sairly ; 
 
 And I wad bear them a' again 
 
 And lose them a' for Charlie ! "
 
 PITT AS A WAR MINISTER. 311 
 
 . LII. 
 
 PITT AS A WAR MINISTER MACAULAY. 
 
 [The expedition of Prince Charles to Scotland had been countenanced 
 by France, and was an episode of the war in which England, in alliance 
 with Austria and Holland, was at that time engaged against France, Spain, 
 and Prussia. This war, which was causeless, so far as England was 
 concerned, was terminated by the peace of Aix la Chapelle, in 1748; but 
 this treaty did not settle the conflicting claims of England and France in 
 India and in America. Both in the East and in the West these two 
 powers were striving for the mastery. In 1756 England, now in alliance 
 with Prussia, entered into the struggle known as the Seven Years' War, 
 and William Pitt, who, since Walpole's retirement, had risen rapidly into 
 prominence, was summoned to conduct it. Early in 1757 he was made 
 first secretaiy of state and virtually prime minister ; and he guided the 
 destinies of England through the war with signal ability and success.] 
 
 PITT desired power ; and he desired it, we really believe, 
 from high and generous motives. He was, in the strict sense 
 of the word, a patriot. He had none of that philanthropy 
 which the great French writers of his time preached to all the 
 nations of Europe. He loved England as an Athenian loved 
 the city of the Violet Crown, as a Roman loved the City of 
 the Seven Hills. He saw his country insulted and defeated. 
 He saw the national spirit sinking. Yet he knew what the 
 resources of the empire, vigorously employed, could effect ; 
 and he felt that he was the man to employ them vigorously. 
 " My lord," he said to the duke of Devonshire, " I am sure 
 that I can save this country, and nobody else can." 
 
 Desiring, then, to be in power, and feeling that his abilities 
 and the public confidence were not alone sufficient to keep 
 him in power against the wishes of the court and of the aris- 
 tocracy, he began to think of a coalition with Newcastle. 
 
 Newcastle was equally disposed to a reconciliation. He, 
 too, had profited by his recent experience. He had found 
 that the court and the aristocracy, though powerful, were not
 
 312 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 every thing in the state. A strong oligarchical connection, 
 a great borough interest, ample patronage, and secret-service 
 money might, in quiet times, be all that a minister needed ; 
 but it was unsafe to trust wholly to such support in time of 
 war, of discontent, and of agitation. The composition of the 
 House of Commons was not wholly aristocratical ; and, what- 
 ever be the composition of large deliberative assemblies, their 
 spirit is always, in some degree, popular. Where there are 
 free debates, eloquence must have admirers, and reason must 
 make converts. Where there is a free press, the governors 
 must live in constant awe of the opinions of the governed. 
 
 Thus these two men, so unlike in character, so lately mor- 
 tal enemies, were necessary to each other. Newcastle had 
 fallen in November, for want of that public confidence which 
 Pitt possessed, and of that parliamentary support which Pitt 
 was better qualified than any man of his time to give. Pitt 
 had fallen in April, for want of that species of influence 
 which Newcastle had spent his whole life in acquiring and 
 hoarding. Neither of them had power enough to support 
 himself. Each of them had power enough to overturn the 
 other. Their union would be irresistible. Neither the king 
 nor any party in the state would be able to stand against 
 them. 
 
 The first acts of the new administration were characterized 
 rather by vigor than by judgment. Expeditions were sent 
 against different parts of the French coast with little success. 
 The small island of Aix was taken, Rochefort threatened, a 
 few ships burned in the harbor of St. Malo, and a few guns 
 and mortars brought home as trophies from the fortifications 
 of Cherbourg. But soon conquests of a very different kind 
 filled the kingdom with pride and rejoicing. A succession of 
 victories undoubtedly brilliant, and, as it was thought, not 
 barren, raised to the highest point the fame of the minister to 
 whom the conduct of the war had been intrusted. In July, 
 1758, Louisburg fell. The whole island of Cape Breton was
 
 PITT AS A WAR MINISTER. 313 
 
 reduced. The fleet to which the court of Versailles had con- 
 fided the defense of French -America was destroyed. The 
 captured standards were borne in triumph from Kensington 
 Palace to the city, and were suspended in St. Paul's Church 
 amid the roar of guns and kettle-drums, and the shouts of an 
 immense multitude. Addresses of congratulation came in 
 from all the great towns of England. Parliament met only 
 to decree thanks and monuments, and to bestow, without one 
 murmur, supplies more than double of those which had been 
 given during the war of the Grand Alliance. 
 
 The year 1759 opened with the conquest of Goree. Next 
 fell Guadaloupe ; then Ticonderoga ; then Niagara. The Tou- 
 lon squadron was completely defeated by Boscawen off Cape 
 Lagos. But the greatest exploit of the year was the achieve- 
 ment of Wolfe on the heights of Abraham. The news of his 
 glorious death and of the fall of Quebec reached London in 
 the very week in which the Houses met. All was joy and 
 triumph. Envy and faction were forced to join in the general 
 applause. Whigs and Tories vied with each other in extolling 
 the genius and energy of Pitt. His colleagues were never 
 talked of or thought of. The House of Commons, the nation, 
 the colonies, our allies, our enemies, had their eyes fixed on 
 him alone. 
 
 Scarcely had Parliament voted a monument to Wolfe, when 
 another great event called for fresh rejoicings. The Brest 
 fleet, under the command of Conflans, had put out to sea. 
 It was overtaken by an English squadron under Hawke. 
 Conflans attempted to take shelter close under the French 
 coast. The shore was rocky ; the night was black ; the wind 
 was furious ; the waves of the Bay of Biscay ran high. But 
 Pitt had infused into every branch of the service a spirit 
 which had long been unknown. No British seaman was dis- 
 posed to err on the same side with Byng. The pilot told 
 Hawke that the attack could not be made without the greatest 
 danger. "You have done your duty in remonstrating," an-
 
 314 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 swered Havvke ; " I will answer for every thing. I command 
 you to lay me along-side the French admiral." Two French 
 ships of the line struck. Four were destroyed. The rest hid 
 themselves in the rivers of Brittany. 
 
 The year 1760 came, and still triumph followed triumph. 
 Montreal was taken ; the whole province of Canada was sub- 
 jugated ; the French fleets underwent a succession of dis- 
 asters in the seas of Europe and America. 
 
 On the continent of Europe the odds were against En- 
 gland. We had but one important ally, the king of Prussia, 
 and he was attacked, not only by France, but also by Russia 
 and Austria. Yet even on the continent the energy of Pitt 
 triumphed over all difficulties. Vehemently as he had con- 
 demned the practice of subsidizing foreign princes, he now 
 carried that practice further than Carteret himself would 
 have ventured to do. The active and able sovereign of 
 Prussia received such pecuniary assistance as enabled him 
 to maintain the conflict on equal terms against his powerful 
 enemies. On no subject had Pitt ever spoken with so much 
 eloquence and ardor as on the mischiefs of the Hanoverian 
 connection. He now declared, not without much show of 
 reason, that it would be unworthy of the English people to 
 suffer their king to be deprived of his electoral dominions in 
 an English quarrel. He assured his countrymen that they 
 should be no losers, and that he would conquer America for 
 them in Germany. By taking this line, he conciliated the 
 king, and lost no part of his influence with the nation. In 
 Parliament, such was the ascendency which his eloqence, 
 his success, his high situation, his pride, and his intrepidity 
 had obtained for him, that he took liberties with the House 
 of which there had been no example, and which have never 
 since been imitated. No orator could there venture to re- 
 proach him with inconsistency. One unfortunate man made 
 the attempt, and was so much disconcerted by the scornful 
 demeanor of the minister that he stammered, stopped, and
 
 PITT AS A WAR MINISTER. 315 
 
 sat down. Even the old Tory country gentlemen, to whom 
 the very name of Hanover had been odious, gave their hearty 
 ayes to subsidy after subsidy. In a lively contemporary satire, 
 much more lively, indeed, than delicate, this remarkable con- 
 version is not unhappily described : 
 
 " No more they make a fiddle-faddle 
 
 About a Hessian horse or saddle. 
 
 No more of continental measures ; 
 
 No more of wasting British treasures. 
 
 Ten millions and a vote of credit 
 
 'Tis right. He can't be wrong who did it." 
 
 The success of Pitt's continental measures was such as 
 might have been expected from their vigor. When he came 
 into power Hanover was in imminent danger; and before he 
 had been in office three months the whole electorate was in 
 the hands of France. But the face of affairs was speedily 
 changed. The invaders were driven out. An army, partly 
 English, partly Hanoverian, partly composed of soldiers fur- 
 nished by the petty princes of Germany, was placed under the 
 command of Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick. The French 
 were beaten in 1758 at Crevelt. In 1759 they received a 
 still more complete and humiliating defeat at Minden. 
 
 In the meantime the nation exhibited all the signs of 
 wealth and prosperity. The merchants of London had never 
 been more thriving. The importance of several great commer- 
 cial and manufacturing towns, of Glasgow in particular, dates 
 from this period. The fine inscription on the monument of 
 Lord Chatham, in Guildhall, records the general opinion of 
 the citizens of London, that under his administration com- 
 merce had been "united with and made to flourish by war." 
 
 It must be owned, however, that these signs of prosperity 
 were in some degree dflusive. Even as a war minister, Pitt 
 is scarcely entitled to all the praise which his contemporaries 
 lavished on him. We, perhaps from ignorance, cannot dis- 
 cern in his arrangements any appearance of profound or
 
 316 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 dexterous combination. Several of his expeditions, particu- 
 larly those which were sent to the c.oast of France, were at once 
 costly and absurd. Our Indian conquests, though they add 10 
 the splendor of the period during which he was at the head of 
 affairs, were not planned by him. He had undoubtedly great 
 energy, great determination, great means at his command. 
 His temper was enterprising; and, situated as he was, he had 
 only to followifais temper. The wealth of a rich nation, the valor 
 of a brave nation, were ready to support him in every attempt. 
 In one respect, ho.vever, he deserved all the praise that he 
 has ever received. The success of our arms was, perhaps, 
 owing less to the skill of his dispositions than to the national 
 resources and the national spirit. But that the national spirit 
 rose to the emergency, that the national resources were con- 
 tributed with unexampled cheerfulness, this was undoubtedly 
 his work. The ardor of his soul had set the whole kingdom 
 on fire. It inflamed every soldier who dragged the cannon 
 up the heights of Quebec, and every sailor who boarded the 
 French ships among the rocks of Brittany. The minister, 
 before he had been long in office, had imparted to the com- 
 manders whom he employed his o.vn impetuous, adventure ;s, 
 and defying character. They, like him, were disposed \o 
 risk every thing, to play double or quits to the last, to think 
 nothing done while any thing remained undone, to fail rather 
 than not to attempt. For the errors of rashness there might 
 be indulgence. t For over-caution, for faults like those of 
 Lord George Sackville, there was no mercy. In other times, 
 and against other enemies, this mode of warfare might have 
 failed. But the state of the French government and of the 
 French nation gave every advantage to Pitt. The fops and 
 intriguers of Versailles were appalled and bewildered by his 
 vigor. A panic spread through all ranks of society. Our 
 enemies soon considered it as a settled thing that they were 
 always to be beaten. Thus victory begot victory till, at last, 
 wherever the forces of the two nations met, they met with
 
 PITT AS A WAR MINISTER. 
 
 disdainful confidence on the one side, and with a craven fear 
 on the other. 
 
 The situation which Pitt occupied at the close of the reign 
 of George the Second was the most enviable ever occupied 
 by any public man in English history. He had conciliated 
 the king; he domineered over the House of Commons; he 
 was adored by the people ; he was admired by all Europe. 
 He was the first Englishman of his time, and he had made 
 England the first country in the world. The Great Com- 
 moner, the name by which he was often designated, might 
 look down with scorn on coronets and garters. The nation 
 was drunk with joy and pride. The Parliament was as quiet 
 as it had been under Pelham. The o'd party distinctions 
 were almost effaced ; nor was their place yet supplied by 
 distinctions of a still n.ore important kind. A new genera- 
 tion of country squires and rectors had arisen who knew not 
 the Stuarts. The Dissenters were tolerated ; the Catholics 
 not cruelly persecuted. The Church was drowsy and in- 
 dulgent. The great civil and religious conflict which began 
 at the Reformation seemed to have terminated in universal 
 repose. Whigs and Tories, Churchmen and Puritans, spoke 
 with equal reverence of the Constitution, and with equal en- 
 thusiasm of the talents, virtues, and services of the minister. 
 
 A few years sufficed to change the whole aspect of affairs. 
 A nation convulsed by faction, a throne assailed by the 
 fiercest invective, a House of Commons hated and despised 
 by the nation, England set against Scotland, Britain set 
 against America, a rival legislature sitting beyond the At- 
 lantic, English blood shed by English bayonets, our armies 
 capitulating, our conquests wrested from us, our enemies 
 hastening to take vengeance for past humiliation, our flag 
 scarcely able to maintain itself in our own seas, such was the 
 spectacle which Pitt lived to see. But the history of this great 
 revolution requires far more space than we can at present be- 
 stow. We leave the Great Commoner in the zenith of his glory.
 
 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 LIII. 
 AN EMPIRE WON IN THE EAST. MACAUI.AY. 
 
 [It was the good fortune of Pitt that, at the beginning of his ministry, 
 and without any direct agency of his own, a great triumph of the English 
 arms in India came to enhance the glory of his triumphs in Europe and 
 America. Robert Clive, who had already distinguished himself in the service 
 of the East India Company,* was appointed governor of Fort St. David by 
 the Company in 1757. Entering into negotiations with the disaffected 
 subjects of the nabob, or nawab, of Bengal, he won the battle of Plassey 
 over the native army, on the 23d of June. This victory firmly established 
 the hitherto wavering British power in the East, and enabled it to enter 
 upon the career of conquest which has since given it the whole of India.] 
 
 THE nabob had feared and hated the English, even while 
 he was still able to oppose to them their French rivals. The 
 French were now vanquished, and he began to regard the 
 English with still greater fear and still greater hatred. His 
 weak and unprincipled mind oscillated between servility and 
 insolence. One day he sent a large sum to Calcutta, as a 
 part of the compensation due for the wrongs which he had 
 committed. The next day he sent a present of jewels to 
 Bussy, exhorting that distinguished officer to hasten to pro- 
 tect Bengal " against Clive, the daring in war, on whom," says 
 his highness, " may all bad fortune attend." He ordered his 
 army to march against the English. He countermanded his 
 orders. He tore dive's letters. He then sent answers in 
 the most florid language of compliment. He ordered Watts 
 out of his presence, and threatened to impale him. He 
 again sent for Watts, and begged pardon for the insult. In 
 the mean time his wretched maladministration, his folly, his 
 dissolute manners, and his love of the lowest company, had 
 disgusted all classes of his subjects soldiers, traders, civil 
 functionaries, the proud and ostentatious Mohammedans, the 
 
 * A company of London merchants who, in 1600, had acquired, by char- 
 ter, a monopoly of the trade with India.
 
 AN EMPIRE WON IN THE EAST. 319 
 
 timid, subtle, and parsimonious Hindus. A formidable con- 
 federacy was formed against him, in which were included 
 Roydullub, the minister of finance ; Meer Jaffier, the princi- 
 cipal commander of the troops ; and Jugget Seit, the richest 
 banker in India. The plot was confided to the English 
 agents, and a communication was opened between the mal- 
 contents at Moorshedabad and the committee at Calcutta. 
 
 In the committee there was much hesitation ; but Clive's 
 voice was given in favor of the conspirators, and his vigor 
 and firmness bore down all opposition. It was determined 
 that the English should lend their powerful assistance to de- 
 pose Surajah Dowlah, and to place Meer Jaffier on the throne 
 of Bengal. In return, Meer Jaffier promised ample compen- 
 sation to the Company anjd its servants, and a liberal donative 
 to the army, the navy, arid the committee. The odious vices 
 of Surajah Dowlah, the wrongs which the English had suf- 
 fered at his hands, the dangers to which our trade must have 
 been exposed, had he continued to reign, appear to us fully 
 to justify the resolution of deposing him. But nothing can 
 justify the dissimulation which Clive stooped to practice. 
 He wrote to Surajah Dowlah in terms so affectionate that 
 they, for a time, lulled that weak prince into perfect security. 
 The same courier who carried this " soothing letter," as Clive 
 calls it, to the nabob, carried to Mr. Watts a letter in the 
 following terms: "Tell Meer Jaffier to fear nothing. I will 
 join him with five thousand men who never turned their 
 backs. Assure him I will march night and day to his assist- 
 ance, and stand by him as long as I have a man left." 
 
 It was impossible that a plot which had so many ramifica- 
 tions should long remain entirely concealed. Enough reached 
 the ears of the nabob to arouse his suspicions. But he was 
 soon quieted by the fictions and artifices which the inventive 
 genius of Omichund* produced with miraculous readiness. 
 
 * A native merchant, once very wealthy, who, together with Mr. Watts, 
 was employed by Clive to negotiate with the nabob. >
 
 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 All was going well ; the plot was nearly ripe, when Clive 
 learned that Ornichund was likely to play false. The artful 
 Bengalee had been promised a liberal compensation for all 
 that he had lost at Calcutta. But this would not satisfy him. 
 His services had been great. He held the thread of the 
 whole intrigue. By one word breathed in the ear of Surajah 
 Dowlah he could undo all that he had done. The lives of 
 Watts, of Meer Jaffier, of all the conspirators, were at his 
 mercy, and he determined to take advantage of his situation, 
 and to make his own terms. He demanded three hundred 
 thousand pounds sterling as the price of his secrecy and of 
 his assistance. The committee, incensed by the treachery 
 and appalled by the danger, knew not what course to take. 
 But Clive was more than Omichund's match in Omichund's 
 own arts. The man, he said, was a villain. Any artifice 
 which would defeat such knavery was justifiable. The best 
 course would be to promise what he asked. Omichund would 
 soon be at their mercy; and then they might punish him by 
 withholding from him, not only the bribe which he now de- 
 manded, but also the compensation which all the other suf- 
 ferers of Calcutta were to receive. 
 
 His advice was taken. But how was this wary and saga- 
 cious Hindu to be deceived ? He had demanded that an 
 article touching his claims should be inserted in the treaty 
 between Meer Jaffier and the English, and he would not be 
 satisfied unless he saw it with his own eyes. 'Clive had an 
 expedient ready. Two treaties were drawn up, one on white 
 paper, the other on red the former real, the latter fictitious. 
 In the former Omichund's name was not mentioned ; the lat- 
 ter, which was to be shown to him, contained a stipulation in 
 his favor. 
 
 But another difficulty arose. Admiral Watson had scruples 
 about signing the red treaty. Omichund's vigilance and 
 acuteness were such that the absence of so important a name 
 would, probably, awaken his suspicions. But Clive was not
 
 AN EMPIRE WON IN THE EAST. 321 
 
 a man to do any thing by halves. We almost blush to write 
 it. He forged Admiral Watson's name. 
 
 All was now ready for action. Mr. Watts fled secretly 
 from Moorshedabad. Clive put his troops in motion, and 
 wrote to the nabob in a tone very different from that of his 
 previous letters. He set forth all the wrongs which the Brit- 
 ish had suffered, offered to submit the points in dispute to the 
 arbitration of Meer Jaffier, and concluded by announcing 
 that, as the rains were about to set in, he and his men would 
 do themselves the honor of waiting on his highness for an 
 answer. 
 
 Surajah Dowlah instantly assembled his whole force, and 
 marched to encounter the English. It had been agreed that 
 Meer Jaffier should separate himself from the nabob, and 
 carry over his division to Clive. But, as the decisive mo- 
 ment approached, the fears of the conspirator overpowered 
 his ambition. Clive had advanced to Cossimbuzar ; the na- 
 bob lay, with a mighty power, a few miles off at Plassey ; and 
 still Meer Jaffier delayed to fulfill his engagements, and re- 
 turned evasive answers to the earnest remonstrances of the 
 English general. 
 
 Clive was in a painfully anxious situation. He could 
 place no confidence in the sincerity or in the courage of his 
 confederate ; and, whatever confidence he might place in his 
 own military talents and in the valor and discipline of his 
 troops, it was no light thing to engage an army twenty times 
 as numerous as his own. Before him lay a river over which 
 it was easy to advance, but over which, if things went ill, not 
 one of his little band would ever return. On this occasion, 
 for the first and for the last time, his dauntless spirit, during 
 a few hours, shrank from the fearful responsibility of making 
 a decision. He called a council of war. The majority pro- 
 nounced against fighting, and Clive declared his concurrence 
 with the majority. Long afterward he said that he had never 
 called but one council of war, and that, if he had taken the
 
 322 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 advice of that council, the British would never have been 
 masters of Bengal. But scarcely had the meeting broken up 
 when he was himself again. He retired alone under the 
 shade of some trees, and passed near an hour there in 
 thought. He came back determined to put every thing to 
 the hazard, and gave orders that all should be in readiness 
 for passing the river on the morrow. 
 
 The river was passed ; and, at the close of a toilsome day's 
 march, the army, long after sunset, took up its quarters in a 
 grove of mango-trees near Plassey, within a mile of the ene- 
 my. Clive was unable to sleep ; he heard, through the whole 
 night, the sound of drums and cymbals from the vast camp 
 of the nabob. It is not strange that even his stout heart 
 should now and then have sunk when he reflected against 
 what odds, and for what a prize, he was in a few hours to 
 contend 
 
 Nor was the rest of Surajah Dovvlah more peaceful. His 
 mind, at once weak and stormy, was distracted by wild and 
 horrible apprehensions. Appalled by the greatness and near- 
 ness of the crisis, distrusting his captains, dreading every one 
 who approached him, dreading to be left alone, he sat gloom- 
 ily in his tent, haunted, a Greek poet would have said, by the 
 furies of those who had cursed him with their last breath in 
 the Black Hole. 
 
 The day broke, the day which was to decide the fate of 
 India. At sunrise the army of the nabob, pouring through 
 many openings from the camp, began to move toward the 
 grove where the English lay. Forty thousand infantry, 
 armed with firelocks, pikes, swords, bows and arrows, covered 
 the plain. They were accompanied by fifty pieces of ord- 
 nance of the largest size, each tugged by a long team of white 
 oxen, and each pushed on from behind by an elephant. 
 Some smaller guns, under the direction of a few French aux- 
 iliaries, were, perhaps, more formidable. The cavalry were 
 fifteen thousand, drawn not from the effeminate population
 
 AN EMPIRE WON IN THE EAST. 323 
 
 of Bengal, but from the bolder race which inhabits the 
 northern provinces ; and the practiced eye of Clive could 
 perceive that both the men and the horses were more power- 
 ful than those of the Carnatic. The force which he hadt o 
 oppose to this great multitude consisted of only three thou- 
 sand men. But of these nearly a thousand were English, and 
 all were led by English officers, and trained in the English 
 discipline. Conspicuous in the ranks of the little army were 
 the men of the Thirty-ninth Regiment, which still bears on its 
 colors, amidst many honorable additions, won under Welling- 
 ton in Spain and Gascony, the name of Plassey, and the proud 
 motto, Primus in Indis. 
 
 The battle commenced with a cannonade in which the 
 artillery of the nabob did scarcely any execution, while the 
 few field- pieces of the English produced great effect. Several 
 of the most distinguished officers in Surajah Dowlah's service 
 fell. Disorder began to spread through his ranks. His own 
 terror increased every moment. One of the conspirators 
 urged on him the expediency of retreating. The insidious 
 advice, agreeing, as it did, with what his own terrors suggested 
 was readily received. He ordered his army to fall back, and 
 this order decided his fate. Clive snatched the moment, and 
 ordered his troops to advance. The confused and dispirited 
 multitude gave way before the onset of disciplined valor. No 
 mob attacked by regular soldiers was ever more completely 
 routed. The little band of Frenchmen, who alone ventured 
 to confront the English, were swept down the stream of 
 fugitives. In an hour the forces of Surajah Dowlah were dis- 
 persed, never to re-assemble. Only five hundred of the van- 
 quished were slain. But their camp, their guns, their bag- 
 gage, innumerable wagons, innumerable cattle, remained in 
 the power of the conquerors. With the loss of twenty-two 
 soldiers killed and fifty wounded, Clive had scattered an 
 army of near sixty thousand men, and subdued an empire 
 larger and more populous than Great Britain.
 
 324 
 
 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 LIV. 
 
 AN EMPIRE LOST IN THE WEST. STANHOPE. 
 
 [Soon after the great success of Clive in the East, General Wolfe, whom 
 Pitt had appointed commander-in-chief of the British forces in America, 
 succeeded in wresting Canada from the French by the capture of Quebec 
 In the treaty of peace which closed the Seven Years' War France was 
 forced to cede to England nearly all her colonial possessions in America. But 
 this great gain to England led directly to a far greater loss So long as the 
 French power in America remained as a rival to that of Britain, the 
 Anglo-American colonies were forced to rely upon the mother-country to 
 maintain themselves against it ; when that power was broken the colonists 
 became practically independent. The narrow and selfish policy pursued by 
 George III. and his ministers toward the colonies gradually weakened their 
 feeling of loyalty, and at length drove them to rebellion. The struggle 
 which led to a separation was virtually ended by the surrender of the Brit- 
 ish army, under Cornwallis, at Yorktown. 
 
 MEANWHILE it was determined 
 to press the operations against 
 Lord Cornwallis with the utmost 
 vigor. The net, indeed, was rap- 
 idly closing around the English 
 earl. During the month of Au- 
 gust he had relinquished Ports- 
 mouth and taken post at York- 
 town, in pursuance of some in- 
 structions from Sir Henry Clinton, 
 which Sir Henry meant as permis- 
 sion, but which Cornwallis understood as peremptory. York- 
 town, as Cornwallis afterward declared, was not, in his judg- 
 ment, well adapted for defense. It is a small village, about 
 twelve miles from Williamsburg, built upon a high bank, the 
 southern one, of York River. There the long peninsula, ex- 
 tending between the rivers York and James, is little more 
 than eight milts broad. There the river York itself is one 
 
 GEORGE III.
 
 AN EMPIRE LOST IN THE WEST. 325 
 
 mile in width ; and, on a point of land projecting from the 
 northern bank, lies Gloucester, another small village, which 
 Cornwallis also held. Both posts, but more especially York- 
 town as the larger, he had fortified as best he might, with re- 
 doubts and intrenchments; and these unfinished works he 
 was now to maintain with seven thousand men against a force 
 which by degrees grew to eighteen thousand. His position 
 was not really perilous, so long as the English retained the 
 superiority at sea ; but the great fleet of De Grasse was now 
 interposing, and cut off his retreat. 
 
 Cornwallis is admitted to have shown most undaunted res- 
 olution. The officers under him, and the troops, German 
 and English, all did their duty well. For some weeks they 
 had labored hard and unremittingly in raising their defenses; 
 and they were now prepared, with equal spirit, to maintain 
 their half-completed works. But, besides the enemy with- 
 out, they had another foe within an epidemic sickness that 
 stretched many hundreds helpless on their pallet-beds. Nor 
 could they hinder Washington from completing his first par- 
 allel, and opening his fire upon them on the evening of the 
 9th of October For two days the fire was incessant from 
 heavy cannon, and from mortars and howitzers, throwing 
 shells in showers on the town, until, says Cornwallis, all our 
 guns on the left were silenced, our works much damaged, and 
 our loss of men considerable. By these shells, also, the Cha- 
 ron, a ship of forty-four guns, together with three British 
 transports in the river, were set in flames and consumed. 
 On the night of the nth the enemy began their second par- 
 allel at about three hundred yards ; that is, at only half the 
 distance of the former. Cornwallis did all in his power to 
 delay, for prevent he could not, the progress of this work, by 
 opening new embrasures for guns, and keeping up a constant 
 fire with all the howitzers and small mortars that he could man. 
 
 In their approaches the enemy were also, in some degree, 
 impeded by two redoubts which the British had constructed 
 14
 
 326 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 in advance to cover their left flank. These Washington re- 
 solved to storm ; and, for the sake of exciting emulation, he 
 intrusted the attack of the one to the Americans, and of the 
 other to the French. Both attacks were made in the night 
 of the I4th, and with full success; and, by the unwearied 
 exertions of the enemy, both redoubts were included in their 
 second parallel by day-break the next morning. 
 
 [On the 1 6th the English general made an ineffectual 
 attempt to escape by way of Gloucester.] 
 
 Meanwhile, as Cornwallis had expected, the enemy's 
 batteries before Yorktown had opened fire at day-break. 
 Nothing now remained for him but to obtain the best terms 
 he could. On that morning, then, the iyth of October, he 
 sent a flag of truce to Washington, proposing a cessation of 
 arms, and a treaty for the capitulation of his post. Washing- 
 ton, in reply, required him to state within two hours the 
 terms which he demanded. In a second letter hereupon 
 Cornwallis asked that the garrisons of York town and Glou- 
 cester, though laying down their arms as prisoners of war, 
 should be sent home the Britons to Britain, and the Ger- 
 mans to Germany, under engagement not to serve against 
 France, America, or their allies, until in due form exchanged. 
 The American general declared these terms to be inadmissi- 
 ble, and the earl then agreed to waive them. It appears 
 probable, indeed, that they were proposed only for the sake 
 of form or show. 
 
 On this basis, then as yielded by Cornwallis, on the morn- 
 ing of the i8th of October a cessation of arms was con- 
 tinued, and a negotiation began. The commissioners, two 
 field-officers being named on either side, conferred together, 
 and discussed the terms that same day. All the artillery 
 and public stores in the two forts, together with the shipping 
 and boats in the two harbors, were to be surrendered by the 
 English. On the other hand, private property of every kind 
 was to be respected by the Americans and French. The
 
 AN EMPIRE LOST IN THE WEST. 327 
 
 garrisons of Yorktown and Gloucester were to march out with 
 the same honors of war as had been granted by Sir Henry Clin- 
 ton at Charleston ; the land forces to remain prisoners of the 
 United States, and the naval forces prisoners of France. 
 The soldiers were to be kept in Virginia, Maryland, or Penn- 
 sylvania, and as much by regiments as possible. The gen- 
 eral, staff, and other officers not left with the troops, to be 
 permitted to go to New York or to Europe on parole. 
 
 " It is remarkable," says an American historian, " that while 
 Colonel Laurens, the officer employed by General Washing- 
 ton (in conjunction with the Vicomte de Noailles) was draw- 
 ing up these articles, his father was closely confined in the 
 Tower of London, of which Lord Cornvvallis was constable. 
 By this singular combination of circumstances, his lordship 
 became a prisoner to the son of his own prisoner ! " 
 
 The articles of capitulation, having been finally fixed by 
 Washington and accepted by Cornwallis, were signed by the 
 respective generals on the morning of the 191)1 of October. 
 On the British side about five hundred men had been killed 
 or wounded during the progress of the siege. At its close, 
 the British and German troops, exclusive of the seamen, 
 amounted to six thousand ; but so great was the number of 
 the sick and the disabled, that there remained less than four 
 thousand fit for duty. At two o'clock that afternoon, as 
 agreed in the capitulation, the Yorktown troops marched out 
 with their drums beating, their arms shouldered, and their 
 colors cased, to lay down their arms before the enemy, Amer- 
 icans and French, drawn out in line. The officer specially 
 appointed to receive them was General Lincoln, the 
 chief of their captives at Charleston, in the preceding year. 
 Yet Washington, with his usual lofty spirit, had no desire to 
 aggravate the anguish and humiliation of honorable foes. 
 On the contrary, he bade all mere spectators keep aloof from 
 the ceremony, and suppressed all public signs of exultation. 
 
 The scene which ensued is described by an eye-witness, a
 
 328 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 French chaplain of the Comte de Rochambeau. The two 
 lines of the allied army, says Abbe" Robin, were drawn out 
 for upward of a mile, the Americans having the right. The 
 disproportion of heights and of ages in their men, and their 
 soiled and ragged clothing, might be unfavorably contrasted 
 with the neater and more soldierly appearance of the French. 
 Yet, under such circumstances, the personal disadvantages of 
 a raw militia should rather be looked upon as an enhancement 
 of the triumph they had gained. The abbe was struck at 
 seeing, from several indications, how much keener were at 
 that time the animosity between the English and Americans 
 than between the English and French. Thus, the English 
 officers, when they laid down their arms, and were passing 
 along the enemy's line, courteously saluted every French 
 officer, even of the lowest rank a compliment which they 
 withheld from every American, even of the highest. 
 
 With the surrender of Lord Cornwallis the American war 
 may be said to have concluded ; so far, at least, as its active 
 military operations were concerned. It was a war by no 
 means, as we sometimes hear alleged of it, founded on any 
 plain or palpable injustice in point of law, since, at the out- 
 set, when the taxes were first imposed, the English ministers 
 might point to nearly all the highest authorities as affirming 
 the abstract right of taxation we possessed. But beyond all 
 doubt, it was a war proceeding on the grossest impolicy, from 
 the moment it was seen how much resentment the exercise 
 of that right provoked. For the mere barren assertion of 
 that right for a mere peppercorn of rent we alienated 
 and, as it were, in wantonness, flung from us provinces which, 
 at the peace of 1763, had been as contented and loyal as the 
 shires along the Severn or the Thames. We grew wiser, but 
 too late. Earnest and more earnest overtures, larger and 
 then larger concessions, were tendered, from time to time, 
 to the uprisen colonies, but always a few weeks or a few 
 months beyond the period when they might yet have healed
 
 AN EMPIRE LOST IN THE WEST. 329 
 
 the wound. The same utter want of policy which provoked 
 the war was shown in its first direction. Our most skillful 
 commanders, our most daring enterprises, seemed to be re- 
 served for the conclusion of the conflict, when skill could no 
 more avail us, and when enterprise led only to disaster. 
 While the opportunity was still ours while France and 
 Spain, so soon to combine against us, still kept aloof while 
 Washington's army, for example, was in full flight, or Gates's 
 army was not yet formed, then it was that we find General 
 Howe content to bound his cbnquests at the Delaware, and 
 General Burgoyne refrain a whole month from his advance 
 to Albany. 
 
 Such was the system in the cabinet, against which our 
 greatest statesmen warned the ministry in vain. Such were 
 the errors in the field, which even the occasional skill of our 
 officers, and the constant bravery of our troops, could not 
 retrieve. Thus did we alienate a people with whom we 
 might, perhaps, to this very day, have kept united ; with them 
 resolutely upholding peace among all other nations ; with 
 them, the leaders of the world in temperate liberty and Chris- 
 tian progress. They might have been both our brother free- 
 men and our fellow-subjects, free with their own assemblies, 
 as we are free with ours, yet bound to us beneath the golden 
 circle of the crown. Or if even, with their growing numbers, 
 that golden circle had seemed to them to press, it might have 
 been gently and quietly unloosed. We might have parted as 
 friends and kinsmen part, not have torn asunder with a 
 bleeding gash on either side.
 
 330 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 LV. 
 THE TERRIBLE PENAL CODE. LECKY. 
 
 [The success of the American revolutionists gave a new impulse to the 
 spirit of rebellion in Ireland, and led to a renewal of the attempts which 
 had been made there from time to time to throw off the yoke of English 
 oppression. In 1693, when nine tenths of the people of Ireland were Cath- 
 olics, the English Parliament passed a law which excluded Catholics from 
 the Irish Parliament. The latter body then began the enactment of the 
 infamous series of statutes known as the Irish Penal Code. Since the days 
 of Walpole, some provisions of the code had been relaxed ; but now, in 
 response to the fierce demands of the Irish, England was compelled to 
 make further concessions. The entire code, however, was not swept away 
 until 1829.] 
 
 IT required, indeed, four or five reigns to elaborate a sys- 
 tem so ingeniously contrived to demoralize, to degrade, and 
 to impoverish the people of Ireland. By this code the Ro- 
 man Catholics were absolutely excluded from the Parliament, 
 from the magistracy, from the corporations, from the bench, 
 and from the bar. They could not vote at Parliamentary 
 elections or at vestries. They could not act as constables, 
 or sheriffs, or jurymen, or serve in the army or navy, or be- 
 come solicitors, or even hold the positions of gamekeeper or 
 watchman. Schools were established to bring up their chil- 
 dren as Protestants; and if they refused to avail themselves 
 of these, they were deliberately consigned to hopeless igno- 
 rance, being excluded from the university, and debarred, 
 under crushing penalties, from acting as school-masters, as 
 ushers or as private tutors, or from sending their children 
 abroad to obtain the instruction they were refused at home. 
 They could not marry Protestants; and if such a marriage 
 were celebrated it was annulled by law, and the priest who 
 officiated might be hung. They could not buy land, or in- 
 herit or receive it as a gift from Protestants, or hold life
 
 THE TERRIBLE PENAL CODE. 331 
 
 annuities, or leases for more than thirty-one years, or any 
 lease on such terms that the profits of the land exceeded one 
 third of the rent. If any Catholic lease-holder by his indus- 
 try so increased his profits that they exceeded this propor- 
 tion, and did not immediately make a corresponding increase 
 in his payments, any Protestant who gave the information 
 could enter into possession of his farm. If any Catholic had 
 secretly purchased his old forfeited estate, or any other land, 
 any Protestant who informed against him might become the 
 proprietor. 
 
 The few Catholic land-holders who remained were deprived 
 of the right which all other classes possessed of bequeathing 
 their lands as they pleased. If their sons continued Catho- 
 lics, it was divided equally between them. If, however, the 
 eldest son consented to apostatize, the estate was settled upon 
 him ; the father from that hour became only a life-tenant, and 
 lost all power of selling, mortgaging, or otherwise disposing of 
 it. If the wife of a Catholic abandoned the religion of her 
 husband, she was immediately free from his control, and the 
 chancellor was empowered to assign to her a certain propor- 
 tion of her husband's property. If any child, however 
 young, professed itself a Protestant, it was at once taken from 
 the father's care, and the chancellor could oblige the father 
 to declare, upon oath, the value of his property, both real and 
 personal, and could assign for the present maintenance and 
 future portion of the converted child such proportion of that 
 property as the court might decree. No Catholic could be 
 guardian either to his own children, or to those of another 
 person ; and, therefore, a Catholic who died while his chil- 
 dren were minors had the bitterness of reflecting upon 
 his deathbed that they must pass into the care of Prot- 
 estants. An annuity of from twenty to forty pounds was 
 provided as a bribe for every priest who would become a 
 Protestant. To convert a Protestant to Catholicism was a 
 capital offense.
 
 332 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 In every walk of life the Catholic was pursued by persecu- 
 tion or restriction. Except in the linen trade, he could not 
 have more than two apprentices. He could not possess a 
 horse of the value of more than five pounds, and any Protest- 
 ant, on giving him five pounds, could take his horse. He 
 was compelled to pay double to the militia. He was forbid- 
 den, except under particular conditions, to live in Galway or 
 Limerick. In case of war with a Catholic power, the Catho 
 lies were required to reimburse the damage done by the ene- 
 my's privateers. The Legislature, it is true, did not venture 
 absolutely to suppress their worship, but it existed only by a 
 doubtful connivance stigmatized as if it were a species of 
 licensed prostitution, and subject to conditions which, if they 
 had been enforced, would have rendered its continuance im- 
 possible. An old law which prohibited it, and another which 
 enjoined attendance at the Anglican worship, remained unre- 
 pealed, and might at any time be revived ; and the former 
 was, in fact, enforced during the Scotch rebellion of 1715. 
 The parish priests, who alone were allowed to officiate, were 
 compelled to be registered, and were forbidden to keep cu- 
 rates, or to officiate anywhere except in their own parishes. 
 The chapels might not have bells or steeples. No crosses 
 might be publicly erected. Pilgrimages to the holy wells 
 were forbidden. Not only all monks and friars, but also all 
 Catholic archbishops, bishops, deacons, and other dignitaries, 
 were ordered by a certain day to leave the country; and if, 
 after that date,' they were found in Ireland, they were liable 
 jto be first imprisoned, and then banished; and if, after that 
 banishment, they returned to discharge their duty in their 
 dioceses, they were liable to the punishment of death. To 
 facilitate the discovery of offenses against the code, two 
 justices of the peace might at any time compel any Cath- 
 olic of eighteen years of age to declare when and where 
 he last heard mass, what persons were present, and who 
 officiated ; and, if he refused to give evidence, they might
 
 THE TERRIBLE PENAL CODE. 333 
 
 imprison him for twelve months, or until he paid a fine 
 of twenty pounds. Any one who harbored ecclesiastics 
 from beyond the seas was subject to fines which, for the 
 third offense, amounted to the confiscation of all his goods. 
 A graduated scale of rewards was offered for the discovery 
 of Catholic bishops, priests, and school-masters ; and a reso- 
 lution of the House of Commons pronounced " the prosecut- 
 ing and informing against Papists " " an honorable service 
 to the government." 
 
 Such were the principal articles of this famous code 
 a code which Burke truly described as " well digested and 
 well disposed in all its parts ; a machine of wise and elabo- 
 rate contrivance, and as well fitted for the oppression, impov- 
 erishment, and degradation of a people, and the debasement 
 in them of human nature itself, as ever proceeded from the 
 perverted ingenuity of man." It was framed by a small mi- 
 nority of the nation for the oppression of the majority, who 
 remained faithful to the religion of their fathers. It was 
 framed by men who boasted that their creed rested upon 
 private judgment, and whose descendants are never weary 
 of declaiming upon the intolerance of popery ; and it was 
 directed, in many of its provisions, against mere religious 
 observances ; and was in all its parts so strictly a code of 
 religious persecution, that any Catholic might be exempted 
 from its operation by simply forsaking his religion. It was 
 framed and enforced, although by the treaty of Limerick the 
 Catholics had been guaranteed such privileges in the exer- 
 cise of their religion as they enjoyed in the reign of Charles 
 II., although the sovereign at the same time promised, as soon 
 as his affairs would permit, "to summon a Parliament in this 
 kingdom, and to endeavor to procure the said Roman Cath- 
 olics such further security in that particular as may preserve 
 them from any disturbance on account of their religion, 
 although not a single overt act of treason was proved against 
 them, and although they remained passive spectators of two 
 14*
 
 334 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 rebellions which menaced the very existence of the Protest- 
 ant dynasty in England. 
 
 The economical and moral effects of the penal laws were 
 profoundly disastrous. The productive energies of the nation 
 were fatally diminished. Almost all Catholics of energy and 
 talent who refused to abandon their faith emigrated to foreign 
 lands. The relation of classes was permanently vitiated, for 
 almost all of the land-holders of the country belonged to one 
 religion, while the great majority of their tenants were of an- 
 other. The Catholics, excluded from almost every possibil- 
 ity of eminence, and consigned by the Legislature to utter 
 ignorance, soon sank into the condition of broken and dis- 
 pirited helots. A total absence of industrial virtues, a cow- 
 ering and abject deference to authority, a recklessness about 
 the future, a love of secret illegal combinations, became gen- 
 eral among them. Above all, they learned to regard law as 
 merely the expression of force, and its moral weight was 
 utterly destroyed. For the greater part of a century the 
 main object of the Legislature was to extirpate a religion by 
 the encouragement of some of the worst and the punish- 
 ment of some of the best qualities of our nature. Its rewards 
 were reserved for the informer, for the hypocrite, for the un- 
 dutiful son, or for the faithless wife. Its penalties were di- 
 rected against religious constancy and the honest discharge of 
 ecclesiastical duty. It would, indeed, be scarcely possible to 
 conceive a more infamous system of legal tyranny than that 
 which in the middle of the eighteenth century crushed every 
 class and almost every interest in Ireland. 
 
 The history of the penal laws should furnish a lasting warn- 
 ing to persecutors of all religions. Arthur Young asserts that 
 the numerical proportion of the Roman Catholics in Ireland 
 was not even diminished, if any thing, the reverse ; and that 
 it was admitted, by those who asserted the contrary, that it 
 would take four thousand years, according to the then rate of 
 progress, to convert them. It was stated in Parliament that
 
 THE TERRIBLE PENAL CODE. 335 
 
 only four thousand and fifty-five had conformed in seventy- 
 one years under the system ; and what little the religion may 
 have lost in number it gained in intensity. The poorer 
 classes in Ireland emerged from their long ordeal, penetrated 
 with an attachment to their religion almost unparalleled in 
 Europe. With the exception of the inhabitants of Bavaria 
 and the Tyrol, there is, perhaps, no nation in Europe whose 
 character has been so completely molded and permeated by 
 it, or in which skeptical doubts are more completely unknown. 
 The code perished at last by its own atrocity. It became, 
 after a time, so out of harmony with the prevailing tone of 
 Irish opinion that it ceased to be enforced, and the Irish 
 Protestants took the initiative in obtaining its mitigation. 
 
 LVI. 
 
 IMPEACHMENT OF HASTINGS. MACAULAY. 
 
 [Ireland was still in a state of agitation when the attention of the En- 
 glish Parliament became absorbed in one of the most remarkable of mod- 
 ern criminal trials. In 1773 Warren Hastings was made the first gov- 
 ernor-general of India. During the twelve years of his administration he 
 rendered inestimable service in extending and consolidating England's 
 power in the East, but his glory was sullied by many crimes. Soon after 
 his retirement from office he was impeached (1788) by the House of Com- 
 mons, before the bar of the Lords, on charges of misgovernment in India. 
 The trial dragged on for eight years, and, in the end, Hastings was acquit- 
 ted ; but the object for which the impeachment had been begun was at- 
 tained. The crimes of Hastings have never been repeated, even by the 
 worst of his successors.] 
 
 IN the mean time the preparations for the trial had pro- 
 ceeded rapidly, and, on the i3th of February, 1788, the sit- 
 tings of the court commenced. There have been spectacles 
 more dazzling tp the eye, more gorgeous with jewelry and
 
 336 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 cloth of gold, more attractive to grown-up children than that 
 which was then exhibited at Westminster; but, perhaps, 
 there never was a spectacle so well calculated to strike a 
 highly cultivated, a reflecting, an imaginative mind. All the 
 various kinds of interest which belong to the near and to the 
 distant, to the present and to the past, were collected on one 
 spot, and in one hour. All the talents and all the accom- 
 plishments which are developed by liberty and civilization 
 were row displayed, with every advantage that could be de- 
 rived from co-operation and from contrast. Every step in 
 the proceedings carried the mind either backward, through 
 many troubled centuries, to the days when the foundations of 
 our constitution were laid, or far away, over boundless seas 
 and deserts, to dusky nations living under strange stars, wor- 
 shiping strange gods, and writing strange characters from 
 right to left. The High Court of Parliament was to sit, ac- 
 cording to forms handed down from the days of the Plantag- 
 enets, on an Englishman accused of exercising tyranny over 
 the lord of the holy city of Benares, and over the ladies of 
 the princely house of Oude. 
 
 The place was worthy of such a trial. It was the great 
 hall of William Rufus, the hall which had resounded with 
 acclamations at the inauguration of thirty kings, the hall 
 which had witnessed the just sentence of Bacon and the just 
 absolution of Somers, the hall where the eloquence of Straf- 
 ford had for a moment awed and melted a victorious party 
 inflamed with just resentment, the hall where Charles had 
 confronted the High Court of Justice with the placid courage 
 which has half-redeemed his fame. Neither military nor 
 civil pomp was wanting. The avenues were lined with gren- 
 adiers. The streets were kept clear by cavalry. The peers, 
 robed in gold and ermine, were marshaled by the heralds 
 under garter king-at-arms. The judges, in their vestments 
 of state, attended to give advice on points of law. Near a 
 hundred and seventy lords, three fourths of the Upper House,
 
 IMPEACHMENT OF HASTINGS. 337 
 
 as the Upper House then was, walked in solemn order from 
 their usual place of assembling to the tribunal. The junior 
 baron present led the way, George Eliott, Lord Heathfield, 
 recently ennobled for his memorable defense of Gibraltar 
 against the fleets and armies of France and Spain. The long 
 procession was closed by the duke of Norfolk, earl-marshal 
 of the realm, by the great dignitaries, and by the brothers and 
 sons of the king. Last of all came the prince of Wales,*con- 
 spicuous by his fine person and noble bearing. The gray 
 old walls were hung with scarlet. The long galleries were 
 crowded by an audience such as has rarely excited the fears 
 or the emulation of an orator. There were gathered to- 
 gether, from all parts of a great, free, enlightened, and pros- 
 perous empire, grace and female loveliness, \\it and learning, 
 the representatives of every science and of every art. There 
 were seated round the queen the fair-haired young daughters 
 of the house of Brunswick. There the embassadors of great 
 kings and commonwealths gazed with admiration on a specta- 
 cle which no other country in the world could present. There 
 Siddons, in the prime of her majestic beauty, looked with 
 emotion on a scene surpassing all the imitations of the stage. 
 There the historian of the Roman Empire thought of the 
 days when Cicero pleaded the cause of Sicily against Verres, 
 and when, before a senate which still retained some show of 
 freedom, Tacitus thundered against the oppressor of Africa. 
 There were seen, side by side, the greatest painter and the 
 greatest scholar of the age. The spectacle had allured Rey- 
 nolds from that easel which has preserved to us the thought- 
 ful foreheads of so many writers and statesmen, and the 
 sweet smiles Of so many noble mntrons. It had induced 
 Parr to suspend his labors in that dark and profound mine 
 from which he had extracted a vast treasure of erudition, a 
 treasure too often buried in the earth, too often paraded with 
 injudicious and inelegant ostentation, but still precious, mass- 
 ive, and splendid. There appeared the voluptuous charms
 
 338 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 of her* to whom the heir of the throne had in secret plighted 
 his faith. There, too, was she, f the beautiful mother of a 
 beautiful race, the St. Cecilia, whose delicate features, lighted 
 up by love and music, art has rescued from the common de- 
 cay. There were the members of that brilliant society which 
 quoted, criticized, and exchanged repartees under the rich 
 peacock-hangings of Mrs. Montague. And there the ladies 
 whose lips, more persuasive than those of Fox himself, had 
 carried the Westminster election against palace and treasury 
 shone round Georgiana, duchess of Devonshire. 
 
 The sergeants made proclamation. Hastings advanced to 
 the bar and bent his knee. The culprit was, indeed, not un- 
 worthy of that great presence. He had ruled an extensive 
 and populous country, had made laws and treaties, had sent 
 forth armies, had set up and pulled down princes. And in 
 his high place he had so borne himself that all had feared 
 him, that most had loved him, and that hatred itself could 
 deny him no title to glory, except virtue. He looked like a 
 great man, and not like a bad man. A person small and 
 emaciated, yet deriving dignity from a carriage which, while 
 it indicated deference to the court, indicated also habitual 
 self-possession and self respect; a high and intellectual fore- 
 head; a brow pensive, but not gloomy; a mouth of inflexible 
 decision ; a fare pale and worn, but serene, on which was 
 written, a? legibly as under the picture in the council-cham- 
 ber at Calcutta, Mens aequa in arduis ; such was the aspect with 
 which the great pro-consul presented himself to his judges. 
 
 His counsel accompanied him men all of whom were aft- 
 erward raised, by their talents and learning, to the highest 
 posts in their profession the bold and strong-minded Law, 
 afterward chief- justice of the King's Bench ; the more hu- 
 mane and eloquent Dallas, afterward chief-justice of the 
 Common Pleas; and Plomer, who, near twenty years later, 
 successfully conducted, in the same high court, the defense 
 *Mrs. Fitzherbert. f Mrs. Sheridan.
 
 IMPEACHMENT OF HASTINGS. 339 
 
 of Lord Melville, and subsequently became vice-chancellor 
 and master of the rolls. 
 
 But neither the culprit nor his advocates attracted so 
 much notice as the accusers. In the midst of the blaze of 
 red drapery a space had been fitted up with green benches" 
 and tables for the Commons. The managers, with Burke at 
 their head, appeared in full dress. The collectors of gossip 
 did not fail to remark that even Fox, generally so regardless 
 of his appearance, had paid to the illustrious tribunal the 
 compliment of wearing a bag and sword. Pitt had refused 
 to be one of the conductors of the impeachment; and his 
 commanding, copious, and sonorous eloquence was wanting 
 to that great muster of various talents. Age and blindness 
 had unfitted Lord North for the duties of a public prosecu- 
 tor ; and his friends were left without the help of his excel- 
 lent sense, his tact, and his urbanity. But, in spite of the 
 absence of these two distinguished members of the Lo.ver 
 House, the box in which the managers stood contained an 
 array of speakers such as, perhaps, had not appeared to- 
 gether since the great age of Athenian eloquence. There 
 were Fox and Sheridan, the English Demosthenes and the 
 English Hyperides. There was Burke, ignorant, indeed, or 
 negligent, of the art of adapting his reasonings and his style 
 to the capacity and taste of his hearers, but in amplitude of 
 comprehension and richness of imagination superior to every 
 orator, ancient or modern. There, with eyes reverentially 
 fixed on Burke, appeared the finest gentleman of the age, his 
 form developed by every manly exercise, his face beaming 
 with intelligence and spirit, the ingenious, the chivalrous, the 
 high-souled Windham. Nor, though surrounded by such 
 men, did the younge-t manager pass unnoticed. At an age 
 when most of those who distinguish themselves in life are 
 still contending for prizes and fellowships at college, he had 
 won for himself a conspicuous place in Parliament. No ad- 
 vantage of fortune or connection was wanting that could set
 
 340 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 off to the height his splendid talents and his unblemished 
 honor. At twenty-three he had been thought worthy to be 
 ranked with the veteran statesmen who appeared as the del- 
 egates of the British Commons at the bar of the British no- 
 bility. All who stood at that bar, save him alone, are gone 
 culprit, advocates, accusers. To the generation which is now 
 in the vigor of life he is the sole representative of a great 
 age which has passed away. But those who, within the last 
 ten years, have listened with delight, till the morning sun 
 shone on the tapestries of the House of Lords, to the lofty 
 and animate 1 eloquence of Charles, Earl Grey,* are able to 
 form some estimate of the powers of a race of men among 
 whom he was not the foremost. 
 
 The charges and the answers of Hastings were first read. 
 The ceremony occupied two whole days, and was rendered 
 less tedious than it would otherwise have been by the silver 
 voice and just emphasis of Cowper, the clerk of the court, a 
 near relation of the amiable poet. On the third day Burke 
 rose. Four sittings were occupied by his opening speech, 
 which was intended to be a general introduction to all the 
 charges. With an exuberance of thought and a splendor of 
 diction which more than satisfied the highly raised expecta- 
 tion of the audience, he described the character and institu- 
 tions of the natives of India, recounted the circumstances in 
 which the Asiatic empire of Britain had originated, and set 
 forth the constitution of the Company and of the English 
 presidencies. Having thus attempted to communicate to 
 his hearers an idea of Eastern society as vivid as that 
 which existed in his own mind, he proceeded to arraign the 
 administration of Hastings as systematically conducted in 
 defiance of morality and public law. The energy and pathos 
 of the great orator extorted expressions of unwonted admira- 
 tion from the stern and hostile chancellor, and, for a moment, 
 seemed to pierce even the resolute heart of the defendant. 
 * Earl Grey died in 1845.
 
 IMPEACHMENT OF HASTINGS. 341 
 
 At length the orator concluded. Raising his voice till the 
 old arches of Irish oak resounded, " Therefore," said he, 
 " hath it with all confidence been ordered by the Commons 
 of Great Britain, that I impeach Warren Hastings of high 
 crimes and misdemeanors. I impeach him in the name of 
 the Commons' House of Parliament, whose trust he has be- 
 trayed. I impeach him in the name of the English nation, 
 whose ancient honor he has sullied. I impeach him in the 
 name of the people of India, whose rights he has trodden 
 under foot, and whose country he has turned into a desert. 
 Lastly, in the name of human nature itself, in the name of 
 both sexes, in the name of every age, in the name of every 
 rank, I impeach the common enemy and oppressor of all." 
 
 LVII. 
 
 TRAFALGAR DEATH OF NELSON. SOUTHEY. 
 
 [The trial of Hastings had but just begun when the world was startled 
 by the outbreak of the French Revolutiou of 1789 the greatest event of 
 modern history. In France, after the monarchy had been overthrown and 
 the members of the royal family had been either put to death or driven* 
 from the country, a republic was established, which passed through various 
 phases, and at length ended in a military despotism. Napoleon Bonaparte, 
 the most successful soldier of the revolution, became first consul of France 
 in 1799, and in 1804 he took the title of emperor as Napoleon the First. 
 
 England entered the contest in 1793, and ultimately became the chief 
 rival of Napoleon. One great object, therefore, of the French emperor 
 was to cripple or destroy England ; and he labored long and earnestly in 
 the hope of breaking her maritime supremacy. But all his plans in this 
 direction were brought to naught by the battle of Trafalgar, by which, 
 though England lost her ablest seaman, the combined fleets of France and 
 Spain were annihilated, and England's naval power became greater than 
 ever.] 
 
 THE enemy continued to fire a gun at a time at the Victory, 
 till they saw that a shot had passed through her main-top- 
 gallant-sail ; then they opened their broadsides, aiming chiefly
 
 342 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 at her rigging, in the hope of disabling her before she could 
 close with them. Nelson, as usual, had hoisted several flags, 
 lest one should be shot away. The enemy showed no colors 
 until late in the action, when they began to feel the necessity 
 of having them to strike. For this reason the Santissima 
 Trinidad, Nelson's old acquaintance, as he used to call her, 
 was distinguishable only by her four decks; and to the bow 
 of this opponent he ordered the Victory to be steered. Mean- 
 time an incessant raking fire was kept up upon the Vittoiy. 
 The admiral's secretary was one of the first who fell ; he was 
 killed by a cannon-shot while conversing with Hardy. Captain 
 Adair, of the marines, with the help of a sailor, endeavored 
 to remove the body from Nelson's sight, who had a great re- 
 gard for Mr. Scott ; but he anxiously asked : " Is that poor 
 Scott that's gone ? " and being informed that it was indeed 
 so, exclaimed, " Poor fellow ! " Presently a double-headed 
 shot struck a party of marines, who were drawn up on the 
 poop, and killed eight of them; upon which Nelson imme- 
 diately desired Captain Adair to disperse his men round the 
 ship, that they might not suffer so much from being together. 
 A few minutes afterward a shot struck the fore brace bits on 
 the quarter deck, and passed between Nelson and Hardy, a 
 splinter from the bit tearing off Hardy's buckle and bruising 
 his foot. Both stopped, and looked anxiously at each other, 
 each supposing the other to be wounded. Nelson then 
 smiled, and said, "This is too warm work, Hardy, to last long." 
 The Victory had not yet returned a single gun; fifty of 
 her men had been by this time killed or wounded, and her 
 main-topmast, with all her studding-sails and her booms, 
 shot away. Nelson declared that, in all his battles, he had 
 seen nothing which surpassed the cool courage of his 
 crew on this occasion. At four minutes after twelve she 
 opened her fire from both sides of her deck. It was not pos- 
 sible to break the enemy's line without running on board one 
 of their ships. Hardy informed him of this, and asked him
 
 TRAFALGAR DEATH OF NELSON. 343 
 
 which he would prefer. Nelson replied, "Take your choice, 
 Hardy, it does not signify much." The master was ordered 
 to put the helm to port, and the Victory ran on board the 
 Redoubtable, just as her tiller ropes were shot away. The 
 French ship received her with a broadside; then instantly- 
 let down her lower-deck ports, for fear of being boarded 
 through them, and never afterward fired a great gun during 
 the action. Her tops, like those of all the enemy's ships, 
 were filled with riflemen. Nelson never placed musketry in 
 his tops; he had a strong dislike to the practice, not merely 
 because it endangers setting fire to the sails, but also because 
 it is a murderous sort of warfare by which individuals may 
 suffer, and a commander now and then be picked off, but 
 which never can decide the fate of a general engagement. 
 
 Captain Harvey, in the Temeraire, fell on board the Re- 
 doubtable on the other side. Another enemy was in like 
 manner on board the Temeraire j so that these four ships 
 formed as compact a tier as if they had been moored to- 
 gether, their heads lying all the same way. The lieutenants 
 of the Victory, seeing this, depressed their guns of the middle 
 and lower decks, and fired with a diminished charge, lest the 
 shot should pass through, and injure the Temeraire. And 
 because there was danger that the Redoubtable might take 
 fire from the lower deck guns, the muzzles of which touched 
 her sides when they were run out, the fireman of each gun 
 stood ready with a bucket of water, which, as soon as the gun 
 was discharged, he dashed into the hole made by the shot. 
 An incessant fire was kept up from the Victory from both 
 sides; her larboard guns playing upon the Bucentaure and 
 the huge Santissima Trinidad. 
 
 It had been part of Nelson's prayer that the British fleet 
 might be distinguished by humanity in the victory which he 
 expected. Setting an example himself, he twice gave orders 
 to cease firing upon the Redoubtable, supposing that she had 
 struck because her great guns were silent; for, as she carried
 
 344 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 no flag, there was no means of instantly ascertaining the fact. 
 From this ship, which he had thus twice spared, he received 
 his death. A ball fired from her mizzen-top, which, in the 
 then situation of the two vessels, was not more than fifteen 
 yards from that part of the deck where he was standing, 
 struck the epaulette on his left shoulder, about a quarter after 
 one, just in the heat of action. He fell upon his face, on the 
 spot which was covered by his poor secretary's blood. Hardy, 
 who was a few steps from him, turning round, saw three men 
 raising him up. "They have done for me at last, Hardy," 
 said he. "I hope not," cried Hardy. "Yes!" he replied; 
 " my back-bone is shot through." Yet even now, not for a 
 moment losing his presence of mind, he observed, as they 
 were carrying him down the ladder, that the tiller-ropes, 
 which had been shot away, were not yet replaced, and ordered 
 that new ones should be rove immediately ; then, that he 
 might not be seen by the crew, he took out his handkerchief, 
 and covered his face and his stars. Had he but concealed 
 these badges of honor from the enemy, England, perhaps, 
 would not have had cause to receive with sorrow the news of 
 the battle of Trafalgar. The cockpit was crowded with 
 wounded and dying men, over whose bodies he was with 
 some difficulty conveyed, and laid upon a pallet in the midship- 
 men's berth. It was soon perceived, upon examination, that 
 the wound was mortal. This, however, was concealed from 
 all except Captain Hardy, the chaplain, and the medical at- 
 tendants. He himself being certain, from the sensation in 
 his back, and the gush of blood he felt momently within his 
 breast, that no human care could avail him, insisted that the 
 surgeon should leave him, and attend to those to whom he 
 might be useful ; " for," said he, " you can do nothing for me." 
 All that could be done was to fan him with paper, and fre- 
 quently to give him lemonade to alleviate his intense thirst. 
 He was in great pain, and expressed much anxiety for the 
 event of the action, which now began to declare itself. As
 
 TRAFALGAR DEATH OF NELSON. 345 
 
 often as a ship struck, the crew of the Victory huzzaed; and 
 at every huzza, a visible expression of joy gleamed in the eyes 
 and marked the countenance of the dying hero. But he be- 
 came impatient to see Captain Hardy ; and, as that officer, 
 though often sent for, could not leave the deck, Nelson feared 
 that some fatal cause prevented him, and repeatedly cried, 
 " Will no one bring Hardy to me ? He must be killed ! He is 
 surely dead ! " An hour and ten minutes elapsed from the 
 time when Nelson received his wound before Hardy could 
 come to him. They shook hands in silence, Hardy in vain 
 struggling to suppress the feelings of that most painful and 
 yet sublimest moment. " Well, Hardy," said Nelson, " how 
 goes the day with us ? " " Very well," replied Hardy ; " ten 
 ships have struck, but five of the van have tacked, and show 
 an intention to bear down upon the Victory. I have called 
 two or three of our fresh ships around, and have no doubt of 
 giving them a drubbing." " I hope," said Nelson, " none of 
 our ships have struck." Hardy answered, "There was no 
 fear of that." Then, and not till then, Nelson spoke of him- 
 self. " I am a dead man, Hardy," said he ; "I am going 
 fast ; it will be all over with me, soon. Come nearer to me. 
 Let my dear Lady Hamilton have my hair, and all other 
 things belonging to me." Hardy observed that he hoped 
 Mr. Beatty could yet hold out some prospect of life. " O, 
 no! " he replied; "it is impossible. My back is shot through ; 
 Beatty will tell you so." Captain Hardy then once more 
 shook hands with him ; and, with a heart almost bursting, 
 hastened upon deck. 
 
 By this time all feeling below the breast was gone ; and 
 Nelson, having made the surgeon ascertain this, said to him, 
 "You know I am gone; I know it. I feel something rising 
 in my breast " putting his hand on his left side " which tells 
 me so." And, upon Beatty's inquiring whether his pain was 
 very great, he replied, so great that he wished he was dead. 
 "Yet," said he, in a lower voice, "one would like to live a
 
 346 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 little longer, too." And, after a few minutes, in the same un- 
 dertone, he added, " What would become of poor Lady Ham- 
 ilton, if she knew my situation!" Next to his country she 
 occupied his thoughts. Captain Hardy, some fifty minutes 
 after he had left the cockpit, returned ; and, again taking the 
 hand of his dying friend and commander, congratulated him 
 on having gained a complete victory. How many of the en- 
 emy were taken he did not know, as it was impossible to per- 
 ceive them distinctly; but fourteen or fifteen, at least. 
 "That's well," cried Nelson, "but I bargained for twenty." 
 And then, in a stronger voice, he said, '' Anchor, Hardy, 
 anchor." Hardy, upon this, hinted that Admiral Colling- 
 wood would take upon himself the direction of affairs. "Not 
 while I live, Hardy," said the dying Nelson, ineffectually 
 endeavoring to raise himself from the bed ; " do you anchor." 
 His previous order for preparing to anchor had shown how 
 clearly he foresaw the necessity of this. Presently, calling 
 Hardy back, he said to him, in a low voice. " Don't throw 
 me overboard;" and he desired that he might be buried by 
 his parents, unless it should please the king to order other- 
 wise. Then, reverting to private feelings, " Take care of my 
 dear Lady Hamilton, Hardy; take care of poor Lady Hamil- 
 ton. Kiss me, Hardy," said he. Hardy knelt down, and 
 kissed his cheek, and Nelson said, " Now I am satisfied. 
 Thank God, I have done my duty." Hardy stood over him 
 in silence for a moment or two, then knelt again, and kissed 
 his forehead. " Who is that ? " said Nelson ; and, being 
 informed, he replied, "God bless you, Hardy." And Hardy 
 then left him forever. 
 
 Nelson now desired to be turned upon his right side, and 
 said, " I wish I had not left the deck, for I shall soon be 
 gone." Death was, indeed, rapidly approaching. He said 
 to the chaplain, " Doctor, I have not been a great sinner;" 
 and after a short pause, " Remember that I leave Lady Ham- 
 ilton and my daughter Horatia as a legacy to my country."
 
 TRAFALGAR DEATH OF NELSON. 347 
 
 His articulation now became difficult ; but he was distinctly 
 heard to say, "Thank God, I have done my duty." These 
 words he repeatedly pronounced; and they were the last 
 words which he uttered. He expired at thirty minutes after 
 four three hours and a quarter after he had received his 
 wound. 
 
 LVIII. 
 
 BOMBARDMENT OF COPENHAGEN. FYFFE. 
 
 [As the war went on, after Trafalgar, it developed more and more into 
 a gigantic duel between the two great rivals, England and Napoleon, and 
 was conducted on both sides with an utter disregard of the rights of neu- 
 tral nations. One of the best illustrations of the outrageous treatment to 
 which neutrals were subjected was the attack of the English fleet on Co- 
 penhagen, the capital of a neutral power, in the summer of 1807. In that 
 year Napoleon had entered into a treaty with Alexander of Russia, the 
 object of which was practically to divide the Continent between them.] 
 
 SUCH was this vast and threatening scheme, conceived by 
 the man whose whole career had been one consistent strug- 
 gle for personal domination, accepted by the man who ? 
 among the rulers of the Continent, had hitherto shown the 
 greatest power of acting for a European end, and of inter- 
 esting himself in a cause not directly his own. In the imag- 
 ination of Napoleon the national forces of the western con- 
 tinent had now ceased to exist. Austria excepted, there was 
 no state upon the main-land whose army and navy were not 
 prospectively in the hands of himself and his new ally. The 
 commerce of Great Britain, already excluded from the greater 
 part of Europe, was now to be shut out from all the rest ; 
 the armies which had hitherto fought under British subsidies 
 for the independence of Europe, the navies which had pre- 
 served their existence by neutrality or by friendship with 
 England, were soon to be thrown without distinction against 
 that last foe. If, even at this moment, an English statesman 
 who had learned the secret agreement of Tilsit might have
 
 348 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 looked without fear to the future of his country, it was not 
 from any imperfection in the structure of continental tyr- 
 anny. The fleets of Denmark and Portugal might be of little 
 real avail against English seamen ; the homes of the English 
 people might still be as secure from foreign invasion as when 
 Nelson guarded the seas ; but it was not from any vestige of 
 political honor surviving in the Emperor Alexander. Where 
 Alexander's action was really of decisive importance, in his 
 mediation between France and Prussia, he threw himself 
 without scruple on to the side of oppression. It lay within his 
 power to gain terms of peace for Prussia as lenient as those 
 which Austria had gained at Campo Formio and at Luneville ; 
 he sacrificed Prussia, as he allied himself against the last up- 
 holders of national independence in Europe, in order that he 
 might himself receive Finland and the Danubian Provinces. 
 
 Two days before the signature of the treaty of Tilsit the 
 British troops, which had once been so anxiously expected 
 by the czar, landed in the island of Riigen. The struggle in 
 which they were intended to take their part was over. Swe- 
 den alone remained in arms, and even the Quixotic pugnacity 
 of King Gustavus was unable to save Stralsund from a speedy 
 capitulation. But the troops of Great Britain were not des- 
 tined to return without striking a blow. While the ne- 
 gotiations between Napoleon and Alexander were still in 
 progress the government of England received secret intelli- 
 gence of their purport. It became known in London that the 
 fleet of Denmark was to be seized by the two emperors, and 
 forced to fight against Great Britain. The ministry acted 
 with the promptitude that seldom failed the British govern- 
 ment when it could effect its object by the fleet alone. It 
 determined to anticipate Napoleon's violation of Danish 
 neutrality, and to seize upon the navy which would otherwise 
 be seized by France and Russia. 
 
 On the z8th of July a fleet, with 20,000 men on board, set 
 sail from the British coast. The troops landed in Denmark
 
 BOMBARDMENT OF COPENHAGEN. 349 
 
 in the middle of August, and united with the corps which had 
 already been dispatched to Riigen. The Danish government 
 was summoned to place its navy in the hands of Great Brit- 
 ain, in order that it might remain as a deposit in some 
 British port until the conclusion of peace. While demanding 
 this sacrifice of Danish neutrality, England undertook to 
 protect the Danish nation and colonies from the hostility of 
 Napoleon, and to place at the disposal of the government 
 every means of naval and military defense. Failing the sur- 
 render of the fleet, the English declared that they would bom- 
 bard Copenhagen. The reply given to this summons was 
 such as might be expected from a courageous nation exasper- 
 ated against Great Britain by its harsh treatment of neutral 
 ships of commerce, and inclined to submit to the despot of 
 the Continent rather than to the tyrant of the seas. " More 
 honor," the crown-prince is reported to have answered, " is 
 to be expected from the pirates of Barbary than from the 
 British government. Your allies, vainly expecting your suc- 
 cors for an entire year, have taught us what is the worth of 
 English friendship." Negotiations proved fruitless, and, on 
 the 2d of September, the English opened fire on Copenhagen. 
 For three days and nights the city underwent a bombardment 
 of cruel efficiency. Eighteen hundred houses were leveled, 
 the town was set on fire in several places, and a large num- 
 ber of inhabitants lost their lives. At length the commander 
 found himself compelled to capitulate. The fleet was handed 
 over to Great Britain, with all the stores in the arsenal at Co- 
 penhagen. It was brought to England, no longer under the 
 terms of a friendly neutrality, but as a prize of war. 
 
 The captors themselves were ashamed of their spoil. En- 
 gland received an armament which had been taken from a 
 people who were not our enemies, and by an attack which 
 was not war, with more misgiving than applause.* In Europe 
 
 * Yet the House of Commons approved of the act'ion of the ministry by 
 a vote of more than two to one. 
 15
 
 35 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 the seemingly unprovoked assault upon a weak neutral state 
 excited the utmost indignation. The British ministry, who 
 were prevented from making public the evidence which they 
 had received of the intention of the two emperors, were be- 
 lieved to have invented the story of the secret treaty. The 
 Danish government denied that Napoleon had demanded 
 their co-operation ; Napoleon and Alexander themselves as- 
 sumed the air of indignant astonishment. But the facts al- 
 leged by Canning and his colleagues were correct. The 
 conspiracy of the two emperors was no fiction. The only 
 question still remaining open relates to the engagements en- 
 tered into by the Danish government itself. Napoleon, in 
 his correspondence of this date, alludes to certain promises 
 made to him by the court of Denmark, but he also com- 
 plains that these promises had not been fulfilled ; and the 
 context of the letter renders it almost cer ain that nothing 
 more was promised than that the ports of Denmark should be 
 closed to English vessels. If the British cabinet possessed 
 evidence of the determination of the Danish government to 
 transfer its fleet to Napoleon without resistance, the attack 
 upon Denmark, considered as virtually an act of war, was not 
 unjust. If no such evidence existed, the conspiracy of the 
 emperors against Danish neutrality was no sufficient ground 
 for an action on the part of Great Britain which went so far 
 beyond the mere frustration of their designs. The surrender 
 of the Danish fleet demanded by England would have been 
 an unqualified act of war on the part of Denmark against 
 Napoleon ; it was no mere guarantee for a continued neu- 
 trality. Nor had the British government the last excuse 
 of an urgent and overwhelming necessity. Nineteen Danish 
 men-of-war would not have turned the scale against England. 
 The memory of Trafalgar might well have given a British 
 ministry courage to meet its enemies by the ordinary methods 
 of war. Had the forces of Denmark been far larger than 
 they actually were, the peril of Great Britain was not so ex-
 
 BOMBARDMENT OK COPENHAGEN. 
 
 treme as to excuse the wrong done to mankind by an exam- 
 ple encouraging all future belligerents to anticipate one an- 
 other in forcing neutrals to take part with themselves. 
 
 LIX. 
 
 BATTLE OF WATERLOO CREASY. 
 
 [The failure of his attempt to subjugate Spain, which was made in the 
 year following the humiliation of Denmark by England, marked the turn- 
 ing-point in Napoleon's career. Fortune, indeed, did not desert him in his 
 brilliant campaign against Austria, in 1809 ; but his insane invasion of 
 Russia, in 1812, and the obstinacy with which he rejected all overtures of 
 peace during the campaigns of 1813 and 1814 led to his downfall in the 
 latter year, in spite of the almost superhuman activity and energy he dis- 
 played. By the treaty of Paris (1814) the island of Elba was assigned to 
 him as a place of residence ; but in the spring of 1815, while the congress 
 of Vienna was busy in re-arranging the map of Europe, he escaped from 
 the island. France welcomed him, Europe combined against him, and 
 he was finally overthrown by the English and Prussian armies on the field 
 of Waterloo. The crisis of the battle is described below.] 
 
 BETWEEN seven and eight 
 o'clock the infantry of the Old 
 Guard was formed into two 
 columns, on the declivity near 
 La Belle Alliance. Ney was 
 placed at their head. Na- 
 poleon himself rode forward 
 to a spot by which his veterans 
 were to pass; and as they ap- 
 proached he raised his arm, 
 and pointed to the position of 
 the allies, as if to tell them 
 
 DUKE OF WELLINGTON. 
 
 that their path lay there. 
 
 They answered with loud cries of "Vive 1'Empereur !" and 
 
 descended the hill from their own side into that " valley of
 
 352 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 the shadow of death," while their batteries thundered with 
 redoubled vigor over their heads upon the British line. The 
 line of march of the columns of the Guard was directed be- 
 tween Hougoumont and La Haye Sainte, against the British 
 right center; and at the same time, Donzelot and the French 
 who had possession of La Haye Sainte, commenced a fierce 
 attack upon the British center, a little more to its left. This 
 part of the battle has drawn less attention than the celebrated 
 attack of the Old Guard; but it formed the most perilous 
 crisis for the allied army; and if the Young Guard had been 
 there to support Donzelot, instead of being engaged with the 
 Prussians at Planchenoit, the consequences to the allies in 
 that part of the field must have been most serious. The 
 French tirailleurs, who were posted in clouds in La Haye 
 Sainte, and the sheltered spots near it, completely disabled 
 the artillery-men of the English batteries near them; and, 
 taking advantage of the crippled state of the English guns, 
 the French brought some field-pieces up to La Haye Sainte, 
 and commenced firing grape from them on the infantry of 
 the allies, at a distance of not more than a hundred paces. 
 The allied infantry here consisted of some German brigades, 
 who were formed in squares, as it was believed that Donze- 
 lot had cavalry ready behind La Haye Sainte to charge them 
 with, if they left that order of formation. In this state the 
 Germans remained for some time with heroic fortitude, 
 though the grape-shot was tearing gaps in their ranks, and 
 the side of one square was literally blown away by one 
 tremendous volley which the French gunners poured into it. 
 The prince of Orange in vain endeavored to lead some 
 Nassau troops to their aid. The Nassauers would not or 
 could not face the French; and some battalions of Bruns- 
 wickers, whom the duke of Wellington had ordered up as a 
 re-enforcement, at first fell back, until the duke in person 
 rallied them and led them on. The duke then galloped off 
 to the right to lead his men who were exposed to the attack
 
 BATTLE OF WATERLOO. 353 
 
 of the Imperial Guard. He had saved one part of his cen- 
 ter from being routed; but the French had gained ground 
 here, and the pressure on the allied line was severe, until 
 it was relieved by the decisive success which the British 
 in the right center achieved over the columns of the Guard. 
 The British troops on the crest of that part of the position, 
 which the first column of Napoleon's Guard assailed, were 
 Maitland's brigade of British Guards, having Adam's brigade 
 on their right. Maitland's men were lying down, in order to 
 avoid, as far as possible, the destructive effect of the French 
 artillery, which kept up an unremitting fire from the opposite 
 heights, until the first column of the Imperial Guard had 
 advanced so far up the slope toward the British position that 
 any further firing of the French artillery-men would endan- 
 ger their own comrades. Meanwhile, the British guns were 
 not idle; but shot and shell plowed fast through the ranks of 
 the stately array of veterans that still moved imposingly on. 
 Several of the French superior officers were at its head. 
 Ney's horse was shot under him, but he stili led the way on 
 foot, sword in hand. The front of the massive column now 
 was on the ridge of the hill. To their surprise they saw no 
 troops before them. All they could di&cern through the 
 smoke was a small band of mounted officers. One of these 
 was the duke himself. The French advanced to about fifty 
 yards from where the British Guards were lying down, when 
 the voice of one of the band of British officers was heard call- 
 ing, as if to the ground before him, " Up, Guards, and at them ! " 
 It was the duke who gave the order; and at the words, as if by 
 magic, up started before them a line of the British Guards 
 four deep, and in the most compact and perfect order. They 
 poured an instantaneous volley upon the head of the French 
 column, by which no less than three hundred of those chosen 
 veterans are said to have fallen. The French officers rushed 
 forward, and, conspicuous in front of their men, attempted to 
 deploy them into a more extended line, so as to enable them
 
 354 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 to reply with effect to the British fire. But Maitland's 
 brigade kept showering in volley after volley with deadly 
 rapidity. The decimated column grew disordered in its 
 vajn efforts to expand itself into a more efficient formation. 
 The right word was given at the right moment to the British 
 for the bayonet-charge, and the brigade sprang forward with 
 a loud cheer against their dismayed antagonists. In an in- 
 stant the compact mass of the French spread out into a rab- 
 ble, and they fled back down the hill, pursued by Maitland's 
 men, who, however, returned to their position in time to 
 take part in the repulse of the second column of the Im- 
 perial Guard. [This column also advanced with great spirit 
 and firmness but met with such strenuous opposition that it, 
 like its predecessor, broke and fled.] 
 
 But the battle was not yet won. Napoleon had still some 
 battalions in reserve near La Belle Alliance. He was rapidly 
 rallying the remains of the first column of his Guards, and he 
 had collected into one body the remnants of the various 
 corps of cavalry, which had suffered so severely in the 
 earlier part of the day. The duke instantly formed the bold 
 resolution of now himself becoming the assailant, and lead- 
 ing his successful, though enfeebled, army forward, while the 
 disheartening effect of the repulse of the Imperial Guard on 
 the French army was still strong, and before Napoleon and 
 Ney could rally the beaten veterans themselves for another 
 and a fiercer charge. As the close approach of the Prussians 
 now completely protected the duke's left, he had drawn 
 some reserves of horse from that quarter, and he had a 
 brigade of Hussars, under Vivian, fresh and ready at hand. 
 Without a moment's hesitation, he launched these against the 
 cavalry near La Belle Alliance. The charge was as success- 
 ful as it was daring; and as there was now no hostile cavalry 
 to check the British infantry in a forward movement, the 
 duke gave the long-.wished-for command for a general ad- 
 vance of the army along the whole line upon the foe.
 
 BATTLE OF WATERLOO. 355 
 
 It was now past eight o'clock, and for nine deadly hour, 
 had the British and German regiments stood unflinching un- 
 der the fire of artillery, the charge of cavalry, and every vari- 
 ety of assault that the compact columns or the scattered tirail- 
 leurs of the enemy's infantry could inflict. As they joyously 
 sprang forward against the discomfited masses of the French, 
 the setting sun broke through the clouds, which had obscured 
 the sky during the greater part of the day, and glittered on 
 the bayonets of the allies, while they in turn poured down 
 into the valley and toward the heights that were held by the 
 foe. Almost the whole of the French host was now in irre- 
 trievable confusion. The Prussian army was coming more 
 and more rapidly forward on their right, and the Young Guard, 
 which had held Planchenoit so bravely, was at last compelled 
 to give way. Some regiments of the Old Guard in vain en- 
 deavored to form in squares. They were swept away to the 
 rear; and then Napoleon himself fled from the last of his 
 many fields, to become, in a few weeks, a captive and an 
 exile. 
 
 The battle was lost by France past all recovery. The vic- 
 torious armies of England and Prussia, meeting on the scene 
 of their triumph, continued to press forward and overwhelm 
 every attempt that was made to stem the tide of ruin. The 
 British army, exhausted by its toils and suffering during that 
 dreadful day, did not urge the pursuit beyond the heights 
 which the enemy had occupied. But the Prussians drove the 
 fugitives before them throughout the night. And of the 
 magnificent host which had that morning cheered their 
 emperor in confident expectation of victory, very few were 
 ever assembled again in arms. Their loss, both in the field 
 and in the pursuit, was immense ; and the greater number 
 of those who escaped, dispersed as soon as they crossed the 
 frontier. 
 
 The army under the duke of Wellington lost nearly fifteen 
 thousand men in killed and wounded on this terrible day of
 
 356 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 battle. The loss of the Prussian army was nearly seven thou- 
 sand more. At such a fearful price was the deliverance of 
 Europe purchased. 
 
 LX. 
 
 CORONATION OF QUEEN VICTORIA GREVILLE. 
 
 [At the close of the Napoleonic wars a long era of peace and prosperity 
 dawned for England. While many of the continental countries were con- 
 vulsed by revolution during the decade, from 1820 to 1830, in England the 
 causes of popular discontent were to a great degree removed by wise legis- 
 lation and a skillful foreign policy. The period is well characte'rized by such 
 measures as the great Catholic Emancipation Act of 1829. and the still more 
 important Reform Bill of 1832. The latter measure, it is true, was not as 
 thorough as the Radical party desired ; but their dissatisfaction was not 
 great enough to mar the general and genuine enthusiasm with which 
 the nation welcomed its young queen to the throne.] 
 
 June 27//$, 1838. There never was any thing seen like the 
 state of this town ; it is as if the population had been on a 
 sudden quintupled ; the uproar, the confusion, the crowd, 
 the noise, are indescribable. Horsemen, footmen, carriages 
 squeezed, jammed, intermingled, the pavement blocked up 
 with timbers, hammering and knocking, and falling fragments 
 stunning the ears and threatening the head ; not a mob here 
 and there, but the town all mob, thronging, bustling, gaping, 
 and gazing at every thing, at any thing, or at nothing ; the 
 park one vast encampment, with banners floating on the tops 
 of the tents ; and still the roads are covered, the railroads 
 loaded with arriving multitudes. From one end of the route 
 of the royal procession to the other, from the top of Piccadilly 
 to Westminster Abbey, there is a vast line of scaffolding ; the 
 noise, the movement, the restlessness are incessant and uni- 
 versal ; in short, it is very curious, but uncommonly tiresome, 
 and the sooner it is over the better. There has been a grand
 
 CORONATION OK QUEEN VICTORIA. 357 
 
 bother about the embassadors forming part of the royal pro- 
 cession. They all detest it, think they ought not to have 
 been called upon to assist, and the poor representatives of 
 the smaller courts do not at all fancy the expense of fine 
 equipages, or the mortification of exhibiting mean ones. This 
 arrangement was matter of negotiation for several days, and 
 (.hj Lord knows why) the government pertinaciously insisted 
 on it. Public opinion has declared against it, and now they 
 begin to see that they have done a very foolish thing, odious 
 to the corps diplomatique and unpleasing to the people. 
 
 June 2gth. The coronation (which, thank God, is over) 
 went off very well. The day was fine, without heat or rain 
 the innumerable multitude which thronged the streets orderly 
 and satisfied. The appearance of the abbey was beautiful, 
 particularly the benches of the peeresses, who were blazing 
 with diamonds. The entry of Soult* was striking. He was 
 saluted with a murmur of curiosity and applause as he passed 
 through the nave, and nearly the same as he advanced along 
 the choir. His appearance is that of a veteran warrior, and 
 he walked alone, with his numerous suite following at a re- 
 spectful distance, preceded by heralds and ushers, who re- 
 ceived him with marked attention, more certainly than any of 
 the other embassadors. The queen looked very diminutive, 
 and the effect of the procession itself was spoiled by being too 
 crowded ; there was not interval enough between the queen 
 and the lords and others going before her. The bishop of 
 London (Blomfield) preached a very good sermon. The dif- 
 ferent actors in the ceremonial were very imperfect in their 
 parts, and had neglected to rehearse them. Lord John 
 Thynne, who officiated for the dean of Westminster, told me 
 that nobody knew what was to be done except the archbishop 
 and himself (who had rehearsed), Lord Willoughby (who is 
 experienced in such matters), and the duke of Wellington, 
 
 * Marshal Soult, once the antagonist of Wellington in Spain, represent- 
 ed the king of the French on this occasion. 
 15*
 
 358 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 and, consequently, there was a continual difficulty and em- 
 barrassment, and the queen never knew what she was to do 
 next. They made her leave her chair and enter into St. Ed- 
 ward's Chapel before the prayers were concluded, much to 
 the discomfiture of the archbishop. She said to John Thynne, 
 " Pray tell me what I am to do, for they don't know; " and at 
 the end, when the orb was put into her hand, she said to him, 
 "What am I to do with it?" "Your majesty is to carry it, 
 if you please, in your hand." " Am I ? " she said ; " it is very 
 heavy." The ruby ring was made for her little finger instead 
 of the fourth, on which the rubric prescribes that it should be 
 put. When the archbishop was to put it on, she extended 
 the former, but he said it must be on the latter. She said 
 it was too small, and she could not get it on. He said it was 
 right to put it there, and, as he insisted, she yielded, but had 
 first to take off her other rings, and then this was forced on ; 
 but it hurt her very much, and as soon as the ceremony was 
 over, she was obliged to bathe her finger in iced water in or- 
 der to get it off. 
 
 The noise and confusion were very great when the medals 
 were thrown about by Lord Surrey, every body scrambling 
 with all their might, and none more vigorously than the maids 
 of honor. There was a great demonstration of applause when 
 the duke of Wellington did homage. Lord Rolle, who is be- 
 tween eighty and ninety, fell down as he was getting up the 
 steps of the throne. Her first impulse was to rise, and when 
 afterward he came again to do homage, she said : " May I 
 not get up and meet him ?" and then rose from the throne, 
 and advanced down one or two of the steps to prevent his 
 coming up, an -act of graciousness and kindness which made a 
 great sensation. It is, in fact, the remarkable union of naivete, 
 kindness, nature, good nature, with propriety and dignity, 
 which makes her so admirable and so endearing to those 
 about her, as she certainly is. I have been repeatedly told 
 that they are all warmly attached to her, but that all feel the
 
 CORONATION OF QUEEN VICTORIA. 359 
 
 impossibility of for a moment losing sight of the respect which 
 they owe her. She never ceases to be a queen, but is always 
 the most charming, cheerful, obliging, unaffected queen in the 
 world. The procession was very handsome, and the extraor- 
 dinary embassadors produced some gorgeous equipages. This 
 sort of procession is incomparably better than the old cere- 
 monial which so much fuss was made about, for the banquet 
 would only have benefited the privileged few and the rich, and 
 for one person who would have witnessed the procession on 
 the platform, five hundred enjoyed the sight of this. In fact, 
 the thing best worth seeing was the town itself, and the count- 
 less multitudes through which the procession passed. The 
 chancellor of the exchequer told me that he had been in- 
 formed ,200,000 had been paid for seats alone, and the num- 
 ber of people who have flocked into London has been esti- 
 mated at five hundred thousand. It is said that a million have 
 had sight of the show in one way or another. These numbers 
 are possibly exaggerated, but they really were prodigious. 
 From Buckingham Palace to Westminster Abbey, by the way 
 they took, which must be two or three miles in length, there 
 was a dense mass of people; the seats and benches were all 
 full, every window was occupied, the roofs of the houses were 
 covered with spectators, for the most part well dressed, and, 
 from the great space through which they were distributed, 
 there was no extraordinary pressure, and consequently no room 
 for violence or ill-humor. In the evening I met Prince Ester- 
 hazy, and asked him what the foreigners said. He replied 
 that they admired it all very much: " Strogonoffand the otheis 
 don't like you, but they feel it, and it makes a great impression 
 on them; in fact, nothing can be seen like it in any other 
 country." I went into the park, where the fair was going on; 
 a vast multitude, but all of the lower orders ; not very amus- 
 ing. The great merit of this coronation is, that so much has 
 been done for the people ; to amuse and interest them seems 
 to have been the principal object.
 
 360 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 LXI. 
 
 BATTLE OF THE ALMA. MCCARTHY. 
 
 [The peace of Victoria's reign was not seriously interrupted until the out- 
 break of the Crimean war, in 1854. The natural desire of Russia to ex- 
 tend her power to the Dardanelles, and to open a way for her commerce 
 into the Mediterranean by encroaching upon the Turkish dominions, both 
 in Europe and Asia, aroused the jealousy of the Western Powers, and led 
 England and France to combine against her. The war was carried on 
 principally around Sebastopol, a powerful fortress in the peninsula of the 
 Crimea, in southern Russia, and the battle of the Alma was the first of a 
 series of battles which were fought for the possession of that fortress.] 
 
 THE invasion of the Crimea, however, was not a soldier's 
 project. It was not welcomed by the English or the French 
 commander. It was undertaken by Lord Raglan out of def- 
 erence to the recommendations of the government; and by 
 Marshal St. Arnaud out of deference to the emperor of the 
 French, and because Lord Raglan did not see his way to de- 
 cline the responsibility of it. The allied forces were there- 
 fore conveyed to the south-western shore of the Crimea, and 
 effected a landing in Kalamita Bay, a short distance north of 
 the point at which the river Alma runs into the sea. Sebas- 
 topol itself lies about thirty miles to the south; and then more 
 southward still, divided by the bulk of a.' jutting promontory 
 from Sebastopol, is the harbor of Balaklava. The disembar- 
 kation began on the morning of September 14, 1854; it was 
 completed on the fifth day; and there were then some 27,000 
 English, 30,000 French, and 7,000 Turks, landed on the shores 
 of Catherine the Great's Crimea. The landing was effected 
 without any opposition from the Russians. On September 
 19 the allies marched out of their encampments, and moved 
 southward in the direction of Sebastopol. They had a skir- 
 mish or two with a reconnoitering force of Russian cavalry and 
 Cossacks; but they had no business of genuine war until they 
 reached the nearer bank of the Alma. The Russians, in great
 
 BATTLE OF THE ALMA. 361 
 
 strength, had taken up a splendid position on the heights that 
 fringed the other side of the river. The allied forces reached 
 the Alma about noon on September 20. They found that they 
 had to cross the river in the face of the Russian batteries, 
 armed with heavy guns on the highest point of the hills or 
 bluffs, of scattered artillery, and of dense masses of infantry 
 which covered the hills. The Russians were under the com- 
 mand of Prince Mentschikoff. It is certain that Prince 
 Mentschikoff believed his position unassailable, and was con- 
 vinced that his enemies were delivered into his hands when he 
 saw the allies approach, and attempt to effect the crossing of 
 the river. He had allowed them, of deliberate purpose, to 
 approach thus far. He might have attacked them on their 
 landing, or on their two days' march toward the river. But 
 he did not choose to do any thing of the kind. He had care- 
 fully sought out a strong, and what he considered an impreg- 
 nable, position. He had found it, as he believed, on the 
 south bank of the Alma; and there he was simply biding his 
 time. His idea was that he could hold his ground for some 
 days against the allies with ease; that he would keep them 
 there, play with them, until the great \e-enforcements he was 
 expecting could come to him; and then he would suddenly 
 take the offensive and crush the enemy. He proposed to 
 make of the Alma and its banks the grave of the invaders. 
 But, with characteristic arrogance and lack of care, he had 
 neglected some of the very precautions which were essentially 
 necessary to secure any position, however strong. He had 
 not taken the pains to make himself certain that every easy 
 access to his position was closed against the attack of the 
 enemy. The attack was made with desperate courage on the 
 part of the allies, but without any great skill of leadership or 
 tenacity of discipline. It was rather a pell-mell sort of fight in 
 which the headlong courage and the indomitable obstinacy of 
 the English and French troops carried all before them at last. 
 A study of the battle is of little profit to the ordinal y
 
 362 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 reader. It was an heroic scramble. There was little coher- 
 ence of action between the allied forces. But there was, 
 happily, an almost total absence of generalship on the part of 
 the Russians. The soldiers of the Czar fought stoutly and 
 stubbornly, as they always have done; but they could not 
 stand up against the blended vehemence and obstinacy of 
 the English and French. The river was crossed, the oppo- 
 site heights were mounted, Prince Mentschikoff's great re- 
 doubt was carried, the Russians were .driven from the field, 
 the allies occupied their ground; the victory was to the 
 Western powers. Indeed, it would not be unfair to say that 
 the victory was to the English ; owing to whatever cause, the 
 French did not take that share in the heat of the battle 
 which their strength and their military genius might have led 
 men to expect. St. Arriaud, their commander-in-chief, was 
 in wretched health, on the point of death, in fact; he was in 
 no condition to guide the battle ; a brilliant enterprise of 
 General Bosquet was ill-supported, and had nearly proved a 
 failure; and Prince Napoleon's division got hopelessly jammed 
 up and confused. Perhaps it would be fairer to say that, in 
 the confusion and sci amble of the whole affair, we were more 
 lucky than the French. If a number of men are rushing 
 headlong, and in the dark, toward some distant point, one 
 may run against an unthought-of obstacle, and fall down, and 
 so lose his chance, while his comrade happens to meet with 
 no such stumbling-block, and goes right on. Perhaps this 
 illustration may not unfairly distribute the parts taken in the 
 battle. It would be superfluous to say that the French 
 fought splendidly where they had any real chance of fighting. 
 But the luck of the day was not with them. On all sides the 
 battle was fought without generalship. On all sides the 
 bravery of the officers and men was worthy of any general. 
 Our men were the luckiest. They saw the heights ; they 
 saw the enemy there; they made for him; they got at him ; 
 they would not go back ; and so he had to give way. That
 
 BATTLE OF THE ALMA. 363 
 
 was the history of the day. The big scramble was all over 
 in a few hours. The first field was fought, and we had won. 
 
 The Russians ought to have been pursued. They them- 
 selves fully expected a pursuit. They retreated in some- 
 thing like utter confusion, eager to put the Katcha river, 
 which runs south of the Alma, and with a somewhat similar 
 course, between them and the imaginary pursuers. Had 
 they been followed to the Katcha they might have been all 
 made prisoners or destroyed. But there was no pursuit. 
 Lord Raglan was eager to follow up the victory ; but the 
 French had as yet hardly any cavalry, and Marshal St. Arnaud 
 would not agree to any further enterprise that day. Lord 
 Raglan believed that he ought not to persist; and nothing 
 was done. The Russians were unable at first to believe in 
 their good fortune. It seemed to them for a long time im- 
 possible that any commanders in the world could have 
 failed, under conditions so tempting, to follow a flying and 
 disordered enemy. 
 
 Except for the bravery of those who fought, the battle was 
 not much to boast of. The allies altogether considerably 
 outnumbered the Russians, although, from the causes we have 
 mentioned, the Englishmen were left throughout the greater 
 part of the day to encounter an enemy numerically superior, 
 posted on difficult and commanding heights. But it \vas the 
 first great battle which for nearly forty years our soldiers had 
 fought with a civilized enemy. The military authorities and 
 the country were well disposed to make the most of it. At 
 this distance of time it is almost touching to read some of the 
 heroic contemporaneous descriptions of the great scramble of 
 the Alma. It might almost seem as if, in the imaginings of 
 the enthusiastic historians, Englishmen had never mounted 
 heights and defeated superior numbers before. The sublime 
 triumphs against every adverse condition which had been 
 won by a Marlborough or a Wellington could not have been 
 celebrated in language of more exalted dithyrambic pomp.
 
 364 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 The gallant medley on the banks of the Alma, and the fruit- 
 less interval of inaction that followed it, were told of as if men 
 were speaking of some battle of the gods. 
 
 LXH. 
 
 THE STORY OF CAWNPORE. KAYE. 
 
 [It was largely the fear that Russia, by getting control of the eastern 
 Mediterranean, might throw herself across the most direct route between 
 England and her great empire in the East, that induced the latter power 
 to enter the Crimean war. .But England little dreamed, at the close of the 
 war, that a far greater danger to her power existed in India itself. For 
 many years, and from a variety of causes, a smoldering discontent had ex- 
 isted among the populations of India, and it now (1857) broke out into open 
 mutiny. The siege of Cawnpore by Nana Sahib, whose ambition was to 
 restore the old empire of the Moguls, together with the subsequent surren- 
 ckr and massacre of the little English garrison, was one of the most thrill- 
 ing incidents in the whole history of the mutiny. After the siege had lasted 
 three weeks, the Nana offered conditions of surrender, one of which was 
 that he would provide boats to convey the garrison down the river Ganges 
 to a place of safety.] 
 
 THAT the boats were ready at the river-side had been 
 ascertained by a committee of our own people; and when 
 the dreary procession reached the appointed place of em- 
 barkation, the uncouth vessels were seen a little way in the 
 stream, in shallow water, for it was the close of the dry season, 
 nnd the river was at its lowest. The boats were the ordinary 
 eight-oared budgerows of the country ungainly structures 
 with thatched roofs, looking at a distance like floating hay- 
 stacks, and into these our people now began to crowd without 
 order or method, even the women with children in their 
 arms, with but little help from others, wading knee-deep in 
 the water, and scrambling as they best could up the sides of 
 the vessels. It was nine o'clock before the whole were em-
 
 THE STORY OF CAWNPORE. 365 
 
 barked, and some Heaven only knows, for their voices are 
 sealed may have breathed more freely as they awaited the 
 friendly order to push off and to drop down the stream toward 
 the great goal of ultimate deliverance. But there were those 
 on the river banks those even in the boats themselves who 
 had far other thoughts, far other expectations. Every boat 
 that had been prepared for our people was intended to be a 
 human slaughter-house. They had not gone down to the 
 banks of a friendly river that was to float them to a place of 
 safety. They had been lured to the appointed shambles, 
 there to be given up to cruel death. 
 
 No sooner were our people on board the boats than the 
 foul design became apparent. The sound of a bugle was 
 heard. The native boatmen clambered over the sides of 
 the vessels, and sought the shore. Then a murderous 
 fire of grape-shot and musket-balls was opened upon the 
 wretched passengers from both banks of the river ; and pres- 
 ently the thatch of the budgerows, cunningly ignited by hot 
 cinders, burst into a blaze. There was then only a choice of 
 cruel deaths for our dear Christian people. The men, or the 
 foremost among them, strenuous in action to the last, leaped 
 overboard, and strove, with shoulders to the hulls of the boats, 
 to push them into mid-channel. But the bulk of the fleet 
 remained immovable, and the conflagration was spreading. 
 The sick and wounded were burnt to death, or more merci- 
 fully suffocated by the smoke ; while the stronger women, 
 with children in their arms, took to the river, to be shot down 
 in the water, to be sabered in the stream by the mounted 
 troopers, who rode in after them, to be bayoneted on reach- 
 ing land, or to be made captives, and reserved for a later and 
 more cruel immolation. The fewest words are here the best. 
 I should have little taste to tell the foul details of this foul 
 slaughter, even if authentic particulars were before me. It is 
 better that they should remain in the obscurity of an uncer- 
 tain whole ; enough that no aspect of Christian humanity, not
 
 366 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 the sight of the old general, who had nearly numbered his 
 fourscore years, nor of the little babe still on its mother's 
 breast, raised any feeling of compunction or of pity in these 
 butchers on the river side. It sufficed that there was Chris- 
 tian blood to be shed. 
 
 While this terrible scene was being acted at the Ghaut, the 
 Nana Sahib, having full faith in the malevolent activity of his 
 lieutenants on the river bank, was awaiting the issue in his 
 tent on the cantonment plain. It is related of him that, un- 
 quiet in mind, he moved about, passing hither and thither, in 
 spite of the indolence of his habits and the obesity of his 
 frame. After a while, tidings of the progress of the massacre 
 were brought to him by a wounded trooper. What had been 
 passing within him during those morning hours no human 
 pen can reveal. Perhaps some slight spasm of remorse may 
 have come upon him, or he may have thought that better use 
 might be made of some of our people alive than dead. But 
 whether moved by pity or by craft, he sent orders back by the 
 messenger that no more women and childen should be slain, 
 but that not an Englishman should be left alive. So the 
 murderers, after butchering, or trying to butcher, the rem- 
 nant of our fighting men, stayed their hands and ceased 
 from the slaughter ; and a number of weaker victims, com- 
 puted with probable accuracy at a hundred and twenty-five, 
 some sorely wounded, some half-drowned, all dripping with 
 the water of the Ganges and begrimed with its mud, were 
 carried back in custody to Cawnpore, by the way they had 
 come, envying, perhaps, those whose destiny had been already 
 accomplished. 
 
 But among the men survivors of the Cawnpore garrison 
 were some who battled bravely for their lives, and sold 
 them dearly. Strong swimmers took to the river, but 
 often sunk in the reddened water beneath the fise of their 
 pursuers; while others, making toward the land lower down 
 the stream, stood at bay on bank or islet, and made vain but
 
 THE STORY OF CAWNPORE. 367 
 
 gallant use of the cherished revolver in the last grim energies 
 of death. There was nothing strange, perhaps, in the fact 
 that the foremost heroes of the defense were the last even 
 now to yield up their lives to the fury of the enemy. One 
 boat held Moore and Vibart, Whiting and Mowbray-Thom- 
 son, Ashe, Delafosse, Bolton, and others, who had been con- 
 spicuous in the annals of that heroic defense. By some 
 accident or oversight the thatch had escaped ignition. 
 Lighter, too, than the rest, or perhaps more vigorously pro- 
 pelled by the shoulders of these strong men, it drifted down 
 the stream ; but Moore was shot through the heart in the act 
 of propulsion, and Ashe and Bolton perished while engaged 
 in tLe same work. The grape and round-shot from the 
 Oude bank of the river ere long began to complete the mas- 
 sacre. The dying and the dead lay thickly together entan- 
 gled in the bottom of the boat, and for the living there was 
 not a mouthful of food. 
 
 As the day waned it was clear that the activity of the 
 enemy had not abated. That one drifting boat, on the dark 
 waters of the Ganges, without boatman, without oars, without 
 a rudder, was not to be left alone with such sorry chance of 
 escape ; so a blazing budgerow was sent down the river after 
 it. and burning arrows were discharged at its roof. Still, 
 however, the boat was true to its occupants ; and with the 
 new day, now grounding on sand-banks, now pushed off 
 again into the stream, it made weary progress between the 
 two hostile banks, every hour lighter, for every hour brought 
 more messengers of death. At sunset a pursuing boat from 
 Cawnpore, with fifty or sixty armed natives on board, came 
 after our people, with orders to board and destroy them. 
 But the pursuers also grounded on a sand-bank ; and then 
 there was one of those last grand spasms of courage even in 
 death which are seldom absent from the story of English 
 heroism. Exhausted, famishing, sick and wounded, as they 
 were, they would not wait to be attacked. A little party of
 
 368 SKETCHES FROM .ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 officers and soldiers armed themselves to the teeth, and fell 
 heavily upon the people who had come down to destroy 
 them. Very few of the pursuers returned to tell the story 
 of their pursuit. This was the last victory of the hero-mar- 
 tyrs of Cawnpore. They took the enemy's boat, and found 
 in it good stores of ammunition. They would rather have 
 found a little food. Victors as they were, they returned to 
 the cover of the boat only to wrestle with a more formidable 
 enemy. For starvation was staring them in the face. 
 
 Sleep fell upon the survivors ; and when they woke the 
 wind had risen, and the boat was drifting down the stream 
 in the darkness they knew not whither ; and some even then 
 had waking dreams of a coming deliverance. But with the 
 first glimmer of the morning despair came upon them. The 
 boat had been carried out of the main channel of the river 
 into a creek or siding, where the enemy soon discerned it, 
 and poured a shower of musket balls upon its miserable 
 inmates. Then Vibart, who lay helpless, with both arms 
 shot through, issued his last orders. It was a forlorn hope. 
 But while there was a sound arm among them, that could 
 load and fire, or thrust with a bayonet, still the great game 
 of the English was to go to the front and smite the enemy, 
 as a race that seldom waited to be smitten. So Mowbray- 
 Thomson and Delafosse, with a little band of European 
 soldiers of the Thirty-second and the Eighty-fourth, landed 
 to attack their assailants. The fierce energy of desperation 
 drove them forward. Sepoys and villagers, armed and un- 
 armed, surged around them, but they charged through the 
 astonished multitude, and made their way back again through 
 the crowd of blacks to the point from which they had started. 
 Then they saw that the boat was gone. The fourteen were 
 left upon the pitiless land, while their doomed companions 
 floated down the pitiless water. 
 
 There was one more stand to be made by Movvbray-Thom- 
 son and his comrades. As they returned along the bank of
 
 THE STORY OF CAWNPORE. 369 
 
 the river, seeing after a while no chance of overtaking the 
 boat, they made for a Hindu temple, which had caught the 
 eye of their leader, and defended the door-way with fixed 
 bayonets. After a little time they stood behind a rampart 
 of black and bloody corpses, and fired, with comparative 
 security, over this bulwark of human flesh. A little putrid 
 water found in the temple gave our people new strength, 
 and they held the door-way so gallantly, and so destructively 
 to the enemy, that there seemed to be no hope of expelling 
 them by force of arms. So while word went back to Nana 
 Sahib, that the remnant of the English army was not to be con- 
 quered, the assailants, huddling round the temple, brought 
 leaves and fagots, which they piled up beneath the walls, 
 and strove to burn out the little garrison. Then Providence 
 came to their help in their sorest need. The wind blew 
 smoke and fire away from the temple. But the malice of the 
 enemy had a new device in store. They threw bags of 
 powder on the burning embers. There was now nothing left 
 for our people but flight. Precipitating themselves into the 
 midst of the raging multitude, they fired a volley and then 
 charged with the bayonet. Seven of the fourteen carried 
 their lives with them, and little else, to the bank of the river. 
 There they took to the stream ; but presently two of the 
 swimmers were shot through the head, while a third, well-nigh 
 exhausted, making for a sand-bank, had his skull battered in 
 as soon as he landed. But the surviving four, being strong 
 swimmers, and with heroic power in doing and in suffer- 
 ing, struck down the stream, and aided by the current, 
 evaded their pursuers. Mowbray-Thomson and Delafosse, 
 with privates Murphy and Sullivan, reached alive the teiri- 
 tory of a friendly Oude rajah, and survived to tell the story 
 of Cawnpore.
 
 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE OF ENGLISH SOVEREIGNS 
 
 FROM ECGBERHT TO VICTORIA. 
 
 SAXON PERIOD. 802-1066. 
 
 802-839. Ecgberht first king of all Englishmen in Britain. 
 
 839-857. ^thelwulf, son of Ecgberht. 
 
 857-860. ^thelbald, 1 
 
 860-866. ^thelberht, Uons of ^thelwulf 
 
 866-871. /Ethelred I., 
 
 871-901. Alfred (the Great), J 
 
 901-924. Eadward L, the Elder, son of Alfred. 
 
 924-940. /Ethelstan, \ 
 
 940-946. Eadmund I., > sons of Eadward I. 
 
 946-955. Eadred, ) 
 
 im% 14"* I sons of Eadmund!. 
 
 <K: "d 1!" t KdV, | - "' E ^'- 
 
 roi3~Feb., 1014. Swein (Swegen), the first Danish king. 
 
 ioi4-April, 1016. ^ithelred II., the Unready. (Restored.) 
 
 April-Nov.,ioi6. Eadmund II., Ironsides, son of /Ethelred II. 
 
 1016-1035. Cnut, son of Swein. 
 
 1035-1040 Harold I., Harefoot, ) f r . 
 
 1040-1042. Harthacnut, '[ sons of Cnut. 
 
 1042-1066. Eadward III., the Confessor, son of ^Ethelred II., the 
 
 Unready. 
 
 Jan. -Oct., 1066. Harold II., son of Godwine, brother-in-law of Ead- 
 ward III. 
 
 NORMAN PERIOD. 1066-1154. 
 
 1066-1087. William the Conqueror, duke of Normandy. 
 1087-1100. William II., Rufus, second son of the Conqueror. 
 1100-1135. Henry I., Beauclerc, youngest son of the Conqueror. 
 1135-1154. Stephen, count of Blois, son of Adela, fourth daughter 
 
 of the Conqueror. Matilda, daughter of Henry I., 
 
 disputes with him the crown.
 
 CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE OF ENGLISH SOVEREIGNS. 371 
 
 PLANTAGENETS. 
 
 1154-1189. Henry II., son of Matilda, daughter of Henry I., and 
 Geoffrey, count of Anjou. 
 
 1189-1199. Richard I., Cceur de Lion, son of Henry II. 
 
 1199-1216. John, youngest son of Henry II. 
 
 1216-1272. Henry III., son of John. 
 
 1272-1307. Edward I., son of Henry III. 
 
 1307-1327. Edward II., son of Edward I. (Deposed.) 
 
 1327-1377. Edward III., son of Edward II. 
 
 1377-1399. Richard II., son of Edward the Black Prince, grand- 
 son of Edward III. (Deposed.) 
 
 PLANTAGENETS. HOUSE OF LANCASTER ("RED ROSK"). 
 I399-J46I. 
 
 1399-1413. Henry IV., son of John, duke of Lancaster, who was 
 
 the third son of Edward III. 
 1413-1422. Henry V., son of Henry IV. 
 1422-1461. Henry VI., son of Henry V. (Deposed.) 
 
 PLANTAGENETS. HOUSE OF YORK ("WHITE ROSE"). 1461-1485. 
 
 1461-1483. Edward IV., great-grandson of Edmund, duke of 
 York, fourth son of Edward III. ; and also great- 
 great-great grandson of Lionel, duke of Clarence, 
 second son of Edward III. 
 
 April-June, 1483. Edward V., son of Edward IV. (Deposed and mur- 
 dered.) 
 
 1483-1485. Richard III., brother ef Edward IV. (Defeated and 
 slain in battle.) 
 
 HOUSE OF TUDOR. 1485-1603. 
 
 1485-1509. Henry VII., son of Edmund Tudor, earl of Richmond, 
 and Margaret Beaufort, an illegitimate descendant 
 of John, duke of Lancaster, third son of Edward III. 
 
 1509-1547. Henry VIII., second son of Henry VII. 
 
 1547-1553. Edward VI., son of Henry VIII. and his third queen, 
 Jane Seymour. 
 
 1553-1558. Mary I., daughter of Henry VIII. and his first queen, 
 Catherine of Aragon. 
 
 1558-1603. Elizabeth, daughter of Henry VIII. and his second 
 queen, Anne Boleyn. 
 
 HOUSE OF STUART FIRST PERIOD. 1603-1649. 
 
 1603-1625. James I., great-grandson of Margaret, elder daughter of 
 
 Henry VII., and James IV. Stuart, king of Scotland. 
 
 1625-1649. Charles I., son of James I. (Deposed and beheaded.)
 
 37 2 SKETCHES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. 
 
 INTERREGNUM. 1649-1660. 
 
 1649-1653. Commonwealth. Council of State and Parliament. 
 
 1653-1658. Oliver Cromwell, Protector. 
 
 1658-1659. Richard Cromwell, Protector, son of Oliver. 
 
 1659-1660. Commonwealth restored. 
 
 HOUSE OF STUART SECOND PERIOD. 1660-1688. 
 
 1660-1685. Charles II., son of Charles I. 
 
 1685-1688. James II., second son of Charles I. ("Abdicated.") 
 
 INTERREGNUM. Dec. n, i688-Feb. 13, 1689. 
 
 HOUSES OF ORANGE AND STUART. 1689-1702. 
 
 1689-1702. William III. and Mary II., elected king and queen. 
 William III., prince of Orange-Nassau, was the 
 son of William II., prince of Orange-Nassau, 
 and Maiy, daughter of Charles I. He married 
 (1677) his cousin, Mary, daughter of James, duke 
 of York, later James II. He was, then, both 
 nephew and son-in-law of James II. William and 
 Mary had no children. 
 
 HOUSE OF STUART THIRD PERIOD. 1702-1714. 
 
 1702-1714. Anne, second daughter of James II. Married Prince 
 George of Denmark. None of her numerous chil- 
 dren survived her. 
 
 HOUSE OF HANOVER. 1714 . 
 
 17141727. George I., elector of Hanover, great-grandson of 
 James I. Elizabeth, daughter of James I., mar- 
 ried Frederick V., elector palatine. Their daugh- 
 ter, Sophia, married Ernest Augustus, first elector 
 of Hanover. George Lewis, elector of Hanover 
 George I. of England was the son of this marriage. 
 
 1727-1760. George II., son of George I. 
 
 1760-1820. George III., son of Frederick, prince of Wales, and 
 grandson of George II. 
 
 1820-1830. George IV., son of George III. His only child, a 
 daughter, died before him and left no children. 
 
 1830-1837. William IV., third son of George III. No children. 
 
 1837 . Victoria, daughter of Edward, duke of Kent, fourth 
 
 son of George III.
 
 CHAUTAUQUA ATLAS 
 
 OF 
 
 ENGLISH HISTORY 
 
 SELECTED FROM "THE NEW HISTORICAL ATLAS AND 
 
 GENERAL HISTORY," BY ROBERT H. LABBKRTON, 
 
 i VOL., ROYAL 8", 200 MAPS, CLOTH, $2.00. 
 
 LIST OF MAPS. 
 
 I. Celtic Britain about the Birth of 
 Christ. 
 
 II. Roman Britain about 369 A.I). 
 
 III. Britain about 500 A. D. 
 
 N.E. Part of Kent about 450 
 A.I). 
 
 IV. Britain after 577 A.I). 
 Theatre of War between 
 
 Britains and West Saxons about 
 577 A.D. 
 
 V. Britain in 626 A.I). 
 
 The Battlefield near the River 
 Idle. 
 
 VI. Britain in 658 A.D. 
 
 The New Settlements in Cen- 
 tral Britain about 666 A. D. 
 
 VII. Kritain in 795 A.I). 
 
 S. W. Britain about 800 A.D. 
 
 VIII. Britain {11827 A. D. 
 London about 800 A.D. 
 
 IX. Britain in 
 
 A.D. 
 
 Scene of the Defeat, Wander- 
 ings and Victory of Alfred the 
 Great. 
 
 X. Britain about 975 A.D. 
 
 The Realm of Cnut the Great,. 
 1028-1035 A.D. 
 
 XI. Britain in 1064. 
 Neighborhood of York. 
 
 XII. Britain from 1066 to 1070 
 A.D. 
 
 Eastern Part of Coast of 
 Sussex. 
 
 XIII. England and France in 1180. 
 
 XIV. England and France in 1223. 
 
 XV. England and France about 
 1360. 
 
 NOTE: Celtic Names. Latin Names. Old fngtith. Motif rn Numts. 
 COPYRIGHTED.
 
 CELTIC BRITAIN 
 
 ABOUT THE BIRTH OF 
 CHRIST. 
 
 Jventians 
 
 Goidels or Gaels CD 
 
 JKi-ytlians or Gauls
 
 ROMAN BRITAIN 
 
 ABOUT 369 A. D.
 
 B K I T A I N 
 
 ABOUT SCO A. D. 
 
 Celtic tribes.- 
 
 Jutes since us -C 
 
 Saxons since 477. C. 
 
 English since MO
 
 BRITAIN 
 
 AFTER 577 A. D. 
 
 Celtic tribes...: d 
 
 Jutic tribes ....C 
 
 Saxons tribes _l J 
 
 English tribes EBB 
 
 Theatre of War between Britains 
 and West Saxons about 57 
 
 Lenboruugk 
 
 Slrulhw.. B.r.g. i C.. Ki.gr'. .i,J IV % S.V.
 
 BRITAIN 
 
 IN 626 A. IX 
 
 Celtic Tribes I I 
 
 ne'x Supreauufy r " * 
 
 Kent I 1
 
 BRITAIN 
 
 IN 658 A.D. 
 
 The Supremacy of Osicm ..I J 
 
 Kent .Jutes I. | 
 
 W*e.sser_ Saxons. 
 
 tkrili.n, Sr.o * Co., n(r' <1 1'rX N.V.
 
 BRITA IN 
 
 IN 795 A.D.
 
 BRITAIN 
 
 IN 827 A.D.
 
 56 
 
 Tweed R. 
 
 BRITAIN 
 
 IN 878 A. D. 
 
 Celts 
 
 Danes - ...JE 
 
 Enylish d 
 
 Wessexwith dependencies. 
 
 The Scene of the Defeat, 
 
 Wanderings, and Victory of 
 
 Alfred the Great. 
 
 Religious Houses .....+ S 
 
 Rattles ... x / 
 
 \Sedge 3l< 
 
 vj 
 
 Isle of Athelney^AUer
 
 BRITAIN 
 
 AliOUT 975 A. B. 
 
 Celts .1 I 
 
 Large Danish Element I \ 
 
 English E1S3 
 
 Saxons 
 
 The realm of Cnut the Great 
 1028-1035.
 
 Neighborhood of York 
 
 TO ILLUSTRATE THE BATTLE OF STAMFORD BRIDGE.
 
 BRITAIN 
 
 FROM 1O66 1O7O. 
 
 Result of Campaigns of 1066 
 
 r" : "A 
 
 \ 3 
 
 ZZ3 
 
 $ 
 
 ** 
 
 Somme_ftlf 
 
 $ 
 
 The Eastern Part of the 
 Coast of Sussex. 
 
 Blrulk., KOTCH ,V C... E M r'l ud I'.'i. N.V.
 
 Jtufathrr Picardy 
 
 Tti mother^ Anjuu 
 
 Queen Gascong 
 
 ti, tn 1-1202, riantaaenet l>u.ktt
 
 The Plantayenet 
 
 The tayal damairu off/iili/, Avgutlu 
 
 JlriUany aflrr ills, Capi-tian Jtulcet.
 
 ENGLAND 
 
 AMD 
 
 FRANCE 
 
 DURING THE FIRST ENGLISH 
 
 INVASION OF FRANCE. 
 Xityluh real 
 
 frmch realm 
 
 (jerman Empir* 
 
 .'o., Engr'i N.V.